Wardragon (22 page)

Chapter 15

The Belly of the Beast

D
aretor was running down a long corridor, but he could not work out if he was running from something or to something, or even if what he feared was behind him. Perhaps he had to get somewhere. But where?

Then he woke, lunging up into a sitting position, gasping for breath. His body ached as though he had been lying there for days. He wiped sweat from his eyes, and realised a man stood near his bed in the dark cell. Cell. Now it came back to him. He was a prisoner on the hell world, Golgora.

‘Who are you?’ he asked.

The man did not answer at first. Daretor got the odd impression that the man was not entirely at ease.

‘Are you Zimak?’ the man asked finally in a soft, hoarse voice.

‘That’s me,’ Daretor said, more by instinct than good judgement. He was fairly sure that they would take Zimak less seriously than Daretor.

The man produced a key and unlocked Daretor’s leg shackles, then stood back.

‘You are to follow me,’ he said in a strange monotone. ‘I will show you the way out.’

‘You’re letting me go?’

‘I will show you the way out.’

The man turned and left the cell. Better out than in, Daretor decided; if he didn’t like where the man was taking him, he could always change direction. He followed his rescuer quietly.

The man, a guard captain from the look of his uniform, led him along a circuitous route, just as Obsol had done in the mountain castle. It took them up several levels. He could tell they were moving towards the outside as he caught glimpses of the sky from barred windows.

Finally the man stopped. He handed Daretor a cold science weapon and a rod that gave out a beam of light. He pointed down a corridor.

‘At the end of this corridor you turn left. Another twenty feet will bring you to a small guard chamber. There will be three guards either there or on the guard platform outside. Use the hand weapon to stun them. When you have done that you are to stand on the exterior platform and flash the light at the jungle. You will find a knotted rope in the closet in the guard chamber. Toss the end over the ramparts. Your companions will join you.’

‘My companions?’

‘Have you understood what I have said?’

Daretor tensed, expecting trouble. ‘Yes. Are you leaving now?’

The guard captain turned on his heel and walked away. Daretor called after him, keeping his voice to an urgent whisper, but the man paid him no heed and kept going. Daretor’s mind raced. If it was a trap then it was an oddly complicated one.

It struck him now, still watching the receding back of the guard captain, that the man was behaving as though he were bewitched.

Bewitched
!

That could only mean one person as far as Daretor was concerned.
Jelindel
. She must be out there, waiting for him. But why was she to join him and not the other way around?

There was only one way to find out.

He moved carefully down the corridor, turned to the left and found the guard chamber. It was empty but he could hear the murmur of voices through a door that opened to the outside. Craning his neck he could just make out an arm and a leg. Use it to stun them, thought Daretor, looking at the weapon with incomprehension. Well, yes, I can do that.

Taking hold of the metal barrel of the weapon, Daretor burst through the door, bringing the handle of the thing down on a guard’s head like a mace. The two other guards made the mistake of trying to get their weapons functional, but while they fumbled with slides and catches, Daretor was upon them.

‘Could have given me a proper club,’ muttered Daretor, tossing the weapon aside.

In another moment the end of the knotted rope went over the side. Daretor waved the torch rod as he had been instructed, then tried to turn it off. Immersing it in the guards’ water beaker did not help. Finally he gave up and placed a helmet over it.

Looking out, he saw a squad of shadowy figures dart across a cleared space from the jungle. One by one they shinnied silently up the knotted rope, and gathered in front of him.

Jelindel exclaimed softly, then rushed forward with a soft cry on her lips and threw her arms around the man she thought to be Zimak. She gave him a more than comradely kiss. Daretor blinked in surprise, and seemed not to know how to react. Apart from her over-enthusiastic embrace of ‘Zimak’, it was wonderful to see that she was still alive, and to actually have her there in front of him. He opened his mouth … but she spoke first.

‘Zimak! Zimak! By all the gods, I’ve missed you!’

A blow to the face from the handle of the cold science weapon could not have stunned him more effectively, and he made no more than a mechanical response to her greeting. Jelindel stood back and eyed him with concern.

Daretor half-formed the word ‘Jelli’ but realised the mistake and cut it off by coughing.

‘Is something the matter?’ she asked worriedly.

‘I, er, no, I’ve just been through a lot.’ He waved at the fallen guards. ‘We’d better do something about these three.’

Jelindel nodded and formed a spell to wipe the men’s memories. She was silently pleased that the combined churning in her stomach and skin-crawling effect spells were having on her was easing – providing she used the bare minimum of energy needed to concoct the magic. Noticing Zimak’s concern, she steadied herself and quickly reintroduced Taggar. Distracted, Daretor eyed the alien with dislike. Jealousy rode him bareback. It was probably Taggar’s fault Jelindel had gotten into this mess.

‘Let’s get out of here,’ said Taggar. He knew the layout of the fortress better than any of them. Using another of the torch rods, Taggar flashed a signal into the jungle. A reply came back, then he led the way into the depths of the Wardragon’s fortress. As they moved, Jelindel explained to who she thought was Zimak what they were planning. The two who had stayed behind in the jungle would relay messages, setting up an assault on the garrison. The attack would contain an initial feint, allowing them to use the Wardragon’s own resources against him.

‘By then, with any luck, we will have seized the high ground,’ Jelindel concluded.

‘The high ground?’ asked Daretor. ‘But we are going down.’

‘No, I mean a flying vessel, like Korok had.’

‘You jest?’ said Daretor. ‘We cannot even work their torch rods.’

‘Taggar can fly one.’

‘And what will we do with this, er, flying thing?’

‘You’ll see. But tell me, what are you doing here? Where’s Daretor?’

Taggar hissed, ‘Catch up later. Right now we need silence!’

As they penetrated deeper into the fortress, Daretor watched Jelindel’s every move and gesture like a hawk watching a rabbit. Was she now more intimate towards him because she thought he was Zimak? Or was her behaviour normal? It was hard to tell. She certainly seemed more businesslike now, but that initial greeting had been a shock. He was not entirely sure why he didn’t tell her it was him, back in his own body.

Am I afraid? he wondered. What if she can’t love me in this body? Worse, what if she can? And what if she loved Zimak? What if she had been in love with this body all the time, but had forced herself to love Daretor even when he was in Zimak’s body? She had seemed especially friendly with Zimak these past few months, spending time with him, showing him odd little gestures of affection, rather than the usual contempt.

Daretor’s feelings surged back and forth like storm waves on a beach. He was a seething mess of facts, emotions, hates and jealousies, convinced one moment that it was Zimak she loved, and the complete reverse a moment later. After all, it had been
his
body she had started the affair with. Could she switch allegiance now, even though Daretor was back in his own body? He muttered a soft curse. A man could go mad with such thoughts. Better, far better, the torture of the Farvenu than this sort of agony. Daretor made up his mind. Deception was not to his liking. Time to tell her.

He started to speak, but circumstance intervened. Jelindel slipped her hand into his and squeezed it.

‘When we have time you need to tell me everything.’ She looked meaningfully at the squad about them. In a quieter voice, she added, ‘When we’re alone.’

What did she mean, ‘when we’re alone’? The words sleeted through Daretor’s mind. Alone over a quiet ale in a tavern’s noisy taproom? Alone with their trews down and their tunics up in a rented room above that same taproom?

Daretor decided to hold his tongue.

Taggar seemed to know where he was going. They met no guards and ran into no checkpoints. Perhaps no one could imagine an enemy penetrating this far into the fortress, or even gaining entry in the first place. Taggar led them down two levels towards the great hangars which were built around a massive courtyard at the centre of the fortress. Here the flying wagons could be wheeled into the open for easy launching. Taggar stopped abruptly.

‘We’re within a hundred yards of the main hall of the flying machines,’ he explained.

‘Then we need somewhere to hide till tomorrow night,’ said Jelindel. ‘I doubt even the fastest runner will have warned all the scattered tribes yet, and we’ll need as many fighters as we can get if we’re to win the day.’

Taggar said, ‘Follow me.’

He located what appeared to be a small, disused workshop off a dead-end corridor. A window looked out over a tiled rooftop. Daretor felt happier knowing that an escape route was available, if one was needed. They bedded down for the night, with Taggar taking the first watch.

Jelindel unrolled a blanket and indicated that Daretor should share it with her. Immediately, his heart jumped into his throat. What if she made some move upon him in the night? How should he react? Was it betrayal, since he wasn’t actually Zimak, but Daretor? And what about himself? He wanted to hold her and kiss her so badly that he might betray himself in his sleep.

He lay down on the mat stiffly, but immediately Jelindel cuddled up close. Was this sexual interest, or did she just want to talk to him, while keeping her voice down? Daretor could not tell, but he was very suspicious.

‘What is it with you, Zimak?’ she whispered. ‘You’ve gone all funny. Are you sure you’re all right?’

He did not know what to say, and felt ashamed and miserable. It was already too late to admit the truth. How could he explain why he had not told her that he was Daretor straight away? He cursed Zimak, and cursed the fact that he was growing more like him by the hour. Already he had deceived and lied to the woman he loved, and he could see no way out of it. Still, why was she being so familiar?

‘Zimak?’

‘I’m all right,’ he said. ‘Tired. I’m just tired.’

He turned over, then felt her cuddle up behind him. Not too closely, yet not too distant either. She moved her face close to the back of his head. ‘Aren’t you going to tell me what’s happened since I left D’loom? Is Daretor all right?’

‘Daretor is fine. He – wanted to come for you himself, but he had another mission.’

‘What mission?’

Lying thus, facing away from her, it was easier to talk. Daretor started to relate the events since her departure. In spite of concentrating as hard as he could, he began getting mixed up, saying ‘I’ when he meant Daretor and ‘he’ when he referred to Zimak. Jelindel chuckled and dug him in the ribs a couple of times, finding his confusion amusing.

‘I think you’ve been spending too much time with Daretor,’ she said, and even though she laughed at her own jibe, Daretor managed to find a second meaning in her words.

When he had finished, Jelindel brought him up to date on her own adventures.

‘The Wardragon means to subjugate all of Q’zar, to destroy magic forever,’ she concluded.

‘But surely the Wardragon uses magic? How else could its links confer the power on mortals?’ asked Daretor. He felt Jelindel shrug.

‘Taggar says it combines magic
and
cold science.’

‘Can there be such a joining?’

‘I believe there can.’

‘Well, it doesn’t matter. It must be destroyed. It’s too dangerous to exist.’

Daretor felt her head jerk slightly, as if she had cocked it at him. ‘You know, sometimes you sound just like Daretor.’