Dragon's Rise

by Lou Hoffmann

  In the last week, he’d muddled through a series of dispatches from the East March, in which that government claimed Shilloah mercenary contracts were closely monitored, and no Shilloah had been in the service of anyone mounting an attack on either the Sunlands or the Fallows. This was at odds with the evidence of his own eyes at Hoenholm, with reports from the Fallows, and with what little intelligence Tennehk’s people had been able to get from that quarter. But if Han were to point that out to East March officials he’d have to find and toe a fine line. The Sisterhold certainly did not need or want to end up in armed conflict with the East March—second only to the Sunlands in size and power—just when all of Ethra was under the threat of alien invasion. Oddly, at one point frustration had given way to anger, and he felt the Dragon’s hovering presence. I’m here if you need me, it seemed to say. He tamped it down, or maybe put it away, and after that kept his guard up. The constant vigilance taxed his already overworked mind, and the Dragon’s persistence worried him.

  “Relax,” Henry said when Han told him about his concern. “Don’t worry. The Dragon can’t take you away. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard the werewolf legends from Earth?”

  “Full moon and all?”

  “Yeah. But that doesn’t happen. Wolves like the full moon, but they don’t shift against their will when it happens. Except for the very first shift, no shifter ever has to transform when they don’t want to. Most shifters learn right away how to lock into their human form—their elders teach them. But even those who aren’t lucky enough to get that kind of education figure out their human is in the driver’s seat. I’d be willing to bet you have at least as much control, if not more, when it comes to the Dragon.”

  Han believed Henry, trusted him to know what he was talking about. He made a conscious decision to let himself be at ease over the Dragon’s presence in the background of his life. It took effort and practice confronting the worry each time it cropped up, but once he achieved that letting-go, an odd thing happened: he started to feel the Dragon was a friend.

  “Weird,” he told Henry when they shared a cup of tea in Han’s tiny kitchen. “It’s me, right? How can I be my own friend?”

  Henry rolled his eyes. “Listen to yourself, Han.”

  Han had to laugh. That was a ridiculous question. Being a friend to yourself was the best-case scenario for anyone. “But I don’t like feeling like I’m split in two. There’s the regular me, and there’s the Dragon.”

  “That’s all in your head, Han. It’s all you, cut from the whole cloth, as the saying goes.”

  After Henry had gone back to the barracks, when Han was sinking down onto his bed to get a night’s sleep, his thinking about that seemed to get stuck in a loop—he knew Henry was right, but even though he’d known the Dragon since childhood, he couldn’t quite incorporate it into his idea of himself. Maybe the way it stayed on his mind is why after he finally fell asleep, Naht’kah paid him a personal visit.

  “Wake up, Han Shieth,” she said. “I didn’t come all this way to watch you sleep.”

  He looked to where the voice was coming from—she was sitting in small-dragon form at the end of his bed, thumping her tail like an agitated cat. He blinked several times. Sat up, drank some water. Wiped his eyes and looked again. She was still there.

  “Am I awake?”

  “Depends on how you look at it, but let’s not trouble ourselves with silly questions. You’ve discovered your dragon self, Han. Stop whining around about it. A dragon self is a good thing.”

  “Um….”

  “Besides, you will need the Dragon in order to fulfill your destiny.”

  Han nodded, but honestly, he was a little annoyed about having his many-times-great-grandmother wake him up just when he was getting some much-needed sleep. If I’m actually awake.

  “Does it matter if you’re awake, Han? And remember I can hear you think. I’m where you got the mind-speak trait in the first place. And you know that beautiful, sparkly red hide of yours? Guess what—” Instead of finishing her sentence, she went large. Literally. One minute she was tiny and sitting on the end of Han’s bed, and the next she was enormous—too big for Han’s little house. Interestingly, instead of walls breaking, windows cracking, and the roof exploding, Han suddenly found himself outside and far away in a valley of grasses with the Ehls looming to the east and a quarter moon winking as clouds passed by on a slippery wind.

  “Slow down,” Han said, and he was talking about changes rather than movement, because he was standing still and feeling tiny at Naht’kah’s feet.

  She said nothing, only flexed her powerful wings, giving the wind a boost.

  Han said, “Are you saying I look like you?”

  “Quick of you, Han. Yes, exactly. And you are the first in many generations. Partly, that may have been the luck of the inheritance draw, kiddo, but mostly it’s because you are special.”

  Han almost asked what made him special and why he was the one chosen to be that way. Instead he simply said, in a tone more matter-of-fact than whiny, “I don’t want to be special, Naht’kah.”

  “You can’t help it, though, and neither can I,” she said. “Fly with me, please?”

  Han hesitated, trying to work everything out. “This is a dream, then?”

  “Poor Han. Life has become a little confusing for you, hasn’t it? I understand. A couple centuries isn’t enough time to have figured life out, for sure.” She unfolded a wing and softly scratched Han’s back with a single claw.

  “I thought I was doing okay, though, until recently.” Han sat down on the ground right where he was, finding Naht’kah’s touch oddly soothing.

  “Oh, you were. You still are doing okay, really. There’s just always more, and right now, the ‘more’ is kind of a lot. No, dear, you are not awake. Also no, you are not sleeping. You are in my mind, perhaps, or I am in yours, or we’re just sharing a place and time that isn’t available to us when we’re awake or asleep. Fly with me, please?”

  I could say no, Han realized for the first time. I could say no to flying with her, just like I could refuse this ‘destiny’ I’m supposed to have. I don’t know how that would work, but in Ethra—in the Sunlands we always have a choice.

  But he looked up to watch as Naht’kah flew overhead, her marvelous form lit red and gold as from internal fire. She cut trails through the stars overhead, cast a blue shadow on the mountainsides, danced in the hollow of the sickle-shaped moon. Suddenly, the sight of her filled him with wonder and joy, and he wanted to be up there with her, wanted to feel his wings push the wind through the trees, to dive into the valley, slip over the hills like swimming in air.

  He felt his being stretch into his wings and scales and horns, felt himself inhabit his great dragon form completely. He’d done this before, but it wasn’t the same…. “Naht’kah?”

  “Han, dear. This is different. You are changing in the flesh, not only in mind and spirit.”

  It was uncomfortable, maybe even a little painful, but more than that it just felt strange. Watching his arm transform to a giant reptilian wing made it even stranger. Everything—his head, his limbs, his… his tail of all things—it all felt wrong, weighed too much or too little and moved around in impossible ways. And his senses changed too. He smelled things he’d never smelled before, or if he had, he’d not noticed. Sounds were sharp and accompanied by strange echoes in his bones. And his vision… the world he saw as Dragon only resembled the world he lived in every day. When it was mostly done, he stopped to think about how he was supposed to make all these new things work.

  “Try relaxing into it, child. Don’t overthink it. The Dragon has been in you throughout your life, and even if you do not know how to be the Dragon, it knows how to be you.”

  “That doesn’t even make sense,” Han said aloud, and then he stopped. Because dang, how was he even talking with his strangely shaped, toothy mouth?

  But he took a deep breath, and let his worry go, trying to follow Naht’kah’s instru
ctions, and it turned out she was right.

  Almost, but not quite, of their own accord, his feet ran along the ground and his wings beat against the air until he rose, circled higher and higher, and took his place in an only slightly clumsy dipping and diving, soaring dragon dance with Naht’kah. After less time than he expected, he got the hang of it, and she led him eastward into a slowly brightening morning sky. They passed over the southern Ehls, the plains of the East March, and then the low dunes and hills that lined the coast. As the sun shook itself free of the sea and rose high enough to cast gold over their bellies, they rode warming air currents over placid waters.

  “Your mirror,” Naht’kah said.

  Han looked down, saw himself clearly in the ocean’s glassy surface, and was stunned to find himself nearly Naht’kah’s twin, sunlight sparking gold off the glossy deep red of his scales. He wasn’t sure how he felt about the revelation. It seemed like it should be a good thing, having the kind of power he saw and felt in this form, but still, he would have preferred to return to being Han Shieth, notable only for being kind of a badass.

  Naht’kah sensed his mixed-up thoughts and feelings and laughed gently. “Don’t let it get you down, child. You don’t have to be the Dragon, not yet. But on a day not far in your future, you will—yes, I’m afraid the wonderful old wizard Thurlock was wrong again—you will become your Dragon in the true, waking world. I brought you here to show you how wondrous and mighty you will be when that day comes.”

  Han had no response, and Naht’kah didn’t wait for one.

  “Get some sleep,” she said.

  Han woke in his own bed at the Sisterhold just as dawn was breaking, no evidence of his night flight except sore shoulder muscles and a red-gold scale left near his feet where Naht’kah’s tail had beat the blankets in much the same way Lemon’s tail was thumping right then.

  PART TWO: Investigations and Discoveries

  Chapter Eight: What Makes Living Things Live

  LUCKY WAS surprised by how little he remembered of Nedhra City from the time he was there before—but then maybe because that time they’d arrived in the middle of an autumn day, while this time they got to the city gate with torches burning atop the wall and a quarter moon barely revealing the heavy, rune-carved gate, shut tight to all comers.

  “It’s closed,” Lucky said, realizing immediately it was a less than brilliant thing to mention.

  “I have a key,” Thurlock answered and rode Sherah right up to the double gate. He scanned the surface, then seemed to find what he’d been looking for high up on the right-hand panel. He touched his staff to it and said some words, and the gate swung slowly open. “Come on, then, Luccan. It only stays open for a few seconds.”

  Indeed, by the time Zef’s hindquarters cleared the opening, it was already starting to swing shut.

  Full night had set in, but if Lucky expected to find a sleepy burgh, he quickly saw how wrong he’d been. The streets they passed through, lit up with both torches and colorful magical lights, teemed with noise and activity. Shops were open, taverns and eateries filled to capacity; tall buildings featured crowded balconies. Workers lugged kegs and bales; drivers yelled at their beasts as well as anyone getting in their way. Groups of teens stood on corners or lounged near the fountains and monuments found at nearly every intersection. And children—even very young ones—darted among the people and beasts as if they hadn’t a single fear for their safety.

  Thurlock looked straight ahead and wore a very deliberate half smile, and Luccan soon understood why. People responded to their passing as if they’d seen something evil. Thurlock held Sherah to a mild-mannered walk and made not a single aggressive move or forceful gesture. Still, those they met in the street moved quickly out of the away and either averted their gaze or furtively watched their progress, as if ready to flee if Thurlock gave the slightest indication he’d noticed them. The children were sometimes an exception, pointing and saying Thurlock’s name, delighted and animated, but their elders hurried to quash their enthusiasm and pulled them away.

  Closer to the university, the streets became quieter. On the edge of the business district, Thurlock stopped by a small shop serving meat pies through a window on the boardwalk. He dismounted but told Lucky to stay in the saddle. “I’m only going to the window to get us some food to take with us. I’ll be back quickly. No need for you to dismount.”

  He dropped Sherah’s reins and patted her neck as he walked away, his footsteps sounding hollow on the raised boards. At the window he gave an order in a steady voice, though Lucky couldn’t hear the words. The shopkeeper sounded frantic, even frightened when she replied, and when Thurlock tried to pay, she held up her hands palm out in a gesture of refusal, backing away. For the first time, Lucky thought he detected pique in the set of Thurlock’s jaw and shoulders. He picked up the bundle of food, dropped his entire purse loudly on the wooden ledge under the window, and returned to where Lucky waited with the horses.

  It wasn’t as though Lucky didn’t know how scary Thurlock could be, but most of the time he was like a somewhat daft old granddad, and quite lovable—yes, that’s it, lovable. He’d been kind to Lucky; he obviously cared deeply for Han. He took care of everyone when he could and seemed to regret when he couldn’t. And even though his smiles weren’t frequent, he clearly loved to laugh and find the fun in a situation. The people at the Sisterhold treated him with fondness, familiar respect, or occasionally resentment, but Lucky had never seen anyone react to his presence with this kind of baseless fear.

  He thought how Thurlock must feel, being treated that way. Lucky’s heart wanted to break for the old man. He wasn’t at all sure that was appropriate until they passed through another set of gates and onto the staid, almost deserted grounds of Nedhra University.

  Almost immediately, Thurlock’s shoulders slumped and he lost the forced smile. He turned in his saddle to meet Lucky’s gaze and shook his head sadly. “You’re an observant lad, Luccan. I’m sure you see, now, why I choose not to live in the city.”

  “Thurlock….” Unsure what to say, Lucky finally settled on simple and sincere. “I’m sorry.”

  “Mm.” Thurlock nodded, looking away again. “Thank you. I’ll never get used it.”

  “Why do they do it?”

  “You know, I’m not certain,” Thurlock said, sounding a little less sad and a little more wizardly. “I know there are stories about me, the kinds of things parents tell their kids to scare them in a misbegotten attempt to keep them in line.”

  “You’re the boogeyman?”

  That got a chuckle out of Thurlock. “Perhaps I am at that,” he said. “But you know, I think the root cause is my age. It’s not natural, as they see it, for anyone to live so long. They don’t understand it, and so it scares them…. Something may be different, this time, though. Or rather, the same only more so. I wonder if someone hasn’t been spreading dirt on me, so to speak.” He sighed, then brightened. “But never mind that, for now. We’re here!”

  “Here” was Thurlock’s apartment, which took up the entire top floor of an imposing and well-appointed building with walls of stone inside and out. A young woman dressed in some kind of uniform took the horses from them, and a young man in the same livery came and offered to carry their baggage.

  “No, no,” Thurlock said, clearly annoyed at the attempt to wait on him. Then, as they entered a foyer of polished stone and stained glass, belatedly added, “But thank you.”

  They started up a wide, carpeted staircase that made Lucky worry about mud on his soles, but he got distracted when they ducked through an open door into a wooden box. It seemed a strange thing to do, and when Thurlock knocked on the wood, it began to move.

  “Oh, an elevator,” Lucky said.

  “Lift box, we call it.”

  “Magic?”

  “No. Employment for someone strong enough to manage the ropes and pulleys.”

  Lucky got quiet then, as ropes and pulleys didn’t seem like such a very safe idea, but
as they exited on the top floor, Thurlock chuckled.

  “Strengthened and secured by magic, however. You needn’t have been so worried.”

  He led the way out of the box to the double doors opposite, which bore the twelve-rayed-sun symbol with the man holding the sword aloft, by now very familiar to Lucky. He recalled Han telling him it was his emblem, and for the first time he thought to wonder why it would be on a coin, on the amber blade’s hilt, and on more than one door belonging to Thurlock. He didn’t get a chance to ask.

  “I’m headed for a bath,” Thurlock said. “Eat. Your room is behind that door there, next to mine, which is there.” He’d pointed at a door for “bath,” pointed at the bundle for “eat,” and then pointed to each door for “your room,” and “mine.” Now he pointed at Lucky and said, “But you’re filthy. Don’t go to bed until you have your turn at the bath.”

  By the time Lucky bathed, Thurlock was in his room. The door was open, and Lucky started to knock on the doorframe, but then he realized the noise of machinery was really the old wizard snoring, so he tiptoed away, donned the pair of Thurlock’s pajamas he found on a dresser in his room, and went to bed.