by Laynie Bynum
It was no use talking to a dragon before meeting certain expectations, so they ate breads and fruits and cuts of meat, talking of old times and places and people, many of them long gone from the world.
But once they'd finished, he wasted no time before getting to his point. "I need your counsel again, dragon."
So quickly? He frowned. Ask and you will receive. We came at your request, but also at your warning for our safety. My thanks for that. We've left the lesser dragons behind, while the rest of the high dragons scatter to the four winds and await my commands.
Onen nodded. It was good they had taken his warning seriously. Dag'draath was sneaky enough and creative enough to have been a threat, even with them all tucked away in their vast underground kingdom, wherever it was.
He had never tried to find out, beyond some friendly needling his dragon friends, but he could have found it if he'd looked. So could the enemy.
"Everything is falling apart and going sideways on me. Lately, everything seems like one surprise down-draft after another," Onen said, using a dragon figure of speech. "The people I trusted the most are failing me one-by-one. I don't know what to do."
Arc'homir tilted his head, his high cheeks and narrow blue eyes peering into Onen's. First, make your people's lives better. I've flown this world more times than I could count, but I don't think I've ever seen the situation for those poor ground-people be any worse than it is now.
"Yes, I know." It was a problem that often kept Onen up at night with worry. "Mills aren't turning, grain isn't being carried to the ports, and the longships aren't sailing down the coasts and up the rivers to trade. There's nothing to trade, not even food. Many starve. It's not something I enjoy seeing, but I don't look away from it. It's supposed to be a painful sight. Those are my people, and I'm failing them."
You? Hardly. You fight for them, even knowing what they've done.
Onen shook his head, slowly. "That's the thing about people. They aren't unified like dragons. Each is stuck with only their own thoughts, for all their lives. Some people did those things you remember so well, but so long ago that most didn't. Most dodn't even know about it. And, I love them. I'm supposed to be making their lives better."
Arc’homir chuckled, the noise sounding odd in Onen's ears. He was used to only hearing it in his head. Their lives are certainly better under you than under the evil one, I assure you. I see his lands, too, and its worse. Whole villages, even towns, empty and barren, or burnt down. If not for our oath, I think many of us would help the beasts.
"They aren't animals, they're people."
In any case. Arc’homir picked at an apple core with his fingernails. "Thank you for bringing us here. We're safer under your castle than even in our own home, if the evil one is after us now. I'd hoped he forgot all about us."
Onen paused, unsure how to reply. He had no proof Dag'draath was after the scalykind, just a hunch. Unfortunately, those hunches were usually right, when he got them. "Well, I doubt he's forgotten about any source of power that he might drag into his domain. Even you. And being here is only a temporary protection, you know."
Yes, frighteningly temporary. A year? Ten? What is that, to us? Nothing. But we have a pact, and I know you honor it always. So, tell me—what plan have you come up with to safeguard us? Dragons will do anything to stop the evil one. Anything but fight for—
"I know. Humans and elves. You won't fight for them, but I hope you'll fight for me. Not on the battlefield, mind you. I have a different conflict in mind. When Beru gets back—"
That's your most trusted lieutenant, right? I remember him. I'm surprised he has survived so long. The young man I remember was brash and foolish.
"Still brash, but he's no fool, not anymore. A few dozen bonus lifetimes on Iynia gives a bit of wisdom and perspective. He's out looking for the stone, as you know."
The dragon nodded. Let's play a round of your human game, Hnefatafl, shall we? We can chat strategy while we play.
Onen smiled at the change of subject and grabbed his game box, which he always kept at the table. Though the box was ornate, made of imported wood, and decked with precious gems, the real treasure was within. The game was really the entertainment of choice for all the gods, once upon a time, but there were so many fewer gods around now...
He unfolded the round, leather map inked with its grid and symbols, and the pieces—small bits of white or black stone, which Onen had hand-carved to resemble his fierce wolf-warriors of centuries ago.
As usual, Arc'homir won. Dragons played the game of the gods, too, and his ability to skim thoughts didn't hurt, either. Onen, always a good sport about losing a game, laughed and cheered the final move almost as much as if it had been, he who won.
As Onen put his pieces carefully away, Arc'homir stood and stretched, sinews and muscles standing out. I'm tired, friend. Sorry, but shifting is difficult for us, and drains energy quickly. It's hard to be human.
"So I hear," Onen replied, grinning. "Well, your dragon-sized bed waits in your keep-sized chamber, below, along with your people. I wish I could join you to listen to the Song of Downing Suns. You sing it perfectly, and it moves me, but I have duties to take care of."
Of course, Onen. We should be awake by nightfall. Probably hungry, too. I don't suppose you'd let us hunt your flocks...
Onen laughed out loud. "The whole flock here couldn't feed one of you, not as a dragon. Sorry, you'll be stuck eating like people. Sleep well."
Once Arc'homir had gone, though, Onen began to pace. He always did his best thinking while going back and forth for no reason, a habit he'd picked up from the elves and one of the few he wished he hadn't.
He had only been planning and thinking for half a candle-span before the silver bell on a stone pillar beside his "throne" began to chime. His head whipped around to stare at it. News, already? Did he want to know? He had to know, but did he want to do it right then, or wait...
No. Routine messages got sorted and delivered in the evening, but it was still only mid-day. He cursed under his breath and waved a few fingers at the bell, silencing it, and then snapped his fingers to jerk its chain, alerting his staff to enter without having to walk over to it.
Shortly, a messenger came into the great hall. "Lord, news of Beru." He bowed and held out a scroll.
Onen unrolled it. The writing was difficult to read, but short: Beru came out of the temple, as you said he would, carrying a package in his hands. On his way to your castle, however, he veered south and toward the setting sun, then he handed the package to Dag'draath's lieutenant personally. Beru lives, and never came out of their camp.
Onen crushed the parchment in his hands, ripping it in half. It caught fire in his grasp, and he glared at it as though it were Beru himself. "Traitor. I'm surrounded by traitors!"
Did the fools not understand what Iynia would be like under the evil one's rule? And Beru, how could he do this after everything Onen had done for him, everything he'd given him? His most trusted lieutenant had just handed over to the enemy the only artifact powerful enough to imprison Dag'draath, containing him and his ever-spreading evil for thousands of years
Dag'draath was too smart, too good at manipulating people. He couldn't be defeated. Not when the people Onen loved and valued most kept running to help the enemy. Not if they kept stabbing him in the back. Or in the heart.
His betrothed had just handed over his unborn child to the dark one
The woman he most loved had torn apart many of his strongest alliances in only weeks when she, too, fled him to be another of the enemy's possessions.
Now, Beru was just the most recent to betray him right when he was needed most. And if Beru couldn't be trusted, no one could. That thought struck him like a mailed fist, and he spat on the floor. How could he fight back? How could save his world? Iynia was falling into Dag'draath's clutches, even though the evil one had lost every major battle.
Onen stormed over to the east wall, with its tapestries strung together like one large
blanket. Each of its patches contained an image or drawing of a part of Iynia. Once, it had all been green and blue, but no longer. Now, over half of it was red or gray or simply blank. The villages and cities it often showed now billowed smoke wisps, their real-world counterparts burnt to rubble for no purpose other than for slaughter. Once-blue great lakes showed as a putrid green, flush with poisons. Rivers that had flowed for a thousand years had backed up—one merely by the sheer number of dead floating downstream—and drowned the best croplands in the free realms. Starvation and diseases once thought to be only a bad memory again ran freely, despite the best efforts of his weirdlocks and nature-healers. Vast croplands that hadn't been drowned or poisoned had been burnt, or they’d withered for no apparent reason.
No more. Dag'draath had to be stopped. Onen had indulged in feeling sorry for himself, for a moment, but now it was time to buckle on his sword and save the world, in spite of itself.
"Think, dammit."
Okay. The stone he needed to power the prison was gone. There was no use whining about that. All he needed was an alternative. Another stone? He wrote a note on parchment to ask Ednund about another stone, though it was a foregone conclusion that there were none.
He paused in his pacing, something he'd heard or seen...
The memory grew clearer, less fuzzy at the edges. That was right—the Library. It had shown him something that popped into his head, then.
The dragons. They could power it. Enough dragons—high dragons—had unimaginable power. Could they be used as a power source?
The very idea of it brought him to a standstill. He grabbed his neck with both hands, eyes clenched shut. So much for not whining about his fate anymore. "No, anything else." Not his dragons...
But there was nothing else. He had to choose between one or the other.
Chapter Eleven
"You want me to do what?" Ednund peered at Onen in askance from beneath the cowl he always wore. "Ordering your guards out of your quarters and blocking off the entire wing sounds... Honestly, it seems ridiculous. Dag'draath can't kill you any more than you can kill him. Less, even. But there are other things he can do, both to you and your castle."
Onen let out a long breath. It was hard to believe what he was about to do. "It's an order. I wish to be alone. You don't need to know anything more than that, do you?"
"No, of course not, my lord. It will be done within the hour." Ednund bowed, but his eyes never left Onen as he walked out, which was a bit creepy.
Did he suspect? Not that it mattered. Onen would soon take on far worse consequences than the weirdlock's disapproval. So he ignored the look and made his way to his chambers. Once he was certain the order had been followed, he pulled a small, wooden box from one of his bedroom's many shelves, which were stuffed to overflowing with not just books, but papers, notebooks, boxes, and artifacts from around the world.
Opening the box, he removed the two items within—a starfish and a tiny, stoppered vial of clear liquid. Sea water. Those, he set on his bed. Then, he walked the circle engraved into his bedroom floor, chanting and making complicated gestures with his hands and fingers. As he went around the circle, ice-blue glyphs appeared in the air above the circle's edge, floating and faintly glowing. It wouldn't do to make a mistake and kill everyone in the castle, after all.
The shield spells went up quickly, and would protect the people no matter if he made a mistake casting his spell. He took the starfish and placed it on the floor in the circle's center. Still mumbling his chants, he poured the water onto the dried-out sea creature. Above it, a mist formed and rose up, creating a sphere the size of his head. It coalesced a bit, and then grew until its circumference filled the stone circle. When it solidified, Onen saw fish swimming on the other side. Stripped down to a gauzy underwear, he dove into the sphere.
He found himself under water. It was dark, so he channeled raw magic into his eyeballs, ignoring the pain it caused as a second lens formed. The rods in his eyeballs multiplied, and soon, he could see somewhat dimly through eyes that now reflected bright with light. That eye enhancement didn't work in the lightless dragon realm, but here, there was light—just precious little of it.
His hands were webbed and had lengthened, which made it easier to swim. The agonizing process repeated in his feet, but hurt even worse as the toes elongated to not just double their original length, but ten times.
What hurt most coming in were the gills that grew into his neck. It was also the transformation with the oddest sensation as water flowed into them, giving him air. He couldn't die down there, but the adaptations made things a lot easier to breathe.
When the pain subsided, he gave his new body a little check, and after a few moments of practice, he could dart through the water as fast as most fishes, and breathe just as easily.
Looking to his right, he spotted the drop-off where the shallow coastal water plunged to unseen depths. He crested the drop-off and let himself sink at a natural rate as he sped along it, the surface getting farther and farther above him. By the time he got to the coral reef, he had begun to swim like a merman
Most merfolk lived in small enclaves, not huge cities. This, however, was their capital, and two patrolling guards spotted him right away. They streaked toward him with their tridents extended.
Onen ignored them and kept drift-swimming toward the coral until they reached him.
They drew up short before him. One looked angry, ready to try to skewer Onen, but the other held up his hand to stop him. "What are you doing down here, air-breather?"
Onen couldn't speak as they did, like dolphins. They were created for that, and he wasn't. But he could speak mind-to-mind. I come to speak with the Sea Queen. I am Onen Suun, and I need her counsel.
The older merman turned to the younger, more aggressive one. "Pass the message on."
The younger man glared, but turned and swam away.
The older man gave Onen an expectant look. "Why do you wish to speak to our queen?"
That’s between me and her. He didn’t like talking to soldiers like that when they were only doing their job, but if he didn’t throw his weight around, he’d never get into the merfolk city. History had proven that.
The merman raised his trident. "Not if you wish access, land-thing."
Onen glanced at the man's hands, muttered a word, and smiled as the trident turned into three sea krates, which struck at the merman's arms repeatedly, biting each time.
The merman tried to scream, but no sound came out. His eyes went wide in confusion, pain, and fear.
You want your voice back?
The merman’s tail flipped to one side several times.
Very well. Onen waved his hands for a moment, in a pattern like the ripples of water.
The merman gasped, gills flapping hard.
I am Onen Suun, and I shall speak to your queen.
The second merman nodded, then burst into motion like a fish sensing a shark and was gone.
Onen left him there and approached the city. When he got much closer to the coral, shapes began to appear in the reef—the homes of the sea people. Two mermen swam toward him at a more cautious speed than they'd left, a mermaid between them.
Talisala, my dear, he said, sending thoughts into her mind directly.
She spoke again in chirps and whistles, but he understood the words clearly thanks to his magic. "Onen Suun, this is not your domain. Yet, I cannot stop you from coming. I would give a dozen eels to un-tell you the way here. Your visits never work out well for us."
Onen laughed, but that drew water into his lungs. Red-faced and wheezing, he had to pause to focus his magic into his lungs to clear out sea water. Being underwater was never easy, unfortunately. This time is no exception, sea queen. I need you, both your magic and your knowledge.
"Swim with me." She moved away from her guards.
They spread to flank her on either side at a distance, looking outward.
"They look for sharks or oirineids. Don't fear them, Onen
."
I don't, he replied honestly. Thank you for meeting me again.
Her dorsal fin, which ran from the base of her skull to where her tailbone would be in a human, wiggled. No problem. Her fish-eyes rotated to look at him as they swam along the drop-off's sheer wall rising above them. "Why are you here, though?"
Two reasons. First, I need an elixir that will put the largest creature on Iynia to sleep.
"Dragons?" Her dorsal fin shivered, the equivalent of a nervous laugh.
Yes. No harm to them, but merely to render them asleep for a couple of days.
She was silent for a while. A small grouper, only the size of her elongated head, swam lazily by her. She turned her head and lunged so fast Onen barely saw the movement. The grouper seemed to explode into a bright cloud of fins, bones, and little bits of leftover meat.
She clicked her buzzsaw-like teeth in satisfaction. "The liver of a kraechen will do. Bring it, and I'll prepare it for you in two moons."
Two days wasn’t long to wait, and it wasn't like the merfolk could kill a kraechen. The things were half as big as a dragon, with tentacles so long it would take several minutes for most humans to run their length, if they were stretched out on dry ground. They also had beaks longer than Onen's legs, sharp as flint and strong as diamonds, and suckers that could rip a man’s ribcage out. A whole school of merfolk couldn't take one on. So, if one had wandered close to their territory, they had a problem. Kraechen tended to eat everything they saw, including both merfolk and their food source.
He nodded. Fair enough.
"Then go, human god, with our blessing. No merfolk will harm you, not with my blessing on you."
Onen saw nothing. What is this blessing?
Her dorsal fin shivered again, but more slowly than before—genuine amusement. "You have it already. Tiny darts with my scent, which hooked into your skin when you bumped up against me. They launch from just under my ridge scales."