Treasurekeeper

by Ripley Harper

  “You are mistaken in ascribing womanly feelings to the half-dragons.”

  “No. I’m not wrong. I swear it.”

  “You swear it?” His voice deepens even further. “On your life?

  “I do. I swear it on my life.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Ingrid snaps. “You cannot make these kinds of promises! And certainly not to a slayer. Don’t you realize what you’re doing?”

  “I can and I do,” I say. “I don’t care what anybody else thinks; they are my sisters and I’ll personally vouch for them. I am vouching for them. I’m doing it right now.”

  “Oh, for God’s sake.”

  “You don’t know what you’re saying,” Gunn’s dark blue eyes seem almost black in his deathly white face. “The half-dragons aren’t what you think they are. Please, Jess. There are things you don’t understand.”

  I look at him blankly. “More secrets. Now isn’t that a surprise.”

  “We wanted to wait—–”

  “I don’t care!”

  Gunn winces at my angry cry. But I don’t want to fight, so I raise my shoulders a little, try to soften my tone. “I can’t let them die, Gunn. I’m vouching for them, no matter what you say.”

  “Right,” the old man says gruffly. “I accept that.” He points his horrible weapon of bone and skin at me. “But who will vouch for you?”

  There’s an uncomfortable silence.

  I look at Gunn. I look at Ingrid.

  And then, the last voice I expected to hear.

  “I will,” Zig says.

  Chapter 21

  All that glitters is not gold

  Often have you heard that told

  Gilded tombs do worms enfold

  From The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare

  This time, when I dive into the water, I don’t take off my clothes. I plunge into the depths of the lake wearing shorts and a t-shirt and wait, eyes tightly closed, for the magic to take me from the horrors above.

  But even as I sink deeper and deeper, I cannot scrub the terrible things I witnessed from my mind. Mangled limbs, and bloody bodies. Severed heads and chewed-off faces. Red, wet things strewn over the paving stones…

  How could the delicately beautiful Pendragon women have slaughtered those men so mercilessly? No matter how gifted they might be in their bloodmagic, for six unarmed women to take on thirty-plus highly trained soldiers armed with military weapons and leave that behind!

  I open my eyes in the dark watery cool.

  Dive deeper.

  *

  “We did not want to hurt those humans!”

  I hear their voices before I see them.

  “What seems like cruelty was nothing but desperation! We were blind and clumsy in our human shells, and we did not have the time to kill cleanly or mercifully.”

  Their song soothes me, the harmonious voices filling my heart with a welcome tranquility.

  “To you—–our beautiful, perfect sister!—–our actions must seem brutal and vicious. But we had no choice! We had to stop those men before they reached our true selves at the lake. Please understand. Please forgive us!”

  I feel the magic pulling me under and relax into it with a sigh of relief, my body broadening and loosening in the black water as I become powerful and graceful and whole.

  “I do understand. You were fighting for your lives.”

  “Not for our lives. For his! The Alpha’s mind had darkened beyond all reason, and he would have killed the boy we love! We had to survive long enough to protect him, no matter what the cost to ourselves.”

  Their great bodies rise up from the deep to coil around me in slow, lazy circles.

  “And behold! The Alpha is gone and you have come. The boy is safe. All is not lost.”

  My sisters surround me in a swirl of muscle and magic and grace, all six of them shimmering like jewels in ruby and amber, emerald and gold. I watch their great bodies slicing through the water in a dance so graceful it makes me want to weep.

  “My sisters! In this lake you remain beautiful and whole, perfect in your spiritforms. But I bring sad tidings, for I must tell you that your human bodies lie shattered on the dry land, as lifeless as broken dolls.”

  The flow of their dance continues unabated—–the tragic news I bring is clearly no news to them at all.

  “The boy assures me that I have enough magic in me to heal your ruined bodies, even though my own earthmagic could not sense any life still remaining within that ravaged flesh. And thus I have come to you, my sisters, to ask if you know of a way to save that which cannot be saved, so that I can return you to the life and the world of humans.”

  A quickening in the water around me.

  “Oh no!” they sing, their sorrowful voices clear and melodious. “It is too late to save us now. Our time on this world is over—–the slayers will come for us soon.” They snake around me, their exquisitely graceful forms moving through the water like mist through air. “The only mercy you can show us now is to accept our pledges and to free us from this realm forever.”

  “The slayers will not come for you.”

  “They will. They must. There is no other way.”

  “No. I have spoken with them myself, not a few minutes ago. Their swords will not be drawn today.”

  For the first time the movements of their delicately scaled bodies become agitated: a jolting dance that betrays their shocked disbelief. “How could this be? Even you, who is without a doubt the best and the brightest of our kind, cannot have a magic powerful enough to sway the mind of a slayer!”

  “I did not use my magic to save your lives. I stood before them as a girl and I vouched for your humanity on my own, human life.”

  Abruptly, my sisters cease their dance. They stop their song. The colors of their glittering scales begin to dull, and their great, horned and crested heads turn away from me one by one.

  “Alas! What have we done? What have we done!” The notes of their song now sound dull and dissonant, a howling lament of sorrow and regret.

  I reach out to them beseechingly. “What is the matter? Please, do not turn from me!”

  But they avoid my touch, their voices low and subdued. “Forgive us! We knew not what we did! We only meant to hide our shame, never realizing what such deception might cost you.”

  Their words alarm me, for I suddenly remember the old slayer’s ominous warning: Don’t you know that they are masters of Enthrallment, and that they breathe illusion in the same way we breathe air?

  “You have misled me in some way.” My words are as much a statement as a question.

  “Alas, we have!” When they start moving around me again, their dance has become a distressed and frantic ballet that is curiously painful to watch. “We ask only that you do not punish the boy for our sins! We ask only that you spare him, who is yet not much more than a human child, your righteous wrath.”

  Far above me, the sun glints yellow-green on the surface of the water. Far below me, the black depths of lake teem with its own secrets. Around me, there is neither dark nor light but a murky confusion that only deepens my unease.

  “I am disquieted by your words, my sisters. But more than that, I am weary of constantly feeling lost and blind, like a child in the woods on a moonless night. If I have meant anything to you at all, I ask that you reveal what you have hidden from me.”

  “Our crime was one of vanity, not malice!” The shame seeps from their words like oil from a sponge. “We have spun a lie around your mind to hide the ugliness of our true selves from your gaze. We did nothing more than that, and nothing less.”

  I test their words carefully, not so much because I am wary of lies but because I am unable to fully grasp the complex truths I sense hidden within. “The last time I swam in this lake, I looked upon you as a firedragon. I have witnessed the inner flames of your true selves firsthand. There is no ugliness hidden within you, only sorrow and regret.”

  It is as if the water darkens around them.


  “It is not of our spirits that we speak, sister, but of our physical selves. Our real bodies, not as we are before you now, beautiful and whole, but as we truly are, malformed and repulsive.”

  A great pity washes over me. I feel my apprehension lift, and I gently sing out my words to soothe and calm them. “Fear not, my sisters. I have long grasped that these spiritforms are illusion, and that none of us are truly as we appear here and now. Be of ease, for although your physical bodies are vacant-eyed creatures, tamed and diminished and shackled with iron, I assure you there is nothing repulsive about your material forms.”

  Once again, they stop their dance completely. Once again, they turn their great heads from me. “Alas, you do not understand. We talk not of the human avatars we have left behind, those barely breathing skin-covered shells that allow the men we love some small hold on our magic. We talk of our real bodies: those swimming around you now, not those that lie broken on the shore.”

  My confusion only lasts a short while. “Is it not your spiritforms that live in this lake?”

  They turn and twirl, graceful and lithe and magnificent, their intricately patterned, gossamer-thin fins brushing softly against me. “How could this be our spiritforms when we are swimming around you, and touching each other, and feeling the cool of the earth beneath us, and the warmth of the sun above? This, here, is no non-material dimension meant for spirits—–it is the water of this world! We are alive on this planet, submerged in its main element, fleshy and breathing, just as you are."

  “I do not understand.” I look down at my glittering, scaled body, powerful and beautiful beyond all imagining. “Is this not my spiritform? Have I truly transformed into this magnificent creature while in this lake?”

  Immediately their gorgeous jeweled colors begin to fade.

  “It is a girl that swims with us in this lake. What you see now is nothing but an illusion we created to please you, as it so closely mimics your true spiritform. As of yet, however, that form exists only on planes of existence so unimaginably different and distant from this one that only the strongest in magic here could hope to get as much as a glimpse of it.”

  I sweep my great head back to look down at my great dragon’s body. “This is merely an illusion produced by your bloodmagic?”

  “Indeed. In this lake, right now, you wear the flesh and the skin of an ordinary girl.”

  I feel my pulse quickening as understanding finally dawns. “And what shape do you wear, my sisters?”

  They coil together in a frantic knot, their long graceful necks bowing down, away from me, as if they can no longer endure my gaze.

  “I implore you to lift the Enthrallment from my mind and to let me see the unvarnished truth once and for all.”

  “The shame! The shame!”

  “There is no greater shame than deceiving one who has put her trust in you. Lift the Enthrallment!”

  *

  I am treading water in a lake, wearing wet clothes.

  I am Jess.

  The water is clear and cool, and above me the sun is shining brilliantly in a bright blue sky.

  A couple hundred yards away, five people are standing on a rock overlooking the lake. I recognize Gunn first. Then Ingrid, Zig, Jonathan. His grandfather. I am too far away to see their expressions, but their body language makes it clear that they’re watching me very closely.

  At first I think that I’m alone in the water, but then I notice something stirring in the depths beneath me.

  A shadow.

  Two shadows.

  I shiver, too afraid to look down again, but the overwhelming sense of something dark and massive beneath me is enough to cause a tingling numbness in my legs.

  Oh, God. I don’t belong in this lake.

  I swim for the shore as the huge shadows begin to multiply. They circle ominously below me in the deep, their movements ponderous and clumsy and somehow… wrong.

  The panic grips me by the throat.

  I need to get out of here.

  Desperate to get away, I increase my pace, but the immense shadows follow me easily and deliberately, hungrily. I have the sudden, terrifying sensation of being prey, smaller and weaker and helpless against a much larger, cold-blooded predator, and I feel my adrenalin levels spike to the point where I’m spluttering in the water, shivering and choking and absolutely frantic. As the fear swells and rushes through my body, I put my head down and kick from my hips, pulling myself into a powerful front crawl and focusing on nothing but the shoreline. I swim until I feel my muscles straining and my lungs burning, but the shadows are closer now, much closer, and even though I try not to look down, I can’t help but catch glimpses of razor-sharp teeth in huge, maw-like jaws and evil eyes that glare at me with a repulsive intelligence.

  “Help!”

  The panic that crashes over me is like nothing I’ve ever felt before, an icy, primal terror that robs me of all sense or thought.

  I swim faster. Then faster still.

  “Help!”

  When I reach the shore, I’m lightheaded and shaking.

  I drag myself out on the rocks, stumbling, only to scream in despair when I see the monsters following me onto the land, emerging from the water like half-melted, slimy dinosaurs.

  “Gunn! Gunn!”

  I cry out for help, not sure what I’m saying, my terror like a weight squeezing the breath from my lungs. But the others are too far away; although they’re all running toward me now, there’s no way they’ll make it in time.

  I stumble over the rocks, feet bleeding, not knowing where I’m going.

  “Help!”

  I don’t want to turn around. I can’t turn around!

  But I know they’re coming for me, closer and closer, I can hear them, they’re right behind me…

  Ohgodohgodohgodohgod.

  I’m going to die here today. There’s nobody who can help me.

  I’m all alone and there’s nobody who can help me and I’m going to die and I don’t want to—–

  No.

  The thought hits my feverish, panicked brain with a cold, calm clarity.

  No.

  I will not die here today.

  And I certainly don’t need anybody else’s help to survive. Not on this planet.

  This is my home.

  When I turn around to face the monsters, I am filled to the brim with my firemagic, magnificent and untouchable.

  And now, when I look at them through the eyes of the firedragon, there is nothing weak or repulsive whatsoever about my sisters anymore.

  Astonishing!

  No wonder the boy was so certain his family had not died! These creatures cannot be more alive—–the purity of their power is painfully harsh, so blinding that even I am almost tempted to look away.

  But I don’t. I have looked away for far too long.

  I narrow my eyes carefully in an attempt to control the strength of my firemagic. The magic inside my sisters blazes too radiantly, blinding me to their outer form, and although I marvel at the glorious sight of so much raw power, I am well aware that it is not the strength of their magic that they have hidden from me.

  It is time to look at them through my human eyes, and be done with it.

  Enough with all the ancient secrets!

  I exhale slowly, steeling myself for what is to come.

  Then I shut out the light and wait for the fires to dim.

  When I open my eyes again, I am Jess—–almost completely Jess—–and I have to bite my lip not to cry out in horror.

  In front of me, their bodies half-submerged in the water, lie six monsters.

  Not dragons, you understand, but monsters: amphibious, reptile-like creatures somewhere between frogs and crocodiles, each of them as big as a horribly emaciated elephant and covered in a thick, slimy mucus which exudes such an unpleasant smell that I almost start retching.

  As they clumsily drag their hideously misshapen bodies towards me, I stand frozen, unable to do anything but stare, my feelings caught some
where between terror and revulsion. None of them look exactly the same—–one has clumps of hair on mottled skin, another has a tattered, scaly hide, one has a blunt head and a thick neck, another a thin, serpentine neck atop a squat, ungainly body…

  Dear God. Is this then, beyond myth and illusion, what a dragon really is? A pitiable, twisted reptilian monster, like something a drunken Dr. Frankenstein crudely stitched together from discordant parts and then left to rot?

  As they lurch towards me I catch the foul smell of dormant snake, and when I look closer I see that their flesh barely covers their bones and that their wings—–if those tattered membranes stretched across malformed, elongated ribs could even be called wings—–are full of gaps and open sores. Their eyes, too, are rheumy and diseased and the raised ridges of the black scales covering their bodies look dull and flaky, as if they should’ve been shed long ago.

  For a moment I’m tempted to lose myself in my firemagic again, craving the distance that this power always brings. But I stop myself, resisting the impulse with difficulty.

  No. I have called these monsters my sisters, over and over again.

  It’s about time I get to know my family.

  And so, although every instinct in my body urges me to get the hell away from them, I fight the impulse to run (run!) and climb onto a nearby rock instead. At least now they don’t tower over me anymore, which helps a bit, and I can look directly into their small, red, malevolent eyes.

  I watch with my heart in my throat as they slowly and clumsily heave their mammoth bodies closer to where I’m standing. And closer.

  Closer.

  When they surround me completely, their unhealthy, stinking flesh almost near enough to touch, I raise my hand.

  “Sisters!” I cry, and for the first time that word tastes like a lie on my lips. “Do not come nearer! For I am almost fully human, standing here, and your presence sparks a mammal fear in my body that I can only fight off for so long.”

  At the sound of my voice the creatures freeze, and for a heady moment I believe this must mean that they understand what I’m saying. But then they start nudging forward again, their great maws open, their fang-like teeth broken and rotten.