Dragon Death Part 20

"Yeah." The voice was strangely impa.s.sive, as though all emotion had been drained from it. "He's the captain of the Guard."

"Okay, buddy, go on in." The muzzle of the rifle dropped away from Lytham's face.

Other Grayfaces stood in the yard, lounged in the shadow of the palisade, kept watch from the platforms. Helwych, distressed by Dryyim's behavior and fearful of the Specter's forces, had taken refuge behind soldiers who did not show fear, who would follow any orders he gave them.

Lytham walked quickly across to the Hall and entered. Inside, Helwych was slumped in the king's chair, his staff across his knees. His wounds were long healed, but though he was young, the constant expenditure of magic demanded by the battles with the Specter gave him the appearance of an old man.

The sorcerer did not lift his head. "Dryyim ..."

Lytham stood near the door, conscious of the Gray-faces who stood to either side of the dais. "Dryyim is dead, lord."

"Ah, yes. Lytham."

Helwych still had not looked up. Lytham had the uncomfortable feeling that the sorcerer could see without actually looking. "My lord," he said, "I was in the street just now. The people are hungry."

"Indeed."

"They need food and water."

"Indeed."

A silence. A silence that lengthened. The Grayfaces stood as though carved out of granite. Helwych slumped in his chair, his hands thin and white on his staff.

Lytham mustered his courage. "Can you not-"

Helwych lifted his head. "No, hayseed," he snapped. "I cannot."

The words and the blue-black eyes that lay behind them carried the impact of a club, but Lytham steeled himself and approached, for behind Helwych's eyes lay others: gray and dull with starvation, closed in fevered illness and imminent death. "Surely, lord, there is something ..."

Helwych eyed him. "What do you expect me to do, captain? Conjure up banquets for the people? Perhaps a few thousand skins of wine." He laughed dryly. "They should be grateful that their own skins are safe."

"But they are dying! They have no food!" Lytham almost shouted the words, and the Hall was suddenly very quiet. The captain felt cold. Dryyim had died less than a week ago.

Helwych examined him out of those eyes. Void. They looked like void. "Come here, Lytham."

Unwillingly, Lytham came and stood before the sorcerer, mentally cursing that other time he had come, when, innocent and awkward, he had entered Helwych's room bearing a bowl of gruel.

"Let me make one thing perfectly clear," said Helwych softly. "I intend to win this war. I intend to win it thoroughly, without question, without doubt. The Gryylthan system of country life has gotten in the way, and therefore it has to be broken. When the war is over, I will devise new "systems. Until then, we will just have to make do."

Lytham did not have to see the sorcerer's face to read the denial in it. The people of Gryylth, maybe the land itself, was expendable. But he tried again. "The king-"

"The king has his own battles to fight," said Helwych without raising his voice. "If he is not dead already. He cannot but appreciate our efforts in Gryylth."

"But-"

"Are you fed, captain? Have you had enough to drink?"

Lytham felt a cold loathing creep up his throat and realized that he was feeling now the way that Dryyim must have felt moments before he had been struck and killed. Very carefully, he edged away from the abyss that had opened before him. "Do you have orders for me, lord?" he said.

"Keep the people within the town. Hold them here at all costs. Should they try to leave, we must a.s.sume that they have taken sides with the Specter, and we must kill them." A flicker of blue-black eyes. "Understood?"

The abyss yawned before Lytham. He resisted the urge to plunge in. "Understood, lord." He turned and started for the door, but he stopped. "The queen, my lord," he said without turning around. "How is she?"

"She plays with her dolls, captain. Like any child should."

Lytham gritted his teeth, mustered his self-control. "Does she have enough to eat, lord?"

"All she wants, captain."

Lytham strode out of the Hall, crossed the yard, and entered the barracks. It was dim and stifling inside, and the pallet upon which Relys had been chained, though it had been shoved roughly out of the way, was still dark with her blood. Lytham looked at it and turned away quickly.

At the other side of the room was Haryn, alone. The tall, thin man was sitting over a plate of meat and bread and a full cup of wine.

"Haryn?"

Haryn was not eating, and when he lifted his eyes, Lytham saw his own expression mirrored in them. "I am not fit to be a tyrant," said Haryn.

Lytham waited.

"It is the children who are the worst," Haryn went on. "They . . . they do not even ..."

"I know."

Haryn shoved the untouched plate away. "I cannot eat this. I cannot eat at all."

Lytham's stomach twisted. ' 'And what of our men?'' Men? Boys, rather. Foolish boys who had raped their rightful commander on that stained pallet over there.

Where was Relys, anyway? Dead, probably; dragged down by the hounds as she had staggered out of the barracks and into the rainy streets. Maybe she would have figured out an escape from the h.e.l.l into which Gryylth had been plunged: a woman who would chew her own hand off in order to gain her freedom was capable of anything.

Haryn was shaking his head. "Some are fools, and they eat. Most feel as do we: they take but a morsel now and again for strength.''

Lytham licked his lips. "There are others, I think, who would appreciate what morsels we do not consume."

Dropping his eyes, Haryn contemplated the full plate before him. "I am afraid, Lytham."

"And I also, my friend."

Haryn's lip trembled much as it had months ago when, a boy with the carelessness of a boy, he had bent over the still form of a dead puppy. Now it was the corpse of his land that he mourned. "Let us feed the people as we can," he said. "Let us begin quickly, before I turn coward."

Lytham nodded. "I will call our men. They will help."

"And Helwych?"

Lytham shook his head. "I am afraid that Helwych cares about nothing save Helwych."

Alouzon, Wykla, and Manda ate, packed sandwiches, cleaned up, and left. But as Alouzon locked the front door behind her, she knew that this was a permanent departure. She would never come here again. Like her old life and her old ident.i.ty, this apartment and all the memories it contained had joined the collection of the discarded, the unneeded, the preterit.

Wykla and Manda were padding down the stairs to the street: her new life, calling her away from school, Kent State, Vietnam, everything. And beyond that was the Grail, and yet another life still.

For a moment, she stood in the warm night air, her hand on the k.n.o.b. Had she wanted this? She was not sure. She was not sure that the question could even be legitimately asked.

Her lip trembled. Then: "Goodbye," she said, and she turned away.

They did not go to MacArthur Park. Instead, they drove up to Bel Air and, in the darkness that was filled with the chirping of crickets and the flutter of moth wings about street lamps, they parked in front of the ruined house and made their way across the trampled gra.s.s.

Stillness hung in the air like a dense fog. Manda and Wykla, carrying swords while still in jeans and t-s.h.i.+rts, looked oddly anachronistic. Alouzon, herself, in cut-offs and a peasant top ten years out of date, felt a little ridiculous with a murderous weapon like the Dragons word in her hand.

The rubble was a black heap against the parched dichondra. The sense of unreality about it had increased with the coming of night, but Alouzon could see no trace of the flickering light that might signal the presence of an interdimensional pa.s.sage.

"You guys feel it?" she whispered.

"We do," said Wykla. She bettered her grip on her sword. Though her face and form said California girl, her demeanor said killer. Half-crouched, she slipped cautiously along the perimeter of the ruins as she had once crept along the glowing peristyle of the Circle.

"Let's head around back," said Alouzon. "That's where Silbakor took Hel-" She caught herself. "That's where Silbakor took off."

The back of the house was dominated by the remains of the redwood deck that had been splintered beyond recognition. But here the oddness in the air increased, too, and now the main disturbance seemed to lie near the center of the ruins.

"I'm gonna take a closer look," said Alouzon. She stepped carefully over the rope barrier left by the police investigators and picked her way into the rubble.

The unreality grew. Alouzon stopped, c.o.c.ked her head, strained her ears. Was she hearing something?

"Alouzon?"

"Shhh." She leaned forward. A faint sound, like a distant high-pitched whine. And now she was seeing light-flickering light-seething just under the fallen lath and plaster, roiling as though held down by the lid of a pot. "Yeah," she said. "There's something here, and-"

Something moved beneath the ruins. The light expanded, changed color-and suddenly the wood and concrete were thrown back as a pale head the size of an automobile reared up out of the remains of the house, its eyes glowing a no-color of violet-black, its mouth opened to reveal a cavern of blankness set about by teeth the size of butcher knives.

For a split second, Alouzon and the White Worm regarded one another in surprise. Then Alouzon noticed the figure seated astride the Worm's pale back.

"f.u.c.k you, a.s.shole," she screamed, and the Dragonsword leaped and struck straight between the Worm's eyes. The blade was turned by the unnatural hide, but the Worm screamed and thrashed, and then a wing heaved out of the ruins, scattering beams, raising a powder of pulverized cement and tile.

Alouzon slashed again, and again the Worm screamed, but she knew that she was fighting a losing battle. The Worm's other wing flapped up from beneath the rubble. Beams and 2x4s went flying. Manda and Wykla were wading in, but Alouzon shook her head frantically. "Run!" she shouted "Back to the car!"

They retreated only a short distance, waiting to see that Alouzon was safe. As she turned to follow, though, she saw the Specter's grin. "And where will you run, girl?" it said. "I can find you. Who's going to stop me?"

And then Silbakor struck. Without warning, without a sound, without even a flash of unblinking eyes to betray its approach, it stooped out of the washed out sky like a hawk descending upon a partridge. Its huge wings tore the air with an audible ripping as its talons slashed the Worm's face, sheared nacreous sparks from its back, and threw the Specter to the ground.

"Run," said the Dragon. "Run quickly."

Alouzon floundered out of the ruins, cutting her arms and legs on broken gla.s.s, nearly spraining her ankle on the uncertain footing. Behind her, the Worm and the Specter were struggling out of their surprise, but Silbakor had turned quickly and plunged back at them, eyes glowing, talons ready.

Manda and Wykla piled into the VW in a clatter of swords; Alouzon vaulted the hood to the driver's side. "I thought you said Los Angeles was safe," she shouted to the Dragon.

' 'I had not foreseen it,'' came the pa.s.sionless reply. ' 'I do not prophesy.''

Alouzon got in and pulled away from the curb with a screech of rubber. "Run, sure," she muttered. "Dammit: run where?" Gunning the Beetle as much as its small engine would stand, Alouzon raced the length of Helen's street and picked up Beverly Glen, weaving through traffic and running red lights.

Horns honked. Drivers cursed as she cut them off.

"Sorry!" Alouzon shouted as she came within inches of a Cadillac's grille. But she could not keep up these flagrant violations for long, and in any case, what did it matter? The Specter and the Worm, in flight, were unaffected by such things as traffic, stop signs, streets, and turnings.

' 'We've got to get out of here,'' said Alouzon as she turned ''onto Sunset Boulevard. Quickly, she cut across the lanes and spun left onto Hilgard Avenue.

"Where?" said Manda. She was in the pa.s.senger seat again, and Wykla was in back. Both young women were white: an already frightening world had turned deadly.

"To Gryylth, I hope," Alouzon replied. UCLA lay to the west. Forcing herself to slow down, she turned onto the campus and parked next to the faculty center. Just across d.i.c.kson Court was Kinsey Hall, the archaeology office, and-maybe-a way out.

"Everyone out," she cried. "Last stop before

Gryylth." Casting a glance up at the sky as though

the Specter and the Worm might suddenly appear, she

grabbed the bag of sandwiches and fruit, seized her

sword, and ran for Kinsey Hall. Wykla and Manda

followed. *

They sprinted through the stands of eucalyptus trees that occupied d.i.c.kson Court, then crossed the street and climbed the long flight of steps up to the east door of the hall. Alouzon kept an eye out for security officers as she led Manda and Wykla along the main corridor to the north stairwell, but she saw no one, not even students.

They reached the second floor without incident. Manda grunted with recognition when she saw the door to the archaeology office. "We were here this afternoon," she said.

Alouzon approached the door. "Yeah," she said softly, laying her hand on the k.n.o.b. "And I'm hoping that this gate is open now."