Earth's Requiem(46)

Did the Old Ones have gods? Was that what this was? Something even older than them?



Without warning, the talons casing her body moved to her head. As they traveled down her cheeks, she felt searing heat on one side, followed by intense cold. Then nothing. The dragon pulled its foreleg back. Blood dripped from its talons. Aislinn intuited that it had to be hers and raised a hand to her face. A large gash traveled from eyebrow to chin, and her skin was icy to the touch. Once the flesh thawed, it would hurt like hell. The dragon lifted its foreleg to its mouth and licked the blood—her blood—off its talons.

Great wings lifted in the still air. It could only deploy them halfway before they met the sides of the passage. On the third wing beat, the dragon twirled. Moving amazingly fast for something so large, it strode down the tunnel away from her, its feet slapping the muddy floor. Now that she wasn’t running from it, she noticed the earth shook each time one of its feet landed. Darkness settled about her like a winding sheet, and she realized the light in the tunnel had come from the creature. Can I make light without fire?



Knees trembling, she wondered what would happen next as she coaxed a very feeble light into being. “No point in hanging around to find out,” she muttered and ran as fast as she could manage in the opposite direction. A half-formed mage light—the best she could do—clung to her. After a few steps, it felt like she was plowing through Jell-O. The cave walls moved toward her, closer and closer, until she was certain they were going to crush her, grinding her into nothingness. Her head spun. Nausea gripped her.

Just when she was certain she was going to die in this nameless, dark place, she rose through the ceiling and flowed through stone as if it wasn’t there. She looked at her body thrashing about on the raised, earthen dais in the Old Ones’ alchemy lab and understood what had happened. It was my astral self down there. Not me. Did they send me there, or did I do it on my own? So relieved she almost couldn’t breathe, Aislinn hurtled toward her physical self. No wonder she hadn’t been able to draw fire. She needed her body to do that.

But she needed her body to bleed, too. When she gazed at herself lying on the table, she was shocked to see a wicked-looking gash running the length of one side of her face. The collision of astral and physical bodies jarred her before she could figure out how the dragon had managed to carve her up when her body hadn’t actually been there. She’d already been nauseated. Dry heaves racked her as she forced herself to a sitting position.



Aislinn wiped bile from her mouth with the back of one hand and gazed at Rune. Gratitude to find him unharmed nearly undid her, and she blinked back tears. When she’d returned to her body, he’d jumped off the platform and stood in front of her. Concern shone from his amber eyes. Craning her neck around, she identified Metae and the other two Lemurians. “I need water,” she demanded, voice raspy.

Someone shoved a flask into her hand. It occurred to her that it might be poison. She swished some around in her mouth. It tasted okay, so she took a long drink. “Where was I?”

“You were in the place where we learn things,” Metae said carefully.

“Who was the dragon? One of your gods?”

Surprise registered on all three alien faces. “You saw him?” one of them asked.

“I just asked you about him, didn’t I?” Aislinn knew she sounded bitchy, but she didn’t care.

“He is wise beyond reckoning,” Metae said. “It is a great honor that he has shown himself to you.”

“Yes,” another Old One concurred, practically bowing to her. “You cannot leave us now. We need to—”

“Oh yes, I can.” Aislinn leapt to her feet and headed for the stairs, with Rune hard on her heels. “Whatever it was scared the shit out of me. I wouldn’t go back to that subterranean tunnel system again for anything.”

“Her face,” one muttered.

Aislinn felt blood dripping down her cheek and neck. “Yeah,” she called over a shoulder from halfway up the stairs, “the damned thing took a swipe out of me. Except my body wasn’t there. It was up here. How the hell—?” Since it was impossible to put what she was feeling into words, she snapped, “Never mind.”

“It tasted you.” The Old Ones crowded behind her, so she couldn’t see which one had spoken. “We noticed when the cut formed, but had no idea what happened.”

“You must tell us,” Metae chimed in with her musical voice, “everything.”

Aislinn nodded agreement before realizing maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to confirm that the thing had swallowed her blood. Outside again, she looked up and down the street. “Where is the best place to leave from? And where is the anti-sex charm you were supposed to make for me?”