Draykon (40 page)

'Griel, kill the
boy,' she ordered. 'He is a liability.' She swung down from the
scaffolding with the ease of long practice. Alarmed at this sudden
escalation, Eva worked her way around the skeleton, obliged to keep
close to the wall. She found Tren on the other side of the room
with Griel not far away. The two whurthags had left Griel's heels
and were stalking Tren, backing him into a corner. His casual
demeanour had vanished, and a look of panic crossed his face as his
back hit the wall. He was weaponless, and his sorcery was little
use in this kind of fight.

Of course, her
summoner skills were little use in a fight like this either. But
she had to do something.

Heart pounding,
Eva stepped in front of Tren. Ignoring his objections, she shoved
him bodily out of the way.

'Deal with Ana,'
she said tersely. She focused on the whurthags, tuning out
everything else that was happening around her. The beasts
approached with stealthy grace, muscles bunching and lengthening
under night-black hide. She could see the pale stone of the floor
through their insubstantial forms. Cold, icy-hued eyes transferred
their deathly gaze from Tren to herself. Fear weakened her limbs
but she held her ground, bearing down with her will. Before she'd
only needed to control the beast long enough to send it through the
gates that Tren opened, but now that she herself stood in the
Lowers that option was no longer open to her. She would have to
wrest control of them from Griel, and then retain that control. She
knew that when summoners failed at this, the first person the
creature turned on was usually the summoner. And now she faced two
of them alone.

She took a deep
breath.

The thoughts
buried in the fog of the beasts's minds were a chaotic swirl of
sensations and urges, like those of most animals. She sensed
hunger, a desire for meat, and - chillingly - a burning resentment
against the one who mastered them. The whurthags resisted her
efforts to influence them, snarling their objections in low growls
that sent a shiver of new terror through her. She worked harder,
grimly determined, and at last the slow, menacing approach stopped.
The whurthags waited, the tips of their tails twitching.

Eva heard shouts,
men's voices, though whether it was Tren or Griel who cried out she
was unable to say. Her concentration wavered and she almost lost
the tentative control she'd established. She ruthlessly thrust
aside her anxiety - she couldn't help Tren any more just now - and
bore down, searching their minds for the kill order they'd received
from Griel.

She found their
impressions of Tren, flickering images formed of his height and
size in relation to their own, his scent, his way of moving. They
sensed his sorcery, interpreting it as a cloud of dark, enveloping
fog. They were - had been - intent on him, but Eva found no kill
instinct. What she found instead was 'guard'. They had been backing
him into a corner, not to kill him but merely to keep him there.
Griel had encouraged them to scare him, but he had not asked them
to kill him.

This was of a
piece with his earlier behaviour towards Tren, though it still made
little sense to her. Nonetheless, she noted the information. If
Griel was working at cross purposes to his wife, perhaps she could
use that.

She found her own
image in their minds, a softer figure, heavily scented in a way
that tormented the whurthag's sensitive noses. They saw her as a
more direct threat, as though she were an equal, an animal as
strong as they were. To her surprise, their image of her was also
wreathed in a dense fog of sorcery, though hers was paler and
flickering with light. In her case, not only was there no kill
order but she detected the opposite: they had been firmly
instructed
not
to hurt her.

Tren was right:
she was to be kept alive in order to help subdue the draykon. Not
that it was much of a reprieve: the prospect was at least as
terrifying as facing down a pair of whurthags determined to
kill.

The sounds of
fighting intruded on Eva's mental world. Instinctively she glanced
up, catching a brief glimpse of Tren twisting a protesting Ana's
arm behind her back. He reached for the stone she carried, but
Griel grabbed him and hauled him off Ana. The sorcerer glanced
Eva's way, and she sensed the tug of his mind as he sought to
summon one of his whurthags. She gripped hard; the beast faltered,
and held.

Surprisingly,
Griel grinned at her. Then he turned his attention back to Tren,
who was trying to work his way out of the other sorcerer's grip.
Griel was a few inches taller than Tren and built rather bigger.
When it came to a physical fight, Tren didn't stand a
chance.

Anxious to help,
she grimly filtered out all the distractions and refocused her will
on the beasts. Sweating, she fought hard to turn their attention on
Griel. If they would only distract him long enough to free Tren,
there was still a chance that she or Tren could stop
Ana.

But then a scream
of triumph lanced into her mind like a knife, shattering her
absorption. Ana's voice screamed again, shrill with euphoria, and
Eva's focus disintegrated entirely. Abandoning the whurthags, she
looked up to see Tren on the floor, pinned there by Griel. A bruise
on his face stood testament to his struggles, but now both of them
had stopped fighting. They stared up at the draykon,
awed.

Eva glanced up,
too, but before she could discern any detail there was a flash so
bright that it seared her eyes. She covered them with both hands,
feeling tears of pain and shock drenching her face. The light
receded but she remained as she was for several long moments,
afraid that she would open her eyes only to find herself
blinded.

Somebody
barrelled into her. Her eyes flew open in spite of herself, but she
could see very little through the burning after-images that danced
across her vision. At least she still had some semblance of vision
at all. Arms wrapped around her and she realised it was
Tren.

'She's done it,
she's added the last piece,' Tren gasped. 'I couldn't stop her - I
tried, but Griel-.'

Tren broke off as
the skeleton began to pulse with an indigo glow. A feeling of
unbearable energy filled the chamber, beating against her flesh,
and she struggled to breathe. She could only cling to Tren, her
mind numb with the knowledge that they were too late.

Ana appeared,
flushed with excitement. She dragged Eva and Tren apart with
astonishing strength, and grabbed Eva's hands.

'
Feel it
,'
she said, and planted them against the draykon's side. Eva gasped
as that terrifying energy ripped through her, leaving her weak. Ana
had released her hands but she couldn't pull them back; she felt
welded to the creature as the bones shuddered, growing hot. Her
vision was returning, but something was wrong with it: she could
see straight through Ana's chamber, straight through the fabric of
the world. Layered with it was a forest she recognised as Glour,
irignol trees clustering in a darkened forest. Though recognisable,
the Middle Realms were hazy in her vision, as if glimpsed through
poor quality glass.

Her mind opened
and she saw farther, her vision soaring into the Upper Realms. A
landscape of glissenwol caps drenched with light and colours she'd
never seen before mingled with the irignol trees, a Realm that
stood distinct and separate, yet also intrinsically linked to the
two 'layers' below. Her thoughts whirled, clicking through the
picture and its implications. Was this how the worlds existed? Not
arranged in tiers, with the Dayworlds uppermost and the Darklands
beneath and the Seven Realms in between; instead the three existed
in the same place
, impossibly mingled. The draykon's
presence dominated the vision, and under its growing power Eva saw
the three layers drawn closer and closer together. It began to seem
as though the glissenwol trees and the irignol trees and Ana's
stone chamber were the same thing, the differences merely
superficial.

Movement caught
her attention as a slender figure faded into view. A slight female
form knelt on the ground perhaps in the Uppers or perhaps in Glour,
her grey wings folded over her back as she felt in the earth with
deft fingers. She seemed to be only a few feet away; Eva felt that
she could speak directly to the woman and she would hear. The
ground glowed in the same way as the draykon bones, throwing out a
strong silver light that illuminated the young woman's face. Her
features were familiar...

Energy flexed
under Eva's hands and the vision faded as her mind was drawn back
to the draykon. The smooth, polished surfaces of the draykon's
bones had vanished, along with the searing heat. Muscle, sinew and
hide built under her hands with incredible speed; within minutes
the skeletal structure had disappeared and a vibrant, vigorously
healthy draykon crouched in its place. Eva gasped for breath, torn
between wonder at the beast's pure magnificence, and sheer terror
at its drenching power. There wasn't the smallest chance that she
and Ana could control this beast, but it was too late now to
reverse Ana's deed, too late...

Griel's tall
frame burst into her field of vision. He struggled with his wife,
trying to wrench her away from the draykon's form. She resisted,
laughing.

'Griel, we've
done it! It's really alive!' Her eye fell on Eva. She was elated,
beyond even her own control, but she still thought she could
prevail against this beast.

'Now
,
Evastany! Before it is fully awake!' Eva felt her try to focus her
summoner's will on the draykon, felt her try and try again as each
time her will slipped off its polished mind like water over glass.
She worked on, undaunted, until Griel's attempts to detach her from
the beast finally broke in upon her concentration.

'Ana, this is
enough. Stop now! You cannot handle this creature.' Griel picked
her up and hauled her away from the draykon. She looked at him in
puzzlement.

'Even you, Griel?
You have been with me since the beginning. Why this,
now?'

'We've
overreached ourselves, we were crazy to think-' A crashing sound
interrupted Griel as the stone chamber shook violently. The draykon
was stirring into wakefulness, flexing its wings. Ana fought her
way out of her husband's arms, biting and scratching at him. He
fell back, helpless, wearing an expression of raw despair as he
watched his wife run towards the draykon.

As Ana passed
Eva, her hand shot out and fastened on Eva's arm in a grip of iron.
Too startled to react, Eva found herself dragged bodily along as
Ana raced to position herself directly underneath the draykon's
head. Belatedly, Eva fought to free herself, but Ana was too
viciously determined; her strong fingers dug painfully into Eva's
flesh, her fingernails ripping through cloth to pierce skin. She
grabbed Eva's free arm with her other hand, pinning her in place as
she turned to face the draykon.

Eva sensed waves
of Ana's will bear down on the beast, strong and masterful. Ana's
nails bit harder into Eva's skin as she ruthlessly tightened her
grip.

'You
will
help us,' she hissed, her face close to Eva's ear. The draykon,
still weak and disoriented, had barely moved. If there was any
chance that Ana's crazy plan might succeed, it would have to be
now. It was like trying to dampen an inferno by stamping on it, but
Eva could think of nothing better.

She joined her
efforts to Ana's, reinforcing the deranged summoner’s will with her
own. Ana laughed delightedly, but Eva could feel the futility of
it. Even combined, their willpower barely touched the powerful
force of the draykon's mind. They danced in the face of destruction
like flies, and were brushed aside with fitting
indifference.

Ana finally
seemed to realise her predicament. She began to gasp, sobbing with
the effort to prevail. She was muttering something over and over
under her breath: 'No, no, no, no... you're mine, you're
mine
...'

Footsteps beat
behind Eva, then strong hands closed over hers, pulling them away
from Ana's grip. Eva's concentration shattered and her will
fractured into pieces. Ana struggled on alone as Tren half-carried
Eva as far away from the draykon as possible. They fell back
against the wall, both gasping for air. The draykon slowly raised
its head, blinking its golden eyes, and the ceiling vanished,
melting away as if it had never been. Through the new gap Eva could
see a hazy pattern of glissenwol trees that wavered like
water.

The beast's
scaled hide shone green and blue in the white moonlight now
streaming into the room. Its head moved sluggishly, its long snout
opening to allow its flickering tongue to test the air. Claws as
long as Eva's forearm flexed against the stone floor, grating
horribly. It stretched out its long neck, rose on its haunches and
let out a shattering roar.

Tren was dragging
Eva towards the door, but she could barely move, so mesmerised was
she by the draykon's presence. And its
mind
. It had
intelligence, far more than any beast she'd encountered. Its
thoughts were muddled, but only with long inaction; its mental
processes were growing clearer by the second. She did not even need
to reach out to it to feel its mind: it imposed its will upon
everything around it with casual arrogance.