The Cursed Dragon

by Rachal M. Roberts

  Back at the top of the shaft the pair of dragons let their air barriers go. Ravanan gasped. He’d had two in his bubble. The rotten smell of decay filled his nares. He cast “STARLIGHT” and turned around. “Can you see my back leg?”

  Ishida stretched and lowered her head to look. “oooo. One got you. It’s eating your flesh!”

  ”EVOKE ALOE EYES!” The green lenses covered his eyes. “How about you? Are you OK?”

  “I think so.”

  They stayed there for a moment then Ishida took a sharp inhale and touched her neck “OW!”

  Ravanan looked at her new wound and then at the air around them. The black bacterial clouds were silently filling the air with their evil fibers. “Come on!” he ordered. They found his anchor and left the tunnel.

  The sun warmed their hides. The fear inducing rot came with them through the anchors and was still replicating in them but at least the delicate Black Death clouds were gone.

  “That was a most deplorable trap! To feed off the body and replicate, filling the air....” Ravanan remarked in agony. Then he turned to retch again. “The other dragon had to be black!” he cursed and wiped his mouth.

  “Do you feel oddly warm?” Ishida asked.

  He could hear the fear in her voice “Yes. It’s the sickness. We’ve got to cut it out.”

  “I know!” she perked up with an idea. “I’ll bite yours out if you bite mine. Our auras and saliva should protect our mouths.”

  “Won’t your bite give me poison?”

  “Yes, but you know how to fix that.” she explained.

  “How do I know you’re not trying to poison me while I’m down with the rot? No, I’ve got a better idea.” He retched again from the smell and then cast “EVOKE HEXDEATH”.

  Without hesitation Ravanan told Hexdeath to cut. He buckled in pain. The green lenses over his eyes were glowing with healing power.

  Ravanan looked over at Ishida, his eyes were crazy with the fresh pain of feeling air on his open flesh. His bloody blades hung in the air. Ishida remembered those blades slicing easily through her mate’s neck and now they were at hers. She winced when the six points pricked her flesh. “Please don’t kill me Ravanan!”

  “Ishida, I have to do this.”

  “Bite me instead!”

  “You’re not thinking right!”

  “I’m not ready!”

  “Yes you are.” The blades went to spinning.

  Chapter 21

  The mummy Annette stood there in the soft light of Black Blade Lair before the Amethyst Enchantress sitting in her stalagmite throne. She was slowly swaying back and forth like a tree in the breeze. Kalara looked over her way in disgust. Annette wondered if maybe she wasn’t standing exactly how she had been told to. But of course she was doing it right or else Kalara would be unhappy and the world would grow dark around her.

  Annette loathed herself. She knew what she was, an undead spirit. The worst spirit of all creation. An abomination of Mother Earth. How could the Great Spirit let this happen to her most faithful? She hated being what she was to the point of anger. But what could she do about it? Nothing. And Annette, being as crafty as she was, had played out every possibility of escape – there was none until Kalara willed it, and though she hated Kalara the instant she thought of causing harm to Kalara her world went to an ugly dark – a place she didn’t want to be. And so she was here. There wasn’t anywhere else Annette wanted to be, other than that fabled place of light she figured was there – in the void – that place she wasn’t sent to. The place she couldn’t go.

  In life there had been that slight mystery, of not exactly knowing what lies beyond death. In life Annette had always spoken to her tribal members with assurance of knowing (or at least pretending to know) what the spirit can expect after death. As if. Annette the mummy grumped at herself. She knew full well that her human life spent as a medicine woman was adding sparkling words to her advice to the wounded. She was paid better if her words and actions were more flowery. But in all that, there was sincerity. For good or bad Annette had always tried to help those who sought her out. It just helped to make it a bit more mystical for the Belief Factor, and the patient recovered better and faster.

  Now after dying Annette had truly seen what is waiting for humans such as her and she didn’t like it. She preferred where she was now, helping the bitch Kalara. And so it was that Annette took a liking to her current state. It was the Belief Factor that Annette now spent all her mind’s waking energy on, it became real to her. There was a life after death and she was going to try everything to change her course towards the dark, even if it meant pleasing Kalara for the rest of Kalara’s living days.

  And truly the mummy’s alert time was a waking energy; Annette felt it, as an undead on Mother Earth’s world she took energy from the sun, or any light source, even the pretty, glowing illuminations of Black Blade Lair was enough to sustain her. She felt like a strong plant powered by Mother Earth’s sunlight. Even if all her roots and leaves were plucked off, her arms, head, or legs, gone, still, the little DNA leaf nodes in her bones would build her anew. If both her arms were cut off at the elbows then there would arise three Annette Mummies to please Kalara. Whenever light shown on her Annette felt a strength of will that she could do ANYTHING.... so long as it didn’t involve going against Kalara.

  Annette thought back to when they first met. She had wanted Kalara’s power badly. And now she knew what it was, only she had to die to discover it. She was very different now, very strong, and she was dead. Now that she had come to terms with the initial shock of mummification Annette could see Kalara’s human form fully and she also saw the gigantic ghostly aura form of a dragon centered on the purple-eyed human.

  She not only knew (and believed) in the Belief Factor, but now Annette knew life after death was indeed fact. Mother Earth, The Great Spirit, wanted her here. Why? To be Kalara’s slave? No matter, she was where she wanted to be. Light fed her. Light alone. It was the waking energy. Not that she as a mummy or even Jeremy the mummy, could sleep as humans do, rather, they just kind of hung out, standing, sitting, or laying down. When there was no light they reserved what energy they had and always, always, thought good thoughts of Kalara. Because if they didn’t a darkness blacker than black would overtake them, to the point of sorrow. It was almost exhausting the amount of mental energy Annette and Jeremy spent just keeping the happiness of Kalara in their thoughts. Kalara’s happiness- that was their only goal.

  Kalara thought she may vomit in revulsion from looking at Annette – the mummy looked absolutely sick with her purple-veined leathery skin, all dried and sunken in. The whites of her eyes were now a solid blood-red – and the pupils that used to be black were now a milky white, same with her brown irises which were now deathly white. It was spooky. Kalara had to look away to re-gather her thoughts.

  When Kalara had reentered the lair a short while ago the first thing she noticed was the seer pool quieted its outburst and her right breast had totally stopped hurting. She wondered if maybe the seer pool acted as a watch dog or warning sound. She couldn’t believe her luck to find Annette right outside her door. She hadn’t thought of casting reveal on the seer pool itself and made a mental note to do that later to learn about it.

  She returned to the task at hand and asked Annette “Why did you capture me and take my mind?”

  Annette moaned back “I was curious about your power and what Spirit gave it to you because I wanted it too, wanted to know that Spirit.”

  “So you took my mind for it???”

  “No, you were hunting me, somehow I know it was you.” Annette’s voice was crumbly. “I had to stop you from eating me so I confused you.”

  “And taking my memories was the only spell you could think of? To make me forget everything? Well I want them back! You will put my mind back in order. Now! Do it now!”

  Without a word, the mummy Annette set to work. She oddly sat down and rummaged through her medicine pouch. With clumsy hands she go
t her pipe together. She looked around the lair for a time before rumbling aloud “I need some stones, good-spirit stones. There are none here, this ground is worn smooth and pebbles are gone. Where did they go? And there is no dust. How odd.”

  And truly there were no stones small enough to pick up in the well-worn 2,000 year old lair.

  Kalara was watching all this with irritation. “Well? Get on with it!”

  “I need some good-spirit stones” Annette rasped.

  “Fine. Come on, I’ve got plenty in here.” and she led her mummy to the wizard’s alcove.

  As the mummy got everything in some kind of proper order – it reminded Kalara of the short time she actually lived with Annette as her “guest” - the mummy sat down to chanting. Her voice wasn’t as pretty as it had been in life and it was a great deal more haunting. The moans and rhythm fought each other to keep the beat, but the heart was in it. From the sound alone, Kalara felt like this spell was going to fix her.

  The mummy mumbled words to her Great Spirit, smoked her pipe, and prostrated herself with the greatest of effort and humbleness.

  And that was it. After all the showiness, the ceremony had ended. And Kalara didn’t feel any different.

  Later in her bath Kalara ruminated, ‘Nothing works’ she thought. She knew magic now and could work it too. She could fly, breathe fire and even create enchanted weapons! She had warmed the seer pool water herself with her fire breath, the exact same magic that Ravanan had always used to make her bath. She was not human, but a powerful enchantress, half-dragoness, whatever she was, she had magic. So why couldn’t she get her old mind back?

  Kalara was just rinsing when her mummies lurched into the chamber.

  “What do you want?” she asked.

  Jeremy was first to answer, “I brought your food, its cooking now.”

  Annette spoke up “I just wanted be here. We belong near you, you have life. The world is brighter where you are and I really, really don’t like that darkness.”

  “Oh, I see. So you’re afraid of the dark?”

  “Yes, Enchantress.”

  Kalara dried off and draped Heed, her new favorite robe, she could still feel the blood loss from the drape spell, but knew it was getting easier, she just needed more practice and time.

  “Do you realize your little show earlier did not fix me?” she asked the mummy pointedly.

  “Yes, I realized it the same moment you did. It’s like it was before I died, my medicine wasn’t working then and now I am dead for it.”

  “But your medicine did get you inside my cave.” Kalara’s eyebrow raised with an idea. “Yes, that’s it! The blue mist. Ravanan’s.“, she stopped at the name and breathed it away from her dark void. “I know why your magic doesn’t work, because it’s not supposed to, not in here. And once again Annette, it’s your fault. You are to blame for everything!” The air turned chilly and Kalara walked over to her cooking fire to think.

  Getting her memories back now would be a simple task. All she had to do was get Annette out from under Ravanan’s blue mist.

  The enchantress and her mummies watched the cooking fire dance around her evening meal. “Annette, how did you wound me from so far away?”

  “What do you mean my Enchantress?”

  “My stomach ripped open, and my legs were mangled. How did you do it?”

  “Oh that. I thought it didn’t work.” Annette’s leathery face twisted into a smile “I guess it did after all. I was trying to stop your escape with that man in the blue shirt. I used my medicine on a pelt of your essence. But you look fine to me.”

  “Of course I look fine! The blue mist fights your curse and I’m trapped inside of it until the curse stops. I want your curse to stop.”

  “I do too!” Annette was Kalara’s best champion. “I need to go back home and end it.”

  “You’re not going without me.” Kalara wasn’t going to risk losing her mummy Annette.

  “My Enchantress, how do I do it then?”

  “Let me think. And you guys think about it too.”

  Days passed as Kalara worked on ways to leave the blue mist safely with her mummies. Jeremy was getting better and faster at fetching her meat. He was useful, Annette however, was not. And neither one of them had come up with any ideas about the cursed pelt.

  It was curious that her mummies had their way of eating too, it wasn’t much though, just a handful of mud. They actually were somewhat like plants. Her mummify spell had worked great, and it should have because it had drained her to make them both.

  And it was most curious that suddenly one day Ravanan’s meals started showing up again. Kalara hated the daily reminder of his rejection and that she was still a prisoner and would be until that pelt was destroyed.

  Kalara resolved to head north with her mummies knowing that it was going to be an extremely painful journey unless she traveled by anchor. She set herself to revealing the anchors in Black Blade Lair. She had figured there would be anchors but she had no idea how many. Every bit of the floor was covered with anchors. It took time to find anything that looked remotely like the cliff in Tulsa that Ravanan had drawn. It was no use. She didn’t recognize any of his drawings. She even got her mummies to help her look at each one, but they were useless.

  Nevertheless Kalara continued until one day when they were revealing anchors near the wizard’s alcove, and Annette spoke up. “Enchantress, I just noticed you have geodes.” The mummy held up a leathery finger to a pile of rocks & crystals.

  “So?”

  Annette led Kalara and Jeremy to the pile of sparkly bowl-shaped rocks crusted with crystals on the inside, there were all different colors and sizes.

  “I have an idea.” Annette said. “You said the anchors make you into a cloud”, she picked up a white one and the soft light glinted off the many facets. As Annette held it and peered into the geode’s many crystals, she could see her own reflection, her hideous reflection. She could see how the red in her eyes had blackened, they were even scarier to behold being that aged black blood color with white centers.

  “Well!?! Out with it.” Kalara demanded.

  Annette looked back to Kalara “You could become a cloud and hide inside one of these. That way you won’t be in pain and Jeremy and I can carry you to my house.”

  Kalara was speechless as her brain worked through that idea. How did Annette come up with it? Was it that human-creativeness that Ravanan told her about? Something humans have over dragons? She would never have come up with such an idea, such a frightening idea – to be inside a rock. Annette meant to trap her!

  “No way.” Kalara blurted out. Kalara’s mind went to that dark place. Annette was surely planning on trapping her forever inside a rock. “Do you think I’m stupid? You mean to trap me!” Her breathing quickened and the air turned cold. Memories of those large peacock eyes hung in her head. Fear was choking her.

  “No Enchantress. I don’t.” Annette put the rock down in darkness. She had stepped out of her Enchantress’ happy light. “Please Enchantress, what can I do to serve?”

  Kalara’s chest felt tight and she struggled to speak “Get out! Get away from me. Don’t touch me! Go. Go to the seer pool. NOW!!!! Jeremy, don’t let her escape!!!!!!!!”

  Her mummies lumbered off and Kalara dropped to the cold cavern floor, crying uncontrollably and surrounded by large colorful eyes watching and unblinking.

  The next morning came with pinkish light flooding into Black Blade Lair. The two mummies only saw darkness and huddled fearfully together, standing with their feet drinking in the water of the cold seer pool.

  Hours happened. They ate their mineral-rich mud, and light returned to their world as Kalara finally retrieved them. It was a joyous moment. Jeremy took off to hunt and Annette attended to her Enchantress.

  “Annette,” Kalara spoke as she bathed, “what you suggested yesterday was disturbing to me. I had to think about it. If I can craft a spell for this idea of yours, it may work but you will not be allowed to ever
touch my geode with me in it. Understood?”

  “Yes my Enchantress.”

  Kalara took a big breath in, preparing herself for what else she needed to say. She knew it was the best solution. She was going to have to trust Annette and that she wouldn’t run away.

  “Furthermore, I want you to start heading to your old home while I’m crafting the geode spell because I’m pretty sure it is going to take a while to get there. And then when I’m ready Jeremy and I will come to where you happen to be. I don’t know how long learning this spell will take me. It may not work. If you make it back to the pelt before I come to you, do not – I repeat – do not destroy it. Instead, I want you to very carefully bring it back here to me. Where the pelt was located I want you to pour this out on the ground.” Kalara handed Annette a vial of sand. “Do you understand all that I’ve said?”

  Annette nodded, “Yes my Enchantress.”

  “One more thing, let me feel your hair.”

  The mummy leaned forward and Kalara yanked a handful out. “Now you can leave.”

  Kalara knew she was assigning a giant task for herself, there was so much involved, and lots of practice – Jeremy would be endlessly hunting for her to keep up her blood and she had a lot of learning to do, including learning the language of the runes Ravanan had used. She cursed under her breath again at Annette for taking her mind from her.

  The idea of the geode spell still terrified Kalara even though it had been a couple of days since Annette suggested it. All Kalara could see was being trapped inside a rock. Maybe it was that terror that was slowing her work. But in any case the spell wasn’t coming together and she wasn’t that upset about it. Every day practicing in the wizard’s alcove she would spend hours with animal blood on her hands trying to write a spell in a partially-decoded language that would place a living animal’s electrical cloud in a rock (she wasn’t about to try it on herself yet).

  Working in terror was better than sleeping though. Her work on the geode trap was bringing back the nightmares that she’d been trying so hard to not have. She’d been doing better with Ravanan gone. But now they came flooding back, sometimes several per night. Nightmares of her trapping herself with magic and all the while being watched by those silent rainbow eyes. Sometimes the eyes were trapping her by filling every inch of air around her and closing in. There were also nightmares of Ravanan’s lightning jolting the geode with her inside it, killing her for what she was. There was even Jenniffer’s laughter in the darkness at a drooling insane Kalara sprawled out on the floor. Perhaps the worst though was seeing her lifeless body on the floor of her wizard’s alcove while her mind and spirit were forever trapped in the rock that was red with blood.