The Lost Dragons of Barakhai by Mickey Zucker Reichert

Author:Mickey Zucker Reichert
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: DAW
Published: 2010-03-01T05:00:00+00:00

While Collins hurriedly changed into clean underwear, jeans, a T-shirt, socks, shoes, and his glasses, the unfamiliar man rigged a curtain across the back of the cave, with two slits that admitted the dragon’s claws. It seemed safer to Collins to blindfold Carrie Quinton, but the magic required Prinivere to access all parts of the woman’s face, including her eyes. He would also have preferred the task done while Prinivere held woman form, but they did not have time to quibble. Once she completed the process, he would count himself lucky to save Zylas before his switch.

As magic flowed from dragon to woman, and the harsh scars of Quinton’s face faded to her normal, soft contours, Collins paced wildly. He knew the woman had mastered biology and would recognize that those claws belonged to nothing in their own world. Quinton had worked with the young dragons and would notice how the claws seemed more birdlike than mammalian, their size and shape, the lack of anything resembling paw pads. Others might wonder, but Quinton would know a dragon had healed her and might report that fact to the king.

Stop worrying. They already know we have a dragon. He took momentary satisfaction from the image of Prinivere plunging down on the soldiers at the portal entrance, their disciplined ranks exploding into screaming chaos. As terrifying as he had found the situation, they must have found it doubly so, since they had no reason to believe the creatures still existed. He could liken it to warriors on a battlefield suddenly menaced by a pterodactyl, but that would not catch the full scope of these men’s experience. At least the men of the twenty-first century had seen 747s and Jurassic Park movies.

Korfius trotted at Collins’ side, invigorated by the constant movement of the master who would not be comforted. The only one who might have the right words to calm him was too engrossed in the process to speak them. Aisa watched with uncharacteristic quietness, letting out only an occasional soft grunt, her head feathers ruffled like a hatchling’s.

Collins glanced at his wrist repeatedly, each time remembering that he had not taken the time to riffle through his pack for his watch. Now, he felt lost without it, at the mercy of circumstances and a nonsensical world that violated many of the tenets he relied on as facts. His mind edged back to the day an avowed Catholic coworker had argued with his father, a balding, conservative man of few words. “After all,” the Catholic had argued haughtily, “evolution is only a theory.” James Collins had ended the conversation with a gruff: “So’s gravity, but I wouldn’t go jumping out any windows.” Now, huge men morphed into tiny mice, four-legged dragons bore wings that could support their massive weight, and animals shared a digestive system with their human alter egos. Gravity seemed like the only scientific principle Benton Collins could still count on.

“How’s that?” Aisa said suddenly, and Collins jumped at the coarse sound.

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