Choice

by Gary Stringer

  “Sounds harmless enough if you ask me!”

  “We didn't!” Loric retorted. “These living bags could grow teeth and claws, and had taken on the form of something resembling sea serpents.”

  “Sea serpents...OK, I suppose I can see how that could be a threat,” the Elder of Stone conceded. He was starting to get the picture now. “And you think they've now found a way to leave the ocean?”

  “Yes,” Air affirmed. “I can see them a bit clearer now, and yes, I think it's those same creatures, only now they look to be something like us.”

  “Like dragons?” “In a crude kind of way, their best approximation, but I have to say they're flying pretty well considering they've only been doing it for a few days.” They were close enough now for the two swamp dragons to make out individual shapes, and the Elder Dragon of Stone resigned himself to it.

  “Alright, you've got my attention,” he said in something close to a pleasant tone. “Tell me everything you can about these things. Quickly!” “Not much to tell,” Loric answered, “except they're damned difficult to kill! Our acid breath weapons should have some effect, but Air’s going to be vulnerable if it’s too dangerous to use her lightning!”

  “Hmmm,” the Elder considered. “Too dangerous to use her lightning... Maybe you're not a complete idiot after all.”

  “You've got a plan?” Air asked.

  The answer came in the form of a dangerous toothy grin.

  * * * * * The three dragons did not try to intercept the enemy, but just contented themselves with making a lot of noise, attracting their attention. As the creatures drew closer, the dragons turned tail and flew away, staying the ideal distance ahead. They flew in single file, headed by the indigenous Elder, Air in the middle and Loric as rear guard. It could be no other way, for the brass-obsidian-black dragon knew the terrain, and Loric's Penta Drauka skills made him the best able to defend himself should the chaos monsters get too close. As for Air, hers was the key role, and she could feel her massive heart beating faster in her chest in a mixture of anticipation and trepidation over what was to come. This was going to be nothing less than the greatest test of her flying skills she had ever had - in this body or any other. It was no conceit to say that not one other dragon in the whole of Majaos could accomplish this feat...and she'd be lying if she said she was completely confident of her own ability. Hence the twinge of fear. She refused to let it filter through to her wings, however. There was nothing quite as potent as fear to throw off a dragon's rhythm, but it was at moments of extreme stress when sure, confident flying was paramount.

  Following the lead dragon, they flew around behind the Stone Table to a cave entrance that was so well concealed so as to appear to spring out of nowhere. The Elder Dragon had quickly told them about a network of semiartificial caves that wove through the mountain range - caves created in prehistoric times by water and constructed further by dwarves who normally inhabited this region in great numbers. This war, however, had forced most of them deeper underground. At first, this had seemed like an uncharacteristic act of cowardice. Certainly, dwarves could be prejudiced and distrustful towards the other races, but at the same time they were great explorers and could be great company if others were simply respectful, patient and allowed them to do things their own way. To proverbially stick two fingers up to the rest of the world in a time of great need was not like them at all.

  Then rumours began to leak out that they had sealed their caves not to keep things on the outside out, but to keep something on the inside in. Rumours spoke of terrifying monsters made of rock and stone and invisible creatures that had sneaked in unnoticed. Dwarves being dwarves, they would in no way allow any outsiders into their caves to assist, so their solution was to seal themselves in with the chaos creatures, to contain them and destroy them...or be destroyed themselves. Either way, the dwarves would not be responsible for unleashing their troubles on a world that had enough troubles of its own already. All this left the upper network clear and empty. Were it otherwise, the dragons could not have done what they were now attempting.

  For a people of small stature, the dwarves liked to build on a vast scale, and consequently these catacombs were sufficiently large in diameter to accommodate dragons in flight - albeit in single file. On and on they flew, making so many twists and turns that Loric was hopelessly lost and utterly dependant on the host dragon. Air could not help but be impressed by the flight skills of the dragon ahead of her. The wingbeats were quite erratic, but he was confidently negotiating these high speed bends without so much as scraping a scale against the side walls. Presumably he’d flown this course many times before.

  Loric was doing equally well behind her, she noted when she glanced around. She didn't need to look ahead constantly. Except for when the tunnels forked in two and the other Elder Dragon chose the correct path, she was perfectly confident of negotiating these passageways purely by the feel of the air currents moving through them. The clues were subtle when flying in another dragon's wake, but they were there nonetheless. In fact, she decided to close her eyes for a time - it would be good preparation for what was to come. The next bend was sixteen wingbeats on the left at fifty five degrees in the horizontal plane and began a twenty per cent decline, she decided– and when she got there, she was of course spot on. When they rounded that one, she was immediately aware that this passage continued in a wide left wing arc for at least the next two dozen wingbeats. As the passage descended further, so the walls became smoother, suggesting that this one had been excavated from the bottom upwards and more work had been done at the deeper level. No doubt, if they survived the war, the dwarves would return to their work on the higher sections.

  A right hand fork at the next junction saw them almost flatten out to the horizontal, with just the merest hint of a decline, perhaps two or three per cent. This was more challenging, with left and right bends of twenty to twenty five degrees, every half dozen wingbeats or so.

  “We're nearly there!” called the lead dragon. “Get ready!” Air opened her eyes to reintegrate that sense into the perception network that informed her flight rhythm.

  “Are they still following?” he asked Loric.

  “’Fraid so!” he confirmed. “I've had to spit at them a couple of times as I've gone around a bend, just to force them back a bit. I hope you know what you're doing!”

  “I'm not the one who's stupid, remember, idiot?”

  “Quiet!” Air demanded. “I need to focus if I'm going to pull this off! Absolute concentration, and I can't do that with you two squabbling!”

  “Sorry,” Loric apologised. The other dragon just grunted. The tunnel stopped winding, then, becoming straight once more as they hurtled toward their destination: a vertical shaft that led all the way to the surface. Beyond that, the tunnel continued on, but it was unstable. The plan was for the Elder Dragon of Stone to take that path with Loric, deliberately banging and scraping the walls with their Stone Shielded bodies to cause a cave-in. Air was going the other way straight up.

  Air's far-seeing eyes appraised the ninety degree vertical angle, factored in their flight speed, the ever-closing distance and the time it would take Loric flying behind her to get there and she realised instantly she couldn't do it. Not without some adjustments anyway.

  “Loric!” she called back. “Slow down a bit! I need another three or four dragonlengths between us in the next two wingbeats, or we're dead!” A few weeks ago, they would have had no chance. A few weeks ago, he wouldn't have had a clue what she was talking about. Now he understood and he obediently extended his wing flaps to create some extra drag, slowing his momentum just enough to give his mentor and friend four-and-a-half dragonlengths more space in exactly two wingbeats. She’d actually known he'd got it by his first stroke. She was highly impressed. “I don't care what he says,” she called back. “You’re no idiot - you're the best student I ever had!”

  No sooner had that compliment left her mouth than she moved her wings almost vertical, to serve
as air breaks. Catching the air currents just before she stalled, she timed it to perfection, placing her beneath the giant flue pipe, which she strained her body to climb.

  Loric shot past but a single stroke later, and two strokes after that, there came an almighty crash as he created a cave-in behind him, blocking the way completely.

  “Done,” he stated, just a little self-satisfied.

  “Alright, genius,” said the Elder, sarcastically, “we're not out yet. Follow me to the right here and there's a nice easy slope all the way to the top.Then we get the hell out of the way while Air does her stuff!” * * * * * On and up she climbed, using every updraft, every bit of lift her sensitive wing membranes could find. It didn't help that there was so much marsh gas in the atmosphere. It was lighter than air, so it was difficult for her wings to get a purchase on the currents. She hadn't overestimated the difficulty one iota. Most dragons would sink like a stone all the way to literally rock bottom. But she was the Elder Dragon of Air - she didn't just instruct flight, she embodied the process. One might say she was flight personified. She would make it to the top, but so it seemed would the chaos creatures. They were peculiar things. They had obviously not negotiated the tunnels as skilfully as the real dragons: It appeared as if every time one collided with a wall, that bit of its body got a bit bashed in, and it would stay bashed in while the liquid in its body affected an equal and opposite reaction, causing a sudden bulge on the other side of its body. But it didn't stop them flying.

  Now it seemed their talents extended to half flying and half crawling up the walls of this shaft. She hadn't factored that into her plan, and so she began to redo the calculations in her head as she rose slowly but steadily, because if there was one thing she could do as well as flying, it was counting. Counting wingbeats, counting heartbeats, counting dragonlengths: she was constantly counting and although her flight upwards was considerably different from her normal rhythm, those same steady strokes were beating in her mind. That gave her a measure of time. She was a very good judge of distance and therefore she could calculate her speed relative to that of the creatures below. From that, she could work out how much time, how many strokes she would have between her exiting this shaft and the monsters doing the same. By her counting, then, she had thirteen strokes to execute the plan and get to safety.

  Thirteen.

  She seemed to recall her husband telling her that humans considered that an unlucky number, though how a numerical concept could bring luck - good or bad - she had never understood. The top of the tube was fixed in her sight and she prepared to exit in five - four - three - two - one - and suddenly she was out in the open again.

  * * * * *

  One.

  Air beat her wings to adjust her body to a forty five degree angle to the ground.

  Two.

  She moved forward, instantly attaining the required flight speed.

  Three.

  Banking right she began a wide circling pattern.

  Four.

  She continued to spiral upwards, gaining altitude for the eventual attack.

  Five.

  Loric and the Elder of Stone emerged from the dwarven catacombs.

  Six.

  Apparently they'd managed not to come to blows in her absence.

  Seven.

  They reached a safe distance. Time to execute the plan with a mid-air stall, directly above the shaft.

  Eight.

  She entered a nosedive - the chaos creatures were close to the top, but not too close. Right on schedule.

  Nine.

  She sent a lightning bolt from her jaws, aiming down the shaft.

  Ten.

  It sparked against the shaft walls, igniting the marsh gas and frying the chaos creatures inside.

  Eleven.

  A huge explosion ripped through the catacombs as trapped marsh gas ignited. Air pulled out of the nosedive and accelerated away.

  Twelve.

  The explosion launched a gigantic boulder into the sky. It was on a collision course with Air.

  Thirteen.

  She frantically tried to change her flight path, using every ounce of skill and power she possessed, but it was impossible. She couldn’t fight the laws of nature and, exactly as they decreed, the enormous lump of rock, half a dragonlength in diameter, slammed into her chest, knocking the breath from her lungs so she was unable even to cry out in pain.

  Air fought to remain conscious.

  It's OK, she told herself.You’re alright. You just have to wait for gravity to do its thing. Inevitably, it did: the boulder slowed, stopped and then began to fall back towards the ground. As it did so, it created the perfect updraft for Air's wings to catch. They flared in the wind and without beating them once, she rode the air currents, gliding gently to alight on the cliffs beside the other two dragons.

  “Air! Are you alright?” Loric asked, terribly worried for his friend.

  “Ye-Yes,” she wheezed. “I'll-” gulp. “I'll be fine. I'm just-” cough “a bit winded, that's all.” The sun had now almost set, spreading a fading reddish glow across the heavens.

  “Well, we did it!” remarked the Elder of Stone, enthusiastically. “We cooked ourselves some chaos creatures! Woohoo! Do I havethe most fantastic ideas or what?” Loric really didn't like this dragon. Air had risked life and limb, she’d almost been blasted out of the sky, and all this Elder could do was gloat about what a great idea it was. For once in his life, though, he wasn't going to rise to it. “So, have I officially passed your section of the Penta Drauka?” he asked.

  “What?” the other wondered. “Oh that!” he said dismissively. “Are you still going on about that? I told you you'd passed ages ago! You really are quite thick, aren't you?”

  Ignoring him, Loric turned a still concerned gaze towards Air. “Are you sure you're OK?”

  Air nodded, just wincing slightly. “Yes, honestly. I'm alright. A bit of a twinge here and there, and I may not be challenging Aqua to any aerobatics anytime soon, but I'll get through it.” “Thank the gods for that.” Loric replied. “Air, I don’t want to push you, if you're not ready, but I really should be going. I've only got one more section to go and I get the sense that time may be short. It's OK - you don't need to come. I can feel the pull– it’s even stronger this time. Maybe you should head back to Aqua, get yourself checked out.”

  “Nonsense!” Air insisted. “I’ve told you, I’ll be fine.”

  “Well, at least wait here and rest for a while,” Loric implored her.

  “And miss my protégé complete the Penta Drauka? Not a chance! Besides,” she added for the benefit her counterpart of Stone, “there are things around here I just don't like.”

  “Good,” he said. “Get out and take that idiot away from my swamp.”

  With that, he flew off to wallow in his favourite tar pit.

  “Lead the way, then,” Air invited her charge.

  Loric beat his wings to achieve lift, catching the air currents up the side of the mountains.

  Air decided to take it easy on her aching muscles and just step off the cliff, using the natural updraft to unfurl her wings and allow her to glide smoothly into flight.

  As he banked to get on the correct heading, Loric noticed a swirling mass of light and colour - a twisting column of unsurpassed, dazzling beauty against the black background of the night.

  “Incredible, isn't it?” Air commented. “There was another just like it near my home in the Aurora Forest the last time I was there.”

  Loric nodded. “There was one in Avidon, too. The mortals there were in a bit of panic about it, going to great pains to guard it, lock it away.”

  “It's shameful to keep such a thing of beauty secreted away,” Air ventured. “Especially now it seems it's hardly unique,” Loric agreed. “I mean, if they were anything important somebody would have figured it out by now.” He shrugged. “That's what I reckon, anyway.”

  Giving Life Eddies no further thought, then, he beat his wings and took off in t
he direction of the magical pull he experienced.

  * * * * * On and on they flew, moving out of the swamp and away from the mountains, into a lusher, greener expanse. Loric knew his companion would feel more at home here. As he looked back, however, Air suddenly seemed a tiny, fragile thing adrift in the empty sky. No longer powering herself forward with grace and precision, elegance and purpose. So focussed had Loric been on practising his own techniques, that he had failed to realise she was lagging behind. When he reached out to probe her body with the magical senses Aqua had taught him, Loric went cold. Something was wrong. Something was terribly, horribly wrong.

  “Air!” he called out in anguish, the sound cutting and tearing its way through the silence of the night. A breath after his scream came another, even more dreadful sound. It was a cracking sound that amplified and reverberated all around. It was like the sound of felling trees, only it had come from Air's body. Loric searched for the calm centre inside his mind, and projected healing energy, but it wasn't enough. Not nearly enough. Even Aqua himself would have been powerless had he been there, looking on as Loric did.

  Air's body folded. A spurt of blood arced from just beneath her neck, fanning into the sky with awful delicacy, as if, for Air, even the flight into death was to be executed with precision. Her wings spasmed and her long neck curled back at an impossible angle. Loric thought he saw her face contorted in agony, but rationally he knew she was already dead. Her dazzling scales lost their shimmer, fading to a dull grey, her hide as colourless as it was lifeless.