by John Booth
While I call him Fluffy, everyone else calls him Retnor, which is his proper name. He’s a genuine fire breathing, orange and yellow iridescent scaled dragon and I’ve known him since he was an egg. He’s in the middle of a growth spurt and has put on ten foot in length and twenty foot in wingspan over the last year. It’s lucky that fate and a few of Bronwyn’s fanatics remodeled the cave before it happened.
[Jake. Your timing is unusually apposite. We have been summoned.]
Fluffy grinned at me and his thoughts carried more than a tinge of excitement.
“We have?”
[The Dragons have reached a decision on your request.]
And in less than two years. That must be close to a record. The Dragons were making hasty decisions these days. I had bargained with them for knowledge of how to create a Diabli Sword in exchange for keeping a watch on the remnants of that species in the Damaged Zone. Which reminded me; I should go and have a look at how they were getting on sometime soon.
“Can’t they just tell me through you?”
Fluffy shook his head reprovingly. He has a large head and it’s very impressive when he shakes it.
[Galator is waiting at the Gathering Place. We are already late.]
“Never let it be said I kept a Dragon Elder waiting.” I climbed onto Fluffy’s neck and he hopped us far across the multiverse.
The Gathering Place is an ancient hollow volcano on a small dead planet. The dragons have been using it for millions of years. The bottom of the volcano is flat, forming a huge stage and that was where Fluffy materialized. Galator stood before us, looking very impressive and just a bit impatient.
Now Fluffy looks huge, but when I compared him with Galator he was more like a small dog. If dragons ever stop growing, I’ve yet to see any evidence of it.
[JAKE MORRISSEY. WE HAVE REACHED A VERDICT]
Did I mention that older dragons shout, all the time? I decided to avoid deploying sarcasm, Galator was big.
“I thank you for your consideration.”
[DIABLI SWORDS CAUSED THE DEATHS OF BILLIONS. THEY DESTROYED A HOST OF UNIVERSES. YOU HAVE SEEN WHAT REMAINS.]
I nodded, it was a sobering thought.
[IF YOU RECREATE THEIR SWORDS…]
“I just want to see if I can create a defense against them.”
This was their dilemma in a nutshell. They would be mad to trust me with such knowledge, but I had to ask.
[THE KNOWLEDGE SHALL BE IMPARTED.]
Fluffy looked stunned and I almost fell off his back. This was unexpected.
[YOU MUST TOUCH ME.]
I dismounted and walked over to him. I could sense Fluffy shuffling behind me.
A flicker of overwhelming dread ran through me and I instantly created a shield around us, though Galator was too big to cover completely.
Dragonfire splashed over my shield, which barely held. Galator screamed as the fire tore at his tail. My shield was ripped apart as Galator took to the air through it, bellowing with such power my ears rang. Three large dragons hovering above us fled as Galator took chase.
Fluffy put a protective wing over me as I struggled to restore my shield around us. My view was blocked by his wing so I switched to magical sight.
At first I thought they had all hopped as no dragons were visible in the heavens. Then two burst into existence and gouts of dragonfire spurted across the sky as they tried to cook each other. Then they were gone again. The fight was being fought mainly in glim, a halfway house between reality and hop space. The dragons maneuvered in glim and waited for their enemy to become visible. Only in reality could they use dragonfire against each other.
Angry burst of magic flames shot across the sky.
“Galator is winning.” His flames were much stronger than theirs and his aim was excellent.
Fluffy aimed a wave of disagreement at me. [Galator is grievously hurt. Only his anger sustains him.]
Whether injured or not, it was clear the other dragons were not willing to stay and fight. I could sense they had fled. Galator dropped back into reality and glided down towards us.
[HELP HIM] Fluffy shouted as Galator’s descent became a plummet. Dragons fly by magic, being far too heavy to fly on their wings, which they use for fine flight control and effect. Galator had no control at all.
Fluffy was using his magic to slow Galator down, but Galator was very heavy and his magic was having little effect. I added my own power, which was much stronger and between us we brought him down to a perfect three point landing.
I was running towards him before he landed.
[WHAT ARE YOU DOING, WIZARD?]
He might be injured, but he sure could shout.
“I can heal you.”
The damned lizard was thinking about it. I stopped, all too aware I was facing the front end and Galator breathed dragonfire. Fluffy put in a word.
[He is very good at healing dragons.]
I can read dragon faces very well and Galator was in agony. If he didn’t let me help him soon it would be too late.
[VERY WELL.]
I stepped forward and put a hand on Galator’s face. So like Fluffy’s, but so much bigger. My consciousness expanded and encompassed the dragon’s body, flowing through his arteries and examining his cells.
Dragons have evolved to resist dragonfire, but the other dragons had hit us at point blank range and my shield had not extended to Galator’s tail. In some ways it was surprising that his flesh had survived at all. As it was, his back end was more barbeque than dragon.
But if there is appropriate material available, and if the rest of the body is strong enough to survive the shock, a wizard can remake flesh from what remains. The problem was that there were tons of flesh involved, more than Fluffy whole body weight. I bore down on the problem and felt my magical reserves depleting at an astonishing rate. There wasn’t going to be enough.
I felt a claw touch me and fresh power surge through me. Fluffy was adding to my power and he seemed to be tapping into other dragons, for he was providing far more power than he possessed. The flesh healed and I stimulated Galator’s adrenal glands to try to offset the shock his body was going through.
It was done. I dropped to the ground and opened my eyes. Perhaps a hundred dragons surrounded us, creating a vast circuit that had been feeding Fluffy as he fed me. The dragons started to hop away until only the three of us remained.
“Why did those dragons attack us?” Despite my tiredness that question was uppermost in my mind.
[NOT ALL DRAGONS THINK YOU SHOULD HAVE THE KNOWLEDGE YOU SEEK. THEY THINK YOU REPRESENT A GREATER THREAT THAN THE DIABLI. THEY WILL BE HUNTED DOWN AND KILLED FOR THEIR TEMERITY TO ATTACK AN ELDER.]
I have enough blood on my hands and there are far too few dragons in the multiverse as it is. They are a dying species.
“Don’t do that, I withdraw my request. Do not kill them for doing what they think is right. I will watch the Diabli for you without conditions.”
Galator stared at me. We must have been a right sight. Both of us struggling to breathe and totally exhausted. Fluffy was curled up on the ground and I thought he might already be asleep. I wished I could join him.
[IT SHALL BE AS YOU WISH. THEY SHALL BE EXILED FOR A MILLENIUM INSTEAD.]
Whoever said dragons were never reasonable?
“I need to lie down for a while.”
[AGREED.]
With a little effort I sat on the ground instead of falling. The world went away.
When I woke I opened my eyes to find Fluffy looking down, reminding me a bit of a cat guarding a mouse. Galator was still asleep.
“How long was I out?”
Dragons always know the time; it comes of being telepathically connected.
[Just under six hours. Thank you for saving Galator. The Dragons will not forget.]
“It’s been eighteen months since the last time this sort of thing happened. I’d been hoping for a longer break.”
Fluffy sighed, black smoke drifted between h
is teeth.
[It does appear that the old Jake is back.]
“We ought to be going.”
Galator opened a massive eye. I could have sworn he had been asleep.
[YOU ARE A GREAT HEALER, WIZARD. TOUCH MY CLAW AS A SIGN OF FRIENDSHIP AND MY OBLIGATION TO YOU.]
I stepped towards his enormous claws and reached out and placed a hand on the nearest one.
[MAY YOUR QUEST BE FRUITFUL.]
I nodded and went back to Fluffy and mounted him.
As we hopped back to the Bat Cave, I mused on the information Galator had surreptitiously passed to me during our brief physical contact. Now I knew how to make a Diabli sword, I wondered if the information would be of any use.
4. Night in the Museum
As soon as we got back to the cave my phone signaled a message was waiting. While of no use at all across the multiverse, it did allow people to keep in touch with me when I happened to be on Earth. The phone showed me it was nearly ten in the evening and the call was over three hours old.
I slid my fingers across the icons to get to the message. I swear smart phones are trickier than magic sometimes. A few clicks later I got to play the message.
“Hi Jake. If you get this today I am at the museum and plan to spend the night here. Drop in if you get the chance.”
Betty’s Northern English accent always sounded more pronounced on the phone, but it didn’t disguise the invitation in her words. She wasn’t asking me to go and view the Highfields Hoard so much as to get my hands on treasures of a more intimate nature.
“Got to go and see someone about something,” I told Fluffy.
He huffed and black smoke billowed around me.
[Do not think I am covering for you, Jake. We both know what that strumpet wants.]
Strumpet? Where does he pick up these words? I’d forgotten how well he could hear.
“She’s very important to me. I need to keep her…err satisfied.”
[She is a Norn and not to be trusted. All they care about is making the future arrive exactly as they think it should.]
Betty is human and only a tiny fraction Norn, but rather than continue the argument, I hopped over to the museum.
When the fuss had died down about the biggest treasure hoard ever found, the towns nearest to Highfields Farm had bickered and fought to be the ones to house it. There was sufficient quantity for the British Museum to cherry pick the most outstanding pieces while still leaving enough of it to fill a whole new wing of a museum. Derby had won, and managed to persuade Betty to leave the farm and take up a new career as tour guide and assistant curator. They were paying the tuition costs for her degree in archaeology to sweeten the deal.
I arrived in Betty’s tiny office and though the light was on, she was nowhere around. Going to the door I considered the possibility of wandering the corridors and probably setting off the alarms. Looking out into the corridor showed Betty had thought ahead. On the far wall was a sheet of paper with a big arrow and my name under it.
The arrow trail led me to the main display vault, which was lit up like a Christmas tree. Spotlights burned down on hundreds of gold trinkets and reflected off sparkling gems. We had been paid £2.3 million between us for this lot. Looking at it under the lights I wondered if we’d been cheated by Her Majesty’s Government.
“Jay-ake.”
The cheeky sounding call came from behind a panel plastered with a picture of the field where I’d found the treasure. Betty turned out to be behind the panel, lying on the plush red carpet. She seemed to have lost all her clothes.
“What if a guard walks in?” I hated having to alter people’s memories; it was such a dirty thing to do.
“He won’t. I know.” Betty was in one of those classical painting poses with hands draped strategically to cover her modesty. Not that she had any modesty that I’ve actually noticed. “Come and give me a little sugar, lover boy.”
Normally I’m all over Betty. While I love my wives, there is something primeval about Betty I can’t resist. Fluffy reckons it’s a Norn power and I’m caught in it. But at that moment I felt like I was trapped in a bad porn movie. The casting vote in my body remained deflated.
“What’s wrong with you?” There was rising anger and a hint of something else in her tone.
“I’m not a toy.” God, did I really just say that?
“You bastard.”
Then she was crying. A light went off in my brain.
“Your Mam’s tried to contact you again?”
“She came to the fucking museum, while I was giving a tour.”
I waited for more. Betty’s mam left her and her father when she was a baby. When she heard about the treasure and the money we were going to get she had got back in contact. Betty’s father had turned her away from the farm. Recently she’d been sending letters to Betty, asking for a meeting.
“She says we have to meet. Says it’s ordained.”
“She’s a Norn like you. It might be”
Never use logic on an angry woman. Betty scrambled to her feet and attacked me.
“She…is…not…like…me.” Every word was punctuated with a thump against my chest. “She had a child and abandoned her to rot, and now I’m stuck with you. And you’re no good.”
I used magic to prevent her knee rupturing the family jewels. It took a surprising amount of magic.
She collapsed into my arms and I held her tightly as she sobbed. As her sobs faded she began to rub against me. She’s an attractive woman and she smelled wonderful. Suddenly hormones took over and I felt myself rise to the occasion. Betty sensed the change. Well, to be honest what was poking out at her must have provided a substantial clue. We slid to the carpet and her hands were undoing my belt and pulling down my jeans. We didn’t bother with further undressing and I entered her in missionary fashion.
As we climaxed my magical sight expanded to encompass both our bodies. We shone with forces, hers a shade of blue that mirrored deep oceans, mine white and surprisingly pure. Then I saw it. A small place of black, of wrongness within her. I removed the darkness as we writhed in ecstasy and without even thinking about what I was doing.
Only as we lay together, her face buried into my chest did I realize that I’d made her pregnant.
She had told me that was impossible, that she was destined to remain both my lover and childless. But I could see the life spark into being inside her. It was a good spark and her body welcomed it. She would see this child to term, of that I had no doubt.
“What have you done?” Betty’s voice was soft, but the question urgent. She sat up and stared at me, puzzled and yet not alarmed. “What have you done to me, Jake Morrissey?”
Then she started to cry again. I held her for a long time until we drifted to sleep.
I woke early. We had moved back to her office during the night to sleep on the inflatable mattress she kept there. Neither of us spoke during the move.
Betty was fast asleep, so I gently eased my body away from her so I could get up. Jenny’s words from when I had similarly fixed Mrs. Griffith’s fertility problems had come back to haunt me. She said that I had no right to go around interfering in other people’s bodies without their permission. And I had made Betty pregnant without even considering whether she wanted me to.
Well, at least there were morning-after pills. It’s not like she had to have the baby. My thoughts seemed a bit like cop outs. I had crossed a line again and I was going to have to face the consequences, tomorrow, or the day after, but not today. I hopped to the Bat Cave.
Fluffy appeared to be sleeping, but as I headed for the shower his thoughts echoed in my head.
[Are you feeling guilty, Jake? You should be.]
Was he reading my mind now? He couldn’t know what I’d done.
[Jenny deserves better than this. It is bad enough she has to share you with Esmeralda.]
A wave of relief ran through me. He was referring to my other guilt.
“Betty’s gifts have kept me aliv
e.”
Fluffy chuckled and dragonfire leapt across the cave.
[Is that what you tell yourself? Then why don’t you tell your wives what you are up to?]
Yeah. That. Well, it’s never that simple is it? I decided to take a shower at my parents’ house. At least I wouldn’t have to listen to a nagging dragon.
5. The Twins
I hopped directly into their bathroom and took off my trainers, socks and jeans, using magic to remove the stains from the jeans and giving them a general clean up before throwing them down by the door. I turned on the shower over the bath and held my hand in the stream waiting for the water to get warm. As I go commando, I was naked from the waist down.
The door burst open and Britney and Brad burst into the room, ten year old twins that lived with Mam and Dad. I couldn’t tell if their looks of shock were from finding me there or finding me half naked. I used my hands to cover my embarrassment.
“Is that what you’ll look like when you’re grown, little brother?” Britney asked. She didn’t stop staring and didn’t look embarrassed. I had acquired a layer of pink from hairline to hairline. Ten year olds don’t seem to experience shame.
Brad sneered. “I hope not. That’s gross.”
“Out, out, both of you.” I used a hand to wave at them, which was a mistake as I couldn’t quite cover myself up with one hand.
“How come Jake’s got skin over the end of his?” Britney asked. “Is yours peculiar?”
Brad and I exchanged looks. “His is,” we said with remarkable synchronicity.
Magic could have saved my embarrassment in a second, but the twins had no knowledge of what I was, beyond being their brother by adoption when the final paperwork went through. Instead I reached for my jeans and covered the offending parts.
“How did you get in here, Uncle Jake?” Britney asked. Her eyes narrowed and she stared suspiciously at me. The uncle was a sort of insult she often used, though I wasn’t quite sure how it was supposed to be insulting.
“Do you two always go to the bathroom together?”