by RyFT Brand
indestructible black scales. His tail could break rock, his nails could rip apart oak trees, his fangs could pierce the thickest armor, and his breath could spray acid. I looked back down at my companion. “It’s just another monster Mickey, and I’m still Jazz.” I gave Mickey a thumbs up with my brand new right hand and raced around a grouping of stalagmites and over to the ceremony space.
The power of the stone had not just healed me, but it had also reenergized me on a cellular level. I was truly better then ever.
But of course so was the dragon.
I opened and closed the right hand a few times. It felt good and it felt strong and I’d never again have to wonder if the stone had the power to re-grow limbs.
Enough with the systems check. I grabbed the self-same sword that had cleaved off my hand, and took the long ceremonial shield from off the ritual altar. The lightweight shield was apparently more for decoration than combat, and I doubted whether it would withstand an acid breath attack, but I had to try, I’d promised the big brown oaf.
Keeping low, I crept to the last standing stone, and, pressing my back to it, risked a glance around. The dragon was stumbling around like it was drunk, paying more attention to itself than me. It turned its head side to side, sniffing and licking its scales, flicking its tail, and flapping its huge, leathery wings.
I could only suppose it was confused by the sudden regeneration. Either that or maybe the stone didn’t work as well with monsters, I knew so little about its properties and even less about its origins. But if this beastie was dizzy and confused, then this was a grand time to attack. And not just because I’d promised Mickey safe passage out, that thing’s ugly head would garner me the chips I needed to save my friends.
That was, after all, what I’d come for.
I slipped back behind the standing stone, straightened my spine, drew in a deep breath, and garnered all my resolve. Then, with a shout of battle madness, I raised my sword and charged.
I must have looked ridiculous. One, five-foot, five-inch, one-hundred and twenty-one pound woman in a blood stained ceremonial dress, which looked very much like a wedding gown, wielding a sword at a thirty ton, armor-plated mass of muscles. So it made absolutely no sense to me when the thing let out a terrified yelp, turned tail and galloped out of the cavern.
“Hey!” I shouted and charged after it. But aside from the beast’s massive speed advantage, its ponderous steps were shaking the whole cavern, making keeping on my feet very difficult.
Still I tried.
I made chase as much as I was able. I needed that bond, needed it badly. The others were counting on me so I followed, continually losing ground.
I left the main cavern and entered the tunnel. No Draconians were to be seen anywhere, the cowards had literally turned tail and ran. I watched with some amazement as the dragon’s tail slinked around a corner and disappeared into a tunnel I never would have thought it could fit through.
“Scrud! Scrud! Scrud!” I charged after it, following the din of its thunderous steps into another, even larger cavern. This one was riddled with huge stalagmites and stalactites that created a maze I feared entering without a map or a blind cave carrier pigeon. The great dragon, perhaps fearing the maze as well, stopped and glanced over its shoulder back at me.
“Hold it right there lizard!” I shouted, pointing my sword in its direction. “You’re being collected on breach of the greater worm inter-dimensional crossing restrictions. I demand that you lay down and accept your beheading immediately.”
The beast leapt, stretching out its long, serpentine body, and landed rather nimbly atop a flat outcropping of rock fifty feet above the cavern floor.
Apparently it wasn’t that afraid. It shot me a stare and let out something between a screech and a squawk, then it leapt into the air, extended its long, leathery wings, and flapped toward a bright opening high in the chamber’s ceiling. The wings kicked up enough dust to force me out of the chamber.
Back in the tunnel, I leaned on a rock and dropped the shield so I could cover my mouth and nose with the sleeve of the dress. Once the dust, and my coughing, had settled, I moved back into the huge chamber. I cursed, even more than usual—my quarry had flown the coup.
Keeping eyes and ears open for signs of returning Draconians, I made my way back to the ceremonial chamber. I was surprised to see my secretary, Parry, leaning over Mickey. With his head turned and his eyes closed, Parry pressed a wad of cloth to the sasquatch’s wound. Parry looked up at me when I noisily dropped the sword and shield.
“Oh my gods,” he said in breathy exacerbation. “There you are. I thought you’d abandoned us.”
I glanced down at the big foot’s still form. “Why are you doing that?”
Parry drew in a quavering breath. “As long as I don’t look at it, I’m okay, besides, someone had to do something.”
“I’m glad your sight returned,” I said kneeling down beside him. “But I didn’t ask how, I asked you why.”
Parry’s opened his brown eyes and as he looked at me, realization and sadness flooded into them. “Because he needs help,” he said in a doubtful tone.
I glanced down at the hairy body. “He’s beyond our help now.”
“Ahhh!” Parry screamed and my spine went rigid when the sasquatch sat bolt upright. He grabbed me around my upper arms.
“Holy crud-cakes!” I gasped—reeling in surprise.
For a minute the hairy beast held me tight, staring into my eyes with his ape-like jaw flapping mutely.
“Mickey,” I said in as soothing a tone as I could muster. “Lie down, try to relax, I promised to get you out of here and I will.”
“No!” he bellowed loud enough to ring my ears. “No, listen, there isn’t much time.”
I forced on a smile, and smiling was not one of my strong suits. “You’re going to make it, but you have to let me go, my arms are going numb.”
“Shut up and listen—” he’d run out of breath, and drawing another in caused him a great deal of pain. “Listen,” he said having gathered in air at last. “Do you trust me?”
My head shook a little, rattled by the unexpected question. I was Jazz, Monster Collector and reviled monster hater, I could never trust any deferred species—I knew them too well. Despite my attitude, and my own eyes, my gut forced the truth to dribble out through my lips. “We are the last ones left Sasquatch, son of Earth. I have to trust you, no, I do trust you because you’ve earned it,” I said, then added, “I trust you, Mickey.”
Something swept into his eyes that I could only describe as overwhelming joy, not something I’d seen much of so it took me a moment to recognize the expression. But his joy retreated when a look of panicked urgency charged in. “Good, then listen, they’re playing you, playing you like a rube at the fair, manipulating you into starting it—” gasping for breath and shaking with sudden pain, Mickey released me and collapsed back down. Parry, in an unusual display of speed and coordination, jammed the blood stained rag beneath the big foot’s head before it contacted the cavern floor. That was the fist I saw the wound. Actually it didn’t look as bad as I’d thought it would, there was very little blood. Parry shot me a helpless look, tears streamed down his cheeks.
As Mickey writhed on the floor, I set a palm to his forehead and willed ease into him because there was nothing else I could do. The shaking ceased and his breathing settled into a shallow, nearly undetectable movement. When his eyes opened his pupils had dilated into huge circles. Tears ran down his hairy face. I wiped them away with the hem of my filthy ceremonial dress. “Why Mickey? Who’s playing me?”
“All of us, all us monsters, it’s a plan, a plan to return.” His voice was growing weaker.
“Return where?”
“Back to before…when monsters were…to be feared” his voice was little more than a faint whisper.
I held his huge head between my hands and brought the tip of my nose against his. “Mickey, you are not a monster. You’re of Earth, just like me.
”
He managed a smile, then, with a quivering finger, weakly pointed down to his shining, gold, artificial foot. “Take it; get your Ship, save your friends.” Then his eyes closed. I let go and his head rolled to one side.
“No,” Parry said then began to sob.
Parry was making too much noise, but I couldn’t move or speak for several minutes. I just sat there, stunned by the fact that everything I’d just said had been true. I knew it on a deep, soul-ular level; Mickey had been of old Earth, had been like me, and I’d let my own prejudices effect my judgment. I’d allowed my feelings to become a weakness and I didn’t tolerate weakness, especially in myself, and now that weakness had cost me an ally, maybe even a friend.
Then I noticed that his chest was moving up and down. He was still alive.
The realization got me alert, focused, and in motion. I looked down at the golden appendage. On a world where alchemy had become as common a hobby as miniature railroading had been on Earth, gold had lost all its monetary value and, naturally, its desirability other than for a few who just liked the color. Frankly gold is heavy and soft, and had led me to assume that Mickey’s golden foot had been simply an ascetic choice as gold was still an emblem of mobsters. But then I focused and looked a little harder. Another effect of my shadow sight is the ability to look into the magical spectrum, and what I saw there was a lot, an awful lot, of magical