Long, Dark Road

by Bianculli, Susan

  “How shall I give it to you?” she asked.

  “Just toss it high up in the air.”

  Auraus looked perplexed but did as Frelanfur had instructed. The dragon raised his head quickly and followed its trajectory, then snapped his teeth around the vial at the top of its arc. We heard a loud gulping sound as he swallowed it whole. I widened my eyes, and was pretty sure from the sounds I heard behind me that I wasn’t the only one surprised.

  The dragon looked down at me with a satisfied look on his face. “Now, then, little Human. Let us begin the Inter-change. I am Frelanfur, dragon and a user of natural magics, and I agree to the opening formalities of the Interchange.”

  He paused, as if waiting for me to say something, but I was still kind of in shock about the vial disappearing down his gullet.

  “You eat magic?” I blew out a breath in surprise.

  The dragon frowned as he eyed me. “Yes. Does this bother you, little Human?”

  “Errr, no, I guess?” I replied. “But I mean, why would you eat it when you could use it?”

  “Because magic tastes delicious,” he distantly boomed in reply.

  Somehow, though, I got the feeling that that wasn’t the only reason. But I didn’t follow up on it since I wasn’t here to interrogate a dragon on his eating habits.

  “So, about my question ….” I began, but he cut me off.

  “First you must introduce yourself, and then it is my turn to ask something, little Human.”

  I opened my mouth to tell him my name, but then realized the dragon was counting the question I’d had about his eating magic as part of the Interchange.

  “Wait, no! You eating magic isn’t part of what I need to know!” I protested.

  He shrugged a large, sinuous shrug, rolling slightly onto his side to make himself more comfortable and incidentally crushing more of the scrub vegetation growing in the area. It was pretty awesome to watch the muscles ripple under the hide. It was also kind of intimidating to see how easy it was for him to flatten things in his way. I shut up.

  “You need to be careful of what questions you ask, then, little Human,” Frelanfur said lazily. “But we need to begin at the beginning. Your name?”

  “Lise, human and Champion of Caelestis, and I agree to the opening formalities of this Inter-change,” I said, parroting back what Frelanfur had said before.

  The dragon smiled wider. “Excellent,” he almost purred.

  I narrowed my eyes and wondered if I had done something wrong, because Frelanfur seemed entirely too pleased about what I’d said, somehow.

  “I will now make sure that there will be no further interruptions until the Inter-change is done,” Frelanfur announced.

  “Huh?” I asked as he scratched a rune in the ground.

  He said ‘scaageir,’ the rune flashed and disappeared, and all sounds of movement behind me ceased. I turned in a panic to see Ragar, Auraus, and Jason each frozen stiff like a statue, though at least they hadn’t been turned to stone.

  “WHAT?! What did you do that for!?” I practically screamed at Frelanfur, turning back around to glare at him.

  The dragon said calmly, “I did not wish any further interruptions. Have no concerns, Lise, Champion of Caelestis. They are fine, they can hear you and me, and they will be released as soon as the Inter-change is done. Now, draw a weapon and defend yourself.”

  “Huh?” I burst out. “Wait a minute, wait a minute! First off, I have no sword; and secondly, I didn’t come here to fight. I came here to negotiate!”

  Frelanfur frowned. “You just agreed to the opening formalities. The opening formalities are unchanged—you need to prove your worthiness of the Inter-change before I will speak to you.”

  Desperately, I said, “Does it have to be fight? A fight is just a contest of skills. What about a different kind of contest instead? Checkers? Chess? A guessing game?”

  The dragon’s eyes glowed a little as his lip curled disdainfully, and a rune flashed an appearance for a second on his side. My sword and sheath materialized on the ground at my feet.

  “Your weapon. Now, will you be a coward and back out, or will you take up the challenge of worthiness?”

  Chapter 6

  In a daze I picked up the winged bell-guarded saber that had been one of the first gifts I’d received from my goddess Caelestis and unsheathed it with shaking hands. My head replayed all the fights with dragons I’d seen in fantasy movies and video games back home, but I had nothing real to draw on. I was only a fifteen year old fencing student from New York City—was I really about to face a huge dragon all on my own?

  “This is hardly fair!” I said, falling into an en-garde stance. “You are so much bigger than me! Plus you have natural armor and I have none!”

  Frelanfur smiled and said condescendingly, “Then if you succeed against these odds, you would definitely be considered worthy, correct?”

  The dragon lashed out at me with one taloned foot. I ducked under it while slashing upwards to score a slash across the bottom pad, dark red blood appearing in the slice behind my weapon. Frelanfur roared in what sounded like surprise, and I rushed towards his chest; my sword leading the way. He rolled to his four feet, though not before I was able to stab him in the side, but his scales turned aside my blow. I started to duck under his belly, like I had done with the huge Trappist spider that had attacked Jason, Arghen, and me some weeks back, but the dragon kicked out sideways with his back foot and caught me in the ribs. I went sailing back across the plateau about twenty feet and fortunately landed away from the cliff edge. I hit the ground heavily but wasn’t stunned, so I was able to scramble to my feet and dodge out of the way of Frelanfur charging in with another forepaw swipe.

  Taking a chance that a couple of the CGI stunts I’d seen were possible, I rushed Frelanfur again—this time with the goal of climbing up onto him. I hoped he wasn’t flexible enough to be able swipe at me with his feet and claws if I was on his spine. I dodged snapping teeth that just missed decapitating me and scrambled up onto his back using his leg and wing joint where they joined his side as stepping stones. However, I did not take into account what those particular appendages might do once I was on him. His wings slapped hard together, engulfing me with both leather and the loudest “clap” I had ever heard. It felt like my ears had been boxed by a giant as I blacked out.

  I came to consciousness slowly. Before I opened my eyes, I determined I was lying down on something smooth and hard.

  Great. I’m in the Place of Soul’s Election again, aren’t I? I thought as I lifted my eyelids expecting to see that white, featureless plain between Life and Death.

  To my surprise, I found I was lying stretched out on Frelanfur’s wing on the ground with the dragon looking down at me. A small—for him—smile played around his mouth. I froze, uncertain, but he just nodded at me encouragingly and didn’t do anything else. I sat up cautiously and discovered that nothing hurt anywhere on me and that I could still hear the sound of Frelanfur’s bellows-like breathing. That last was a pleasant surprise. If someone else’s ears had been boxed like mine, permanent deafness could have been the result. The dragon must have healed me while I was out of it.

  “Soooo, what happens now?” I asked him nervously. “I lost. Does that mean the Inter-change is over?”

  Frelanfur chuckled. “No, Champion Lise. You have proven yourself worthy. You managed to wound me in the very first passage at arms, something I had not expected. You scored first blood. Now come and stand before me so we may properly interact.”

  I got up off his wing unsteadily, and he rolled over to crouch on all four feet with his face nearly on the level with mine. I looked around anxiously to make sure that Ragar, Jason, and Auraus had not been hurt in the battle. To my relief I saw that they were unhurt but still frozen where they had been standing before. As my mind and body settled down, the words “first blood” began to ring in my head.

  I looked at Frelanfur. “First blood means the battle stops at that point. Bu
t you went on.”

  The dragon dropped his eyes. “I, ah, may have lost my temper a bit when you sliced my palm that quickly,” he admitted in a guilty tone. “I am sorry.” Raising his eyes back to mine, he added in a much brisker tone, “Now then, explain your accident which allowed you to activate the mist gate.”

  “Wait,” I said. “‘Sorry’ doesn’t cut it. You broke the ‘first blood’ rule.”

  Frelanfur narrowed his eyes. “Fine. What will ‘cut it’ as you say?”

  I paused for a moment to think. Coming up blank, I hedged, “I’ll tell you when I think of it.”

  “I will not honor the breaking outside the space of this negotiation,” Frelanfur warned.

  I nodded. “Moving on. What about my friends? Why did you do that?”

  “They are not part of this Inter-change. Only you are. My answer?” the dragon replied a little testily.

  I scrunched up my face and was silent a moment out of annoyance but I realized that that was pretty childish. Frelanfur had all the power here, even with him owing me for first blood, so the sooner we moved on from the Interchange to the bargaining, the sooner my friends would be freed. I told the dragon about how I had been running in fear of my safety in the human world, and how my feelings and need seemed to trigger the mist gate to open and let me cross without my knowing about it. He nodded sagely, sunlight accenting the rainbow sheen of his head, and then he looked expectantly at me. Belatedly I realized it was my turn to go.

  “We need to find the closest, fastest way to get to Chirasniv, and then we need a way to get into Chirasniv without being caught,” I said. “Can you help us?”

  Frelanfur looked amused. “That was technically two questions, Champion Lise, but I will answer both. You ask much; but the answer to each is yes, I can help.”

  I blinked in astonishment for a moment, and a silly smile plastered itself across my face. I was elated—the dragon could help us!

  The dragon said, “Now, you shall tell me,” but I daringly cut him off.

  “Hey! You didn’t answer my question!” I accused.

  He blinked and looked offended. “I did. In fact, I answered two questions, and told you I could help you. That is a direct answer. And I have not even asked any of my questions yet.”

  “But your answer doesn’t tell me anything!”

  “That is because we are still in the Inter-change and have not moved to the negotiations yet.”

  Then I blinked, remembering the second half of his statement. “You did ask a question!”

  The dragon went back to looking amused. “No, I did not. I merely said to tell me about your accident. That you chose to view it as a question is not my mistake.”

  I ground my teeth at his lawyer-like logic. “Fine. Go on.”

  Frelanfur said, “Tell me what has happened to you since you crossed the mist gate.”

  “Is that a formal question?” I asked sourly.

  Frelanfur bared his teeth in a white, toothy grin and said, “Yes. This one is.”

  I gave him the condensed version from my first meeting Caelestis all the way through to getting Heather’s body back. He nodded from time to time during my story, and at the end he said, “You have not been idle since coming to our world, Champion Lise, make no mistake!”

  “And I need to get back to being busy and rescuing Arghen from Chirasniv. So, how can you help us?” I retorted.

  “If you want to move on from the Inter-change ….”

  “Yes!” I nearly shouted, less elated and more annoyed now.

  Frelanfur shrugged. “Very well. We have now entered the Bargaining. I will come to the back portion of the keep, where I will pick up my price and a group of no more than six beings with no mounts, plus enough supplies for each being for at least five days, and take them to a place that will end up fulfilling what you have asked for: a way into the Sub-realms that will also end up giving you entry into Chirasniv. And I can do this immediately.”

  I blinked, flipping from annoyed to happily astonished. That was exactly what I’d wanted to hear. “You can?”

  The dragon nodded.

  “How?”

  Frelanfur held up one forefoot in admonishment. “Ah, ah, ah. The Interchange is over, Lise. You agreed to that, remember? You do not get to ask questions you should have already asked.”

  “But–but–but I didn’t know I had to ask questions like that!” I pleaded.

  The dragon shrugged. “I have spoken. I can help you and have told you how I can help you, and I assured you that with my help you will achieve what you have bargained for. Now your only choice is to take it or leave it.”

  “Can’t I amend this bargain somehow?” I asked with desperation in my voice.

  “And if I were to allow this, which I will not, just how would you amend our bargain?” he asked, curiosity in his tone.

  “I’d–I’d ….” my words trailed off as I floundered.

  Truth was, I didn’t know how to make things more favorable for us. The amount of beings he was willing to transport was the amount of people who I wanted to take with me anyway. And a few days’ travel time was reasonable, given that Chirasniv was a couple of days away underground from here as it was. I ground one fist into the other because I knew I was missing something but didn’t know what. Then I realized what that was.

  “First blood rule breaking,” I reminded him. “To make amends, you need to give me more information on what you means by your terms.”

  The dragon sighed explosively, and my hair blew straight back from my head for a moment from it. His breath, surprisingly, smelled pleasantly of spices. “I will fly you from the keep to a place in the mountains where there is a crack in the hill’s bones that leads from the mountain’s crown all the way down to the level of the Sub-realms. Once down there, you will encounter those who can take you to Chirasniv.”

  “Fair enough,” I said. “How do we seal this?”

  “You pay me my price, and then we go,” he said patiently, as if to a toddler.

  Price. I grabbed onto that.

  “We didn’t negotiate a price, Frelanfur,” I reminded him.

  He smiled toothily. For the next couple of minutes we haggled over his pay. When I mentioned that we could pay him in magical items, he looked very pleased. I tried to put what I had observed from Arghen in the marketplace of Meritzon into practice, and I thought I’d done a pretty good job when the total came out to be about half of the magical items we’d brought up from underground, and that I would get to choose what they would be.

  “Done!” he said, carefully sticking out a sharp talon.

  “What about my friends?” I insisted.

  Frelanfur looked annoyed again. “They will be released once the bargain is sealed. Now, do we have one or not?”

  I reached out my hand to his single claw. It was smooth and slick, like ice, but surprisingly warm to the touch. I ran my palm in a quick circle around the claw, and the deal was struck.

  Chapter 7

  I walked backwards towards the carpet, not wanting to look away as the dragon gave a mighty downbeat of his wings and took off. It was awe-inspiring, and the wind of it nearly knocked me over as it also sent dust, dirt and small rocks flying. I shielded my face from the accidental onslaught and checked to see that the flying carpet hadn’t been sent floating away. Thankfully, it hadn’t; its anchoring magic had held. As soon as Frelanfur left the ground everybody started to move again. Auraus inhaled sharply, a shaken look on her face, and then the Wind-rider turned and took a couple of running steps to spread her white and gold wings and soar off the edge of the cliff. Ragar growled in the direction of the disappearing dragon, his tail lashing. He then brushed sharply at his black-and-tan fur and flexed his arms and legs as if to reassure himself that everything was still in working order. Jason’s arms enfolded me as he pulled me back up against his torso with one arm while he wiped at the dust and dirt on his face with the other. He held me tightly as he trembled from being released from the spell
.

  “Are you all right?” I asked, turning around to simultaneously hug him and bury my head in his chest.

  “Si, Si. It was like one of my nightmares,” he said, gripping me hard. “I felt like I was frozen in place, but I wasn’t cold, you know? I could see and hear just fine, but I couldn’t shout any warnings to you. And I couldn’t come and help you against that maldito dragon!”

  “I’m sorry. It must’ve been terrifying. Figures this kind of spell had to be one of the first ones ever cast on you that worked.” I looked up at him. “Was there something you’d wanted to tell me during that so-called negotiation?”

  Jason looked at me with fond exasperation crinkling the edges around his brown eyes. “That’s what you ask me? Not about how I felt about watching you take on a dragon alone?”

  He sighed, then gave me a quick kiss. I inhaled with delight.

  “No, there wasn’t anything I had to tell you,” he said. “Except that if I’d needed to, I couldn’t, chica, and that kinda freaked me out. But the whole dragon fight made me lose it way more.”

  “Which is why Auraus just went for a flight, I’m guessing. Are you okay now?” I asked him again.

  “Yeah, I guess I am since you are. It was just ….”

  “Provoking and infuriating,” growled Ragar, interrupting to join the conversation. “You are sure you are all right, Lise?”

  I nodded to the mountain-cat-elf as Jason gave me one more quick squeeze before releasing me. “Yeah, what he said,” Jason said, agreeing with Ragar’s words.

  I looked at the mountain-cat-elf. “You okay yourself?”

  He gave me a short sharp nod of his head, his cat ears lying a little flatter than usual, as Auraus landed. The breeze from her white and gold wings made the edges of the flying carpet ripple a little, but it still held steady.

  “All right. I am better now. We should go back and do as Frelanfur has required us to do,” she said.

  “Are you okay?” I started to ask her, but Auraus waved my question off as she took flight again.