She turned to Graxen. "Whatever this insanity is that drives you, I'm infected as well. Perhaps a single night of courage can change the future. Yet we must not lie to ourselves: taking Metron into the Nest will likely lead to our deaths."
Graxen nodded. He squeezed her fore-talon tightly. "With you at my side, I don't fear death."
Nadala rubbed her cheek against his, holding it there for a long moment. He savored this touch, this tenderness. When she pulled away her eyes were soft, glistening, yet shining with determination.
"I do fear death," she whispered. "But I cherish you more than life. You're a cause worth dying for. I'll take you through the tunnel."
Chapter Twenty:
One Day Love
"I welcome you to the abode of the goddess," said Gabriel. The timbre and cadence of his voice had a songlike quality. "You came here searching for Zeeky. As you see, she is unharmed."
"And what of Jandra?" Hex asked as he lowered his long jaws to within inches of Gabriel's hat brim. As the sun-dragon spoke, Gabriel's silvery locks fluttered.
Bitterwood watched the angel carefully. Gabriel showed no sign of being intimidated by Hex. Indeed, against the backdrop of the white jungle flowers blooming in the trees behind him, Gabriel's androgynous face looked positively serene.
Gabriel answered calmly, "Jandra was invited to commune more closely with the goddess. I assure you, she hasn't been harmed. She will return to you soon."
"It didn't look like an invitation to me," Hex said. "It looked like an attack; an obscenity was used. I want Jandra returned now, unharmed, or…"
"Or?" said Gabriel, his pearly teeth gleaming as he smiled. "Choose your words carefully, dragon."
Bitterwood moved down the steps, clearing a path for Hex to take action. He glanced toward Zeeky, still standing near Trisky. If combat broke out, he could quickly reach her and move her to safety. The jungle behind her was thick with ancient trees. Perhaps he could find a safe place for her amid the branches.
He assumed that if Hex attacked Gabriel, Adam and Trisky would fight on the angel's side. Bitterwood felt no loyalty toward Hex, but he also knew that Gabriel was lying. Jandra hadn't been invited anywhere; she'd been taken away by force. If a fight broke out, was he prepared to take Hex's side? Even if it meant standing against his own son?
From Hex's tone, a fight seemed increasingly likely: "Don't threaten me, angel. You would do well to remember the Ballad of Belpantheron. Dragons long ago evicted angels from the domain of the earth. History is on my side should we come to blows. Tell your goddess to return Jandra. Now."
Gabriel's beatific face hardened. Bitterwood stepped closer to Zeeky. Adam's hand rested on his crossbow, his eyes fixed on the sun-dragon. Trisky paid no attention to the fight, munching contentedly on the handful of grass that Zeeky held out to the copper-colored long-wyrm.
Suddenly, a disembodied voice once more rang through the air.
"There's no need for this argument," the goddess said. Her voice was an ethereal thing. The syllables sounded almost as if formed by chance from the noise of leaves rustling in the breeze, the buzzing of bees, and the soft cries of distant birds. Yet as she continued, the words became more human, and gained more directionality. Bitterwood looked toward the entrance to the temple as the voice said, "You are all my guests. Jandra is unharmed."
The goddess emerged onto the temple stairs. She had reverted to a mostly human appearance, clad in a long flowing gown of spun emerald. Her skin looked liked flawless marble and her hair curled down her back in stony locks. She was ten feet tall, towering above even her angel, Gabriel.
There was a movement further in the temple, half-concealed behind the goddess's statuesque frame. Jandra stepped from behind the goddess. Her helmet gleamed with the blue of the artificial sky overhead. She raised her hand in a wave, looking mildly embarrassed at the commotion she had caused.
Bitterwood called out, "Jandra! Are you safe?"
"I'm fine," Jandra said. "The goddess and I have just been engaged in girl talk."
Bitterwood felt hairs rise on the back of his neck. Something about Jandra's voice was off. And, as she stepped onto the stairs beside Gabriel, she had no visible reaction, as if the angel's presence wasn't worth her notice.
He looked toward Hex, whose nose twitched as he sniffed Jandra. Hex shifted his head, glancing back toward Bitterwood. The second their eyes met, the unspoken truth passed between them.
Whoever this woman was, she wasn't Jandra.
Jandra emerged from nothingness under a starry sky. The ground beneath her yielded like fine, loosely packed snow, with a slight crunching sound as it compressed beneath her feet. The landscape was a bleak, uniform gray, a fine gravel dustscape that spread in every direction for as far as she could see. The setting was curiously odorless and eerily quiet. Jazz stood with her back to Jandra twenty feet away, her eyes turned toward the sky. Jandra stepped toward her, and was startled to find herself flying. No, not flying… but a single step had somehow transformed into a long, slow jump. She gently floated back down to the gray dust beside Jazz. She turned her face to the sky, her body posture mimicking the older woman's. She was bewildered by what she found in the sky. The moon? Only now ten times larger, and covered with wispy white clouds and enormous blue-gray oceans.
"Where are my friends?" said Jandra. "Where are we?"
"Your friends are still at the temple. I've sent ambassadors to entertain them. We're on the moon. We're in a prep zone that has atmosphere but hasn't been terrascaped yet. That big ball above us? It's our home. It's the planet where you've lived your whole life. Pretty cool, huh?"
Jandra felt queasy and lightheaded. Not just lightheaded, light-bodied. The contents of her stomach seemed to be lifting toward her throat as easily as her feet had lifted from the surface.
Jazz said, "You may ask yourself, well, how did I get here?"
"We're on the moon?"
"I thought it would be nice to give you a little perspective. I like you, Jandra Dragonsdaughter. You came a long way and put yourself in a lot of danger to help a friend. You've got good instincts. We're going to get along fine."
"I've heard legends of men who live on the moon," Jandra said.
"Yeah. They're all jerks. We won't be meeting them."
"Then why are we here?"
"Look," said Jazz, waving toward the glowing blue-white orb above them. "Have you ever seen anything so beautiful in all your life? That's an entire biosphere you're looking at. It's not just a big ball of wet rock. It's the largest living thing you're ever going to lay eyes upon. You have to understand something important: If it weren't for me, that wonderful living planet above us would be dead. The world owes me big, but I'm not expecting any thanks. I did it out of love."
Jandra stared at the earth, trying to make sense of what she was seeing. Icecaps and oceans and land masses green and gray and tan. It seemed unimaginably small and impossibly big at the same time.
"I was born into a world that was dying," said Jazz. "The world had already toppled over the brink of environmental catastrophe before I was out of diapers. The atmosphere and oceans were poisoned in order to satisfy the consumption of the wealthy. The richer nations could afford the illusion of environmental health by shipping their most polluting industries to remote corners of the globe. Except, there were no remote corners of the globe-pollute the air in Timbuktu, and eventually the poison spreads everywhere."
"I've heard that mankind once ruled the world, then fell," said Jandra. "Did the environmental catastrophe cause this?"
"Curiously, no," said Jazz. "The more poisoned the world became, the wealthier people grew. It was a perverse cycle. When people are rich enough, they can afford to live disconnected from nature. What does it matter if the atmosphere is fouled when you live cradle to grave in sealed vehicles and buildings where the air is finely controlled? Sure, there were millions of people who cared and tried to save things. But there were billions more who carried on their happy lives as planetary parasites, shopping and gorging with endless appetites, forever plugged into an endless stream of distracting entertainments that allowed them to ignore the greater truth around them."