California Imperium

by Aaron Crash

  Aria let out a cry. She was forced into her human form, then forced to her knees, in front of the statue. Steven went to her, kneeling, holding up Samael’s Lash in a vain attempt to protect the Indian woman warrior.

  Protect her from what, though?

  The torch flashed again, and marks appeared on the left side of Aria’s throat. An “X” and first one “I” then another appearing until the Roman numeral for thirteen was branded in her neck. Steven thought of the statue and Niwashi. He’d been branded as well.

  “Rise, Thirteen. Rise.” The Elf Queen’s voice came from everywhere around them.

  Aria stood. The fire, ice, and lightning falls continued to churn steam and electricity into the air. Zoey shifted to human and threw herself into Steven’s arms. She trembled. Steven didn’t blame her.

  The Elf Queen boomed, “You have come far, Thirteen, and you have done much to be given such an honor. All will have been for naught if you have not brought me the lost son. For it was Merlin’s daughter who opened the first eye. Only the lost son can open the second. Present him, Thirteen, present him or perish.”

  Tessa’s voice was almost lost in the crackle of the lightning and the hiss of the fire hitting the ice. “Merlin’s daughter? Yeah, me.”

  Aria must’ve been in pain from the brand, but she didn’t show it. “I have brought the lost son to you,” she called out. “I found him, in the human world, lost to Dragonkind. He is Steven Drokharis, son of Stefan Drokharis, and he will bring revolution.”

  The torch gushed new fire, and it wreathed Steven, covering him, until it was like he was in a cage of flame. He transformed into a Homo Draconis, gripping his sword. The heat was intense.

  Zoey roared.

  “Stop her!” Mouse shouted. “Skylar!”

  Steven couldn’t see what was happening, but he heard the scuffle, and he could picture the scene. Zoey would try and break through the cage of fire, but Skylar was big enough to pull the big bear away.

  “It’s okay!” he called out. “Zoey, it’s okay!”

  The bear girl let out a helpless, high-pitched whine.

  Steven wasn’t sure what to do next. Was he the lost son? Aria seemed to think so. He decided to follow her lead. “Yes, I am the lost son. Thirteen has brought me here. I seek the Holy Grail to save us all.”

  The Elf Queen responded. “To save the humans. That was the wish of the Dragon Slayer. To save Dragonkind. That was the wish of the Americos Brothers. Good turned evil by sorrow. Good turned evil by fearful desire. Both full of hope for a better world. Daughter and son, brother and sister, husband and wife, and so I will show you the way as I did to Arthur Rex, lost to time, crippled by friendship, consumed by love.”

  Then the Animus was ripped out of Steven. It was an icy feeling in his belly, a terrible pain, and he heard his Escort cry out as well. The Enchantrix magic was being powered by an AnimusChain spell.

  Zoey’s whines turned into human cries. Skylar cursed, and it wasn’t the boom of a dragon, but that of a simple woman. All had been hit to power this last spell. They were being drained like they had been at the Dragonknight Chamber on the Oregon coast.

  The voice of the Elf Queen turned angry. “The daughter of the Dragon Slayer! The daughter of the most foul! For shame! For shame! To bring her here!”

  Tessa let out a scream. Then she managed to shout out an Incanto spell, to dispel the magic draining her of magic and possibly killing her. “I’m Merlin’s daughter. I’m not the Dragon Slayer’s daughter!”

  “You lie!” the Elf Queen roared. “I will show you the sins of your ancestor!”

  Steven had to stop the AnimusChain. He cast Magica Incanto using the last of his Animus. It was a desperate act, but he wanted to undo the magic so he wasn’t left helpless.

  His spell worked. The drain on him was gone as was the fire.

  He glanced around, but he wasn’t in the waterfall temple any longer. He wasn’t in Bali.

  The voice of the elven queen whispered to him, “I will show you what you need to see, for you are indeed the lost son. Behold.”

  But then he found himself in the middle of a Divination spell he hadn’t cast.

  After the heat of the jungle, Steven felt the cold immediately on his exposed skin. The sky was full of clouds. It felt like it could rain at any minute on the thick forest around him. He stood on the banks of a lake. He could smell the murk and the fallen leaves of autumn littering its crystalline waters. Across the lake, a tall hill stood. The forest parted to reveal an outcropping of gray rock in the shape of a cross.

  Yes, this was Divination magic, but it felt so real.

  Metal clanked, leather creaked, and men cleared their throats.

  Steven turned. He stood between the lake and twelve knights in armor. The Dragonknights of the Ever-Seeing Eye. He recognized them from their statues on the Oregon coast.

  King Arthur stood, clean-shaven, with his sword sheathed at his side. The other Dragonsouls stood in their human form, their weapons at rest, either clipped to their belts or resting on their shoulders.

  Another man stood with them, but he wasn’t in armor. A thick black beard fell onto the Magician’s robes. He gripped a staff, and a sheathed broadsword hung at his side, an emerald set into the pommel. The bearded man had to be Merlin the Magician.

  Steven raised a tentative hand. “Hello?”

  Arthur, Merlin, and the Dragonknights looked right through him.

  “There.” Arthur pointed to the lake. “She said she would come.”

  Steven turned. From out of the water emerged the Elf Queen, the same delicate creature that had been carved into a statue to stand in front of the Alpheros in the Bali waterfall temple. In both of her hands were weapons like Okinawan sais, with the upcurved prongs on either side. She slammed them together, and in a flash of light, instead of sais, they became a torch, the same torch Steven and his Escort had found on the Oregon coast. “Use this to light your way. Use this to find the Holy Grail. For the darkness will come again. I have hidden what you will need under the waters of this lake. Only time will tell if you are worthy and if your love is strong.” She gestured around them. “The Cross of Rock to the west, the Cold Ocean to the east. In the land of the songbird, capped in black.”

  She put the torch in Arthur’s hand. She then turned and regally walked back into the lake. A flash of light later, she was gone. The glow was familiar to Steven; it was the blue of portal magic.

  Arthur tapped the torch against his open palm. He turned to Merlin. “No one else has ever been able to find the Holy Grail. Do you think we have a chance?”

  The Magician’s beard split into a grin. “The most powerful Magician in the world and his trusty companion? Why yes, Arthur. I do believe we have a chance.”

  The Dragonlord gave his friend a smile of his own. “I believe we are worthy. However, while I am very fond of you, I would shrink at the word love. I have my Escort, while you have your Elissabyth. And yet if you swam down the depths of this lake, I might very well adore you.”

  The two laughed. All joking aside, Steven could see the strong friendship between the two men. And he knew why he’d been given this vision. This lake was where the quest for the Holy Grail began. The Elf Queen had said that only time would tell if Arthur, Merlin, and his Dragonknights would be successful in their quest for the Holy Grail. They hadn’t been. But because Steven was this lost son, he’d been given the chance to try his luck with the hunt.

  Steven felt unseen hands pull him into the sky, and he was forced into his True Form. He was in the sky, above the lake, and yes, there was an ocean to the east. Higher, higher, higher, he was drawn into the sky. Until the Earth was but a blue-green gem against the velvet black of space.

  That lake was on the east coast of North America, maybe Maine, maybe Canada. That meant he had to break the magic exiling him from the North American continent if he wanted to go on the quest.

  Steven was afraid to take a breath; the cold was crushing around him. He
closed his eyes, afraid his very eyes would freeze in the vacuum of space.

  A blink later, he was back in Bali, back in the waterfall temple, on the other side of the world, a thousand years in the future. The lightning falls to the right and the flame falls to the left were normal water once again. The center waterfall remained frozen, but the sun was quickly melting the ice. Steven checked, and he had enough Animus for one, maybe two spells.

  Tessa was on her knees, weeping, and it was an echo of the scene he’d witnessed before, on the Oregon beach. There, she’d been triumphant. Now? It was the exact opposite. She looked gutted.

  “Tessa, what is it?” he asked.

  Her voice came out strangled. “I saw her, the Dragon Slayer, through the Elf Queen’s Divination magic. She gave me the vision. And took everything else.” Red streaked her face. She wasn’t just crying tears, she was crying tears of blood.

  Steven heard the snap of a bowstring, then a crack. He turned in time to see two arrows fall to the ground, one ivory shafted and one as black as death. What the hell was going on?

  A roar rang out, fury filling a gigantic throat. Then, the biggest dragon Steven had ever seen in his life broke through the ice waterfall, scattering chunks of cold, and filled the sky with his pale, diseased form.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  BRUNO FLUNG HIMSELF through the frozen waterfall. The spawn of the Dragon Slayer was here. The Elf Queen had confirmed it.

  Worse?

  She was here, the night to his day, the cold to his fire, the bone to his flesh. The huntress. The Shadow Archer. She’d shot his killing arrow out of the air, ruining the clean death he’d tried to give to the Drokharis whelp.

  Let her come.

  Bruno had more important murders to worry about. He would kill the Drokharis child, the lost son, and he would kill the spawn of the Dragon Slayer, that bitch. And then, if he still lived, he would kill the Shadow Archer, the specter who had hunted him for centuries.

  Bruno had waited through the dramatics of the enchantments, the games Dragonknights, Magicians, and Elves play. And now he was in his dragon form, speeding down toward the three statues of the Alpheros and the Elf Queen.

  He pulled the rest of the Animus out of the Dragon Slayer’s daughter using AnimusChain. He couldn’t have her casting spells. The other dragons were so empty they couldn’t even shift. And there would be no time for them to gain more. As for the Morphling, she stank of fear and need. He pulled the strength out of her muscles using ShadowStrength.

  Bruno noticed the petite woman’s sword wreathed in green fire. An emerald tipped the Slayer Blade’s pommel. Fate loved to play her tricks. Destiny loved her irony. The gods laughed even as they wept.

  Bruno streaked toward Steven. Bruno’s claws glowed bright with IonClaws. And behind them, HeartStrike, all fueled with AnimusChain and ShadowStrength.

  The Drokharis child would die in a few seconds. As for the Shadow Archer, Bruno had taken her arrows before, and he would again.

  It wasn’t prophecy. It was certainty.

  STEVEN SAW TESSA’S mouth curl into a scream, and his other Escorts were down, writhing on the ground. Zoey’s flesh seemed to wither before his eyes.

  Unreal amounts of magic surrounded the pale dragon descending upon him. This thing, this behemoth, was the color of a dead man’s cheek. The diseased pink of its eyes and mouth, even edging its scales, all added to the thing’s awfulness. Who was this putrid worm, and how had it found Steven?

  Steven didn’t know. All he knew for sure was that he had only seconds to live. He stayed human. And he used the last bit of Animus inside him to cast a single spell. “Incanto!” Steven called out. He hit the descending white worm with every bit of dispel magic he had.

  The thing’s IonClaws winked away. A wave of energy rippled down its body and then dissipated. The pale dragon let out a scream of pain. No, it hadn’t just had IonClaws activated, it had had HeartStrike. Losing that would hurt the thing like nothing else.

  A chain circled the white worm’s throat, Uchiko’s chain. The enemy dragon slammed into statues of the Alpheros, crushing them and the Elf Queen.

  Black arrows thwacked off the temple’s stones, one after another. Steven recalled his vision of the black archer who had followed them through the jungle. He wasn’t sure which side she was on, but hell, she was aiming at the hidden assassin, which was good news.

  Uchiko must’ve secured her kusarigama to something, and the enchanted links of the chain were holding the pale worm, for now. It flung white magical arrows out of its claws at Steven. He dodged to the side, and the Impetim missiles struck the ground, blasting holes in the stone, filling the air with smoke and debris. Steven had never seen such deadly Impetim magic.

  “Excrucior!” Steven’s blade came apart, and he lashed the white worm with his chain-whip sword. Blood spattered across its scales.

  Three of Uchiko’s shuriken struck the pale dragon. A black arrow sank into its leg.

  The thing roared, whined, giggled. “Ahh, if it isn’t Oe Uchiko. Your weapons are as sharp as I remember them, and though I can’t see you, I imagine you are as ugly as ever.”

  Uchiko didn’t respond. Of course she didn’t. She wouldn’t give away her position.

  Steven was shocked that the white worm knew the Skinling ninja by her full name.

  “Here we are, the three of us, the last of the murderers, the gravediggers, the chamber pot pissants.” The white worm laughed bitterly. It was wheezing, its eyes and mouth growing pinker, spit dribbling from his maw. The failed HeartStrike had cost him dearly.

  Yet this thing was powerful enough to continue to battle. It cast two spells, back to back, a Cura and an Incanto.

  Once healed and free of magic, the pale dragon spun out of the sickle-chain and breathed lightning into the jungle at an unseen foe: either Uchiko or the mysterious archer. Two spells and an Exhalant barely slowed the worm. It writhed away, leveling what remained of the damaged statues with a swipe of its tail. But it wasn’t going for them, it was trying to crush Tessa.

  Steven needed his True Form, but he didn’t have the Animus. Neither did any of his Escort. Mouse staggered up, the Slayer Blade on fire, but then the pale dragon hit her with the back of its hand. She went rolling across the stones.

  Zoey tried to stand, but she staggered backward from the enormous stomping of the huge beast in the temple. She fell to her knees, tried to shift, but couldn’t. She started to cry. Not enough Animus for the poor girl, and she was terrified beyond reason. Aria and Skylar were also down, maybe for good.

  “Uchiko! I need you!” Steven called out.

  The pale dragon lumbered toward Steven, but more black arrows harried the beast. It had to turn and cast a Defensio spell. The white force field caught the next three black arrows. “Oh, she always does have a full quiver, doesn’t she?” It was talking to itself. How much time did this thing spend alone?

  While it was distracted, Steven had to act.

  “I am here, my Prime!” Uchiko’s voice came to him. “I will always be here for you.”

  Steven reached out, and since he’d felt Uchiko’s Animus core before, he could find her again, racing alongside the wall, coming toward him. She was in range.

  “I need your Animus!” he shouted.

  “But...” She hesitated. “Do it. Do what you will.”

  For the first time in his life, he cast AnimusChain. Being so low on Animus, it was a gamble. The spell might kill him. Or it might save them all. He felt her life energy leave her and come into him. It was a violent, brutal move, but Steven was new to the magic, and he had no finesse.

  Powered up, Steven shifted into his True Form. His sword hit the ground and snikt closed, going from chain-whip to plain bastard blade.

  Diving forward, Steven loaded Uchiko’s Animus into his talons. He went to impale the pale dragon using a combination of IonClaws and SerpentGrace.

  “Incanto!” the pale dragon spat. Steven lost his glowing talons and magical spee
d, but he still had his gigantic body. He met the white worm, and they smashed together, clawing, biting, rending.

  The white worm threw Steven down. Then it growled out, “FleshForge.” The pale dragon’s arms changed. Its left forearm widened and rounded into a scaled buckler. Its right fist lengthened into a razor-sharp spike.

  It was the first time Steven had witnessed the ability. For a second, he was surprised, but then he acted. “Defensio!” His force field caught the spike, giving him enough time to scurry to his feet. He spun, trying to deck the other dragon with his long tail, but the white worm caught the attack on its buckler.

  “Impetim!” White spears shot from the spike. They passed through Steven’s shield, since he’d cast it to protect against melee, not magic. He managed to duck under the attack. He turned straight into a shield bash by the white dragon. His attacker raised his spear arm to finish Steven off, but had to duck a black arrow aimed at his eye. The pale dragon let out a frustrated roar. It went to strike Steven again.

  Steven saw his opening. He shifted to human, fell past the spike and the shield, and landed on the ground near Samael’s Lash. He turned Homo Draconis, snatched his sword from the ground, whirled, and shouted “Excrucior!” He lashed out with his chain-whip and slashed into the white worm’s neck.

  Two black arrows hit the pale dragon. One glanced off its arm shield. The other sank into the meat between its neck and left shoulder. Its pink eyes flashed, and its lips curled up in pain. It shifted its right arm back into a claw to pluck the arrow out in a gush of blood.

  Steven whirled the chain-whip around and struck again, hacking the segmented blades into the white worm’s shield, digging the segments deep.

  “ShadowStrength,” Steven said through clenched teeth. With the added power, he jerked the pale dragon off its feet. It landed, shifting smaller, until it was a white Homo Draconis splashed with red.

  The thing lurched forward and pushed its face into Steven’s. “AnimusChain,” it hissed.

  Steven tried to cast Incanto, but it was too late. The pale dragon ripped energy from Steven, forcing him back into human form. Steven scrambled back. The white Homo Draconis hesitated as more black arrows clacked off the stone pavement. It turned and fled, healing itself as it went.