Bentwhistle the Dragon Box

by Paul Cude

  Sub-zero sea water assaulted every pore of his naked body in the murky, lightless ocean, as he swam deeper into it. Reluctantly, he released his grip on the box, watching it tumble away towards the hidden depths, the bright red numbers shining for mere moments before becoming obscured by the dark, muddy waters.

  Pulling his mind away from the pain cloying at his misshapen body, he sought out the necessary bonds that held his DNA in place, releasing them, feeling the rush from the change that followed. His awkward, human shaped body shimmered like a school of fish under attack as the genetic material inside him looked to find its true form. In mere moments, it had. Awkward turned to sleek, sleek like a... naga. Gills pumped as he torpedoed his way through the water towards the very valuable box, which had not quite reached the bottom. Senses dampened down when he was in human form kicked in with a vengeance, allowing him to know exactly where the box was in relation to everything in the ocean, for miles around. Two feet before tumbling to the rocky bottom below the pier, the pale green naga swept in and grabbed the water resistant case that held doom and destruction for so many.

  Swimming like a menacing eel in and out of the limpet encrusted pylons that supported the pier, he searched with his fishlike senses for the perfect place to plant the ticking time bomb, knowing that if he found the right one, it would be all but impossible for anyone but another naga to stumble across it. Ten minutes later, he had it. Inside a long slender recess that wove up beneath the pier and had a tiny air pocket halfway along, he found an uneven concrete ledge, which he deemed perfect for his purposes. Propping the box up so that it remained out of the water, he swam back to the ocean bed, gathered up some weed, which he draped over the box, to disguise it in the unlikely event that anyone should actually find themselves in the claustrophobic recess. Happy with his night's work, he headed back towards the boat, considering a celebratory swim, letting loose all his natural instincts. It took him only a split second to decide not to. After all, he was a consummate professional and knew that deviating at all from the plan could have unexpected and maybe even fatal consequences. Unhurriedly, he swam back to the boat, and just as he could make out the street lamps of the pier from beneath the surface, he triggered the same bonds within him that he had earlier, only this time it was anything but a natural regression. He had to really concentrate, forcing the DNA to do his bidding, unlike the ebbing and flowing that had taken place only minutes earlier. When the human form had settled into place, he broke the surface and quietly gulped in large mouthfuls of air. Swimming noiselessly to the aft of the boat, he climbed the steps leading out of the water, and using the shadows for cover, slinked over to the hatch and made his way once more down inside, before closing the cover, safe in the knowledge that he'd completed another task, another task in a long line of tasks that would eventually free his leader, or at least that's what he'd been led to believe. Happy he'd planned everything down to the final detail, it was only when he flicked on the light that he discovered he'd left out one very important thing... to bring a towel. Dripping wet and shivering insanely, he snorted with laughter at his own inadequacy, long into the remaining night.

  * * *

  In the small village of Wang Chan, Thailand, a local cattle herder stopped along the edge of a disused paddy field, gently placing his bike on the ground, before retrieving a badly wrapped parcel from the back of it. A tattered string encompassed the torn, faded paper that covered whatever was inside, many times over. Desperately wanting to unwrap the parcel and check out the contents for himself, the trader who had given it to him, along with more money than he would normally earn in two years, had been quite specific. It wasn't under any circumstances to be unwrapped, and if by any chance that happened, some very bad people would know about it and come looking for him and his family. Pushing his curiosity aside, the herder waded out towards the centre of the paddy field, mindful of the fact that he knew the area to be riddled with snakes. Going as far as he dared, he dropped the parcel into the water and watched as tiny bubbles floated to the surface all around it as it sank to the bottom, before quickly wading back towards his bike. As he swashed through the warm water, he could just make out some of the workmen hanging from a giant crane in the distance, putting the finishing touches to the nearly completed industrial facility that would shortly be opening. Many of the villagers were ecstatic about the complex, particularly those who had gained employment there, but he wasn't one of them. As far as he was concerned, the whole fabric of the area had been ruined by it. His beasts were often frightened by the loud noises from the construction that seemed to go on around the clock, and it clogged up the once beautiful landscape that had dominated for millennia. Every night, just before he got into bed, he cursed that dreaded Cropptech and everything the industrial complex stood for.

  10 Lavapool FC (Fatally Cauterised)

  Disconcerted by the darkness, especially at the speed he was travelling, his entire body hurt, particularly his head. It occurred to him that his vision was blurred but he didn't know why, given just how dark it was. Sitting on a massive leaf the size of a sofa, he cursed quietly as it hit a slight bump in the smooth rocky surface. Again he didn't know why he did it quietly; it wasn't as if there were anyone else about, here deep beneath the ground. Gripping tightly to the edges of the leaf, his back roared once again in the most agonising way possible, as he tried to convince himself that in some way he controlled the direction he was travelling in. Grip faltering as the pain overtook him, instantly he fell back into the middle of the leaf, flapping and flailing uncontrollably, his throbbing head nestled in between the thick ridges and veins that crisscrossed its entire structure.

  Continuing on its pre-programmed course, now deep below Australia, the leaf was singularly unaware that its rider lay unconscious on top of it. After everything he'd been through, now was a very bad time for Flash to black out. Flying around another hairpin bend at breakneck speed, the leaf slipped halfway up the side of the tunnel wall as it wove its way towards its final destination. Flash's body rolled to one side, brushing against the turned up edge of his unconventional transport, only inches away from the shiny rock face that zipped past at speed. As the leaf came out of the bend and on to another straight, his body rolled back a bit towards the relative safety of the middle.

  The leaf onto which he had dropped only minutes earlier, had already travelled over six miles, not directly down of course, that was more like three or four miles, but was now starting to near the end of its journey. Flash still wasn't awake.

  A tightly wound spiral was the last part of the descent, with the leaf having just entered the start of it, and violently thrown Flash onto his stomach, his feet at the bottom of the leaf, his head, face down at the top. One of his arms flapped over the side, his hand brushing against the fast moving rocky surface, causing his fingers to become a bloodied mess. Even this wasn't enough to wake him. A hint of light shone up from the bottom of the corkscrew as the leaf neared the end of its journey.

  Speeding out of the final spiral of the smooth rock tunnel very much like a ride at a water park, the leaf splashed down into an exotic looking, waist deep pool of lava, something that most dragons would love. Flash dropped from the leaf like a stone, entering the wickedly bubbling magma with a spectacular belly flop, as the leaf disintegrated into nothing but tiny wisps of smoke. In the meantime, Flash had sunk to the bottom, still no nearer to waking up, but a whole lot closer to dying.

  With a vengeance, the heat from the lava attacked his human skin, probing here, attacking there, trying to overwhelm the dragon DNA inside him that fought back with all it had which, due to his naga induced injuries, was not quite what it should have been. Something ingrained within the scorching hot magma knew that it was just a matter of time before his defences were breached. It had a kind of memory, something primordial, something other worldly. It knew that it had done this before, and it knew it would only be minutes at most, but more likely in this case mere seconds before it destroyed this individua
l's resistance and added him to its heated core. As it happened the lava turned out to be right. Another dragon, a fit and healthy one, might have lasted minutes, but not Flash, not today. With the injuries sustained in Antarctica consuming all but a tiny part of his magical ability, he had nothing left to give, nothing left to fight with.

  As the first tiny molecules of his dragon DNA yielded, giant wings plunged into the lava around him, pulling his wreck of a body out of the bubbling pool and onto the raised walkway that ran alongside it. Molten magma sparked and flared as it dripped off Flash's prone body. Using his wings, and a very basic mantra, the dragon who'd pulled Flash free, forced the lava onto the path and back into the pool. Smoking hot magma smouldered beneath Flash's nose and all around his mouth, causing his pale looking human skin to turn black and crispy. As the dragon waved away the last of the lava, he silently mouthed a mantra, putting the full force of his strong willed mind behind it. Instantly the molten magma that Flash had imbibed came rushing out of his nose, ears, mouth, slivers flowing out of his tear ducts, and well, since he was totally naked (the lava having destroyed every last fibre of his clothes on impact) it came gushing out of his... planet... you know. Not Mars, Venus, Jupiter or Saturn. The other one.

  Gently, the Good Samaritan dragon lifted Flash's head up, inspecting him physically, whilst at the same time probing his mind with magic. By chance, the dragon was a healer of vast experience, on his way to a conference. Concerned and intrigued in equal measures by this unconscious conundrum of a dragon, disguised as a human who, but for him, would now be dead, he glanced along the walkway for any sign of help, but knew this was a little known route, rarely used, so it came as no surprise that it was totally deserted for as far as he could see in both directions. Of course he could call for help telepathically, but he wasn't sure who he should call, or even if the unconscious dragon would last until anyone arrived. Supporting Flash's head, the healer gently turned him on his side, to aid his sporadic breathing. As he did so, he coughed and spluttered in surprise, two tiny jets of flame spurting involuntarily out of his nostrils, as the devastating wound on Flash's back became apparent. Making sure Flash was fully supported, the healer leant closer to look at what appeared on first inspection to be an almost impossible injury.

  As well as being one of the most prominent dragon healers in the southern hemisphere, the dragon who'd found Flash was one of the few who took any interest in their race's history. While it was more of a hobby for him and he had nowhere near the kind of expertise that the renowned dragon historians had, he was very dedicated and knowledgeable in a few specific areas. One of the areas he considered amongst his strongest was the relationship between his race and the others that had thrived so long alongside it. As he intently studied the infected gash that crossed Flash's back, part of him was bowled over by the wound that could only have been inflicted by a naga. If he wasn't mistaken, and he was pretty sure he wasn't, the dragon lying on the path before him had been the recipient of what the nagas call 'pulsus of dolens nex,' roughly translated as the 'blow of painful death.' It was something that had fascinated him when he'd read about it on one of his trips to the dragon repository in Rome, something he did for a month once every decade, much to his wife's (yes... his wife, and not mate) disappointment. The ancient text that he'd read so long ago, which thanks to his eidetic memory stood out in his mind, right at this very moment, described how the nagas have an inbuilt supply of deadly venom deep within their bodies, that only becomes accessible to them in a heightened state, either in a mating frenzy, the heat of battle or when they know that death is imminent either from disease or a fatal blow of some sort. When the venom becomes available, it pumps up through the naga's body into tiny receptors beneath their fingernails, through which they can disperse it into an enemy with a simple slash or punch, or even coat a weapon with it, if they act quickly enough. Known as the 'painful death' because the venom, whilst deadly, with no known antidote, can take an incredibly long time to take effect, during which it inflicts the most horrendous pain, so much so that most beings take their own lives long before the venom kills them.

  'No wonder,' thought the healer, 'that this one's unconscious, with a wound of this sort. By the looks of it, he can't have long to live. What should I do?' It wasn't often that he found himself at a loss like this. His healer training, experience, historical knowledge and great gut instinct all had a profound impact on him, making him more of a leader than most he knew. So much so that other dragons around him were always asking his advice, even those in higher positions with much more experience, something that always forced a grin onto his very serious face. But on this occasion, he really didn't know what action to take. Here and now, the very life of this dragon depended fully on the choices that he made, and nothing about this situation made any sense at all. Convinced his prognosis was right, that indeed it was a naga inflicted wound, coupled with the fact that the dragon had clearly gone to great lengths to get back here, he wondered if he should drag the dragon out of unconsciousness telepathically, something he was more than capable of doing, but something that with the extent of the wound, could end up killing him in a very short space of time.

  As vital seconds ticked away, he made his decision, for good or bad. Grabbing Flash by his ears, the healer leant in close, his fierce looking jaws almost touching Flash's burnt and cindered mouth. Reaching out with his mind, the healer sought out the consciousness he knew had to be hiding deep within the mind of the dragon before him. Not something especially new to him, over the centuries he'd done it literally dozens of times. None of which prepared him for what he found inside this particular dragon.

  Under normal circumstances, finding another dragon's consciousness, or mind, was for the most part pretty straight forward. Even if they'd fled to the darkest recesses of their psyche, they would always leave a visible trail, easy to follow, ending up with a few mental barricades that they had to be coaxed into letting down before the gradual process of helping them regain control of their body could begin. What the good healer encountered on entering Flash's mind was something altogether different. Flash hadn't fled, quite the opposite in fact. He was holed up right in the very centre of his consciousness, sticking out like a hot dog in a vegetarian restaurant. What shocked the healer the most were the barricades that Flash had set up within himself. In his experience, most dragons surrounded themselves with things they associate with happiness, things that make them feel comfortable and safe. It could be anything from a river of lava, bright hot sunshine, a fort made of charcoal, a roaring circle of wind, a particular nursery ring teacher, a parent or an imaginary laminium ball team. Over the course of his working life, the healer had encountered all of these and they had all been relatively easy to remove, with just a little encouragement. Flash, unsurprisingly, was nothing like anyone the healer had ever encountered before. As the healer's consciousness settled down to take stock, the biggest, scariest looking castle with manned battlements, trebuchets and a huge keep that rose out of view, formed the picture in front of him. A giant moat surrounded it all, with some very ominous things swimming in it. Strangely, a portcullis sat directly across the moat from him, but there was no drawbridge, and behind the metal portcullis, just the stone wall of the castle was visible. Evil looking vultures perched atop the crenellations that crisscrossed the outer walls and long arrow slits littered the dark stone, making it look from a distance like the castle had chickenpox. Dark, forbidding clouds circled overhead.

  'This is going to be... interesting,' thought the healer, taking it all in and pondering his next move. It was a good job that all his concentration wasn't focused on his what was to come. Movement behind the slits in the walls caught his attention. Moments later a barrage of arrows sailed through the sky towards his consciousness, something that in all his time he'd never seen or heard of. In a fraction of a second he'd made the decision to retreat out of range, back right to the very verge of Flash's mind. Heart beating double time back in his dragon body nex
t to the lava pool, the arrows struck the muddy ground in front of him with a solid thwump, deep inside Flash's mind. Taking a few seconds to regain his composure, he tried to understand what had just gone on. It had happened so quickly that he'd just acted automatically, but the more he thought about it, the more it scared him senseless. How would things have turned out if he'd been hit by one of the arrows? Would any harm have come to him? Would he have... died, here in someone else's mind? All of these questions and more wriggled through his brain as his consciousness cowered in the darkness, the castle with all its dangers towering over everything in the not so far away distance. Knowing that every second here was a second closer to death for the dragon whose mind he'd invaded and maybe even himself, he vowed to do everything in his power to help.

  Keeping his wits about him, he very carefully, and very obviously, came out of the shadows and walked slowly and surely towards the thrashing waters of the moat, all the time projecting as much calm and serenity as he could muster in the direction of the imposing castle. Briefly clearing his throat, he threw his voice as far as he could, hoping it would catch the attention of the mind within.