Blue Moon (36 page)

"How are we going to get across again?” she asked as the castle loomed over the trees.

"Charter a dragon, I guess."

"Are you sure she's my sister?"

"Pretty sure,” he said.

"How sure?” she asked, “I mean, how do you know?"

"My father thinks so."

"Oh, and that's it? I What makes him so wonderful that he can decide such things?"

"He has.... powers,” Alex said.

"I see. He can see into the hearts of men and judge them?"

"Sort of."

"Figures,” she grouched.

He took the magic from her. She protested, because she'd only carried it for a minute.

"I'm rested,” he told her.

"He doesn't like me,” she said.

"Nonsense! I'm sure he likes you just fine,” Alex protested. “I mean, it's sort of not the best situation to decide on such a thing, is it? Everyone's going nuts trying to stop Sabin, and all that."

"What about...” She wanted to know what he was going to do about his relationship with her.

"Please don't ask that,” he whispered, as if he had already heard the question. “Not yet."

"We're almost there,” Dashiel interjected.

They walked on in silence, making their way to the shore. Near them, a tiny sliver of a bridge arched over the swirl of the nexus and on to the castle in its center.

"I can make that,” Dashiel said. “I can cross that easy."

"Yeah, but there's nothing you can do for us on the other side that will do any good,” Alex pointed out.

Libby stared at the river again. The magic was as red as blood. “Maybe,” she muttered.

"Huh?” Dashiel looked up at her. “You've got to stop daydreaming, girl."

She shook her head. She could feel something on the breeze, a tremor of fear that rattled her.

"Maybe we should go up a ways, where the magic isn't quite so deadly,” Alex suggested. “If Zorovin doesn't come soon, we'll cross. I can take you both at once."

"Why does that matter?” she asked.

"I want to fly low.” He made a motion with his hand. “Under the radar."

She nodded and went with him until he stopped suddenly and turned to the castle.

A roar resounded, loud enough to make the castle walls shake. The magic, which had been calmly swirling, now bubbled and lapped the shore.

He stared at the castle in horror. “Father?"

Libby closed her eyes briefly, and realized the fear was her sister's, reaching out to her. “Come on,” she said. “We can't do any good here."

"You are one of the dragonkind,” Sabin said.

"I have no idea what you are talking about,” Zorovin said. In Sabin's mind he saw a pool of confused thoughts whirling around a central purpose. Sabin knew exactly who he was, in truth, but he hoped to add to the confusion and gain an advantage.

Sabin looked at Sierra. “You should be in your own body by now,” he said. “I wonder what's happened? You're not useful to me outside of your own body."

"Useful? You mean you actually think I would help you?"

He looked at her through slitted eyes. “Of course. Two worlds, two sisters."

He slid his glance back to Zorovin, who stood slightly in front of her. He couldn't mistake that Zorovin would not willingly stand by and let harm come to her, and that Sierra took comfort in that.

"I see where you get your strength from,” Sabin said. He whistled; the shrill sound cut through the air. The rabble outside became silent, expectant. “Look out the window, Dragon King. I have not been such a thoughtless host after all."

Zorovin looked over his shoulder, meeting Sierra's eyes for a moment before viewing the courtyard below. Outwardly, he did not evince any surprise, but inside, his heart grew cold.

Beneath the tower, the war machines and the clutter that had obscured greater workings had been moved aside. A simple circle had been drawn, and all along that circle, strange, sickly-yellow crystals reached up like the mouth of a predatory plant. When they snapped closed, whatsoever was enclosed in the circle would be trapped. The crystal was called dragon's bane. The presence of it weakened a dragon, the touch of it could kill.

"Jump,” Sabin said.

"I do not choose to.” To jump would mean a horrible choice between remaining human and being smashed to death on the stones of the courtyard, or becoming a dragon and being drawn in and caught in a trap of pain and terror.

A clicking sound behind him brought his attention back into the room. Sabin was pointing a gun at Sierra.

"Oh, I think you should,” he said, and Zorovin had watched enough television to know what the gun could do.

Sierra grabbed his hand.

—
No
, she whispered in his mind.

—
'Tis all right
, he answered her. For Sabin's benefit he put a look of confusion on his face and peered closer at the gun.

"Don't do that!” Sabin said, stepping back.

Before he could move out of reach, Zorovin grabbed him and pulled him to the window. He placed one foot on the sill and used his weight to drag Sabin out with him. The gun fired, striking the wall of the tower as Zorovin pushed off. Sabin screamed as they fell from the windowsill, and Zorovin thrust him away, concentrating instead on the change.

Sierra watched, horrified, as the two men fell. She saw Zorovin begin to shift, and she decided to take the greatest gamble of her life.

She crossed the room to the door then ran back, stepped onto the sill and pushed off hard to give herself some momentum. She fell almost horizontal for one second before she began the downward plunge towards the glowing teeth of the dragon trap below. She saw Zorovin, and tried to call him to her, tried to get him to turn around and see her.

He struggled to regain altitude, but the crystals sapped his strength. He turned his head, heard Sabin's voice and realized the fall had not killed him. He saw a blurred speck that had to be Sierra. He twisted in midair and threw himself forward, wrapped his claws around her inches from the point of the crystals’ arms. He flapped his wings hard but could not make enough altitude to get over it himself, and the crystal cut a wicked gash in his side.

He roared with pain. Arrows flicked past him as he struggled to make it over the castle walls, over the river and to safe ground on the other side. He flew erratically, and when he was close to land he stopped all pretense of flight and hit the ground hard, turning just enough so Sierra would, or be crushed by his weight.

The poison seeped into him, and he forced his claws to relax as he closed his eyes. Sierra stroked his hide, her sobs sounding even further away. He tried to say something comforting to her, but a wash of pain flung him into unconsciousness.

"We're lost,” Raul informed her.

"Don't be silly,” she said.

He called her Cat in his head, because of her glowing green eyes. “Nobody” and “hey, you” didn't cut it for him.

"Maybe we should be going up."

They had been journeying down for a long time.

She shook her head, and they continued down the rough and dark passage. He could see a dull glow up ahead, and to his way of thinking it did not bode well. Yet she continued down to it, her long legs barely covered by the impromptu poncho he'd made by applying his fingernail clipper to the middle of the blanket.

She was shivering, and once in awhile a patch of skin would slough off her. The new skin beneath was a normal pale pink, but the overall effect was that she looked like a moulting snake. They watched for these patches and would try and hide them or throw them out a window.

She stopped and gave her underarm a vigorous scratch, a sure sign that another swath of skin was coming loose. She frowned in frustration, grabbed it and pulled. Some of it peeled away easily, but some, not yet ready, stuck, and when she yanked it, it bled. He took the dry skin in his hands and carefully broke it away. The wound was small, but it oozed a pale yellow fluid and stank terribly. She whimpered once like a hurt animal then blinked away the pain and kept going.

He stopped and yanked a bit of rock from the floor of the passage, pushed the skin into the hole and replaced the rock. The castle, true to its desire to remain cohesive, sucked the rock back into place and solidified the dirt around it, so it looked like it'd never been touched.

He ran to catch up with her. The hall had opened up into a huge cavern. Magic flowed into the castle and spattered against the rocks. Sometimes it hissed, sometimes it rang like glass as it struck. Every color except purple was represented. It collected in pools and in crevices, and it flowed toward the center pool, not mixing, just collecting into a hectic rainbow.

She pulled her poncho over her head and tossed it aside. The top she was wearing had worked up in back, and he was about to reach for it, pull it down when he saw the tattoo on the pale skin. A ripple of gold light moved around it like the arms of a clock, but much faster.

She entered the chamber and crossed cautiously to where the golden magic splashed and eddied among the black stones. She dipped her hand in and drank. Her yellow-green eyes glowed all the brighter, and she looked upstream. Her smile was feral at first, but it faded. She choked on what she drank and began coughing hard.

He pulled her back into the passage, where she shook and clung to him. She threw back her head and screamed soundlessly then collapsed, crying.

"No,” she murmured. “Please, no."

"Cat, what happened? Are you alright?"

She looked at him, blinking, trying to focus.

"Zorovin? Please, oh, God, somebody...” She moved closer, looking at him. Her expression became even more horrified, as if she recognized him as she looked around at the halls, at her peeling hands that were now missing three fingernails.

His hand was on the small of her back, and as she pulled away some of the dead skin clung to him. He looked down, saw the pattern of the tattoo broken out carefully, as if cut with a fine knife.

"Raul? What are you doing here?” she asked. “What am I doing here? What happened?"

"You drank from the yellow-colored magic. It's made you sick,” he ventured, because her strangeness was beginning to scare him a little.

She looked at herself, grabbed a length of hair and pulled it around to see its color.

"I'm Rita again,” she said softly, and he could tell from her tone this was the last thing she wanted. She closed her eyes in pain. “Idiot. We both drank from the same kind of magic. Gold magic,” she said, explaining to him. “Gold is said to enlighten, to show the truth and make things take their true form, so when we both drank the gold magic it must have made a connection between our old bodies. Do you see?"

"No,” he said. He thought it had something to do with the tattoo on her back.

"I drank gold magic earlier, looking for enlightenment,” she repeated, starting back up the hall. “She drank it for God knows what reason ... and the magic somehow made a connection between us, returning each of us to her own body."

"Uh-huh."

"It's true. It doesn't make sense, but it's true.” She backed away from the opening, grabbing the poncho and wrapping herself back in it.

"So, who are you?” he asked, following her.

She turned towards him, everything in shadow except a slash of gold luminance that lay across her eyes. They glowed green, as if the gold magic had lit a fire inside them.

"You knew me as Sierra,” she said, and turned and began walking again.

They ran as fast as they could to where Zorovin had fallen. Her sister might be there, Libby thought. She might be okay.

The first thing she saw when they reached the landing place was Sierra, running her hands over her face and body, looking around with a strange expression on her face. Zorovin lay on his side, his back toward them. He had changed again, and he made an incredibly fragile-looking human.

Alex carefully turned his father on his back. Zorovin groaned softly. His shirt was ripped across the ribs, and he was bleeding heavily. His breath was shallow, as if it hurt too much to inhale properly. He was even paler than before, his skin making his hair look almost dark.

"Maybe I could lick his wounds,” Dashiel said. “Kill the infection?"

"No,” Alex said softly. “I don't think that'll help."

Zorovin opened his eyes. He blinked, trying to focus.
"Na heh tey doro sita,"
he whispered.

Send her away
, a voice in the back of her head translated.
I don't want to die human.

She stood up while Alex answered in the same language, offering the common reassurances humans always use. She had touched Zorovin's pale, fine skin briefly, had felt the poison eating at his flesh. Dragon's bane. A crystal that grew in dark, tainted places. Its greasy excretion was poison to the dragonkind; even the presence of it could gravely weaken one.

She blinked at the odd knowledge that seemed to flow non-stop through the back of her mind, then gave into it. Applying “logic” to things instead of opening up to them—at least in this case—could be deadly to them all.

She wandered to the bank, looking for the right colors, trying to concentrate on the voice in the back of her head, the voice that seemed to egg her on, the same voice that had taught her how to fetch forth the dagger. The voice was reluctant to do anything not directly involved with the Stone, and she argued with it.
He's important to the mission
, she said over and over as she walked along. Green for things growing, blue for calm purity, brown for mending and making...?

Libby used her dagger to cut some bark from a tree. The woody covering parted easily, and she scraped it clean as possible. She wiped the blade on her pants leg and knelt by the river where green magic swirled. She dipped her knife in and scooped some of it onto the bark then ran to where she'd seen brown magic and used the blade to splash some of that on top of the green. Finally, she cupped some of the blue magic in her hand and poured a small amount of it on top of the other two.

She used the blade like a putty knife, slapping it back and forth as if spreading butter on toast. The brown and the blue melded, being a little more water-like, but the green acted like oil. What she had when she got back to Zorovin was ugly brown-gray glop with little clear green specks in it.