Twin visions laughed as one turned to Shell, “Anders is right, you know. It worked.”

— an excerpt from Ca’ancartti
where Shell and Anders end up in the ak’asha
through Anders attempts to capture a dragon

summary of this scene

Anders Gaelss’ loft: Shell confronts him while Anders experiments with his formula

the excerpt

Shell wandered the back alleys of Port Summer until she located Anders Gaelss’ building. The burnt oak scent here was stronger than she detected in baby Sophie’s nursery, confirming not only the correct address, but Anders’ visit to the infant’s nursery.

Anders Gaelss was clever — she’d give him that — but Shell never figured him an interest in babes, much less the daughter of Sir Olan and the lady Nildene. Nor did she think him clever enough to provide false scent and print at the scene of the kidnapping.

Nevertheless…

Shell intended to find out why. She hoped also to find Sophie, unharmed.

It was an old building, very run down, leaning to one side with beams propped at odd angles between the upper window slits and the garbage-filled cobbles below. Shell tipped her head back to look at her destination, the tower roosting atop the upper-most floor.

The door to the tower stariwell was warped and stuck, needed force to push it open. Shell ducked beneath the lintel, a frame built long ago for much shorter people. Perhaps the navvies had lived there once.

The stairs tilted unevenly, the stairwell narrow enough to force her sideways to ascend. Shell slipped several times on the saddle-back steps, needed a hand on the damp stone wall to guide. There was no rail, no light.

Shell climbed until she could go no further. Dusty yellow shafts angled downward from the mis-thatched roof, providing enough light that Shell could make out Anders Gaelss’ door, as warped and ancient as the front door below. Not a scrap of paint or maintenance marred its appearance.

She rapped loudly.

Shell heard muttering behind the door, but no one answered. She tried the latch, which moved at her touch, smoothly, without sound. She swung the door wide. She stepped back, her hand quickly covering her nostrils. The stench made her eyes water. She blinked repeatedly to clear her vision, then went inside, closing the door behind her.

Anders Gaelss sat on a high two–legged stool directly ahead, haunched over his workbench.

“On with you now,” Anders said. He tapped the bench. A blue powder drifted upward, caught in the light spilling through the window that ran from bench to ceiling on the wall.

“I won’t stand for this, will I?” Anders spoke to the powder hanging beside him.

The rogue blue powder swirled and sparkled, then shrieked. It popped and flashed, forming a cloud.

Through the centre of the cloud a blue claw appeared, then a forepaw, a limb, a second limb. A head forced Its way through the cloud, nostrils twitching at the end of a long blue snout. Wings came next, opening and closing like a butterfly’s drying in the sun before first flight.

Then the entire tiny blue dragon appeared, about the size of Shell’s thumb and breathing a long spew of fire as it perched upon the cloud.

Shell thought the apparition a clever replica of a Great Blue Hunter dragon.

Anders waved a hand behind his back. “Come, you should have a closer look.” He did not turn around, the invitation his first acknowledgement that Shell was present.

Shell arched her eyebrows. She stepped up behind Anders to study his tiny blue dragon.

The dragon stared back, first at Anders, then Shell. She saw miniature reflections of herself in its eyes, then sensed its recognition of her, its growing alarm.

The dragon shrieked. Its wings flapped, scattering cloud and blue dust.

Sparks and fire flew through the air.

Glass tubes shattered, books toppled, papers fluttered.

Dozens of pouches on shelves burst into flame.

Bricks popped from the walls.

Anders’ two–legged stool jumped, tossing him to the floor. The stool wobbled away from the bench, folded into itself and scrambled under a side table nearby.

The blast threw Shell upward. She saw Anders fall, thump hard on his backside against a melting brick wall, his left foot folded at an odd angle beneath his other leg. She landed beside him, rolled off her shoulder and sat upright.

There was nothing to see of Anders’ tower room, lost now in floating debris, dust and cloud. There was nothing to hear but Anders’ moans.

“Oh, I believe I’m still in one piece. You?” Anders bony hand clutched Shell, his tattooed face loomed closer. He grinned, exposing filed teeth, dyed blue. His breath mirrored the burnt oak stench of his room and the clue left in Sophie’s nursery.

“It worked.”

“Wha—”

A large blue eye peered through the now visible window. It blinked. The vertical slit of the iris narrowed.

Anders ran toward it. He laughed and clapped his hands.

“I got you. Yes? Hurrah.” He laughed and danced a one–legged jig. The eye blinked again.

“No,” a large exploding voice pressed down on Shell’s thoughts, “I have you, you silly fool.”

(Anders shrank, covering his ears and moaned.)

And behind that thought–filling voice, Shell heard more laughing. Her mind conjured a vision of two men, utterly identical, clad in black leathers not unlike her own, one mounted on his horse, the other standing close, the reins of both horses in his left hand.

The twin visions laughed. The standing twin turned to Shell,

“Anders is right, you know. It worked.”

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