Death Flag

by Richard Haygood

  “Do not be silly, boy. Of course not. But, there are powers in effect surrounding you that you are simply not aware of. This knowledge is part of what was taken from you.”

  “Okay, okay. So, just for a minute, let’s assume that everything you’re telling me is real—which, by the way, I don’t believe—but why does that equate to this witch wanting me dead or to punish me? You said that she already recreated something that destroyed another world, but are you trying to say that she was responsible for what happened here a thousand years ago? She actually wants to destroy this one as well for some reason?”

  “No,” the woman shook her head curtly, causing her long, black hair to gently sway back and forth. “Her destroying this world is a consequence of her wanting to conquer it. That is why she fears you—because you are one who can truly stop her. You have not yet separated what she wants and what she has done and the why. You are still trying to assume that they are all the same thing. She wants you contained because you can foil her plans, yet she did not kill you because she wanted you to suffer for the things you have done to her people. What happened in the distant past happened in the distant past and was not directly connected to her, and that is why she fears you. What happened recently was done recently, and that is why you are here. Even if you somehow survive, I believe that she will have plans in place to make use of you. The history of two worlds is poised to be repeated, and she will not allow the history of this one to repeat itself once again—not if she can help it and certainly not with the Legion involved. Yet, even if she succeeds in her plans, you still may have the chance to stop her.”

  Madison sighed and glanced down at Shayna. She looked about the same as she had before, and he was starting to wonder how long she would be asleep. He didn’t really mind carrying her around, but having her awake and alert would really help if he somehow wound up in another battle. He had to find a way out of the mountain and back to the others. Gaining information was always high on his list of priorities in any situation, but he couldn’t stop from feeling like he was somehow wasting time sitting there. He felt like he should be up and doing other things.

  “What am I supposed to do?” Madison asked at last. “What am I supposed to do with all this information? Where do I go from here?”

  The woman shrugged slightly. “That is for you to decide. It is up to you to choose what you do with this information. But I hope that you will use it to fight the enemy. I hope that you will defeat her and the promise of destruction she brings with her.”

  “How? How am I supposed to fight someone like that?”

  “The first thing you must do is complete the task you have been assigned. You must stop K’yer Utane from entering the war. This is what the enemy wants. She will use them for her own nefarious plans, and that must not be allowed to happen. There is too much power sleeping within that valley, and it must not be awoken in this manner. It is not meant to serve her or her dark desires. The land that Lord Fox calls home must not enter the fight. The war must be contained to the east, and this cannot be done if Stargrave moves to join the fray.”

  Madison held his hands up and slowly let them drop back down again. He was at a loss and completely exasperated. “You’re talking about wars and people and politics and history like it’s something I know anything about or have a place in. I’m not even from this world! I agree that war and famine and the end of all living things sounds bad, but how does any of this relate to me?! You say that I’ve done such and such things in the past, but I have no memory of any of it! This isn’t my world! How does doing any of these things get me back home?! How does this end up any other way than with me being killed?!”

  She adopted the same patient smile that she had used throughout most of the conversation and simply nodded her head knowingly, as if she had some strong, unspoken confidence in him. “You will find a way. It is what you do, is it not? You have made new friends while you were here. You have old friends who will help you if you can find them. Call upon them, and they will answer; lead them, and they will follow.”

  “I’m not a nice guy,” Madison said as his last line of defense. “I’m not someone who fights for a noble or just cause. I’m not a hero.”

  She threw her head back and laughed this time. It was a rich, harmonious tone that sounded sweeter than any music he had heard before, and it carried throughout the massive cavern. “You never were, and you were never meant to be.” She rose from her feet then, pushing herself up from the awkward position in one impossible movement. “Our time here is finished,” she pronounced. “I have come close to breaking the commandments that must not be broken, but I have given you the assistance I deemed necessary for you to be successful.”

  Madison rose as well, glancing down at Shayna as he did. He went to pick her up, but a quick word from the woman stopped him.

  “Do not,” she said simply. She bent over, pressed two fingers against Shayna’s forehead, and then stood up and watched expectantly. A moment later, Shayna’s eyes sprang open and her chest sprang upward as she sucked in a huge breath of air. Her eyes swiveled about as she tried to get her bearings before finally settling on Madison.

  Madison recovered from his initial shock rather quickly and stood there, grinning down at her like an idiot. Several long hours ago, he had thought that she was dead. She had been so pale and lifeless when he found her plastered to that wall that he couldn’t assume anything else. He had prepared himself for the worst, and he had assumed the mantle of responsibility for her life. Now, staring down at her from above, it felt like part of that weight had been lifted off of him. Watching her take her first deep breath and then another after, he thought that it was one of the most beautiful things he had ever seen. He bent down, slid his arms underneath her, and unceremoniously lifted her into the air and onto her feet.

  She stood there blinking in confusion as if trying to figure out where she was and what was going on. Her head swiveled around as she took in the strange lights and flowers and then settled back on him. “What did you do to me?!” she shouted, visibly recoiling. “Eww! Gross! Pervert!”

  Madison couldn’t stop himself from laughing despite her accusations. It was actually because of them that he couldn’t control himself. It had been so long since she threw them at him that he had forgotten how normal they seemed. “You’re welcome!” he proclaimed proudly, grinning from ear to ear. “We’re a little short on time, so keep your small comments to yourself for a little while longer. The night is still young, and we have a lot to do.”

  “Idiot!” She punched him in the shoulder, and he fell into another laughing fit. “I’m not that small, and what is the matter with you?!”

  “But you’re alive!” he proclaimed.

  “Children . . .” the woman chided. “Please, show some restraint.”

  Shayna turned to look at her as if just realizing that there was someone else standing there. “Who are you?” she asked innocently. “It’s like . . . I know you. I’ve met you before, but . . .”

  “Yes,” the woman answered, smiling down at her fondly. “It has been a long time, Shayna. I am happy that we were able to meet again. When you see your father next, tell him that we met here today. Tell him that the debt between us has been settled. He will understand what that means.”

  “I’m guessing that is our cue to wrap things up,” Madison observed aloud. Then, to Shayna, he added, “Don’t worry. You didn’t miss much. I’ll explain everything later when we have time.” He turned back to the dragon lady and said, “Now, how do we get out of here? If things are as urgent as you seem to say they are, we don’t have any time to waste wandering around and trying to figure things out on our own. So, if you would just kindly point us toward the closest and quickest exit . . .”

  “Huh?” Shayna looked back and forth between them, obviously trying to catch up on what had happened despite Madison’s insistence that he would fill her in later. “Do you two know each other?”

  “No,” Madison answered.
>
  “In a way,” the woman responded. Smiling at the conflicting answers, she added, “I will deliver you. This is not a place you should be. You must return here one day, but the time is not ready yet for that.” She turned and walked away, the faint light returning to surround her body and growing with every step. She stopped when she was only a short distance away and turned to ask, “Tell me, Madison, what do you intend to do? Do you seek to defeat the enemy?”

  Madison nodded once without hesitation. “If what you have told me is true, then I will. If she’s the only one who can return me home, then I have to find her. But first, I have to rescue a princess in another castle.”

  “The road you seek to walk is—”

  “I know,” Madison interjected sarcastically, cutting her off before she could finish. “It’s dangerous. Everyone keeps warning me. Got it. Whole world wants to kill me and all that. I think we’ve covered it already.” Despite his acerbic tone, he was still grinning like an idiot. Truth be told, he was floating. He could feel the effects of the Rush pumping through his veins, Shayna was alive, and they were going to be provided with a fast track out of the mountain. Now, if he could just find Warren and then a way to make contact with the others, he’d be back on track and in good standing.

  She smiled knowingly, and he was once again reminded of a patient and caring mother. “Then our goals are indeed aligned for the time being. I will offer you this last token of aid before you depart, and a final piece of advice. Seek my kin in the north: if she can be swayed, she will be a powerful ally. Her years have been long, but they are soon to come to an end. She may help you yet if you can reach her in time. Lastly, if you seek to recover what has been lost as you should, the girl from the north may be able to unlock what has been hidden from you.”

  Madison nodded again, leaving Shayna to look back and forth between them confusedly. She may have been alive, but she clearly hadn’t recovered completely, and the fact that she hadn’t jumped into the conversation while demanding answers to a hundred different questions was proof of it.

  “Are you going to tell me what’s going on?” she asked, as if reading his mind. “Who is she and what . . .”

  The warm glow surrounding the woman grew again and began to intensify until it was so bright that Madison had to shield his eyes and look away. When he looked back again, the woman was gone and once again replaced by the massive dragon. The ancient and powerful creature swiveled its head to look at him with a single, unblinking eye before slowly lowered its head until it was mere feet away from him.

  Somewhere, in the back of Madison’s brain, there was a faint warning bell going off. Some primal part of his brain still recognized this for what it was: the apex predator, the top of the food chain, that being which would devour humans. Yet, despite that, he felt no conscious terror. It might have been the fact that he had just carried on a rather informative conversation with her while she was in the guise of a human, but nothing about her shocked him. Thinking back, he had been wary before and acted defensively, but he hadn’t actually been scared of her.

  Her head twisted around, and her long and scaly neck slithered past until she was looking back at her shoulders expectantly. It took him a minute to realize what she wanted from him, and then it hit him. His eyes grew wide and his hands starting sweating as he thought about what he was about to do. Grinning like an idiot, he looked down at Shayna beside him. The poor girl was staring slack jawed and wide eyed, and she wasn’t moving a muscle. Madison reached over and pinched her lightly on the shoulder, pulling her out of her awe-struck stupor.

  “Ladies first,” he said, offering her a hand.

  “Wait . . . what?” she asked, still in a daze.

  “Go on. All aboard,” he repeated, gesturing toward the dragon’s back.

  “N-no way. You c-can’t be serious,” she stammered.

  “Way serious! Don’t tell me that you’re afraid?” he taunted gleefully.

  “N-no. It’s just . . .”

  “Just what? Here, let me help you up.” Madison slid around behind her, grabbed her by the waist, marched her forward a handful of steps, and then said, “Up!” while lifting up at the same time. Whether she was prepared or not, Shayna was hoisted into the air and was climbing onto the back of the dragon seconds later. She crawled across the impressive distance and then sat astride the dragon’s neck like it was perfectly normal, leaving Madison to climb up after her on his own. He jumped up, hoisted himself up onto the dragon’s back, and settled in directly behind her as if they were riding a horse together.

  The dragon craned its neck around so that it could look at them, and then without warning, it jumped up into the air. They were slammed by a massive gust of wind as it beat its wings, and seconds later, they were propelled upward at an impressive rate. Madison felt the familiar sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach that signified take off. It wasn’t completely unlike being on a small plane or a helicopter, and the only real difference was that he could feel the air rush past and the movement of the creature below him as it worked to get airborne.

  He watched the ground recede below them, and the garden quickly became indistinguishable beyond anything other than neatly-cared for rows. The strange orange lights on the ground began to fade away, and the luminescent blue moss grew brighter as they approached the top of the cave. The dragon rose straight up until they were about two-thirds of the way there and then extended its wings and raced forward. She flew straight ahead with alarming speed, changing direction just before slamming into the wall of the cavern.

  Shayna let out a shriek at just that moment, but most of it was blown away before Madison even really heard it. He was sitting directly behind her, but the rush of the wind over his ears drowned out everything else. He wrapped his hands around her and pulled her back against him, and the dragon surged upward once again as she climbed toward the roof of the cavern. Just when they were close enough that Madison was tempted to reach out and touch the strange blue lichen, the dragon extended its wings and rocketed forward once again.

  In a maneuver that had clearly been practiced many times, the dragon aimed directly for a dark patch of rock high on the cavern wall, and before he knew what was happening, they had exited the cavern and were gliding down a long, pitch-black tunnel. He felt Shayna stiffen up just before they entered, and even Madison was caught off guard by the sudden transition. If the dragon hadn’t known exactly where to go, he never would have been able to distinguish the patch of the wall they flew into from any other unlit area.

  Aside from the rush of the wind and the feeling of the dragon beneath him, he couldn’t make out any other sight or sound, and it was extremely disorienting. He felt the dragon turn hard underneath him, and he and Shayna were tilted onto their side as the dragon banked hard to the right. A second later, louder noise joined the rush of the wind from underneath them, and Madison realized that they must have somehow come out above the river when he felt himself get sprayed in the face with water.

  Moments later, they broke free from underneath the mountain entirely, and Madison was greeted with the first view of the night sky that he had seen in what felt like forever. The dragon started climbing once again, its massive leathery wings working hard to propel its weight upward, and it turned back to the left. Quickly, they climbed up above the tree line and circled around the mountain as they gained altitude. The trees seemed a bit smaller than he remembered, but they passed by with such speed that it was hard to tell if it was true or just his imagination.

  He caught glimpse of the sun rising in the east just as they broke above the canopy, giving him an idea of what time it was. They had begun their assault on the slaver’s camp just after dark the night before, so that meant that everything that had happened between dusk and sunrise. The attack on the camp, becoming separated, fighting their way down the ravine, jumping into a canyon and being swept away, the fight against the troll and finally the conversation with a dragon—it had happened somewhere within a time frame o
f twelve short hours.

  Madison shook his head as he marveled at the sight and considered everything that had transpired. Twelve hours was a normal shift for him at work. He could have been on the floor loading and unloading pallets and boxes of goods for the same amount of time and never gone anywhere or done anything remotely as amazing. He had seen and done things since coming to this world that were completely unimaginable otherwise. Punishment and death sentence aside, there was a strange sort of pleasure in it despite the overwhelming fact that he could die at any minute. It was a constant adrenaline rush, and he had a feeling that he was becoming addicted to it.

  As the dragon climbed higher and higher, he started getting his first good layout of the land below. The sun in the east afforded him just enough light to make out the layout and topography below without actually letting him see any of the details. The mountain they had been underneath was surrounded by forest on all sides, and it stretched out to the east as far he could see. He knew that there was a small town and a city somewhere in that direction that was supposedly the hub for all slave trade in the east, but he couldn’t make it out against the glare of the sun.

  The mountain acted as a sort of strange focal point in the land, rising up from the ground and towering above everything else in the region. The area around it was divided into three distinct regions, each edged by sheer, vertical cliffs, and although they were clearly delineated by sudden, drastic changes in elevation, they were all forested as far as he could tell. The area to the northwest was the highest, the area to the southwest was the second highest, and all the area in the east was the lowest. The canyon that he dove into with Shayna ran along between the northeast and southeast zones, passed underneath the mountain, and then came out and flowed east. That explained the series of waterfalls and rapids they had gone down as the elevation changed and they were swept under the mountain.