Heart''s Blood

  Her hands were still tied in front, her feet twisted in a thin blanket, hardly more than a worn piece of cloth. Dark must have come in while she slept this last time and placed it over her. She must have kicked it off in her sleep. However, she understood the message. He was determined to be master, doling out bits of comfort along with the bad stuff—the bound hands, the filthy mattress. Carrot, stick, she thought. Stick, carrot.

  Of course, what he didn't know was how little she needed the blanket. And how much she needed water.

  Standing, hands still bound in front, tied at the wrists, she began to walk carefully toward the window. Dark was surely sleeping now. In a soft bed with sheets and blankets. Having had a full meal. A hot bath. Possibly having gone out to look for her with Golden and the others. The next debates would be put off. Everyone would marvel at how ceaselessly Dark gave of himself. And, of course, how he blamed himself. Possibly he would tell them that an armed man had jumped them in the alley. He'd probably point to his blackened eye. Tell them how the man took the gun away from him—his useless, bulletless gun—knocking him out, stealing the girl. The live girl, not the dead one. Probably holding Golden's niece for ransom. Golden, a rich man like his name.

  Oh, he's a sly piece of lizard waste, she told herself, sure she'd figured it out. Opening the shutters, she tried to open the window, but the latch was too high up. She'd have to carry over the chair, stand on it.

  So she felt her way to the chair, found it, started to pick it up—which was the hardest thing she'd ever done, because she was now quite weak and getting disoriented. Suddenly, something that had been sitting on the chair began to slide toward her. She caught it before it crashed to the ground, but not before something spilled onto her dress.

  Water!

  She lowered the chair carefully, felt around the bowl. There were several fingers of water left. She gulped the water down, then wrung out the skirt of her dress into her mouth, not so easy to do with her wrists still bound. There wasn't enough water to ease her thirst completely, but it was certainly better than nothing. She put the bowl on the mattress and went back to the chair, lifting it carefully so that it didn't scrape on the floor.

  She got it to the window. Putting the chair down carefully, she climbed up onto it, worried all the while that the chair was going to tip over. Feeling along the glass till she came to the latch, she gave it a twist. It seemed to be painted shut. She slammed the side of her fist against it and felt something give way. This time when she tried to twist the latch, it moved a bit. She rested, tried again. Now she was able to turn it.

  She managed to crack the window open. The cold of Dark-After crept in. It sneaked along her hands and arms like a trickle of cold water. She closed the window again and put her hands on the glass. Leaning forward, she sent out a silent cry.

  "Danger," she sent.

  "Help," she sent.

  The sendings were arrows, blood-colored and pus-colored and puke-colored. Gouts of blood. Puddles and lakes and rivers of death. They went straight out into the cold streets, banging against the darkened windows of the other houses in the arc of buildings.

  Her sendings continued until she was emptied of all feeling. Then she closed the shutters, assured that she could open the window when she finally figured out how to use it to her advantage.

  She walked back to the mattress and lay down, but this time she didn't sleep.

  She was done with sleeping.

  29

  AKKI WORKED on the rope feverishly through Dark-After. Now her left hand was badly scratched in three places, though in the dark she couldn't really see the wounds. She hardly felt a thing. Pain was simply a constant, and another hurt just didn't register.

  More important, two of the strands of rope had already frayed and parted, and she could feel that the ones beneath were beginning to come apart, as well. If she could free her hands, she'd get the chair and wait by the door. When Dark came in, she'd bring the chair down on his head as hard as she could, then race down the stairs.

  Or as soon as it was light, she'd see if she could use the blanket as an extended rope, hammer one end to the windowsill, using her shoe as a hammer and all the nails she'd gathered, and go out the window.

  Or she could try using the longest nail to pick the lock of the attic room door and get out before Dark was awake.

  Or...

  Her ideas of escape were now coming so fast, she began to wonder if she had the strength to actually do any of the things she was considering. Maybe I'm actually dying in the alleyway from a hematoma of the brain. Maybe none of this is real.

  Another strand and she was almost free. Of the rope, not the room.

  As she worked, she strained to hear if anyone was on the stairs, but the house was silent.

  Too silent.

  What if he's left me here for good. No food. No water. If that was true, she had to work faster. Get out faster. Find her way back to Golden's house faster.

  She was careless again, and this time the nail dug deep into her hand. She no longer minded. Pain, she reasoned, meant she was still alive.

  A quick unraveling of the next strand and the hated rope literally fell apart. Rubbing her aching wrists, she raced to the chair, almost tripping over it in her haste. Her hands were now so stiff, she could scarcely close them around the wooden back.

  The silence stretched on and on.

  When she got to the door, she lowered the chair, then tried the door handle. Of course it was locked. Taking the nail from her pocket, she felt for the keyhole, stuck the nail in, jiggled it about.

  Something fell out the other side, landing on the floor with a sharp plunk! It sounded louder than a dragon's roar.

  The key. It had to have been the key.

  And Dark has to have heard it!

  Trembling, Akki went back to the chair, moved it closer to the door, trying to remember which way the door opened. She'd only actually seen it open once. She needed to be on the side opposite where it swung open, so she could bring the chair down on Dark's head without the door getting in the way.

  There was a whooshing noise but she couldn't figure out where it was coming from. Just in case, she lifted the chair, hoisting it above her head, heedless of her stiff hands. She tried to breathe shallowly so as not to drown out the noise with her own breath.

  Suddenly she was bombarded by a sending, so strong, so red, so full of fire, it nearly brought her to her knees.

  "Danger! Danger! Danger!"

  Now she realized what that noise had been—the flapping of wings. She returned the call, sending a jumble of red ropes, red blood on bound hands, red keys.

  "Where? Where? Where?" There was an aerial view of the city outlined in the same fiery red, the streets twisting like crimson rivers.

  "I don't know," she whispered, sending a blank back. Then revising that, she sent a cooler picture of the scene outside her window, gray outlined in blue.

  The dragon seemed puzzled, and the return sending was muzzy. "Where ... where ... where...?" The sending was now less red and more ... pink.

  Thinking that she might do better at the window, Akki put the chair down carefully, then raced across the room. Flinging the shutters open, she stood on her tiptoes, sore hands against the glass.

  "I am here," she sent, now able to focus the picture of the arc of buildings outside the window as well as send flashes of her hands, the glass, the waning cold. The outside was not all dark but a kind of soft gray, signaling that Dark-After was coming to an end. "Here!"

  No sooner had she sent that then the door was thrown open, banging against the wall. Dark entered, then kicked the chair aside.

  Akki turned, her excitement now devoured by real fear. Dark was wearing two sweaters and gloves, dressed for the cold, carrying a lantern in one hand, a gun in the other. His face was so angry, it had turned colors: red chasing gray.

  "What are you doing, you little fewmet?" He lunged toward her.

  In the lantern light, the wound that ran down from
his eye was now an unhealthy red. Probably infected, she thought with satisfaction.

  "Thinking of climbing through the window, girl? It's three floors down. And piercing-cold still. You're not dying till you tell me what I need to know."

  She trembled, considered running, but there was nowhere to run. "Food," she said. "Water." Her voice was little more than a croak. And it was a real croak; she wasn't putting it on.

  "First give me what you used to knock out the key."

  To buy time for the dragon to find her, Akki reached into her pocket and gave him the nail. She let him tie her up again, this time sitting upright in the chair, with a new rope he'd brought with him. She even smiled tremulously at him, letting him think she'd been tamed.

  When he was sure she couldn't move, couldn't slip out of her bonds, he announced he would get her food and water. "Work with me," he said, "don't fight me, and I'll take care of you." To show he meant it, he reached down and picked up the blanket, draped it over her shoulders, patted her head, carefully, to avoid the place that hurt.

  She nodded, as if she were cowed, tamed, broken. She didn't care. The dragon had heard her. Would find her. Would bring others to her. She could play along with him now. She'd already won.

  "I am here," she sent again. "I am here."

  There was no reply.

  Dark went out of the room, closing the door behind him. She heard the door lock.

  Akki wept, tears running down her cheeks and into her mouth. She sucked the salt water in. It might be all the moisture she would get.

  ***

  A FEW HOURS later, when it had begun to get warm again in the attic, Dark returned. This time he carried a bowl and a glass. Feeding her some kind of porridge with a spoon, he smiled as she ate greedily, held the glass of water to her lips so she could drink.

  Akki resisted kicking him. The way he was standing, she could just reach his knees ... or higher. But instead she carefully drank until the last of the water dribbled down her chin. After all, the dragon had found her. Surely she was soon to be saved.

  Putting the bowl and glass aside, Dark leaned casually against the window. His body was outlined by the rising sun, and for a moment it looked as if he were on fire. He stared at Akki for a long time without speaking. Finally, he said, "You see, I can be good to you. But you have to give me what I want."

  She made her voice soft, almost pleading. "What do you want?"

  "To know where your boyfriend is."

  "Boyfriend?" She opened her eyes wide, tried to look innocent.

  "You must think I'm as stupid as a flikka!" he roared, striding to the chair and looming over her. "The boy, that Jakkin, the young dragon master, the one you went with to Rokk Major. You shouted at me that he was alive, as well."

  "I lied," she said, remembering at the moment she said it how he had used the same words in the alley before ... before...

  Dark nodded. What he meant by that, she didn't know, so she continued. "Jakkin died, out in the mountains. With his dragon. You must have heard the story." She kept her voice steady.

  He glared at her. "I've heard many stories. You didn't survive in any of them."

  With a sudden burst of inspiration, she said, "I was in jail." Then she took a deep breath. "And I almost didn't survive." It was a calculated risk lying like that. But she just needed him to believe for a little while longer, until the dragon came back.

  He leaned over till they were eye-to-eye. She thought about kicking out at him, knowing she could hurt him badly, but at the last minute reality set in. Tied the way she was, even if she injured him, she wouldn't be able to get down the stairs, wouldn't escape his eventual retribution.

  He snorted. "That's the best story yet, girl."

  She became expansive, looked at him with wide-open eyes. "Golden believes I've been rehabilitated. He's going to use me in the campaign to talk about the rebellion, how it even sucked in the children of masters. 'Not in the first debate,' he said. But later. When everyone is in the palm of his hand."

  "Oh, I want to believe you," he told her, his face getting a sly look. "But you see, I would have heard if you'd been in jail. I have too many of my old boys and girls there still. The ones who weren't shipped offplanet."

  Akki had to think quickly. "Because Golden's my uncle and godfather, I was kept out of the usual jails. Hidden and put under house arrest. I swear that's true."

  He laughed quietly, smoothly. Then he turned away.

  She dared to hope. Sending out a few ribbon-slim tentacles to the dragon, she waited for a reply. But the dragon didn't answer, had been silent for far too long. Why? She closed her eyes, tried to think.

  Dark turned back and—without warning—hit her with a closed fist under the chin so hard, her neck nearly snapped.

  "Tell me what I want to know or you don't get out of here alive. And that's what I swear is true."

  Akki tried to open her mouth and explain what she'd meant, but she hadn't the breath. Instead she vomited up pain, pure pain, all over herself, and then onto the floor. Now she was ready to tell Dark the truth. Even ready to tell him all about Jakkin, if only the pain would go away. So she did the only thing she could do to stop the pain, the fear, the possibility of telling. She fell into the dark once again.

  ***

  WHEN SHE WOKE at last, tied to the chair, it was light. She had no idea if she'd slept through a full day and night or had just gone unconscious for a bit. All she did know was that she was starving, and that the dragon was truly gone.

  Dragon's Heart

  30

  THE NIGHT was growing cold as Jakkin was led out of the cave by the trogs. Two of them went before him, two behind. That was the bad news.

  The good news—if there was any—seemed to be that the trogs assumed he could go outside in the cold, just as they could. In another few hours it would be Dark-After and they'd still be outside.

  If nothing else, Jakkin mused behind his thought wall, my being able to get around in Dark-After will convince them that all Austarians can live in the bone-chill. So maybe the trogs wouldn't be eager to attack the nurseries or cities at night. Perhaps that was a small victory.

  Still, right now even a small victory is enormous.

  However, he had little time to enjoy that victory, for the trogs were already pushing him forward, along the deserted road, back the way he'd just come. After looking quickly both ways and seeing no telltale headlights, the forward two trogs raced across the paving.

  Jakkin walked more slowly. He didn't need to check for trucks. No one would be out this close to Dark-After. Loosening the stone in his thought wall again in case the trogs let fall a hint of where they were taking him, he listened carefully. "Smooth bad, bonds bad," they were saying, and then gabble, gabble, gabble. One of the trogs behind Jakkin poked him hard in the back; Jakkin picked up the pace. No need to anger them early. He had a lot to figure out.

  As they hurried to the other side of the road, Jakkin looked up and checked the stars. North. They were heading north. Toward the mountains, he presumed. He slowed his pace because he didn't dare let them take him there. Once in the trogs' caves, he might not get out again so easily.

  Easily! He snorted, remembering the long underwater swim through the cave pool. Remembering the dragons dropping down the waterfall. Remembering the heart-stopping moment when he and Akki waited to see if Auricle could figure out how to pump her wings and fly rather than be dashed on the rocks below. There'd been nothing easy about that escape.

  "Auricle!" Without meaning to, he sent a long gray tentacle back toward the nursery, or where he thought the nursery might be. Something large, sharp, brutal, sliced the tentacle, chopped it into large pieces, diced it, and then casually shattered part of his thought wall as well.

  "No send!" came the command from all four trogs, brutally loud in his head. At the same time, one of them gave him a shove from behind. He fell heavily and had to roll to escape their flailing legs. He hit his right shoulder hard. But harder still was t
he fact that they'd gotten into his head without any trouble. I'll have to shield more carefully or I'll never ... He waited to finish that thought—lying on the ground and getting his breath back—till he'd rebuilt the wall in his mind.

  Stone by stone by stone. Two layers. Three. Until he was certain it couldn't be breached.

  They yanked him to his feet, and then retied his hands in the front, to make it easier for him to move. Clearly they wanted him alive—for now.

  ***

  TRUDGING NORTH in the sand, they went on for miles before suddenly turning eastward. Soon the road was simply a long gray memory behind them.

  The trogs didn't issue another command, though, and Jakkin kept the wall high and solid inside his head, so nothing broke the awful silence. Strangely, even the usually loud and insistent insects were unaccountably still, as if the wall kept out the sound of their voices, too.

  When they stopped at last for a quick rest, the trogs untied Jakkin so he could relieve himself, though embarrassingly enough, there was always one trog to check that he didn't run away.

  As if there were somewhere to run!

  A chuckle burst in his head, little green poppings. One of the trogs had gotten through the wall again. Jakkin was forced to rebuild it once more, adding extra stones. At the same time, he watched the skies, trying to spot his brood, or even a feral dragon. If only he could call for help from someone.

  The twin moons were making their way across the blue-black sky, and now clouds had begun to obscure them. Even if a dragon did fly by, he might not see it, with all the clouds. At a guess, though, he'd say Heart's Blood's five were probably fast asleep back at the oasis, Sssargon no doubt commenting repeatedly about his dreams. He didn't dare count on them. Besides, the trogs knew how to handle dragons.

  No. If I'm to get away, I have to do it on my own.

  He sorted through his options. Even with his hands untied, he didn't dare fight the trogs. Not only were they amazingly strong, they outnumbered him four to one. And his shoulder was stiff from his fall.