The ring of five dragons, p.12
The Ring of Five Dragons, page 12
part #1 of The Pearl Series
“Begin at the moment you left my chambers.”
He knew that she had deliberately misunderstood him, and he was curiously grateful for that. He spoke at the same moment the scalpel penetrated her skin. She sucked in her breath, the blood commenced to flow.
“Deeper,” she said, gritting her teeth. “You must get underneath it.”
She put her back against the wall, spread her legs and braced herself, but as Annon held her left hand in his, as he continued to carve into her while he told her everything that had occurred since he had left her, he felt a kind of lassitude flow through her like a current of syrup, slowing her pulse, her heartbeat, even, if he could believe his senses, the very flow of her blood.
When he came to the part about the feeling that had come over him on the spiral stairwell, her glassy-eyed stare fixed on him, and she said in a strangely deep voice: “How are you doing?”
“Okay, I think.”
“Are you underneath the okuuut?”
“Yes.” Her blood dripped slowly between her spread fingers, ran down the side of his hand, dripped off his wrist.
“You will feel three threads, like wires,” she said after a moment. “You must find the thinnest one and sever it. You must sever it first.” Her voice seemed weird, slurred, but he dared not look up, break his concentration. He felt divided. He wanted to work as fast as he could to spare her more pain but he was afraid he would make a mistake, cut a nerve or artery, damage her permanently. For an instant, he was as aware as she was of every clever instrument of torture that surrounded them. Then, he set his fear aside and concentrated on recounting his story.
“The gyreagle talon pulsed inside you?” she said.
“Yes. It was as if it was drawing me down here to the caverns.”
“And then the Door to the Storehouse opened?”
“Yes. And I saw the creature.”
“Tell me. What did it look like?”
When he told her, she began to shake. “Do you remember its color?”
“It was the purest sea-green.”
“The Dragon Seelin.” Her voice was a hushed whisper. “No one living has seen a Sacred Dragon—“
“I did see it.”
“I might have thought you were hallucinating,” she breathed, “but only a Sacred Dragon could have removed the gyreagle talon and healed you like that.”
“And when I woke up I found a book beside me.”
“What kind of book?”
“An old book with worn leather covers. It is Kundalan, I think. I will show you when I am finished.”
He could feel the three snakelike threads. It was difficult with all the blood and her own ganglia nearby to tell one from the other. The thinnest, she had said. Sever the thinnest first. Suddenly chilled, he hesitated.
“Go on,” she said softly. “You can do it, Annon. I know it.”
He licked his lips, looking very much like his father. “Giyan, tell me about the Dragons.”
Giyan closed her eyes, whether out of pain or concentration he could not say. “The Five Sacred Dragons created Kundala and all the heavens around it. The Ramahan claim they are Müna’s children, just like the Hagoshrin, guardians of The Pearl. What is the reality of it? I simply do not know. I doubt that even the konara, the senior priestesses who make up the Dea Cretan, the Ramahan High Council, could tell us.”
One-two-three. He thought he had found the right thread. At least, it seemed the thinnest.
“I have found it.”
“What are you waiting for, then? Cut it.”
He moved the blade a millimeter.
Her breathing slowed. “Don’t… Try not to damage the okuuut,” she said. “With luck, it will continue to transmit for a time after you have severed it and we can mislead Stogggul’s cadre as to our whereabouts.”
He nodded and began. With her free hand, she wiped away the sweat running down his face. He could feel the hardness of the Gyrgon-made thread against the edge of the blade and he summoned his courage and strength, all at once shoving it forward, severing it.
Giyan gave a little gasp. Her head came down onto her chest, her sifeyn hiding her expression. “Thank you,” she whispered.
He worked quickly now, moving the tip in a semicircle, lifting the thing out of her. While she dug out her herbs, he peered at the okuuut. It was filmed in blood, and he used his thumb to clean it off. He turned it over, saw the raw roots of the severed wires.
“It’s dead,” he said. “The moment I cut the ganglia it shut down.”
“Bad luck,” she said as she packed the wound with the herbs, wrapped it in part of the bandage she was going to use to bind his wounds. “There are times when misdirection has its merits.”
“How are you?” he asked.
She looked at him. Her eyes were losing their glassy appearance. “I will be fine, Annon.”
He stood, handed her the bolt, wiped the scalpel on his trouser leg. He almost let go of it, then thought better of it.
“Now, show me the book,” she said.
Was it his imagination, or was she looking at him with an odd expression? He pulled out the small book from inside the waistband of his trousers and handed it to her. Her hands were shaking as she opened it.
“It is Kundalan, isn’t it?” he said. “But the writing—You taught me to read Kundalan, but I can’t read this.”
“It is written in the Old Tongue.” She was flushed and breathless. She held it out, but he shook his head.
“It is Kundalan. You should have it.”
Her eyes were shining as she pressed the book into his hands. “It was given to you for a reason, Annon. Hide it, keep it safe, and under no circumstances are you to tell anyone about it. Understand?”
He nodded, wondering what had just happened. She was looking at him as if she had never seen him before.
He cleared his throat. “We had better be on our way,” he said.
Kurgan Stogggul stood on the inner balcony of the regent’s suite. The doors had been thrown open, and the curtains blew and billowed like clouds in the still night air. One of Kundala’s moons had recently risen. Half its pocked face was visible, like the bones of a very old woman. It hung above the regent’s chamber like a lamp about to be extinguished, striking with its cool reflected light the familiar features of Eleusis Ashera. His eyes, already filmed over, were wide and staring as if to make an eternal comment on his untimely death. Kurgan watched sourly as his father held aloft the trophy Kinnnus Morcha had secured for him.
The two of them had been fighting like children. From what he could gather, his father had instructed the Line-General to keep Eleusis Ash-era alive long enough to torture him for the secret to the salamuuun trade, but events had gotten out of hand, according to Morcha, and he had had no choice but to kill the regent. Well, at least his father had a trophy for his bedside, Kurgan thought. In any case, it was his opinion that Eleusis Ashera would never have revealed his secrets in the limited amount of time the Line-General had to work on him. In order for the coup to succeed, his father had to announce by morning that all the Ashera were dead. Not that anyone was interested in his opinion, Kurgan knew. To N’Luuura with them all!!
“The palace is secure. Victory is ours.” Kinnnus Morcha proclaimed. “How long have I waited for this moment.” The Prime Factor’s voice was hoarse from shouting. “Ever since the Gyrgon unjustly ruled against my father, ever since they installed the Ashera as regents? Oh no, longer than that. All my life, it seems I stood in Eleusis Ashera’s shadow, all my accomplishments hollow next to the accursed Ashera.” He held high the prize of Eleusis Ashera’s severed head. “And now at the brink of my finest moment, I must content myself with this.” He tapped the temple of his nemesis. “Everything that was in there—all the precious secrets—gone with one thrust of an ion sword.”
“Be jubilant” Kinnnus Morcha cried. “Do not allow anything to deny you this moment for, at last, your time is finally come”
“You are right, my friend” Wennn Stogggul spat into Eleusis Ashera’s face. “This night I have almost everything I desire.”
“And I have no doubt that soon you will have it all.”
The two of them toasted each other with fire-grade numaaadis from the regent’s cellar.
“No more of that vile cloudy rakkis!” Kinnnus Morcha shouted, wiping his lips, only to down another glass of the strong V’ornn liquor.
Victory, yes, Kurgan thought. For them. But what about me?
“Line-General,” the giddy Stogggul said, “when will your Khagggun bring me the head of Annon Ashera?” He lifted his bloody trophy high. “If heads are to be my prizes this night, I would have a matched set”
“That depends,” Kinnnus Morcha said. “If you contact the Gyrgon, they can track him instantly by his okummmon.”
“You are my tracker, Line-General.” Stogggul bit down hard on his contempt. The Lesser Castes knew so little about the Gyrgon. If he contacted them now, they would find Annon Ashera, all right. And doubtless place him on the regent’s throne by right of succession. This was an outcome to be avoided at all costs. No, no. He had planned it well. He would go to the Gyrgon in a position of strength, not as a petitioner on his knees.
“And find him I will, make no mistake,” Kinnnus Morcha said. “He is still within the palace walls. I myself saw him enter with the Kundalan skcettta. Trust me, he will not escape us. There is no one to give him aid; by night’s end we will have executed them all” The two men laughed like chü-foxes at the rising of the moons.
Annon came in with Ciyan, Kurgan thought, observing them, cloaked by night and shadows. If he escapes, it will be with her connivance. She knows every secret nook and cranny of this accursed place.
He looked over the side of the balcony, grabbed hold of a sturdy vine from one of the oldest of the star-rose plants, shinnied down into the garden. He went swiftly along the loggia to where one of his father’s Khagggun was manning the west-ring guard post.
He planted himself in front of the Khagggun, and in his most authoritative voice said: “My father needs a Tracker. Now.”
The Khagggun looked at him, nodded distractedly, and handed over a metallic oval. “Mind it’s returned to me. Those things are expensive.” He raised his voice as Kurgan took off at a trot. “It will be my salary docked if you lose it!”
Kurgan thumbed on the Tracker as he went, dialed up the directory.
This showed him the names of all Kundalan with okuuut registered within the palace’s purview. It took him but a moment to scroll through the list. He highlighted Giyan’s name, pressed a red button. The Tracker beeped three times as the screen cleared. He saw the word: TRACKING and then: FOUND. He watched, while the letters and symbols scrolled in a spiral over the screen.
They’re in the subterranean caverns, he said to himself. Very close to the northern perimeter. What can they be up to? What does the Kundalan female know that I don’t? In this case, plenty, he told himself.
Neither his father nor the Line-General would consider that the Kundalan skcettta might harbor maternal instincts toward her charge. An animal feeling protective toward a V’ornn? Unthinkable. Adults, he thought. Slow as a hindemuth and twice as stupid.
He raced through the labyrinthine corridors and chambers. He was almost at the north end of the ring when the signal blipped off. He paused, as much to catch his breath as to see what had happened. The diagnostic tab showed him the Tracker was working perfectly. Something had terminated the signal. That could only happen if Giyan was dead. He could only deduce that Annon was alone and doubtless frightened out of his wits. Kurgan imagined what he would feel like if his father was dead, if he saw his bloody head being held aloft.
He saw the north-ring guard post up ahead and slowed down before he was spotted by the Haaar-kyut manning it. He took deep breaths to get his wind back and passed by the idiot Khagggun in his father’s pay. They weren’t any brighter than Morcha’s unit. He was smarter than all of them put together.
Laughing to himself, he sauntered out of the north gates. He paused to look around. More Khagggun were arrayed around the palace as if awaiting a major revolt—by what, he snickered, a herd of maddened cthauros? He threaded his way through the Khagggun. All of them knew Kurgan Stogggul, the Prime Factor’s son. Prime Factor, soon to be regent.
Beyond the military perimeter, Axis Tyr lay in unnatural, enforced darkness. There was an air about the place of a military campaign, the acrid edge of brawny muscle, leveled weapons, and ominous threat. Here and there, tucked into far-distant corners of the city, fusion lamps still burned. But here, shadows bundled in the street, piled themselves in doorways, stretched forth their elastic fingers to embrace walls, windows, shopfronts, cthauros pens, and those few passersby drawn by the Khagggun’s inevitable clamor.
Kurgan stopped to visually reconnoiter. This was a trick the Old V’ornn had taught him when he had taken him hunting. Don’t look and walk, he had said. Stand still and let your eyes pick out the likely spots for game.
Now Kurgan looked from sector to sector in an arc radiating out from the looming north face of the regent’s palace. Where would I put an exit, he asked himself, if I had built that subterranean cavern?
Running from right to left, he saw a row of artisan’s ateliers—Bashkir-run businesses where Tuskugggun past childbearing age plied their trades. He took them in quickly and superficially and went on. He recognized one of the city’s four cthauros pens, from which V’ornn could ride into the countryside; a marble fountain, one of hundreds throughout Axis Tyr; more shopfronts—the northern edge of the market district, to be exact. Nothing out of the ordinary, little that seemed suitable, unless…
His eyes swung back to the row of ateliers. Many of the Tuskugggun needed kilns, deep pools of running water and the like, so they had appropriated these buildings from displaced Kundalan artisans because in most instances what they needed was already in place Their equipment required basements, foundations, water pipes, filtration systems—in short, extensive subterranean work spaces that might easily have been joined up in the past to secret passageways and hidden doors.
Having made his decision, Kurgan trotted off toward the ateliers. Every so often, he checked the Tracker, but it showed nothing. On Grey Weave Street, he clung to the shadows of the buildings, trying each door in turn. All were locked. Turning the corner onto Blank Lane, he discovered a narrow alleyway the Tuskugggun used to lay in supplies and set out huge barrels of castoffs and remnants. The alley was deserted and ill lighted. Kurgan walked its length, now and again peering in back windows, seeing little but his own ghostly reflection. When he reached the south end of the alley, he chose a spot behind a barrel reeking of dye-lot salts and hunkered down.
As it happened, he did not have long to wait. He heard a noise first, and peered around the side of the barrel. He saw Annon emerging from an underground cistern. Kurgan was about to call out to him when he saw him turn, bend, and extend his arm. He hauled upward, and out of the cistern popped a Tuskugggun. Kurgan held his breath. What was this? He wondered. Then the Tuskugggun turned so that her face was briefly toward him. He sucked in his breath. The Kundalan skcettta! Kurgan was stunned. With her okuuut inoperative, she should have been dead. Then he saw why Annon had been helping her: a bandage was wound tightly around her left palm. She had surgically removed the okuuut! Kurgan had never heard of such a thing happening; up until that moment he had not known it was possible. But he was someone who rejoiced in the new and unexpected, and now he held his position; stilled his voice. He watched and waited.
When Giyan pointed north, he followed them to the cthauros pens. He watched, wide-eyed, as the Kundalan skcettta went over the fence and walked into a knot of the animals. He himself put no faith in the consistency of behavior of any Kindalini animal and now he was astonished to see how these sestapeds stamped the ground, bent their long necks so that she could scratch their heads. She beckoned to Annon, who nimbly vaulted over the fence. When she had put him on a cthauros she had chosen, she grabbed another by its thick neck hair and swung herself astride its broad back. It lifted its head and rose on its four hind legs. Then she slapped Annon’s mount, dug her heels into her own, and the two cthauros charged the north fence of the pen, soared over the highest rail, landed on the street, and, with sparks flying, took off in the direction of the North Gate.
When Kurgan returned to the regent’s suite in the palace he found his father sitting in a chair with his booted feet propped up on _. desk. Eleusis Ashera’s personal silicon wafers were strewn across the floor, caught in the edges of carpets, flapping like the wings of wounded birds from the louvers in the fusion lamps. Wennn Stogggul held an empty bottle of fire-grade numaaadis in one hand and Annon’s birth-caul in the other. They swung in time to his singing, and what he was singing was something about starlight. He was singing this idiotic little ditty to a ragged line of disembodied heads which sat atop the desk, while periodically flinging wet kisses at them. Kurgan recognized them all: the heads of the former regent, his three daughters, their two small sons and one daughter.
“Ah, there you are,” Wennn Stogggul said, barely missing a refrain. “Hiding in the shadows, eh?”
“No, I—“
“Well, who can blame you?” Wennn Stogggul’s face grew violet with the gathering of blood. “I should murder you along with all your friends in the Ashera Dynasty.”
“That is an unfair accusat—“
“Who said life is fair? Has it been fair to me? The difference is, I don’t whine about it.” Stogggul’s eyes were half-glazed, and there was a nasty expression on his face. “I don’t suck up to the Ashera the way you have with Annon just to be in his reflected glory. Disgusting be- havior. Now see where it has gotten you.” He laughed drunkenly. “Fool that you are, you chose the wrong side!” His laughter rose to an ear-splitting level. “Perhaps I should punish you! Yes, that is what I shall do!”
“You are always punishing me.”
“And why should I not? My father did the same to me. Punishment is the quickest way to learn.”
