by C. E. Murphy
Kate laughed. "He'd rather you found it yourself."
"Fecking dragons." Grace eyed the mountain's blown-off top, so long used to its changed shape that trees and bushes swept over the volcanic edge. "Up there?"
"It is the obvious way to enter a volcano."
"It is, but Grace hates to be obvious. Stay here," she said to Tony and Máire, as if they had any choice in the matter when she faded, and simply stepped through the rock.
#
It had never been difficult, the ghosting. Not unless she brought someone else with her. This time, though, it felt like the mountain itself resisted her, making its sides of thicker stuff, harder to traverse. Perhaps it was Janx's power, pushing her away; ghosts weren't meant to truck with the Old Races. Or anyone else, for that matter; ghosts, save for Grace herself, didn't really seem to exist.
Because she wasn't a ghost, only an enchanted human, and the witch who had long since drawn on the Tear's power, weakening Grace's place in the world, no longer did so. Perhaps she was less a ghost than she had once been, and the walls of the world less willing to let her pass. They might soon refuse to grant her passage at all.
Just before that thought turned to panic, she fell through the mountain's inner side and tumbled down a mound of gold and jewels legendary in proportion. She rolled to her backside, stopping her slide with heels dug in, then, laughing, filled her hands with coins and lifted them to drip through her fingers. They sang as they fell, tinking against one another and starting small avalanches of their own, even as the larger number she'd dislodged clinked and tinkled to a stop. Still smiling, Grace rose to her feet and looked around, then lifted her hands again, empty now, as if to embrace it all.
The volcano's inner chamber glittered. Light and warmth came from everywhere and nowhere—a dragon's purview—and caught edges of gold, chunks of jewelry, magnificent sculptures and astonishing wonders. At a glimpse she knew a dozen precious items lost to history—even an Ozymandias presided, graceful and enormous, over the chamber, making Grace wonder how many colossal statues had been carved of the great Egyptian pharaoh—and trusted that a hundred more would come to light with a little exploration. She bowed to the ancient king, murmuring, "The world has looked upon your works, O Mighty, and despaired. We remember, king of kings, no matter how little of you we might know. We do remember," before an impatient rumble filled the room. "If you want me to laud you, Janx, you'll have to come out where I can see you," Grace called.
Gold shifted beneath her feet, slowly at first and then with greater speed, until to remain standing on it she had to ghost, stepping only lightly in the world. It felt natural, not forced as it had through the mountainside, and she thought perhaps it had been Janx's power after all. What good was it to be a dragon unable to dissuade people from approaching a treasure?
He burst out of the gold like a column of lava, all fiery red and jade-eyed, and let go a roar to shake the foundations of the earth itself. Gold and jewels rained down from half-spread wings, slid down his spine and caught on his scales until he shone as brilliantly everywhere as his gold-dipped claws did. He towered above her, stories tall in height, and had she not only recently spoken with the Serpent, even Grace might have trembled before him. Instead, as full of lightness and joy as she could ever remember being, she called, "You are gorgeous, dragonlord. Would that the world could see it."
Air imploded, a rush of sound and pressure that would have knocked Grace from her feet had she been ordinarily corporeal, and when it ended a man of red hair and jade eyes, dressed in a slim-fitting suit with a high collar, stood atop the mountain of gold where the dragon had been. Not a man: here, in the heart of his own hoard, Janx made no effort at all to draw in the impact of his presence. He was always larger than life, his attention a weighty thing; Grace had seen it drag people down, slow them, frighten them, even when they had no sense of what they truly faced, and she had seen him transfer that attention in the same swift manner he could transfer his dragonly mass. It made him feel as though he moved too quickly for human understanding, and perhaps in fact he did. But here he made no pretense about it, as he usually did in the human world. Here, although the man stood only a few inches over six feet in height, his self filled the chamber as a dragon. It was, in its way, as free as Grace had ever seen him. Stupidly, tears came to her eyes.
"What on earth," Janx said, incredulous.
Grace, almost laughing, brushed tears away. "It's been an extraordinary week, love, and the sight of you steals Grace's breath."
Irritation spilled off the dragon in the way a soothed cat might still raise its hackles: he could not resist a compliment, yet resented that it worked so well on him. Grace laughed again and climbed the mountain of gold to stand just below him, her hands spread to encompass the wonders. "I can only imagine this is the crude and obvious selection of your trove, dragonlord. That this is what the dull and ordinary might be shown, all the better to impress small minds with. I envy those whom you hold dear enough to share what you keep close to your heart, and truly treasure."
Janx thrust his jaw out, a small action with the undertones of great force. "Have you been to kiss the Blarney Stone recently?"
"I didn't think of it," Grace said with perfect honesty. "I should have. Tony would have loved that."
The dragon's eyes lidded, and for all that he seemed human, Grace saw the depths of anger and mistrust in his gaze. "You brought him here. A mortal."
"A mortal who already knows what you are, and who isn't going to betray your secrets or your hoard to the wider world. Your Negotiator sorted that out, so don't play silly buggers with me, Janx. You may not care about crossing me, but I'd say woe betide the fool who crosses Margrit Knight."
"Margrit Knight is still only human."
"Is she?" Grace meant the question honestly enough, and the fact that Janx didn't answer answered it truly enough. Instead he stared down his nose at her, then finally snapped his teeth—she felt the breeze of the gesture, his dragon self only barely hidden—and finally said, "You're here for the Tear."
"I am. Will you give it to me?"
He gestured, an odd twist of one hand, and though he didn't move any more than that—no more, at least, that Grace could see—the Tear was in his hand suddenly, a palmful of opalescent grey. It seemed brighter than Grace remembered, but she had seen it only under Ireland's cloudy skies, and by night, not in the reflective golden heart of a dragon's hoard. A pulse ran through her, less desire than pain, and she had to still her hands to keep herself from trying to snatch it. Janx's lip curled, a breath of thin blue smoke escaping his lips. "What will you use it for?"
"To live," Grace said with a shrug, and, more softly, "to love. I only want to belong in this world again, Janx."
"So," the dragon said, "do we all."
"Then give it to me," Grace said suddenly, impulsively, "and so shall we all. I wish the magic was free in this world, Janx. I wish the magic was free."
The Tear throbbed, a single sudden beat, and erupted into an ever-expanding halo of power.
#
It hit them first, the dragon and the ghost, and Grace fell backward from the impact. Janx caught her with a lightning-quick hand, and her hand remained solid in his. She flinched, and tried to ghost, and could not.
#
On the island's shore, Kate exploded uncontrollably into dragon form, the crash of displaced air knocking Máire and Tony to the side. Tony rolled to sitting first, gaping at the young dragon who flailed at the air and sea, trying to right herself again. She had grown immeasurably, the new size unfamiliar and dangerous: Tony ducked as an enormous wing sailed over his head and dragged along the ground, digging a rift of considerable depth. "Kate! Kate! Watch it, you're—you're huge! Watch what you're doing! Switch back, you're—"
"Tony." Máire's voice, small and thin, came from the other side of the ditch Kate had accidentally dug. The dragon yanked her wing upward and beat hard at the air, shooting skyward without a foggy mask to protect her. Ton
y leapt the ditch, concerned for Kate's well-being but more grateful for her departure. Máire sat up where she'd been knocked to, a few feet up the mountain, and extended a hand toward him. "Tony. Tony, look…" Her hand was whole, four fingers and a thumb, as if Fuamnach had never nibbled away at her, bit by bit.
Tony took her hand, turning it this way and that, then held it, his thumbpad against her palm, as she thumped her other hand against a leg, now whole and healthy, that hadn't been there for centuries. "What happened?"
Máire took her hand away from him, turning it over and back again herself, and shook her head. "The…the magic came back. All the magic she took from me, all the magic she ate in my bones, it came…back."
"How is that even p—" Tony swallowed the question and shot to his feet, swinging around to look at the mountain like he might see through it, into it. "She made a wish."
"She can't have, she—" Máire came to her feet as well, then stared at them, the habit of centuries at war with the instinctive use of a limb she'd once had. "She can't have," she said again, but less certainly. "What did she wish for, to make this happen? To make…" She looked to the sky, where Kate's lithe form made a silhouette between the half-moonlit sky and the wine-dark sea.
The sea beneath her began to boil. Siryns came first, racing higher and farther from the surface with each leap than they had even with Máire's power to change the face of the ocean. Máire made a glad sound, and it came back to them in echoes, the siryns bringing to life a song that had been silent for centuries.
After them, after them came serpents, not many, but some: great winding beasts who broke the water's surface and splashed below again until the sea was a living thing, sinuous and unforgiving. Their iridescent crests split the waves and sent wakes rushing behind them.
Janx, enormous and roaring, burst forth from the caldera of his volcano, spitting fire at the sky, coloring moonlight blue to purple. Kate roared in response and flew to him, their wings beating so hard as they hovered in the air that the wind of it swept down to the island, buffeting Tony and knocking Máire, unsteady on her feet, to the ground again. Laughter rose in Tony's throat as he offered Máire a hand: incredulous laughter that even he couldn't hear under the dragons' roars, which was a noise like the end of the world.
And the water still boiled, surging upward so fast that Tony pulled Máire up the moun-tainside, looking for safety—safety that didn't, couldn't, exist. Not when a vast head finally broke the surface and rose up and up and up, a crested serpent like the others, glimmering in moonlight and dragonfire and large enough to encircle the world. The Serpent lifted itself from the water until its height was equal to that of the dragons', and Janx, boldest of his kind, swept away from Kate's side to make obsequience, bowing to the Serpent from the heart of the sea. He was so large, so ancient and long-grown himself, that he made measure by the Serpent, while Kate looked barely a speck beside the Serpent's impossible size.
The Serpent greeted the dragonlord with such honor as no other had known: he touched his nose to Janx's, then crashed back into the depths, and the sea came rising, and its darkness swept Tony and Máire away.
#
Magic pulsed, a power so deep that even Margrit, with only a few sips of Old Races magic in her blood, felt it in her bones, and came awake with a jolt, squinting in the morning sunlight. Alban, nestled like a great stone cat in the corner of their room, woke as well, and for an instant all was still as their eyes met in daylight.
Then the power was gone, and Alban slept again encased in stone, while Margrit sat, breathless, in a world that had changed forever.
#
There is a story as old as time: a story of a lamp, and a wish, and a genie.
The wish was made, and the lamp was cracked, and the djinn, mad with time immemorial spent in darkness, swept out.
#
Emma, bent over a bit of paper and a smaller bit of spellwork, lifted her head as magic poured across the world. "Oh," she said in delight. "Oh, she did it!"
Jana, as suddenly a dragon as Kate had been, though smaller, transformed back to human and shook herself. "She did what?"
"I don't know," Emma said joyfully, "but it changes everything."
#
A grimoire almost as old as secrets themselves flung itself off a shelf in Baba Yaga's hut. Its spine cracked as it fell open, and a few creatures escaped: a harpy, screeching and howling with rage as she threw herself about the hut and—by chance—out the door; and a vampire, so quick that, even starved, it disappeared before Baba Yaga leapt on the book and slammed it shut again. She caught a selkie's foot as she closed the book, and stuffed it back between the pages with a drop of blood and a cursed spell that had held a thousand years. Iron and blood bound the grimoire closed again, and the ancient witch clucked to her chicken-legged house, calling it to wakefulness.
It shook itself and shuddered, then hopped to its business, striding swiftly across the land until it reached the shores of the Volga, lifeblood to half a nation. There, the book in the crook of her arms, Baba Yaga leapt down from her hut and called her mortar to hand. It flew to her and she stepped within, then commanded it rise and fly her over the river, the swiftly flowing water that no witch could cross.
The mortar flew straight and true. No pain wracked in the old witch's bones, and the chicken-legged house jumped into the water to swim along behind her.
Baba Yaga smiled a smile with her iron teeth, and the world began to crack.
The Old Races
will return in an all-new series
The Witches' War
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Also by CE Murphy
The Old Races Universe
Heart of Stone * House of Cards * Hands of Flame
Baba Yaga's Daughter * Year of Miracles * Kiss of Angels
The Redeemer Wars
Redeemer
The Guildmaster Saga
Seamaster * Stonemaster
The Austen Chronicles
Magic & Manners * Sorcery & Society (forthcoming)
The Lovelorn Lads
Bewitching Benedict
The Heartstrike Chronicles
Atlantis Fallen * Prometheus Bound (forthcoming) * Avalon Rising (forthcoming)
The Walker Papers
Urban Shaman * Winter Moon * Thunderbird Falls * Coyote Dreams * Walking Dead * Demon Hunts * Spirit Dances * Raven Calls * No Dominion * Mountain Echoes * Shaman Rises
& with Faith Hunter
Easy Pickings
A Walker Papers/Skinwalker crossover novella
The Worldwalker Duology
Truthseeker * Wayfinder
The Inheritors' Cycle
The Queen's Bastard * The Pretender's Crown
Stone's Throe
A Spirit of the Century Novel
Take A Chance
a graphic novel
Roses in Amber
A Beauty and the Beast story
Raven Heart
written as Murphy Lawless
Acknowledgements
First, I want everyone to know that tantalizing last line—that the Old Races will return!—is definitely true. Also it is definitely not a promise for something to come out super soon, because as of the writing of these acknowledgments, I have one series under contract and about five self-published projects going on, so I need to catch up on those before I throw myself into new Old Races books. But my thought-goal-plan was always that once the short stories were concluded, the Old Races universe would be set up for more full-length novels. I feel that I've accomplished that goal, so…someday, yes, there will be more novels in this world. I make no promises as to when, but there will be.
Second, there are so many people to be grateful for, for this book. My cover artist, Tara O'Shea, who is infallibly amazing. My friend, Paul-Gabriel Wiener, whose story prompt begot "Threnody", one of my favorite stories of this collection. My Patreon crew, who, as a group, have kept the wolf from the door and allowed me to write t
hings like this collection, which I probably wouldn't have been able to justify without their support.
My stalwart friends and cowriters in the War Room helped me get through this book, as they've done with every one I've written for the past nine years. Ellen, Mikaela, Michelle, Sharpie, Laura Anne even though I never see you anymore, everybody I'm forgetting right now… :)
And, of course, my Dad, and my Ted and Henry, whom I love very much. ♥
About the Author
According to her friends, CE Murphy makes such amazing fudge that it should be mentioned first in any biography. It's true that she makes extraordinarily good fudge, but she's somewhat surprised that it features so highly in biographical relevance.
Other people said she began her writing career when she ran away from home at age five to write copy for the circus that had come to town. Some claimed she's a crowdsourcing pioneer, which she rather likes the sound of, but nobody actually got around to pointing out she's written a best-selling urban fantasy series (The Walker Papers), or that she dabbles in writing graphic novels (Take A Chance) and periodically dips her toes into writing short stories (the Old Races collections).
Still, it's clear to her that she should let her friends write all of her biographies, because they’re much more interesting that way.
More prosaically, she was born and raised in Alaska, and now lives with her family in her ancestral homeland of Ireland, which is a magical place where it rains a lot but nothing one could seriously regard as winter ever actually arrives.
She can be found online at:
mizkit.com
@ce_murphy
fb.com/cemurphywriter
patreon
and at her newsletter, which is by far the best place to get up-to-date information about what's next!