Death Flag

  Madison broke into a full sprint while doing everything he could to keep from jostling Shayna around, and the colorful lines of flowers and plants whizzed by him on either side until they became a smeared blur that blended in with the strange green and orange lighting. He cast furtive glances toward the ceiling every few seconds, constantly tracking the creature’s movements, and his sense of urgency and the need to find shelter or escape grew by the moment. At last, just as he neared the center of the massive room, the creature began to spiral downward.

  The neatly-lined rows disappeared abruptly, and Madison broke free into a small, circular, grassy lawn that was roughly fifty feet across. He quickly spied a small pond in the center and an outcrop of grey rock rising up from the floor adjacent to it, and Madison instantly changed direction and headed toward it. Even if he couldn’t escape this thing descending on him, he wanted to have as much room to fight as he could get. Starting off in the center meant that he would have a good range of mobility, and the small, rocky area meant that he’d have a slight advantage in elevation if it came down to it.

  He leapt up onto the rock, laid out Shayna as carefully as he could, and then took up a defensive stance right over her, drawing the strange black weapon and holding it up in front of him. He gazed upward, quickly finding the mysterious shape once again, and then fell slack-jawed in shock as he realized what he was seeing. The massive creature must have been forty feet from tip to tail, with a wingspan that was even wider, and it was covered from head to tail in glimmering black scales. It had four thick legs that were probably each as big around as some of the trees in the forest above that ended in sets of long, deadly-looking claws, and it had a long, serpentine neck that ended in a broad, flat head with large, yellow eyes.

  Madison watched the creature grow closer with a combination of abject horror and fascination. Never, not in a million years, had he ever imagined that he would come face to face with a dragon.

  CHAPTER 17

  The dragon glided down directly toward him on leathery wings, changing direction and circling around one last time. There a was a strong gust of wind as it passed by directly overhead, only mere feet above him, and then, with a delicate grace that belied its huge size, it landed in front of him. The wyrm was so large Madison couldn’t even begin to imagine how it even fit within the small clearing. It was almost as long as the area was wide, and its colossal wingspan would have flattened the flora on either side if it hadn’t folded its wings over its back.

  The dragon snaked its head forward on its serpentine neck, and a forked tongue flickered out and tasted the air. The beast’s colossal head came within a few feet of Madison and then stopped, and he was nearly overwhelmed by the same eerie feeling of being studied that had plagued him since he entered the chamber. Madison shifted his weight so that he was completely balanced and twisted his makeshift sword around so that its broken tip was pointed directly at the dragon’s left eye. There was no way he was going to attack first and provoke this monster. He couldn’t imagine that ending up as anything other than a quick trip to a foolhardy suicide. But, that didn’t mean that he wouldn’t try and defend himself if necessary.

  The saucer-sized eyes blinked several times, the eyelids opening and closing from the sides of the eye, and it emitted a low, deep, bass-filled noise that Madison felt deep in his chest. It wasn’t so much a threatening growl but an entertained rumble. A warm yellow glow surrounded the creature, slowly growing brighter as it covered its enormous length from head to toe. Madison held his gaze as long as he could, but the light eventually grew so bright that he had to shield his eyes and look away for fear of being blinded.

  When he looked again, blinking away the spots in his vision, the dragon was gone. Instead, where it had been, there was a woman with long, pitch-black hair that was streaked with grey and pale white skin. She picked up the hem of her dress, a simple, loose-fitting black outfit that looked like something his grandmother would have worn to a funeral, and began making her way to him on bare feet. She stood at the edge of the rocky outcrop and looked up at him with creepy, black-filled eyes that remind him of something he had seen in an alien movie at one point in time.

  She tilted her head to the side and opened her mouth as if she was going to say something, but no sound came out. She reached up and touched her throat as she worked her jaw open and closed, emitting a guttural range of growls and snarls that were completely out of place. Finally and suddenly, she stopped and said, “It has been a long time since I have had a visitor. And you are no ordinary one, I believe.”

  Madison stared in disbelief. He had thought that he had seen just about everything since being transported to this world, but this was really over the top. European-styled dragons shapeshifting into growling grandmothers. He shook his head slightly and sighed irritably, vexed at this world’s continuing ability to catch him off guard and unprepared. Every time, just when he thought he had a grasp on things, something new and completely foreign turned up. He should have been on guard, and he should have been scared. After all, he had just seen a giant flying reptile transform into a human being. And it spoke to him. His heart should have been pounding in his chest, and he should have been filled with fear. But all of that was gone. It had disappeared the moment he realized the creature might have marked him as a potential target. At best, he was nothing more than an emotionless void with the conscious thought that he was wasting precious time.

  “Uhh . . . Yeah,” Madison said, drawing it out. “Not to be rude but . . . Yeah . . . I’m kind of in a hurry, so . . .”

  The woman tilted her head back in the opposite direction, her face contorting in a mixture of different expressions until she settled on one she wanted: a slight scowl that was almost pouting. “Why?” she asked without a hint of inflection in her voice. “You meant to come here, did you not?”

  “No,” Madison answered, almost robotically. “I did not.” He came close to mocking her, but that was as far as he dared tread. The last thing he wanted was for her to sprout scales and wings and have him for a snack.

  “Interesting,” she answered. Then, suddenly, she looked like she had been hit in the face with a baseball bat. She jerked upright and stumbled backward, taking a few steps as she stopped herself from falling over. She sucked in a long, deep breath, and when she opened her eyes, she smiled warmly. “Oh, my. It has been a long time since I used my human form. That was . . . a rush. Please, lower your weapon. I do not wish to harm you. If I wanted to do that, I would have done so already.”

  “Uhhh . . .” Madison’s weapon dipped down for a moment and then wavered. She had a point. If she was going to attack him, she would have done it while she was a dragon and not a little old lady. Still, protecting Shayna was his first priority, and he had no idea how she was going to treat him. “Look, I don’t mean to be rude. I really don’t. I’d love to stay and chat, but my friend here needs help.” He looked down at Shayna’s prone form rather pointedly. She was still deathly pale, and it was impossible to tell that she was even breathing without being right up next to her.

  The woman smiled warmly. “I understand. I can heal her for you if you like.”

  “What?” Madison asked in disbelief, thinking he must have heard her wrong. “You can do what?”

  “Heal her,” the woman repeated as if patiently speaking to a child. “The power to heal is one of my many gifts. She is currently afflicted by a powerful poison, although it is not one that is unknown to me. A particularly nasty race of creatures that lives in these caves secretes it. They use it to paralyze their victims, much like a spider or a snake, and then store them until they are ready to feast. I can detect the venom within her even from here, and I recognize it for what it is. She is not in any immediate mortal danger, but if left uncured, it is not likely that she will recover on her own.”

  Madison’s weapon wavered again. She was spot on from what he had seen, and that would explain why Shayna had been hung from the wall like a smoked and cured ham and encased i
n that yellowish-green, bile-like substance. His first assumption had been correct: that troll was actually saving her for dinner at a later date. The time line was a little questionable, but the scenario was plausible. How had she washed up sooner than he did? And where? He had only ever seen a single passage without any forks. That meant the troll had to fight her, capture her, drag her to its den, paste her against the wall, and then make it back to the river when Madison encountered it. It just didn’t seem like there was enough time in between.

  “How do I know that I can trust you?” Madison asked warily. Even if he couldn’t fit things together, there was a very real chance that this magical creature in front of him could do what she claimed. He just had to know that she wasn’t going to do Shayna more harm than good.

  The woman looked as if she had been slapped, and a dangerous glint flickered through her solid-black eyes. “A dragon never lies,” she hissed reproachfully.

  Madison snorted derisively. “And a liar never tells the truth. It’s a classic dilemma. Swear to me that you will heal her and that you will not harm her. If you really can do what you say, I have no choice but to take you up on your offer. But, I swear, if you so much as . . .” He clenched his teeth and shook his head as he trailed off without adding anything else. He hesitated for just a second longer before lowering his weapon and stepping away from Shayna.

  “I will swear these things,” she responded. The lady eyed his weapon as he moved while she stepped forward and bent down over Shayna’s prone form. She reached out a withered hand and laid it against Shayna’s forehead. There was a brief flash of light, and she pulled her hand away, a satisfied look on her face.

  “I did not realize that this man had a daughter,” she ruminated, quietly speaking her thoughts aloud. “It is good that she has come here. I owe this man. Now, I have been able to repay a debt. This is good. Very good. This is the way.” The old woman folded her legs up underneath herself and then sat back on them before looking up at Madison. “It is done,” she said clearly. “She will awaken in time.”

  Madison looked down at Shayna uncertainly, tearing his eyes away from the old woman. “That’s it?” he asked skeptically. “That’s all it takes?”

  She nodded once. “It is. Now, you have time. Please, sit. There is much that we have to discuss, and you will be in more of a hurry when we are finished than you are now.”

  Madison stared down at Shayna, and he could already see color starting to return to her ultra-pale features. She had looked like an ashen corpse when he first found her, but now a warmth had returned to her cheeks that made her appear as if she were alive, just in a deep sleep. Her breathing had stabilized as well, and he could see the gentle rise and fall of her chest. Reaching down, he grabbed her wrist first for good measure and felt her pulse. As expected, it was steady and strong, rhythmic and unerring. Madison sighed heavily, sitting down on the hard rock on the opposite side of Shayna from the old woman. He laid his stolen weapon down beside him, making sure to keep it within reach if he needed it, and then drew some water and half of an uneaten waffle from his magical inventory. If he was going to be forced to wait, he might as well make use of the time and eat while he could.

  “So, you know her father?” Madison asked, taking a bite of the waffle. It wasn’t completely hard yet despite being a day old, though it was slightly chewy. “You said this was a chance to repay a debt.”

  “That is correct,” she answered. “That man helped me many years ago. I am happy to repay his kindness in this way.” She smiled knowingly and said, “Do not bother asking what or how. It is unimportant. What we must talk about now is you, Madison, and why you are here.”

  Madison was floored, and his expression must have shown it as his eyes grew wide and he cocked his head to the side. “How do you know my name?” he asked alarmedly. Various different scenarios of her reading his mind or invading it with the use of magic ran through his head all at once, and he tensed up, anticipating the worst, though he still had no real intention of attacking her.

  “Of course I know your name,” she answered. “Why would I not?”

  “Why would you?” he countered.

  The old woman smiled softly, but it looked more like a smirk as the corners of her mouth tugged upwards. “I have been waiting for you since she brought you to this world,” she said confidently. “I am a dragon, after all. I know many things.”

  “Wait? What?” Madison was amazed again. “You know . . .?”

  “That you are not from this world? That is correct. I know that you were brought here by the enemy, although I am not able to say precisely what her plans are.”

  Madison took a moment to gather his thoughts. He suddenly had a million different questions that he wanted to ask and that he absolutely needed answers to. First and foremost: “Do you know how I can get home?” He wasn’t really hopeful, to tell the truth. Simply stumbling across the answer wasn’t something that was likely to happen, and depending on how it played out, he still wouldn’t have the revenge he wanted.

  She seemed to consider his question for a moment and then answered. “The way you arrived here is the same route by which you will return.”

  Madison sighed. He hadn’t gotten his hopes up, and this was why. “So, I have to find her. I have to make her send me home,” he answered flatly.

  “That is one possible way,” she answered. “But I suspect that there are others as well. I am not able to confirm such things as they are beyond my current knowledge, but I believe you have come in contact with one such means since you first arrived.”

  Madison raised an eyebrow in thought as he considered what she was saying. Huh? “I don’t . . .”

  “You will know the answer when you find it,” she added reassuringly.

  Madison shook his head. She had basically just told him that he had already come across his route home, but he had no idea what that might mean. It was most likely some magical artifact somewhere within K’yer Utane, a portal or something, and he had simply walked past wherever it was stored without knowing what it was. That place was likely a museum when it came to keeping things like that.

  “The witch . . . Whatever her name was . . . She said that she sent me here as a form of punishment. She said she wanted me to know exactly what it felt like to be harmed the way I had harmed others, but . . . Honestly, I don’t know what she’s talking about. I can’t remember ever doing anything so heinous that it would warrant . . .” Madison trailed off, looking up and casting his hand in the air to indicate the world around him. “. . . Any of this.”

  She looked slightly interested in that. She asked, “Do you find this world so wearisome? Does it trouble you so to live here still?”

  Madison’s sarcastic side crept up as he immediately shot back, “You mean where everyone wants to kill me every minute of every day? Where every moment is a constant struggle to stay alive because of the new and inventive ways this world has of killing people? Yeah. That’s exactly what I mean. Dying here would be easy. Living here is hard.”

  She chuckled softly to herself and nodded knowingly. “Dying is always the easy part, is it not? Many have agreed that it is living which is difficult.”

  “Ah . . . That’s not what I meant.” She had suddenly turned rather philosophical, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to travel down the road to that particular discussion. “You said that there were things which we had to discuss?” He hoped that by bringing the topic back to something else, she might move on.

  “Have we not been discussing these things already?”

  “I . . .” Madison faltered as the conversation failed to swap topics like he wanted. “Yes, I suppose so. But if you don’t know why I was brought here, and you cannot tell me exactly how to get home, then there’s not much to discuss on that subject, is there?”

  “You are wrong,” she said patiently, once again adopting the bemused expression. “I said that I was unable to say exactly what reason she brought you here for.”

  “Ah.”
Madison understood. “A subtle difference, but a difference nonetheless. So, you knew that I was brought here, and you know exactly why. You simply cannot say.”

  “But it seems you have a decent grasp of the situation already. Perhaps my explanation would not be needed after all.”

  Madison shrugged. “Perhaps. I only know what I was told. I don’t understand what crimes I’ve been accused of or how this is a fitting punishment for anything I possibly could have done.”

  “Hmm . . .”

  The old woman reached out her hand slowly and leaned forward, pressing it up against Madison’s forehead. His initial reaction was to pull away, but he forced himself to remain still, even if it was just because his pride demanded that he not show her any fear. He felt a small bolt of warmth hit him, and the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end, letting him know that he had just been exposed to some type of magic. Those same worries of her reading his mind resurfaced, and it took a deal of effort to stay still until she pulled her hand away.

  “You have nothing to fear,” she said soothingly. “I am taking nothing from you, and I have done no harm to you. It seems that she has already altered several things before you were transported to this world. Tell me: Do you have any trouble recalling certain things? Any unexplained memory loss?”

  Madison sat back in shock and fear. “Wait, what? You’re telling me she somehow messed with my memory as well? What did she do? What did she take from me?” He had been so afraid of this mysterious dragon woman messing with his mind, yet the concept of someone having already altered something inside of his head had never even occurred to him. Despite the fact that he had been cast into a world full of magic, he had never even considered the possibility that the witch might have somehow altered his memories at the same time. “No . . . I don’t . . .”