Dragon and Judge

CHAPTER 15

Draycos had hoped to be recovered from his injuries a day or two after falling down the shaft. But the damage was worse than he'd realized. It wasn't until the evening of the third day that he finally felt ready for a proper night's work.

"Remember, you're just supposed to find him," Jack warned as the K'da ran carefully through a final set of stretching exercises. "No questions, no comments, no interrogation."

"I understand," Draycos said.

Jack raised his eyebrows. "And no singing," he added.

Draycos tilted his head questioningly to the side. "Are you still annoyed that I sang to Noy when he was ill?"

"No, not since it all worked out okay," Jack said. "I just don't want you making a habit of it."

"Not a single stanza or chorus," Draycos promised. "I'll be back as soon as I can."

Jack stepped to the door and eased the fringe aside a little. "Looks clear," he murmured. "Be careful."

A moment later Draycos was on the bridge, lying flat against the cold stone as he looked around. The Golvin community had indeed settled down for the night. Slipping down the side of the bridge, wedging the tips of his claws into the cracks, he made it to the ground.

At first glance, the task ahead of him seemed immense. There were thirty-eight stone pillars in the canyon, the tallest of them three hundred feet tall. With the apartment doors indicating approximately eight feet per level, and most levels with two separate apartments, there were nearly three thousand homes here. Theoretically, the prisoner could be in any one of them.

But Draycos was betting he wasn't. After all, they'd tried putting him in one of the apartments, halfway from ground to sky, with no way out. He'd responded by digging a hole into a ready-made tunnel. Draycos didn't know if all the pillars were built with light shafts to the lower apartments, but it didn't seem likely that the Golvins would risk being tricked the same way twice.

He also doubted they would have taken him outside the canyon. The westward distance across the desert, seventy miles, was daunting, but it might be possible for a determined man to cross, especially if there were oases along the way.

Which left exactly one other option.

The last time he'd scouted the eastern part of the canyon, three nights ago, the area had been deserted. Now, in contrast, there were two pairs of Golvins standing guard beneath the line of cliffside caves. Each of the guards carried a quiver of arrows and one of the compact bows Jack had told him about.

Draycos spent a few minutes studying the situation from behind a stand of tall plants. The two pairs of guards were about fifty feet apart, their positions bracketing one particular cave. They were standing amid the crumbled rock in a fifty-foot-wide corridor running between the line of fruit trees and the cliff face itself, with no cover anywhere for a stealthy approach from any direction.

Mentally, Draycos gave a warrior's nod to their setup. Even if the prisoner managed to get out of his cave, he wasn't going to get any farther than the canyon floor.

Which didn't mean, however, that someone else couldn't get in.

He had to travel about a quarter mile upstream before he found a good spot to climb the cliff. Keeping a wary eye on the guards below, he made his way up and then crossed over to the line of caves.

He was still a hundred feet short of his target cave when he picked up the prisoner's scent. Directly over the opening he paused for a moment, tasting the air and listening. He could hear no movement or other signs of wakefulness from inside. With one final look at the guards below, he slipped inside.

The cave was dark except for the moonlight slicing across the entrance. But there was enough light for Draycos to see the signs of the Golvins' hasty conversion of a storage cave into a prison. Several large bags were still stacked against the back wall, and there were a few scatterings of loose grain here and there against the side walls. In the center of the cave were a cot, a single chair, and a compact toilet/sink setup similar to the one in Jack's apartment. There was no galley, no shower, no battery-powered lights.

Lying on his side on the cot, the blankets wrapped tightly around him and pulled up to his ear against the night chill, was the prisoner.

Silently, Draycos padded across the cave for a closer look. The man, as near as he could tell from half a face and an angled lump beneath the blankets, was around thirty years old, though not much taller or heavier than Jack. He had long, tangled dark hair and a beard to match. Draycos leaned over him for a closer look.

And abruptly the man's breathing changed and his eyes snapped open.

Instantly Draycos dropped out of sight to the side of the bed. "Be quiet and don't move," he ordered in a low voice.

"Who is it?" the man asked tentatively, the cot shaking as he rolled over onto his back.

Draycos crouched lower. "I said don't move," he said again. "I merely wish to talk to you."

The movement stopped. "Who are you?" the man asked, a new wariness in his voice. "Is this some kind of stupid trick?"

"It's no trick," Draycos said. "I'm with the Judge-Paladin who arrived in the canyon nine days ago."

"Yeah, I saw him," the prisoner said. "What do you mean, you're with him?"

"I'm his associate," Draycos said. "He wishes some information about you."

"Then let's do it right," the other said. "I hereby formally request a hearing before Judge-Paladin—what's his name, anyway?"

"Jack McCoy," Draycos said, giving a name Jack had used before.

"I formally request a hearing before Judge-Paladin McCoy," the man said.

"I accept your request," Draycos said. "Unfortunately, it may not do any good. Judge-Paladin McCoy has already asked to see you and been refused."

The other grunted. "Not surprised," he said. "So what, he sent you instead to take my statement?"

"That's essentially correct," Draycos said. "Let's begin with your name."

"And the guards down there just decided to let you in?" the prisoner growled. "Come on—what kind of a fool do you think I am?"

"This is not an attempt to trick you," Draycos said, annoyance starting to stir within him. He'd come all this way and risked his life for this? "The Judge-Paladin was intrigued by the One's refusal and wished to investigate." His lashing tail slapped softly against one leg of the cot. "But if you don't wish to cooperate, I can leave."

"No—wait," the prisoner said. His own frustration had disappeared, replaced by puzzlement. "You're not Golvin, are you?"

"No, I'm not," Draycos confirmed.

"Because their voices go all funny when they get mad," the other continued, as if talking to himself. "But you're not human, either. Are you a Brummga?"

"I came here to ask questions, not answer them," Draycos said. "What's your name?"

"Well, the Golvins call me Naught-Naught-Naught Among Many," the prisoner said, a little bitterly. "But hey, you sound like you want to be my friend. Tell you what—you can call me Naught. Are you the one who made all that noise in the air shaft a couple of days ago, right before they stormed in and hauled me out of my nice high-rise?"

"Did you kill four Golvins?" Draycos asked.

Naught sighed. "Yes, I killed them. No, it wasn't on purpose."

"Self-defense?"

"Accident," Naught said. "The vehicle I was flying had a problem, and I crash-landed. Unfortunately, they were standing where I came down. Well, more crouching, actually. But you get the picture."

"When did this happen?" Draycos asked.

"About five years ago," Naught said.

Draycos felt his tail tip curve in a frown. Five years? "That seems far out of balance for a simple accident."

"I agree," Naught said. "So would your Judge-Paladin, I'd guess. But try telling that to the Golvins."

Draycos winced. Naught was right—the One's attitude had made it abundantly clear that he had no interest in hearing anything more about the case. "Where exactly did this crash happen?" he asked.

"Just outside the canyon, over on the east side," Naught said.

The side with the old mine Draycos had seen from the air. "Near the mine?"

"You mean that old entrance building sort of thing?" Naught asked. "A little north of it, actually. The four of them were poking around in the sand, doing God only knows what. By the time I saw them, it was too late. I had zero control left, and I just slammed into them. You were the one in the air shaft, weren't you?"

"The One didn't contact any of the Semaline authorities regarding you after the crash?"

"If he did, I never heard about it," Naught said. "And thanks to you and your noisemaker, it doesn't look like anyone's going to be talking to them anytime soon, either. You have any idea how close I was to getting out of there?"

"As a matter of fact, I do," Draycos said. "What sort of vehicle were you flying?"

"It was a long-range pursuit starfighter," Naught said. "A Djinn-90, to be exact. If that means anything to you."

Draycos felt his crest stiffen. That was the same type of pursuit fighter he and Jack had escaped from off Iota Klestis after the ambush of Draycos's advance team.

But no. This couldn't possibly be one of Colonel Frost's Malison Ring mercenaries.

Or could it? "What's your name?" he asked carefully. "Your real name?"

The other sighed. "Not that it seems to matter anymore, but I used to be called Langston."

"Langston?"

"Yes," Langston said. "StarForce Wing Sergeant Jonathan Langston." The cot creaked again as he waved an arm. "At your rather limited service."

For a half-dozen heartbeats Draycos was completely at a loss for words. For months he'd been hearing about StarForce, usually from Uncle Virge insisting Jack turn Draycos over to them. Jack had always insisted right back that Neverlin would surely have taken the precaution of bribing or neutralizing some of the men and women in key positions, and the subject had been dropped until the next time Uncle Virge brought it up.

And now here Draycos was, actually speaking with one of those warriors.

Maybe. "Can you prove that?" he asked.

"They left me my ID wallet," Langston said. "It's at the foot of the bed with the rest of my clothes."

Draycos swiveled his neck and located the neat stack. "Turn to face the back wall," he ordered. "Don't move."

There was another shifting of the cot as Langston obediently rolled over. Draycos went over to the clothing pile, located the wallet, and tucked it under his right foreleg. "I'll need to borrow it for a time," he said as he returned to the side of the cot. "The Judge-Paladin will want to examine it."

"Help yourself," Langston said. "I'm not likely to need it anytime soon."

"Possibly sooner than you think," Draycos said. "If the event is indeed as you described, you were wrongfully charged."

"And you and the Judge-Paladin will see that I'm released, I suppose?"

"We will," Draycos said.

"Well, good luck to you," Langston said. "Whoever you are."

Draycos hesitated. Then, somewhat even to his own surprise, he came to a decision. "Call me Draycos," he said. "I'll be back another time."

Getting up, he padded to the cave entrance. "Just watch yourself," Langston warned from the cot. "You and the Judge-Paladin. These Golvins may look silly and harmless, but they're not."

"Your presence here proves that," Draycos pointed out dryly. "Don't worry. The Judge-Paladin and I have a long history together of being careful." Gripping the stone at the side of the entrance, he slipped out into the night.

Jack, he knew, was going to love this.

"And you're sure he didn't see you?" Jack asked, squinting at the StarForce ID under the glow of the bedroom's light.

"I'm positive," Draycos assured him, pacing back and forth across the bedroom. "I was listening carefully to his breathing as I left. I'm coming to realize that no human could spot me for the first time without some sort of reaction."

"You got that right, buddy." With a sigh, Jack flicked off the light. "Well, if it's not a real StarForce ID, it's a really good fake. And I mean a really good one."

"You've seen a genuine one?"

"I've seen a really good fake," Jack told him. "One of Uncle Virgil's associates made a living off things like that. But this doesn't make any sense."

"Why they should condemn him for a simple accident?"

"Why they should still have him here in the first place," Jack said. "I mean, they've been putting up a prisoner for five years. Feeding and clothing him—they have been feeding and clothing him, haven't they?"

"From what I could see, he appeared adequately fed," Draycos said. "Though I saw no clothing other than what he was wearing."

"Well, his own stuff probably hasn't worn out yet," Jack said. "My point is that the whole thing costs resources the Golvins could surely put to more productive use. They ought to be doing cartwheels at the chance to turn him over to a Judge-Paladin and be rid of him."

Draycos's tail tip was making slow circles in the air. "Unless there's a reason other than simple vengeance for keeping him here," the K'da suggested slowly. "He said the Golvins he'd killed were working not too far from the mine entrance."

"You think there's a connection?"

"It's an obvious direction to consider," Draycos pointed out. "Especially if the mine is also the reason your parents were murdered."

Jack felt his stomach tighten. He'd been living with that idea for over a week now, and it still sent shivers through him. "Draycos, we have got to get a look at that mine," he said.

"I agree," Draycos said. "Tomorrow night I'll attempt to scale the cliff and—"

"Listen to my words, symby," Jack interrupted. "We have got to get a look at it."

"I don't know," Draycos said doubtfully. "If there's something there the Golvins are hiding, I doubt the One will want you examining it."

"That may be what he thinks now," Jack said. "But he's never seen me in full persuasion mode, as Uncle Virgil used to call it. Neither have you, for that matter."

"I'll look forward to the show," Draycos said dryly.

"And well you should," Jack said, pulling his feet into bed and under the blankets. "Better get some sleep. With a little luck, tomorrow could turn out to be a very interesting day."