Dreamspinner Press Year Six Greatest Hits

by JD Ruskin

  He opened his mouth, shocked to realize how protective he still felt about Kate, and forced his hands to relax. Not that he was any kind of threat to a dragon, but he felt the need to apologize anyway. Bertie waved at him when he tried.

  “You should never apologize for protecting what you love, Arthur.” Bertie’s approval washed over him. Arthur put his head down and took a moment before peeking in Bertie’s direction. He was sitting quietly, looking for all the world as if he had nothing better to do than sit and listen to Arthur talk about his sister. As if Arthur was going to talk about his sister with him.

  He didn’t know what Bertie would say about Kate’s history, but he could guess now that he’d read some of Bertie’s books, where the sympathy he seemed to feel for everyone always came shining through. Maybe it was his delicate tone or the careful way he circled ever deeper, down toward the truth, as if the whole story had to be told, no matter how unflattering or ugly.

  Arthur bit the inside of his cheek as he debated and then tossed his head and gave in because he wanted to know what Bertie would say.

  “I, uh, haven’t done anything like that since my sister’s ex showed up at our door a year ago,” he confessed after a moment, going on when Bertie held his breath. “He was abusive and had, well, she had—has—a drinking problem too, but his was worse. He was the reason she even started. She doesn’t like it when I say that. Don’t tell her I did.”

  “Of course not,” Bertie promised solemnly. Arthur shivered but looked over again.

  “He hit her a few times that she told me about. She wanted out by then. She was out, living with me and going to meetings, and she didn’t want to see him and he didn’t want to leave.” He rubbed his cheek. “So I hit him. Punched him, really.”

  He’d never punched anyone before. He hadn’t even fought anyone since elementary school, and that had been play fighting. He was just grateful that it had scared Ricky off and he hadn’t broken any of his fingers. That punch had hurt for all that it also felt so satisfying and right.

  “I knew it.” Bertie sat back and blew a smoke ring into the air though he didn’t have a cigarette. “My warrior.” He looked back at Arthur and let his pleased expression fade somewhat. “Is she better now?”

  “She is. She’s been looking for work, which hasn’t been easy for her. She barely made it through high school,” Arthur elaborated when Bertie looked confused. “That was when, well, when my parents died. I was in school and I wasn’t there for her enough.”

  He hadn’t anticipated having this conversation ever, much less early in the morning without any food or caffeine to bolster him. Bertie exhaled, without a ring of smoke this time.

  “Sometimes the lost have to find their own way home.” He spoke as delicately as he wrote. “And I imagine you were also lost at the time.”

  Arthur had been younger, living at the university, far from home and Kate, worrying about finals and his sex life when he got the phone call.

  “Arthur,” Bertie gently called him back from the memory. “Was there no one else to help you? Friends, family?”

  “I….” Arthur worked his jaw, but he still had to clear his throat again before he could talk. “People offered. They always offer. Most of them just”—Arthur shrugged—“didn’t really mean it. They had their own problems. I—you shouldn’t expect them to give up a lot for you, and anyway, work gave me something to focus on.” Something that wasn’t how his parents weren’t there anymore. His voice caught on the last few words, and Arthur quickly scowled down at his laptop.

  “You mustn’t be too hard on them.” Bertie seemed to be picking his words carefully. Arthur glanced up but only for a moment.

  “I know. Being or human, it’s a lot to ask. I don’t blame them.”

  “Oh, Arthur.” It was lighter than a feather and it made Arthur swallow. He could tell Bertie was going to offer to help and didn’t look up when he did. “I assure you I mean it when I ask if there’s anything I can do.”

  “You already do enough,” Arthur managed, thinking that he ought to offer to make tea and leave the room to end this conversation. “More than enough.” He tried a smile to help disguise the force of emotion in his words, but he didn’t think he was fooling anyone.

  “Hmm.” Bertie wasn’t indicating that he wanted tea. He wasn’t doing anything but watching Arthur. “Is Kate the reason you leave at night?”

  Arthur’s mouth fell open. Maybe he just hadn’t been expecting that question, but he couldn’t think how he was supposed to answer it. In response to the vague shock Arthur was certain was all over his face, Bertie let out a little roar and shook his head. “It’s silly and dangerous for you to ride home in the dark and the rain when you’re only returning here in the morning.”

  It didn’t make Arthur feel any better to know that Bertie was honestly asking him to spend the night for his own health and safety. It should have, but it didn’t. He raised his head.

  “I can’t ask that of you. You already feed me and overpay me.”

  “Perhaps I’m just fattening you up.” Bertie attempted a leer but when Arthur kept his expression serious he sighed and got serious too. “Arthur.” He lifted one hand toward Arthur only to drop it a second later. “Arthur, you ought to ask. I am sure there are many out there dying to be kind to you, many who would have been kind to you when your parents died, if they had known how.” His rumble got lower as he went on. “I know you’re stubborn and determined and everything Gibson warned me about….”

  Arthur gave a start, because he couldn’t imagine what Professor Gibson would have had to warn anyone about him, but despite how Bertie’s eyes wouldn’t leave him, Bertie didn’t stop to explain.

  “But you should ask someone for help.” For the first time in several tense minutes, Bertie finally glanced away. “I’d prefer it be me, of course, but it doesn’t need to be.”

  Arthur kept his gaze on the side of Bertie’s face, noticing the straight line of his nose again as if he hadn’t already memorized his facial features. Bertie looked like he always did, rough with stubble, pale and dark at the same time, powerful even with the full force of his personality aimed at the fireplace instead of at Arthur.

  The clothes he was wearing looked thrown on and probably had been, but they still probably cost more than all of Arthur’s clothes combined. Bertie had a ton of money and treasure somewhere. Maybe he meant it when he said feeding Arthur was nothing; it probably was to him, but Arthur wished it wasn’t. It was a stupid thought, wanting someone to give up more for him when they already gave him more than so many others, but he couldn’t help wishing for it for a moment.

  “Really?” He didn’t know his own voice, it was so quiet. Bertie looked back at him.

  “Very much. I can’t tell you how much. Damn this lizard brain of mine.”

  Arthur didn’t think Bertie was joking; there was no trace of the Cheshire cat grin. He frowned.

  “I don’t know why you treat me like this,” he pushed out, since he was obviously dreaming this conversation. “I’m not anything special. I’m just an assistant. I’m years away from ever running a library or a collection, if that’s ever even possible. And when I came here I—” He closed his mouth as his eyes went to the shining scales just beneath the surface of Bertie’s skin. “I have no money.” He stated the obvious instead of confessing the truth. “I have no achievements.”

  He couldn’t tell if the noise Bertie made was a laugh or something rude and disbelieving.

  “Achievements, Arthur? I am reasonably certain that even if you could pull a sword from a stone, you wouldn’t want to. It’s remarkable, really. It’s the reason people like you are chosen to lead.”

  Arthur didn’t move because he couldn’t, as his mind was stuck trying to understand that remark, but that just made Bertie sigh. “At the risk of sounding like a fairy, you, my darling boy, are quite shiny.” Bertie closed his eyes and let his mouth fall open. When he licked the air, he let out a sound that was almost obscene.


  Arthur shifted and Bertie’s eyes opened back up.

  “More than that, I am not the kind to sit back and watch another suffer, even humans who seem to enjoy it at times.”

  “Hey,” Arthur protested weakly, but it was a welcome distraction. He put his hands up to his warm face and then jerked them back down when he realized what he was doing. “The moment I learn more about dragons….” He trailed off deliberately, expecting a comeback from an offended dragon and unsurprised when he got one.

  “Do you want to learn more now?” He had no idea why Bertie kept waiting for Arthur to ask, when he was only too happy to lecture about other things freely and without asking, but the brightening of his expression helped Arthur relax a little bit more. He nodded.

  “I still can’t see exactly where your book is going. I know it’s about a family group that no longer exists….”

  “Or so it seems, Arthur. So it seems. There is quite a bit of evidence to the contrary. Children born after the Norman conquest that had unusual abilities. A lingering reputation for magic and mysticism in those mountains, and an unusually high number of children accused of being changelings despite how the fairies have long denied that they ever snatched a single child. If you look a few centuries later, there start to be reports of miners so good they can see in the mines without a lantern.”

  He was implying that those human children had had some Being blood, and not just a little, but enough to give them powers that went beyond the usual skill with magic that accompanied human and Being children.

  “Can you see in the dark?” Arthur interrupted, coming closer until he could sit down on the opposite end of the couch.

  “No,” Bertie tutted but carried on smoothly, “but I can light my own way.”

  “What happened to them? The children?” Arthur thought of his laptop but didn’t turn to get it. He wasn’t going to forget, and he didn’t want to miss anything.

  “Burned, I imagine,” Bertie snorted. “They would have been burned as witches or shunned as outcasts or sent away, often to America to be the Colonies’ problem. The fey weren’t supposed to exist in the New World. But think, Arthur, a century later and they might have ended up in a sideshow or a hospital. A century after that and they might have been recognized for what they were. Sometimes I think Beings should never have taken to the shadows.”

  He didn’t say what a tragedy it was, but it was in his face, in the slow gesture he made at Arthur with his hand out and his palm up, as though he wanted Arthur to fix it. Arthur realized that he was frowning and shaking minutely with a very real fury, because he wanted to fix it and couldn’t.

  He swallowed and moved on, because Bertie would see that on his face, and whatever Bertie thought, Arthur wasn’t any kind of warrior. “Is that what it’s about?” He was glad he hadn’t read any pieces about that yet. It was going to upset him even more. It might even be why Bertie had been putting off finishing certain chapters.

  “In a way. You see… I think they still exist, Arthur.” Bertie jumped to his feet with sudden burning, restless energy. “In those children. Through them. Other groups of the same time start telling stories of besting the dragons—and of the Vikings trying to conquer them for that matter, but also dragons. But not this culture. This culture, as several groups did elsewhere in the world, became the People of the Dragon. The people of the red dragon. They embraced their dragons, and not only for their power. They didn’t just revere them, they implied descent from dragons and worship of them in the very name they gave themselves. They loved their red dragons, and I can only think of one good reason why.”

  “A big, over-the-top gesture?” Arthur guessed, though it wasn’t a totally blind guess. Bertie spun back around.

  “Exactly. I knew you’d get it.”

  Bertie had hinted about those gestures before, but Arthur still didn’t completely understand what he meant. But he held still as Bertie slid back over to get himself a cigarette and then exhaled a small stream of fire so the end of the cigarette caught. He took a small puff from the other end in the next second and only then looked up to see Arthur staring at him.

  Bertie looked apologetic. “In my human form, that’s close to the best I can do,” he explained, as if the small size of the fire was why Arthur had been startled. The precision in the little jet of flame was impressive. Arthur had to wait a second for his heart rate to slow back down and then absently revised his mental list of dragon facts to add can definitely breathe fire.

  “Back to the red dragons?” he croaked. It wasn’t the herbs making him dizzy anymore. Bertie began to walk as he continued his lecture.

  “I can only speak for myself, of course, but I’ve talked to others of my kind all over the world. If we have one weakness, it’s our treasure.” The word itself shook with meaning. The smoke seemed to get heavier. Arthur shivered where Bertie couldn’t see.

  “Is this about your possessiveness?” His voice was low and dry, but Bertie didn’t seem to notice that either.

  “It’s not greed.” He shook his head and made a sad, disappointed noise. “Not like you mean it.”

  Arthur tried to keep up, but if Bertie did that fire trick again while Arthur was standing up, he was probably going to fall to his knees and ask him to do it in his real form. He had no doubt it would be terrifying and exhilarating at the same time.

  “I didn’t say that,” he protested slowly, but Bertie still wasn’t looking at him.

  “Cold blood doesn’t mean without feeling. Dragons actually fall in love quite intensely.” He was leaning over the fireplace with one hand on the mantle. Arthur was hypnotized. “We fall in love with a passion and reverence to match any human. It is another reason we are often discussed in tandem with weres. Weres mate, and it’s a quick, instinctive process. We don’t, not in that way, but our attachments are just as deep.” He turned abruptly, with no warning at all, and the best Arthur could do was blink and sit up. “There is nothing, you see, that we would not give to our beloved once they are discovered.”

  Those eyes were fixing him to the spot. Arthur wet his lips.

  “So you’re saying they lost their treasure? They just… gave it away to someone?” He put a hand to his chest then wasn’t sure why and dropped it to his leg, only to suddenly become aware of how hard his blood was pounding. “That’s surprising, even as a romantic gesture.” He stumbled over his words when Bertie’s tongue made an appearance, darting out to the corner of his mouth. Arthur did his best to think clearly. “The stories always said it was hard for dragons to let anything go. And that’s a sacrifice anyone would hesitate to make.”

  Bertie gave him a long, sharp look before taking an equally long drag from his cigarette and then exhaling to let the smoke circle Arthur. Arthur remembered the drawing of a tiny human wrapped up in the coils of an attentive serpent.

  “Not exactly.” Bertie’s gaze was heavy. “I’m saying that humans by far outnumber dragons, and unlike weres, we possess considerable magic. There is magic in my fingernails, in my blood, in my every so-called golden scale.”

  Arthur bit back a noise but Bertie’s stare didn’t waver.

  “Magic enough to make us a threat to some ancient governments or to make us worth more to many dead than alive, to fools who don’t understand the greater magic is in what we give freely. Magic enough to make children possible, as it is for fairies, in addition to our changed physiology when we’re… like this. What I think, Arthur my pearl, is that those red dragons took the beliefs of our culture to heart and intermingled with their humans, the humans who understood them, who loved them in return, until the only parts of them living on are in the genetic code of their descendants and the names of villages, even of the people themselves.”

  Bertie took another pull from his cigarette and Arthur took the opportunity to look away into the fire. It didn’t slow Bertie down. “There isn’t much difference between your genetic code for example, Arthur, and that of your ancestors. In a very basic way, they are sti
ll with us. It’s very romantic.”

  “It could have been for survival,” Arthur commented to the flames, in a faint but reasonable voice. He sensed that Bertie was going to give him another lecture on how unromantic he was, and he let his body slide down on the couch cushions. Arthur wasn’t going to argue what was romantic and what wasn’t. “But why would they do that? I don’t understand. Other dragons didn’t, or not to that point of extinction.”

  “In my notes—” The amusement in Bertie’s voice was very close. Arthur turned just as Bertie insinuated himself onto the seat next to him. “—I remark that they were living much closer to humans than many other groups. In addition, throughout this time, there were many outside attacks and invaders. Dragons are long-sighted; they knew changes would come, yet they chose to stay. Only one thing would make them. They wanted to ensure their treasure… their humans… would live on.”

  “But wouldn’t the invaders take their treasure?” Why else would they even go there, except to take everything the land and the people and the dragons had to offer? Someone should have stopped them.

  “Arthur.” Bertie’s rare, gentle smile flashed across his face, silencing Arthur before he could say anything else foolish. But it was a brief smile, and then Bertie’s shoulders fell. “You still don’t understand.” He paused and then wrinkled his nose. Arthur almost lifted his chin at the insult, but whenever Bertie was hesitant like this, Arthur found himself leaning closer instead, hoping for more information, and this time was no exception.

  Bertie straightened, getting to his feet and looking down at Arthur without a trace of a smile.

  “Would you like to see something, Arthur?” he asked coolly as gray clouds filled the space between them. “It might help.”

  He looked like a king, and though he phrased it as a request, Arthur wasn’t sure it was; the tilt of Bertie’s chin was regal, making his words formal. Arthur glanced away from the steady stare and then back when it didn’t leave him.