Chapter 2
Taverns, hostelries, inns as a whole smelled far better than they used to, or perhaps his nose was simply dulled with age. Yet the wanderer hesitated before crossing the street, forcing himself to focus through the shifting, distracting kaleidoscope of night’s wonders.
Neon signs buzz-blinking, shower-shadows of multicolored light competing with the lamps and blinking traffic-control devices.
Arteries and veins of paving turning to dirt as they unraveled from the township-clot, starred at the margins with houses staring blankly at wonderful vistas of grass and weather.
A cool breeze redolent of plain and mountain, thick with the ever-present tinge of car exhaust. Mortal heartbeats thundering through the mechanical cascade of pipes, buzzing galvanism, tinny music, chatter, and clatter; the song of wind through tall grass and quiet murmur of high-summer watercourses diving for shelter providing orchestral backdrop.
The wilderness called; for a creature so old and frayed, solitude was an imperfect refuge at best. Yet that was better than the alternative. He almost turned to stride away before remembering his purpose once more—a stranger, an intruder tainting his current territory.
The fractures and slippage weren’t so bad here.
In mortal cities the crowding of prey was a constant quasi-irritation; in these lightly settled environs, however, he could visit a few isolated homesteads upon an eve, feeding carefully to avoid glut.
Or he could simply linger unseen outside one of four taverns, harvesting the drunken, leaving them weakened yet still breathing.
The effort of restraint helped fight the accretion of mental and physical dust upon his joints and brain-folds, hardening slowly to stone, but the wanderer suspected he might be too old to die in the usual manner of his kind.
After all, neither the great fire of the Sun nor open flame itself could kill him.
Hazily he remembered how he had discovered the latter fact and shuddered, his fingers driving into the crumbling concrete flank of what had possibly once been a greengrocer’s as he tarried in comfortable shadow, again attempting to remember why he was here, now, in this particular place.
Intruder. He clung to the single word, the concept threatening to slip from a mental grasp grown increasingly clumsy—and worse, timorous.
The process was accelerating. He would soon be too slow and absent to survive even a fledgling’s attack, unless mere reflex was enough to ward off such an ignoble end.
An elderly, arthritic dragon, shambling through the dust-heap of centuries—no, a dinosaur, that was a good concept, meaty, endlessly interesting.
Was he ancient enough to remember such beasts?
It seemed likely. He remembered thinking the mortals’ steam-carriages were like unto wyrms, snorting and heaving, and fleeing at least one of the things not so very long ago.
But no, there was another word for it—train, like a noblewoman’s dress or retinue, like teaching tricks to a dumb beast. In other languages the connections were different; he had to focus hard upon the current tongue.
Once again the wanderer almost turned away.
Later he might brood upon how close he had been to failure, true-death, the treasure whispering past his aching, clumsy fingertips.
But at the last moment, recognition of the insult arrived once more—a trespasser, an interloper in the small realm of one who had survived open flame, by the thunderbolt, by the wounds of God!
So he forded the street’s cracked pavement river and pushed at the caupona’s door…
No. Tavern door, this was a watering-hole, not a sleeping-place.
The close, almost-pleasant fug of mortal breath and yeasty inebriation puffed outward in a silken cloud.
A golden thread buried in the breeze’s depth halted him upon the threshold, a long glassy moment between screaming chaos and a precious, crystalline moment of lucidity.
What is that?
Spice and night wind from exotic harbors, a hint of green sap and the faintest stinging touch of mortal alcohol.
Sense-impressions flooded the fractured mess his brain had become, layering quick and deft as a master painter’s brush—a glance from wide dark velvety eyes, brown curls fragrant as cedar bark, a soft musical murmur he could almost, almost hear.
The bartender drew breath to shout at a ragged scarecrow standing spellbound in the doorway; the wanderer’s attention fastened upon that stocky mortal, who wisely swallowed whatever he had been about to say.
Marvelous, wonderful clarity. The smell was intriguing, enchanting, wonderful.
Yet more than that, it peeled away a thick layer of accreted dust, sharpening every visual edge and burnishing the entire room from its slumped, wheezing music-maker—jukebox, that’s what it’s called—to the glistening blue-black flies under hanging lanterns abuzz with galvanism, the spotted mirror behind shelves of liquor to the worn, dust-creased boots of tired mortal males.
Quite a few curious glances settled upon the wanderer; he wondered if his cloth were too anachronistic for even simple country folk used to keeping their opinions to themselves.
Layered against that beautiful, phantasmal perfume was the more-familiar intruder’s scent. Perhaps that was why the trespasser lingered? But if so…
Well, you will simply have to kill him. Not a difficult task.
His gaze roved the tavern’s interior, marking every living thing, and the mortals would never know how close they brushed against death that night—a feast before battle was always tempting.
The golden thread was a frail fence and enticement all at once, drawing him away from such dangerous pleasures.
She—the scent was unmistakably female—had lingered here for a short while, dyeing the air with beauty.
A shudder passed through his frame; he turned, allowing the constant whistling wilderness-breath to sweep the door closed.
Let this clutch of mortals live another night; there was time and enough to drink the entire continent dry if necessary.
Later. Once he had run the most important prey of millennia to ground, and disposed of whoever now held her.
Following a single auriferous thread, the wanderer stepped into the road, loping easily along painted yellow stripes. Buildings blurred to either side, and he plunged past the frail glow modern mortals used to hold back the night.
Remember, remember, he chanted as he ran—almost unnecessary, since the evaporating waft of delicious scent waxed and waned, yet thankfully never quite disappeared. No attempt to mask at all, though the trespasser’s spoor was intermittent, showing some recognition of elementary safety measures.
He could not tell if the strangeness was in his own looming unreason or the trail itself.
Stars overhead sang to themselves in high tinkling voices, a yellow moon leering, gazing upon the earth’s teeming face with interest but no mercy.
The trail veered, plunged into the mouth of a gorge, and only the angry reek of recent death stopped the wanderer from leaping straight into a rusty tangle of mortal iron.
Not that it could have harmed him; his hide was ancient, more durable than daylight. But had he been so foolhardy his clothes would have been reduced to shreds.
Now the wanderer could not remember what he wore, or whence the garments had been stolen from.
A question literally immaterial; when he met the bearer of that wonderful perfume, he would no doubt seem a bit odd.
What mattered was getting close enough to fill his lungs, let the fact of her presence sink in so he could think clearly for a few moments.
The constantly fracturing mess inside his skull would coalesce, and he might even be able to remember his own name.
The intruder to this territory had been less than cautious; this, the wanderer could understand.
With that lovely, enticing, magical fragrance filling nose, brain, branching vein-channels, it was a wonder either of them had been able to run without stumble-staggering like new foals.
No trace of whoever had killed the trespasser, which meant the valuable prey’s protector was old and canny—and yet, they had let her slip away?
A sanguinant did not use their greatest treasure as bait.
Never, never. It was simply not done; he knew that, as he knew little else about this confusing present time.
So, a bauble slipping from a powerful grasp, temporarily adrift until reclaimed?
Perhaps, yet her trail led from the gorge as well, still with no masking.
How was it possible? The wanderer was missing something crucial, and would most likely die as he challenged another archaic, powerful sanguinant for the prize.
If, that was, a creature like himself were capable of true-death. Was it accuracy, hubris, or further insanity to have doubts upon the matter? He had, after all, survived the fire.
For once, remembering that terrible event did not distract him from current surroundings. Slipping between the whispering speed and nearly invisible mistform at places which seemed ideal for ambush, he was more alert than he had been in… oh, two centuries, at least?
How long had it been, precisely, since the quaking riven earth, the walls of flame breathing like living creatures, the agony as their caress swept over him, robbing him of any claim to logic or sense?
He knew not what day it was, what year according to which calendar, or even what this mortal country now named itself.
The language of its inhabitants eluded him at the moment as well, yet the scent was working upon him in tremendous fashion, for he dimly sensed what he was missing.
Great gaps torn in his knowledge, his reason, his very self, and he could not entirely blame a city soaked in flames.