The Confliction (Book Three of the Dragoneers Saga) (Dragoneer Saga) (4 page)

Lanxe had always been a rotten person at heart. Twins know these things. Linux used to think that, in the womb, all the bad had gone to his brother, and all the good to him. Now he knew better. He was as rotten and selfish as a person could be. He’d killed an innocent man to save his own life. He’d kept the whole truth of what he knew about the Sarax from the Dragoneers; from his pupil, Zah. He was no good at all. After a while he decided that, since he was determined to kill himself, he could do it with purpose. After all, he owed King Blanchard a body.

He needed to find out more about the situation. He was also feeling a sick sort of hope. If King Blanchard were still alive, that meant his body was still alive. With the Sarax tamed or sedated, they wouldn’t need the man long. As guilty as he felt for murdering Rolph, Linux was suddenly feeling the urge to get back into his own skin, no matter how he had to do so. If they could swap now, the once fat old king would probably enjoy being in the young, well-built body of the guardsman.

Two days later the shout came for “Land ho!” It was a misleading call, and several of the motherly-looking witches grew excited for nothing. Linux knew they would skirt the western coast for days. Eventually they would pass Pvurn, possibly stopping to exchange water barrels, possibly not.
Nepton’s Angel
was huge. As far as he knew, there could be half a hundred full kegs still below. There was room for them.

From Pvurn it was a four-day sail north to Avlron. He needed to find out more about the state of things at the temple. He was becoming obsessed with getting back into his own body. It was a base primal urge that he had little control over. Like the desire to breed or eat. Once, he became so intent on gathering information that he almost throttled one of the old hags and choked it out of her.

He used methods he’d learned in the Temple of Dou and calmed himself into an elevated state that helped him think logically instead of emotionally. He also took the time to experiment and see if his current body could articulate the mechanics of his spells. He was pleased that he could cast, but irritated that he was so careless. He surely made his presence known to the Hazeltine by using magic so casually. He decided that, since he’d already given himself away, he might as well try to knit and strengthen the healing of his leg. He did so hurriedly. When he was done, he squeezed out the door of his tiny cabin, only to find a pair of witches glaring at him. He was shocked to see that one of them was Queen Alvazina. Her long dark hair had been chopped and lightened by the salt and the sea sun, but it was her.

He almost burst out who he was. He had acted as a go-between for her, Jenka, and Zahrellion when the two Dragoneers were imprisoned on King’s Isle. He’d had her trust, and still had it after he had soul-stepped the king. His state of awareness warned him against revealing himself, though. Instead, he gave her a perfectly regal bow, and then followed them to where they intended him to go.

To his surprise, when he entered her quarters, she spoke directly to him. “Richard told me you soul-stepped out of my husband’s core before it passed. I didn’t believe him.”

“How are you so sure I am who you think I am?” Linux asked.

“You used Dour to heal yourself,” one of the witches snapped at him. “I can smell it all over you now. You reek of it.”

“Yes,” the queen smiled at her Hazeltine sister. “You’ve no ascension symbols, Linux, and you’re working high level Dour magic,” she smiled again, smugly. “I know it’s you.”

Linux sighed and was at least relieved by the easy manner in which he was being treated. He decided to make the best of it.

“At your service m’lady.” He bowed. “As always.”

He couldn’t tell if her laugh was from something she found humorous, or a snort of contempt. She said to the witch at her side, “Tell Captain Darphike that the jumper is now in our service.”

“She’s coming!” Rikky yelled from high upon the spiral stair that led from the rotunda up to the dragon landings. “Golden’s only carrying one. I don’t see Crystal.”

“Are you sure?” Jenka struggled to get to a sitting position. Most of his body was a plum-colored bruise. His half-rejuvenated shoulder gash was still stiff and raw. Rikky had exhausted himself healing it. Jenka found it was still hard to breathe. It hurt just to think about moving, but he wanted to know what Aikira had to say. She’d chased off after Zah and hadn’t been seen since.

Marcherion was angry and on edge. Jenka understood the sentiment. Blaze had roasted the Sarax that got a hold of Jade after they crashed, and then landed to protect Jenka’s prone body. He was ready to go headlong into a tempest to save Zahrellion, only no one knew where the tempest was.

Jenka pulled a thick shirt over his battered, salve-covered frame and managed to get his boots on, but it was all for naught. As soon as he was up and walking toward the staircase, Rikky and Aikira came down it.

“They took her to the temple.” Aikira looked terrible, as if she hadn’t slept in days, which she probably hadn’t. “Only those two Sarax went there; the others went off into the darkness and disappeared. I watched them until it was clear they weren’t taking Zahrellion somewhere else. I saw that druid Richard exposed at the keep that night, too. He fed the Sarax something. The two Sarax that took Zahrellion seemed as if they’d do anything for the stuff.” She paused to catch her breath. “Crystal refused to leave her perch on the northern ridge. I think she is wounded, but she is as thick-skulled as you are.”

“Addiction,” Marcherion said as he paced the same five-stride line he’d been pacing since the Sarax attacked. “Just like they did with those ogres, I think. They put something in that berry-wine they give them. Then they put a collar on them.”

“She’s alive, then?” Jenka sounded aggravated that Aikira hadn’t told him how she was. “What about Zah?”

“She was bleeding at the shoulder and looked unconscious when they carried her into the temple. That’s all I know. They didn’t eat her, though.” She slumped down onto a seat at the long oval table. “It’s a foul place that temple. Those pale winter crows and every scavenger for leagues is feasting on the frozen death the Sarax left behind last fall. I saw a troll with antlers on its head picking through the corpses.”

“What are we waiting for?” Marcherion looked at Rikky. “Let’s go get Zah.”

“If we go, we will have the rangers help us,” Jenka said sternly. Aikira’s last statement suddenly registered in his head, but he was intent on getting the message across to Rikky and March. “We’ll have to get King Blanchard out of there, too. You two go to the keep and get Herald’s thoughts on it. Just go to the keep. I’ll watch over Aikira while she sleeps and see what Lem and the ogres can help us get done.”

“We shouldn’t wait,” March objected. “What if—”

“If they want her dead, she’s dead.” Saying it caused Jenka to grind his molars in frustration. He was hurting all over and just wanted to think straight for a few moments. Aikira was softly snoring now, with her face down on the table. Her mention of an antler-headed troll was but a fleeting memory. “No one wants to go storming off after her more than I, but we may have only one chance to get them out of there. I don’t want that chance squandered. Go, and return with Herald’s thoughts as soon as you can.”

Clover’s Secrets

“Look at this,” Jenka said to Lemmy.

They were in a musty, cobweb-filled room that annexed off of Clover’s modest librarium, a room that neither of them noticed until Lemmy found the latch that opened a section of shelving as if it were a door.

You never know what you’ll find when you pull a book off a shelf,
Lemmy joked, for that’s all he did.

Inside the room there were several shelves full of odd components and two large, leather-bound volumes of spells that hurt Jenka’s eyes to read. He recognized the first few words in one of them. He read aloud softly and was overcome with a giddy tingle afterwards. Jenka’s vision blurred. He took a few deep breaths and wondered if he had just accidentally cast a calling spell.

Jenka started looking at a charcoal sketch of a Sarax, with marks and carefully written text detailing sensitive and dangerous parts of the thing’s strange body. Then he saw something else and pointed it out to Lemmy. He was showing Lem a drawing of a bee’s honeycomb full of little tiny Sarax. The queen was larger, ten times as large as the Sarax. It was bulkier, too, formed like a larva, or a giant grub, with several long snaking limbs on each side of an elongated torso.

I wonder if they really follow that thing,
said Lemmy, as he took the parchment to study it closer.

Jenka’s mind had moved on. He was searching for anything else they could use to more effectively destroy the beasts. He found a small wooden chest and forced it open with a sealing blade. Inside were several hundred golden coins with a strange feline animal on one side and two lines with a slash through them on the other. He wondered, for a long while, from where they had come. Then he pondered where the Sarax had come from and a certain fear of the unknown began to creep into him like a chill.