Kerry Schafer - Wakeworld

“Of course you do,” Vivian said, her fingers tightening around Zee’s. “Where did you hide them?”

Zee put his free right hand to the sword hilt, ready for either one of the assholes to make a wrong move.

The Chancellor had his hand out of his pocket now, something hidden in the palm. Dreamsphere. Zee leaped into a full-scale tackle, his weight bearing the other man to the ground, preventing him from looking into the thing he held in his hand. As they hit the ground he jarred Gareth’s elbow against a stone. The fingers opened and a small crystal sphere rolled onto the grass.

Releasing Gareth, he secured the dreamsphere before it could do any harm, careful not to look at it. The Chancellor was no longer a threat—the blow to his elbow had crippled his right arm, which hung limp at an awkward angle. Through jaws clenched with pain Gareth said, “You can kill me, but I won’t tell you where to look.”

“What about if you tell her?” Zee gestured toward Vivian. “She’s got plenty of reason to hurt you without even thinking about what you’ve got hidden away.”

“I’m guessing this dreamsphere will take us to the general location,” Vivian said, taking the thing from Zee’s hand. “I suggest we start there.” She crossed the clearing and knelt beside Gareth. “Oh bother, you’ve gone and broken his arm.”

“It was an accident—” Zee couldn’t believe he was apologizing for hurting somebody who had done the things Gareth had done. Or that she was even worrying about the bastard’s health and well-being.

“We’ll have to splint it. We can’t drag him off into some Dreamworld with it flopping around like that. Here, hold the dreamsphere. Do not look at it. Understood?”

“If I do, I get sucked away into some dream somewhere?”

“Right. And I’m not sure how to find you.”

Zee tucked the thing into his pocket. He didn’t like the way it vibrated, as though it picked up some sort of signal he couldn’t hear. And he definitely didn’t like the idea of being pulled away into a world from which he might never return.

He watched as Vivian scoured the forest floor for what she needed, and came back with two straight sticks.

“What are you planning on doing?” Beads of sweat stood out on Gareth’s brow. “I don’t trust you . . .”

“She’s a doctor.” Jared spoke for the first time since they’d landed here. His face was pale, and his left hand was holding his own right arm as though it hurt him. “Let her fix it.” He sat down in the grass and let his head fall into both hands.

Still on high alert, Zee watched them all, watched the sky, the forest, the earth. Listened. Reached out with his senses. Something was out there. No sound, no movement, no flash of light or color. He caught a whiff of hot stone on the breeze and glanced at Vivian.

She was engaged in wrapping strips of fabric around the sticks to splint the arm of her enemy. No hint of the dragon there.

“We need to hurry,” he said, sniffing the air again, feeling an unease that could not be defined.

“Dragon,” Vivian said. “I feel it too. Jared, come over here. Zee, grab Poe.”

“Can you talk to it?”

She shook her head. Her eyes were wide and uncertain. “I—it’s blocking me. Join up. Let’s get out of here.”

Jared didn’t argue, probably scared spitless by all this talk of dragons. They all laid hands on Vivian, who was holding the dreamsphere. At the last minute the Chancellor tried to pull away. “I don’t want to do this. And if you make me, I won’t tell you where to look.”

“Maybe we can help you change your mind,” Zee growled. He was out of patience, had wanted nothing more than to give this man a good beating since the moment he’d laid eyes on him. Maybe now he had an excuse.

“It’s all right.” Jared’s voice shook a little, but his face was resolute. “I know where the things are hidden. I’ll show you.”

They stood in the open doorway of a one-room cottage. Stone walls, straw roof, an earthen floor. Not at all the sort of place Vivian would expect the Chancellor to spend his time, but maybe that was the point. One glassless window let in light, but also wind and dust. A herd of about twenty goats grazed nearby, and something that looked more or less like a chicken squawked inside the cottage, running out between their legs to join the flock scratching and pecking in the hard dirt outside.

There was nothing inside the cottage other than a narrow platform bed with a worn blanket, a wooden table, and a single chair. Clean. Barren. Nowhere here to hide anything. No disturbance of the packed-earth floor.

Vivian’s senses were all on high alert. She had clearly felt the presence of a dragon but had been unable to read anything at all—whether it was male or female, its age or size, or its intentions. All she had been able to pick up was a clear sense of power.

Zee too was on edge, like a stalking cat, deceptively relaxed but ready to pounce. This did nothing to set her at ease, and she just wanted to find the Key and get out of this place.

“Where do we look? Not a lot of hiding places.”

“Under the bed, maybe,” Zee said.

“Try the garden.” All eyes swung toward Jared.

“Traitor!” Gareth spat. “Whose side are you on?”

“The side that gets me out of this place and back home.” Jared crossed the small room and sat down on the chair.

“Aren’t you going to show us where to look?” Vivian asked, trying to contain her irritation at his erratic mix of cowardice and courage.

He shook his head. “Dig up the potato plant, fourth row in, fourth plant over. Watch out for the chicken things.”

Gareth took a step toward the bed, but Zee stopped him. “You are coming with us.”

“You don’t seem concerned about him—”

“He didn’t do this. You did.”

The Chancellor drew himself up to his tallest height, exuding all of the imperial authority he’d flung about in Surmise. “And if I refuse?”

“Please do.” Zee’s face was impassive; his agate eyes showed no emotion. But there was a quiet note of warning in his voice. “This is not Surmise, Gareth. You are no longer the Chancellor and I am not the Warlord, bound by your command or Jehenna’s. I won’t attack you, since you’re injured, but if you press me . . .”

The warning was clear. Gareth’s green eyes sparked outrage, but he said, “Oh, very well then.”

Vivian led the way, out the door and around back, where a neat garden was bounded by a white picket fence. She had little experience with gardens, but she recognized cabbages and tomatoes. She didn’t have a clue what potato plants looked like and hesitated right inside the gate.

“There.” Zee pointed to the far end of the garden.

A chicken scratched in the dirt on the narrow path in front of her, blocking her way. Its neck was too long, and it was yellow like a canary. Vivian didn’t think she’d ever seen a yellow chicken, but then her experience was pretty much limited to what she bought in the grocery store, mercifully feather free. Dreamworld. It figured.

Jared’s warning saved her. Instead of shooing it with her foot as she might have done, she flapped her arms and kept her distance. The chicken squawked and came at her in a flurry of wings and extended claws. Poe stepped between her and the attacker, his own neck extended, hissing.

And then Zee was there. A silver flash and the chicken’s head hit the earth, while the body continued to run around in meaningless circles.

Vivian managed to get her breath back, taking in Zee with the sword in his hand, the body of the chicken now careening through the garden, and the head lying at her feet. The eye staring up at her focused in. The pupil contracted, the position shifted. The beak snapped open and closed, revealing a double row of sharp teeth.