The Lost Dragons of Barakhai Read online

  Collins watched Prinivere push through an overhang of vines, which seemed to swallow her massive form. Apparently, a cave lay beyond the entwined cascade of greenery. He could not help marveling at the hiding places the renegades managed to find. The last time, they had kept him in the underground burrows of the outcast skunks, the garbage men of Barakhai. Their musk had foiled the ability of the guard hounds to track them. This cave, well-camouflaged and perched amid dangerous mountain peaks, could only be accessed by strong-winged birds and the most surefooted of mountain goats. And, of course, Prinivere.

  When Collins followed his companions into the cave, he discovered an enormous, craggy room with several storage trunks, a fire pit, and a bed of straw. Prinivere, he knew, had simple tastes that defied the role-playing game image of dragons perched upon vast hordes of gold, jewels, gemstones, and magical treasures. A squirrel hunched on one of the chests, worrying a nut clutched between its forepaws. Beside it, a blue-and-gold macaw watched them, its head low and its feathers ruffled. Despite its calm demeanor, the parrot looked flamboyantly out of place, the royal cobalt feathers of its wings, tail, and back appearing dyed and the brilliant yellows of its belly just as unnatural. A patch of ivory skin surrounding the eyes and nostrils held black stripes composed of miniature feathers all leading to a wickedly curved ebony beak.

  Prinivere collapsed into the straw, clearly exhausted. Whatever magical powers the crystal Collins had stolen enhanced, it did not, apparently, increase her physical stamina. Or does it? Collins realized the ancient dragon could never have flown so far before, especially carrying several passengers on her back. She had never actually fought the king’s guards. They appeared to have succumbed to the same frantic, not wholly irrational, fear that gripped Collins whenever he encountered Prinivere. But she had managed to fly him and his companions into the mountains, a feat she could not have managed the last time Collins had come to Barakhai.

  Once again, the dragon responded to Collins’ meandering thoughts. *I can use magic to boost my energy temporarily, but the spell runs its course.*

  Collins appreciated the knowledge; though the realization that she could read his every intention made him feel creepy and a bit violated. At least, she trusts me, which suggests I really am the good person I try to be. No wonder Zylas puts such implicit faith in her judgment. Suddenly understanding Prinivere must have received that thought, too, Collins felt his cheeks warm. He tried to redirect his mind, which only made him more self-conscious.

  Zylas clambered up the side of the trunk to the squirrel and parrot. He addressed them at a volume that did not allow Collins to overhear.

  Korfius ran around the cave, snuffling at every corner.

  Falima assumed the job of hostess. “Ben, this is Aisa.” She gestured at the macaw, who bobbed her head. She raised her left claw, opening and closing it intermittently. “Hello, Ben,” she squawked.

  Collins had seen a scarlet macaw at a local fair perform the same welcoming wave. He cleared his throat, this time avoiding the natural urge to use his “baby talk” voice. Though the parrot’s greeting had seemed childlike, she might have the present mentality of a bird, a grown woman, or anywhere in between. “Hello, Aisa.”

  Falima finished, “And this is Ijidan.” She indicated the squirrel. “The caretaker of this cave.”

  Ijidan flicked his bushy tail and stopped eating.

  Zylas scurried up Collins’ pants, then his shirt, to settle on his shoulder. “Aisa has decent overlap and the rare ability to speak our human tongue in switch form.”

  Collins nodded. The development of overlap, he knew, had to do with the amount of time spent as an animal, some natural talent, and practice. He had no means to gauge Aisa’s bird age, but he guessed she would prove to be mature when she took her woman shape. It made sense that a parrot might have a propensity for remembering things between forms, given that they seemed highly intelligent. He had watched a television special in which African grays verbally identified objects, placed shapes into their proper holes, and sorted toys by size and color.

  “She’s one of our few Regulars,” Zylas continued, using a term Collins remembered from his last visit to Barakhai. It meant her parents were also macaws, having bred in either human or animal form. If parents who assumed different creature forms created offspring in human form, their progeny would take the animal form of the mother for the first thirteen years, then become something ostensibly random. “Both her parents were Randoms, though, lucky enough to find one another and commiserate.”

  Apparently, Falima overheard Zylas. “Made a lot easier by the fact that they were cousins.”

  That made sense to biology-trained Collins. At least some of the propensity of Randoms to assume a certain animal form seemed to have a classical multifactorial inheritance pattern, as evidenced by Zylas and his late wife, both distant descendants of Prinivere, producing a daughter who became a dragon.

  Zylas continued as if Falima had not interrupted. “The big advantage being that she’s not registered.”

  Collins’ brows beetled as he considered Zylas’ words. “Registered?”

  “Registered,” Zylas said again, as if simple repetition could work as explanation. “As a Random.”

  Collins still did not understand.

  Falima took over. “Remember how we told you the king’s men attend all coming-of-age ceremonies?”

  Collins nodded, deliberately avoiding Zylas’ stare. When the rat’s daughter had turned thirteen, revealing her new animal form, royal soldiers had taken her and killed the mother who tried to stop them.

  “And that it’s because the law states that obligate carnivores must be summarily executed.”

  Collins could not forget. “The king said that, before the law, those carnivores murdered an average of six people before they got caught.” He waited for his companions to correct him, to expose the king as an evil liar.

  Falima only shrugged. “That may be true.”

  Zylas fidgeted on Collins’ shoulder.

  Collins tried to shift the focus of the discussion a bit. “Last I knew, the king had issued a ban on all Random breedings.” He turned his gaze to Aisa, who remained quietly perched, listening to the conversation but adding nothing. He wondered just how much she understood. The squirrel flitted around and up the box at lightning speed, nails skittering, objects shifting and slapping back into place as he moved.

  Falima confirmed, “That law just went into effect. The royals gave it enough time to assure that all the women already pregnant with Random offspring could safely and legally bear their children.”

  It surprised and irritated Collins that the king chose to mitigate his new law with reason and apparent kindness. Collins wanted to hate King Terrin, to see him as a consummate villain as unequivocally evil as Cinderella’s stepmother or Osama bin Laden. But, in all his dealings with Barakhai’s king, Collins had found the man likable and logical. He only disagreed with two of the king’s decisions. The first was choosing to execute innocent children barely into their teens even before they committed any crime because of the misfortune of transforming into a meat eater. The second was the king’s decree against Random unions, which seemed little more than genocide through breeding. According to Zylas and Falima, the royal family planned to do away with “undesirable” animals, such as vermin, snakes, and certain types of carnivores, all of which were already forbidden, by previous laws, from Regular breeding.

  “Anyway,” Zylas said, returning to the original point. “At coming-of-age, Randoms are registered in a large book. It all looks rather special and important to the child and families, but it’s just an elaborate way for the royals to keep track of us.”

  Without warning, Ijidan made a flying leap from the box to Collins’ chest. The squirrel scampered to Collins’ unoccupied shoulder, then along his left arm, leaving a line of pale scratches with each skittish movement.

  “What the hell?” Collins finally managed, watching the animal scamper over his clothin
g and flesh indiscriminately. When Ijidan held still long enough, he ran a hand along the soft, grizzled fur. “Does he have to do that?”

  Aisa let out a loud squawk. “Just checking you over.”

  Collins jumped at the sound, heart pounding, and the sudden movement sent the squirrel scurrying over him for another pass. This time, the animal sprang back to the box when it finished.

  Collins found himself missing Ialin, their previous companion, a hummingbird/man who had despised him. At least, Ialin’s actions had seemed comprehensible, after a time, and his noises weren’t ear shattering. “Where’s Ialin?”

  Falima’s gaze followed Ijidan, and she smiled, apparently reading the barb beneath Collins’ otherwise innocent question. “He’s spying. Didn’t think you’d care if you saw him again.”

  Collins made a wave of dismissal. In truth, he did not care, though he still thought the tiny man’s mature quietness would trump anything Aisa or Ijidan had to offer. What am I doing? This is insane. He thought about the greeting the king’s men had given them. Now they knew Collins had returned to Barakhai, and they knew about the dragon. Even with the crystal, Prinivere’s magic was severely limited by her advanced age. The shabby band of renegades had lost their one other advantage: surprise. The king, on the other hand, still had money, power, an army of trained and armed guards, and Carrie Quinton.

  Collins pictured the woman, a genetics postgraduate who had originally come from his own world and now served as an adviser to King Terrin. Once, Collins had slept with her, and he found himself easily picturing the smooth curves, her cascade of naturally golden hair, her long legs and large firm breasts. She had the face of a model. Had, he reminded himself, wincing. When he had stolen the crystal she wore as a necklace, inadvertently cutting her neck with it, she had turned on him. To escape the swords of the guards, he had thrust a torch into her face. His last glimpse of her was with her hair aflame, her screams echoing through the stairwell.

  Collins shook off the memory. He had also burned the king’s brother, and he knew he would die, and die horribly, if the royals caught him. This isn’t a game; home or in Barakhai, dead is forever. We escaped once by the grace of a dragon. Next time, it may not go so well. He glanced at Prinivere, who lay still with her head on her forelegs, eyes closed. Exhaustion weighed heavily on her, but Collins had to test Zylas’ promise. “I want to go home. Now.”

  Falima looked stricken. Zylas said nothing, but he rubbed his thin, pink ears with a paw. Prinivere opened one enormous, green eye and rolled her attention to Zylas, still perched on Collins’ shoulder.

  Driven by his need to know exactly where he stood, Collins demanded, “I want to go home right now.”

  “Please . . .” Falima started, stayed by a tired wave of the dragon’s claw.

  *Come,* Prinivere sent to Collins. *I will send you back.*

  Certain his companions would use the dragon’s fatigue as an excuse to delay his return, Collins stammered out, “Y—you will?”

  The dragon’s expression did not waver, but she did open her other eye. *Of course, I will. I would not ignore Zylas’ promises. Such a thing would dishonor us both.*

  Collins glided toward the dragon, shaking. Though he knew she was old, feeble, and had no intention of harming him, he still suffered from a deep instinctive fear.

  Prinivere continued as he approached, *Last time, we brought you here under false pretenses and kept you with trickery. If you choose to help us this time, it must be of your own free will, because of the goodness in your own heart.*

  Collins cringed. Her final pronouncement, though delivered without emotion, cut deeply. He liked his Barakhain friends, agreed with their mission, and wanted them to accomplish their worthy goal. He also knew that they needed him in order to succeed. Sighing, he lowered his head. They’re risking their lives for their own futures and those of their children. What do I have to gain from this? It was a bitterly selfish question. If I could save the lives of thousands of children in my own world by sacrificing myself, I would do it. Why are the children of Barakhai worth less? Though he saw the flaw in his own question, Collins still paused. Because it’s not a sure thing. I could die, and the Barakhains could still keep their curse, their king, and all that goes with them.

  Suddenly remembering that Prinivere received all of his thoughts, Collins looked at her fiercely. She lay in place, expression impassive, eyes nonjudgmental. It was a quandary he had to face alone, but he wished someone would say something to sway him either way.

  Finally, Prinivere did. *Wouldn’t you like to stay until Korfius changes? So you can talk to him, I mean?*

  It was as good an excuse as any to put off a difficult decision. Collins glanced around for his dog, finding him lying on the floor near the mouth of the cave chewing on a dangling vine. “Good idea,” he said. Thinking back, he knew that Zylas became a man at noon, Korfius a boy two hours later, then Prinivere became a woman about an hour after that. When he had set his watch by Zylas’ switch time, Korfius changed at 2:00 P.M. and Prinivere at 3:00 P.M. Because they were Regulars, Korfius and Prinivere spent less time in human form than the others, who split their time exactly half and half.

  “In the meantime,” Falima suggested carefully, rolling her gaze from Prinivere to Zylas to Collins as if waiting for one of them to silence her again, “maybe we could explain why we brought you. Then you can make an informed decision.”

  That sounded like a good idea to Collins. He nodded. “All right.” He crossed the cave to sit on one of the chests not already occupied by a parrot or squirrel. “Go.”

  Zylas jumped from Collins’ shoulder to the wood, displaying none of Ijidan’s grace. “The lady—” he gave a nod toward the dragon to acknowledge her “—warned us that she would probably not prove strong enough to work the crystal to its full potential.”

  *Remember, it took two healthy young males to place the curse.*

  Collins remembered. The half-dragon twins of an ancient princess, embittered by their lot, had cursed all but select members of the royal family to spend part of their lives in animal form. Or, in the case of the dragons, in human form. In revenge, the dragons had slain the boys, only to find themselves hunted to extinction. Only Prinivere remained, still bearing the scars of wounds the hunters had believed mortal and the missing tail that had won them their bounty.

  *The crystal is powerful, but my magic and vigor have dwindled too far. Zylas tells me there are two other dragons. Young ones.* Prinivere’s sending contained a desperate hopefulness directed at Collins. He had told Zylas about the dragons, having learned of their existence from Carrie Quinton. One was surely Zylas’ daughter. The other was a Random claimed by the king, as was his right, for execution as a dangerous carnivore. Apparently, it was male, as Quinton had talked excitedly of breeding them.

  Collins shrugged. “I didn’t see them with my own eyes, but I believe the person who told me about them.”

  “Carriequinton,” Zylas supplied.

  Falima shifted restlessly from foot to foot, then dug at the cave floor with a heel. At length, she looked up and, noticing all eyes upon her, added, “She doesn’t care much for you, Ben.”

  Collins pursed his lips. “Not surprising.” He dodged Falima’s gaze, hoping she did not know he had slept with Quinton. At the time, it had seemed natural, given how much they had in common and how he planned to get them both permanently back to their world having lived an intense experience that no one seemed likely to believe. “How badly did I hurt her?”

  “Her face,” Zylas squeaked, hiding his whiskery nose behind a paw. “Let’s just say she’s not beautiful any more.”

  Falima added, “It’s a woman thing, but I think you hurt her heart, too. And not just from the pain of losing her looks. She seems to think you . . . betrayed her.”

  Collins sucked his lips all the way into his mouth. Quinton had grown up in a series of foster homes, bitter about a drug-addicted mother, which seemed to have warped her sense of emotional att
achment. After just one time in bed, she had imagined an entire life for them together. “She really hates me.”

  No one denied or confirmed the words, the ultimate affirmation.

  Aisa squawked, and Collins jumped, wondering if he could ever get used to her doing that. Not that I need to, but the others do.

  Zylas seized on the interruption. “In any case, we’ve searched the whole world for those dragons, without success. There seems to be only one place left to look.” He lifted his head to Collins, who figured it out with ease.

  “The royal quarters.” It made sense that, if they needed Collins again, it would be to enter the areas of the kingdom warded against switchers.

  “Right,” Aisa corroborated in her parrot voice, apparently following at least part of the conversation.

  Collins doubted the king would keep dragons in his bedchambers. “Maybe there aren’t any dragons. Maybe Carrie gave me wrong information.”

  Falima perched delicately on the opposite edge of the chest. “No. There are dragons. We started searching as soon as you told us about them and, early on, found some dragon signs deep in the castle dungeons.”

  “We?” Collins pressed.

  “Spies,” Zylas detailed. “Including myself. I definitely smelled my daughter’s scent, though none of us ever saw her. The king must have moved them soon after our raid, and no one managed to follow their trail, now long cold. It’s almost as if—she disappeared.” Mist covered his beady eyes, and Collins read pain there. Zylas would not beg or deceive this time. He clearly had taken Collins’ anger to heart and trusted Collins’ previous claim that, if he had only known the facts, he still would have helped and would have proved better at it.

  Such consideration seemed worth rewarding. It pleased Collins that someone had listened so intently to his words and followed them to the letter. Zylas is a real friend. He wondered if he had ever truly known another. The rat/man clearly had practice at treating others well, never leading from the rear but placing himself in the same, or worse, danger as his followers. “So,” Collins said, “all I have to do is look through the royal bedchambers again.”