by Nazri Noor
Well, I thought. That was convenient. I breathed deeply, remembering exactly who I was, and what I was. A speck of dust on a rock spinning aimlessly in the universe, a pointless evolutionary accident by all accounts. But what did that matter? I had a mind, a heart, a soul. Above all, I had a mission: to speak to the Great Beasts and beseech them for all of their power against the Eldest.
She was right. I am dust, I thought. And that was what I said.
“I am Dust.”
Chapter 16
“Strange,” the she-serpent said. “For once a man-child shows humility and understanding in his position. Perhaps you will live long enough to tell the great Tiamat why you have intruded on her domain.”
My blood froze. Tiamat was many things, both the mother goddess of the Babylonian pantheon, and a reviled dragon turned away by her own divine children, a swirling beacon of chaos. Above all else, she was angry.
Tiamat blinked, sheer membranes closing and opening across the awful, slick surface of her eyes. She appraised me with the venomous, calculated patience of a snake, slitted pupils watching and waiting. The sound of her breathing was like the rush of violent winds through some huge cavern, the noise of it mingling with the rumble of storm and thunder around us. Far, far below, where I couldn’t even hear, my friends fought for their lives.
Don’t look down, I thought to myself. Don’t do it. But you know me well enough by now, a little stubborn, a little stupid. I swallowed as I dared to look below us, my stomach swooping as I saw nothing but the great, glistening bulk of Tiamat’s torso, her scales glittering like jewels. It grew out of the fog like a gargantuan stalk. I could hardly see the water or the rocks, only faint pulses of magical colored light as spells fired from under the canopy of clouds.
Tiamat’s reptilian jaws parted, her thunderous voice emanating from behind teeth like spires of smooth, yellowed rock. “There is a reason you have come, little speck. Speak it, while I have patience still.” Her breath smelled like the ocean, like a hurricane.
“The Eldest,” I said. “We’ve come for your help. Loki of the Norse gods told me to seek out the Great Beasts, to ask if you would lend your power in this greatest of battles. An agent of the Eldest has come to life – one of their avatars – and we – ”
The sky around us rumbled with thunder and flashes of lightning as Tiamat laughed, as her claws tightened around my body. I held my breath. Any tighter, I thought, and she could crush me into paste. I needed to choose my words.
“You must think us fools. Loki has no power here. Just because his children are among our allies doesn’t give them any greater influence. And you would have the Great Beasts risk our hides for the sake of little humans? Little specks of dust? The gall. The absolute gall.”
“The coming of the Eldest will be the end of us all,” I said through gritted teeth. I tried not to sigh, to show so much of my disappointment, because it truly felt like I was reading off of some kind of script. The world is in peril, I’d said several times before, to the Lorica, and to far too many different entities. “We’re in this together. The same realm, the same planet.” I surprised myself with the amount of conviction I managed to force into those words.
Tiamat sneered. I didn’t even think that dragons could do that. But this wasn’t a time to be defiant. I was several hundred feet in the air, trapped in a sea dragon’s claws, precious seconds away from being crushed into Dustin pâté.
“The gods cursed us. Humanity shunned us. And now you turn to the Great Beasts for aid? You are fools.”
I couldn’t be cheeky, sure. But that didn’t mean I couldn’t take risks. I swallowed the lump in my throat, speaking before what was left of my courage withered away.
“You cared for humanity once, didn’t you? The mother goddess of Babylon. That counts for something.”
Tiamat’s great eyes narrowed. “And yet they spurned me. I have been many things. Dragon, serpent, deity. I am all these and more, and yet things change, mortal. Some things change.” Tiamat shifted her great body, the ocean churning and rushing far beneath us as she did. “The Great Beasts are not loved by those who believe they rule the earth – you humans and your entities. You have come to the wrong place, little speck. I am spent. I am tired.”
“But if the world ends,” I said, reading once more from the little script that could have been printed into the back of my eyes, “so will everything. The end of existence is universal. If we’re snuffed out, then so are you, Great Beasts or no.”
“A favor, then?” Tiamat scoffed, her breath ripping at my hair like a furious gale. “Did you think to come to us to beg for an infusion of magical power? A contract, perhaps. Patronage. Or maybe one of Fenrir’s teeth, a claw from Bahamut? No. You will have nothing. The Midnight Convocation can do what it desires with its beloved Crown of Stars. The Great Beasts have nothing to give you, little speck.”
Tread lightly, I thought. “So you know about the Convocation.”
My heart thumped as Tiamat lifted me even higher into the air, bringing me closer to her face. “We know of your battle with the Eldest. We know of the risks that the gods of night and moon took in assisting you. And we know that one of them perished in that fight.” The edges of Tiamat’s mouth drew back, exposing her massive fangs. “And for what? To help puny mankind, to stave off the Old Ones for some precious, fleeting moments? Pah. You have wasted your time and your breath. I should crush you, you and those companions you’ve brought to defile our dimension.”
Fear came rushing back into my body. “We need you,” I said, my insides wavering, but my voice still, and stern. “Please, whatever power you can lend, what counsel you can give – ”
“Your arrogance is staggering. Look around you.” Tiamat gestured, at the thundering sky, at the boiling seas. “We are the agents of the apocalypse. Why should we aid you? What do we earn from stopping the Eldest? What would we receive in return?”
My head rose, my brow creasing as I decided that there was really only one answer. “Survival. Self-preservation. That’s all any of us can hope for, if we even win this fight.”
“Then let the universe collapse around us,” Tiamat hissed. “This is a universe that cares nothing for the Great Beasts. Why should we think to stop the Old Ones?”
Aim for the part of her that would hurt the most, I thought. Go for her pride. “Because they get to end the universe, and you don’t. Your purpose, for so many of you, is the apocalypse. Would you let the Eldest steal away your grandest reason for existing?”
I didn’t think it was possible for Tiamat to look more menacing, but that had done it. Her spine curled as more and more of her body emerged from the ocean, as she bent over me, regarding me with eyes that burned the same blue and green as the rest of her enormous frame.
“This conversation is ended. You came with nothing, speck of dust, and so shall you leave: with nothing. Be grateful that you still live.”
Tiamat’s voice was abnormally still, and calm. I should’ve known to worry then. She threw her head back, and we rocketed into the clouds. I looked down, trembling, seeing for the first time her legs, her knees. All she had done was stand up.
We spiraled higher, ever higher into the sky, and when I thought we couldn’t go any farther, a loud, thundering crack split the air. It was the sound of Tiamat unfurling her great wings, huge and leathery, already wet with rain.
She beat them, only once, and took us into the clouds, so high up that my body forgot how to breathe. If the thinning atmosphere didn’t kill me, then the terrible heat of the dimension’s green sun would. The only mercy was Tiamat’s wings being massive enough to blot out its poisonous rays.
And impossibly, I could still understand Tiamat’s words as her voiced boomed across the sky, across the oceans, filling my ears, filling an entire dimension.
“The Old Ones are a stain on existence, more baleful and corrupt than any demon, monster, or beast that has walked the earth. And the only force powerful enough to cleanse their taint is fire.
Purifying fire. Even this, we will not give you, little mortal. You could never hope to wield our flames, little speck of dust. I speak, and the heavens crumble. I sing, and the world will end.”
My fingers dug into Tiamat’s scales as I held on for dear life. I shouted over the whistling air, the maddening wind of both the domicile and the great dragon’s wings carrying my words.
“Help us, Tiamat. I’ll take that risk, even if the fire consumes me. Help us.”
The membranes of Tiamat’s great eyes flickered as she blinked, her expression uncaring, impassive.
“Witness,” Tiamat bellowed, her voice a storm, a typhoon. “Witness the power you will never wield, and despair.”
Tiamat raised her head, opening her maw. Something like the roaring of a hundred dragons exploded through the dimension as dazzling blue-green flames erupted from her mouth, reaching for the sky, for the sun, scorching the air in their unnatural heat.
And finally it was all too much – too much fire and fear, and not enough air. I couldn’t breathe. My vision blurred with tears of terror, of frustration, and my heart lurched as Tiamat’s claws parted, as she dropped me from the sky. I opened my mouth to scream, but no sound left my throat.
The air shrieked in my ears as I plunged. I lifted my hand to the sky, maybe some desperate, wordless plea for someone, something to save me. Far above, still in the clouds, was Tiamat, no longer a dragon, but a radiant woman, as great as the sky, her hair the reflection of fire from the sea. And the sun, the sun was one of her eyes.
I plunged into cold water, the salt of it searing my mouth. It entered my ears, stung at my eyes, reached down my nostrils and my throat. I remembered but could no longer understand what it meant to breathe. I fell, and I sank, my skin and blood like ice. Tiamat blinked, and the sun went out.
Chapter 17
I gasped, breath and memory returning to my body all at once. I turned on my side, retching and panting, my insides burning with salt water. My back was cold, my clothes still wet. I was spread over stone, in a puddle of water.
The realm of the Great Beasts?
My eyes flew open and I scrambled backwards, my vision still blurry and barely registering the hints that I was no longer in Tiamat’s domain. The lights here were orange, like hazy circles of flame, and the atmosphere darker. It was warmer, too. And above all, it was quiet. Blissfully quiet. We were back in the Boneyard.
“You’re safe now,” Carver’s voice said.
Something soft fell across my back. A towel, it felt like. I heard Asher’s voice murmuring quiet, indistinct reassurances in my ear, small, sweet variations of “You’re fine,” and “You’re okay.”
I blinked hard, my eyes still stinging from seawater, my hair feeling stiff and crusty with salt. I shrugged, finding that my enchanted knapsack was still strapped to my back, when I remembered.
“V?” I cried out. “Vanitas. I left him behind.”
“Right here,” his voice grumbled in my head. It didn’t matter to me precisely where right here was, as long as it meant that we were still in the same dimension. “Safe and sound.”
“We saw you fall.” It was Prudence’s voice this time. Her boots scraped in the stone as she knelt and pressed a hand into my shoulder. My eyes were feeling better. Her face, similarly damp from seawater, her hair clinging wetly to her forehead, was a welcome sight. “We were worried about you, Dust.”
“I tried to catch you.” Past her shoulder, Bastion was sitting cross-legged, soaked to the bone, his skin crisscrossed with fine scratches, the floor around him darker and wet. “I tried to grab you when Tiamat picked you up, too.” I could hear the defeat in his voice. Quietly, he added: “Sorry.”
“It’s okay,” I heard myself say. “We’re all fine. And Gil?”
“Heading to the shower,” Gil said from somewhere behind me. “This is one wet dog you don’t want to smell.”
Prudence smiled tightly at me, then wrinkled her nose. “He’s right. Trust me.”
Carver sighed from somewhere above me. “I trust that things did not go as planned.”
I sniffled, rubbing under my nose. “You could say that. The short version is that the Great Beasts attacked us pretty much on sight, and the only one who was open to doing any talking basically spent her time berating me. Well, us. Humanity, that is. They refused to help.”
Carver sighed again, this time deeper, somehow even more disappointed. “Then it was a fool’s errand. A waste of gemstones, and of time.” The soles of his shoes clicked on the floor as he approached. “But I am very glad to know that you’ve all returned safely.”
His voice was kind when he said that, understanding, even. I suppose we really shouldn’t have expected much, considering our lead was Loki, of all people. Then again, it wasn’t entirely his fault, either. I scoffed, rubbing the back of my neck. What did we really expect, going up to the agents of the apocalypse, to the world-enders of mythology themselves, to ask them for help? A fool’s errand didn’t even begin to describe things. But you win some, you lose some.
I twisted the end of my towel into my ear, blotting away the last of the water, then engaged a small, steadily burning ball of invisible heat in my palm. I couldn’t wield dragonfire, Tiamat said – I didn’t deserve to, were her actual words – but I had a nice, effective magical method of drying my own clothes, and that was good enough for me.
“Glad to be alive,” I told Carver. “And glad to be back.” Banjo’s head poked out from between his legs. I smiled, despite myself. It was good to know that the little mutt was okay, too.
I ran my open palm along my body, sighing at the comforting pulse of heat as it pulled the moisture from my clothes. Those were going in the washing machine regardless, unless I wanted salt crystals building up in my nether regions. Plus I’d need a shower soon enough. I wasn’t quite as hairy as Gil was, even in his human form, but I knew I didn’t exactly smell like a rose patch.
“So did you guys pick anything up from Agatha’s brooch?” I glanced at Bastion. His gaze was still stuck on the floor. “At least tell us that we have a win.”
“Ah,” Carver said. “We were just about to begin. Now that you’ve returned, the three of you may as well attend and assist with the scrying. More arcane energy couldn’t hurt.”
“Not a matter of too many cooks spoiling the broth, then?” Romira smiled when I looked up at the sound of her voice. She was standing over what appeared to be a cauldron, made completely out of the same stone that composed the rest of the Boneyard. “Soup’s on, by the way.”
I clambered unsteadily to my feet, my curiosity overtaking the ache of exhaustion in my bones. Romira planted both her hands on the rim of the enormous cauldron. Either it wasn’t all that hot, or her affinity for fire magic gave her a kind of protection against it. But as I approached, I saw that there was no steam rising from the vessel, no flame burning underneath it either. I peered in.
The cauldron was holding some sort of liquid, only a little thicker than water, enough that running a finger across it might create more than a slight ripple. There was a faint bluish tinge to the not-water, enough of it that I knew that keeping my hands away was a safe bet.
“It is, in fact, clean water, only infused with a large quantity of arcane energy,” Carver said, as if reading my mind. “Dustin, Bastion, Prudence. You need only grip the edge of the cauldron when we perform the scrying. There’s no need to worry. There is no pain involved in the process.”
Asher walked up to join us, and six pairs of hands came to rest around the outside of the cauldron, forming us into a natural, if small circle.
“Romira and I already made some preparations,” Asher said, nodding at her and somehow avoiding his propensity to blush. “All we need now is Agatha’s brooch.”
“That,” Carver said, “and this.” He ran his hand just above the surface of the water, sweeping it across the cauldron. A faintly glowing map of the world appeared in the liquid, as if it had been etched into the inside of the cauldron.
“Just like how we do things at the Lorica,” Romira said.
“It is the sensible thing to do,” Carver said, nodding. He extended his fingers, dropping Agatha Black’s brooch into the center of the cauldron. It sank into the center, its intricate edges catching the thin lines of the cauldron’s magical map.
Bastion cleared his throat. “This isn’t going to damage the brooch, is it? Only that we don’t have so many of Grandmother’s things anymore. I imagine Mother has attached some sentimental value to the brooch.”
“Under normal circumstances, no,” Carver said. “But these aren’t normal circumstances, are they, Mr. Brandt? Magic carries some risks, after all. I am certain that your mother will understand how we must place more value in security over sentimentality just at this moment.”
Bastion nodded, and said nothing more.
“Now. Water, as we all know, is an excellent medium for scrying.” I gave Carver a flat smirk. Trust him to take every possible opportunity to create a teachable moment. “It has been used for centuries by practitioners of the art, perhaps because of its reflective properties. It accounts for why some seers will use looking glasses, while others prefer crystal balls. But sometimes, simplicity alone can work wonders.” Carver pressed his own fingers into the sides of the cauldron. “Sometimes it is best to keep magic practical.”
Something hovered in my field of vision – not one of the other mages, and certainly nothing human – and I started at the intrusion. It was Vanitas, floating in midair, tilted over the cauldron as if he, too, was looking in.
“Little warning next time you do that,” I thought to him.
“I was curious,” he replied. “I wanted to see.” Which I suppose finally confirmed in a way that Vanitas could actually see through his jewels, but I had other, more thrilling concerns to attend to just then.
I held my breath as Agatha’s brooch took on a life of its own. The lion’s eyes seemed to glow as it glided slowly along the sides of the cauldron, never settling on one spot. It wavered for a moment over the West Coast, the exact place where we’d have expected her to be.