CHAPTER FIVE

THE MEETING

PRESENT DAY – BÁCHVIỆT

DALGLIESH

Dalgliesh raced out of the portal from the Between and tried to run faster, his two short legs carrying him quick as they could across a huge meadow. He needed to get where he was going before he forgot where he was supposed to go. He hated forgetting things all the time.
He could remember some things. He had to have three hearts no matter what shape he changed into. And he always knew how to get back to Qataban. Zax didn’t know how long he’d lived, but The Hooded Woman said he’d lived for a long time and told him one day soon she would fix him so he remembered everything.
What would it be like to remember his whole life?
But before she could fix him she needed his help, and he had to hurry. He liked helping her. He liked helping Zax, too. They never made fun of him when he couldn’t remember. They had armies of scary men and could make anyone do anything they wanted, but they said what he did was important and they needed him.
Dalgliesh changed his shape from man to horse. Four legs must be able to go faster than two. It only made sense. His pace picked up, but what if this still wasn’t fast enough? Maybe more legs could go even faster. Didn’t he know a horse with eight legs? It was so hard to remember. Was there a reason a horse couldn’t have eight legs? An odd number of legs might not work, but why not more pairs? Maybe he could build up to ten legs! He shifted so he had two more, three on each side, but the ones in the middle got mixed up in the ones he already had. He tripped and went sprawling.
He untangled his legs and rose to his feet. Maybe more legs weren’t the solution, but legs that went faster. Was there something faster than legs? What about — Dalgliesh ducked as two black birds with silver and gold runes on their chests swooped over his head, chasing a laughing, bigger gray bird with three gold feathers on eachwing. He knew those birds!
“Kasuku! Hey! Munin, where are you going? Hugin! Wait for me!” But they didn’t seem to hear him, and their large wingspans carried them away high and fast.
Wings! They were faster than feet. What kind of wings were the best? Dalgliesh shifted his legs into wings and collapsed, laughing as a wild wing whacked him in his face. He reverted to six legs and grew two big wings from his back instead — one huge bat wing and one albatross wing, just in case. It took a few steps, but he lumbered into a run and flapped hard, taking to the air and chasing after the birds.
His friends were getting hard to see. He needed better vision. An eye opened in his forehead, a falcon eye in between the two dragonfly eyes he preferred. The birds always stayed ahead of him no matter how fast he flew. He had to get their attention. His head changed from horse to a lion, and he roared, but the trio didn’t stop. Was something louder than a lion? The thought adapted his form, giving him a whale head. Booming clicks burst from his mouth.
The birds streaked from the sky toward the ground, skimmed the surface of a lake in a clearing and disappeared into a jungle on the far side.
Dalgliesh circled over the lake. Where was he supposed to be going? An enormous golden turtle floated to the surface. His shell took up almost the whole lake and he lumbered onto shore, where he faced a golden dragon and a golden unicorn, both as big as the turtle. A small red fox with nine tails paced between the larger creatures. Why hadn’t he seen them before? He squinted at the unicorn. Was he still a unicorn if he had two horns? If a fox had five tails instead of one was still a fox why not a unicorn with two horns! Maybe Dalgliesh could ask the unicorn what he liked to be called.
“The King cannot be allowed to continue his conquest.” Dragon sounded angry and smoke coiled from his nostrils. Sometimes the Hooded Woman made Kiven mad and Dalgliesh thought smoke would come out of Kiven’s nose, but Kuven never changed shape into a dragon.
Fox’s tails twirled and twisted around themselves. “Even now he marches on those who have done nothing wrong, planning to kill them over an imagined slight. I’m trying to get them to safety, but the King has sent Quan to hunt me.”
“Quan.” Dragon snorted. “That upstart.”
Unicorn tossed his head and stamped a hoof. “We are Guardians of the borders. If we focus our magic inward, the forces the King has angered outside Báchviệt will invade.”
Báchviệt! That’s where Dalgliesh was supposed to go for the Hooded Woman. He flew lower and tried to find a place to land. He wasn’t good at this part and needed a lot of space. All the land near the lake was filled with the golden animals, though.
“We are already stretched too thin.” Turtle settled his bulk to the ground, tucking his legs into his shell. “As long as we are short of the fourth, we each have to cover more ground.”
Dragon reared up his long neck, placing his head in Dalgliesh’s flight path. “You!”
Dalgliesh squeaked and tried to flap his wings backwards to avoid Dragon’s nose. His wings stopped working altogether and he fell. Turtle grunted as Dalgliesh thudded onto his shell, scrambled for traction but found none without hands, and slid down the side of the shell to the ground.
Unicorn lowered his head and nudged Dalgliesh to his feet with his horns. “What are you doing here?”
“I have to go to Báchviệt.” Dalgliesh shook his wings out and folded them over his back. “I was following some birds, but I heard you say Báchviệt, and remembered that’s where I need to go. Can you take me there?”
“You’re in Báchviệt.” Fox sat down, fanning his tails out around him. “What are you supposed to do in Báchviệt, Dalgliesh?”
Dalgliesh squinted at Fox. He didn’t remember meeting a fox with so many tails before, but he might have. “You know who I am?”
Dragon gave him a toothy smile. “You’re mostly a horse, I think, but with six legs and a whale’s head with three eyes that don’t match. You also fly with one bat wing and one bird wing, but can’t land. You must be Dalgliesh, although we’ve never seen you in this…form before.”
“Were you sent to find us?” Unicorn asked.
Dalgliesh frowned as he concentrated. “Um, well… ” He fidgeted as he struggled to remember.
Turtle extended his head from his shell. “Did she perhaps write something down for you?”
“Yes!” Dalgliesh grinned and shifted to his human shape. He reached into a deep pocket in the cloak that always changed with him and extracted two letters, holding one up. “This one has my name on it.” He unfolded it, read the page, then extended the other letter to Dragon. “This one is for you.”
Dragon disappeared, and an old man with long gray hair under a woven hat stood in his place. He accepted the letter and unfolded it. “She is sending the Paladinne to deal with the King. She asks us to transfer our debts to her to the Paladinne in the form of three gifts — against weariness, darkness, and cold. If we do this, the fourth will be born and the tree restored. Báchviệt will be saved.”
“That’s good, right?” Dalgliesh fidgeted from foot to foot. Was he supposed to do something else now? He read his letter again. The last part said ‘Come back to me.’ He could do that. He could always find the Hooded Woman, but what was the fastest way?
A black horse with wings flew overhead and whinnied.
“Bu!” Dalgliesh called. “Bu! Wait for me!”