“Yes, she doesn’t like me.”
“I gathered that from the club.”
“This is my mother.” I tilted my head toward her without lowering my sword. “She said someone here—ah, Greemaw—might be able to answer a few questions. I don’t want a fight, just information.”
I wondered if the troll knew about the werewolves and would call me a liar, since I’d been fighting them.
She looked over our heads, an easy feat since she was almost ten feet tall, and out toward the forest. The nostrils in her wide squat nose flared. I don’t know what the winds told her, but she gave me a flat, unfriendly look.
“The price of information will be high for the Deathstalker.”
“If I introduce myself as Val, will that help?”
“No. Come.” The troll lowered her club, turned, and strode into the tunnel.
“Are we invited in?” Mom asked.
“Something like that.”
I started to go first, but she lifted a hand and caught my arm. “Rocket and I have been here before. I stumbled across this place when I was searching for a kid who’d gone missing from a campground.”
“The troll didn’t eat him, did she?” Reluctantly, I let her lead, but Sindari and I followed right after her. Which made Rocket nervous—he kept glancing back, not ready to accept a tiger as a hiking buddy yet.
“No. An orc who’d lost her own child found him and wanted to adopt him into the clan.”
“There’s a whole clan in here?”
The passage we’d entered looked like the other lava tube caves I’d seen in the area, wide with a high curving ceiling and veering slightly downhill. The ground was covered with flat sandy dust, packed down from the tread of countless feet.
“Among other things,” Mom said.
The temperature dropped as we walked farther from the entrance. A shadow fell behind us, the solid rock reappearing and blocking out daylight. Magical torches sputtering in holders on the rock walls provided light, but the uneasy feeling of being trapped crept into me. I reminded myself that I had the key to the door.
A small, round shape on the ground against a wall came into view as the passage curved around a bend. My first thought was that it was a skull and that we would soon pass all manner of discarded bones from some predator’s meal—some troll’s meal—but it was a ball. Rocket trotted forward and sniffed it, but it was too large for a dog’s mouth. Sindari could have picked it up in his teeth if he were so inclined, but he was probably too regal to play with a ball. Or play at all. Once, I’d shown him a video of panthers, lions, and tigers in a big-cat rescue having fun with boxes. He’d been unimpressed. Someday, I was going to find a box big enough for him and see if it tempted him.
Another bend took us past a natural pool against one wall, droplets of water dribbling down from a crack in the ceiling to fill it. On one side, a pair of swimming pool noodles bobbed, along with an inner tube that might have escaped from someone doing the river float through town.
I sheathed Chopper. Whatever this place was, I didn’t think I was walking into a war zone.
What I didn’t expect was for the tunnel to end and open back up into the outdoors. We walked into a valley filled with a surprising variety of wood, stone, and hide dwellings, everything from one-room huts to sprawling complexes surrounded by fences. The path turned into a road that meandered down the middle of the valley, past the residences and also a number of service tents and market stalls.
There were magical beings everywhere, the most orcs, trolls, dwarves, gnomes, kobolds, and goblins I’d seen in one place. There were a few more exotic beings as well, ones I’d heard about but never run into, such as firbolgs, a satyr, and a minotaur. Mom looked toward a handsome elf who looked like he’d walked off the set of Lord of the Rings. A wistful expression crossed her face.
Interesting, Sindari remarked as we followed the troll down the road, almost all of the beings turning to watch our passage. These people represent several different worlds and wouldn’t usually be found together. Historically, many of them have made war on each other.
It’s got to be a refuge of some kind. Maybe someone powerful—this Greemaw?—keeps the peace. What was more surprising to me was how this place could have avoided notice from the outside world.
Though the trees along the steep valley slopes were massive, with branches that stretched much more expansively than normal over the valley floor, sunlight filtered down through the leaves and needles. It was hard to imagine that this wouldn’t be visible to the various helicopters and planes that flew around the area, taking visitors over the mountains and volcanoes. I’d seen a pamphlet for a tour that flew people around to remote locations to look for sasquatch.
But as I eyed the branches, I noticed a hint of magic about them. It was hard to pick out, since the auras of magical beings and artifacts bombarded me from all sides here, but an enchantment was definitely up there, hiding the valley from outside detection.
A few beings whispered as we passed, and with my translation charm still active, I picked out Ruin Bringer, Slayer, and Deathstalker along with other less flattering names I’d heard before. Even so, I hadn’t realized I was this notorious among the magical. A few of the speakers were children, gnomes and dwarves wearing the tattered clothing of true refugees. I decided I didn’t want this fame—this infamy—and wished I could let them know they had nothing to fear from me, so long as they didn’t prey on humans.
One boy called out a semblance of Rocket’s name, the accent putting the stresses in odd places, and threw a grubby tennis ball. The dog bounded off to get it. Mom lifted a hand, as if to call him back, but she dropped her arm and let him retrieve the ball. He brought it back to her instead of the skinny gnome kid who’d thrown it, but she passed it along to the owner. Rocket wagged his tail for the first time since we’d encountered the werewolves.
“There she is.” Mom pointed to a cave set into the back of the valley and framed by a pergola made from wood and the porous lava-rock boulders.
The huge golem sat on a stone bench the size of a conference table, her dark gray skin almost matching the surrounding rock. She looked like she’d been carved from it, with waves of green hair akin to moss falling to her broad shoulders. Very old eyes like polished pieces of obsidian gazed at me as we approached.
I would not wish to fight a golem, Sindari informed me. Their skin is as hard as the rocks of their native world.
So I shouldn’t piss her off?
I recommend against it. She is a lava golem. They are slow to anger, but when they lose their temper, it is as bad as a volcano erupting. They can melt pieces of their stone flesh and throw flaming lava balls at enemies, assuming they don’t simply grab you and crush you to pieces.
Our troll guide bowed to the golem and backed away without a word, heading back to her post.
“Hello, Greemaw,” my mother said. “I apologize for intruding in your world again, but my daughter has a mystery it’s important for her to solve, and I thought you might be familiar with a sigil that’s her only clue.”
“Your daughter is the Ruin Bringer?” The golem spoke slowly and precisely, her deep rumble reminding me of a cement mixer.
“Apparently.”
“She is not welcome among our kind.”
“I’m not here to bother anyone,” I said. “And I’ll pay for the information. In money or tennis balls and pool noodles. Whatever excites people here.”
The obsidian eyes regarded me without warmth. Mom frowned at me. I felt like the delinquent teenager who had been dragged home by the police.
“I thought,” Mom said to Greemaw, “that since you told me before that you’ve been here since the last volcanic eruption, you might be familiar with all the races that have come and gone in that time period.”
“Hasn’t it been over a thousand years since the volcano erupted?” I waved in the direction of the lakes and Paulina Peak.
Mom nodded. “Golems are long-lived, she tells me.
”
“It is true,” Greemaw said. “I was alone then and for many centuries afterward, except when travelers passed through. Now, the village is full of life. It is very busy to one such as myself, but I cannot turn away refugees.” Her gaze fell on me again. “There are so few safe places for them in this world.”
Because this isn’t their world, I kept myself from saying. Instead, I pulled out the vial and warily approached the golem. Even sitting, Greemaw towered over me, with shoulders four times wider than mine. She had to weigh thousands of pounds. But she didn’t make any sudden movements.
“Will you look at the sigil on the bottom of this and let me know if you recognize it?” I waved the vial. “I’ll pay,” I repeated, though I didn’t know if money was useful to these people. It wasn’t as if a golem could walk into a 7-11.
“Did you slay the werewolf protectors?” she asked. “Or did the dragon?”
Uh. They had called themselves protectors, and she called them that too. I’d hoped they hadn’t been allied. If I told her the truth, she probably wouldn’t help me. More than that, she might order everybody here to attack me.
The children, I noticed, had disappeared, and only adults were present now. More than fifty of them watched our exchange, some with clubs, short swords, or bows. A couple of flinty-faced dwarves had guns.
Though I was tempted to foist the deaths of the werewolves off on Zav, it was possible the golem could communicate with him and that I would be caught lying. I didn’t like lying anyway. I didn’t think I had been at fault when it came to the werewolves, but if I’d made a mistake, I preferred to own up to it. The only thing that made me pause was all the baleful looks—and the weapons—aimed in my direction.
“They attacked me,” I said, “and I defended myself. I asked if they would let us turn back without a fight, but they said no. So, yes, I killed several of them. Five, I believe, between myself and Sindari. I’m not sure how many the dragon killed, if any. He captured one and lit a couple others on fire. They may have survived.”
The golem listened to my tale, then looked to one of the side walls in her cave. It was more of an alcove, and I didn’t sense or feel anything magical in the stone itself, but she spoke to the wall.
“Is that correct?”
The rock wall shimmered, and a surge of magical awareness flooded me even before Zav walked out in human form to stand next to the golem and face me. Physically, he appeared small next to Greemaw, but magically, he was like the sun compared to a distant star.
I couldn’t read the haughty expression he leveled at me, but I made myself stare back at him with determination. I didn’t care if he radiated the power of a supernova. This was my world, not his, and he didn’t have any right to judge me or tell me what I could do here.
“It’s correct,” he said, still looking at me, though he replied to Greemaw. “I let the werewolves who fled live, though they should have been punished. They were arrogant and did not properly defer to a dragon.”
“Yeah, I had the same problem with them.” It probably wasn’t the time for lippiness—the dark frown my mom sent me assured that—so I resolved to keep my mouth shut, unless it was about the vial.
“It is no surprise that a werewolf would not defer to a human.” Zav’s violet eyes closed to slits but remained locked on me. “Even a mongrel with the blood of an elf who lowered himself to rut with a human.”
Mom turned her frown on Zav, and indignation burned in her eyes. Probably more at the insult to her former lover than for me or herself. But Rocket slunk back to hide behind a hut, and she must have remembered how dangerous this guy was—those casually incinerated bullets had to be prominent in her mind—for she didn’t say anything.
“You have earned the hatred of all the magical beings in this part of this world.” Zav walked toward me, his hands clasped behind his back, and then circled me, eyeing me up and down. It wasn’t sexual—if he’d been affronted by the idea of an elf and a human mating, he’d wither up and die in horror at a dragon having relations with a human. It was more like that of an undefeated boxer sizing up a scrawny newcomer to the arena. “I can understand why, of course,” he continued, “since you stomped into my way and killed the wyvern I was in the middle of arresting.”
Why did I have a feeling this guy was making me his special project? Was it truly coincidence that he’d found criminals right next to me on two separate occasions, or was he stalking me for some reason? Running into each other at the seaside cave over the wyvern could have been chance, but what were the odds that his second arrest would bring him halfway across the state to the same mountainside where I was?
“The wyvern that killed humans and that I was charged by my authorities to kill,” I stated. “I was on the case first, as I said. You weren’t around when I executed the first two, and it’s not my fault you came late to the third one.”
“If there were others, they were not my concern. And you were not there first.”
“I was already there when you walked in, asshole.”
“Oh?”
Hell, hadn’t he realized that? If not, I was an idiot for hinting at one of my advantages. If I had to fight him again, the cloaking charm might be the only thing that would save my life.
Zav stopped his circling at my side, his chest a hair’s breadth from brushing my shoulder. He lifted a hand—I almost expected to see claws at the ends of his fingers, but he had normal, well-trimmed nails. As I watched that hand come closer, it was all I could do not to spring back and draw Chopper.
But the armed refugees behind me had inched closer, and Greemaw was watching me intently. I had the feeling this was a test. But if I annoyed him enough, he might break my neck. His hand was heading toward it. No, it was to my necklace, not my neck. He ran his finger along the charms and paused in front of the one that had camouflaged me that day in the wyvern cave.
“Yes, I see. I should take this from you, so you can’t easily sneak up on the magical.” His lip curled. “Assassin.”
I clenched my jaw but didn’t allow myself to otherwise react. I could live without that charm, but what if he took Sindari from me?
At my side, the tiger crouched, his tail rigid as he watched this exchange. He looked like he wanted to attack, but even he would be no match for a dragon.
“But I am not a thief.” Zav lowered his hand. “I am not a criminal.”
“I’m not a criminal either,” I growled. “You can’t bring your laws to this world and expect people here to obey them.”
“Of course I can. I am a dragon, sent by the Dragon Justice Court. That your puny people don’t recognize our rule over the galaxy is laughable. It is only because nobody wishes to deal with your verminous infestation of this world that you’ve been allowed to run amok, breeding like iyarku and suffocating out almost all other life here.” His lids drooped, leaving his violet eyes as mere slits. “You would be wise to respect dragons when they do visit.”
“So sorry I didn’t drag a throne and a red carpet into that cave as soon as you arrived.”
“Someday,” he continued, ignoring my outburst, “a dragon may decide to come and rule over this mess and straighten it out.”
“You, perhaps? Just give me some notice. I’ll put the word out on social media, so anyone who wants to appropriately worship you can show up at the portal.”
“Not me.” He curled his lip again. Maybe that was an involuntary tic. “I will spend no more time in this vile place than I must. I am no cowardly refugee.”
A couple of the guys with guns glanced at each other at this insult, but nobody shifted their weapons from me to Zav. Too bad.
He prowled around behind me again, and my shoulder blades itched. The last thing I wanted was an enemy this powerful at my back.
He came around to my other side. “Because I think it could cut down on the length of time I’m forced to stay here, I am considering using you as bait.”
“What?”
He smiled for the first time,
and I decided that Amused Zav wasn’t any more appealing than Pissed Zav. “They hate you, and they come out in droves when you’re nearby. I’ve never had a pack of werewolves stand up to me in my life, but they wanted very badly to kill you, to receive credit among all the magical here for their great victory. Even when I was right before them, they thought that it would be worth it to sacrifice part of their pack to take you down.”
“Nice of you to read their minds. That would be considered a violation of civil liberties here, but whatever. You’ve already said our laws don’t apply to dragons.”
“What liberties do your laws give to the magical?”
None, I admitted, thinking of the therapist. Maybe I’d call Mary later and let her know my acute stressors were at least as much of a problem as the chronic ones.
“I cannot read your mind,” he remarked, watching me. “Which charm of yours protects you from that?”
“If you don’t know, I’m not telling you. A girl doesn’t lift her skirt for just any man.”
He blinked and looked down. I almost laughed, realizing I’d confused him with the expression.
His surprise disappeared quickly, and he lifted his gaze and nodded. “Yes, bait. You could offend the magical with your tongue even if you hadn’t alienated the whole community by slaying hundreds of them.”
“Those weren’t part of a community. They were rogues. And you’re not dragging me off to dangle me above a cliff or whatever you have in mind. I’d kick my own ass before going anywhere with you.”
“I wasn’t going to give you a choice,” he said dryly.
“I’m not being your pawn.” I glared straight into those cocky violet eyes.
He stared back at me, indifferent, as far as I could tell, to my defiance.
“It is not wise to refuse a dragon,” Greemaw said.
“People keep using that word,” I said, “but I assure you it doesn’t apply to me.”
My mother rubbed her face. She had her Glock in hand again, but she didn’t know what to do with it. I had a similar problem. I wanted to bash the pompous dragon on the head with Chopper, but I couldn’t win, not here with all his allies around and probably not alone in a field with him either. Life was unfair.
Sinister Magic: An Urban Fantasy Dragon Series (Death Before Dragons Book 1) Page 11