by JD Cole
“Long ago, in a history forgotten by even the most scholarly of faeries, we began imposing limitations on our kind in an attempt to give ourselves… oh, I don’t know exactly what. I don’t think any of us remembers what we wanted back then. You see, we once ruled this planet and all faery life. The Dragons —before my hatching— created faery life, after all. It was our right.”
“And now you don’t rule over them?”
“No. We have forbidden ourselves from ever ruling the Earth again. We subjected ourselves to laws, which was a new, exciting concept back when we drew them up. It gave us something we felt we lacked, upon witnessing it from the faeries. We suddenly gained morality.”
“What? You don’t get morals from laws!”
“If there is no evil, young one, then there can be no good.” Zaiyensa smiled and began strolling through the flower beds. “Think like a Dragon, Devon. Dragon-kind is first among all creatures. Before us was only one, the spirit who descended from higher realms, birthing the first three Dragons. But that spirit perished, so long ago that not one speck of the Earth resembles what it was in the beginning. That left us as the all-powerful inheritors, we were the final authority on all things. We shaped mountains, we filled oceans, we spawned mortal life on this planet, the animals and the faeries. There was no right or wrong, there was simply what we wished.
“We watched the sprites and the elves evolve, the irenaks and the trolls, and the others that came later, enjoying their interactions. The only reason they existed was to please and amuse us.
“But somewhere along the line, we learned that the faeries were not simply things. They had spirits. Spirits born of our own, spirits that could procreate. Mortality has a funny effect on a creature. It finally dawned on us that they were not mimicking us when they experienced joy, or sorrow, or anger. They manifested these emotions according to what they actually felt. The sprites in particular began to demand specific behavior of themselves and others, in order that negative emotions be avoided as much as possible. For a long time, faeries were subject to death according to the games we played with them. But we began to notice that most of the faeries went to great lengths to find love and fellowship among their kind, and even greater lengths to avoid killing and being killed by each other. They craved and valued their lives. This was not something we ever taught them. We could not die, we had no concept of what they were experiencing.”
“But you guys are still not exactly moral,” Devon said. “Uncle Krin said he was Poseidon, T’rsing said he was Ares, and you said you was, what’s her name, Athena?”
“Aphrodite,” she corrected. “Among other names I used. My aunt Resizhia was known as Athena.”
Devon made a face. “Whoever. So that means the other gods was all Dragons, too. I no remember da legends and stories saying you guys was always nice to people.”
“No, we can be as selfish as anyone else. We have played games with mortals throughout the ages. But the laws prevent us from becoming a constant interference in their destinies.”
“Destiny? You no sound like you guys believe in destiny.”
“Predestination, no. Destiny is simply a word to define the path you choose to walk. For instance, my destiny, obviously, was to bring you here. I chose this destiny, to teach you how to wield magic. The mortals build stories and heroic concepts like ‘being destined’ from events like this. Years from now, when you are performing deeds of magnificence that save or destroy lives, people could point to this event as being the moment you accepted your destiny.” She let herself chuckle in a subdued manner. “In the end, it’s all up to you, not some cosmic schedule written at the beginning of time.”
Devon looked around. “What is ‘the Singing Fields’?”
“Sprites once brought their children here to train them in the skill of spell casting. These flowers resonate with music and song. They will reinforce your efforts. The easiest way to learn magic is to begin with utterance. In time, you will be able to weave spells of great power with nothing more than a casual thought. But, as you are starting out, it will be easier to sing a song that focuses your concentration. Next will come speaking mantras, and carving runes.”
“I gotta sing magic songs? Sounds kinda mento.”
“You could go on being ignorant, if you wish.”
“All right, all right. But I have to warn you, I cannot sing.”
“Everyone can sing. The problem is that not everyone can sound pleasant while doing it. But I will endure.” She laughed. “I cannot imagine you will sound worse than T’rsing, and he is easily the worst I have ever heard. Now, listen to this simple song. There are only three lines that you repeat over and over again.”
“What does it do?”
“It is better for you to discover for yourself. You need to learn how to feel magic elements, discern one from another.”
The white Dragon began to sing, and Devon sat back on his haunches in the manner of cats and dogs. In this position, his foremost wings curled around in front of him rather than rest on his back, while his rear wings drooped lazily out on the ground to either side of him. Zaiyensa’s voice was beautiful. He didn’t have a clue what she was saying, but he enjoyed the melody all the same. Devon listened for a couple of minutes, then joined in. By his fourth repetition, he had the words memorized. Having never been the shy type, his voice grew louder and louder, and even began to enjoy himself.
Zaiyensa ceased her singing and began to pace around him. The flowers were beginning to glow, subtly bouncing on their stems like silent bells, and she nodded. “This is the easy part,” she whispered into his mind. “No, keep singing. That’s good. But empty your mind of everything as you sing now. Let your mouth speak on its own. It remembers the words. I will be silent now, but you will soon begin to feel something deep in your gut. Feed it, caress it, nurture it, and when you can contain it no more, let it out.”
The white Dragon then found a comfortable spot to sit in, to the left and behind Devon. When he breathed his first flame, she did not want to be anywhere in his field of fire. As she waited, she cast a shi’un spell and began to watch the Earth’s memories of Devon’s family, curious to learn about these odd hatchlings who, technically, were not hatchlings. I wonder what it would have been like to grow in a womb rather than an egg.
« CHAPTER 12 »
Extinction
“Hey, would you like to meet a Paladin? He’s one of the people who helped save me, too.”
“Sure,” Tom laughed. “I’d love to meet everyone who had a hand in saving my daughter. Including this Derek you keep talking about.”
“Derek’s sleeping right now, but definitely you’ll meet him.” Kelli turned to Brevha. “Is it okay for Lumina to join us?”
“Of course,” her aunt replied. “I will bring him myself.” The sprye politely left the garden before opening an ethergate to Lumina’s wing of the castle.
Kim was biting into her third fusava. “Mmh, nectar of the gaawds,” she whimpered in an inadvertently sultry manner.
Kelli laughed. “I know, right?” She reached for her second helping of the fruit herself, and smacked at a mosquito that was biting her arm. Tom and Vanessa were standing at the railing to take in the majesty of the Realm below them. Kelli moved to join them, which prompted Sorvir and Erica to follow. Kim was lost in the deliciousness of the fusava.
“I have to say,” Tom looked at Kelli, “you did good, Kel. You’ve done real good.”
“Technically, I inherited all this through you,” Kelli said.
“So who am I gonna leave the ranch to?”
“Me, of course! But that’s not for a long time.” The Queen leaned into her father, who curled his arm tightly around her as Vanessa joined them in the tight, family hug.
Kelli smacked herself on the neck, killing another mosquito. “Irritating things. Sorry,” she told her parents for breaking the moment.
“I guess even here you’ll have to put up with mosquitoes,” Vanessa sighed. “Do they have roac
hes here, too?”
Brevha was just leading Lumina onto the balcony when Kelli answered. “Ugh, I hope not,” Kelli slapped yet another bloodsucker on her arm. The frustration from earlier returned. “Argh! I hate these things!”
“My Queen-!” Sorvir raised a hand in warning as Kelli’s eyes began to glow. Several small sparks were seen all around the garden as mosquitoes were simultaneously incinerated, then Kelli gripped her head and stumbled. Sorvir caught her, and she saw that his eyes were wide with… what, disbelief? No. It was fear.
~
Ercianodhon collapsed against the edge of the table, grabbing at his head. The intense throbbing soon ceased, but his heart began to race in a way he’d not experienced for centuries. That girl… could she sense him? No, she hadn’t. But the sprites around her likely had. And they could not miss what she had just done. He could scarce believe it himself. Some primal emotion clawed its way to the surface of his soul. It was fear.
~
Sorvir helped Kelli to stand, and she took a deep breath, looking up at him. “What was that?”
Suddenly, Dufangen and a group of mystics rushed onto the balcony, and dozens of sprite guards appeared, hovering around the balcony, armed with spears, swords, and bows. Dufangen ran to Sorvir, pushing him away and staring with fright at Kelli. “What have you done?”
Kelli looked back at her, confused. “What? What did I do?”
Several sprites then, not soldiers, ran through the balcony entrance, a few of them blocking Lumina and Brevha from view. All of them stared at Kelli with shock, and even horror. “What did I do?” Kelli cried, gripping her father’s arm.
“She must be restrained!” one of the sprites yelled. “We warned you, Brevha!” another shouted.
Kelli dropped to her knees in front of her Counselor. “Dufangen, what’s happening?”
Dufangen looked at her with disbelief. “What did you just cast?”
“Cast? Nothing! There were mosquitoes biting me and I kept smacking them but-”
“Mosquitoes? Oh, no, my Queen,” Dufangen bowed and shook her head. “I have been too lax with your training. It is my fault.” She looked up then, her eyes wet with sorrow, and Kelli recognized that Dufangen felt regret towards her. “You killed all the mosquitoes. Everywhere. You just eradicated an entire species.”
~
Ercianodhon’s hands shook as he gathered his senses. Connected as he’d been to the numerous insect corpses, he had used the combined sensory input of the swarm to navigate them inside the castle where they were easily able to identify and target the queen. But now he was no longer able to siphon away any of the queen’s blood for his sorcery. None of the mosquito goblins had survived to return even a single drop to him. But more worrisome, no mosquito had survived, period.
Kelli was unlike any of the sprite monarchs he’d battled in the past. He’d felt Kelli’s emotion as she’d cast that incredible spell. It had been born of anger, and just a hint of hatred below the surface. Hatred for an insignificant creature that would not stop irritating her. Hatred because it was irritating her. That it dared irritate her. That was not sprite nature. Nothing of the sprites remained in Kelli, except for their power. This girl was a pure human wielding the Birthright. All of the depravity and hate that Ercianodhon harbored for Kelli, she could equally match… in fact it was in her nature to match it. The thought of her turning her immense power on him, to torture him…
For the first time in a very long time, the Goblin King shuddered. He had no room for playing vindictive games with Kelli Ingram. She needed to die, immediately. Sheathing Incerra on his wrist, he looked momentarily at the east wall of his planning room. The entire wall was his personal armory, countless weapons and items arrayed for his choosing. He studied the brilliant white and gold armor resting in place on its stand. Donning that armor was always a trade-off; it caused him pain to wear it, but also prevented the worse, additional pain that could be inflicted by blades and arrows. He also remembered the few times his armor had been damaged, causing the mythrill to pierce inward against his skin, an anguish he had no wish to relive. Shaking his head, he opened an ethergate into Matari. If he was swift, he was confident he could avoid injury.
In addition Incerra’s potent magic, it would take at least a thousand deaths to feed him the power he needed to break into Windham. He steeled himself for the possibility of injury. He never ventured beyond the Shadowlands, unwilling to risk the agony his cursed foes could inflict on him. But he was not going to wait for the human queen to awake with a bad mood one day and decide to come hunting him. After all, she was a Moniscii, and he had not forgotten the way that family had tormented him in the name of their self-proclaimed righteousness. He would never forget, never forgive.
The sprites were evil; hypocrites who played at compassion, and he saw now that Kelli was the most evil of them all, lacking even their meager morality. He stepped through the ethergate onto a field well outside Matari’s borders, immediately spying the sprites’ army besieging from the northeast. General Dragonheart had arrayed his forces around the main supply roads leading to and from Matari. Ercianodhon was not overly concerned; his own generals were necromancers and would have things well under control. If a siege was the best the Sprite Kingdom’s Armies could manage, then let them waste their lives. But it would not hurt to thin their ranks a bit for his own gain.
~
The queen was safe, and the siege had been going on for over a month. The troops were seeing him at the front more often now, as he’d decided it was time to make the big push and finally take the city.
General Khun Rhee, known better among the elves and dwarves as Dragonheart, raised his claymore high and brought it down across two irenaks, chopping both in half. The battlefield around him was littered with irenak bodies and goblin body parts. The infernal things needed to be chopped into tiny pieces to ensure they could no longer fight. A single dismembered arm could reach up and trip a soldier at the most inopportune moment. The dead irenaks were being bound by a spell that Dragonheart held over Matari, preventing the necromancers from raising the freshly slain creatures into zombie-like goblin warriors.
At the same time, Dragonheart was using his immense sorcery to track the life force of his own troops. Every one that fell, either dead or permanently maimed, he immediately transported thru etherways back to the elf capitol at Jenshire. He had led an assault against this place once before, only to be turned back by the bodies of his fallen soldiers, transformed into goblins by necromancy.
Unfortunately, these tasks required most of his magical power, power that could have instead been brought to bear on their enemies. But this was the only way to keep the battlefield somewhat even. The sorcerers in Matari could prevent his forces from opening ethergates within the city, and made it significantly difficult in the immediate countryside outside the city, even for him.
The elves and dwarves at the front were fighting like mad devils, eager to destroy the walls that held the slaves in bondage. They had not taken a single casualty, and they had been fighting since before sunrise... at least nine hours, by his count. He was sustained by a magic no one here could comprehend, but the soldiers themselves were sustained by the righteousness of their cause. He could not be prouder of them. There were dozens of roaming squads of wolves and kathet, ready to plug any holes in the front lines, but they’d had little to do today.
On the flipside, at least a thousand irenaks had fallen, and countless goblins. Dragonheart hefted his enormous sword, slapping the blade into a groove in his shoulder guard cut specifically to rest his sword against. He took a moment to catch his breath, watching the fighting around him. He saw one of the elf rangers launch an arrow… make that two arrows, into the eye sockets of two irenaks, then immediately swap his bow for a long blade to slice a solsdren goblin into bits. Dragonheart turned his head, wiping sweat from his brow as he observed a trio of pashryk spinning warhammer, axe, and sword in dazzling patterns, cutting down their foes while singing
a harshly lewd song about naked dwar – female dwarves. Dragonheart laughed as he realized one of the stout, hairy singers was a dwar, herself. The common joke among the other races was that both sexes in the pashryk nation had testicles.
The General recognized an elf captain, Maxillion, in the distance. He brandished a standard dueling blade and a sedint parrying-rod, and used them the way a poet might use an ink quill and paper. Irenaks and goblins fell by the score around him. A wolf reared up before Maxillion, nearly twice as tall and three times the weight of Dragonheart, who was himself comparable to the average human man. Dragonheart watched with interest as the tiny elf, undaunted, slid to the side under a massive claw, then leapt straight up to avoid the wolf’s cleaver coming from the other direction.
The elf landed atop the thin edge with the tip of his boot and ran up the beast’s arm. Five more elves and a dwarf joined the fight, and each moved as if they were telepathically linked to one another. The wolf was every bit as fast as they, and easily ten times as strong. It stood upright, though it could move swiftly on all fours when it wanted to. Alone, Maxillion might have been doomed, but against six rangers and an orelord, the wolf didn’t stand a chance. They cut it down within moments, then resumed slaughtering the countless irenaks and goblins assailing them.
Dragonheart reached out to Maxillion with mindspeak as the ranger captain leapt from the wolf’s falling corpse. “Maxillion! Come to me!”
The elf obeyed immediately, parrying a stab from an irenak and disemboweling the reptilian creature. Dragonheart himself was accosted then by another pair of irenaks. He kept his claymore nestled comfortably on his shoulder, while his free hand drew a short sword from his belt to engage them. Their entrails spilled to the ground just as Maxillion jogged up to salute him.