Choice

by Gary Stringer

  -not that `he`,” she indicated the red dragon, “ever understood that. In fact I wasn't sure anybody ever would, but you did it and that’s, like, completely brilliant! Wow, I-”

  “Hang on,” Loric interrupted her. She talked as much as Eilidh's friend Toli but at least twice as fast. “I get who you are, obviously - the fifth Elder Dragon of the Penta Drauka - but what the hell's going on? Freeze time? I don't understand.”

  “Yes, of course! Absolutely! Sorry. Like, naturally, you need a bit of explanation. But it's just so-”

  -”Brilliant, yes, so you've said.”

  “Yes, sorry, you’re in a rush, I so get that. Well, I'm the Elder Dragon of Time. Chronis to my friends.”

  “I’m Loric,” the obsidian offered.

  “Loric?”

  “Yes.”

  “TheLoric?”

  “Well—”

  “As in, like, the `Black Dragon of Avidon` Loric?”

  “Well yes, but—” “Oh wow that’s brilliant! It’s, like, so great to meet you! Oh my gods I can’t believe I’m actually talking to you! The famous Black Dragon of Avidon: a beacon of light and hope and justice in a dark place, looking out for mortal children in danger and distress. Wow! I’m, like, such a huge fan!”

  “Is that why to brought me here, because you’re my fan?”

  “Oh no! I didn’t bring you here, you did that all by yourself, which is just, like, so cool and totally brilliant!”

  “Weren’t you promising me an explanation a minute ago?” Loric prompted. Chronis tried hard to calm down and put on her serious face. “Yes, of course, sorry. Focus on the job, you’re so right. OK, now then, you know how people say, like, `what is Time to a dragon`? Meaning that Time is, like, irrelevant to us? Well, it's...it's...well frankly it's bollocks! Oh, I suppose I really ought to describe it as, like, `a gross misconception` or something, but to be honest, I prefer bollocks. You don't have a problem with bollocks, do you? Oh dear, that's open to misinterpretation! Oops. Well, never mind. What was I saying? Oh yes, Time. Time can mean a very great deal to a dragon who, like, knows how to use it properly. White dragons have a knack for it. Freezing environments that seem to, like, hold back the spring, freezing breath weapons, freezing Time: it's all related. Now what you've done is, like, literally pull yourself out of the flow of Time. All by yourself and without any help from me, which is just, like, so cool, so amazingly bril-” Loric's baleful stare made her catch herself. “Sorry. Yes, well...Here, you might think that the old adage stands. Surely here, Time means nothing to a dragon, but that's, like, even more bollocks than before. Great big humungous...no, hold on, I'd better not go down that track had I?” She giggled. “The point is, you see, there is still a cost to coming here, like, a cost of energy. Time can't affect you here, but when you return to the real world, you will have, like, built up a negative energy store.”

  “A what?” “It's like negative equity, a debt, a form of credit, if you will. You might say that while you are here, you are, like, living literally on borrowed Time. You’ve borrowed as much Time as you need, to do what you have to do, but-”

  “-but when I return,” Loric concluded, understanding, “I have to pay back what I owe?”

  Chronis nodded. “Plus interest,” she said. “You will find you have lost more energy than you would have expended in the real world during that Time, or should I say Potential Time.”

  “Potential Time, what's that?”

  “I know, it's, like, all very technical isn't it? But then so is flying and Air does that almost without thinking about it. I like her new body, by the way. She’s quite the stunner, isn’t she?” Loric glowered and Chronis took the hint. “If I’m honest, I could simply pass you now and let you get on with it, but I never get to have a technical discussion of my magic with anyone, so could you just, like, indulge me? Please?”

  “I respect you as an Elder Dragon,” Loric replied, carefully, “as I did all the others...well, three out of four,” he revised. He felt it was important to be totally honest. “But I can't afford to waste time right now.” “Potential Time,” Chronis corrected. “But you're right – I do tend to get a bit carried away. OK, simply put, that red dragon you're fighting - to your eyes, he, like, moved in an a blur from here to there. He did that by taking himself out of Time, bringing himself here. When he went back, he lost more energy than he would have used if he’d just, like, flown there at his maximum flight speed. You're going to have to do the same. There's, like, nothing I can do to help you on that– the laws of nature will only stretch so far for magic. You'll also learn with patience and practice, that there are other tricks you can do with Time - that's how he was shutting me out of your Time track.”

  “Ah, so that's why I couldn't see you,” Loric understood. “That's it exactly! B rilliant! But as I say, I don't want to, like, waste your valuable Potential Time and even by staying in one place, you use up Potential Time, which translates to more energy than it would take to hover in position in the real world.”

  “So how can I use this skill to my advantage, Chronis? How do I stop him killing my friends? Or are you going to tell me you can’t interfere?” “Not at all,” Chronis assured him. “You’re a fully -fledged Penta Drauka dragon now– noninterference doesn’t apply anymore. To answer your question, you have the luxury of, like, positioning yourself anywhere you wish - anywhere in the world, in principle, although I wouldn't recommend it for travelling to the other side of Majaos - the Potential Time would probably be enough of an energy drain to put you to sleep for centuries, or even kill you! I can't help you with tactics though, I'm afraid - not my department. Oh - and just so the record is clear congratulations, you’ve, like, passed the fifth and final segment of the Penta Drauka. You may not be the first, but for what it's worth, I think you're the best. Brilliant, in fact!” She finished with a dazzling grin.

  Brilliant. What Loric needed about now was a brilliant plan and after thinking about it for some time

  - Potential Time, he supposed - he hit on an idea. He had to stop fighting the enemy the way his enemy wanted to fight. It was time to change the rules.

  * * * * * Loric brought himself back to reality, quite literally with a bump. He landed directly on the back of his enemy as if he had stalled and dropped from a great height. The impact caught the red completely off guard and forced both dragons to the ground. Both shape-shifted to their respective human forms and Loric pressed the attack with his Soul Crusher blade. The `Knight` desperately parried each and every blow, but Loric wasn’t going for a quick and easy kill. With every stroke, left and right, his enemy's guard was moving further and further away from where it ought to be protecting. He made for a formidable enough human warrior, but he was beatable with patience as Hannah had proved before he `cheated`. His enemy still wouldn’t use mortal magic because firmly entrenched in his mind was the belief that it would be like admitting he was an inferior dragon to Loric. Finally, the moment came and Loric committed himself to the act. No ordinary blade would have penetrated that armour, but Soul Crusher was no ordinary sword. It was magically forged with dragon scales from all fifteen species of dragon on Majaos and spelled with Spirit magic through a combination of necromancers and techmages from before the Tech Wars. The elf Lady Li’thana had bound it to him so he could never be parted from it. He had never been more grateful for that fact, because there was nothing it couldn’t cut through and so it bit deep into his enemy's flesh.

  Unfortunately for Loric, the first Penta Drauka dragon had activated his Stone Shield at just the right time to deflect the blow so it missed his vital organs. The weapon was still stuck inside his body - the keyword being `stuck`, because try as he might, Loric was unable to pull it free.

  Suddenly the tables were turned and it was Loric who, now weaponless, was ferociously forced back and back. He risked a glance behind him when his back began to feel strangely warm. Fire. His enemy was driving him into the wall of fire that had Rochelle and Hannah caged. Fire fuelled by
magic. None of Loric’s new abilities would save him from its power, and there wasn't even enough space, now, in which to shift to dragon form. The wound he had inflicted upon his enemy was severe and it was taking an enormous effort of his four elemental Penta Drauka skills to hold himself together and still fight. If only Loric could get in one more strike, it would be enough to tip the balance. If only Loric had a weapon - but he had none. If only his sword were lying on the ground out of reach, it had the power to fly back to his outstretched hand, keyed as it was to the spirit of the warrior to whom it had been given. If only it was anywhere else but where it was: wedged inside his enemy's body. If only. However, as Eilidh would say, reality was reality and no amount of `if onlys` would change it.

  Loric heard a sound behind him - the sound of metal sliding against metal. The song of death. But this was no ordinary instrument and no ordinary singer. The song was sung by the sweet, pure voice of a mithril sword sliding smoothly from the scabbard of a Knight Warrior of Paladinia, a young woman named Lady Hannah Collins. There was no battle cry - though Loric was certain she would have saluted as a true Knight was trained to do. A brilliant flash of gold dazzled the eyes of the two combatants, as she charged through the wall of flames, ignoring the searing, bubbling, burning flesh, ignoring the burst of agony, ignoring any thought of personal risk - these things were irrelevant. All that mattered was saving Loric - her friend who had fought nobly and honourably against this savage foe who was without honour or courage.

  The Knight was unerring in her accuracy with her mithril blade, piercing the red dragon's black heart and killing him in an instant. His powers were unable to protect him, but they did have one last nasty surprise in store. It was an aspect of the Fire Rage to which no-one in the world had ever borne witness. It only occurred at the violent death of either the Elder Dragon of Fire, or a Penta Drauka dragon, and neither had yet died. Until now. As his body reverted to its red dragon form and turned to ashes, a jolt of magical energy ejected from the body at the moment of death, conducted through Hannah's sword and her metal gauntlets, spreading through her golden plate armour.

  Paladinian plate contained traces of gold to provide some protection against magic. A lightning bolt, for instance, might be spread through the armour, giving the Knight a minor overall shock rather than a fatal localised electrocution. It was never designed for magic like this, but it still had a small effect, exchanging what would have been instant death for a slower unravelling of nerve endings as she lay in a crumpled heap, fighting with heroic effort for every breath. The wall of fire had roasted her body on the outside and the Fire Rage magic was slowly doing much the same inside.

  Eilidh, Toli and Phaer ran to her side. Rochelle, too, was able to rejoin them as the fire wall dissipated the instant Hannah killed its creator, but since Knights had no magic of their own, her druid magic had nothing to work with. Callie was breaking all known flight speed records to reach them. She landed and changed to her elven form in a breakneck run, all in one fluid movement. The Revered Daughter prayed for healing, but her god was silent. Loric tried his Water of Healing, but it just wasn't enough. Phaer would have dived into the river and swam to Death's Door if it would have helped, but without some way of healing the Knight, she couldn't return through the First Door into life. This time there would be no last minute save, no heroic act to save the hero. For Hannah, this was the climax of her story, The Final Chapter. The End.

  "Why!" Loric demanded, distraught. "Why?" he repeated. "Just throw me the sword, that's all I needed!"

  "Wouldn't have worked," Eilidh said quietly as Calandra lay a gentle, restraining hand on Loric's arm.

  Rochelle confirmed it, nodding sadly. "That barrier wasn't just fire, it was magic. Only Paladinian armour could get through thanks to the gold content."

  "Knights art trained in such things," Hannah managed to whisper.

  Hannah was blind from her horrific injuries. Eilidh couldn't help but think that was a blessing.

  It was an honourable death and Hannah was at peace with the world and with herself...well, almost. There was just one last thing to do...

  “Eilidh,” she croaked. Eilidh moved closer so Hannah wouldn't have to strain what little remained of her voice.

  “I'm here,” whispered the Catalyst.

  “Bernice,” Hannah said softly. “I must needs talk to her ere I leave. Alone.”

  “I'm sorry,” the Catalyst replied. “Bunny's not here.”

  “Yes I am!” came the sumorityl's voice with an edge of steel Eilidh had never heard before.

  “Where the hell have you been?” Phaer demanded of her.

  “That doesn't matter right now,” Eilidh insisted, laying a placating hand on his arm. “Bunny, Hannah is dying and for some reason she wants to talk to you.”

  Bunny nodded. “Yes, I rather thought she might. Go on then, you lot. Shoo! Don't you have any respect for a dying woman's last request?” she demanded, indignantly.

  Choosing to ignore her tone, the others moved away.

  “Here I am,” Bunny said, gently, as she knelt next to her dying friend. “You wanted a word?”

  “Indeed and methinks thou knowest the subject.”

  “Well, I know your terrible secret, if that's what you mean,” Bunny replied. “I found out back at Shakaran Castle, the last time you got yourself beaten up.”

  “When thou didst taste my blood,” Hannah added.

  “Yes, potent stuff, blood. You can tell a lot about a person from their blood.”

  For vampires, or those like Bunny who were just related to vampires, it was all a matter of taste.

  “When I tasted your blood, Hannah, I expected to be drawn to it like a moth to a flame.”

  She’d even had Tanya and Quentin on standby for the moment when the lure of the taste was simply too much to resist and she tried to drink her dry.

  “It's that pure blood you Knights are always going on about what's the rule again?”

  “A Knight shalt be pure blood human to the third generation.”

  “Yes,” Bunny agreed. “Three generations. That'll do it. That'll set me off every time... So why didn't yours, eh? It took me a little while to work it out, I must admit.”

  For a moment, she had been all for giving herself full credit. She’d felt as though she'd passed the test with flying colours, but she didn't pass because the test was not valid.

  “You, my dear Hannah, are not pure blood human. Almost, but not quite. There's a trace of orcish in your ancestry, isn't there?”

  “My great great grandmother, all on the female side, was an orc,” Hannah confessed. “Hmmm,” Bunny pondered, doing the maths. That made her great grandmother half -orc, her grandmother one quarter, and her mother one eighth. Therefore, Hannah was one sixteenth. “Just over six percent orcish. Nowhere near enough to show, but enough to disqualify you from the Knighthood, am I right?”

  “One must needs be ninety-five percent human to be pure blood.” “So you miss out by one per cent on some arbitrary, discriminatory rule, for something you can do nothing about and affects you in no way whatsoever. And don't tell me - you were so desperate to be a Knight that you could see no harm in one tiny little bend of the rules.”

  Since Hannah's paternal grandfather was a retired Knight Commander, her application was accepted without a moment's further thought. When she first joined the Knighthood, she lived in constant fear of discovery, and so she had kept her nose extra-clean. She stayed up until late, studying and memorising every facet of the Code of Paladinius so she could ensure that she would never step so much as a toenail over the line. Everything she did was by the book, her every action in full accordance with the letter of the law. Over time, that ceased to be a conscious effort and became simply part of her nature.

  There was no reason for anyone to find out, until the day a sumorityl, created in a wizard's lab from a vampire, tasted her blood to save her life.

  “Thou art the only one who knowest,” Hannah managed to say, her v
oice fading fast as her breathing grew increasingly laboured.

  “And you want me to keep quiet so you can be remembered with honour?” Bunny asked.

  The Knight nodded, but Bunny could tell she was uncertain. “Hannah,” she said in a voice filled with genuine warmth and compassion, all playacting dropped. “If that’s what you want, I swear I will never tell another living soul. But maybe people should know. As terrible secrets go...yours isn't so terrible. You are a Knight, Hannah.” There were tears in Bernice's eyes genuine tears, for how could they be otherwise when her `audience` couldn't see them? “You're the best Knight in the whole damn world. You're a Knight in everything you’ve ever done, leading all the way to today. You're a Knight and you're a hero and I have been privileged to know you. But maybe you should let me share that privilege.”

  Hannah had been thinking about this for a while, particularly on her mission to the Iciconia Mountains with Quentin and especially Tanya who had made such an impression on her. In Lady Tanya Nightingale, Hannah had seen the embodiment of her late mentor’s final lesson that following rules blindly could do more harm than good. Maybe her Knighthood needed to learn that lesson so that it could change and be a better force for the Light. She loved the Knights of Paladinia, but even in her current state she wasn’t blind to its faults.

  “Do you want your legacy to be a legend based on a secret, a lie…or a beacon of light and hope for change?” Bunny asked.

  Hannah whispered her final decision. “Tell them, Bernice.”

  “I will,” she promised, “and I swear I’ll make them listen.”

  Hannah knew she would, for Bunny was not one to be dismissed or ignored no matter who it was she was talking to. “Mind you, it seems only fair that I should get something in return for telling your story,” added the sumorityl as an afterthought. “When you get to your Paradise, maybe you could put in a good word for me with that god of yours, Patrelaux. Maybe you could ask if he might perhaps overlook the whole `artificially created and not part of his grand plan` thing I've got going on, when the moment of my death comes. I’m happy to switch my alignment to the Light. After all, I’m only Dark because there wasn’t much choice in Avidon. And if your god objects, you can teach him all about the art of bending the rules slightly for a good cause. Think of it as my fee.”