Dragon Rigger Read online

  —then let us begin—

  —without fear—

  —to prepare the children far their perilous path—

  —to send them out alone—

  —if only there were a way to go with them, to protect and guide—

  —there is none—

  —we must teach them in their very conception, and then trust them—

  —there is no other way—

  And in the end, they began the process, as they had feared all along that they would, turning inward the last of their strength toward the one great task still within their power . . . the creation of the last children who could ever be spawned, the last new ifflings—until the day came, if it ever did, when their life energy could be regenerated in the dreamfires of the Mountain.

  The creation of the children was a thing of mystery, only partially under their control. The forces of space and time responded to their urgings, twisting and curling and knitting together in new and sometimes unexpected ways, piercing through the layers and boundaries that separated realm from realm, underrealm from underrealm. Only in this creation-act were the realms brought so close to one another, made so intimate, one to another. As the iffling-children took shape in that ephemeral boundary-realm, they were blessed—or burdened—by a gift of knowledge from their elders, an awareness and a terrible need impressed upon the very core of their being.

  In the final moments of creation and birth, the ifflings, in an agonizing act of will, turned their children out—dispatching them not to a place of security where they might safely grow to fullness, but rather across a fleeting opening into the static realm, into the strange cold universe where the rigger Jael lived. . . .

  * * *

  They were born like winks of light in a universe to which they were strangers, even in the deep memory of their heritage. They were five in number, dancing and twinkling in the darkness of the void. For a time there was no understanding among them: life came first, and then sight and hearing and thought, and only gradually memory and dawning consciousness, and finally an uncertain kind of understanding.

  They grew and matured, floating in the darkness, drinking the radiance of the nearby (distant!) sun. There was a cooler world close by, and in time they were drawn toward it as though toward home. There was one they must find and meet there, one to whom they must speak, though they did not yet comprehend exactly what it was they would say.

  They skated on space and time like water-skimmers over a pond. They would find their way, and deliver their message.

  Their message was crucial. Nothing must stop them, nothing living or dead.

  * * *

  * Accursed ifflings. *

  Far across the realm and the underrealm, another felt the stirrings in the space-time boundaries, felt the sudden emergence of new life in the iffling-children, felt the ripples of their breakthrough into the static realm. This one's heart and being were as closely tied to the fabric of the underrealm as the ifflings', and it knew instantly that it had just felt a shift in power, a shift that it recognized as the genesis of a profoundly important event. It felt the stirring and rippling of the iffling-births as a movement toward the long-awaited, long-dreaded fulfillment of the prophecies:

  From that one

  comes a beginning

  From that one

  comes an ending

  And most surely the realm shall tremble.

  No one knew better the Words as they had been born, ages ago, in a vision from the Dream Mountain. No one had pondered more deeply upon their truth and ambiguity.

  The one will fall

  as the battle is fought

  Upon her death

  is the ending wrought.

  No one had thought harder, with more fear or more hateful hope, upon the reappearance of the One from beyond the realm. That reappearance was to be the crisis point about which the ending, for better or worse, would turn. In no way did the Nail intend to leave the summoning and the arrival of the One in the care of iffling-children.

  * Rent! I require you! *

  There were ways to take control of a situation even when it had passed out of the realm itself. The ifflings were not the only creatures who could, at need, project their presence into the static realm.

  As dragonlings had been twisted into drahls, so could other beings be transmuted to suit the needs of the one called the Nail. It was time that the near-ifflings, the cavern sprites, be put to use in the life to which they had been born. Rent could perform the actual work, under the Nail's supervision. The sprites would be altered, strengthened, made shrewder and more cunning and ferocious. They would be reborn into a life of long journey—a journey of pursuit, and deception, and if need be, destruction. They would become false-ifflings, warriors of fire—transformed in the turbulence of the underrealm, molded by the one who would soon control not just the underrealm, but all of the realms.

  They would follow the iffling-children, and the result would be most satisfying. The demon Jael would come, yes. But not to the fulfillment of the Words as the dragons clung to them.

  The Dream Mountain would be kept safe from the dragons and the ifflings. And the realms would be his.

  * Rent, I require your assistance NOW. *

  * * *

  In the cold darkness of the void, the warriors of fire took form and grew quickly to the fullness of their strength. Led by one called Jarvorus, the strongest and shrewdest of them, the false-ifflings shone like icy diamonds in the dark as they drew their given memories from hidden places within, and searched for their direction in this strange realm into which they had been born. They sensed somehow that they were different from their forebears, that their heritage had been changed for them; they were special creations under the command of one who was never to be challenged. This was good and proper and right. It was the destiny for which they had been born.

  Casting their senses outward, they soon discovered the nearby others, the ones they were instructed to defeat. They did not move against these others yet, but observed them, biding their time. Like the iffling-children, the warriors would search for their quarry, the one about whom victory and defeat would soon dance like a spirit in a jar.

  Shadowing the unsuspecting iffling-children, they learned the skills of movement with their bodies of light, and they dreamed of the new bodies into which they might transform themselves when the need arose. Skating on space and time, they followed the iffling-children, moving toward a world that floated blue and innocent against the eternal night.

  * * *

  It was sometime during the night—he was not sure precisely when—that Windrush stirred in his sleep and felt a presence close by. He opened one eye, without lifting his mind from the dreamland of sleep.

  It came as a flame this time, and it flickered, as though in weariness. It danced with a sence of urgency that caused him to awaken enough to speak. "Iffling?" he whispered.

  Dragon. It has been done, all that we can do. She will come, or not. We can only hope, and trust. The iffling's flame dimmed, then flickered a little stronger.

  Windrush regarded the being in silence. "Will you not tell me what you have done?" he murmured finally. "Will you not tell me, so that I may hope?"

  There was an almost imperceptible sound, a mournful sound. The iffling shimmered, trying to become a soft, sleek animal; but it was unable to hold the form. As a flame, it whispered, Messengers have been sent—at great cost, dragon. If they succeed, value their work well! Much has been sacrificed that they might do so. And much will yet be sacrificed—and by none more than by your friend Jael.

  Windrush peered at the iffling, uncertain how to respond.

  Do you not know the Words? the iffling asked, sensing his uncertainty. "The One will fall as the battle is fought; upon her death is the ending wrought." Do you not know these words? The iffling dimmed with the question.

  Windrush stared at the iffling, dumb with horror. If he had heard those Words, he had long ago forgotten them. Had he called for
his friend to come to their aid, only that she might die? For an instant, as he stared at the iffling flame, he felt its spirit touch his with something like understanding, as though it were a dragon and their gazes had met. He felt in the iffling a fathomless loss, and low keening grief, and a terrible fear for its own kind. And yet, beneath all that, deep within the well of its soul, he glimpsed a ray of hope.

  If the iffling could have hope, he thought, then so too could he. The dragon drew a breath and the connection was broken. He said very softly, "For the dragons, I thank you. Go and rest, as will I. Iffling, farewell."

  Farewell, Windrush. The iffling darkened and was gone.

  Windrush stared into the emptiness of the cavern where the creature had been, and despite his words, he knew he would have no more rest this night.

  PART TWO:

  THE RIGGERS

  Prologue

  It was a memory that sparkled with life in the deeps of the mountain. The refrains rang like chimes as the draconae sang the ancient memories, keeping them strong and intact. It was a memory of days long departed, of a time before their imprisonment. Without such memories, the draconae would surely have withered and died. The crafting of the images was their only remaining defense against the Enemy's sorceries, against the darkness that sought to control this place of power; and so the draconae sang the memories ceaselessly, preserving that which was beautiful and good in the history of the realm.

  At this moment, a handful of draconae were gathered near the fire at the heart of the mountain. They sang in a soft choir:

  Suns sunk low, moons risen high,

  The joining ones spiral in a deepening sky

  Creating fronds of living pearl,

  Living glass where dreams may swirl,

  In a barren vale where life ebbed low

  Until the mountain's breath might blow . . .

  As the draconae sang, motionless except for the quivering of their wings of glass, the image formed like a perfect crystal in the air:

  Two dragons in flight—the dracona Clearsong, her wings shining of amber and sapphire and her eyes of golden flame, and her mate FlareTip, a male of pewter scales and red-tipped wings. The memory caught them over a vale of stone and parched earth, under a sky of brooding twilight. They sang and flew, surveying the vale that was soon to be transformed.

  Their flight was a dance, their song a throaty hum. Their voices floated in the wind, and the wind flowed over their wings, as they banked and soared in unison. Their eyes shone golden and crimson, and their gazes joined as they flew, not touching and yet spiraling downward as one into the vale. It was a dance of weaving, a crafting-dance upon the currents of the air, but reaching down into the underrealm, as well—a spinning of threads of power.

  Below them, the land was changing.

  Light glimmered through cracks in the rocks, a light that seemed to seep out as though a sun lay deep within the rock of the vale. It was the light of the Dream Mountain, streaming out of the underrealm. The dragons were creating, and yet not by their own power. Wielding the power of the mountain, coaxed here through the underrealm, they were weaving the threads that would nurture a new creation.

  The cracks in the rock widened and the light blossomed. It grew in richness and color as it touched the barren rocks, splintering into hues of crimson and gold and emerald and amethyst. Everywhere, it blurred the angularity of the surfaces, until shape itself slowly disappeared in the radiance. Splinters of color burst into flame here, and pulsing beads of light there. As the crafting grew, the light billowed upward until even the air overhead seemed shot through with living flame.

  The dragons blew their own fire in joyful chorus. Even in flight, they stroked at the threads of the underrealm. They spun and wove, dancing in midair, wingtip-to-wing-tip; and beneath them flowers and shrubs and lantern-trees emerged in the bathing light.

  When it was done, the light faded away as quickly as it had come.

  The dragons circled over the new garden and landed. The light was receding into the rock; but it left behind a treasure trove of living color, plantlife sparkling and blushing. Even the rock seemed alive, charged by the radiance of the underrealm.

  The two dragons furled their wings and surveyed the crafting. They found stout trees glimmering with fire-crystal, and translucent broadleafed bushes, and lantern-trees with slender arching branches tipped with the very first ruby-colored lanterns. Here were tiny spikes of lumenis, and there shrubs made of gossamer, twinkling with starlight. It was indeed a garden, truly garkkondoh, fully dragon, and alive with magic—a perfect place for their hearts to dwell, a place to bring the fledglings soon to hatch in the Dream Mountain. . . .

  And so created

  A garden of light

  A thing of life

  A gathering of stars

  Against the night . . .

  whispered the draconae choir, as the image grew still and garkkondoh, as it etched itself clear and shining in the memory of those who tended the Dream Mountain. Clear-song and FlareTip were long gone from the outer world now—their spirits lofted in death to the soulfires of the Final Dream Mountain—but their song and their creation would never be gone.

  Not as long as the draconae sang their creation and kept the memory alive. Not as long as they denied the Enemy what he most wanted: power over their hearts and minds and souls. Not as long as they remained faithful in their wielding of the Dream Mountain, whatever the cost might be, now and forever.

  Chapter 9: Tales Retold

  In the spaceport bar, the spectacle of a drunken ex-rigger proclaiming his duel with dragons was watched by a young woman seated as far from the shouting and jeering as one could be in the confines of the tavern. Jael LeBrae rose from her seat—astonished, delighted, dismayed—unable to speak, and scarcely able to breathe. Could she have just heard what she thought she'd heard?

  "—hope his dragons hold their ale better than he does—" "—think one of your dragons just peed on me—"

  She craned her neck to get a better look, but there were too many people standing between her and the speakers at the bar. At her table, the young man she'd been talking to was waving, trying to recapture her attention. She squeezed out from her seat, past two other crowded tables. Damn, she thought. She hated these crowded bars; she didn't know why she even came to them. Don't let that man get away!

  "—you okay?" she heard the young rigger shout after her.

  She glanced back. "Excuse me—I have to go!" At that moment a space opened up and she pushed her way through the crowd, determined to reach that drunken man who had just been spouting nonsense to the whole room, nonsense about a world of dragons, a world that he claimed was as real as this one.

  The bar crowd seemed to have swallowed him up. By the time she reached the spot where he'd been, he was gone, and the people were laughing and jeering about something else altogether. Only a puddle of beer where the man had fallen remained as evidence of the commotion he had created, and already a janitor was clicking and whirring its way through the crowd, coming to clean up the spill. Jael rose up on her tiptoes and looked around to try to see where he had gone. An elbow caught her in the side and she smacked it away in annoyance. "Scuse me," someone grunted irritably.

  Jael started to snap a reply, then shook off the impulse and instead asked a blue-tinted fellow whom she thought she'd seen near the storyteller, "Do you know where that guy went?"

  The blue rigger peered at her over the top of his glass. "Who?"

  "The guy who was telling the story. Just now."

  Blue took a swallow before lowering his glass. "Rangoon? They tossed him out the back door. Why?" He looked her up and down appraisingly.

  Jael stretched up on her tiptoes again, trying to see over the crowd. "Where's the back way?" she demanded, ignoring his expression. Blue hooked a thumb over his shoulder, past the end of the bar.

  Jael squeezed urgently through the crowd. She passed a doorway to a smoky hallucinogen room, then found the rear exit behind
a knotted group of bar patrons. Shoving past them, she stepped outside into the warm night air.

  The back door opened onto an alley, which was lit with a shadowy twilight glow. Jael peered left down the alley, then right. She heard someone grumbling, and thought she heard the words, "From that one comes a beginning . . ."

  Her heart raced. Where was that voice coming from?

  The voice continued, more forcefully, "From that one comes an ending. And you can bet your ass the realm will tremble!" Then the voice broke into what sounded like tears.

  At last she caught sight of a tall figure picking himself up out of the shadows close to the building. He staggered down the alley away from her. She ran after him, out onto the main street. "Wait! Hey, excuse me—!"