Dragon Coast

by Greg Van Eekhout

  He let the electricity in his bones come to the surface again. Painful sparks flared under his fingernails. Blue webs arced between his fingers.

  He knelt before Cormorant. “You tried to kill my daughter.”

  Stepping closer, Allaster nodded, as if approving of some daring polo move.

  “Ethelinda is the common bond between you two,” Allaster said to Cynara and Daniel. “With her death, there’d be no reason to maintain an alliance. Or maybe in grief you wouldn’t want to be High Grand Osteomancer at all. That would leave only me in Cormorant’s way. And me, he could beat.”

  “Look at me, Professor.”

  Cormorant moaned and sagged.

  Daniel moved his sizzling hand near the old man’s face. “Why?”

  Cormorant smiled. His gums were bleeding. “Why? Why else, dear boy? Because I wanted to be High Grand Osteomancer.”

  And that was enough reason for him to murder a child. This was the world, as it was. This was what people were. They were not good. They were not evil. They were less than either. People were merely consumers.

  Cynara took a few steps toward the throne. “Your Majesty. This man tried to murder my daughter. I want his life.”

  The Hierarch looked down at her, serene and beneficent.

  “Lady Cynara. He belongs to my High Grand Osteomancer.”

  Cynara turned to Daniel. She searched his eyes, and he felt she was looking for something that she used to find in them.

  “Will you make me ask, Paul?”

  Daniel shook his head no.

  “Thank you,” she said, as if Daniel had done something wonderful. “Ethelinda, come here.”

  Ethelinda’s footfalls made tiny clicks across the floor. She took her mother’s hand and reached the other out to Daniel. He took it. It was small and warm.

  “This is the man who tried to hurt you,” Cynara said, her voice ringing to the very top of the glass room, so powerful Daniel wondered if she’d bring down a rain of shards. “Show the kingdom what happens to such people.”

  Ethelinda drew herself away and approached Cormorant. With him still on his hands and knees, their eyes were level. She placed a tiny, pink hand on each of his cheeks.

  “Make it quick, girl,” he said.

  She turned his head to the side. His breath quickened, and she kept turning. There was a startling scream, but it soon choked off, and she kept turning.

  In sorrow, with the sounds of snapping tendons and fracturing vertebrae, Daniel watched Ethelinda claim her place in this world.

  * * *

  Palace servants came with mops and buckets and sponges and a crate for Professor Cormorant’s body. The court looked on hungrily as they packed Cormorant away and wheeled him off. He’d make a richly magical meal for someone. A cloth and bowl of water were brought to clean the blood from Ethelinda’s hands.

  Moth still stood down at the far end of the throne room, ready to proceed. The duel with Cormorant had been an interruption, but the job was still on. Moth touched a button on his jacket. Daniel looked down and saw a partially undone button on his own. He fastened it, straightened his jacket, and ran a hand through his hair. He wanted to look appropriate when he knelt before the Hierarch.

  From the foot of the dais, Lord General Creighton gave Daniel an approving nod. “The High Grand Osteomancer will approach our liege,” he said in his commanding-the-troops voice.

  It was time to claim his prize.

  With each step Daniel climbed up the dais, his body grew heavier. The Hierarch let her magic be known to him now, wafting from her body in potent waves of griffin and fenghuang and fucanglong and mammoth and baku, and dozens of other creatures. When he reached the top of the dais, something happened with the light. The flames in the braziers flared and danced, throwing shadows on the Hierarch’s face, and her crown of griffin teeth no longer seemed like a crown. The teeth grew from her head and cheeks.

  The flames lowered, and the crown was once again just a crown. She allowed a hint of a smile, and Daniel got the message. Don’t get too puffed up, High Grand Osteomancer. I’m still your boss.

  That’s fine, boss, thought Daniel. I’m going to pick your pocket anyway.

  Some circumstances were better than others for theft. Daniel liked dark basements when nobody was home. He liked places where he could use magic, undetected. Stealing something when all eyes were on him and he was inches away from the most powerful osteomancer in the land was not a good set of circumstances.

  Something on the far end of the room clattered, the sound echoing through the chamber. Eyes went in that direction, where they would find a serving dish on the floor and a mortified servant standing near it, courtesy of Moth and a well-timed shoulder bump. Daniel used the distraction to dip his fingers in his pockets.

  Tucked with his thumb against the palm of his left hand, he held the counterfeit axis mundi bone, set in a bezel of melted gold rings. In his right palm, he had his spring-loaded pry bar.

  He lowered himself to his knees before the Hierarch. She stood, sword in one hand, scepter in the other.

  She touched the scepter to his head. “I claim your thoughts,” she said.

  She touched the scepter to his left shoulder, then his right. “I claim your body.”

  Finally, she touched the scepter to his chest. “I claim your heart.”

  Daniel took the end of the scepter in both hands, in a praying position. With a clear voice, louder than any sound he’d ever uttered that wasn’t a scream of pain, he said, “I surrender all to you.”

  Simultaneously with his declaration, he pushed the pry bar against the stone, sliding the blade under its bezel. With a twisting action and a push, he popped the stone almost, but not quite, out of its setting.

  “I am yours,” he thundered, which was a risk, because this wasn’t part of the declaration, and it surprised the court, including the Hierarch. Surprising a volatile sorcerer was, generally speaking, not a good idea. But the surprise provided a small diversion, and he used the moment to dislodge the genuine bone and replace it with the counterfeit. With the real bone now in his right hand and the counterfeit in its place, he released the scepter.

  Success or death. In the next second, he’d know which he’d just accomplished.

  “I name you my High Grand Osteomancer,” the Hierarch called out. And then, with a shockingly warm smile, she said, “Stand, Paul, and face your lessers.”

  “Thank you, your most gracious majesty.” He turned toward a cheering court. Allaster applauded and beamed. Cynara’s applause appeared more dutiful and somber. Ethelinda clapped politely with the same small hands she’d used to twist Cormorant’s head around.

  Even from across the room, Daniel recognized the message in Moth’s posture. It said, “Let’s get out of here.”

  Daniel raised his left arm in salute. The axis mundi bone was palmed in his right hand.

  “Paul.”

  A whisper. Light fingers on his shoulder. The smell of potent magics snaking into his sinuses. The Hierarch stood beside him.

  “Your Majesty?”

  “You earned this,” she said.

  “Thank you, Your Majesty.”

  Hand in hand, they walked down the dais together.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  A celebratory feast was held for Daniel’s investiture, with a rotisserie-roasted bull given the place of honor. It was one of those deals where they stuffed the bull with a boar, and inside the boar was a goat, and inside the goat was a lamb, and inside the lamb was a turkey, and then a pheasant and maybe a baby and so on, until you ate your way down to a teeny-tiny succulent frog.

  Daniel did not plan to see forks reach the center. With the axis mundi bone weighing heavy in his pocket, the next phase of the job was a quick and unobtrusive escape from the palace.

  Allaster grabbed Daniel by the shoulders. “What’s that I smell?” He sniffed one side of his face, then the other. “Ah, yes, the smell of success. You are a big, important man. You are a mighty wizard.
And I find you beautiful.” He guffawed and clapped Daniel hard enough on the back to make him cough.

  “How deep into the wine have you gotten, Allaster?”

  “Not yet to the bottom, my friend. I have much diving yet to do.”

  “You know what, Allaster?”

  “What, High Grand Osteomancer Paul?”

  “I like you.”

  Allaster crushed him in a bear hug. “And I. Like. You.”

  Moth smiled and made not a single move to help him.

  “Allaster?”

  “Yes, Grand Sorcerous Mage Paul?”

  “I have to go pee now.”

  “You go do that,” he said, mercifully releasing Daniel. “You go pee. You deserve it. You deserve a good pee.”

  Allaster went off to pursue a passing serving girl, and Daniel watched him go with something like wonder. He’d completely misread him. Paul was lucky to have counted him as a friend.

  Daniel eyed the exit. A clot of courtiers blocked the path to a clean getaway, and he knew once he began moving, they’d converge on him with congratulations and well-wishes and please-notice-me’s and I-supported-you-this-whole-time’s.

  Daniel’s advantage was the splattering of Cormorant’s blood on his clothes and hands. Nobody would think much of it if he excused himself to freshen up before digging into a meal of beasts within beasts.

  “My lord, if I might have a word.” It was some grand dame osteomancer dripping in jewelry and smells of basilisk magic, with an almost desperate eagerness in her eyes.

  “Certainly,” Daniel said. “But if you would only pardon me a moment.” He gestured to his gore-freckled pants and continued toward the exit.

  Near a stage where pipers filled the air with toots and whistles, Cynara and Ethelinda stood surrounded by their household.

  Once Daniel was gone, the High Grand Osteomancer’s seat would be vacant. Cynara would have a chance to claim it, but she’d find herself the target of rivals and assassins and having to fight battles. But hopefully some of those dangers would be mitigated by Ethelinda’s demonstration of power. If the daughter could rip apart a ranking osteomancer with her bare hands, then what was the mother capable of?

  They’d withstand challengers. But Daniel didn’t know how they’d deal with losing Paul again. From the Hierarch, he’d stolen a bone. From Cynara and Ethelinda, he’d stolen something more valuable.

  He wanted to go to them, to give them a full explanation. A full confession. To remove from them a gnawing doubt of the sort he had always had about his mother. If they were to be abandoned, they at least deserved to know why, from his lips instead of a cowardly letter some day down the road.

  Moth moved his body to subtly hem Daniel in.

  “My lord,” he said. “This is still a job.”

  Moth was right.

  Making eye contact with Cynara across the room, he affected his escape with all he had taken.

  * * *

  Leaving the stronghold of the Southern Hierarch with a treasure in pocket was the easiest getaway Daniel had ever accomplished. He and Moth simply walked through palace gates guarded by two dozen pikemen and gunners.

  “Bum a cigarette?” Daniel said to an obsequiously bowing guard who reeked of dire wolf.

  The guard happily obliged, proud to perform a personal service for the realm’s new High Grand Osteomancer.

  In gratitude, Daniel removed his fine black military jacket, festooned with medals and ribbons he’d never learned the meaning of, and bestowed it upon the guard as a gift.

  “My lord, I … I don’t know what…,” the guard stammered.

  “Say thank you,” Moth instructed.

  “Thank you, my lord.”

  Daniel gave Moth an impatient stare until with genuine reluctance, Moth unbuttoned his own coat and tossed it to the guard. Moth was going to miss the high life.

  In white tailored shirts and black trousers, they walked through the gates and out onto the busy sidewalk, looking like gentlemen, but not at all royal. Moth waved down a taxi, and a few minutes later, they were on their way to the Bay Bridge.

  It would be easy to fool themselves into thinking the job was done. The hard part hadn’t even begun. Daniel still had to employ the axis mundi, recover Sam, and get him home. And before that, they had to rendezvous with Gabriel Argent’s team on Treasure Island. There were many moments in which everything might collapse into tears and cussing.

  Traffic slowed to a sludge as the taxi approached the gray steel double-decker gridwork of the bridge. A line of unmoving taillights stretched into the distance, across the expanse of water, to Oakland on the other side.

  “Driver, what’s the holdup?” Daniel’s first thought was roadblock.

  “The holdup? There’s no holdup. Every day’s like this. It’s life. Life is the holdup.”

  Leaning into his window, Daniel could see the dark hump of Yerba Buena Island, connected by roadway to the bridge, and an unlit, flat expanse on the hilly part’s northern side: Treasure Island.

  “We’ll get out here,” he said.

  The driver looked back at him in his rearview mirror, and Daniel hoped he wouldn’t say anything or look like he was going to say anything that would make Daniel have to hurt him. He was ready to burn people to ash, but not a random driver who’d had the bad fortune to respond to Moth’s hail.

  The driver tapped the meter and read out the fare.

  Reaching into his trouser pockets, Daniel found only his torch, his walnut-shell-sized bone crucible, and the axis mundi bone.

  He turned to Moth. “Uh, hey, can you get this?”

  “For crying out loud,” Moth said, passing the driver a fifty note.

  Before getting out, Daniel leaned toward the driver. “You know, you might want to consider avoiding the bridge for the next few hours. I don’t think traffic’s going to get any better.”

  He and Moth went out to the bridge sidewalk. They’d only walked a few hundred feet when there was a shrieking noise as if the sky had been torn open and all the air rushed out into space. A geyser of blue flame erupted from the island, aiming for the stars.

  Sam.

  * * *

  Cassandra cowered beneath the Art Deco pagan statue of the goddess Pacifica while the dragon stirred in the wreckage. Flames cast an infernal glow over the dark mound of its back. The dragon breathed, a sound like the whoosh of igniting gas. Burst water pipes generated clouds of steam but did nothing to quell the fires. Glass shattered and wood framing collapsed with the dragon’s every movement. The dragon seemed to be resting, or gathering itself for something bigger.

  People fled from the buildings—technicians, guards, osteomancers—some of them engulfed in fire. Bodies fell and burned. A figure stumbled from the building, clothes aflame. Cassandra stripped off her jacket and ran into the field of ruins, and she didn’t stop running until she’d reached the woman. She tackled her to the ground and threw her jacket over her back, patting her hard to suffocate the flames. The woman didn’t thrash, didn’t struggle. When the flames were out, Cassandra moved her head to make sure her airway was clear, and she put her fingers to the woman’s throat in search of a pulse. She knew she wouldn’t find one.

  The dragon exhaled a gust of swirling blue flame, almost like a cough. Just clearing its throat. It stretched out a wing, and another wall came down in an avalanche of masonry.

  From the corner of her eye, Cassandra caught a glimpse of someone darting into the wreckage.

  Now, why would anybody do a thing like that? Why would they get closer to the dragon when the only sane thing to do now was find an evacuation boat off the island? Why risk getting crushed and incinerated or accidentally disemboweled if the dragon scratched an itch with a saber toenail?

  Maybe someone trying to help victims. But Cassandra knew better. She’d spent hours tailing Messalina Sigilo. She may not know how she thought, but she knew how she moved.

  Cassandra sighed.

  She’d have to take care of it.

/>   * * *

  Gabriel watched Cassandra zigzag through the old wreckage of the fairgrounds and into the dragon’s nest of smoke and rubble and flame. He let her go.

  Bricks and chunks of crumbled masonry slid off the dragon’s smoking back. It hunched, curling its tail and long neck around its body. Steam poured from its nostrils, and with every ragged breath, a wave of heat struck Gabriel’s face. He was sure its orange eyes were fixed specifically on him.

  “I need to get closer to it, Max.”

  “How close?”

  “I don’t have a mathematical formula. Just closer. And I need you to warn me about any osteomancy.”

  Max sniffed sharply. “There’s some.” He pointed at the dragon.

  “You know what I’m talking about, Max.”

  “You’re afraid of Daniel Blackland.”

  “I need him to stay out of my way. Just for a few minutes.”

  “What exactly are you planning to do, Gabriel?”

  Any other time, Max would have done as Gabriel asked. He would have snapped into action, guarding Gabriel against danger. He might have had something to say about it, but this was different.

  “Just tell me if Daniel is close. Do you smell him?”

  Max closed his eyes and searched the air. It would be hard to separate out distinct osteomantic indications with the dragon’s magic flooding the atmosphere.

  “He’s near,” Max said.

  “Then we don’t have a lot of time.”

  “Gabriel, if Daniel’s right, then Sam is still in there. He’s Daniel’s son. Let Daniel take care of it.”

  There was pleading in Max’s voice, something Gabriel had never heard before, and it broke his heart a little. Max never did arithmetic with people’s lives. You could show him the numbers on paper, the potential lives of the thousands who’d burn if the dragon was left to rampage, versus the single life of Sam, a boy who’d suffered from the Hierarch’s cruelty just as much as Gabriel and Max had, but Max would always see the math for what it was: a formula that justified doing awful things. A proof of awfulness itself.

  Max was decent.

  Gabriel wished he could afford to be. Instead, he had to be accountable.