Wakeworld (9 page)

Z
ee refused to die. Not here in this place that reeked of dragons.

Using the sword as a support, he tried to lever himself up onto his feet, but his right arm wouldn’t work and his knees refused to stiffen. On the first attempt he fell flat onto his bruised ribs. Pain lanced through him, stole his breath, sent his consciousness scurrying off into dusty corners of his mind.

He held on, resisting the lure of the inviting darkness, until the pain eased and he was able to breathe. Then he tried again, planting the tip of the sword between two of the paving stones, grabbing on to the hilt with his left hand. He managed to drag himself up onto his knees but could get no farther.

Recognizing at length that his efforts were not only futile but draining the little energy he had left, he began to crawl. One slow inch at a time, shoving the sword ahead of him to free both hands, he dragged himself toward the arch through which he had entered. His arm began to bleed again, turning the hand slippery with blood so that it slid when he braced it against the stone to pull himself forward. His head spun; his heart lurched and pattered in an irregular rhythm.

Death loomed. He felt its presence, but he wasn’t ready. Not yet. Too many things left undone. He’d sworn to help Vivian and now here he was, dying before he’d done a thing to aid or protect her.

But even these thoughts faded away as the pain and the weakness and the necessity to move just one more inch became overwhelming. He didn’t notice when he reached the arch, but he heard the bell toll, followed by a cracking, rending sound.

And then everything changed.

He lay facedown in soft green grass, instead of on the road he was expecting. Light filtered in through his closed eyelids and he felt the impossibility of sunlight warm on his back. When he lifted his head, he saw that he lay on a well-tended lawn in full daylight. To his right, a gravel road disappeared into a thick grove of trees. Tall grasses grew up along the far side of the road, blocking the horizon. To his left stood a battered fifth-wheel trailer, much like the one he had grown up in, with the difference of a carefully tended lawn and a garden of bright flowers.

A man sat in the shade of a gnarled and ancient tree. His head was bald and shone as if it had been waxed and polished. A thick white beard covered his chest, and he wore a robe sewn out of some sort of rough brown cloth, tied around an ample belly with a bit of old rope. Beside him, ready to hand, sat a rough wooden table bearing a jug full of water and two plastic tumblers.

“Well met, Warrior,” the old man said. “Would you drink?”

“Please,” Zee croaked, in a voice that seemed to belong to somebody else.

The man got up with some difficulty. The flimsy lawn chair in which he sat was a tight fit for his bulk and wanted to come with him. But once he had managed to dislodge it he filled one of the tumblers with water and put it in Zee’s hand.

It looked like plain, ordinary water. No enchantment that Zee could detect, and the old man stepped back and waited, not trying to coerce him. Drink or die. He drained the glass, the cool liquid soothing his parched throat, but it was not enough. Before he could ask, the old man retrieved the pitcher and refilled his glass to the brim.

While he drank, Zee looked around. Nobody was to be seen except his benefactor. A wooden dream door hung in the middle of a hedge, maybe the one he’d come through, maybe another one. It was closed, which was good, although he knew well enough it could open at any time.

“Where is this?” he asked, his voice belonging to him once again.

“No place and every place. Do you not recognize the Between?”

The urgency that had driven Zee this far resurfaced. “I need to get back to Wakeworld.” He tried to sit up, but the old man pressed him back and he wasn’t strong enough to argue.

“Do not fear. You are safe for the moment—she will come for you, by and by, but not yet. Rest now. Let me dress your wounds.”

Too weak to explain or to fight, Zee let his head fall back into the softness of grass. His weariness was an inescapable force and his eyes drifted shut. Somewhere a bee buzzed, and a gentle breeze touched his face. His hand groped for the sword and closed around the familiar hilt. Only then did he allow himself to sleep.

When he woke, the old man still sat in his lawn chair under the tree. The sun hung in the same place in the sky; the shadows had not shifted. But the stabbing pain in his head had receded; the raging thirst was gone. A neat bandage wrapped his upper right arm. The gash in his side had been cleaned. When Zee pushed himself up to sitting, the world spun for only a moment and then righted itself.

Wordlessly, his benefactor brought him another tall glass of water, and he drank.

“How long have I been asleep?” His hand went to his jaw, half expecting to find a Rip Van Winkle beard, and he was grateful to discover only rough stubble.

“Time has no meaning here; it comes and goes according to its own whims. Do you hunger?”

Zee realized that he was, in fact, nearly as hungry as he was confused. “I could eat. And I have a lot of questions, if you are willing to answer.”

“The willingness is perhaps not the issue. Ask only questions for which I have the answers, and we will do well.” The old man opened a picnic basket that now sat on the table beside him. “Ham sandwich?”

The sandwich in question was made from a small round loaf of bread, stuffed with a thick slab of ham and some sort of waxy yellow cheese that was definitely not cheddar. Maybe it was just because of his hunger, but the flavors seemed bigger, the textures more real, than any sandwich Zee had ever eaten. One bite led to another, and he had consumed the whole thing before he wiped the crumbs from his face with his sleeve and asked, “Who are you?”

“My name matters not.”

“How long have you been here?”

The old man smiled, beatifically, and said, gently, “As I have said, time here has no meaning. Ask a thing that I can answer.”

“All right. What are you doing here?” Zee gestured at the trailer and the empty space all around.

“I’m a hermit. Where else would I be?”

The Holy Hermit of the Fifth Wheel, Zee thought, with a mixture of amusement and frustration.

“Well, why then?” he asked. “Why are you here?”

“Waiting for you, naturally.”

“Of course. And you are waiting for me, because . . .”

“You would have died were there no soul here to succor your hurts and offer you food and drink. My purpose is to commune with the ineffable and to serve the Warrior should he appear.”

“Why does everybody keep calling me that? Warlord, Warrior—”

“You drank from the well and live to tell the tale.”

“But I didn’t drink. She tried to make me and I refused.”

The smile faded. “You refused the test?”

“Was I wrong? The others—there are six men in there, dead. It looked like they were poisoned and I thought it was the water.” Even speaking of the enchanted liquid set him thirsting for it again.

“It didn’t tempt you?”

“It tempted me plenty. I didn’t want to die.”

The old man stroked his beard. “You are very brave, then, Warrior or not. But I fear our time together may be shorter than I had anticipated. She will not be pleased.”

“She who? And you still didn’t answer about the Warrior bit.”

“Very well, I shall tell you. But I warn you that my answer will be in the form of a tale. This requires stronger drink than water. One moment.”

The old man heaved his bulk up out of the chair once more and disappeared into the trailer, returning a few moments later with large stoneware mugs, spilling over with foam.

Zee accepted the drink pressed into his hand but hesitated. He had lost blood and wasn’t sure how alcohol would affect him as a consequence. Also, no place in the Between was truly safe and he was already incapacitated. His eyes went to the dream door, still closed, and scanned the horizon for any sign of danger.

“Drink, drink,” the hermit said. “It’s good brown ale. Replenishes the blood. You are safe enough here for the moment.” He guzzled down a long draught, belched happily, and wiped his face with his sleeve.

Zee took an experimental swallow. The ale was smooth and full and rich, nothing like beer, or even the brew pub ales he’d tasted over the years. It soothed his throat, eased his distress, but left his mind surprisingly untouched.

The hermit took another long swallow and leaned back in his chair. “So then. The Tale of the Warrior and the Dragon, as it was told unto me by my father and his father before him.

“Long ago, in the far-off days before recorded history, a Dragon King ruled the Forever. He was the first of all dragons, and the most beautiful. It is said that in the full light of day his scales shone so bright that even the dragons could not look upon him with eyes unshielded.

“How he came to be, nobody knows. Some say he crawled from the river, fully formed. Others that the giants made him—shaped him of beaten gold and then breathed life into him. Only the giants could say, and they keep their lore unto themselves.

“One day, by fate or happenstance or genetic mutation, depending upon your theory of the world and how it works, a special child was born. It was a girl child, and her mother named her Allel. She never cried, they say, but watched the world through big gray eyes, taking in all things and understanding far beyond her years.

“One night, when Allel was maybe six months old, her mother checked the crib at midnight and found it empty. She shrieked her fear and dismay aloud, and her husband ran to rally the villagers and they hunted for the child, one and all, through the long hours of the night.

“In the morning, the baby was found in her cradle, fast asleep.

“The villagers were angry. ‘Foolishness of an overly fond mother,’ they said. ‘The child was never missing. Don’t bother us again.’

“And so the next night, father and mother watched by the cradle and saw the child vanish before their eyes. All night long they waited, and as dawn struck and the sky turned blue, Allel appeared out of nowhere, lying in her cradle fast asleep.

“Nobody would believe, so the next night a small group of elders were invited in. This time they watched carefully at the time of dusk and sleep, and saw the child vanish before their eyes, and later reappear.

“‘She is a witch,’ they said, afraid. ‘She must be destroyed now, before she gains power.’

“The mother wept and pleaded. ‘Not now, give me one last day. She is no harm to anyone.’

“Not being evil or having hearts of stone, the men agreed to leave a watch to make sure she didn’t flee with the child. All day long the mother rocked Allel in the rocking chair, her long hair screening her face from view. But she did not weep. And when she glanced up at her husband, he read the look in her eyes and nodded.

“Bit by bit throughout the day, when their unwelcome guest was looking in another direction—eating his meal of bread and cheese, stepping outside to make water, blinking back sleep—she scrambled together a few small things into one place. A water skin. A bundle of bread and cheese and three boiled eggs. A blanket and a change of clothes for the baby.

“As the sun moved toward the edge of the sky and began to drop, her husband took up his spear and confronted the watchman sitting on the threshold of his door. ‘We leave now,’ he said. ‘My wife, my child, and I. We shall never trouble the village again, if you let us go. But if you do not . . .’

“The watchman hesitated, looking at the family, and then shook his head. ‘She cannot be allowed to live.’ He opened his mouth again, to call for help, and fell before he could make a sound with the spear through his throat.

“The three fled before anybody else could come looking. Many long days they journeyed, and hardships they encountered, before they reached the tunnel through the mountain that led to the land of the dragons. Long, dark, and treacherous it was, and they emerged famished and weak on the other side.

“In those days the dragons were yet wise and noble creatures. They kept their distance from the three travelers, not allowing themselves to be seen, but made sure that game was sent in their direction, and that they stumbled upon pools of true water now and again, for although the dragons were able to drink from the golden river, this water would kill a human.

“Even so, father and mother ate little, depriving themselves in order to feed the child. They traveled by day. At night, as always, the child would vanish and they would wait for her return.

“At length a dragon was selected to speak with them—because he was smaller than the others, and white of scale and wing, it was deemed that he might appear less of a threat. But the father shook his spear and the mother hid the child behind her back to protect her.

“Allel pulled away from her mother’s hands, stepped forward, and said, ‘The White One was talking to us, Papa, and you must be polite and put away the sword.’

“‘Dear one, it was gibberish only. Take your mother and run away.’

“But Allel, utterly fearless, walked between her father and the huge creature of wings and scales and fiery breath and said, ‘I am Allel, and I have seen you in a dream.’