It was on Kira in a flash. She raised both hands, arms extended close together, pistol in one and club in the other. The dragon's mouth gaped wide as it lunged down at her, engulfing both of her arms.
She never afterwards knew whether it was chance or her unconscious design that twisted the club as the dragon came at her, wedging the club between the top and bottom of the monster's mouth and holding it there so the jaws couldn't snap closed. The snout of the creature rammed into Kira's chest, knocking her against the wall behind her, the front teeth gleaming before her face, her arms stuck more than halfway into the dragon's maw as it fought to close despite the club jammed between its lower and upper jaws. The monster flailed at her, its foreclaws digging into and through her coat, as Kira, terrified, pulled her trigger as fast as possible, emptying her pistol into the dragon's mouth, some portion of her still capable of thinking well enough to try to aim the shots upward toward the creature's brain. The beast's armored scales and its thick skull, which would have kept the bullets from penetrating from the outside, instead kept them from exiting, so that they ricocheted wildly, doing even more damage.
The dragon jolted with the impacts, a high-pitched scream driving foul breath and the exhaust from her pistol shots across Kira. Then it abruptly broke away, falling backwards. Kira let the club go, hanging onto her pistol through instinct rather than design. She stayed leaning against the wall, shaking so badly with reaction that she wasn't sure she could stand.
The dragon lurched back and forth on the street, wobbling on its feet. It fell, limbs flailing and its tail sweeping wildly, the motions growing slower until they abruptly ceased.
Kira realized that she was staring at her hands, trying to reassure herself that they were still there and not inside the monster. She saw punctures in the shoulders of her coat where the dragon's teeth had penetrated but not been able to close enough to bite. The arms of the coat had been slashed where the teeth had caught when the creature was falling away. The front was torn to shreds, her chest and stomach stinging in places.
"You killed it."
She tore her eyes from herself to see one of the police officers staring at her.
"She killed it!" someone else yelled.
A lot of people were staring at her.
There was no sign of the Dragon Mage.
Kira jerked away from the wall as Jason staggered up to her. "Are you all right?" she asked. "Run."
People who had been fleeing had begun turning to run back and see the fallen dragon. Kira and Jason plowed into the gathering crowd, ignoring cries of "Hey!" and "Wait!" They broke through as people milled about on the edges of the crowd, running down the nearest alley. Kira shoved her pistol back into its holster, then pulled off her badly damaged coat as she ran, tossing it into a trash bin as they passed it.
"You're bleeding!" Jason cried as he yanked off his coat and passed it to Kira.
"I'm fine." She pulled on the coat to hide the blood and the damage to her shirt. They bolted out of the alley and down the next street as several police came running toward them. "Where is it?" one yelled at her.
She pointed, knowing that her breathless answer would sound like someone who had run in terror. "That way."
The police ran past, and Kira yanked Jason down a side street. She felt an overwhelming urge to stop and throw up but somehow managed to keep running. She led Jason across several more streets until she spotted a large building. "A hotel. Looks like a nice one. That's what we need."
She stopped outside of the hotel, trying to control her breathing. "Jason, you go in by yourself. Ask for a room for just you. A room for one. There's no way they would rent a room to both of us at our ages. I'll wait until everyone is paying attention to you and then I'll walk in like I already have a room and go up to the second floor to wait for you."
He shook his head. "They're going to ask for my multi-ID."
"Your what? You've got money! That's all they'll care about. Hurry! But don't let them think you're hurrying!"
Jason nodded, turned, and walked into the hotel.
While she was waiting, a man came running across the street and into the hotel.
Kira took another breath, and setting her face into the calmest lines she could manage followed the man.
Jason was at the desk, but most of the attention was on the man who had just run inside.
"—dragon! In the city!" he was saying excitedly. "You should have seen it!"
Unnoticed, Kira kept walking and went up to the second floor, waiting with jangling nerves and hoping no one from the hotel would come by and ask what she was doing.
She heard footsteps on the stairs.
Jason came up, grinning with relief. "The room's on this floor."
"Where?" Kira tugged him to the door. Jason fumbled with the key as if he had never used one before, so she grabbed it, yanked open the door, and dashed to the bathroom. She barely made it to the toilet before finally throwing up.
Gasping, Kira got to her feet. She washed out her mouth and splashed more water on her face, then looked at herself in the mirror, wondering who the wild-eyed girl looking back at her was. Opening the coat she was wearing, Kira flinched at the sight of the vertical slits torn in the lower part and top edges of her shirt by the tips of the dragon's claws and the red bloodstains along some of those slits where her skin had been sliced open. It looked horrible, but it didn't hurt much, and the bleeding didn't seem to be too bad since the fabric of the shirt was sticking to the cuts and serving as bandages. A cautious look inside one of the rips showed only a shallow cut.
She closed the coat again and walked out of the bathroom to find Jason waiting with an anxious and awed expression.
"Kira, that was a dragon, wasn't it? I tried to distract it."
"You were very brave to try, but no one can distract a dragon that has its eyes on its target," Kira said. "Jason—"
"You fought a dragon! You were bleeding. Are you okay?"
"I know I fought a dragon. It's just shallow cuts. Don't say okay. I'm fine."
"You threw up—"
"A dragon just tried to eat me! I'm a little queasy! Now listen, Jason. We stirred up a huge ruckus out there. People are going to hear, and a lot of people were looking at me, so someone may have recognized me. Getting out of Ihris may not be an option. There's no telling how much time we have left." She paused to control her breathing again. "I need to somehow calm myself and focus enough to try that spell soon."
Jason nodded, his eyes on her. "What do you need me to do?"
"Jason, that was the perfect thing to say." She looked around the room, lit well enough by the sunlight streaming in from a couple of windows. "That chair. Put it in the corner facing that little table. Get the junk off the table and lay the drive on it. I'm going to need you to stand a little bit behind me, and not say anything, and not make any noise."
He was already moving the chair. Jason brought the chain holding the drive over his head, looking down at it, then laid it on the table.
Kira sat down as Jason retreated to a spot behind her. With the chair facing a corner, all she could see was the little table with the drive on it. She didn't touch the drive, only looked at it, breathing slowly and carefully, remembering how her father had described creating spells like the one she had to manage.
Her father and other Mages had taught her a lot about meditation. Kira used that now, trying to block out the world, seeking the calm, strong center within her where her spirit rested. Even though a thousand things sought to distract her, she closed her eyes and methodically blocked out thoughts and feelings, narrowing her world to that center within her. She had no idea how much time was passing, and blocked any worries about that as well.
When Kira slowly opened her eyes, the only thing in the world was that table and the drive on it. No. The illusion of a drive, resting on the illusion of a table. Neither really existed. They were illusions created by the minds of people to give order to the universe. This building, this world, were no
thing.
Nothing. Illusion.
Something shifted within her. Kira wasn't sure what, and didn't want the distraction of trying to figure out. Her eyes stayed on the oddly shaped rock on the table. The illusion of a rock. Kira felt power within her, and power outside, power that came from the world itself. Her mind took hold of that power as she focused on the rock. She would change that illusion, lay upon it a smaller illusion that part of the rock was not there. Never had been there. The rock was not that odd shape. One side wasn't there.
She felt the power flow through her and fix upon the illusion of a rock, and suddenly part of it was gone.
Someone gasped behind her, but Kira kept her attention focused only on the rock.
Chapter 16
Alain had directed Mage Tania to land her Roc in a square inside Ihris. The Roc carrying Mari landed beside them. He felt an inexplicable urgency that canceled out his and Mari's concerns to remain little noticed until they knew what was happening in Ihris.
The nearest police officers came running up, saluting as they saw who had stepped down from the Rocs. "We're at your service, Lady Mari."
"Let your superiors know we're in the city. My husband and I need to move quickly, so let us pass."
"Did you come because of the dragon?"
"A dragon?" Alain asked.
"One appeared in the southeastern district a very short time ago, Sir Mage. But the latest report said it had been slain." The officers exchanged glances. "By you, Lady."
"I just got here," Mari said, then her eyes widened as she stared at Alain. "Someone who looked like me. Kira. She slew a dragon?"
"In hand-to-hand combat, Lady," the officer said as it not expecting to be believed.
"We need to go. Thank you."
The police stood aside as Alain strode rapidly down a street, Mari keeping up. "Where are we going, Alain? Do you think Kira is all right?"
"I have a sense I must go this way," he said, trying to keep his emotions under control. His daughter, facing a dragon. "Hand-to-hand."
"That can't be right," Mari said. "Kira would never be that crazy, and how could anyone survive…how could anyone…"
Alain stopped walking so abruptly that Mari had to come back two steps. "I feel something. A spell."
"Whoever made the dragon?" Mari said in a voice that promised vengeance.
"No." Alain realized that surprise must have shown on his face. "Kira."
"Kira is all right? Wait. Kira is casting a spell?" Mari demanded. "Since when can Kira cast spells?"
He shook his head, turning to find the direction of the spell. "She has never been able to do so. Only some great need or peril could have brought that ability to life within her."
"She's in trouble. She's in danger right now, maybe badly hurt. Where is she?"
"This way." Alain took off at a run, Mari beside him.
* * *
The rock contained some strange gemlike substance. It remained within the rock, but as Kira watched it began to flow and glitter like water dancing in sunlight. On one edge of the rock, a light began blinking like a guttering candle. She stared, wondering why rocks or gems would behave that way, but maintained her focus on the spell, feeling her own strength draining despite the flow of power from outside.
The glittering movement inside the rock ceased.
"Kira! You did it, Kira! You can stop!"
Kira let her focus relax. The rock was back as it had been, oddly regular. She slumped in the chair, exhausted.
Jason came into view, picking up the rock and tapping at it. Why was he doing that?
"It did set off an alarm. I've got it shut off, but it was on for maybe fifteen seconds. Since my mom's ship put up satellites, they'll know we're in this city, maybe even what part of the city."
"What are you talking about?" Kira asked, not understanding a word that Jason had said..
"The drive."
"The what?" That was an odd name for a rock.
The universe lurched.
Kira shook her head, feeling dizzy. What had happened? She had been… "The drive. Did we destroy the data?"
"Yeah." Jason was giving her a funny look. "For a minute there you didn't seem to have any idea what I was saying."
"It was probably because the spell was so taxing," Kira said. "I was just a little disoriented, I guess." She stood up carefully. "What do we need to do now?"
Jason followed as she walked slowly to the center of the room. "I have to reset the drive to read-only. Externally, it's going to look perfect, as if all the data is still intact. But the matrix inside isn't going to have any data. It's going to be locked into meaningless patterns."
The door slammed open.
Kira spun about, drawing her pistol as she did so, and ended up facing her mother, who was pointing her own pistol at Kira.
"Well, this is awkward," Mari said. She holstered her weapon as Kira did the same. "Your father detected a spell. From you. It ceased, but by then we were close enough for him to sense your Mage presence. We thought you were in danger."
"We are," Kira said, putting away her own weapon. "The Urth ship knows that we're near here. Mother, that device from the Urth ship! We broke it. No, we fixed it. Actually, we broke it so we could fix it."
Her mother shook her head. "You sound more like your father every day. The data on that drive that posed a danger has been destroyed?"
"That's what I said!"
Before Kira could say anything else, her mother grabbed her and wrapped her in a fervent hug. "All that matters is that you're all right," Mari whispered to her. "I was so worried."
Kira returned the hug, feeling better than she had in a long time, tears welling in her eyes. "Me, too."
Mari drew back a bit, looking at where Kira's coat sagged open a bit. "Is that blood?"
"Just a little. All right, more than a little. But the cuts were all shallow and they've stopped bleeding, I think. The dragon was trying to kill me!" Kira said.
"The dragon." Mari looked at Alain. "The police told us about a dragon being slain in the city by a woman who looked like me who killed it fighting hand-to-hand. We thought that was a wild exaggeration fed by rumors, or that you'd been badly hurt."
Kira shrugged, then winced because the gesture tugged at the cuts. "I wasn't hurt much. I guess fighting hand-to-hand was what it was. More like hand-to-claw, though."
Her mother shook her head at Kira. "You're not badly hurt?"
"No. Didn't I say that?"
"You fought a dragon hand-to-hand and killed it." Kira's mother surprised her with a smile full of pride. "I never did that, you know."
"You never—?" Kira stared at Mari. "I did something that my mother has never done?"
"That's right." Mari's smile broadened. "Of course, I still have you on numbers, five to one."
"Right now, maybe!" Kira said, laughing. "I have time to catch up!"
Her mother's smile stayed, but took on a wistful tinge. "I never told you, but your namesake was also a dragon slayer. Sergeant Kira killed one the day before she died."
"She did?" Kira wiped away sudden tears. "I hope she's proud of me."
"I'm sure she is, Kira."
Her father interrupted. "Kira, your presence has grown."
"I know. Mage Alera told me. That's how the Dragon Mage spotted me. I'm sorry," Kira said, feeling guilty. "Oh, Jason knows about the Mage-powers thing. I accidentally told him. Anyway, Jason figured out that if I could make part of the drive go away, the crystal inside that protects the data would destroy it just as if the crystal had been broken. So I got us this room so I wouldn't have any distractions and I concentrated real hard and I remembered everything you told me about it and I was able to do it." She looked from her father to her mother and back again. "That's all right, isn't it?"
"I hope it is all right," Alain said. "Creating such a spell did not cause any problems for you?"
"Nothing that I noticed," Kira said.
"You were disoriented for a little b
it," Jason said, extremely anxious as he eyed Kira's mother and father.
"I was exhausted for a moment," Kira said.
Her father nodded, then surprised her with a rare smile. "Managing such a spell on your own, under such conditions, is very remarkable. Your Aunt Asha will be impressed."
Jason had been working with the drive, and now held it out. "It's done. The drive looks great from the outside, but there's nothing in it. If my mom links it in and checks, she'd see that, but I don't think she'll do that because there isn't any known way to damage the data in the drive without destroying it. After losing the drive to me for a while, she won't take any risks. She'll take it and lock it away in her safe until she's back on Earth. And then they'll find out it's empty."
Mari gave Jason an appraising look. "Being around Kira seems to have done you some good. You said that your ship detected something and knows where you are?"
"Yeah. I mean, yes. Yes, Lady."
Kira's mother went to the nearest window and looked out. "I see one of those drones. There's another a bit farther off. They got here pretty quickly. I guess we don't have to worry about that any more, though. Jason doesn't need to hide any longer. He can return to the ship."
"Mother," Kira said with a sinking feeling inside, "about that. I…uh…you see…um…"
"Kira, we don't know how much time we have. Please spell it out short and simple."
"Jason's in love with me and I don't know how I feel about that but I'm not unhappy about it but I am unhappy about the idea of him leaving."
"Oh," Mari said. "That does complicate things."
"I know what you're thinking," Kira said, defending Jason. "You, too, Father! You're trying to hide it with your Mage skills but I can still see it! Nothing happened! Well, a little bit happened. I kissed Jason. Twice. But each time I kissed him. Jason is not the boy you met earlier. That was an illusion that Jason maintained to hide his real self. That Jason standing there is the real Jason, and he is smart, and he is nice to people, and…"
"And he saved your life in a storm at risk of his own," her mother added.