Transcendence
PART 4 THE DRAGON OF TO-GAI Chapter 35 Head-On

Word left Jacintha in the form of a series of flashes on a shiny metal plate. And so it went, down a long, long line, from signaler to signaler. By afternoon that day, the signal had crossed through Dahdah Oasis, and continued on, to the south now more than to the west.
Two days later, the words of Chezru Chieftain Douan reached Yatol Bar-don and Shauntil. They stood over a large map of the region and used Douan's instructions to pinpoint the location of the Dragon of To-gai and her forces - or at least, the position of that encampment two nights previous.
"We will receive word every second or third day," Shauntil explained to his leader. ?Soon we will have the woman's pattern, and can anticipate her movement. Already, if we begin to move our forces here and here" - he pointed to locations on the map, moving his finger to show a swing farther to the south and then east around the point indicated by the message - "we will begin to limit her options."
"Forcing her north or back to the west," the Yatol observed.
"North to the road where more Jacintha soldiers might join us in encircling the To-gai-ru," the Chezhou-Lei explained. ?And west back to the steppes. It would be better if we pushed her out of Behren altogether, I believe."
"She will be harder to find and destroy in the steppes."
"But Behren will be secure, and the people will be calmed, and that, I be-lieve is a primary goal of Chezru Chieftain Douan."
"Do not presume to know the will of the God-Voice!" Yatol Bardoh snapped back, and then he recoiled, fearing that his suddenly excited tone would reveal much of his thinking. For Yatol Bardoh did not wish any help from Jacintha in ridding Behren of this To-gai-ru witch, nor was he concerned about calming the populace. Bardoh understood well that tur-moil was his opportunity to strengthen his own position, and that the more credit he could take for killing the Dragon of To-gai, the more power and influence he would attain throughout the kingdom. He especially needed that great victory now, given his disgrace in losing Avrou Eesa to the woman. Even though the city was firmly back in Behrenese hands, the scars of the Dragon of To-gai's attack would be enduring indeed.
And so the man was somewhat ambivalent about this new assistance where his master, the Chezru Chieftain, claimed to be communicating di-rectly to Yatol. Yes, Bardoh was thrilled to have the intelligence he needed finally to catch up with his adversary. But on the other hand, it galled him that the assistance was coming from Jacintha, and thus stealing his glory.
"If we do not catch this Dragon of To-gai, and soon, then the people may come to look upon us as failures, Yatol Bardoh," Chezhou-Lei Shauntil dared to remark, quietly, so that only the Yatol and not the other comman-ders in the map room could hear.
Bardoh straightened and stared hard at the perceptive warrior, but he calmed quickly and even nodded his appreciation. It was an important reminder.
"Let us begin to herd the witch," he said.
"They knew that we were moving south," Brynn said to Pagonel. From a high dune, the pair could see the distant lights of a long Behrenese encamp-ment, stretched out across the desert.
"Their line is thin," the woman went on. ?We could break through it."
"And lose more warriors in the fight."
"We would kill many more than we would lose."
"And they can afford to lose many, many more," the mystic reminded. ?Our pursuers try to force fights, even skirmishes. They dog us and look to attrition to thin our ranks. We are not on the steppes, and while you know that we are fighting for your homeland, our mere presence here forces the whole of the Behrenese population to feel the same way. If we break through and kill a thousand, and lose only a hundred in the process, then the day will still belong to Yatol Bardoh and not to Brynn."
"We must continue to ride hard, then," said a determined Brynn. ?Our opportunities may prove fewer in number, and so we must be vigilant to find and exploit each and every one."
Pagonel nodded, but he could not wipe the grim expression from his face. He understood what was going on, and with the Chezru Chieftain using a soul stone to locate the To-gai-ru and relay their position to the pur-suing army, Brynn's greatest advantage, unpredictability, was no more.
He and Brynn had even discussed the possibility of breaking up the sin-gle army into many swifter independent forces. It had been a fleeting thought, though, for how would they supply so many divisions? No small force would be able to take on a city, and Behren was a kingdom of great cities, not small enclaves.
Pagonel didn't voice his fear then, but he knew that Brynn already understood that she and her forces might soon be running across the To-gai steppes once more.
Even there, they would be effectively hunted.
Agradeleous' expression told Brynn that he hardly wanted to hear her words of encouragement. She had come to him to explain the need for their continuing run, to beg him to fly off more often and gather the supplies to keep the riders and their mounts fresh and ready to flee.
"Attack them!" the dragon demanded. ?Let us vanquish our enemies here and now and be done with this folly!"
"You stand straight no longer," Brynn observed, and the dragon, whose wounds from the breakout at Avrou Eesa had indeed bent him a bit to the side, growled.
"It is not time," Brynn said.
"The opportunity will get no better," Agradeleous countered. ?They fol-low us as if you yourself are directing their movements!"
Brynn couldn't deny the truth of the observation, so she didn't try. She wasn't about to tell the dragon about the spirit of Yakim Douan. Pagonel had assured her that there was no way the Chezru Chieftain could use the stone in any detrimental way against a beast as great as Agradeleous. Even attempting to possess a mighty dragon would likely destroy the man. But Pagonel and Brynn had agreed that they would have to watch Agradeleous carefully, now that the tide was turning against them, and now that they needed the dragon to increase his more mundane duties.
"Our enemies will continue to err, and we will continue to exploit those mistakes," Brynn said, rather unconvincingly.
Another low growl escaped Agradeleous.
"I need you. To-gai needs you, now more than ever," Brynn said. ?On every night that you fly out for supplies, pause and gather a great stone or two and drop them upon our enemies from on high, above the reach of their great spear-throwers."
She had to give him that bit of fun, at least, she knew, though she under-stood that they would likely gain little from such excursions. Dropping a rock upon a burning city was one thing, but hitting a target the size of a stretched encampment to any effect was more a matter of luck than skill. And if the dragon, in its bombing, got excited and tried to attack, then the Behrenese would fight against it viciously.
Brynn understood all too well that if she lost Agradeleous, her only reli-able source of supplying her army, she would have but two choices: initiate the great battle against the overwhelming odds, or flee back to the To-gai steppes and disband into small marauding bands, many of which, she knew, would soon give up the fight altogether.
Brynn retired late that night full of trepidation and exhausted, so exhausted that she did manage to find some sleep, though it was a light and restless one.
That would prove fortunate.
This was nothing that Pagonel often attempted, for it was trying and dis-turbing, and left him quite vulnerable.
Still, the mystic thought it important to try to gain even footing with their adversaries, to spy on the movements of the Behrenese as the Chezru Chieftain was now spying on the move-ments of the To-gai-ru.
The mystic fell into himself, sending his consciousness to his line of Chi his energy of life. And then he filtered that energy out beyond his physical body, out into the open air. He glanced back at himself, sitting alone in his small tent, legs crossed tightly before him, hands on his knees, palms up-ward, a look of complete serenity on his face.
Pagonel moved out slowly from his relaxed form, to the edges of his tent, and then he floated up through the tent, slowly rising, looking back, then looking all about at the quiet encampment.
He noted one form, moving out of a tent to the side of his own, and thought nothing of it for a moment, until he realized that it was moving with purpose, and not toward Pagonel s tent as the mystic had anticipated, but toward the tent of Brynn Dharielle.
That too would prove fortunate.
The shadowy form slipped silently through the tent flap, leaving it open just a bit so that he could navigate the darkness within.
There lay Brynn, curled under a blanket against the cold desert night air, and there to the side lay her fabulous sword, Flamedancer.
The form moved in closer, his hand reaching for the weapon.
Caught in fitful dreams, Brynn didn't hear any of it. But then, through her dreams, came a face she knew and trusted, the image of Pagonel, speak-ing to her directly.
Get up! the ghost implored her, and his tone was one of dire warning, a silent but insistent cry that warned her of imminent danger.
The woman was moving before her eyes even popped open, rolling to her belly and flipping a forward somersault, rolling to her feet.
She saw the glint of metal, flashing off the low firelight outside, and moved instinctively, snapping her arm down and across while turning her hips out of harm's way.
She did get nicked on the forearm, but it was no serious wound, and nothing that slowed her as she worked out from the side of the small tent, trying to find some maneuverability even as the attacker retracted and re-aligned the blade.
The sword thrust came in fast and low, but awkwardly, the man's retrac-tion before the strike giving the skilled Brynn more than enough time to compensate and set not only her defense, but her return attack. She leaped forward, turning over above the blade in a tight somersault, bringing her legs around to slam down atop the man's shoulders. He brought the sword up in response, but there was no strength behind the movement.
Brynn was quite glad that this one didn't understand how to ignite Flamedancer at that moment!
Her legs clamped about the man's neck as she came over and down, and a quick twist sent the man spiraling off to the side, tumbling headlong against the tent as Brynn let him loose.
She was up before him, and as he tried to turn about and bring his sword to bear, the ranger bore in, too close to be warded by the blade. She shoul-dered the man back against the tent flap, knocking him completely off-balance. Then she went for the sword arm, driving stiffened fingers into his forearm muscle, stealing his strength, while grabbing at the sword hilt with her other hand.
Falling and stung, he couldn't hold the sword away from the strong woman. She pulled it free and stepped up against him, moving just off to the side as she reversed her grip, turning the sword point down and be-hind her.
Even as she began the killing strike, her tent flap flung wide and Pagonel cried out to her, ?Do not kill him! ?
Brynn held the blow, and as the man sorted himself behind her, she launched an elbow into his face, laying him low. Then she came out and swung about, reorienting the sword so that its deadly tip turned in toward the helpless man.
Pagonel came in, bearing a torch, and the woman recognized her at-tacker as Merwan Ma.
She looked to Pagonel, confused, for he and the man had seemed to come to an understanding - so much so that Brynn had relaxed all guard over their captive.
"It was not Merwan Ma!" Pagonel said against her doubting and an-gry look.
The mystic rushed to kneel before the sobbing man. ?It was not you, was it?" he asked.
Merwan Ma waved him away.
"Tell me! ? the mystic insisted, grabbing him by the shoulders and squar-ing him up. ?It was the Chezru Chieftain, was it not? Come out with his soul stone to possess your body? Tell me! Your God- Voice possessed your body. He threw out your free will and substituted his own."
The Shepherd broke down completely then, falling to the floor and cov-ering his head with his hands.
"What does it mean? ? Brynn asked.
"It means that Merwan Ma has seen the lie that is his life," Pagonel an-swered. ?The Chezru religion cannot tolerate such a thing as has happened this night, and yet, it was the Chezru Chieftain himself who perpetrated this horror upon Merwan Ma." He looked down to the sobbing man. ?And he knows it."
"Shackle him and put him under guard," Brynn demanded.
The mystic nodded. ?The danger is mostly past now."
"But tomorrow?"
Pagonel was shaking his head before she ever asked, obviously anticipat ing the question. ?The theft of a body is no easy task, even for those Abelli-cans most skilled with the soul stone. Merwan Ma left an opening for his God-Voice, one wrought of confusion. But now he knows the truth and will be more vigilant, and I will teach him to resist such intrusions."
With Brynn's accepting nod, the mystic helped Merwan Ma to his feet and ushered the man out of the tent and back to his own. He offered a few instructions, a few mental games the man might use to help him battle the attacking spirit, should it return, and then he set a pair of guards outside the Shepherd's tent and returned to his own to contemplate these newest, troubling developments.
There in the dark, in his meditation, Pagonel considered the startling events and the good fortune alone that had allowed disaster to be averted. He thought of his own reasoning as to why Merwan Ma had been pos-sessed, of why the man had not been up to the task of ejecting the attacking spirit. For surely Pagonel would have had no trouble at all in repelling Yakim Douan, and Brynn had done so in mere seconds.
All it took was a little mental discipline, a bit of understanding that such an act was wrong in the extreme.
Pagonel popped open his eyes, staring straight ahead, seeing something then so simple and basic that the biggest surprise of the revelation was that he had not recognized it before, and that Merwan Ma apparently had not. He unfolded himself and rushed from his tent, past the guards, and into the tent of Merwan Ma, where he found the man sitting and staring blankly, hopelessly.
"Tell me of Transcendence," the mystic implored him.
Brynn used every trick that she or her leaders could think of. They inter-cepted flashing signals and sent some of their own along the line, and man-aged to turn the dogged pursuit off course several times.
On one such occasion, apparently running free up along the north road that connected Dharyan with Dahdah Oasis, the ranger made the decision to continue north, into the foothills of the Belt-and-Buckle, reasoning that her warriors would find more rest there, more supplies for them and their horses. Also, the thinking went, if the Chezru Chieftain came out to find them, he'd have a harder time spotting their encampment along the craggy rocks and canyons of the steep foothills.
And so they shook off the pursuit of Shauntil and Yatol Bardoh for several weeks, as the summer of God's Year 844, Abellican Reckoning, turned to autumn, marking the second anniversary of Brynn's rise as the leader of the To-gai-ru rebels.
"It has been a good two years," Brynn said to Pagonel and some others one night about the campfire. ?We have struck hard into Behren, harder than any of us might have hoped."
"It was a good first year and a half," one of the leaders, the ever-grumbling Tanalk Grenk, replied. ?Now we hide, while the Wraps tighten the noose about our necks."
There was little Brynn could say in the way of argument. They had won a couple of minor skirmishes that summer, mostly over supply caravans, but the victories had been few and far between, and always with the knowledge that Yatol Bardoh and Shauntil and their legions were not far behind.
"We must strike again, and hard!" the man went on, rising and brushing off his worn breeches. He paced about the fire, staring into the hard eyes of his seasoned warrior companions. ?Let us find again the glory of battle! Let Behren tremble beneath the thunder of our charge!"
"Where?" Brynn asked, stealing a bit of his bluster, and quieting the murmurs of excited agreement that had begun. She too rose and paced about. ?To take a city would delay us longer than our pursuers allow. And to turn and fight the pursuing force would be folly."
"Then let us turn for To-gai," another man offered. ?Let the Behrenese chase us about the land we know, and that they do not!"
The murmurs began anew, and Brynn closed her eyes, for this was ex-actly what she had been fearing as the war had ground to a halt. She and Pagonel had been over this time and time again, and in considering the re-turn to Behren, they had always come to the same grim conclusion: that such a turn would mark the end of the campaign. For in To-gai, their war-riors would find other pressing duties, and with the pressure off the Chezru Chieftain to come to resolution, attrition would weigh against them, and not for them. With the army running about To-gai and not Behren, the Behrenese would have no reason to seek peace.
Little was settled that night at the campfire, and a frustrated and trou-bled Brynn went back to her tent. She had only begun her typically fitful sleep when a call awakened her. She rushed out to join several others, Pagonel among them, as they stood on a nearby ridge, staring to the south, where the fires of a huge encampment could be seen.
"And so the chase begins anew," one man muttered, and walked away.
"Douan has found us," Pagonel remarked.
"Is there any way to hide from his spirit eyes?" Brynn asked.
The mystic turned to her and shook his head. ?We can prevent posses-sion, likely, but out of body, he is swift, and he can fly high to gain proper vantage points. Even if we lit no fires at all, not even those concealed in deep fire pits or in the shadows of overhangs and caves, he would find us."
"Send the scouts out far and wide," Brynn instructed. ?Let us turn no\y to the west, and use our speed to outdistance our pursuit." ?Back to To-gai?" ?So it would seem."
"And you believe that her efforts will falter once back in her homeland?" Merwan Ma asked Pagonel soon after, the two sitting alone near one low-burning fire, for the winter chill was blowing up there already.
"The odds were never in her favor," the mystic replied. ?In truth, I never believed that she had any chance at all of breaking free of Behren's immoral stranglehold, unless the Chezru Chieftain and his Yatols came to under-stand that To-gai was worth less than the effort required to hold it."
"And she must have known as much, as well," said the Shepherd, and the mystic nodded.
"She, we, all expected to die. And so we likely will."
"Then why did you try?"
Pagonel looked at him as if the question itself was preposterous, and that expression conveyed all the reasons Merwan Ma needed to know.
"Brynn's world has crumbled," said Pagonel, and he paused and looked at Merwan Ma, waiting for the man to return his stare. ?And so has your own."
Merwan Ma sat back and folded his arms over his thin chest, letting that realization sink in deeply. He knew that Pagonel spoke the truth, knew that his entire life had been tossed aside, simply because he had seen the Chezru Chieftain in the illicit, even sacrilegious, act of using the hematite gemstone. And Merwan Ma, the keeper of that sacred chalice, the appointed atten-dant to the God-Voice and mentor to the new God-Voice, once one was found, had come to recognize, as had the mystic, the deeper implications to all of this.
Merwan Ma had felt the intrusion of Yakim Douan keenly, and understood that the God-Voice had almost forced his spirit from his body entirely, taking the corporeal form as his own. If he could do that to a grown and intelligent man, what might he do to an unsuspecting infant in the womb?
"I am not going west with Brynn," Pagonel said to him, drawing him from his contemplations.
"South to the Mountains of Fire?"
"East tojacintha."
Merwan Ma's eyes opened wide. ?They will kill you. They will not hear you!"
"This is a bigger issue than my life."
"You say it as simply as that?"
"I do."
Again, Merwan Ma sat back, staring hard at this unusual man. ?And what of me?"
"I will ask of Brynn that you be set free," Pagonel replied. ?And she will not argue the course. If you choose to go south, to the Mountains of Fire, I will tell you proper phrases, passwords, that will ensure your acceptance in the Walk of Clouds. Your road will be your own to determine."
Merwan Ma continued to stare at him, trying to read the thoughts behind the words. ?My road will be mine to choose, but you are hoping that I will choose to go with you, to Jacintha."
Pagonel smiled.
"They will kill me, too," Merwan Ma said, and the mystic did not disagree.
Merwan Ma shrugged, and gave what might have been his first honest smile since entering the city of Dharyan so long ago.
The next day, the pair stood before Brynn, their gear heavy on their backs.
"You have my love and my respect," Pagonel said to her. ?I know that you will choose correctly in every course you take." He gave her a hug and kissed her on the cheek. ?May good fortune keep you alive, Brynn Dharielle. Your home is the Walk of Clouds if you cannot find it again in To-gai."
"I only hope that I will be buried in the soil of To-gai," the woman said grimly, her tone telling the mystic that she understood well that her war was fast ending. If her force could not outguess the Behrenese, they had no chance of victory.
"There will be others who come behind you," Pagonel replied. ?Who use the name of Brynn Dharielle, the Dragon of To-gai, to inspire those who would follow them. The quest to see To-gai free does not end with you, even should you fail."
"And you will plant the seeds of dissent among the Chezru, that Yakim Douan will find his power wavering,"
Brynn replied.
"And perhaps, in the time of Transcendence, which is not so far away, an-other will take up the cause of Brynn Dharielle, and use the tactics of Brynn Dharielle, and how will Behren fight back then?" said Merwan Ma, and the other two looked at him with perfectly stunned expressions, then broke out in laughter.
"Jhesta Tu mind tricks, to bend him to my will," Pagonel quipped, and Merwan Ma, after a quick, panicked look to make sure that the mystic was joking, joined in the laughter.
And so they parted ways, with Brynn leading her riders out to the west, and Pagonel and Merwan Ma beginning their long walk down the eastern road, some two weeks from Jacintha.