by Dante King
Next to this au naturel barbecue was a wizened old… thing. It was vaguely goblin in appearance—hunched, crooked, and about four feet tall—but was rotund enough to be the answer to the question of who ate all the pies. Its skin was green and covered in a downy fuzz, and its head was thatched with white hair. The creature’s top-lip was decorated with a mustache that looked more like some sort of pond weed than actual facial hair.
I shot a quick, questioning look at Saya, and the muscular blonde leaned in and whispered, “A gnoll.”
That clears that up then, I thought to myself. Not.
As we stepped out through the front rank of waiting customers, who were queuing up for some of this meat, the gnoll looked up at us. When it spoke, it was in the totally unexpected accent of a native Londoner. He sounded—for I highly doubted the creature could be a female of the species—like a Dickensian street merchant of some kind.
“Ah, well, look ‘ere! If it ain’t my most cherished and valued punter! Lovely to see you, Dragonmancer Saya. An honor! A delight! A bloody—”
“That’s enough,” Saya said, the ghost of a smile playing around the corners of her icy blue eyes. She turned to me and indicated the gnoll. “Michael, this is Old Sleazy. Old Sleazy, this is Michael Gilmore, the newest member of the dragonmancer coterie.”
A murmur of astonishment rippled through the crowd. A shuffling and scuffling behind me told me that people were doing a bit of craning to have a gander at the new dragonmancer.
“Well, blow me down,” Old Sleazy said, peering up at me, “another one of you buggers, eh? But this one looks like he’s sporting a sausage and meatballs.”
“Can confirm,” I said.
Old Sleazy clapped his hands together and grinned. It was the ear-to-ear smile of a shark that had just seen a baby seal jump off a rock and start gamboling around. He held out a stumpy three-fingered hand, and I took it, despite some private misgivings for my personal hygiene.
“A pleasure to meet you, Dragonmancer Michael,” Old Sleazy said. “As the illustrious and bloody charming Saya said, my name is Old Sleazy, purveyor of the finest meat products this side of the mountains. Speaking of which, can I offer the two of you a skewer of something to take away?”
I glanced over at Saya. “Is this guy for real?” I asked. I stared at the spitted, sizzling meat. It looked good and smelled amazing, but I doubted it was the finest meat product around these parts. “All these people are lining up for this stuff?”
Saya laughed. “As repulsive as Old Sleazy looks, he does do some of the finest, protein-rich kebabs in the Mystocean Empire.”
Old Sleazy shot Saya a patient look. Then he turned to me and said, in the aggrieved voice of an honest merchant just trying to earn a crust, “Ah, dear old Saya likes to take the piss with yours truly sometimes, but she speaks sense as far as Old Sleazy’s meat is concerned.”
“What makes it so special?” I asked, crossing my arms and looking down at the gnoll. I couldn’t help but like him. The combination of his sales patter and the look that he was going for—a battered chef’s toque and a grubby apron with the words, ‘Sex, Drugs and Sausage Rolls’ stitched across the front of it—endeared him to me. I had to wonder, given that slogan, if he’d ever paid a visit to Earth.
“I couldn’t tell you that, mate,” Old Sleazy said, his voice aghast. “No, no, no! More than my hide’s worth to tell you the secret of my meat. Let’s just say that the magic is in the marinade, yeah? A blend of herbs and spices gathered from the far corners of the Empire, some of which are grown by a select group of monks who live on the top of some mountain somewhere.”
“Save the sales pitch, Old Sleazy,” Saya said, “and give us a couple of parcels of the black-bellied beaver.”
“The what?” I asked.
“No, no, Saya, darlin’, you don’t want the black-bellied today,” Old Sleazy said, “not when I’ve just carted in a barrel of finest salted ice hogget.”
I saw Saya’s eyebrow tweak upward at this. “You’ve got the hogget?”
“That’s right,” Old Sleazy said. “I beat the living shit out of it with my tenderizing hammer, then drizzle it with—well, I can’t tell you with what, but the results speak for themselves, don’t they? It’s a snip at two scales a parcel.” The gnoll lowered his voice and leaned in. “And that’s doing myself a disservice, you know. These other mugs will pay three scales and be happy to get it.”
Saya slapped the gnoll on his shoulder. She had to bend down slightly to do this. “Do you have to wipe the bullshit off the corners of your mouth at the end of the day, Old Sleazy?” she asked.
“Oh come on, Saya, you know I’ve got the hogget meat that keeps the ladies sweet, eh?”
“All right,” Saya said, “we’ll take a couple of parcels to go. I’ve got no scales on me at the moment, but I’ll send a runner with it as soon as I get back to my rooms.”
It sounded like “scales” were what passed for currency in the Empire. I’d have to figure out a way to earn myself some when I got the chance.
“You know I like to feel the cash in my hand,” Old Sleazy said ruefully, “but I know you’re good for it, eh.”
“Yes, I am,” Saya said. “Now, while you wrap up the food, I’m going to address your clientele.”
While Old Sleazy busied himself with an old but extremely sharp cleaver, Saya turned to the waiting soldiers behind her.
“Spread the word, all of you!” she called in an authoritative voice. “We have a squad selection in the Disputation Dungeons within the hour. Any of you that are keen to be considered, come along and try your luck against our new prospective dragonmancer. Tell your friends!”
Saya turned and took the proffered packets of meat that Old Sleazy had expertly wrapped for us.
“Come on, Michael,” she said. We pushed our way back through the crowd, leaving the smell of roasting meat and the sound of bubbling gossip behind us.
“Old Sleazy is…” I started as I unwrapped the leaf-wrapped package of succulent meat.
“Old Sleazy is Old Sleazy,” said Saya simply. “He’s been here since forever and isn’t going to change any time soon. Even if we were to be overrun by our enemies tomorrow, Old Sleazy would just see it as an interesting opportunity to expand his commercial enterprises.”
As we walked through a network of open-sided but roofed corridors, I ate. As I ate, my perception of Old Sleazy changed. The stout little prick might speak more shit than a politician, but he was also a culinary genius.
“Shit, that was good!” I said to Saya, licking the last of the grease from my lips.
“I told you that Old Sleazy’s barbecue is some of the best in the Mystocean Empire,” Saya said, crumpling up her own leaf wrapper and tossing it into a bush.
“Must be all those secret monk spices, huh?” I said.
We had reached the end of an open-air corridor and found ourselves at the back of yet another group of soldiers who were milling around a set of double doors, one of which was open. This time, there was nothing at all polite about the way that Saya pushed her way through the throng. It was my first look at the authority dragonmancers had over the lesser troops, and it was quite an eye-opener.
“Make way, make way!” she said. “Dragonmancers coming through!”
Saya was a well-built, strong woman, but she was nowhere near as wide as I was. She forged ahead like the prow of a ship cutting through ice, and I came along behind her, widening the gap.
We passed through the doors that stood open and found ourselves in a corridor filled with people all heading the same way. This corridor was just as wide as all the other dragon-friendly hallways, but this one was bereft of windows. Instead, balls of pearly, white light zig-zagged lazily across the ceiling, seemingly completely randomly. A faint chatter came from the lights, almost like the buzz you hear coming from that neon strip-lighting that makes everyone’s complexions look like complete shit in malls.
“What powers the lights?” I asked Saya.
> “Powers them? They’re fairy lights,” she replied, prying apart two dawdling soldiers in front her.
“Yeah, but what are the fairy lights powered by?” I asked.
“They’re fairy lights,” Saya said to me slowly, in the same way that you might explain to someone that two plus two equals four. She reached up and grabbed a passing light as it zoomed over our heads. She opened her hand and showed me what lay in her palm.
“A fairy light,” she said.
The tiny, winged figure, wearing a miniature dress that might have been woven from spider’s web, pulled the finger at the two of us and took off again, jabbering furiously.
“Right,” I said. “That’s an actual fairy, is it?”
“Yeah. Come on.”
We turned a sharp corner and found ourselves in a short gallery. The walls were swathed in gray silk instead of wallpaper or paint. On each side were eight-foot tall portraits of the most breathtaking, weird, and wonderful iterations of dragons I had ever seen.
“What are these?” I asked as we made our way steadily through the crush of people.
“They are paintings of every dragon that we know to exist, or to have existed and passed on into legend,” Saya said.
There was a dragon with jaws filled with teeth as long as swords, a dragon with a mouth that reminded me of that of a frog, complete with an extended tongue. There was a dragon with six legs, and a dragon with no legs at all. There was a dragon with a single eye in the center of its forehead, a dragon whose nose was as wide and snout-like as a wild boar, and a dragon that looked as if it had leaves instead of scales. I would have loved to dawdle along and check them all out, but Saya had other ideas.
“Clearly, the word about you has spread like dragon fire,” she said.
I looked around at the stream of people around us. “They aren’t all here to fight me, are they?” I asked. “I’m feeling pretty pumped after that slab of Old Sleazy’s crispy hogget, but I don’t think I’ll be able to kick all these asses today.”
“No, I think that the majority of these warriors are here just to see you,” Saya said.
“See me?”
“You’re the first damned male dragonmancer in centuries! I told you, you’d be the apple of many eyes!”
I looked about me again. I caught the gaze of a female orc, who was watching me intently out of bright orange eyes, and she grinned a toothy grin at me and looked away. Others were gazing at me in interest. I figured, in that sea of armor and leather, my faded Levis and Carhartt jacket probably stuck out like a hotdog at a hamburger convention.
“Move!” Saya ordered, shoving her way through the crowd.
Being fairly tall certainly came with some advantages—a longer than average reach was one, being able to access everyone’s alcohol cabinets another—and one of these was that I could see over the heads of most of the crowd. Beyond us, the gallery walkway opened into a chamber that was as starkly rugged as the hallway with the portraits had been subtly chic.
“Follow me, there’s an area reserved for us,” Saya said.
She pulled me through the crowd, and we emerged out beyond the front row of people. There was a simple barrier of purple rope erected in front of us. This separated the crowd from an open, circular, dirt-floored space in the middle of the cavern.
An oculus set high up in the roof of the cave, some twenty feet above, let in some dim late afternoon light, but the roughhewn cavern was illuminated mostly by a series of smoky torches fixed to the cave walls. The smoke let off by these torches eventually drifted up through the oculus, but they also endowed the underground chamber with a particularly theatrical vibe.
“This would be the Disputation Dungeon?” I asked Saya as she led me around the rope barrier until we came to a simple desk behind which a dude in a deep purple livery, who had ‘bureaucrat’ practically stenciled on his forehead, sat with a clipboard.
“That’s right,” Saya said, nodding at the administrative-looking guy. The man disappeared.
“A fight club?” I asked.
“Of sorts,” Saya said. She stepped out of the crowd and over the rope. I followed.
“Let me guess, the first rule of fight club is we don’t talk about fight club?” I asked her.
Saya gave me a puzzled look. “No, that’s not the first rule at all.”
“Sorry, it’s just a… That was an Earth thing,” I said.
“What would be the point of a fight club which you could not talk about?” Saya asked.
“It’s just a… never mind.”
Saya shook her head. “The first rule of the Disputation Dungeons is that there are no weapons, and no magic. The second rule is that dragonmancers and prospective dragonmancers alike are not allowed to set out to inflict lethal force on their challengers.”
The administrator returned bearing two simple wooden chairs and set them down next to the one that he had been sitting on. Saya sat and motioned for me to sit beside her.
“And the third rule is that the challengers aren’t supposed to kill us, right?” I asked.
We were sitting with our back to the crowd, but I could feel the expectation, curiosity, excitement, and anticipation pressing on me like a tangible force. There was that feeling in the air, that sort of animalistic aura that permeated the crowd of an MMA fight. It was the building expectancy of a bunch of people looking forward to seeing some other people beat seven shades of shit out of each other. I had become accustomed to that suspense. I could feel it gathering in the confines of that cave like a weather front bringing a tempest with it.
But I knew the key to weathering those storms, to making sure that you weren’t caught out by them.
The key was to be the storm.
“No,” Saya said calmly. “The challengers are encouraged to kill us.”
I was just about to try and unpick this startling revelation when the purple-uniformed administrator leaned forward and asked, “Dragonmancer Saya, Sergeant Milena instructed me that a squad choosing would most likely be taking place this evening. I assume that the man next to you is the prospective dragonmancer?” He seemed in awe of me. I figured, being the first male dragonmancer in eons, that it was something I’d have to get used to.
I extended a hand to the bespectacled guy. “How’s it going, pal?”
The administrator blinked, looked down at my hand as if he had never seen such a thing before then, after a second or two, took it in his and gave it a limp shake. Saya smirked at me, and then turned her attention to the administrator.
“You’ve taken a preliminary list of interested parties?” she asked.
“Yes, Dragonmancer,” the man said, poking his spectacles up his nose. “Just give me the word, and I shall ring the bell and we can get the proceedings underway.”
Saya nodded her understanding but held up a finger to tell the man that she required a moment. The man turned to his clipboard, and Saya leaned in toward me.
“Okay, so here is what is expected of you, Michael,” she said.
“Look, Saya, just call me Mike, will you?” I interjected. “Seeing that we just jumped each other’s bones within an hour of meeting, I think it’s safe for you to use my nickname.”
“Mike,” Saya said carefully, and another one of those shy smiles lit her face. It somehow changed her from a babe who could take all the teeth out of your head with one punch, to the girl who lived next door and had a serious penchant for CrossFit.
“Easier to call out during a fight,” I said encouragingly, “and during other times of intense exertion.”
Saya smiled and gave a little snort of mirth. “Right, well, here is what you can expect, Mike, and what is expected of you. The administrator next to me will ring a bell, and the challengers who wish to be part of your squad will form a line. You will conduct preliminary interviews if you wish, though it is completely at your prerogative whether you talk to the potential squad members or not.”
“What, I can just judge the book by the cover, go with my gut,
and tell them to move on if I don’t fancy the look of them?” I asked.
Saya nodded. “It’s your squad. You can pick the three men or women any way that you see fit.”
“We’re only required to pick three?” I asked.
“Yes. A trio is customary. The Drako Academy has found this to be the optimal number for the sort of missions that dragonmancers are habitually sent on.”
“Okay, that seems pretty straightforward,” I said. “Shall we get this show on the road?”
“As you wish,” Saya said. “Remember, that the warriors you recruit here will accompany you all through your Rank One training and beyond—should they survive, and you wish it.”
Saya signaled to the administrator, and the man ceased scribbling on his clipboard and reached downward. He held up a small silver bell and rang it five times. The first peal seemed to fill the cave with molten silver ripples. It felt like the very air was undulating. The second peal added to this sensation, as did the third. By the time the fifth peal had rung out, the cavern had fallen completely silent.
There was a shuffling as the fifth peal shivered away into silence, leaving the large cave somehow gloomier than it had been while the bell had been ringing. A relatively short line of potential squad recruits formed with the orderly calmness of professionally trained soldiers.
“Is that all?” the administrator cried out into the silence.
There was no answer, and no one else came forward.
“Very well,” the administrator said. “Then allow me to say that the Disputation Dungeon is now in session! May the latest dragonmancer squad be chosen forthwith!”
One by one, my potential squad recruits stepped up to the desk and stated their names.
“Redbow, sir!”