Jak Koke: Stranger souls

"-can you hear me, Ryan?"

"What?"

"I've been yelling at you." It was Axler's voice. "I'm up. You're the last one. Move! Now, before they get the helo targeted with a missile or something."

Ryan shook his head. He hadn't heard anything. He'd been focused on revenge. The Dragon Heart must be affecting me.

He turned and grabbed the rope.

Lethe appeared next to him in astral space. "Tell them to move the helo!" "What?"

"The ward is going to blow."

Ryan subvocalized, "Dhin, go! Pull up and out. Now! The building's going to explode."

The insane scream of the helo's rotors increased in pitch as it lifted up and away. It pulled Ryan with it, a dangling spider on a narrow thread. He hung on and watched the hallway. He could see a few figures in astral space. More elves in combat armor.

A flash of blue light lit up the sky as the ward exploded. It was shaped in a perfect toroid-a donut of magical power. The front wave caught the unsuspecting elves and obliterated them. Their expanding bodies blew out their armor, their clothes, their skin and muscles. It ripped out walls, blew furniture out through the shattered windows.

Ryan watched the expanding wave in the astral, barreling toward him like a wall of roiling white silk. He ducked his head into his chest to protect his eyes from the hail of broken body armor, atomized flesh, and needles of mana. But the wave dissipated as it rolled outward so that by the time it swept past Ryan, its strength was only enough to cause a

ripple of intense pain. He grit his teeth and held on, swinging beneath the rising helo, hoping Dhin was good enough to weave between the whirling blades of the rescue choppers.

When the rope had steadied, and the Hughes Airstar was clear in the splotchy charcoal sky, Ryan pulled himself up the rope and into the helo. He fell into a seat with a heavy sigh, and Axler closed the hatch. Then they were gone into the night.

Surprisingly, there were no missile attacks and no immediate pursuit. Probably due to the confusion with the fire emergency teams. Lethe monitored the astral while Dhin monitored the radar with Grind's help. Ryan helped Axler patch up her leg. He also tried using the Dragon Heart to heal her like it healed him, but he didn't really know the magic of healing others. That wasn't one of his abilities.

McFaren's meat body remained slumped. Lethe said the mage had died in the blast, his astral form tangled in the fabric of the ward when it had collapsed. Axler didn't want to believe it was true.

Lethe ought to know, Ryan thought. But even if McFaren's astral form had somehow survived, the mage would have to get back to his body soon. Otherwise, his spirit would wander forever.

Jane had been monitoring the Tir border near La Grande so that their crossing back into Salish-Shidhe territory would be perfectly timed and seamless. But the border had tightened all around, and she finally recommended setting the 'copter down in the ash beds just west of John Day. It was a sparsely populated section of the Tir, and they should be safe for a day or so until the border loosened a bit.

The flight to the ash canyon near John Day took several hours. The sun was just coming up as they descended, the helo's wind sending up a fine mist of the loose volcanic ash around them. Turning the sunlight a deep red and burned orange. Ryan felt the fatigue hit as the helicopter's runners touched the flat bottom of the narrow canyon where they would hide out.

He had succeeded. He had the Dragon Heart now. All he needed to do, according to Dunkelzahn, was find the mage Harlequin and deliver the Heart to Thayla at the metaplanar site of the Great Ghost Dance. His fatigue hung on him like

wet clothes. He was too tired to think about the rest of the mission right now.

Besides, why the frag should he give up the Dragon Heart? He was much more powerful with it than without. Much stronger. If he just kept it, he could use it to combat Dunkelzahn's enemies. It didn't make any sense to give it away. It was a part of him now.

I'll keep it, he decided. It was willed to me by Dunkelzahn, and it's mine.

Lethe saw something in Ryan Mercury. The man's aura had changed, shifted somehow since he'd made contact with the Dragon Heart. He was stronger than before, faster and more capable of fulfilling the task of getting it to Thayla. Lethe tried to imagine the glorious music of Thayla's song. He tried to feel the penetrating warmth of her light.

He failed. His memory could not compare to his experience of her.

Lethe used the static nudge he'd used before to get the attention of Ryan, who was helping Axler throw camouflage netting over the helicopter. The human focused for a minute and said, "Lethe?"

"I'd like to talk about how you plan to get the Dragon Heart to Thayla," Lethe said.

Ryan's aura darkened momentarily. "Give it a rest," he said. "I've just been through major drek. I don't want to think about it right now."

Lethe paid no heed. "There's no time for that. Now that we have the Dragon Heart, we must deliver it."

"There's plenty of time for all that," Ryan said irritably. "I told you I don't want to talk about it right now."

The cloudiness Lethe saw in Ryan's aura was the same sign of deception he'd noticed before. It had raised his suspicions then too, but what else could he have done but hope his perception was flawed in some way and that Ryan Mercury was truly the right one for this task? After all, Dunkelzahn himself had chosen this human.

"Besides," Ryan said, "we don't even know how to get it to the metaplanes. That involves a powerful magical ritual known only to a few mages. We would need to find one of them, and I don't have any idea where to start."

Lethe saw that the darkness in Ryan's aura was growing. He was lying for some reason. "How long do you want to wait?"

The hint of a smile touched Ryan's physical mask, showing as a wash of dark red across his aura. "Just until things settle down."

At that moment it occurred to Lethe that Ryan meant to keep the Dragon Heart. He was addicted to its power.

Ryan was still talking. "I need to find a mage to look into the situation."

But Lethe wasn't listening. The realization that this shortsighted human would jeopardize the fate of the whole world for a brief taste of paltry power was maddening. "You can't keep the Dragon Heart," he said. "It was not meant for you."

Ryan took a step back, surprised. "I don't intend to keep it."

Lethe scrutinized Ryan's aura as he spoke. The human was not only lying, but actually stating the opposite of what he meant. There was no doubt now. Ryan was not planning to complete Dunkelzahn's mission.

"You don't understand what you are doing," Lethe said. "I won't allow it."

"I don't see how you can stop me," Ryan said. "The Heart is mine, and I don't think even you can hurt me now."

Lethe ignored the threat. "Personal power is meaningless. You must understand that your petty desires may help destroy the world."

"Slot off!" Ryan focused his power and pushed Lethe away. Perhaps his power was greater.

"I will not give up," Lethe said. And with that he was gone, blasting across the astral landscape. He went high, to the very rim of the manasphere, coming back down thousands of kilometers from Ryan in the physical world. His whole journey passed in the exercise of a thought.

It took longer to locate Nadja Daviar once he was in the Washington sprawl. But time was relative. It was still morning when he came across the elf in a highly secure mansion. He moved past the astral watchers and into her new office.

Three others were in the office with her-two ork security guards and a human of Asian background who was conversing with Nadja. The orks were guarding her, and as Lethe examined their astral bodies, he realized that none of them would have the ability to translate for him. Reluctantly, he decided to possess one of them. This time he would be more careful to exit the body before it died. But he had to speak with Nadja and saw no other way to do so.