The Nothing: A Book of the Between (36 page)

THE SHIFT FELT different this time, all of Vivian’s human emotions and the Sorcieri magic staying with her. It was too much at first to contain it all and she began by circling high above the battlefield, getting acclimatized to so much sensory input. The dragon city was laid out in perfect geometry. Rectangular sleeping buildings, widely spaced to make room for dragons to move between them, the basins that had once been for bathing, the throne and the square wide enough for a thousand dragons. Her sharp eyes picked out Kraal, surging forward to his certain death with five dragons turning to confront him at once.

Knowing her mind was open now on the dragon channels, she did not look for Zee, or for Lyssa and Isobel, not wanting to give them away. Instead, she kept her gaze on Aidan and the three dragons fighting in front of the throne, tuning in to the frequencies. Look up, she broadcast with all of her strength. Come and get me.

The entire flight lifted their heads to search her out. One by one, dragons launched into the air. A dangerous thing, she realized too late. Distraction, yes, but aloft, they could see what should be hidden. Kalina’s magic surged, potent and demanding, and at the right angle, she was an easily visible target.

Vivian altered her course to move away, sending out taunts as she flew, keeping her mind on her own flight and the challenge issued. The first of the dragons was already upon her and she turned to meet the onslaught, drawing on her magic to guard her flanks. Images flashed into her like stills. Three dragons coming in from the west. Two more from the east. A gray dragon altering his course and circling back to the ridge where Kalina stood chanting.

Vivian feinted to avoid contact with the dragon that had charged her, moving to intersect the gray dragon before he noticed Kalina down below. But the oncoming dragon swerved in the air and set a new collision course. Another closed in on her left flank. Kalina would have to fend for herself.

ISOBEL CROUCHED BEHIND the rock as Zee had directed, clutching her head with both hands and trying not to scream with the pain. She knew Lyssa was beside her, and that she should be guarding and comforting the child, but it was all she could do to stay in place and hold on to a few shreds of sanity.

This many dragons up close was overwhelming. They were so—alive. More so than humans. Larger than life, crystal clear, as if they had an extra dimension. Their scales, in all the colors of the rainbow, reflected the sunlight in a blinding glare.

But it was the voices that were destroying her.

Her mind was fully human, and the hundreds of dragon voices all coming at her at once, were pain beyond her endurance. In Wakeworld, where she should have been beyond the hearing, the constant noise had reduced her to insanity. At best, she’d heard static. At worst, there had been a battering of sound so intense, it made her try to end her life. Often, she’d felt close to making out individual words, had tried to write down messages, but had succeeded only in jotting down garbled nonsense.

Now, with the dragons so close, the impact of their communications took on a new dimension. All of it was agony, but she couldn’t let it destroy her. Not now. She had a job to do. Breathing hard, she forced herself to lower her hands, to open her eyes, to watch what was going on around her so she would know when to act. It wouldn’t be long. She could hold out for a little bit. Squinting against a light that threatened to burn her retinas, even though she knew in reality it was a dull day, she looked for the other players in this living chess game.

Vivian had taken to the sky. Kraal was at the center of a group of dragons, swinging his club, smacking noses. They would take him in a minute. Zee was invisible, hopefully close to his target by now. And Kalina—

Her heart stopped.

The Sorcieri girl stood at the top of the cliff, partially screened by the stones. Her eyes were closed, her hands held out in front of her, palms up, a faint blue light flickering from finger to finger. And behind her stood a dragon. It was small for a dragon, gray, the color of the stone, and it moved with the stealth of a hunter. It must have flown up onto the ledge and landed at a distance, creeping up behind its prey.

To shout a warning would have been to betray their own position. And so she put her hands over Lyssa’s eyes so that the child might be spared this one pain, and watched in silent horror as the wide jaws opened, exposing rows of razor-sharp teeth. Quick as a snake it struck, the head darting forward on the long neck, the jaws clamping down. Kalina’s head and upper body vanished. Her hips and legs stood for an impossible instant, then collapsed to the ground, only to vanish a moment later into the dragon’s jaws.

The screening veil dropped and Zee became visible in the middle of the dragon throng. He was too far from the throne and Aidan. Too many dragons in the way. Vivian would be unable to help. Kalina was dead.

The distance to the Pool seemed impossibly far and was terribly exposed. But there was nothing for it. Now or never. She took Lyssa’s hand and tried to smile. “Let’s go.”

“Zee said to wait—”

“The plan just changed.”

Lyssa shook her head, small jaw set in stubborn defiance. “But Zee said—”

“Lyssa. Kalina can’t hide him now. Or us.” Isobel eyed the child. She could be carried, but if she screamed or fought, it would draw attention at once. It was Vivian’s odd penguin that decided the thing.

Poe nudged Lyssa, then took off toward the Pool. Bob lifted into the air and followed. The child looked up at Isobel for one long moment with those eyes that did not belong in a child’s face, and nodded. Then, the cub still in her arms, she took off at a run, without waiting for the lecture on keeping low and trying to hide.

Isobel followed, crouched, moving more slowly. Her joints ached, her back throbbed. Her gown was in the way and she gathered it up with one hand to free her feet. Ahead of her, Poe skirted the edge of the plain, avoiding the dragons by a margin that was far too narrow for Isobel’s taste. They seemed not to notice, their attention held elsewhere. Dragon voices hammered at her, against a background of static.

A deep, powerful voice with a ring of authority.

And then, female, cold and high.

The rest was a muddle of fear and anger and confusion.

Isobel ran with all her strength, even after her legs turned to jelly and wanted to collapse, when every breath burned like dragon fire. The penguin kept pace with her, his wings outstretched for balance.

Lyssa skidded to a stop at the edge of the Pool, hesitating for the first time. The raven, fluttering down at her feet, bobbed his head, walking back and forth on the edge. Isobel skidded to a stop beside her. What had looked like water at the bottom of the Pool was an illusion, a sheet of shining stone. At the very center lay a small puddle of foul-smelling mud.

Her heart sank and dark spots swam before her eyes. This was it, then. The last hope dashed. Even if it had been water at the bottom, there was no way of reaching it. The sides were slick and steep, too high to climb and damp and coated with moss. The bottom of the basin was stone. Jumping was out of the question; it was too far. Bones would be shattered on the bare stone.

“How do we get down?” Lyssa asked, her unearthly eyes reflecting the sky.

Isobel’s heart was doing its best to beat its way out of her chest. The voices hammered at her, the pain increasing as the volume of the voices rose. There was no hope, but since she was still alive, she would continue to try.

A wide crack ran down one side of the basin. Maybe just wide enough.

“Come here, Lyssa.” Taking the child in her arms, she braced her back on one side of the crack, pressing with her feet on the other, and lowered herself, little by little, down toward the bottom.

The dragons had seen them.

They lumbered toward the Pool on land or swooped down from the sky. She kept on moving down, ignoring the stabbing pain in her knees, her aching thighs and back. She let the voices flow through her instead of trying to shut them out, turned herself into a lightning rod for their energy.

For the first time in her life, she felt like a perfectly tuned instrument, vibrating to the perfect chord. In that moment, the voices separated into words and thoughts, all clear and comprehensible. Isobel’s heart, head, and body sang with wild exultation. She was, for once, exactly where she was meant to be.

Depositing the child safely at the bottom, she turned to see Poe sliding wildly down the crack, flapping his wings as if he could fly. She caught him before he hit the bottom and set him gently down beside Lyssa.

“Take care of her.” She turned to Lyssa. “If there is water to be found, get it. Be quick.”

And then she turned and began working her way back up to the surface. She had a thing or two to say to the dragons.

ZEE WAS ONLY halfway across the plain when the cover spell lifted. It had dimmed the world, as if all of his senses were muffled by a veil. Colors were grayed, sounds seemed farther away, smells less intense. Climbing down the cliff had been difficult because the hand- and footholds hadn’t felt solid. He’d tumbled the last ten feet, jarring his shoulder. It was all right though, his whole arm working better than it had in days because of Vivian’s healing.

He both heard and felt her launch into the air but stayed focused on slipping between the dragons to get to Aidan’s throne. And then the colors were suddenly bright, the hot stone smell of dragons sharp in his nostrils, the sounds of dragon battle overhead loud. He knew he had been exposed, that he was a visible target.

It was too soon. His stomach twisted at the thought of Lyssa and Isobel out on that plain, unveiled and surrounded by dragons, but he steeled himself. So far, the dragons hadn’t noticed that he was right beneath their feet, and he tried to keep it that way.

He kept moving, darting from one dragon to the next, using their massive legs for cover like tree trunks. A dangerous prospect, given that every leg ended in poisoned talons. Just one nick from one of those claws and he’d be burning up in a matter of hours. One burst of flame would incinerate him, close as he was. One pair of jaws could tear him apart. At the moment, their attention was divided between the air battle still going on before the throne, Vivian in the air above them, and Kraal’s mad, suicidal assault.

It couldn’t last. Zee felt the moment when the first dragon became aware of him. She was blue-green, medium-sized, lowering her head to rub against some itch on her right front knee. For the space of a heartbeat, he saw himself reflected in her great golden eye, saw the pupil constrict as she recognized him. And then he was moving, away from her, toward his goal.

Aidan’s death was in his hands.

He was driven. No matter that he had been seen. They were all going to die, Vivian included, and the one thing that would give that meaning was Aidan’s death. No time to falter, no room for hesitation or his chance was lost.

His momentum, his rage, his pain, all fueled him. Heads turned to follow him and he braced for attack. Instead, they drew back, away from his pounding feet and his bright sword. Just before him lay a clear space in front of the throne. Up until then, he had used the bodies of the dragons themselves as cover, but once he reached it, he would be fully exposed, open to attack. No other way to reach the throne, though, so he kept running.

Wind from the dragon battle over his head stirred up a dust storm, blurring his vision. He squinted against it and kept moving. In his peripheral vision he saw large bodies closing in.

He had time. Dragons were fast in the air, quick to strike, but slow-moving on the ground. He had reached the stairs to the throne. They were wide and steep, but adrenaline seemed to give his feet wings. Up the steps, onto the level, the sword already moving for the killing blow. If she was pregnant still, the blood of the child would be on his head. There was no room for regret. Hell was a price he was willing to pay.

Aidan’s face was turned upward, laughing aloud at something in the sky. Without a pause to draw a breath, to secure his aim, or have a second thought, with all of his weight and strength behind it, he drove for the space just below her rib cage. Felt the sword enter flesh and let his momentum drive it deep, twisting as it went.