by T D Raufson
“Why,” Nicklaus roared into the chamber, “do you protect this human?” His head leapt at the small form hiding behind her, and his teeth clashed in loud snaps. Fire flared in Nicklaus’ otherwise dark eyes.
“Because, he has served me well. He was doing what he was charged to do. His courage saves him. You have no right to him.” Her knee slammed into his eye and sent his head away from Charles.
“They have enslaved us.” His foreclaw defended his injured eye as he withdrew his head from the sudden danger and looked at her, shocked by her physical attack. Only partially derailed by the assault, he continued his thought after a pause. “We will avenge this disrespect. You understand now, don’t you?” He looked up at her, confused. His left eye blinked to recover.
Thoughts from her rebellious mind rushed forward to defend what Nicklaus was saying. Melissa could feel her resolve failing as her mate tried to convince her that humans deserved to be punished, starting with Charles. She paused as Nicklaus fought with his injured pride to think. There had to be some reason Helena wanted her to cast the spell that would have stopped this. Through the pain, she struggled for an answer that was just out of reach when the image sprang forward in a blast of excruciating realization. Like she had felt the joy of the dragon spinning in the snowy castle courtyard, she again could sense the fear and dread as her young mind chanted similar words into the crisp air of that same castle. Nicklaus paced beyond a magical boundary and a circle of dragons that protected her as she cast the spell. The pain of the memory exploded into her mind, eradicating the image in shards of agony. It was enough to stop the argument from her mind and strengthen her resolve.
Melissa extended her tail to point at Nicklaus’ injured eye. She raised her wings above her head to balance herself for his attack and reached out with her foreclaws to protect her space from her one-time mate.
“We are free now. This is a different time, though, and we must be careful. You are wrong, my love, as you have been for generations before and since. I know how angry you are, but you must be cautious and not be overcome by emotions not supported by facts. Do not surrender to your rage, or it will be your end.”
“Never again,” he roared into the cavern. “Across the world we have all emerged, and we will never again be subjugated to them. The humans will pay for their insolence, and I will not be stopped by you and your love for them.” Nicklaus raised his head level with hers, keeping his eyes on her. The flickers of hatred in his eyes warned her he was ready to fight. She puffed up her chest and thrust her wings forward, pointing the claws on each joint out to show him the fight he would be in if he chose to attack. She wanted to look like the porcupine she would be. He would pay dearly in this fight.
Her show of force worked, and Nicklaus turned his back on her to leap across the cave. As he retreated, he continued to threaten her.
“You will see you were wrong. Others will agree with me. Your father will stand beside me and end your love affair with humans. They have stood against us, and I will see that they pay for their arrogance.”
Without looking back, he exited the cave, leaving only the aroma of his anger.
Melissa sighed the tension out of her body and relaxed her wings. Part of their history was becoming clearer in her mind accompanied by the pain that drained her strength. She believed her grandmother’s decision had reason.
No! Do not return us to the prison of that weak form.
“It is the form I am comfortable with.”
It is a prison.
“Then you shall be imprisoned.”
We, you mean.
Melissa shrugged her mighty shoulders and refused to fight with the voice. She was in control of her body. She returned her thoughts to the problem of what to do about the ancient spell she had failed to cast. There had been a reason for it before. If her memory was correct, she had actually cast it before. What could the reason be? Fire rushed through her head at the attempt to recapture that memory, and she shook her head to clear it from the pain.
Suddenly triumphant against both her own confused mind and Nicklaus’ anger, but otherwise a failure, exhaustion overwhelmed her. She took her last ounce of strength and focused on her human form. Melissa collapsed from her dragon form into her completely exhausted and naked human body. She felt Charles’ strong, comforting, human arms catch her as the shroud closed over her eyes, and peaceful darkness swallowed her mind.
Chapter 2 - Dawn of a new age
June 21 – 0700 CEST – North of Grendelwald, Switzerland
Renard awoke. He couldn’t move, but he could open his eyes. As his lids drew slowly back, total blackness remained. He blinked a few times to assure himself that his lids were working. Darkness remained. Panic struggled at the edge of his mind, trying to break through the barrier wall of sanity and take over. A single agent of panic broke over the crest and succeeded in overwhelming him, but even the urge to flee had no effect. His legs refused to obey, and his arms were locked in place. Nothing obeyed the tyrant panic, and it died amongst his other thoughts.
As his panicked mind relaxed a little from the failed coup, Renard reviewed his situation. He was not able to move his body at all. Even if he could move, he still couldn’t see. The army of panic rose at the edge again. He fought it back this time with the logic that there was nothing he could do, but that would not work much longer. He couldn’t feel anything but his face.
Wait, that meant he could feel something. This was progress. He focused on the new tingling feeling in his cheeks and stabbed back at the encroaching panic army with it. He opened his mouth to take a deep calming breath. His lips parted but nothing happened. No air entered his lungs.
Again, the army surged forward. A single scout broke through his defensive line. With his mouth wide open, he screamed silently within his mind. No sound escaped his lips. No air entered or left his lungs, and again the panic agent died in his logical mind.
I’m alive!
The hammering strike to the invading panic threw them back where he could concentrate. Thoughts of slowly dying swirled into a whirlpool of questions.
Why can’t I move?
That’s my nose but why can’t I feel my toes?
Why can’t I see?
Why can’t I breathe?
He latched onto the last question and used it to drag his tortured mind out of the grasps of the vanguard of panic.
His lungs were not screaming for air even though he was unable to breathe.
He was not drowning.
He was not buried alive.
Think, Renard, he commanded himself. What is this?
This is magic, he answered quickly.
It had to be a spell.
Sudden calm settled over his mind. Magic he could understand.
So, what kind of magic is it?
He could not move or breathe, but he was not trapped by a horrible weight, nor was he dying from lack of air.
I’m held.
That type of magic would not kill him. His mind relaxed further, and panic shook its fist at logic while sweeping the remaining pieces from the chessboard of Renard’s mind. Logic had won. He was again in control of his mind.
Cracks, like rock splitting open in the darkness, began to appear over his open eyes. Light pursued panic into the back of his mind where it sniveled now like the spoiled child it was.
Petrified, turned to stone.
The spell was weakening, crumbling away, and he would be whole soon. He had never been turned to stone before. It was an odd feeling he would not like to repeat. He wanted to dust off his lap and move on to the next challenge since he had solved the problem, but he was still inconvenienced by the effects of the spell.
With no way to move, Renard focused on discovering why he might find himself turned to stone. He concentrated on his last memory, and a new challenger raced onto the freshly lit battlefield of his mind. The pieces reset, and this time the armored warrior on the other side was formidable and, as yet, had no name.
; He raced through the opening moves trying to outsmart the guardian of his memory, but nothing he tried worked.
Who cast the spell that trapped me?
Pain answered harshly.
Where am I?
Again, nothing but pain.
What was I doing before?
He braced for pain, but instead there was nothing but an answer.
Waiting.
The first piece fell, and the formidable knight reeled backward at the assault. He had been in his own keep, waiting for a messenger. No, they had come, and he was so close to...
Pain ripped through his head like a blinding light as the knight’s reinforcements swarmed the battlefield. He squeezed his still darkened eyes closed to it, but nothing stopped the bright flash and searing agony. He fought back against it and reached through the pain. His queen raced across the board with the bishops to protect the king.
What had it been?
What had he been reaching for?
What had he touched?
Yes, he had touched it, and then this.
Someone had trapped him.
Someone had fooled him.
Someone had tricked him in his own keep, how was that possible?
A talisman.
That had to be what it was. His quest was almost done, he had almost succeeded in—the knight raced his rooks to the front and forced a stalemate. His memories would not yield this day. Renard reviewed the easy memories he had freed from the knight as he conceded the game and the board reset. The past few years had been about collecting talismans. That was what he knew. That was probably why he was turned to stone and standing in the cold.
Yes, it was cold. He was outside.
Air flowed into his throat and lungs, but he was still not breathing freely. A new pressure in his chest made each breath shallow and difficult. His lungs were breaking free, but his body would not give to allow them room to expand.
If he had not realized everything would be back to normal in time, he would have been forced to play another round with a pouting panic. Instead, he focused on the problem.
Where was he? He could feel the wind blowing in his hair now, and the pain in his temples threatened to make him sick. He was changing. Flesh was replacing stone.
He blinked his eyes to focus the light, and the rest of the stone covering washed away. He could see, after a moment of refocus, that he was in the mountains; in fact, he was standing on an overlook. A snow-covered valley stretched out beyond his perch, and cold fingers of black rock surrounded him. He couldn’t move his head yet, but he could feel the cold air on it. Slow tingles began working their way down his neck as if life were crawling its way back through his veins. He could feel the sun reaching for him, fingers of warmth stroking away the cold stone that had imprisoned him.
Attempting once again to ascertain his location, he shifted his eyes from side to side trying to seek a landmark he might know, a person, a sign of any kind. From where he stood, all he could see was stone and snow.
The bitter cold air tickled his cheeks and nose as suddenly the sun covered more of him. He wrinkled his eyebrows and felt the skin move over his forehead.
Who was he dealing with? Powerful magic had done this.
Dragons!
It had to be the cursed dragons. The knight that was receding from the edges of his mind turned and raised his metal-shod fist. Renard grimaced and declined a new battle. He couldn’t remember why he hated them right now, but there was no denying the hatred that warmed his stone heart.
They were all that were left.
Yes, that was why it had to be them. There were no others left who could trap him. Their talisman had been the bait. The knight stomped his foot and shattered his mind with pain before he surrendered the pursuit deeper into his memory again.
Had dragons finally succeeded in taking over the whole world? Why had they not just destroyed him? Why was he still alive? Had his defeat secured their kingdoms? He wished he knew what was going on. The knight guardian stomped back onto the mental battlefield, driving his spurred heals into the soft flesh of Renard’s mind with every step. Renard conceded the game before he reached the table and finally surrendered the search for the memory.
Back in the world Renard was returning to one limb at a time, he could feel all of his head, and his neck finally relaxed and responded to his attempt to look around. He glanced down toward his feet and found them perched on an icy platform. There were rough steps carved in the stone, covered in snow. A few small packages, long dead flowers and what looked like folded parchment letters laid about and stuck out of the snow. An ironic smile formed on his face.
This is one way to be worshiped, he thought.
“Oh, my God, it moved,” a shocked female voice cried behind him. He was glad he was still unable to move his shoulders so she would not see him jump from the surprise. Her words were in a strange dialect that sounded familiar, but he could not understand them.
Is it a dragon?
Am I guarded?
He thought he heard alarm in her voice and the sound of rocks moving underfoot.
Is there a struggle? Is someone running for help?
“Where are you going?” another voice asked, male this time, incredulous and agitated. Renard still could not understand him, but the inflexion in his words gave away his attitude. Whoever was moving should not be.
“I’m leaving. That thing moved. No one said anything about it moving.”
“It’s just the light, Barb. At least wait till the sun is up.”
“The light? Light didn’t cause his head to move. The legend says the solstice sun makes it look alive, like a real man. No one ever said it would move.” The female voice trembled. Was it fear or adulation?
Renard listened closely to the foreign tongue. She was not crying out in alarm or for help.
He remembered the gifts around his dais. She was afraid. She feared him… as she should. There were two of them, but they were not his captors. They were here to worship him. Renard grinned.
“That’s unusual. I’ve never seen it move either.” The fascinated voice of the man chased after the retreating footsteps of the female. Together they stopped on a dirt or gravel path that he could not see.
Renard focused on what the strange man said and worked the familiar sounds through his head. The language was foreign but could be a dialect he had never heard before. It sounded familiar. Maybe they would understand Renard. He swallowed to wet his dry tongue and tried to speak. His first attempt came out as a croak. He swallowed again as the saliva started to flow.
“Be faithful…” was all he could get out with the contents of the small cavity of his chest. He tried to inhale, but his chest would not expand. With another gulp of air he croaked out, “you will be rewarded.”
The woman screamed, and Renard heard her turn away again and start walking quickly away. She was more determined to leave but the other one, the male, was not going with her. She stopped.
“Rich, come on. I’m not staying here.” Again he could not understand her words, but he understood the context.
“Stay, and I will reward your faithfulness.” He spewed the words out in a deeper gulp of air and immediately hated how he sounded. He would not beg to them again. He needed their help, but he would not grovel.
The man behind him chuckled, reinforcing Renard’s chagrin at sounding weak; the watcher would suffer for that disrespect. Renard was son of a king. They should be kneeling before him.
“I think he believes we’re here to worship him. I’m not sure what he said, but listen to his tone.”
“Rich, you’re talking to a statue.”
“This has to be some kind of trick to take in the tourists.”
“I don’t care. This is not why I came out here. This is freaky, Rich. Come on, let’s go. I don’t like this—it’s a long hike back and I’m cold.”
The words were hard to translate, but Renard was beginning to find the patterns. He understood enough by context to
figure out some of her words. She wanted to leave, but she was walking back toward his pedestal. She would not leave without the male.
“Stay,” he shouted in as clear and commanding a voice as he could produce.
“Let’s go!” She stomped her foot and there was more shuffling of rock. The man was now walking away with her.
They were really of little concern to Renard. His upper arms were starting to tingle. When the spell’s effects wore off he would catch up to his morning guard and find out why they were watching him. They were on foot in the mountains, which made them resourceful. Either they had shelter to return to nearby, or they were not far from a village. It would not be long before he would be free of his stone prison and he could catch up with them.
With the couple far enough away that he could think about other things, he again focused on his fight with the guardian of his memories. There had to be some way around the pain he felt when he tried to remember. Again, it was obvious magic was being used, but he should be able to find a way around magic.
Wherever this was, it was clear that he was in a foreign land. The dragons had exiled him in stone to a mountaintop. They did not want him to survive, yet the key to his survival was walking away from him. The dragons’ plan would not succeed. Fate would see to that. It had in the past, and it seemed to continue to smile on him. He laughed with recently regained full breaths.
Have they figured out my plan?
He was not the master of his own mind yet and he couldn’t remember the details of his plan, but he could never forget his hatred of dragons and his goal to rid the world of their meddling.
His review had taken enough time that the sun was now down to his waist and the long staff in his left hand was changing from stone back into metal-shod hardwood just above his hand. The silver hand that gripped a clear gem sphere at the top of the staff flashed in the sunlight. His chest was both cold from the air and warm from the sun. He was breathing freely now, and he could feel everything above his waist again.