Tani's Destiny (Hearts of ICARUS Book 2) (36 page)

Steel took a few deep breaths to steady himself, then shifted before opening the door.  The sound of hissing gas filled the air immediately, but Steel didn’t pause to look for it.  He entered the chamber, spotted the hibernation pod lying on top of a dozen or so canisters, and grabbed hold of it.  He put it on the ground, grasped the handle at one end, and started running as fast as his
mahrac
form would allow, his skin already beginning to burn as though he’d dived into a vat of acid.

He had to struggle not to hold his breath, remembering what Marbic had told him.  The pain intensified as the gas burned through his skin and entered his bloodstream, causing the nausea and dizziness the Nomen had mentioned.  By the time he reached the wide area a few seconds later, he could barely see well enough to find the tunnel leading out of the mine.  He headed toward it, stumbling as he went, realizing that he wasn’t really running any more at all.  He pushed on, the light from outside the tunnel beckoning as he began to lose control of his body.  He slammed into the wall, then straightened, only to run into the wall again.  The light was close, so close, then it vanished along with his eyesight.  He dragged the suddenly heavy pod behind him, putting one foot in front of the other.

***

Naran landed on the ledge in front of the women’s cave and looked around warily.  There was not a single person in sight anywhere.  Not a man, woman, or child was on the mesa, in the valley, or out on the face of the cliff.  He didn’t understand it, and he never trusted what he didn’t understand.  But then, this entire day had not gone quite as he’d expected it to.

He’d drugged the Dracon princess and delivered her unharmed to the Nomen, as he’d agreed to do.  It wasn’t his fault that the drug had worn off too soon, and he honestly didn’t see the problem anyway.  She hadn’t been able to do more than open her eyes before they stuffed her into a hibernation pod, so really, no harm done. 

But, even though he’d done everything he was supposed to do, they hadn’t delivered his promised reward.  He smiled to himself as he remembered telling Ruya that he expected to get Shela back.  How could anyone be so stupid as to believe that nonsense?  His sister had been dead for almost a year and he damn well knew it.  But then, Ruya didn’t have much of an imagination. 

No, his reward was to have been a rather large sum of gold.  Instead, they’d tried to kill him.  It wasn’t a complete surprise, though.  He’d always known that his arrangement with the Nomen would eventually come to a sudden end.  He’d just hoped it wouldn’t happen until
after
he’d been paid. 

After a few moments he shifted into his human form, biting back a gasp of pain.  Shifting while injured always hurt like hell, as he’d recently discovered.  He looked around again, then shrugged.  Apparently all of the men had gone running off to save Tani.  That was fine with him.  It gave him time to do what he needed to do before they got back.

He looked down at himself, grimaced at the dirt and blood that stained his clothes, and shrugged.  Then he turned and boldly entered the women’s cave.

“You enter the women’s cave without an invitation?” Drya asked archly.

He gave her his best smile.  “I apologize, Drya,” he said. “I’m just a bit confused.  Some Nomen attacked me on the mountain and left me for dead.  I just got back a minute ago only to find that the entire place is deserted.  What happened?”

“Princess Tani was kidnapped,” Drya said.  “The men went to rescue her.”

“All of them?” he asked as though shocked, even though he’d already assumed as much.

“I suppose,” she said with a shrug.  “I’m afraid you’ll have to settle for my meager skills as a healer.  How bad is your injury?”

“Not bad,” he said.  “Nothing to worry about.  “Where’s Ruya?”

“Tani’s kidnappers drugged her,” Drya said with a sad expression on her face.  “We aren’t sure if she’ll awaken this time.”

“Where is she?” Naran asked again.

“In the clinic,” Drya said.  “Astra is there with her.”

Naran’s eyes narrowed slightly as he looked around the cave.  The women were too quiet, he realized suddenly.  Too still. 

“Thank you, Drya,” he said, smiling.  “I’ll just go down and see her.”

“All right,” Drya said.  “Do you want me to come with you?”

“No, I don’t think that’s necessary,” he said.  Then he turned and stepped outside the cave.  He shifted into his
mahrac
form and activated his Blind Sight, then remained there, just outside the cave, waiting to hear whatever the women had to say about him.  To his surprise no one said a thing.  The cave remained silent.  Apparently their silence had nothing to do with him.  He shrugged, then shifted back into his human form, but left the Blind Sight on, considering his options. 

***

Tani heard voices.  Frantic voices.  She tried to focus on them but she was surrounded by a thick layer of fog that muffled sound and feeling.  She wondered where the fog had come from, then decided she didn’t care as she began to drift away on it.  The voices continued, relentlessly calling to her.  She wished they’d stop and go away and wondered if there was a way to tell them that.  Then she heard one short phrase that got her full attention. 
Steel is dying!

Every ounce of her being screamed in denial as she began to fight through the fog, uncaring of what it was or where it had come from.  All that mattered was Steel.  The harder she fought, the clearer her mind became.  She smelled the bitter-sweet odor of hibernation gas, and wondered about it as she struggled to open eyes that felt like they were weighted down with lead.  When she got them open, everything was blurry but she ignored that and pushed herself into a sitting position.  Strong hands helped her, then picked her up.

“I know you’re still disoriented,” Marbic said, his voice strained.  “But Steel went through nerve gas to free you and he’s going to die if you don’t help him soon.”

Tani nodded, unable to speak just yet.  She could barely see, but sight wasn’t necessary for healing.  Marbic set her down on the ground and she immediately reached out, searching for Steel.  Gentle hands took hold of her wrists and placed them on Steel’s hard
mahrac
chest.  She leaned over him and focused, willing him to be well, willing the poison to leave his body and leave no trace behind.  As she worked her vision began to clear, and she gasped aloud.  Steel’s hard,
mahrac
skin looked as though someone had taken a blowtorch to it.  She closed her eyes and focused on healing, putting everything she had into it.

She had no idea how much time passed as she crouched over Steel, his body so ravaged by the nerve gas that virtually no part of him had been untouched.  She healed his skin, nerves, muscles, heart, lungs and every other organ but one.  His brain.  Whatever damage the gas had done, it would not respond to her efforts. 

“Tani, that’s enough,” Khurda said softly, one hand on her shoulder.  “It’s time to stop now.”

“No, I’m not finished,” she said. 

“You’ve been at it for an hour now,” Khurda said.  “There’s nothing more you can do.”  Tani looked up at him, her heart in her eyes.  “He knew he would die, Tani.  It’s all right.  It was his choice to save your life at the expense of his own.”

Tani looked down at Steel who, at some point, had shifted back into his human form.  He looked as beautiful to her as ever, all physical signs of the gas now gone from his flesh.  She sent herself back into him, to his brain, searching for whatever it was that she’d missed, but it was no use.  The gas had destroyed something vital, and either she wasn’t strong enough to fix it, or she didn’t know enough to find it.  She’d healed so many people over the past couple of weeks, but the one that meant the most to her was dying beneath her hands, and she couldn’t stop it.

She threw her head back and released a primal scream of sorrow, anger, and loss to the heavens.  She felt her inner dracon leap forward and realized at once that it had changed.  It was stronger now, calmer.  It was
complete
.  And it knew something that she did not.  Without taking a moment to think it through, she embraced it wholly, seeking oblivion from the soul deep agony that was threatening to overwhelm her.  

Her mouth opened wider as her body changed, shooting flames into the sky before she was fully shifted.  She was enormous.  She was strong.  She was powerful.  And she knew how to fulfill her promise to Magda, how to complete the change begun centuries earlier, and maybe, just maybe, save Steel’s life.

Her head still back, mouth still wide in a roar, the orange flames changed into…something else.  Something cool and white and a little bit sparkly that shot up into the air, then drifted slowly down, touching everything and everyone.  When it touched the ground it began to spread and grow, moving faster and faster as it continued to pour from her dragon’s mouth.  As the magic flowed through her, she understood that the essence she’d absorbed when Wily’s egg hatched had turned her into a receptacle of sorts for all of the magically hidden life essences of Garza. 

When she’d released all of the magic that had been entrusted to her keeping, she closed her mouth and watched as it continued to spread outward across the land.  It would cover the entire planet, she realized, healing as it went.  In time, plants would spring up where none had been for four and a half centuries.  Oceans would fill, rivers would flow, and the natural wildlife of Garza would spring into being.  Birds would fill the skies, fish would fill the oceans, and a multitude of beasts would fill the plains and mountains.  It would take a little time, weeks perhaps, and then Garza would live again.  But what about Steel?

Steel opened his eyes, surprised to see an enormous red…creature…crouched over him.  His heart began to race as he struggled to remember where he was, what had happened, and why he was lying in a white sparkly fog beneath…whatever it was.  He lifted his head, saw that there was enough space between its two left legs for his body and quickly rolled sideways.  The moment he was no longer beneath the creature he leapt to his feet, then froze in shock as he got a good look at it.

A dragon.  An enormous, deep red, twenty five foot long dragon stood with its ground-transport sized head tilted back as it shot white sparkly stuff into the sky.  It was the same substance he’d seen when Wily’s egg hatched, though there was a lot more of it now.  He looked around at the men of the Khun who were all staring at the dragon, though none of them looked worried or afraid of it. 

The dragon closed its mouth and lowered its head to look at the ground beneath it.  The huge body tensed in surprise and the head went up, searching.  Then, it turned its face toward him and all the air left his lungs.  A large ruby bearing Tani’s likeness hung from a band of gold that encircled the dragon’s head like a crown.  If that wasn’t enough, she also had Tani’s warm gray eyes.  Eyes that filled with tears when it found him staring at her.  “Tani,” he said softly. 

The high pitched hiss of a hand laser broke the silence, and Khurda cried out in pain before falling to the ground.  Steel immediately ran to his friend while Tani swung her head around, opened her mouth again, and sprayed Brutus and the six Nomen standing around him with flames. 

Steel reached down and tore Khurda’s shirt open, but there was no wound to be seen beneath the scorched fabric.  He looked at Khurda, whose eyes were wide with surprise.  He’d self-healed.  Just the way Tani said the Jasani self-healed.  There was no other explanation.  But how?

Steel stood up just as Tani ceased shooting flames.  Not even ashes remained of the Nomen, and their weapons were no more than little puddles of sizzling metal.  And Brutus no longer appeared remotely human.  Instead, he looked exactly like what he was.  An android with a shiny silver colored casing and twin lights where his eyes had been. 

Brutus stared down at himself for a long moment, as though he was shocked to discover what he looked like without his human disguise.  Then he screamed loud enough to make everyone wince before throwing what could only be described as a temper tantrum.

Steel grinned inwardly as they watched the shiny android spin around and around, its arms waving wildly as it began shouting nonsensical orders.  When it started threatening to use its internal lasers to burn them for insubordination, Tani spread thirty feet of red leathery wings, leapt at the android, grabbed its shoulders in her claws, and lifted it off the ground.

The Khun watched as the red dragon flew higher and higher until it was so far up that they could barely see a tiny speck in the distant sky.  Then, she released the android.  Everyone held their breath, watching it plummet toward the ground with Tani’s magnificent dragon diving right behind it.  When Brutus hit the black paving of the compound, he…it…kept going, not stopping until it was at the bottom of a six foot deep hole.  Tani landed gracefully beside the hole and looked down into it.

***

Astra sat on a chair next to the medi-cot giving every appearance of being completely relaxed.  She’d received the signal that Naran had returned and was in the women’s cave, and could do nothing more now but wait.  Wait, and remember what Tani had told her about trusting her instincts.  She hoped that Tani had been right, because right now her instincts were telling her that Naran had entered the waiting room.  She reached up with one hand to rub her tired eyes, then returned it to her lap just as her senses told her that she and Ruya were no longer alone.  She kept her eyes on her lap and tried hard not to do anything that might warn Naran that she was aware of his presence.