Zylas and Falima made a sudden turn, disappearing behind a crag.

Collins jogged to catch up, then slammed into his companions who had come to a halt just beyond the angle. Driven forward a step, Zylas whirled, while Falima just shook her head and continued studying the cliff wall in front of her. Ialin buzzed into flight.

"Sorry," Collins muttered, then realized the ivy-covered stone in front of him had a central area darker than the surrounding stone. He stared, trying to visually carve clear the outline of the cave mouth that he guessed lay there. "We're here?"

"Yes." Zylas placed a hand on Collins' arm and ushered him forward. "Please, be polite." His tone fairly pleaded, and Collins found it impossible to take offense from the implication. "Respectful. Not . . ."

He trailed off, looking more nervous than Collins had ever seen him.

"Not rude?" Collins supplied, with just a hint of indignation.

Zylas finally glanced directly into Collins' face and smiled. "I'm sorry I'm treating you like a child. It's just that . . . well . . . sometimes your people . . . don't handle elders . . . um ..."

Collins thought he understood. Americans did tend to value youth and vigor more than wisdom. "With appropriate esteem?"

Zylas let out a pent-up breath. "Right."

Falima spoke through gritted teeth, and Zylas translated."She says that would be a big mistake here."

"I understand." Though tired of rea.s.surances, Collins said and did nothing more. The more impatience he showed, the longer the likely delay. It made sense that the people here showed a deference bordering on awe toward their elders. Given their lifestyle, they likely had few who lasted all that long.

A gravelly voice emerged from the cave scarcely louder than the whisper of windblown vines against stone. "Zylas, Falima, Ialin, please come in. And bring your guest."

No longer able to delay, Zylas executed a bow the elder surely could not see. "At once, Lady Prinivere." He tugged at Collins' arm.

Lady? Collins had to adjust his entire image as he trotted into the cave at Zylas' side. Ialin fluttered ahead, and Falima followed them.

The darkness seemed to swallow them, and Collins blinked several times, seeking some small source of light on which to focus his vision. Afraid to move for fear of knocking into people or furniture, he turned in place to catch the lingering grayness at the opening.

"Forgive me," a sweet but ancient voice said. "I forget that others need this." A ball of light appeared, pulled apart like a chain of glowsticks, then diffused into a pale, sourceless glow. Collins saw a round face as brown as a berry and cast into extensive, deep wrinkles. Dressed only in a loincloth, the old woman left most of her withered flesh exposed. Her b.r.e.a.s.t.s hung so low, they covered her slender abdomen. A thick, untidy mop of snowy hair sprouted from her freckled scalp, hanging to just below her ears. Though recessed into hollows, her eyes looked remarkably clear, green as a cat's with the same slitted pupils and full of an ancient wisdom that the wateriness of age could not diminish. Her small nose seemed little more than a pair of slitty nostrils in a sea of pleats. Collins studied her in unbelieving fascination, certain he had never seen anyone quite this old. He barely noticed the furnishings, which consisted entirely of two large chests.

The elder smiled. "I am Prinivere."

Wanting to introduce himself before Zylas could do so, to avoid forever becoming an amalgamation of his full name, Collins found his tongue. "Ben," he said. Despite himself, he added, "Just Ben." He caught himself at once. Great. Now she's going to call me Justben. It sounded uncomfortably close to Dustbin, though still better than Bentoncollins or, worse, the Benton Zachary Collins his mother used whenever he got into trouble.

But Prinivere made no such mistake. "A pleasure to meet you, Ben."

"Thank you," Collins said politely, only then blurting a sudden realization. "You speak English."

Un.o.btrusively, Zylas stepped on Collins' foot.

"I speak all languages," Prinivere explained. She folded her legs, sitting on the floor with surprising grace for one so frail in appearance. "Come join me, Ben."

Without hesitation, Collins dropped to his haunches, then sat in front of the old woman. "Thank you,"

he said again. Though perhaps not the most suitable response, they were the politest words he knew.

"You're welcome." Prinivere studied Collins in silence then. Her eyes looked tired but very alive, a discomforting contrast to a body that seemed long past its time.

Collins sat very still, feeling like a piece of steak at the meat counter. The long silence that followed made him even more restless. Wondering if it were his job to break it, he looked at Zylas.

The albino shook his head stiffly.

Like a hunter with prey, the movement caught Prinivere's attention. "Who has the stone?"

Zylas crouched beside Collins. "I do, Lady."

The stabbing gaze went fully to the rat/man now, to Collins' relief. "Don't you think it would serve better in his hands?"

Zylas swallowed hard but remained adamant. "I can't afford to lose it. I was hoping . . . can't you . . .

Prinivere leaned forward, and her b.r.e.a.s.t.s drooped into her lap. Collins found himself noting this matter-of-factly, the way he might view a fat, shirtless man's stomach overflowing his pants at a sporting event. There was knowledge and venerability but nothing s.e.xual about this primordial creature. "Maybe.

After I've slept, switched." She shook her head. "I think I might be able to."Able to what? Collins wondered, but he did not ask. He looked up, only to find the sharp, green eyes back on him.

"So," she said. "What do you think of Barakhai?"

At home, it might have seemed a casual question, a polite query intended to illicit a stock response.

Now, Collins sensed a much deeper quality that forced him to think in a way he had not since his companions had freed him from hanging. Driven by desperation, by terror, by need, he had not bothered to contemplate the world and its wonders per se. "I think," he started, and his voice seemed to thunder into an intense and critical silence, "it's a world with some simple beauty mine hasn't known for some time." Though the others nodded, Collins doubted they understood what he meant. "Clear sunsets, fresh air, water you can drink from its source and not worry about pollution and . . . germs." He did not know for certain about the latter. Obviously, the inhabitants drank the water all the time, apparently with no harmful effects; but dogs lapped up muddy, worm-riddled puddles in his world, too. Perhaps the water here teemed with Giardia, amoeba, and other microbes that the animal part of them could tolerate; or they simply survived as long as they could with ma.s.ses of intestinal parasites writhing inside them. So far, he had drunk the water without getting ill. Only time would tell for certain whether the better part of wisdom would have been to boil it first.

Only quiet consideration filled the hush after Collins' description, so he felt obliged to continue. "I've met some wonderful people." He made a gesture that encompa.s.sed Falima and Zylas. Though he did not intentionally leave out Ialin, he made no particular effort to include the hummingbird either. He sucked air through pursed lips, thinking. "I suppose I might find the rest of the people worth meeting, too, under other circ.u.mstances. I can hardly blame the guards for the way they treated me. I had just . . ."A lump filled his throat suddenly, blocking the words he intended to speak. As he tried to force them out, his eyes brimmed with tears, and he dropped the attempt.

No one came to Collins' rescue, though he thought he caught a subtle nod between Prinivere and Zylas.

Casually, Collins wiped his eyes on the back of his sleeve and changed the subject. "Lady, I don't know exactly what my companions told you, but I came to see you to find out if you knew of any portals to my world other than the one I came through."

"I know," Prinivere said, her voice a dull rasp.

Ialin settled on a shriveled shoulder. Falima lowered herself to one of the chests, listening on the fringes. As usual, she could understand only half the conversation, at most. Collins wondered whether the old woman actually used fluent English or some device translated her words into whatever language necessary for comprehension by every listener. He only knew he used English exclusively and carried nothing to make it sound like anything else.

"You know?" Collins needed clarification, but before he could voice it, Prinivere continued.

"I know the reason you came to me. Your companions told me."

Good. Collins nodded.

"There are no other portals."

Stunned by bad news so unceremoniously and abruptly delivered, Collins froze, speechless. Zylas should have told him that days ago and rescued him from this ridiculous charade. The Barakhains could have kept their beloved elder safe, unmet and unknown, and they would not have wasted time taking some inane, meandering path to her. Gradually, the full implications seeped into a mind already plagued with desperation. They had no choice but to return to the place where Collins had started and find a way past a contingent of archers.

"But-" Prinivere said. That one word seemed to float, alone in a vast vacuum of hope. It felt to Collins like hours pa.s.sed before she continued, though she never paused. "-I might be able to create a new portal."

Still unmoving, Collins lost his breath. "Create . . . one?" He forced the words out, then gasped in a clumsy breath accompanied by saliva. He choked, coughing so vigorously that Falima leaped to her feet and patted his back helpfully.

Wanting to hear what Prinivere had to say, Collins waved Falima off and tried to control his seizingdiaphragm.

But Prinivere did not go on. Turning her attention to Zylas, she engaged the albino in conversation while Collins lost the battle to his cough.

For several moments, Collins struggled, throat raw and full. Finally, the spasms died to a tickle, and he regained control of speech. "Sorry." His voice sounded hoa.r.s.e and unrecognizable. "Did you say you could create a portal?"

Prinivere spun back to face Collins. "I said I might be able to, yes."

"So . . ." Collins kept his sentence slow to avoid the need to cough again. ". . . you're ... a sorceress?"

Prinivere's recessed eyes narrowed, so they seemed to disappear into the wrinkles. "Sorceress." She ran the word over her tongue, then shook her head. "Not sure what you mean."

Collins sought synonyms. "A witch." He watched Prinivere's face for clues to her disposition to see if the word had the same negative connotations here as back home. "A magician. A wizard. A person who uses magic."

"No such thing," Zylas grunted. "People, magic." He shook his head. "Don't go together."

Collins suppressed an urge to laugh. If people turning into animals isn't magic, what is? He kept the thought to himself. It seemed the populace had little control over the transformation. "You have magic," he reminded.

"I carry a magical item," Zylas admitted, though he glanced around as he did so, as if afraid someone outside their group might overhear. "That doesn't make me a user of magic."

In strict terms, of course, it did; but Collins decided it was better not to make an issue of such a thing.

"If not by magic, how do you make a portal?" Collins wondered if he might have the means to do it himself.

"Making a portal does require magic." Zylas confused the issue still further. "That's why we need the lady's help."

"But she's not a sorceress."

"No," Prinivere patted her hair into place.

"So you have some sort of portal-making item."

"No such thing." Zylas said.

Clear as mud. Collins sighed and took the chest seat Falima had vacated. "I don't get it."

"You will," Zylas promised with all the believability of a politician a week before an election. "You will."

An undertone in the albino's voice made Collins wonder if he wanted to.

Chapter 11.

PRINIVERE wandered to the farthest corner of the cave to sleep while Collins discussed matters fervently with the one companion who did understand him and insisted on translating for the one who did not. Twilight faded from the opening and the cave so gradually that, even in a darkness that might have seemed solid under other circ.u.mstances, Collins found himself able to differentiate between the gray silhouettes of his companions.

"Let's talk about those rats back at the lab." Though redirected several times, Zylas always returned to the matter Collins now fervently wished he had never raised.

Collins sighed, certain he would have to change his major. After this day, he might never find the courage to euthanize another experimental animal. That, or fill my home with pet rats, nice, guinea pigs, and monkeys. He imagined the look of horror twisting his landlady's meaty features; she screamed at the sight of a large spider. "They'll be fine," Collins insisted with a finality he hoped would satisfy his companion-this time. "They've got plenty of water till my preceptor gets back." Is that today? "At most they'll go a day without food, and their cages will stink a bit."

Zylas' expression remained taut.

Collins laid an arm across the albino's shoulders. "Look, man. There's nothing we can do about it, is there? The whole school's getting back tomorrow. Believe me when I say every biology professor at Algary will head straight for the lab." Where they'll see the c.r.a.ppy job I did and flunk me on the spot.

More concerned for his future than the temporary comfort of a bunch of laboratory rats, Collins again sought a topic switch. "So what's the big secret about Prinivere anyway? I mean, besides the fact that she's a woman when you had me believing she was a man."

Zylas shrugged off Collins' arm. "Lady Prinivere," he corrected in a bristly voice. "And I don't recall ever calling the lady a man."

"Not directly." Collins admitted. "But you did refer to her only as 'the elder.' Never even used a p.r.o.noun as far as I remember. Didn't correct me when I called her 'him'."

"That's you a.s.suming, not deception." Zylas paced to Falima and joined her on the chest.

Depends on what the definition of "is" is. Collins shook off the presidential comparison. "You can claim you didn't lie. But not correcting an a.s.sumption you knew was false is deception." He straddled the opposite chest, facing Zylas directly. "Are you going to tell me it's different in your world?"

Zylas conceded with a sigh. "I'm sorry. Vernon thought that, if we never made it to the lady, any information you had that the guards might get would be ... misleading. He's a smart man, and it seemed safest at the time."

Falima poked Zylas' back, and he turned to translate.

A sensation of being watched spiraled through Collins suddenly, and he shivered, glancing toward the cave mouth. "You've managed to deflect my question again, I notice. What exactly-" The hair on the nape of his neck p.r.i.c.kled. A realization of intense and imminent danger grasped his gut like an icy hand.

His heart raced into wild pounding, and words caught like a sticky lump in his throat. Panic sent himlurching to his feet, and he skittered to the cave mouth before logic trickled between otherwise ravaged thoughts. What the h.e.l.l?

Pressed against the stone wall, Collins glanced back into the cave. Zylas and Falima had also risen, their backs to him. Though they had not run, they did seem agitated. A dinosaur-like creature took up most of the back of the cave: long-necked and -legged, covered in greenish-black scales that seemed to glow. Plates jutted from the neck, back, and tail, which ended in a ragged scar. "Dr-dragon?" Collins stammered out the only English word that might suit this ma.s.sive animal. Though he knew it must be Prinivere's switch-form, he could not force himself to reenter the cave.

Ideas rushed back into Collins' mind. Memory came first, of a girl he had dated in college. A fan of aliens, angels, and conspiracy theories, she had once brought him a book that "conclusively proved" the existence of dragons. For the purposes of domestic harmony, he had read it, a pseudoscientific account filled with blurry photographs, anecdotal sightings, and misconceptions a freshmen science student should see through. He had tried to argue the biological impossibility of a heavy, four-legged creature with wings. If dragons did exist, he had a.s.serted, they would look like pteranodons. Wings had served as the forelimbs of every flying animal throughout history.

Now, Collins stared upon a creature that defied every biological tenet. Big as a school bus, it had to weigh tons. Strong hind legs ended in ma.s.sive, four-clawed feet. The forelimbs had three toes, each with talons that closely resembled curved knives. Leathery appendages near the shoulders clearly represented folded wings. It bore little resemblance to the serpents of the I' Chinese New Year's parades, its body blocky and its snout more I, like that of a Doberman. It bore none of the decorative finery, no streamers, beards, or spinners. The ears stuck up, shaped and proportioned like a horse's, jet black in color. Eyes like emeralds lay recessed deeply into its sockets.

A voice entered Collins' head, seeming to bypa.s.s his hearing. *I won't hurt you. Come.*

Collins pawed at his ears, willing them to work properly; his life might depend on it. The rea.s.surance, apparently the dragon's, did not soothe. He found himself incapable of taking a step closer to a creature that could shred him, crush him, or bite him in half without breaking a sweat.

Zylas took several nervous steps, bowed to the dragon, then hurried to Collins. "You're insulting Lady Prinivere," he hissed.

In response, Collins pressed his back more tightly to the wall. Vines tickled his arms, and stone jabbed his spine. He tried to explain, "She's a ... she's a ... a dragon."

"Yes."

"We . . . we . . . don't have . . . dragons ... in my world."

"Neither do we."

The ludicrousness of that statement finally broke the spell. Collins turned his head slowly toward Zylas to grant him a judgmental stare. "I beg to differ."

Zylas took one of Collins' hands in both of his. "Except Lady Prinivere, of course. She's the last."

Collins looked at the hand clamped between Zylas' and hoped the albino did not plan to try to drag him back into the cave. He wiped his other sweating palm on his britches and tried to screw up his courage.