Dragon and Judge

He smiled a grim smile. "Because if he's not," he added, "you're dead."

CHAPTER 3

They'd been flying for nearly an hour, and Jack was developing a serious crick in his neck from the shuttle's low ceiling, when they finally started down.

Their destination seemed to be a wide canyon cutting through the buttes and rock pillars and sand of the desert around them. As they flew closer, he could see that there were more rock pillars dotting the floor of the canyon, some of them reaching all the way up to the level of the surrounding desert surface. The canyon's pillars also had slender stone archways and guy wires linking them, creating a spiderweb of connections between them and the canyon's steep walls on either side.

Near the center of the canyon was a long, flat structure that seemed to straddle the river itself. From the air, it looked like a cross between a meeting hall and a covered bridge. At a dozen places north and south of the structure, the river had been spanned by narrow bridges.

The canyon floor, in contrast to the light brown sand of the desert around them, was a patchwork of vibrant green. Plants of some sort, probably crops. Along both sides of the canyon floor, the areas farthest from the river, were numerous clusters of trees.

I need to see more to the right.

Jack winced. Draycos should know better than to talk to him in such close confines.

But if the Golvins pressed against him on either side had heard the K'da's murmur, they gave no sign. Carefully, Jack turned his torso a little to the right.

He felt the subtle movement as Draycos eased along his skin to where he could look through the open shirt collar. Jack looked that direction, too, wondering what exactly the dragon was looking at. Aside from the canyon, all of the desert looked pretty much the same.

"We have returned," the driver said, pointing at the canyon below. "You will be ready to begin at once?"

"Let's first see what kind of accommodations you have for me," Jack improvised.

"We will provide the best," the Golvin seated beside the driver assured him. "Low down by the river, near to the Great Assembly Hall and the Seat of Decision."

"Ah," Jack said, a sinking sensation in his stomach. Low down in the canyon and surrounded by all that rock would severely limit the range of the spare comm clip in his shoe. Alison and Uncle Virge would pretty much have to fly directly over the place in order to pick up his signal.

And flying over it was the best they were going to manage, too. With all the archways and guy wires connecting the rock pillars, there was no way a ship the size of the Essenay would be putting down inside the canyon itself anytime soon.

In fact, the shuttle driver himself nearly didn't manage it. With the shifting wind currents along the canyon's edges buffeting the shuttle, Jack had a few very bad moments as they worked their way through the guy wires toward the landing pit by the river a couple hundred yards south of the big building.

But they made it, the engines sending ripples through the tall plants surrounding the landing pit as the pilot shut them down. More Golvins were starting to gather, Jack saw, all of them wearing the same long, pocketed vests as his kidnappers. Some of the outfits were differently cut, though, while others had colorful bits of decoration sewn onto them. By the time Jack maneuvered his way out of the shuttle there were at least fifty of the creatures standing silently watching him.

"I don't suppose it would do any good to tell them I'm not this Jupa you're looking for, would it?" Jack suggested as the driver and the other front-seat passenger joined him.

"You are the Jupa," the driver said firmly. "As indeed they can now tell for themselves."

Jack looked back at his audience. Sure enough, the entire crowd had that fluttering-nose thing going. Something about him apparently smelled really tasty.

He just hoped it wasn't going to be in the culinary sense.

"You wished to see your accommodations," the driver continued. "Come. I will show you."

"And I need to talk to your leaders, too," Jack added as the Golvin started along a path leading from the landing pit toward one of the taller stone pillars a hundred yards away. Aside from the various paths and the landing pit itself, Jack noted, the entire canyon floor seemed devoted to cropland. The trees along both sides, he suspected, probably produced fruit or nuts as well as wood.

"The One will see you shortly," the Golvin assured him. "Come."