The Fly House (The UtopYA Collection) (46 page)

She ignored him.  She swiped her outer knee lightly along Trust's neck.
  The dragon obeyed, turning its head toward the rider.

"One long flame!" she hollered to Diem.  She smashed her knees into the igniting bag beneath Trust's plates.  A beautiful, straight line of flame blasted out of Trust's mouth, shooting the rider in the face.  The opened suit seared to the rider's face as he screamed, falling from the Gall's back.

The Gall's jaw dislodged from All's tail.  Mark took the opportunity.  He dug his knees into All's sides, his wounded dragon shooting away from the attack. 

But the Gall reared back.  It
s eye caught sight again of Trust.  The Gall pulled in a deep breath, its head arching back to collect the oxygen needed for an epic flame.  Its head cocked, Maeve didn't waste a second. 

She squeezed the igniter bag beneath her knees.  Trust opened his mouth, aiming at the eyes of the Gall, but the bag began to slip behind Maeve's knee. 

"No, no, NO!" Maeve clenched, hoping enough fluid was there to shoot even a small flame.  It's all they'd need.  The target wasn't large, the flame just had to be there.

Diem's knee suddenly pushed forward.  He caught the bag and pressed it forward, where it needed to be.  Maeve released her grip, feeling the bag slip back in place, beneath her kneecap.   She crushed her knee against it.  She and Diem together did one massive squeeze.

The flame poured from Trust's mouth.

It engulfed the Gall's head.

"Go!" Diem shouted.  Maeve released and ground her left knee into Trust's side before the flame could rebound.  Trust banked right, shooting away from the floundering Gall.  The hideous animal writhed for a moment longer, before plummeting, lifeless, from the battle ground.

"We're sealing the wormhole!" Maeve shouted.  

With nothing in their way, Trust shot into the funnel.

The inner cloud walls were dirty cotton.  Maeve hardly noticed.  Her gaze was riveted on navigating the twists of the tunnel.  With Diem lying against her back, she guided Trust through the vestibule.

The flames of the other three Rha's dragons flickered up ahead.  Pulling through a final turn, Maeve raked her knees backward to stop Trust from plowing into Soar.  The dragon bellowed and Span pulled him sideways, so he didn't attack. 

Maeve's eyes rose to the dark hole above, which Cirque was flaming.  The hole was nearly sealed, as Cirque came down and All flew up, his tail covered in a thin, grisly membrane.  The wounded dragon blew a flame against the opening, another layer of the blackened seal extending.  Soar shot back up, adding another flame.  Maeve guided Trust into the rotation.  Rising up to the hole, she and Diem pressed the bag together.  Trust blasted the hole with a heavy flame. 

But before they could turn from the hole, Maeve saw something in its depths.

A dark comet. 

No.

A black, shooting star.

No.

Maeve's voice dissolved.  A Gall was aimed straight for the opening.

"ATTACK!" Diem hollered, signaling wildly to the other Rhas.

The cycle of blasts came faster, but not fast enough.  The Gall came
hurtling from the universe.  Its head down, the Gall was aimed to burst through their thin seal like a battering ram. 

"ATTACK!" Diem yelled again, but this time, he signaled below them.  The one-eyed Gall that Mark had flamed was banging up the funnel toward them.

The hope drained from Maeve.  Galls coming from both directions, there was no way to win.

No way.

The descending Gall was nearly to the partially-sealed opening when she realized there was one way.

"SIDES!" she shouted.  "TELL THEM TO GET TO THE SIDES!"

With no time to argue, Diem signaled to the other Rhas.  Their dragons fled from the inner space as the Gall blasted through the sealed opening.  The black crust dropped like shards of glass as the Rhas' dragons sped to the sides of the funnel.  The dragons clung to the edges of the wormhole as the one-eyed Gall burst forth, but it raced toward All with a deafening screech.

Impulse's Echo dragon scooped its tail.  Cirque snapped the sound from the bowl of his tail, sending it blazing over Maeve's head like an audible football.  She slapped her hands over her ears as the screech transferred, echoing through the funnel.  The screech of the one-eyed Gall smashed into the new one.

The new Gall turned its attack.  The one-eyed Gall lunged back.

In a heartbeat, Soar blasted the one-eyed beast, blinding it.  Cirque dove forward, digging in its talons before rearing back and tearing out the Gall's throat.  The Galls dropped away, lifeless.

But overhead, more Galls were coming.  A fleet of them.

"TOGETHER!" Diem shouted, circling his arm in the air and all three Rhas directed their dragons side by side with Trust as they raced, as one, toward the hole.  Yards away from the opening, they fired at once, the combined flame pouring into one enormous stream, splashing against the opening.  It sealed the hole as the new fleet of Galls rained down on it.  Without weakness, the seal held. 

The Galls heads slammed into the opaque seal and then, as fast as a blink, the funnel drew upwards from around the Rhas.  The wormhole rolled up like a curtain, and with a crack, it disappeared from the Earth's sky. 

The funnel gone, the fog dissipated.  All that was left were the Rhas' weary dragons, like dark diamonds against the sapphire sky, staring down at the dark spindlings that stretched over the Earth below. 

The air was still and silent.

CHAPTER
THIRTY-FOUR

Cold Season One, Year 2095

Diem sat back on Maeve's dragon, stunned.  He laughed out loud, one abrupt, hard laugh that Cirque caught in his tail.  The Echo dragon hurled the sound with such a forceful curve that the echo vibrated in the air before cracking into a thousand echoes.  Diem's one laugh became a symphony of laughter, across the sky.

It was the sound of freedom.

Diem grabbed Maeve and hauled her close, catching her jaw in his hand, dragging her mouth to his kiss.  Their lips met, his body warm.  His other hand in her lap, he felt her through her clothing.

"Be my Link," he said.

"What does that even mean?"

"You'll be..." he struggled to remember the translation in archaic, "my wife."

"You mean I'll pop out babies and cook shit and sit around knitting your dragons blankets?  Yeah, right."

He chuckled in her ear, pulling her in even closer between his legs, so she could feel how deeply he needed her.

"I will always give you a head start.  But," he said with a smile, "if I can catch you, you'll have my babies.  We'll cook when we need to eat and I don't know what knitting is, but I already know you won't ever just sit around.  Everything about you is loud, Maeve," he said, "and I wouldn't want you any other way.  That's why I want you as my Link."

His fingers on her, his heat at her back, he only waited for the faint moan of her agreement before claiming her mouth again.  He released her as the shouts and laughter of the other Rhas sailed closer to them on dragon backs.

But Diem's joy dissolved as his eyes scanned the ground below them.  The land below was spotted with the bodies of the dead Galls, but Forge was down there somewhere, with her torn wing.  If any of the Galls had still been alive—and he knew at least the one-eyed Gall had been when it fell—they might have killed her.  Diem's heart sank. 

Span came up beside them, shouting over the space between and accompanying his message with hand signals for the other Rhas to see. 

"We must retrieve our Houses from yours, before there is further bloodshed!  But we must fix this separation among men.  We must celebrate the victory of this moment and remember it always.  We must be brothers, my brothers, in peace!"

Soar opened his mouth as Cirque drifted too close and Span kicked his dragon's sides to keep him from flaming his 'brother'.  Diem's laughter rang out again.

"We will teach them," he returned.  "Go.  Collect your Houses!  I must search for my dragon first!"

The Rhas turned their dragons east, flying in one line, even and steady, into the first light of day.  Maeve waited for them to disappear on the horizon before she guided Trust toward the ground.  They sped over the miles of crushed spindlings looking for Forge, searching each pothole in the trees that was left by a fallen dragon.  There was a huge pile of Galls, as if they'd fallen, alive, and had completed their death in a battle on the ground.  Diem exhaled slowly.

"Land in that clearing," he said, pointing to a small pasture.  "I will have to search among the dead Galls."

Trust touched down silently, impressing the pasture with their lone footprints.  Diem jumped down from Trust and trudged toward the heap of dead dragons that reached higher than thirty Houses. 

He threaded through the spindlings, Maeve at his back, and the two of them circled the heap of Galls.  Diem could not find even a glance of deep, dirty violet skin among the Galls.

And then they heard the roar. 

Diem turned, catching Maeve by the hand, and ran, dragging her along behind him, back to the clearing. 

As they broke through the tree line, there she was.  Her back to them, Forge was reared up to full height with one wing extended in fighting stance, her broken wing sagging at her side.  Trust was reared behind her, mirroring her stance.  Diem moved through the trees, keeping both himself and Maeve obscured, as he tried to catch a glimpse of the threat through the dragons' legs.

"Karma?"  The words escaped him.  Forge snarled.  Phuck, his arms holding Karma tight to his chest, didn't take his black-hole eyes from Steven.  Diem traced the Plutian's gaze to the twist in the Archiver's leg, the mangled heap of metal bicycle frame and round, spoked wheels lying beside him.  But the gun in Steven's hands was trained solidly on Phuck.  In half a breath, the situation in front of Diem was obvious to him. 

"Let her go, Phuck," Diem demanded. 

But Karma shrieked with wild eyes, "Don't hurt him, Diem, don't!" 

"I'm going to kill the bastard!" Steven snarled, but Karma's tearful pleading kept Steven's finger from the trigger.

"KILL ME?" Phuck roared and the laughter that followed echoed and rattled Diem's bones.

"You don't understand!  It's not him!  It's not Phuck!" Karma babbled.  "It's Phuck's body, but that's not his voice coming out of him!  He's not doing this!"

"How is it not him?" Diem released Maeve's hand as he stepped forward, a growl rising in his throat.  His eyes were glued to Phuck's peripheral face, but a wiggle in the dark center drew Diem's eyes into the center of the black hole.

As Diem watched, the tip of a finger wormed from the swirling black thumbprint of Phuck's face.  Diem heard Maeve's gasp.  He squinted, trying to make sense of what he saw.  Pinned against Phuck, Karma's desperate voice snapped him out of his horror.

"Something's in his face!" Steven shouted.  The finger elongated as it emerged, revealing wizened knuckles.  Then ancient fingers curled through the darkness, clawing their way through, as if Phuck's face was nothing more than a tight sweater. 

"What is happening?  What do you see?" Karma writhed against Phuck, but his rigid body held her tight, even as his face stretched and distorted.  A forearm slid through.

"Close your eyes!" Diem shouted. 

"What is it?" Maeve said.

"It's a deity!  Phuck's face is the second wormhole and that is 1295—a deity—coming through!  CLOSE YOUR EYES AND DON'T OPEN UNTIL I TELL YOU!"  Diem roared.  "If you've ever listened to anything, listen to me now!  Looking at a deity is instant death!"

Karma and Maeve and Steven clamped their eyes shut.  Diem's relief was microscopic.  They would not die at the sight of the deity, but if 1295 emerged and walked on the Earth, death would still come to all of them from his fury, even blindly.   

Blindly.

Diem's gaze dodged around the circle of humans, making sure all their eyes were closed as he'd instructed.  He whistled.  Forge lowered her head to the ground, her snout aligned with Phuck and Karma. 

Diem's voice was suddenly calm.  It had to be.  The arm extending from Phuck's face was to the shoulder now.  Another set of old fingers dug through, curling around the flap of the tight wormhole, the arm pressing down and the fingers prying up, trying to force the hole open wider.   

"Do as I say, Karma, do you hear me?"  Diem said.

"Yes," she said, but her answer was little more than a distraught whine. 

"Just keep your eyes closed.  It's going to be okay.  When I tell you, I want you to drop like you are dead and roll toward my voice as fast as you can.  Got it?"

"Yes," she whispered with a sniffle. 

He had to close his eyes.  He could not watch.  He had to have faith in his dragon, his sister, himself.

"DROP!" Diem shouted.  Karma fell with a thump.  He had no idea if Phuck fell with her or not.  He had to see.  He opened his eyes to see Karma rolling toward him as the pasty, white crown of 1295's head pushed through the opened wormhole in Phuck's face. 

Diem whistled, grabbing hold of Karma's and Maeve's arms at once.  He threw them to the ground a yard from Steven's feet, covering the women with his own body as Forge directed a line of fire at Phuck's face.  Diem caught sight of Steven strained to sit up as high as he could.  Eyes wide open, Steven aimed his gun over their heads, at Phuck.  He would die the moment 1295 laid eyes on him

"Close your eyes!" Diem shouted.

The blast of the sheathen's flame erupted, accompanied by the crack of Steven's gun. 

Heat ripped across Diem's back.  The flesh rose in boiling lumps across his back as he breathed in Maeve's scent.  He heard the anguished screams beneath him, around him, inside him.  The heat peeled his skin.  He could do little more than close his eyes on the misery that trapped him.  He would take more, if his body was shielding Maeve and Karma and keeping them safe.  But he had no way of knowing.  The screaming became one deafening, deep voice that sounded just like his own.

The burn was so deep, the only thought left in Diem's mind was a prayer for freedom.

***

The heat burned her feet, but Maeve was pinned.  Karma screamed beside her, the sound of Diem, gnashing his teeth, was in her ear.  The ground jumped beneath them, tossing them centimeters in the air.  They landed hard and Diem's muscles relaxed over Maeve's body, trapping her beneath him like rubble.

"Diem," Maeve said, pushing her shoulder against him.  No answer.  "Diem!"

No answer, no movement.  Karma's panic turned to shrieking as both women wrestled their way out from under him.  Face down in the dirt, Diem's arm was thrown over his face.  His entire back was scorched black.

Maeve twirled, looking for help.  Looking for anymore danger.  The huge mound of Diem's dragon had collapsed in the opposite direction, Forge's broken wing distended at an odd angle over the ground, but her eyes were open, blinking, at Diem.  Trust was huddled by her side.

Phuck was curled like a burnt, baby shrimp near the edge of the spindlings.

Maeve turned and caught sight of Steven, laying flat on his back in the dirt beyond them, his clothing charred, the gun lying at his side.  Maeve saw the weak rise of his chest.

"Help him!" Maeve shouted to Karma and the girl, in shock, scuttled obediently to Steven.  Maeve put her cheek to the ground beside Diem.  She lifted his arm gently from his face.  He moaned.  "Diem!"

He moaned again.

"He's alive!" Maeve shouted to Karma. 

The shadows of dragons dusted over them and Maeve's blood went cold.  She peered up at the sky and saw the sparkling snowflakes of an underbelly.  It took her several blinks to recognize that they were not the hideous glinting plates of a Gall, but the shimmer of the Cirrus dragon's plates instead. 

The Rhas landed their dragons, one by one, within the confines of the small clearing. 

"We saw Forge's flame," Span shouted.  He was quickly at Maeve's side, kneeling down beside Diem, assessing the fallen Rha.  Span jumped to his feet, shouting to the other two Rhas,  "We must hurry!  Make a sling!  We need to return him to Fly House immediately!"

The men went to work, gathering.  Maeve stepped back as they wrapped Diem painstakingly in massive
shorb leaves and secured them with strips pulled from the trunks of spindlings.  Diem groaned and Mark apologized as they tied together the crude stretcher.

Span turned to instruct Maeve and she narrowed her eyes, trying to absorb every word despite the shock of it all. "Take him to the Fly House.  Your dragon will carry the ends of the sling in his claws, but you must hover the dragon for them to remove him!"  Span turned and pointed up at the massive trees surrounding the clearing.  "You must have your dragon lift higher right away!  The weight of the sling will be awkward and he can not bolt straight into the sky, or he will drop the sling.  He must rise on an incline and lift with all his might or he will never make it over the tops of those spindlings!"

Maeve nodded, whistling for Trust.  She seated herself on his neck as she heard Karma shout at Impulse.  The girl was still kneeling beside Steven, supporting him in her arms.

"We will take all of them!" she roared at Impulse.  "Phuck too!  He was not aware that 1295 was hiding in the black hole of his face!  He is not at fault and he is still alive...I will not leave him, or Steven, or my brother's dragon!"

Maeve adjusted her seating on Trust and whistled for his ascent.  Karma would take care of the rest.  Maeve guided Trust into the air on an incline, feeling the heathen's exhausted body working to lift as he climbed toward the infinite, peaceful sky.  They crested the trees and burst into the early light of day like a single, tenacious streak of hope, winging their way toward salvation over the liberated surface of the Earth.