The Dubious Gift of Dragon Blood

by J. Marshall Freeman

  Stakrat put an arm around Davix. “Stop looking over your shoulder. Kriz’mig and I are theoretically still on work rotations. Everyone’s running around so much, no one noticed we slipped away.” She smiled and stretched her legs out, wiggling her bare toes.

  Kriz’mig’s voice was even dreamier than usual as she dabbed at her mural with a brush of bone and fur. “See? The three wandering realms await their glorious homecoming.” Davix handed her the flask, and she drank deeply, smiling up at him. “I’m so glad you’re here. I thought we wouldn’t get you out of the Atmospherics Tower until the fog lifted.”

  Davix pushed past his guilt and answered her with a proverb. “Sarensikar knocks on the door. The People answer with garlands and sweets.” It sounded like he was imitating a Temple elder, and they all laughed except Grentz, who was still staring at the sky. Davix felt like he had passed a test.

  The truth was, he was tired of feeling guilty. The last days had proved years of devotion and obedience did not protect you from grief. In fact, they set you up for it. So, why shouldn’t he have a life, the same as his friends?

  A sudden flashing light startled him, and he threw a hand out, as if to ward off a blow. Looking up, he saw little falling stars of blue and gold. The sound of the sky was a low chuckle. Or was that his friends laughing still?

  “What…? What is this drink?”

  Grentz, snapping out of his distracted state, grabbed Davix and pulled him to the ground in an affectionate wrestle. “Hast’nan mushrooms,” he said.

  Davix licked his lips and found they were growing numb. “You…you stole the sacred mushroom from the Temple?”

  Stakrat snorted. “Stole! From the Temple! You’re so, so terribly, terribly serious, D’gada-vixtet-thon. Ragnor was on cleaning rotation there last week, sweeping up the crumbs. He suspended them in water, and now we share the revelation!”

  Ragnor’s mushroom smile was wide and easy. “To waste such a gift would dishonour the dragons.”

  Davix felt a familiar voice of reproach somewhere in his breast. Disobedience. Impiety. But the voice came at him from an unaccustomed distance and was drowned out by his own ecstatic laughter. He rolled out of Grentz’s arms and lay on the stone floor, holding his friend’s hand, staring up at the sky.

  “S’zista farad dr’kaden,” he said in a dreamy voice, watching the shapes of giant frogs dance in the sheep fog overhead. “You honour the way of our beneficent lords.” He laughed again, his spirit free in the cool, moist air. Free like Stakrat’s toes.

  Then the sky started wailing, a heartbreaking, insistent lament, a cry that rose and fell and rose again. Davix raised his hands in the air, expecting tears to fall as rain. Stakrat was on her feet in a moment, and her quick movements left trails in his vision. He had to concentrate to take in her words.

  “Alarm! Urgent call!” She was pulling on her boots, her leather harness, and knife belt.

  “Where?” Grentz asked, letting go of Davix’s hand as he stood, too. The sudden withdrawal of its warmth felt like a rebuke.

  Stakrat was at the door. “Renrit House.”

  “There’s movement on the Citadel walls,” Ragnor said, pointing up. They were gone before Davix could even sit up. It had not been the sky lamenting. It was the horn of alarm, blown rarely and never to be ignored. Kriz’mig squatted before him, glowing in her dress of orange and green, her smile gentle and sympathetic.

  “Come, Davix, your head will clear as we run.”

  Despite the others’ head start, he and Kriz’mig had no trouble finding them. A crowd had already gathered, held back from the scene by officers of Defence of Realm. Davix saw Stakrat beside Korda, who was shouting orders, coordinating the traffic of physicians and investigators. They were at the back of Renrit House, at the base of the Citadel’s wall. Only the legs of the body were visible from where he stood, but by their unnatural tangle and utter stillness, Davix knew they belonged to a dead man. People were pointing upward, speculating on the trajectory of his fall.

  Davix was still unsteady on his feet. Light played tricks with his eyes, and time moved in sickening jerks. Convenor Zishun stood by Korda over the body, his sibilant voice clearly audible above the murmur of the crowd.

  “I fear I must assume some responsibility. Quadranas such as I do not fully understand the hearts of humans. When the Curator of Sites Historic told me of his sadness, of how he sometimes could not rise from bed in the morning, I was not wise enough to send for a physician. I did not realize he would take such desperate measures. Poor man.”

  They all shook their heads slowly—in unison it seemed to Davix’s altered senses. He almost laughed. But the sky had ceased its wailing, so Davix cried in its place.

  Chapter 22: Train Entering a Tunnel

  There was no restaurant behind the falls, not even a snack bar. Sur was away again, but this time she must have left instructions, because a quadrana named Bars’torm had been recruited to hang out with me. First stop, a bench behind the falls, where the light was blue and peaceful and the crash of water irritating. The quadrana wasn’t a lot of fun, but he was good for answering questions.

  “Why do only some of the quadranas have wings?” I asked, shouting above the noise. Bars’torm didn’t have wings, by the way.

  “It is an adaptation expressed in only a few. It is not planned but revealed.”

  “And you were born there in Inby’s lab? Already mostly grown up?”

  “There is no need for a human developmental period when the parameters of our lives are predetermined.”

  “I guess, yeah. And you love the dragons, right? Like, automatically.”

  “I want nothing more than for the dragons to rule our realm effectively.”

  I was about to say Doesn’t that make you mind controlled slaves? but that would have been pretty presumptuous, even for me. And also, Tiqokh and Krasik-dahé seemed to have minds of their own.

  I’d had enough of shouting. “Can we get out of here?” We began walking down the road, and I said, “I know Vixtet is too sick for visitors, but maybe I could meet Queen Etnep. What do you think?” Sur had already said no to this request, but it never hurt to ask, right? For the first time, the quadrana didn’t answer, so I dropped the subject.

  Over the next few hours, I saw a garden of flowers that could sing harmony and a training academy for racing birds. Our lunch was mushrooms and mosses, picked straight off a rock face. Weird but tasty. We left the spiral roadway and walked down a long set of steps hacked out of the stone wall, until we came to a sculpture garden. Bars’torm left me to wander around and check out the art. One sculpture in particular stopped me in my tracks.

  It was like a stop sign, except there was a huge, writhing wad of raw meat on top instead of a red hexagon. I couldn’t figure out if it was really alive or if it was just a lubed-up, glistening machine. As I watched, a slit appeared in the surface and opened like a mouth, smiling red, then gaping, then peeling back until the opening vanished behind the wad to reveal a new, unmarked surface. After a short pause, the new surface opened, and the whole process began again. The sight was revolting, but it was also hypnotizing.

  The sculpture, as my art teacher would have said, affected me at a visceral level. Translation: It scared the shit out of me. It made me wonder things I didn’t want to wonder. Like, what if life has no set form? What if every version is temporary, a lie you’re telling to hide the truth underneath? But then that truth turns out to be another lie.

  They tell you that graduating from high school with a good GPA is all you need to focus on, but as soon as you graduate, you find out that your future is anything but secure. They tell you love is all you need, but maybe love is just a pretty skin on horniness. The more I thought about it, the farther back the process began. You play husband and wife in kindergarten with Amy Dorkman, and everyone calls you the handsome little husband. They hand you a baby doll, and you set up house. But you don’t care about Amy Dorkman. You really want to lie beside Eric Petrovic at na
p time. Jump forward six years, and Jesus-loving Timothy makes your heart bleed. A year later, Dražen rips the Band-Aid off with his kiss. Then everyone knows. It’s awful, but it’s over. Only, it isn’t. They don’t know about Altman. Then they do. But your parents don’t know…but then they do! You come out and come out and come out, and it’s never done.

  I was pretty exhausted by the time we reached the bottom of the central core. On the shores of the lake, Bars’torm showed me a memorial garden for long-dead dragons. They weren’t really graves, he said. Dragons kind of disintegrated when they died—auto-cremation. But some of their ashes and various mementos were buried there. Altogether, there were maybe twenty-five markers, representing around a thousand years. I did the math and understood the significance. Dragons didn’t die that often, and it was a big deal when one did.

  I asked Bars’torm, “Do you believe in the prophecy?”

  His answer was enigmatic, like a dragon’s. “Eras come to an end. Death burns down life, and new possibilities grow in the ashes.”

  I was about to press him for a bit more detail when I heard something. At first it sounded like my mom calling me for dinner, but just at the edge of hearing. I turned and walked back through the gardens that circled the memorials. I heard the sound again, but this time I could have sworn it was Altman, shouting to one of his wingmen as they surged down the ice, or maybe calling out in orgasm. A great redwood stood in front of me, and in the deep shadow of its boughs, I felt a chill. The path curved around its girth, and on the far side, I found the entrance to another cave. It was narrow, jagged as a lightning bolt, and the voice was coming from inside.

  It called my name—all my names: Crispin, Puppy, Cris, Crisper, Dork, Goober, X’risp’hin, Kharis’par’ih’in, Copper Guest…DRAGON GROOM. I twisted my body, shaping it into the key that fit the lock, and entered the cave mouth. Another voice was calling, a voice deep inside me. It was the copper blood, and this time it wasn’t calming me down. This time I was scared. But I couldn’t stop. I was called, I was compelled.

  Dark, cold. I lurched across an anteroom and through another singing mouth, holding myself to stop my shivering. But no matter how hard I held, precious pieces of me flew away, lost forever. And even as I fell apart, other pieces rose from some secret source deep inside to take their place. A mouth that opened and opened endlessly, telling truths within truths: one of twenty, the one chosen. Changing, growing, growing hunger, growing unbearable. And still the voice called, so loud you could call it a scream.

  “WHY ARE YOU HERE?”

  Eyes! Yellow eyes in the dark, far down the corridor in the dark. Etnep, Queen of the dragons. Etnep, my mate. And I couldn’t help it. I wanted to be there in the dark with her, even though it could mean my death.

  Sur, Tiqokh, Davix, Altman, Mom, help me…

  Chapter 23: The Darkest Night

  The dancing lights in his vision and the feeling of buoyant peace were all but gone. The holy effect of the mushrooms was leaving his body, and Davix felt only great heaviness. It was the middle of the night by then. He could have lain down in the grass, on the rocks, or in a cold corridor and been asleep in moments. But something had driven him to the Atmospherics Tower. Back in Cliffside, seventh bell rang and all was silence in its wake. Davix pushed open the tower’s heavy door and entered.

  Climbing the steps to Tix-etnep-thon-dahé’s study, Davix opened the door with greatest delicacy in case his master was still inside, working through the night. But the study, this home from which he had exiled himself three days earlier, was empty. His heart pounded. If he was going to do this, he had to be quick. Above all, he had to silence his doubts and be true to the instinct that drove him to this blasphemous act.

  In the lowest desk drawer, Davix found Rinby’s notes and Tix-etnep-thon-dahé’s elegant summary of their findings. Then he opened the grace book. The green jewel in the corner flashed, as if the book was waking up, surprised to be called upon so late. Davix had watched his master make hundreds of entries, but he had never done so himself. He was but a youth and an apprentice, and this act of holy transmission was far above his station.

  Not that it was difficult. It merely required a firm hand and clear resolve. Copying carefully from the notes, he watched the light blink as the words of his hand travelled across the realm to the holy mountain, faster than any kingsolver could have carried them. By this act, he connected himself to a power so pure, he feared it would set his heart on fire. His master would find him here in the morning, a black husk.

  But there was no fire. There was just the scratch of the pen, the blink of the light, and Rinby’s words set free to do what they would.

  Chapter 24: Homemade Biscuits of the Seers

  I was awakened by an annoyed fox nipping sharply at my fingertip. I swatted at it, and the beast ran off with an indignant swish of its tail, a streak of orange-red in the morning light. I realized I had been hugging it for dear life in my troubled sleep.

  Sur’s voice rang in my ear. “LIKE LIFE ITSELF/THE FOXES LOVE TO BE LOVED/UNTIL THEY DON’T/AND YOU TUMBLE INTO THE BLACK EMBRACE/OF INCONSOLABLE ETERNITY.”

  Through a half-cracked eyelid, I saw the dragon looming above me. Either her poetry was hurting my head or my head was doing it all by itself. I tried to sit up, but the room spun, and I let myself collapse back on the pillows. Immediately, an octona rushed forward with a mug of water and helped me drink. Her dark hair was cut in a cute bob, and her eyes were kind.

  “What happened to me?” I asked, and it sounded suspiciously like crying.

  X’raftik answered, somewhere to my left. “Against explicit orders, Bars’torm took you to the lowest levels of Farad’hil, where you penetrated the abode of Queen Etnep.”

  “And how’d I get back here?”

  “Great Sur entered the Matrimonial Tunnels and rescued you in time.”

  My vision was clearing, and I saw at least fifteen mixed beings around my bed, with Sur towering above the group like a kindergarten teacher in a class photo. I pulled the covers up around me.

  “The Matrimonial…the Queen? But what did I…why was everything…?”

  I turned away and caught sight of myself in a mirror. It looked like I had gotten drunk-tattooed. An image in black blood covered most of my face, an evil butterfly, or one of those Rorschach blots psychiatrists use to figure out if you’re a psychopath. I tried to speak, but I doubled over in agony, like someone had stabbed me in the solar plexus. I rolled into a ball, gasping as my body supplied some terrible remembrance of change, my limbs stretched beyond their limits, skin cracking, movement in my guts like a huge worm forcing its way to the surface. I screamed, and the room retreated into darkness.

  I think only a minute passed, but I had definitely been right out. I was drenched in sweat, and the same octona who gave me the water was holding me and putting a cool, damp cloth on my hot forehead.

  Sur leaned down, assessing me with her cold, clear eyes.

  “TO CHANGE BEFORE THE TIME IS RIGHT/COULD CRACK YOUR FRAGILE MINDBODY/A WASTE OF POTENTIAL/A TRAGEDY FOR QUEEN AND REALM.”

  “So why did Bars’torm take me there if it was so dangerous?”

  X’raftik shrugged, a more human gesture than I had been expecting. “An error was made.”

  “An error? I almost died!” I was, admittedly, going for melodrama, but no one jumped in to deny it. A chill passed through me. “Where is Bars’torm?” I asked.

  “Great Sur has punished him.”

  The dragon was picking at her teeth with one long claw, and I hoped she wasn’t dislodging bits of Bars’torm from her incisors.

  “Sur, why did you even bring me to Farad’hil?” I was shaky and scared, my voice a weak croak.

  “YOU NEED TO UNDERSTAND/ALL THAT MIGHT BE LOST.”

  A fresh wave of fatigue hit me, and I muttered, “Want to sleep…”

  “LET HIM SLEEP AWAY TRAVAIL/THEN PREPARE HIM FOR TRAVEL.”

  “Yes, Great Sur,” X’raftik replied, and that was the l
ast thing I heard.

  When I woke up again, the sun was coming through the window from a different angle. Hours had passed. I rolled over and looked at my face in the mirror. The devil butterfly was mostly faded. Now it looked like I had been shovelling dirt and just needed to wash my face. I sat up and saw my clothes from Cliffside were laid out on a side table. The octona with the bob cut was sitting in a chair beside me.

  “Your garments have been washed and mended, Dragon Groom,” she said. “I have prepared a meal that will help you regain your strength. Then we must hurry back to the gates of Farad’hil, where you will fly again with Great Sur.”

  “Can’t we go tomorrow?” I asked, my voice cracking a bit with fatigue. “I just want to sleep some more.” My limbs were achy, like I’d run a marathon, and my back and shoulders itched. I ran my hand down my side and felt something, like a bit of extra bone on my lowest rib. I tried to calm myself. Maybe it had always been there, but I didn’t think so.

  “Great Inby has ordered your leave-taking. He fears you will not recover if you stay in Farad’hil.” The octona placed a tray of food in front of me. It was just bland soup and dark bread, but I felt stronger after I’d eaten it. A horse and cart were waiting outside Sur’s abode. The octona put a long, hooded cloak over my shoulders as I climbed aboard.

  “What’s your name?” I asked her.

  She hesitated and looked away. “Soon it won’t matter.” I was groggy, or else her answer would have struck me as strange.

  Sur was waiting outside the gates of Farad’hil with the basket-saddle on her back. Cold winds blew down the cliff face, and I snuggled down under a heavy blanket inside my little nest. Sur’s takeoff was turbulent in the whirling gusts, and I hung on as best I could, fighting back nausea.

  The winds grew calmer as we climbed high above the mountains. I sat up and watched the scenery for a while before I got up the nerve to ask Sur the question weighing on my mind.