The Dragon's Legacy

by Martha Woods

  It was their numbers that made them a dangerous enemy to have. Their technological innovation. Their ability to inflict whatever cruelty on us they so chose, to wipe us out the moment we lifted our heads, whether to try and make peace, or to try and fight back.

  On some level, I could understand the Dark Ones' frustrations. On some level, I shared them.

  But the Dark Ones' methods, of attempting to exterminate or subjugate the entire human race, was anything but a solution. If anything, it was the precise opposite of one. It would only hasten our own demise, and intensify mankind's fervor to see us eliminated.

  Ryl and his men were deluded if they truly believed they could win against such an overpowered foe.

  But maybe that wasn't the point.

  Maybe it was just the years of frustration, the need to feel that they were actually making progress against the humans, that drove them toward their own destruction, to the destruction of our people at large.

  And was I any less to blame for that?

  What attempts had I made at brokering peace between our kind and the humans, at diffusing these tensions?

  What attempts could I make? For if I dared revealed our existence to the humans, there was no concealing it again, no stuffing the genie back into the bottle, regardless of whether they chose to accept us, or to persecute us further.

  What the hell could I do?

  I stepped up to one of the abandoned signs, its corners singed by flames. “The King Is Dead Long Live the King,” it said, Ryl's dark, nasty eyes leering out at me from their medium of blood.

  I scowled with hatred at his visage. I spit upon his poster board visage, and watched the saliva roll slowly down along the surface, gradually becoming engulfed by flame.

  And then, all at once, I heard again the sound of approaching footsteps.

  I knew somehow, instinctively, that it was not my men approaching...

  I turned on my heel, braced for a fight.

  Three darkened figures stood across the dancing flames, their eyes glowing red across the darkness, their twisted grins seeming to stand out some distance from the trio of faces.

  “Well, well, well... What have we here? Alza the Wrecker, the King of the Traitors himself!”

  “Admiring our handiwork, I see? It's good, isn't it?”

  “I for one can't wait for the day it's a real flesh and blood human up there, instead of a bunch of old bags and strings. Then again, humans don't really amount to too much more than that, do they? When you get right down to it...”

  “Even better yet, think how brilliant our dear leader here would look, hanging by his neck and lit up like a Christmas tree...”

  “Oh, yeah, I like that even better...”

  “Why don't we try it on for size, shall we?”

  And as one the men leapt at me. Their shadowy forms became massive. Their necks shot upward, tails unfurled and billowed between their open legs, and huge batlike wings jutted mightily from their backs. Their silhouetted skin blackened to scales of pure obsidian, glinting reflections of the green and amber flames rising upward all around them. All that remained constant was the penetrating vermillion of those glowing eyes, now surging toward me, the beasts' mouths opening, and preparing to spill out torrents of scorching emerald flame.

  I moved fast.

  I leapt up, twisted and contorted in midair, and underwent a similar transformation.

  My body became massive, larger by far than any of theirs. My skin was enveloped in a sheathe of gleaming gold scales. I beat my wings hard, and surged up off the ground, ready to kick these idiots' asses. Ready to give some recourse to the anger that I felt all the time toward these menaces.

  Ready to avenge the kingdom of the Protectors, as well as my beloved son, whose birthright they were so shamelessly attempting to take away from him.

  But I had news for them– they were not about to end the legacy of my great and mighty lineage.

  Not over my dead body...

  Melina

  Another late night at the office.

  More thankless hours, spent climbing up that hill, pushing the boulder up the mountainside, only for it to come sliding back down on me. Each rare victory I achieved felt hollow, only a passageway to another challenge to be faced, and another, and another after that. A win only meant more challenges for me, each victory over corruption and the persecution of the innocent was little more than a gateway to the next in line.

  And, I guess, I knew that that was what I signed up for. I believed, once upon a time, in my ability to change the world. To make it a better place. I was David, fighting against Goliath. I would win, because I had rightness on my side.

  So many people had told me, Melina, you know things don't really work that way, don't you? The best you can hope for is to make a dent in the system. You can ease the flow, but you can't stop it altogether. The more you overestimate how much you can accomplish, the more disappointed in yourself you'll feel when you don't measure up to your own expectations.

  Sometimes you just have to take your victories where you can get them. A small win can be better than no win at all. And on the days when it seems like you're not making a difference, just imagine what things would be like if you weren't there to stand up for what was right?

  I'd said I knew, I knew all of these things were true. Yet deep down I'd long clung to that sense of optimism, the laughable possibility that a lawyer, no matter what side they were on, could still somehow produce more good in the world than harm. And that, for that matter, that was exactly what I was doing.

  But I just didn't know anymore. It was hard to say, really, whether even I believed the stories I told myself...

  I was sinking... Sinking... Sinking...

  And then I jerked awake, gasping, veering my car across the road. I'd been clear over in the opposite lane, and if there had happened to be another vehicle there when I was, that would be it. End of the story.

  “Fuck,” I cursed, a rarity for me, once upon a time, but, honestly, a little bit less of one these days than I liked to admit.

  I should have gone home earlier. I'd been awake for at least twenty-four hours now, trying to cram in as much work for this case as I could possibly manage while I still had the chance to. I was fighting against a huge chemical corporation with an arsenal of lawyers at their beck and call, who stood accused of polluting my client's water supply, giving him cancer and causing serious birth defects in his poor little girl. I'd been infuriated the day the details of the case first found their way onto my desk, determined to fight for this man and get him the justice he deserved.

  The chemical company, however, had been relentless. They were setting up as many hurdles as they could possibly dream up to prevent my client from receiving what was owed him, and no matter how far I bent to try and limbo around their obstacles, they just kept finding new ways to screw him and his little girl over. Naturally, I kept getting angrier and angrier, and consequently I became more and more determined to do right by the two of them. But by now I was beginning to burn out, barely able to even think some days, and as important as all of this was, it became easy to lose sight of what I was fighting for, amongst the veritable mountains' worth of paperwork being shoved in my face every day.

  At first, the corporation had denied that they were responsible at all for the man's unwellness and that of his daughter. Then, after pummeling them as hard as I could in the matter, they'd given way some. They were offering my client money, though a substantially smaller amount than what he was asking for, and on the condition that he sign a nondisclosure agreement once they payment had been received– in other words, he was being paid to keep his mouth shut.

  Now, although the amount being offered was substantially less than what was being sought for him, it was still easily enough to turn someone's head, and make them think twice about how they should proceed.

  But not my client.

  No, my client viewed this offer as an insult at best, and something tantamount to a threat
at worst.

  “That's bullshit! They're paying me to say they did nothing wrong? If they didn't do anything wrong, what the hell are they paying me for!”

  More than anything, he didn't want to let them get away with doing to anyone else what they'd done to him and his daughter. He refused to be silenced, to be insulted, to allow a human life to be devalued in the way that they had tried to do to him and his precious little girl.

  I'd been inspired by his fighting spirit. His unwillingness to quit. I'd decided, right then and there, that I would take this as far as he wanted it to go. As long as he was willing to fight, I was willing to fight for him.

  And yet I couldn't help but worry, even as I presented my case against the company with as much confidence and swagger as I could fake, whether this all or nothing attitude on my client's part, could leave him with the latter instead of the former...

  In any case, these fears made me determined to do everything I could to see this thing through to the end, and by now I was positively exhausted from the ordeal.

  Hell, I probably would have still been at the office had it not been for one of my paralegals, seeming antsy to get out of there for the night, and encouraging me to do the same, on the pretense that I appeared exhausted, and he was worried for my health.

  Really, I think he had a date or something, but I couldn't really argue with him past a certain point. I agreed we should both hang up our hats for the night, and reconvene tomorrow. Secretly, though, I had every intention of bringing my work home with me, finishing up the bit of work I'd been chipping away at through the day, or at the very least, continuing with it until I passed out altogether from physical exhaustion.

  Now if only I could manage to make it back to my apartment before that happened...

  I shook my head, trying to clear away the grogginess, then tried to think of away to avoid nodding off and killing myself if at all possible. I reached for my cupholder and grabbed the cup of coffee I'd had and forgot there that morning, so that by now it was pretty cold and rancid. I downed the rest of it anyway, forgetting that by now the caffeine was ceasing to have much in the way of a replenishing effect on me, and was instead just making me tense and jittery.

  Beggars, couldn't be choosers, though, and I tossed the empty cup under the passenger's seat, then grabbed my handheld tape recorder from the glove box, hoping that the act of making notes to myself might hold my attention.

  “Melina Mitchell, prosecuting attorney, in the case of Gregory Lewis versus Apex Chemical Corporation. On May ninth, a motion was filed with the court, to... To...”

  My train of thought was interrupted by a long, exaggerated yawn, which I was quite glad no one could see, because I felt like a snake unhingeing its jaw to swallow something larger than itself at that moment.

  “Sorry,” I apologized to my future self. “On May ninth, a motion was filed with the court to extend the due date of– What– What the hell is that?”

  I shut off the recorder.

  Fireworks? Wasn't it a little bit early for that?

  And wait, why were they coming from the woods, beside the road next to where I was driving?

  “That can't be right...” I said, sure, by now, that I was hallucinating. Or maybe dead.

  Bright, blinding flashes. Some of them golden. Some of them green. All so intense as to be almost white hot, forcing me to squint as I studied them, against the starry blackness of the night sky.

  “Am I having a seizure?” I muttered to myself.

  And then another, unexplainable symptom. The ground beneath my vehicle seemed to shake, to vibrate, as a low, swelling sound burst from somewhere up in the sky, like a thunderclap, or, more accurately, like some sort of roar, but from an animal that was unlike any I had ever heard before.

  And that, at last when I saw it.

  The huge black figure, rising up over the trees, beating its huge wings with such fervor that the treetops blew from the gale. Only wait– it wasn't black, but cast in shadow, and I saw now, glinting in the moonlight, that its body was covered in gleaming gold scales.

  I felt a jolt of horror, and yet I found myself overwhelmed by the sight of it. Something stirred inside me, a heartstring was pulled, and I was breathless.

  The beast, whose movements had been fierce and frenzied in the moments before now, suddenly seemed to pause, hovering in midair. Not long, maybe a fraction of a second. It turned, and I swear to God it was peering down at me, looking at me with wide, golden eyes, seeming to stare into my very soul.

  I gaped, mouth hanging open, thoughts frozen for a moment. And then I closed my eyes. Shook my head.

  “No. No, no, no, no, no. You're losing your shit Melina. You shouldn't be driving. You need to pull off the road, then call someone to come and get you. You're going to end up hurting someone...”

  I sat idling there, gripping the steering wheel. I closed my eyes. Held my breath. Expected to open my eyes again and see the monster vanished, disappeared from view.

  But then I opened my eyes. I looked again. And it was still there.

  And then, out of nowhere–

  WHAM!

  I screamed.

  Three more dragons had exploded out of the treetops, their huge bodies as inky black as I had taken the first one's to be, their eyes, even at a distance, clearly glowing a deep, penetrating red, like being looked at by a pair of laser pointers, in a way that can't be described as anything but sinister.

  The black dragons surged, throwing their bodies at the gold one, twisting, writhing through the air, like a cluster of snakes wriggling through one another.

  I sat there, frozen, feeling helpless, rooting for the gold dragon, outnumbered as he was, yet still not entirely able to convince myself that I was really seeing what I thought I was seeing.

  Shortly, however, that fact was all but confirmed for me.

  There was a huge burst of light, so bright this time that I had to squint from the intensity, and look away. When I opened my eyes again all I could see were stars, popping and flashing through my field of vision, and with terror I couldn't help but wonder whether I might have just been blinded.

  A moment later, however my vision returned. And the next thing I saw was one of the hue bodies, plummeting from the sky, falling down, down, down, hurdling straight toward me.

  I screamed, jammed my foot onto the accelerator, and screeched out of the way just in time. The dragon's massive body pounded into the ground, cracking up the asphalt around me, its huge, spiked tail slamming into the trunk of my car, embedding itself deep into its surface.

  I sat there, horrified, staring wide-eyed at the creature laying unconscious or dead on the ground in front of me, unable to comprehend what I was seeing.

  I want to wake up now! I want to wake up now! I want to wake up now!

  I jammed my foot on the accelerator. I needed to get the hell out of here.

  But the car wouldn't move. Not at first.

  The dragon's spiked tail was like a hook, locking me in place, its weight so intense that I could hardly extricate myself from under it.

  I started to panic.

  I hit the gas even harder, praying for a release.

  My speedometer went insane, going from forty, to fifty, to sixty, to eighty, and beyond...

  I heard the tearing of metal. My heart raced, and in my rear-view mirror I saw the monster's jagged tail, cutting through the trunk, tearing slowly, slowly free, almost, almost, and–

  KRASH!

  I screamed, wide-eyed, terrified.

  A second black dragon had fallen to the road, this one landing on its hind two feet, tearing up the pavement as its massive claws sunk into its surface. Its eyes beamed at me, its mouth opened, and it let out a horrifying roar, tears streaming from my eyes as I prepared myself for the end.

  And then, almost forgetting that I had my foot on the gas, the car suddenly jerked free from beneath the weight of the first dragon, and shot forward like a bullet, speeding across the pavement, tires screeching a
s I plummeted toward the very thing I feared most in the world.

  The dragon was absolutely gigantic, but I'd had my foot down so hard on the gas pedal that my car smashed straight through him, hitting what part of him I didn't even know for sure. He let out an unmistakably pissed off roar as I knocked him to the side and went racing past him, grateful to have made that impossible escape, but certain there was no way in hell I was going to survive the next several moments intact.

  I was losing control of my vehicle, trying to brake but prevented from doing so by my untenable speeds, and certain at any moment that I might upend the vehicle altogether, and be killed instantly when I did.

  I slammed into a guard rail, bounced back, and had settled down for only a moment, when my would be attacker came soaring toward me, eager to exact revenge for my accidental attack on it.

  I screamed.

  The lizard's jagged black tail arced across the night, momentarily eclipsing the moonlight shining down on me.

  I ducked, heart racing, and missed the beast's spiked tail by a matter of inches– and not even that, really, as one of the spikes dug into the nape of my neck, drawing blood as it dug across my flesh.

  I sat with my head between my knees, unable to breathe, certain I would die from a heart attack if this monster didn't finish the job itself. It let out a horrifying roar, and the next thing I knew gravity was vanishing. I was going up and up and up. I stared wide-eyed past my tears, trying to make any sense of this, until with horror I understood.

  It was lifting the car up with its tail, I was being elevated higher and higher and higher...

  Foolishly I peeked up, leering out through the opposite window, a feat made easier by the fact that the car was now angled on its side, the passenger's seat tilted toward the ground below.

  The ground far, far, far below...

  I felt a heat in my throat. I desperately fought the urge to throw up.

  It was like the view from the top of the Ferris Wheel at the state fair, but without the crucial assurance of an easy landing.