by T D Raufson
“Step back a bit.”
With his right hand, he turned a stone near the center, exposing a handle. He pulled on the handle and a door, disguised in the cobblestone, opened, revealing stairs leading into the blackness and toward the house. He stepped down a step and leaned the door against his left shoulder with a grimace. With his only usable hand, he fumbled with a flashlight in his right coat pocket.
“Here, let me,” Melissa said as she pulled the Maglite from his pocket and turned it on. “You don’t have to be the hero all the time.”
“I didn’t stop Nicklaus with a piece of jewelry. I’m not sure why he’s that strong or how you did that, but I knew things were getting weird when your grandmother sent me out here last week.”
“What’s out here?” Melissa asked as she led the way down the stairs. Charles closed the disguised door behind him and engaged a locking wheel on the center of it.
“You don’t know? You’ll have to see it, then. There’s a large cave down here. It’s safer than the house, and it has something to do with that journal.”
He pointed at the box, and she looked at him as if he was going to explain something to her.
He shook his head. “No, I knew she was writing it before she died, and she left it in that box for you. She told me it was important. I just hope you have all you need down here because Nicklaus will have access to the house now. I can’t keep him out, and I don’t think we can go back up for anything until you figure this out.”
“I have what he wants.” She lifted the box up. “I’m not sure what else I’ll need. I’m not even sure what you’re talking about.”
“You didn’t read it?”
She frowned and kept walking. She didn’t need his disappointment on top of her own. They followed the stairs until they leveled out in a room as large as the entire north wing of the house. They had been descending for a few minutes, but Melissa was not sure how far under the house they were or even how deep. Most of the cavern was rough and natural. The floor was level and covered with chests of different sizes.
“What’s all of this?” Melissa asked, amazed that such a secret had been kept from her. She had been all over the house and property since she had been a baby. She was a little upset she didn’t know about it.
“The foundation of your estate, literally. Your grandmother told me these were the crown jewels of your country.”
“Who else knows about this?”
“Me and you, as far as I know. I was supposed to show you this when you asked. She expected you would be busy tonight.”
“What do you mean?”
“She spent her last days writing in that journal. She told me she had little time and had to finish it. I was supposed to bring you here when you asked me to if she died before the solstice and she was unable to finish the preparations.”
“What do you know about all of this?” She held the box up in front of her.
“Not much. I know she felt it was important that whatever she was preparing happen before sunset tonight. She was always asking me how much time she had left. I had to mark the solstice on my calendar and tell her how many days she had left every morning.”
“Today’s the solstice?” Melissa gulped.
She felt cold all over.
She could feel the color draining from her face.
Her stomach turned nearly over.
“What time is it?”
Charles lifted his left wrist and looked at his watch. “9:17.”
Melissa bent down to put the box on the floor and settled beside it. Using the flashlight to locate the lock, she clutched at her chest to make sure she still had the pendant and the key. When she felt the comforting weight, she exhaled; but she could not escape the fear that she had failed her grandmother.
“Hold this,” she ordered without thinking and handed him the flashlight.
Looking down at the box in front of her, she used the key on the chain to unlock it. Inside was everything she had left there before going to meet Nicklaus. She lifted out the journal and flipped to the first page. Her grandmother’s writing appeared readable, as if she was sitting in the library.
“Help me, please. Do you have any idea what she wants me to do?”
“No. She never told me.”
Melissa looked back at the journal and the first page she had not read. It was describing the history of her family going back over a thousand years. Melissa didn’t have time to read it, so she skimmed the pages until she reached a section that seemed to be instructions. Those she slowly read and then set the book down in her lap.
“She wants me to cast a spell.”
“What? What do you mean?” His face showed the conflict of a man who lived in a concrete world.
“She wants me to cast an ancient spell. If I can’t cast it before sunset I won’t stop what she’s calling the emergence and then it’ll be harder to correct...” She couldn’t finish. She couldn’t believe what the pages had told her.
“What are you going on about?”
“I’m not sure. What time is it?”
“9:24.”
“I’ll never make it. I can’t get it right in that little time.” A vision of a giant black scaly body passed before her in her mind. Its head turned to look at her. Nicklaus was with her for a moment and was urging her to stop.
“Okay, what is this emergence, and why do you have to stop it?”
“I’m not sure. I can’t take time to read it all, but if she thought it was important, I’m not going to question it.”
“What do you need?”
“Time, everything else is here.” With that realization and the pressure in her mind from Nicklaus, she stood up.
“Shine the light around.”
The beam of light exposed the floor in three-foot-wide slices, and she followed it until the outline on the floor matched the diagram in the journal.
“Stop,” she shouted while comparing the mosaic on the ground with the drawing in the journal.
Convinced they matched, Melissa stepped into the central circle of what would be a giant pentagram mosaic in the floor of the cavern.
Vertigo, like she had felt facing Nicklaus in the parlor, rushed over her. Dropping to one knee and looking up at Charles, she swore she could feel wings protruding from her back. A different but familiar voice in her mind screamed, and she had a sudden sense she was about to do the wrong thing. An image of dragons surrounding the pentagram with their wings raised filled her mind. Nicklaus, in the form of a dragon, walked the outer edge looking in at her in the middle where she stood. Her hands trembled.
“I’m not sure I can do this.”
“She believed in you, so do I,” Charles urged from nearby. “You can do this.”
Reassured, she opened the journal. She closed her eyes to clear the visions that continued and exhaled slowly. With effort, she forced Nicklaus’ urgent arguments away and resisted the pressure from her own mind to stop. When she finally calmed herself, she began reading the words written out for her in the journal aloud. As the first sentence was completed, the text before her began glowing like a bad karaoke song. As the words passed her lips, they vanished on the page in a flash, turning to ash.
The pentagram on the floor began to glow.
Charles stepped to the outer edge and watched. The flashlight he was holding was no longer needed.
She read each line until she had finished the first page. Ash fell from the journal as she turned to the next page. She wanted to speed up, but the glow set a specific cadence and would not allow her to change it.
At the end of the second of three pages, she waited for the glow to go on, but it had not moved on from the last word. The glow of the pentagram vanished, and she stood in darkness waiting for what was next. A bell rang through the room, and she knew in her gut that she had failed. There was no need to go on.
“What was that?” Charles shined the flashlight around the cavern looking for the source of the bell. When he couldn’t find it, he tu
rned to look at her.
“I didn’t make it in time. It’s sunset.”
“Go on, finish it then.”
“I can’t.” The weight of her failure made her feel tired. She wanted to lay down and sleep.
Suddenly, Melissa’s mind blurred with a whirlpool of images. Memories rushed through her head. Vertigo and excruciating pain overwhelmed her, and she fell to the floor. The individual tiles of the pentagram swam before her eyes. Images of her father, mother, and other relatives in a foreign place filled her mind. She saw Nicklaus changing from a dragon into the man she knew, only older by a few years. Melissa heard the a voice in her head.
Finally!
A feeling of relief filled Melissa’s mind with the thought. It was as if something was suddenly resolved. A shiver ran down her spine.
“Charles, I don’t know what’s happening.”
Melissa pushed away from the tiles and tried to stand but could not overcome the vertigo that held her there. She could feel minds, imprisoned for ages, celebrating their freedom.
There is no reason to resist. We are one, the stranger in her mind said to her.
Flashes of realization ripped through her mind. The spell was gone now.
They would emerge.
The dragons were coming.
They were already returning all around her.
“I’m not a dragon!”
“This is not me!”
“I can’t allow it.”
“I’ll not be consumed,” she cried into the stones beneath her hands.
She felt a rush of strength and power pour over her body. It felt good. She was euphoric in the sudden flow of energy.
Release me!
“No! Why should I?”
Focus on me and return to yourself. Why are you making this so hard?
Melissa struggled against the power surging through her body demanding to be released.
There’s nothing wrong with being a dragon. Why should we be suppressed? Why were we? How long has it been?
Melissa felt a blast of pain in answer to the question. The power inside her fought back, and it felt so good to be strong.
Charles had stepped over to help her where she writhed on the floor, but he backed away as a guttural growl escaped her throat.
In her mind, images of her past formed and flashed by. Some brought joy with them. Others were cauldrons of sorrow. Her mind was a whirlwind of childhood thoughts. Her mother the dragon; the castle where she had lived; humans she had fought beside… Melissa fought the images by reaching out to recent memories of her relatively short life. It was insane to believe she was a dragon. She would not surrender. This demon would not take over her mind and body. She would not be lost to it.
She looked up from the ground to Charles and reached out a hand to him. He hesitated a moment. She could see fear in the eyes of a man who had witnessed war, but he recovered and stepped in to take it.
We will not be held back!
Power surged through her body.
We will be free.
She felt it fighting within her.
You will understand if you relax.
It suddenly tried to sooth her with a mellow crooning voice in her mind.
Melissa gripped Charles’ hand and he winced as she squeezed.
“NO!” she screamed.
With Charles’ help, she stood up and forced herself to breathe. She looked around the cave and realized she could see everything. The light they had used to find their way into the cavern glowed in Charles’ injured hand but did nothing to aid her. She could read the text on the floor and see every crack in the distant wall.
You resist for no reason. I’m not taking you over. We are one. We are the same. We are Meliastrid.
In her mind, a red-scaled dragon stood on a frozen courtyard. It spun in the flakes falling from the grey sky, and Melissa could feel the childish joy of the moment. She loved the snow. She loved the castle. Melissa found herself spinning in the cavern as the dragon had in her memory. She could feel the event as if she had lived it.
You did. I did. We did.
As the joy enveloped her mind, Melissa relaxed a little. The crack in her defense was small, but it was enough. The power inside her surged, and coppery wings sprung from her back. Instead of pain, she shivered in a euphoric spasm. With the chill of the spasms, scales rippled over her skin and covered her body. Her clothes ripped and fell away from her as her armored form grew beyond their capacity.
Charles fell away from her and raised a hand to defend himself as if she might hurt him.
“Charles, I’m okay. Don’t be afraid,” she said with a little trill in her voice.
The feeling of emerging into this form was so overwhelming she could no longer resist it. Her own fear was suddenly lost in the uncontrollable spasms of growth and emergence. She was still afraid of what was happening, but the quiet cooing in her mind assured her it was safe.
She didn’t want to believe it. She struggled again to remember. She fought to see if she was being deceived. As payment for her effort, pain ripped through her head and interrupted the transformation. She clamped her hands over her pointed ears, but it did nothing to stop the pain. She nearly dropped to the floor again when another surge of power fought against the pain.
With the pain suppressed and all of her resistance quelled, a long tail extended from her back and raised her into the air as her legs grew beneath her. The power turned into strength as her chest expanded and she grew to her full height. Stronger and stronger spasms wracked her. Large, triangular scales covered her chest as the tail consumed her. Her neck grew from the root of her chest, and wings carried her head away from her much larger body. Melissa could feel the crown of horns and spines grow from the back of her head. Fleshy, scaled whiskers extended from her chin. Thin wing flaps grew from below her ears.
Her nose expanded into a long snout. Her black hair vanished into bronze and black scales that covered her neck down to her wings. She could not suppress the grin on her newly emerged face.
A huge bronze and copper colored dragon replaced the short frail form of Melissa on the tiles where she had lain moments before resisting the transition. In her mind, the others that she had felt before were celebrating their freedom. However, the joy was quickly overwhelmed by a closer mind, a mind filled with rage.
“This is the emergence that she wanted to stop.” Melissa spread her wings behind her and thrilled at the feeling of power that rushed through her.
That was a silly idea, I fear.
The thoughts and memories of the emerged dragon filled her mind, and she struggled not to disappear in the swirling memories and pain that still wracked the mind. It was not clear which thoughts she could trust.
“Emergence? That’s exactly what Helena wanted you to stop! What are you doing?” Charles asked.
She could see the terror in his eyes, and Melissa was not sure what kept him in the cavern. The door was not blocked. He could leave if he wanted. The little girl inside wanted him to run and take her with him, but she couldn’t go.
“You should not be here, Charles.” Melissa could hear her own voice in the dragon’s mouth. Charles stared at her and stayed where he was.
“I’m not leaving Melissa. Whoever you are, I’m here to help her.”
Brave for a human. The voice in her mind seemed unimpressed and somewhat agitated by his presence. He should not have seen this. We should kill him.
Melissa reacted physically to the threat to Charles by turning the dragon’s head away from him to look elsewhere. As she focused on a large opening on the other side of the cavern, the nearby rage turned into familiar agitation. Nicklaus was awake. He had emerged, and he was searching for her. His rage returned, and she could sense his desire to kill someone. He wanted to kill Charles. A final surge of Nicklaus’ satisfaction filled her mind as he sensed his prey.
She turned back to look at Charles where he now stood. He had marshaled his fear and faced her. Flashes in her mind mingle
d his face with another’s who was decked in a full suit of armor and sitting astride a charger. She grinned at him and realized in those images that there was no doubting his faithfulness.
Our mate will not see it that way. Are you prepared to deny him his retribution? This human has wronged him.
“This human has defended us. We were taking a stand, and he helped us.”
But was it the right stand we were taking? Now that we are free, do you agree with what Heliantra wanted?
Melissa struggled with the massive memories that she had suddenly come to possess and tried to find an answer that she could rely on. Pain filled her mind as she tried to fight her way through memories and with a shake of her dragon head she surrendered and made a decision.
“In the absence of proof that she had reason for her directions tonight, I will still listen to my grandmother before I trust to Nicklaus.”
Then you will face that decision soon. He will find you. Be prepared for it.
Melissa looked down at the small form of Charles in front of her. She slowly dropped her chest and forelegs toward him and tried to make soothing sounds to keep him from being threatened. It came out wrong, and she could see him tense in preparation for whatever she was doing. Unable to stop the reaction she carefully placed her foreclaw on his shoulder and stopped him before he could run. He looked down at it and up at her.
In her other claw, she handed the journal to him.
“My mate comes. He comes to kill you and perhaps me for defending you. I need your help. I don’t know what tomorrow will bring, but the world we both knew has changed. Dragons have emerged. We will have to face it, and I need your help.”
Charles wrestled with his fear and looked into her eyes. He studied them for a moment and then knelt on one knee, dropping his eyes to the floor.
“I swear, my lady. I have done the wishes of your kin and will continue to serve you.”
A surge of excitement and pleasure filled her mind as Nicklaus found the cave entrance. They were out of time. She turned to face the direction in which he would appear as a blast of air rushed into the hall in front of his black shiny body. Nicklaus folded his wings back and landed in the middle of the floor to join the pair in the center of the hall. Melissa pushed Charles behind her and shifted her body between them. Their chests nearly touched when Nicklaus had stopped.