Masters & Slayers

  As the night hours passed, the forests thinned, and grass replaced the flowers. The air seemed drier, almost crackly, as if they had moved into a region that lacked regular rainfall. The river slowed again, this time with no rapids in sight.

  Adrian pushed with the pole. His hands and arms ached. After a few minutes, the river’s bottom dropped out of reach, and the raft drifted slowly along. Quiet descended, as if in concert with the loss of color in the landscape.

  He set the pole down and heaved a sigh. “I suppose you have no idea how much farther we have to travel.”

  “I don’t, but the feeling that draws me is much stronger now. We are certainly going in the right direction.”

  “I hope so. I’m getting tired.”

  “When did you last sleep, Adrian?”

  Adrian blinked. How long had it been? The mission began at nightfall, and when they finally passed through the portal it was likely past midnight. He had stayed awake ever since entering this world, working hard nearly every moment. “I think I last slept about the equivalent of a day and a half ago, but I’m not sure.”

  “Then we must sleep now.”

  “Where? On the riverbank?”

  “That should be fine.”

  “Are there any beasts in this region who might think of us as a nighttime meal?”

  “I don’t know. I never lived in this area. The dragons drove out many human-eating beasts in our region. Slaves were too valuable to lose to predators.”

  “So the predators had to go somewhere. We have no reason to believe they aren’t in this area.”

  Cassabrie laughed. “I love your logical mind, Adrian. You are again weighing risks versus goals.”

  He picked up the vines and began tying them together. “We’ll make an anchor and spend the night on the river.”

  “Will we go on shore and find a rock to use as the anchor’s weight?”

  “We might not have to.” After fashioning a long rope, he doubled it, letting the loop on one end hang loosely. As he reeled it out into the water, it sank into darkness. “I’m hoping to catch something, maybe a sunken log.”

  “Very interesting. Is this something you have done on our home planet?”

  Adrian smiled. Our home planet. Cassabrie was learning to adopt an alien world as her own. “Something like this,” he said. “Jason and I used to fish on the Elbon River. There were plenty of logs on the river bottom, so it never took long to snag one.”

  “Who is Jason?”

  “My younger brother. Frederick, my older brother, is the one who owned the hat you brought.”

  “Oh, yes. The hat. I never finished the story.”

  “Can you tell me more? I must find Frederick.”

  After a moment’s silence, she replied. “I have no more to tell. It seems that the story ended when the shadow appeared.”

  Adrian felt a pull on the line, but whatever snagged it immediately let go. It seemed that he was fishing for two catches—a log and answers from Cassabrie. “Frederick mentioned a wilderness enclave. Do you know what that means or where it is?”

  “The wilderness is a forested area that lies within the boundaries of the great wall. Some slaves have tried to escape there, but none has ever returned. The optimistic among us think they have found safe refuge and don’t want to risk coming out, while others believe that they drowned in the swamps, became food for the beasts, or died of starvation.”

  Adrian drummed his fingers on the raft. Frederick was a survivalist. If anyone could create a haven for slaves in the wilderness, he could. “If there is such an enclave, are there any rumors about its location?”

  “I am not aware of any, but I have not been in the company of the current slave population for quite some time. If runaway slaves have established a refuge recently, I would have heard about it only if the new arrivals to the Northlands had mentioned it, but none has, and I have not had a reason to ask them.”

  Adrian nodded. “Then I will have to ask the current slaves about it when I get there.”

  For the next few minutes he sat, feeling the vine’s tension and waiting for any change. The gentle lapping of water against the raft played a lullaby that eased his mind toward sleep. But he couldn’t sleep. Not yet.

  “Cassabrie, keep talking. I need to stay awake until I secure the raft.”

  “Very well.” She hummed for a moment before continuing. “I was asking about your family. Do you have sisters?”

  Adrian shook his head. “Just us three boys. My parents wanted more children, especially a girl, but Mother became ill for several months. They never said if her illness contributed to infertility, but Frederick and I guessed that was the case.”

  “Oh. No sisters. How sad.”

  “True. I think I am worse off for not having that experience.”

  “Is there any female in your life?”

  “My mother, of course, and there are a few girls in the commune. They aren’t really like sisters, though. We eat together and sometimes work together, but they aren’t as close to me as my brothers are.”

  Cassabrie hummed again, this time taking up the tune she had sung during their romp through the field of flowers. Finally, she spoke softly. “And what of Marcelle? Is she your friend or merely a fellow warrior?”

  “Marcelle is—” Something pulled on his line and held fast, stopping the raft. “Ah! I think I have it.” He tested the anchor with several strong tugs, then tied the vine’s loose ends to his ankle.

  After putting on the cloak, he lay back on the raft and looked up at the sky, nearly black to the west, dark purple toward the east, and violet within the influence of the three moons rising in an arc toward the top of the dark ceiling. Shadows veiled the shorelines, masking the widely separated trees. Any beasts prowling about likely wouldn’t notice a potential prey floating on the river. He and Cassabrie would be safe.

  “Good night, Cassabrie,” he said as he closed his eyes.

  After a few seconds of silence, she whispered, “Adrian?”

  “Yes?”

  “You were going to tell me about Marcelle.”

  “Oh, yes. Marcelle.” He stretched his arms and yawned. “What do you want to know about her?”

  “I asked you if she was your friend.” Her voice carried a hint of anxiety.

  “We were friends at one time. When we were children, we lived in the same commune and played together. She acted more like a boy than a girl, so she roughhoused with the best of us.”

  “And now?”

  “When she and her father went to live in the governor’s palace, we drifted apart. We have been rivals in battle tournaments, but our rivalry has been respectful. She is a superior swordplayer and a champion of the cause to find and free the slaves here.”

  A few seconds of silence ensued, broken by a quiet, “Oh. I see.”

  “Do I detect a question in your voice?”

  “I thought there might be something more between you. The way she looked at you made me think so.”

  “The way she looked at me?”

  “It was likely my imagination. I was just concerned that I might be violating a covenant.”

  “A covenant? What do you mean?”

  “Adrian, you and I are intimately united, sharing a body and a bed, hearts and spirits bound as one. If I were your intended, I think I would not appreciate such an arrangement with another woman.”

  Adrian yawned again. “I see what you mean, but Marcelle and I are not each other’s intended, nothing like that at all. As you said, she is a fellow warrior.”

  She sighed, and her voice settled into a contented whisper. “Then all is well. We have broken no covenants.”

  Warmth oozed across his skin and deep within, as if Cassabrie had crawled over him and nestled on his chest. He instinctively crossed his arms over his torso as if to hug her, but no one was there. Cassabrie was a wisp, a phantom, not a woman. He could no more violate the moral precepts of the Code with her than he could with a gust of wind. Yet, something
felt wrong—this intimate union, this sharing of a body, as she called it. Was this any less a union? If an intended would not approve, should he, himself, approve?

  He opened his eyes and looked again at the sky. “I meant to ask you about the moons. We have two on Major Four, but one is so small we can barely see it with the naked eye.”

  “The three always rise and ride the nightscape together. We also have a fourth, Trisarian, which sometimes rises as the others set.”

  Blinking his tired eyes again, Adrian murmured, “It looks so different, I could stare at the sky for hours.”

  “Sleep, Adrian. The moons will rise again, and our stars will be no different tomorrow night.”

  “You’re right. As usual.”

  “If you will not be disturbed, I will sing while you slumber. I need only your body’s rest, so I will stay awake and listen to the sounds of the night.”

  “Singing is fine. It might make for better dreams.” He let his eyelids fall closed. Froglike peeps rose from both riverbanks, a soft breeze brushed his ears, and the current’s gentle waves slapped against the raft’s edges.

  Soon, Cassabrie’s voice joined in as she sang a soft melody.

  The moons that cross the sky tonight

  Can tell my tale, my fatal flight;

  The end of life, the end of chains

  Allow the moon to now explain.

  Pariah, dim, the smallest moon,

  Its withered face, a pockmarked prune,

  Withstanding rocks the others hurl,

  Like insults cast at red-haired girls.

  Adrian floated with her song, sleeping now, dreaming of three moons in a line across a violet sky. Near the horizon, the least of the three shone a pale yellow light, revealing a craterous surface, as if pummeled nightly by meteors. Pariah. Sad, lonely Pariah.

  As he watched the moons glide across the apex of the sky, Cassabrie continued her song.

  Though favored by the dragon race

  For tales we tell, hypnotic grace,

  A fellow human softly stirs

  A jealous plot disguised by purrs.

  For just as moons reflect the light,

  Possessing none, they’re falsely bright,

  A traitor smiles with lips that lie

  And sends the red-haired girl to die.

  While Cassabrie’s song faded to a hum, Adrian slept on, aware of his slumber as well as his dreams. He ran across the sky, caught Pariah, and swallowed it. Its light shone through his eyes and through a small hole in his chest. A woman dressed in black stalked toward him from the horizon, a sword drawn. Soon, her identity became clear—Marcelle, an angry glare on her face. She stabbed Adrian through the hole and ripped it wide open. The light spilled out. His eyes dimmed, and his entire body deflated. Then, everything faded to black.

  TWELVE

  DREXEL lowered himself to one knee in the midst of a field of yellow flowers. Two people—Randall, Prescott’s son, and Tibalt, the madman from the dungeon—lay sleeping within his reach. Apparently, Randall survived Bristol’s attempts to kill him, and Tibalt convinced Randall to take him along.

  Rising to his feet, Drexel gave Randall a nudge with his boot. No response. Sound asleep. Obviously, Uriel’s first obstacle, the sleeping flowers, had prevented these two from proceeding, but where were Jason and Elyssa? With Adrian and Marcelle not returning from their mission, it seemed that four travelers had either perished or else succeeded in finding a portal.

  He looked to his right where a pit led deep into darkness—Uriel’s second obstacle. Could they have fallen in?

  On the far side of the pit, about an athlete’s leap away, two columns of mist swirled, human-shaped but indistinct, without face or gender—snatchers, as a few townsfolk witnesses had dubbed them. Uriel had brought them from Dracon, though his journal never explained their origins.

  “Did they fall?” Drexel asked.

  One of the shapes hissed its reply. “The boy and girl fell into the water’s rush and were swept away.”

  Drexel recalled a poem from the journal, a code the snatchers would recognize. “Another question I will ask, and you’ll submit to do this task.”

  “Very well, friend of Uriel Blackstone,” the second snatcher said. “What is this task?”

  Drexel pointed into the pit. “Go to the portal. Tell me if they survived. If they have found the portal, don’t let them open it.”

  “We can only persuade,” the snatcher replied, “but our persuasion skills are rarely thwarted.” The two snatchers stretched out into ribbons of fog and streamed into the hole.

  When they disappeared, Drexel scanned the field, empty except for flowers and the two sleeping bodies. If the plan had not gone awry, he would have had a company of soldiers at his disposal, but Orion’s lust for the Diviner’s blood had spoiled everything. Tibalt’s disappearance likely saw to that, causing Orion to worry that Elyssa would escape to the dragon world.

  Drexel looked at Tibalt, snoring peacefully under the influence of the flowers. Could he really be the son of Uriel Blackstone after all? Maybe Uriel altered his son’s birth records to hide his identity. Did Tibalt provide Jason and Elyssa with genetic material for opening the portal? His fingers were still intact. Perhaps they could use his hair somehow.

  He turned toward Mesolantrum. Now outside the boundary, he stood in a land forbidden to the citizens. With Orion on a maniacal crusade, it seemed safer here. He had sent fifty soldiers in search of Elyssa, but the fools had no idea which way she went, and in their superstitious ignorance they had stayed within the confines of the boundary, fearful of ghosts and poisonous flowers.

  Drexel laughed quietly. As well they should be. Some old wives’ tales carried more truth than myth, and finding Bristol and his search dogs torn to pieces near the border likely steered them away from proceeding in the most sensible direction. Whether Bristol had succumbed to myths or mountain bears mattered little now. Drawing a line from the palace to where his mangled body lay provided the clue Drexel needed to find the portal’s opening. Bristol had done his job.

  “Time to move on,” Drexel muttered. “I can’t wait for those hellish snatchers forever.”

  He checked his sword on one hip and a photo gun on the other, then withdrew the journal from his tunic and turned toward the back pages. The secondary entrance was supposed to be exactly a thousand paces due east of the pit. Getting there and finding it might take some time.

  After counting off the steps, he searched the ground for an embedded door, supposedly much like the entry to the dungeon. It was impossible to know if his own stride matched that of Uriel, so he would have to comb a considerable area. According to Blackstone’s notes, a hole larger than the other pit once scarred this field, allowing Magnar to fly from the underground river into the open. It must have taken Blackstone years to fill it in while keeping the cavern intact underneath.

  Pacing back and forth, he scuffed his boots, hoping to rip up turf that might have collected over the past century. Finally, a strip of grass flew loose, exposing a wooden plank. Using his sword, he cut through the grass around a small door. Then, after finding a metal ring near the middle, he jerked it open.

  A strange light emanated from below, glittering in a variety of colors. He dropped to his hands and knees and peered in as far as he could. It looked like a chamber with a wall of light on one side, and water had risen to within a few feet of the opening. According to the journal, that wall held the portal, and a flood indicated that an intruder was within, apparently trying to transport without going through the proper steps.

  Drexel looked across the field at the pit. Someone was walking around, too big to be Tibalt. Randall, maybe? Had Tibalt jumped into the pit? Perhaps Jason and Elyssa had returned and revived them, now realizing that hair wasn’t enough of a genetic key. If Tibalt really was the son of Uriel Blackstone, they needed his fingers.

  After lowering his legs into the hole, Drexel, pulling the door closed above himself, dropped in. As he swam towar
d the wall, the water level dropped rapidly, revealing a mosaic of light that sketched two roaring dragons. With every second, new details appeared, matching the description in Blackstone’s journal. Facing each other, the dragons’ outstretched forelegs reached for something, and when the level dropped far enough, their target became clear. A young male bobbed in the water, his fingers wedged in holes in the wall just above the dragons’ claws.

  Drexel, finally able to stand, grabbed the victim’s shoulders, pulled him from the wall, and laid him on the stone floor, now covered by only a few inches of water. The lights in the wall began to fade, but not before Drexel caught a glimpse of the young man’s face. It was Jason, apparently drowned.

  Drexel knelt next to Jason and listened to the underground river rushing past. Maybe Elyssa had gone alone to revive Randall and Tibalt. If so, she might be back soon. As clever as she was in nearly every discipline, perhaps she could revive Jason.

  Standing again, Drexel looked at the wall and found the holes, barely visible in the dimness. Jason had failed. Adrian and Marcelle would fail. But Drexel, head of the palace guard, would not. Soon, everyone would realize his worth. After being drummed out of the army for his lack of fighting skills, he would prove to the world that brains and courage counted for more than brawn, and such a hero deserved to rule the land.

  And if they didn’t agree? Drexel smiled. They would agree. They wouldn’t want Magnar and the other dragons to find their way back to Mesolantrum.

  He reached into his tunic and felt for the genetic keys that would fill the holes in the wall, the keys to the portal lock that Uriel had installed a hundred years ago. With or without soldiers, it was finally time to enter the dragon world and bring the Lost Ones home.