The Sorcerer's Dragon (Book 2)

by Julius St. Clair

  Remi stared at the little fire flickering at the top and she wondered what was happening to her body now that her mind had been taken away. She couldn’t be dead. Otherwise, wouldn’t she no longer be aware of herself? Or would she only be with the darkness now?

  “Give up,” she heard a man whisper in her ear. She turned around quickly but there was no one there, and she felt no presence around her. The flame on the candle suddenly went out, and she was cast in utter darkness once more. She waved her hands in front of her eyes in the pitch black but she saw nothing.

  She was about to speak when light flooded her eyes.

  Or more like…one of her eyes.

  She couldn’t see out of the other. That one was still cast into the black.

  But the other. The seeing one—that one saw Olivia bending down and hovering over her. She was saying something, but she couldn’t hear the words. Wait…yes, she could. Her other senses were beginning to return. But it was terribly slow. As if they had to be woken up individually from their slumber.

  “Remi, talk to me!” she said, shaking her. Remi parted her lips and licked them. They were so dry and…they were bumpy. It hurt to the touch. What had happened?

  “Don’t get up too fast,” Olivia said, patting her shoulder. “Your face is burned pretty bad. But don’t worry, the Mistress said that she can fix that. Just hold on. We’re getting you a hammock to lay on. They’re going to take you to their infirmary.”

  “The Mistress…” Remi whispered. “She…help?”

  “Alicia,” she heard the Mistress declare behind her. Remi couldn’t move her neck to confirm the exact location.

  “Whatever!” Olivia snapped at her. “All you should be caring about right now is whether she survives this or not!”

  “I told you she will. Calm down.”

  “If she dies, so do you. Get that?”

  The Mistress stayed silent but even Remi knew that threat couldn’t be carried out. Her eyes closed on their own and she felt the sweet hands of sleep beginning to take her into its arms.

  She allowed it with no regrets.

  * * *

  “I. Am. Tired. Of. Waking. Up,” Remi said before she even opened her eyes. She heard Ian chuckle nearby and she sat up to attention, scanning the room around her. They were all there, sitting in chairs and waiting for her to wake up. “Are you all okay?” she asked them. She noticed that they were all staring at her intensely, but not one of them was willing to answer.

  “Just take it easy,” Olivia said, rising from her chair. Remi looked behind her and noticed that the room was very small. She had been laying on the floor with a thin white sheet placed over her. The walls were made of the mountain rock—it wasn’t smooth at all, and parts of the wall jutted outwards. The floor under her was metal and cold, and there were only the chairs that her friends were sitting on for furniture. It looked like they were all in a holding cell.

  Remi blinked and realized that she was still only seeing out of one eye.

  “What’s wrong with me?” she asked. No one leapt up to answer her question which only made her more nervous.

  “Alicia should be on her way to retrieve you,” Ian said. “It will all be okay.”

  “Why are you talking like that?” Remi cried out. “What’s wrong?” She reached up and caressed her face and her hand dropped the moment her fingers brushed up against it. It was bumpy and sore, as if her face had recently scabbed over, and there was a sticky substance spread across her cheeks that made her skin tingle. She waved her hand in front of her blind eye. Something was definitely wrong with her face. It didn’t hurt when she touched it, but it wasn’t smooth like she remembered.

  “How long was I out?!” she demanded. Again, no one answered. “Fine. I’ll get the answers myself.”

  “Wait!” Olivia shouted just as Alicia burst through the door. She was breathing heavily and her eyes scanned the room as if she was looking for a traitor. She finally settled on Remi who was still frozen in fear.

  “Let’s go, girl,” she replied. “And don’t touch your face.”

  “I’m not going anywhere with you without some answers.”

  “I have them,” she huffed. “But we need to take care of those burns first.”

  “Burns?” Remi cried, feeling a tear running down her seared skin. “You mean the ones you caused? Weren’t you the one blowing fire in my face?”

  “Don’t test my patience,” Alicia sniffed. “Now, it’s up to you. We can get your face fixed, or you can stand there and get your answers while it permanently turns that way. It’s up to you.”

  “It’s okay, Rem,” Ian said. “Go with her. And we’re okay too. Alicia picked us up after you went unconscious and she’s treated us well. We’re not prisoners here.”

  “Well,” Remi glared at him. “As long as we’re all on a first name basis…” She turned to Alicia. “Let’s go...Alicia.”

  Alicia nodded and began walking back down the hall. The guard that was standing at the door outside closed it behind him, locking in Remi’s friends. Remi noticed that even the guard was a small man.

  “What’s with the little people?” Remi asked.

  “They’re Langorans,” Alicia replied, striding forward with her powerful legs. Remi could barely keep up. “Rejects from before the Great Collision. Back then, there was an organization known as R.A.W. Only its highest ranked members knew what the acronym stood for, but their mission was clear: orchestrate civil unrest and distrust between the Kingdoms so that they could control the outcomes in secret. Though Languor had its King, he was only a figurehead for what was really going on behind the scenes. R.A.W was what dictated the laws and determined who was fit to serve. Many of the Langorans you see here were banished and cast out of their home. I took them in.”

  “As servants?”

  “No. Though it’s hard to say otherwise. They’ve been trying to repay me for giving them a home ever since. Given that I have a temper, it seems like I’m ordering them around when really I only have the best of intentions.”

  “You said that they came here even before the Great Collision…how old are you?”

  “You shouldn’t ask a woman her age,” she said, glaring at Remi out of the corner of her eye.

  “I was just wondering.”

  “I’m old enough,” she muttered.

  “Then…”

  “Spit it out.”

  “You really are one of the Sorcerers’ weapons…they created you.”

  “A long time ago,” she said. “So long that I can’t even distinguish what is fact and fiction anymore. At least, not until yesterday.”

  “Is that how long I’ve been asleep?”

  “Yes, and I would have healed your face myself if I didn’t have my own wounds to take care of. Your friends begged me to give them some salve that would cure your burns but I told them that it might cause their skin to melt. Better to let you do it,” Alicia nodded her head toward Remi’s artificial arms. “You don’t have to worry about skin as much.”

  “What’s the salve made of?”

  “It comes from a secretion in my liver.”

  “Ewww,” Remi gagged. “There isn’t another medicine I can take?”

  “Well now you know what wounds I had to attend to. My body is one big walking pharmacy. Got a ton of cures and stuff inside of me. The problem is that while I’m rummaging around in there, I could die in the process.”

  “I don’t even want to know how you figured all of that out.”

  “It’s a funny story actually,” she chuckled. “If you come across a little one named ‘Ron,’ I wouldn’t ask him to tell you.”

  “So what did happen yesterday? Why are we walking down this dark cavern together like old friends when you were ready to rip my throat out earlier?”

  “It was true what I said before,” Alicia sighed, motioning for Remi to take a left with her down another long dark tunnel. Little holes that lead outside in the makeshift walls provided them some light, but even that
was fading as night was descending. “We have many enemies here at Darkheart. Langoran hordes. Cimmerian armies. Ever since they got the shard that had my signature in it, they’ve been coming almost weekly, trying out new ways to take us down. There was once a quaint little town further down the mountain but it was destroyed in one of their assaults last month. Since then, we’ve taken to the tunnels high up. I hate it up here.”

  “But what changed? What made you realize that we weren’t enemies?”

  “It was the shards in your possession,” she said. Remi instinctively dug into her pockets and noticed that they were empty. “Don’t worry. I left them in Olivia’s care. I don’t want to even be near one of those things. When you touched me with that red shard, it was like you reminded me of a nightmare I once had. Darkness…trying to swallow me whole while someone laughed at me from a distance.”

  “But you still attacked me after you were taken away.”

  “What was I supposed to do? I thought you were a Cimmerian that had finally figured out how to subdue me. I had to kill you…but when we clashed…you suddenly froze up, like I had. It was eerie…watching your eyes go wide and your body stiffen up as I blew fire into your face. It was like you didn’t care if you lived or died—like you couldn’t even feel the pain. That was when I knew that your mind had been transported away just like mine had been. That’s when I realized that I was killing my sister, and not my enemy.”

  “So…this sticky stuff. What is it? Medication?”

  “It’s to keep you from screaming your head off from the pain. It’s a numbing gel that came from the mucus in my nose. I know. Not lady like at all.”

  “Let’s skip that topic,” Remi winced. “So…what made you realize that I was a sister? Aren’t any of the Sorcerer weapons your enemy?”

  “We’re all in the same predicament. We’re being used by the Sorcerers for their own pleasure, and none of us are sure what that is. Whatever it is, it can’t be good.”

  “What makes you so sure?”

  “The ominous visions weren’t enough?”

  “I would like to think that we were created for good. That we’re kind of acting out in the Sorcerers’ stead.”

  “Is that what you know? Or that’s what you’d like to believe?”

  “I don’t want to think of myself as a tool of destruction.”

  “A sword can be used to cut fruit and vegetables, you know. It can help you with your garden. It can act as a mirror when you apply your make-up. But that’s not the crafter’s intent. And with the powers we both have at our disposal, I don’t think peace is part of our intended purpose.”

  “Was it like that with you from the beginning? Being able to transform into a dragon?”

  “Transforming into a human is actually what I had to get used to,” she said solemnly. “Sadly, my earliest memories were of myself in dragon form, flying around a cage that was too small and accidentally burning up most of the disgusting food provided to me. I didn’t even know how delicious food could be until I was a teenager. Becoming human…that was what I eventually learned to do. I didn’t think it was possible, but one day I willed it, and it happened.”

  “So you’re actually a dragon?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “Are you mostly made of steel and wood? I see those limbs of yours.”

  “I lost them in battle.”

  “They won’t be the last thing you lose,” she said as they finally arrived at a boulder, standing in their way. Alicia pressed the palm of her hand against it and it slid back as if it was on an automated track. A dimly lit room lay before them, illuminated by moonlight. But Alicia didn’t proceed. Instead she stood there as if there was a heavy weight pressing upon her shoulders.

  “I am the Sorcerer’s dragon,” she said, bowing her head so low that it nearly touched her chest. “That is my designation. There are five others besides us out there, and each of them have been named after tools or pets. We aren’t people. We aren’t individuals. We are a means to an end. Nothing more.”

  “Then what am I?” Remi asked.

  Alicia shook her head. “You’re the ring…a symbol of unity, and a reminder of the world that the Sorcerers left behind. You’re here to let them know that no matter what they do, they will inevitably have to step in and interfere. No one is disconnected from the rest.”

  “Is that all I am? A reminder?”

  “I’m sorry,” Alicia said. “But that’s the extent of your purpose. Doesn’t it explain why you’re so weak?”

  Remi cleared her throat and tried not to let the disappointment break her. Just because Alicia said it, it didn’t mean it was true.

  “Then what’s your purpose? Where does the dragon fit in all this?”

  “That’s easy,” she said, stepping into the mysterious room. “I’m here to scorch the earth and let those who survive determine what the new world will be.”

  Chapter 14 – Scorch

  “Who told you this?” Remi cried as she followed Alicia into the light. When her seeing eye adjusted, she saw that the room was open at the back wall, leading right back to the outside. The ground was angled upwards so that the moonlight came right in and Remi almost forgot about her condition after seeing it. There was a tranquility in the air, and she hoped that the ambience would soothe the beast. Alicia sat on one of the boulders in the corner of the room and whipped the tail of her massive fur coat behind her.

  “Have a seat,” she said and Remi took one of the boulders nearby. It wasn’t exactly comfortable.

  “Who told you this?” Remi repeated. “That you were to scorch the world?”

  Alicia sighed and faced her, half of her visage illuminated by the moonlight, the other shrouded in black. “I met one other weapon long ago. He…wouldn’t tell me much about himself, but he said that he was searching for the others, kind of like you are. He was the one to break it all down to me.”

  “Why didn’t you travel with him?”

  “I was scared, and unsure of my abilities back then. Not to mention that I wasn’t sure if I even believed him.”

  “What changed that? Why do you believe him now?”

  “I’ve taken a long hard look in the mirror. I know what I am.”

  “You actually want to kill people?”

  “No,” she said casting her eyes to the ground. “But I’m good at it.”

  “That’s no reason to embrace becoming a murderer. What aren’t you telling me?”

  “Come here,” she said and Remi stood to her feet and walked over to Alicia. The Mistress motioned for her to stoop down and she handed Remi a tiny vial full of a blue, thin liquid. “Apply this to your face and rub it in. Pour it into your blind eye as well. It’s my way of saying sorry for what I did.”

  “What part of you was this made out of?”

  “My brain,” she whispered.

  Remi nearly dropped the vial. “How did you—”

  “—the Langorans help me with the procedures. You’d be surprised what they can accomplish with those little hands of theirs.” She ended the sentence with laughter but Remi didn’t find anything funny.

  “You didn’t have to do that.”

  “I burned your face.”

  “How is it any different than what you’re planning on doing to Terra?”

  “Why are you hung up on this? It doesn’t concern you.”

  “I’m not going to put this stuff on my face until you tell me.”

  “It’s not my face,” she snickered. “You’re the one that will have to go around scaring everybody.”

  “I’ll also be reminding you every day of what you did.”

  “You don’t even know me!” she exclaimed but Remi stayed firm.

  “That’s the deal,” she said.

  Alicia scoffed and rose to her feet until she was towering over Remi. “From the day I was born, I saw the evils of humanity. I wanted nothing more than to wipe them off the surface for how they treated me. But at the same time, I also wanted to be one. For every nega
tive experience I had, there was a positive one. It was strange to love and hate my caretakers, but after careful observation, I noticed one constant and defining thing: they cannot change their fate. No matter how hard they work or try to better their lives, it rarely works out. And on the other hand, there are those who don’t do a thing, and everything is handed to them. There’s no rhyme or reason to the way the world goes except for those at the very top.

  “Do you think this war between Cimmerian and Paragon matters one bit? It’s pathetic. They could fight each other for decades, but if the Sorcerers decide to step in, it will all be resolved in a matter of days. If they wanted to, they could shape this world to their liking with a snap of their fingers. If they can create me—an instrument of destruction—what else can they do? What else can they control? What do they already have their hands in? You and I…we’re nothing but spectators, waiting for the game to end.”

  “Is that why you hide up here in your underground fortress? Because you think there’s nothing you can do? That you don’t matter?”

  “We don’t matter,” she said. “All we can do is make life easier for others as well as ourselves. Ease the suffering.”

  “And if your Sorcerer calls on you to scorch the world, you’ll answer?”

  “What choice will I have?”

  “There’s always a choice.”

  “I don’t know how you can believe that.”

  “I’m here, aren’t I?”

  “The longer you wait to apply the ointment, the more likely the damage will be permanent.”

  “I don’t want any part of you touching me,” Remi said, throwing the vial toward the ground. Alicia barely caught it in mid-air.

  “Are you crazy? My brain won’t grow back!”

  “So what? It doesn’t matter in the end, right?”

  “What is wrong with you?!”

  “When I left to find the weapons…I…just suspected something else. When you swooped in. So big. So powerful…you embodied everything I was hoping for. I thought that you would show me the way…give me the strength to rally the others and find the Sorcerers. But you’re nothing like I thought you would be. Funny enough, I’m the centered one. I’m the one doing what the other weapons should have been doing all along. It’s sad that it all falls down on the sick girl.”