Dreamwater (3 page)

“Is it gone? Is the lizard gone?” Noon Sky White uncurled a little, his arms unlocking from around his knees, allowing a glimpse of his pale face. “You should run, fast, blue one. A lizard attacked our party.”

Jun’s eyes narrowed. “It’s gone now. What are you doing here so late?”

Noon Sky White hung his head. “They dared me to walk along the shore. It’s their fault.”

“You let the young one die.”

Noon Sky White said nothing, and Jun strode away, anger humming in his chest. Noon Sky White was rumored to have fought a bird and saved a young of his clan once. Now Jun wondered about the truth of it.

His steps echoed on a stretch of white rock gleaming in the moonlight, and he heard plonking sounds from the surrounding dunes. He turned to see more Shell people rolling down, heads tucked in, armored arms folded tight over knees.

Cowards
. So many of them, and they had abandoned the youngling to his death.

Jun shook his head in disgust and walked on. Jun ran his hands over his new shell armor. He loved the way it flowed around his every movement, barely touching his flesh.

To his right stretched the Good Dunes, where bulbs and fat mice provided sustenance for the shelters. To his left spread the pond where fish were caught. Beyond stretched the Bad Dunes, where snakes lurked.

And Aima? Where was she?

He heard the screeching call of the bird before he heard Aima’s cry. Cold fear gripped his chest and his heart pumped faster. He took off running toward the two sounds that now defined his world.

He nearly fell over when he saw her. Aima stood on the shore dressed in her black-and-white armor. Jun came crashing down the dune, rolling into a ball, falling all the way to Aima’s feet.

The bird flapped off a ways, hovering there, not nearly as scared by this stunt as Jun had hoped.

“Aima, are you well?”

The black and white Shell turned toward him. The pallid boy’s face was unknown to him. His heart just about stopped. “You are not Aima! Where is she? Why are you wearing—”

The Shell pushed him off and ran as the bird came down again. The boy rolling into a ball and falling into the crevice between two dunes. The bird tried ineffectively to grab the armored ball, then pushed at it with its claw, rocking it, trying to open it.

“Jun?”

He whirled around and squinted. Aima’s slender form stepped from behind a rock. The black and white markings on her arms and legs had vanished along with her armor.

Aima, Aima!
His heart pounded with joy at seeing her alive. “Aima, did that boy hurt you?”

She came trembling to him and he gathered her in his arms, felt her small heart beating wildly against his chest. He rocked her lightly.

The bird stopped pecking at the rolled-up boy down the dune and turned a beady eye on them.

Jun’s mind whirled.

As if in a dream he forced his hooks to unclench and retract, heard the light click they made as they pulled back slightly into his spine. The armor weighed down on his head and shoulders. “Aima. Put this on.”

He shrugged the armor off and pulled it over Aima’s head. “It’s too big, I know. Get in as many hooks as you can, then roll. Yes?”

Aima watched his face, his lips, then nodded slowly. He gave her a strained smile. “Good girl. Try it.”

The bird flexed its wings about to take flight toward them.

“Now Aima!”

Aima’s hooks clinked as they entered the armor openings and fastened themselves. She gave Jun a teary smile that gave him more courage than he thought he could muster.

He could not fail her. He was the oldest.

Aima folded into a ball and rolled down to the roots of a bush. She stayed there, still rocking, looking like a smooth blue pebble.

The bird’s shadow fell over Jun, cutting the moon. Without an armor, his body was so light he felt he might fly. He raced away from Aima waving at the bird. For a moment, the bird seemed to take interest in Aima’s curled form with the blue and green and yellow designs — they were meant to hide her in the grass, not on the sand — but Jun’s gesticulating, shouting figure appeared to draw it back.

Jun bent as he ran to avoid a giant claw and then a flapping wing, ducked underneath a branch overhanging a drop, rolled down and found his feet once more, spitting sand.

Plonking sounds greeted his passing: the Shells from Noon Sky White’s party were rolling down the dunes again, all curled up. Noon Sky White’s armor gleamed in their midst.

“Help me! Distract the bird!” Jun shouted as he passed by them, but as he raced on, rolling and rising to avoid the questing claws and beak of the bird, he heard nothing more from their direction.

He stopped beneath a rock to catch his breath and saw them from afar lying there — gleaming, colorful balls of cowardice.

The bird screeched and made a vicious grab for him.

No time or breath left to run.

On a flash of inspiration, he launched himself at the hovering claw and swung himself onto it. He grabbed hold of the bird’s horned leg and hung there like a pendant, swinging, too stunned at his own act to remember how to breathe.

The bird screeched again, tried to peck at Jun, but the position made it impossible. With a great flap of its wings, it flew off, carrying its living burden.

Jun clung onto the bird’s leg for dear life. The land fell away beneath him, landmarks he knew well becoming smaller, the moon becoming larger.

I can’t believe this, can’t believe this
. He closed his eyes not to see the heights to which the bird was rising.

His arms started to cramp, but shifting them seemed too risky. Cold made his teeth chatter. He dared glance down and saw blue water. A pond. He thought to jump but by the time he got his stiff fingers to unlock they were flying over land with trees and streams. Jun held on. A fall from high without armor would surely kill him.

He prayed Aima would reach the shelters in one piece.

He prayed the bird would perch close to the ground so that he could slide away.

A hill came into view and something glittered on top. The bird swooped toward it. Piles of broken armor littered the hill, and three tall poles crowned it.

Jun’s sweaty hands were slipping. He scrambled to keep his grip, but the bird shook its legs and Jun fell.

He hit the ground, rolling instinctively, grunting as his injured shoulder slammed into the dirt. He straightened, gasping, and looked up.

A small Shell child was climbing on one of the poles, white with streaks that glinted like water, and a crest of black and red on the helm. As Jun’s feet crunched on the fragments of armor, the Shell turned slightly.
A boy
. The face was fine-boned and the eyes large, fixed on Jun.

“Who are you?” shouted the boy.

Jun shook his head and examined his surroundings. He found himself gaping at the shiny armor hanging empty from the third pole, a black grey one with spikes like wings on the shoulders and arms, and a great yellow crest on the helm. Sleek and elegant like a jewel.

The bird screeched and flapped its wings.

Oh Elvereth
. The boy hung on the pole like bait. Looked like the bird was getting its meal after all.

Jun dashed to the pole where the empty armor hung and climbed it with the speed of desperation, grabbed it and pulled it over his head in a single movement. His hooks clicked into place as he let himself curl and fall down. He uncurled instantly and took off running toward the boy.

The bird rose on the air. Jun climbed the pole reaching for the boy. He grabbed the boy’s legs, then his shoulders to push himself higher. The boy kept quiet, perhaps sensing he was trying to help.

Jun reached the top of the pole as the bird bore down on them. He launched himself at the bird, curling in the air, one arm held high, and thrust his spikes into the bird’s eye.

He barely heard the bird’s screech as he tucked his arm in and fell to the ground. He hit it with a thump, the breath driven out of him.

He lay there, curled, dazed, sure the bird would come after him.

Nothing happened.

Cautiously he uncurled, groaning. He rose and staggered toward the boy.

The bird was gone.

The boy was looking at him wide-eyed. Slowly he climbed down the pole.

“What were you thinking?” Jun opened his arms and gathered the child. “That was dangerous. The bird would have got you.”

A female voice rang from behind his back. “No, it wouldn’t.”

He whirled around.

The young woman had long dark hair and the clearest blue eyes Jun had ever seen. She wore no carapace. Instead, she wore a long green garment that pooled around her.

“Who are you?” he asked.

“I am Queen Elvereth of The Green Nether Realms.” She smiled. “And you are brave.”

Around them uncurled and rose colorful carapaces, blood red, moon yellow, foliage green and sky blue. He turned in a circle, eyes drunk on their colors, his heart somersaulting.

“What happened? Why am I here?”

She reached out her hand. “Your hold on the bird slipped. You fell.” Her eyes deepened like pools of mossy water. “You are dead, Jun.”

He took her hand, fingered her fine bones, and looked into her laughing eyes. A weight lifted off his shoulders. The anger, the sadness, the despair he had expected never came. The place, her grasp, all felt familiar, as if he had been there before.

“Has Aima made it?”

“That she has.”

He nodded, satisfied. “Then I’m home.”

THE WOLF GAM
E

First published in Lorelei Signal Magazine, October issue 2010

M
ara slashed at her opponent’s throat, cutting deep, and watched with detachment as the young man’s head fell back. Blood sprayed. The body dropped on the cobbled street with a thud.

The last one.

Oppressive silence hung like a chain of stones around her neck. She bent over, panting, wisps of dark hair tickling her eyes.

Then she straightened, muscles aching. She slung the silver-edged scimitar across her back, and turned toward the gothic tower dominating the city of Siforis.

“Leaving, are we? Entertainment over so soon?”

She spun around, wary. In the flickering light of a lamp post, a red-haired man stood among the dead bodies, smiling broadly. Damn, she’d missed one. Probably a werefox, like the others. The slight distortion of his face, the bones moving under the skin, told her he was about to shift.

“What do you want?”

His black collar glittered with round, golden studs. “What I want? To see you die, shifter-huntress.”

“Do you, now?” She sighed. “Where in the five hells are your keepers tonight? Use the bond, summon him, or her. I promise I’ll let you walk away.” Truth was, she was tired. She hoped he might just leave.

He fingered his collar, long nails scraping on the metal studs, but stayed put. “We need no keepers.” He drew out the last word, made it sound filthy.

Oh great. Another rebellion?
“Yes, you do. It’s the law.” The decrees had been for the shifters’ own protection. The human keepers made sure a shifter wouldn’t be mistreated or killed, especially after returning to human form with the temporary exhaustion the transformation brought. Of course, that’s what the ruling class, the undead, claimed. Truth was, the undead had wanted control over the shifters all along, and now they had it. And Mara helped maintain it — a tool wielded in a never-ending conflict.

“The deal your boss is about to sign is important, huntress. Do you even know what it’s about?”

“Sure.” She wasn’t going to admit she hadn’t been told.

“Then you know that tonight every shifter’s coming in alone. It’s war.”

Shit. “Says who? Did the werewolf king decreed war?” He ruled over all shifters, and led the resistance against the reign of the undead, like Riffa and herself. But surely he wasn’t about to plunge the world into more bloodshed. Was he?

She suddenly wasn’t so sure.

“Desperate times, desperate measures, huntress.”

She got no other warning. The man shifted as he jumped at her, claws coming out, muzzle lengthening, teeth glinting — a giant red fox.

Mara rolled, came up with scimitar in hand, and slashed the creature’s chest and belly, pressing the blade deep. A moment of struggle, his claws reaching for her flesh, his teeth for her throat — then she knelt and watched as he morphed back to human, gasping and spitting blood.

“Sorry,” she whispered, “told you to call your keeper.”

“You’ll fall when you least expect it,” wheezed the man, lips drawing back to reveal blood-flecked canines. Death already clouded his gaze. “Others are coming for your lady mistress, and you.”

She caressed the sickle moon tattooed in blue on her belly, the sword tattooed on her arm. “Then they’ll all die before they reach the tower. Ain’t that a bitch?”

Her job was to keep her ghoul Countess Riffa, underworld enforcer, safe, whatever the cost, and whatever Riffa was doing at the moment in the tower. Mara’s contract obliged her to guard Riffa with her life, because Riffa held Mara’s soul.

Mara shivered, and it wasn’t just the cold wind biting into her flesh. Her soul, the one thing that made her who she was, that frail, fine thing that nobody was supposed to be able to steal from her, taken, and used to enslave her.

“Is it true Riffa brought you back from the dead?”

Why was the creature taking so long to die? “None of your business.”

“You were damned, and now you’re a demonic half-shadow. She’s your purgatory.” He coughed blood. His voice dropped to a raucous whisper. “A hundred years in her service and you might go free, and finally die. You’re jealous of me dying, aren’t you? Admit it.”

“Just die already.”

No answer. The werefox’s brown eyes remained open and glazed.

Another one down.

She clenched her jaw, her chest tightening. She thought she had buried every feeling deep inside. Damned for killing her sister’s abusive husband and so triggering the slaughter of her clan; turned into an assassin by Riffa, kept out of the underworld in this twilight existence, torn between sorrow and rage, played like a pawn on a giant chessboard. When would she be free at last?

Mara wiped her scimitar on the creature’s pale chest, and turned her face away from that accusing dead stare.

Stop fretting. Work.
She began walking the perimeter again, around the tower’s metal fence. Belonging to the ruler of Siforis, the tower rose like a hand of grey
lias
stone from the ground, turrets with lancets for the archers, and a palisade. Somehow, Mara didn’t think that would cut it, when all the shifters attacked, as the werefox had implied.

On the way, she crossed paths with Jana, the other huntress, and nodded a greeting. Blood splatters covered the young woman’s silk leggings and tunic, clothes typical of Morker, a city further south. She held her short knives ready.

A busy night.

Mara reached the eastern end of the fence, then started back.

A low growl was all the warning she got when a pack of huge wolves poured over the outer wall and fell on her. She rolled to avoid being crushed, and reached for her daggers. “Jana! Help me!”

Growling in the distance told her that the other huntress was probably in a fight of her own. Mara rolled again, barely avoiding teeth and claws. She had no choice but to let her shadow nature out, if she wanted to survive.

She opened her mind to the other side, and the voice of her dead mother, sweet, rough with love, echoed in her head. Blinking away tears of sadness, Mara absorbed the breeze of the underworld, let it flow in her veins, icy. A grunt of pain escaped her lips as her body shivered and broke into particles, moving like a thick, sticky cloud of dust inside her clothes. She hovered on the paved path, not daring leave her weapons behind.

The wolves snarled and sniffed, pawing and whining, tails between their legs, looking spooked. They fell back.

It worked. Good. But she couldn’t fight that way. She forced the ice out of her mind, shutting the link, and it hurt as if jagged crystals tore her up inside. Gasping, she concentrated on the scent of the wet earth and animal bodies so close. Her body jerked, began to condense. 

Normally, shifters would move away by now. Their keepers would call them back to keep them safe from a shadow creature like herself, the invisible bonds between keeper and animal tugging. But these wolves didn’t turn around and leave. Two came at her again, and five others loped toward the tower.

War.
That was what they wanted.

Cursing, light-headed with the quick transformation, she turned, struggling to solidify more. But they swiped at her with their paws, grabbed her in their jaws. Every bite and slash, every foreign body inside her, their teeth or claws, prevented her from gathering her essence. Mara had to break free of them.

Using her still half-liquid nature, she jumped and floated over their heads, landed and sprinted toward the grim tower. Finally free of intruders, her body knitted. She slowed, suddenly heavy, filled with bone and flesh.

The tower!
Even as she somersaulted over a low fence, she knew she was too late. The five wolves had reached the palisade.
Hells!

She pulled out her silver darts, took aim and struck one of the wolves down. “Jana, damn it, where are you?”

But she was alone in this, and she knew it. She had failed Riffa, and she’d probably spend some quality time in the dungeons with the countess’ friends in the next days.

The four remaining wolves turned, snarling, teeth bared. They jumped at her and she ran, throwing darts, sure she was too late — when a white blur slammed into them in mid-air. The wolves crashed to the ground, yipping.

The waxing moon reflected on snow-white fur. A white wolf?

He crouched low, his pelt short and spiky, his ears stiff.

What the hell was a werewolf doing helping a Shadow like her? 

As she stood there, frozen, the gray wolves jumped on the white. They writhed on the ground, silver and snow swirls of fur and claw, eyes flashing yellow and blue. The white wolf bit their flanks, and crimson blood sprayed.

The blood jolted her, and she raised again her darts. Shaking off the stupor, she approached more, but getting in a clear shot through their tangled limbs was hard.

One of the gray wolves broke from the fight and loped toward the tower that soared into the dark sky. She aimed and struck him down as he leaped. He fell with a thud, his collar clanking against the flagstones.

A howl. A wolf leaped at her. Drawing her silver daggers, she stabbed him in the belly and up, aiming for his heart. He fell off her like an old fur coat, and she glanced up to see the white wolf pinned down by the others. She aimed carefully, threw a dagger and took another one out.

The white wolf buried his teeth into the gray one’s throat, blue eyes fixed on her. Her hand trembled on her other dagger. Who was this shifter?

The white wolf shook his head, tearing flesh, making the other wolf jerk. A loud crack marked the breaking of his neck.

Effective
, she noted, lowering her hand, her heart thumping. Now she would really like some answers. She wondered what pack this wolf belonged to, and who his keeper was.

“Hey.” She kept her dagger out, tip trailing to the ground. “Good job. Are you okay?” She had no experience with animals, other than killing them. She hesitated, then crouched next to the wolf. His tongue lolled as if he laughed at her. She reached out her hand, and he sniffed it, then gave it a lick. It tickled.

Blood matted his white fur. Running her hand on his strong body, she found a wound on his foreleg.

“You’re hurt. You’ve got to shift back to heal. Call your keeper, he’ll help—” Her hand trailed on the silken fur. No collar. “You’ve got to be kidding me. No keeper?” Her body tensed. “You don’t belong to a pack. An outcast, an outlaw.”

She’d seen them run behind the packs, scraggly and sickly. He was white, an unusual color, which was probably why.
Damn pack prejudices. Almost as bad as the humans.

What to do? He had saved her skin. She should stay, help him once he shifted, near blind and half-conscious, like all shifters after a transformation. But she was on duty, and growls sounded already from the west. She had to run. Riffa could never find out about this, about how close Mara had come to failing her.

There was no question about keeping him. She was always on duty. She killed his kind. That was her job.

He whimpered again, tried to lick her hand. She pulled it back. “I need to go.”

Her chest tight, she gave the white wolf one last glance, and left.

As she fought off other wereanimals, her thoughts kept drifting back to the wolf. Would he make it? Should she go back for him? Where could she take him?

She rubbed her face.

Unable to concentrate, she barely avoided getting killed when a werelioness jumped on her. She slashed the lioness’s throat and stepped back to avoid the spray of blood.

She saw in her mind’s eye the white wolf fighting, and her heart leaped.

Disgusted with herself, she ran the perimeter check back, until she reached the spot where she’d left him.

He was gone. A small pool of blood marked the place where he’d lain.

And then she felt it, faint but throbbing in her mind, like a pulse: the stirring of a bond. How the hell had that happened? She’d never lowered her defenses enough for such a seed to be planted.

Had she?

Mara pushed the bond deep down and locked it away.

***

In the days that followed, Mara shadowed countess Riffa’s every step through different city-kingdoms. The countess came out of her meetings looking strained, her porcelain skin cracked around the eyes.

Tonight, a morose, nameless specter of a man stood guard with Mara outside the door of the royal palace of Tornia, where the current meeting was being held.

Which was odd. Riffa never hired specters.

“Why you’re here?” Mara asked.

The specter turned to her slowly; his white mustache and long whiskers glowed. “To aid Her Majesty Riffa implement the agreement.”

What in the five hells?
Mara took a step back. “Did you just say
Majesty
?”