Amal was going to say “I don’t know”, but a massive Keeper dragon flew over them, roaring. It dipped between two skyscrapers and then over the outskirts of the city, toward a mountain range in the distance. Amal couldn’t stop staring at it, the way the sun shone through its translucent wings.
Demetrius cleared his throat. “I say we side with Ennius. It’s the safest option.”
Amal watched the dragon disappear toward the mountains. “I think I just found my answer.”
XII
Fenroot hovered over his troops as they ascended an icy mountain. The cold wind blew snow across his eyes but he followed the troops as they marched up a snowy mountain path.
An entourage of Keepers and Crafters flew in V formation alongside him, with cold and sullen faces. Moss flew next him, shivering.
The damned dragon!
“If you can’t take the cold, you can always return home,” Fenroot said.
“And wait for the old dragon to rip me to shreds like he did my daughters?”
“Courage,” Fenroot growled. “It wouldn’t hurt you to show some once in a while.”
“Strength in numbers,” Moss said. “I want to sink my teeth in his throat as much as you do.”
“I’m sure.”
Fenroot flew ahead but Moss followed him. Everywhere he went the green dragon hung around him like a parasite.
Moss technically played a part in Old Dark’s overthrow, and for that Fenroot couldn’t destroy him. As feeble as he was, he had connections in Magic Hope City, and Fenroot would need those connections. So he gritted his teeth as Moss followed him.
“My brave soldiers!” Fenroot cried. “We are almost there! Steel yourselves for another half mile. Already I can see our destination!”
Through the harsh blizzard, Fenroot saw the top of the mountain, and a pink glow that wrapped the summit. He leaned into his flight, barreling upward as the troops below picked up their marching.
He pushed against the wind, cutting through a cloud, shattering ice crystals inside as he emerged on the other end, grinning.
The summit rose to meet him as he landed on the ground with a boom.
The group of white dragons were waiting for him. Behind them, a tremendous cavern awaited, and Fenroot recognized its telltale pink glow, felt the power of the aquifer pulsing from within. Taking in a deep breath, he breathed in its aromatic, medicinal smell.
The leader of the white dragons stepped forward. “We are entrusting our existence to you. We want assurance.”
“You got your assurance,” Fenroot said. “What more do you want?”
“Guaranteed Abstraction,” the leader said. “For all of us. If there is any leftover magic, we demand that you return it to us. Even in a new state, it rightfully belongs to us.”
Moss landed next to Fenroot. “I can assure you that you will enter Abstraction. That won’t be an issue, friends.”
Finally, the coward was making himself useful! The pragmatism was much needed. Fenroot had worried that he would have had to take the mountain by force—that would have cost him valuable troops.
The leader nodded. “Very well. We accept your offer.”
“Then step aside and let us get to work.” Fenroot pushed through the white dragons just as his troops arrived on the summit. With his tail he pointed to the cavern and said “Aquiferians, begin routing this magic!”
The troops had lined up all the way down the mountain, from the summit to the sea.
A Crafter dragon lay down at the face of the cavern and opened his mouth.
A group elves ran into the cave quickly. After several minutes, the pink glow brightened, as if a fireball were blooming deep in the heart of the cave.
Then a long, unending tendril of pink magic flowed out of the cavern in a dazzling brilliance.
The dragon caught it in his mouth, and it flowed through him. He shuddered as the magic ripped through him, but his body glowed—he was casting a spell—-a filtering spell that Fenroot taught him to absorb the strongest parts of the magic and pass on the rest to the army.
Another dragon caught the tendril. She too shuddered as her body filtered the magic and passed it on to a long line of dragons. Eventually, the magical line reached elves, who held hands and began to chant. Golden necklaces around their necks trembled and sparkled as the filtered magic flowed through their bodies all the way down to the shore, where a Keeper dragon deflected the line of magic into the clouds.
Fenroot smiled.
The white dragons watched incredulously. “Where are you sending it?” the leader asked.
“To my soldiers on the western continent,” Fenroot said. He started to walk down the mountain and motioned for the white dragons to follow. “I recommend you come with me if you don’t want to get caught in an avalanche.”
The white dragons followed him, watching wide-eyed as his army streamed the aquifer magic into the sky.
“This is forbidden,” the leader said. “You would destroy an aquifer just to assert your power?”
Fenroot laughed. “When you are relaxing in Abstraction, you’ll thank me.”
They reached the bottom of the mountain, stopping on the same icy bluff that Fenroot had stood on hours earlier. They turned to look at the entire northern continent.
All over, several mountains flowed pink, and several pink lines of magic streamed into the clouds.
One of the lines disappeared in a flash of light.
“The extraction for the first mountain is complete,” one of the elven soldiers said. “My lord, prepare for tremors.”
“This is the part where you want to be airborne,” Fenroot said, rising into the air.
The dragons rose with him as the mountain shook and crumbled. Sheets of ice slid down the mountain and snow billowed into the air.
“And your soldiers?” the leader asked, frantic.
Fenroot’s dragons broke through the falling ice and snow, carrying the elven soldiers on their backs. They had took flight at just the right time.
All over the continent, the mountains fell upon themselves, leveling the great valleys and filling them with snow.
Soon the entire makeup of the small continent changed. Its mountains were gone, lumps of ice in their place.
Fenroot pointed to the endless blue skies over the ocean. “Onward!” he yelled.
XIII
Dark lie in a secluded clearing in the Ancestral Bogs. Norwyn had told him to wait there while he ran an errand, and Dark had slept for an hour, waking up to the soft edge of the afternoon heat. The air was starting to cool down, and as he looked through the trees and saw the sun burning through the branches, he felt as if he were back in time.
Of all the places he’d been—Magic Hope City, the Temple of Unity, the great plains of the western continent—the bog was still the only place that felt like home.
Frog lie near him, snoring. His snores shook the ground and a bubble expanded and contracted from his nose.
Had the river dragon learned his lesson?
Dark wasn’t sure. But he’d gotten the message across, and he couldn’t stop thinking about what Norwyn told him.
Leave it to Norwyn to help him see the world! It didn’t matter that the world was different; there were two constants Dark could rely on: the Ancestral Bogs and Norwyn.
Two branches in a nearby tree rustled. Dark sat up and trained his eyes on them. He learned to be on edge, ready for anything.
The white orb zipped through the trees, circling the clearing before descending to Dark.
Frog croaked awake, and bubble in his nose popped as he wiped mud off his face.
“Where have you been?” Dark asked. “When you said you were going to be back soon, I didn’t expect to fill the time with a nap.”
“Stand up,” Norwyn said. “We have visitors.”
Dark jumped to his feet. “Visitors! Norwyn, why are you trying to advertise my return?”
A great shadow moved over the clearing and then Dark heard it, a rhythmic
thumping. And then he saw them, an entourage of dragons in the sky. Three dragons—two Keepers and one Crafter flying, doing a lap around the clearing before landing in the grass. They were older dragons, whose scales had seen the passage of time. Without exception, they wore scars all over the bodies.
The white orb beeped, projecting Norwyn’s hologram in the grass.
Dark looked closer at the dragons.
He knew them.
These dragons…they were his old entourage, the ones who had flown with him on that fateful night. How old they looked! How weathered they were! But when he thought about his own appearance, he laughed to himself.
We’re quite the weather-beaten group.
Dark smiled as the dragons landed. “Sage. Brownigan. Lister. It has been too long.”
“You remember their names,” Frog said, incredulous.
“Of course I do!” Dark said. He stopped and leaned his head toward Norwyn. “Can I trust them?”
Norwyn puffed. “They wouldn’t be here otherwise.”
The Crafter, a long brown dragon with long whiskers and a square face, looked as if he’d seen a ghost. “You’re alive…I can’t believe it’s really you.”
“Ha ha, I am as alive as you, old friend!” Dark said.
The dragons dropped to the ground, bowing their heads.
“Norwyn?” Dark asked.
“They never forgot you all these years. They suffered for their allegiance. There are many, many more, my lord.”
Dark turned to the dragons, who were still prostrated before him. “Forgive us, my lord,” they said all at once.
A wide grin spread across Dark’s face. “You are forgiven, my children. Now rise, so that we may begin plotting my glorious return.”
***
“It was awful, my lord,” Sage said, showing Dark a scar on his face. He was a long, green Crafter. “Fenroot earned his title of ‘Fenroot the Brute.’ He hunted all of us down, made us swear allegiance to him. We did, for a time, but we kept our distance from the new lord—erhm, Fenroot.”
“That sounds terrible, just terrible!” Dark said. “Tell me—what happened to the rest of my followers?”
“Some were killed. Others killed themselves. Others, like us, have been living in solitude. It is not considered an honorable thing to have served you, my lord. If the elves get their way, our aquifer points will soon be taken away and we’ll have no choice but to die or live in Abstraction.”
“Abstraction,” Dark said, glancing at Norwyn. “What is this monstrosity I keep hearing about? It unsettles me deeply.”
Sage laughed and then the other dragons did the same. “It’s death, my lord! Living without living. How our brothers and sisters can feign patience living among humans and elves, I can’t fathom. But they’re not the real problem. It’s their offspring.”
Dark remembered a young dragon he had encountered on a roof in Magic Hope City while searching for Frog. She was an Abstraction, and she grew up in a world without knowing the old times. How insolent she was, too.…
“There are new generations of dragons who don’t care about the old ways,” Sage said. “They would see old guards like us die than think about respecting the aquifer.”
“It’s all about glory and vanity,” Frog said. “That’s the new dragon way.”
Dark traced a claw through the mud, drawing a rune. It glowed crimson before vanishing. “Indeed,” he said.
He knew these new dragons well. Meah and Mynthia had been among them. He marveled how the dragon race was still alive with runts like them running about, singing stories of their riches. He’d shown those two vapid girls!
“I understand you full well, Sage,” he said, “Your narrative is helpful. But I only have one question: why?”
Sage’s face wrinkled with confusion. “I do not understand, my lord.”
Dark rose. “Why is it that dragons are choosing Abstraction? What benefit does it offer?” His eyes went to Norwyn, who was sitting in the grass, listening to the entire exchange.
“There’s plenty for you to see soon,” Norwyn said. “To explain it now would confuse you.”
“Confuse!” Dark cried. “I am smarter than your average dragon!”
Frog croaked. “Well, in a manner of speaking, Abstraction is power.” The green dragon’s body glowed faintly as he spoke. “It’s how I’ve’a been able to cope and survive.”
“But you’re a big, strong dragon,” Dark said. “All you have to do is throw your weight around you’d have nothing to worry about.”
“It ain’t that simple.”
“Then educate me, my young, three ton, wise dragon!”
Brownigan, Sage and Lister laughed, but Frog frowned. “Ya want me to tell ya the truth, or do ya want to keep ridiculin’ me?”
Dark eased into the wet grass next to Frog and grinned. “My boy, you’ve got to learn how to take some jest. A dragon that’s been asleep all these years and forced to view the monstrosities of this new civilization must have something to laugh at. But forgive me. Proceed.”
“You just answered your own question.”
“What?”
“You wanted to know why dragons chose Abstraction. That’s why.”
Dark’s anger rose. “What is why, Frog?”
“Ya think dragons like being the weird ones? You think we like to guard the aquifer points?”
“It’s our responsibility,” Dark said.
“Yeah, but when elves are minin’ magic faster than we can replace it, it ain’t so glorious anymore. It ain’t so glorious when you’re sittin’ in your cave one night and an elven businessman comes to visit ya, tellin’ ya that you can sit in your cave and do it the hard way or you can do it the easy way.”
“And what is the easy way?”
“Surrender your share of the aquifer without a fight.”
“But why, Frog? If I were a Keeper, I would simply spray the elf with fire and that would be the end of that.”
“You can say no,” Frog said. “No one would blame ya. There’ll’ve be plenty of dragons who never cross over. But there’re plenty who will. For them it ain’t about the old ways anymore. They ain’t hostile to humans and elves like we used to be. And so it’s an easy choice for them to integrate into a society where they hold all the power.”
“Is that why you went into Abstraction, then, Frog?” Dark asked. “To hold power?”
“If I didn’t go into Abstraction, Moss would have surely killed me,” Frog said. “He’d made my life a livin’ hell.”
“What about you, Norwyn?”
Norwyn stood and his white orb beeped. “This reunion has been great, but if you want the answer to your question, my lord, it’s time to return to Magic Hope City. I’ll teach you everything you want to know about Abstraction.”
XIV
Alvia noticed the election banners nearly half a mile before arriving in Bogville. She couldn’t have missed the pink, purple and white streamers hanging from the street lights, riddled with stars and emblems of dragons. The streetlights had a pale, pink glow. She thought she heard the distant chanting from a rally.
Aside from a port town she had landed in when she first arrived on the western continent, this was the largest town she had been to in her life. It couldn’t have been longer than twenty blocks. If the rumors were true, it was nothing compared to Magic Hope City, the great basin of lights she’d heard so much about growing up.
She and Pepper stayed on the side of the road, a few feet from a guardrail that overlooked a wooded creek.
Several cars passed by, kicking up a thick cloud of dust that hung in the air as she entered the outskirts of the small town. Coughing, she inched the front of her robe up over her nose. Pepper sputtered at her feet. Dust particles gathered in her bristles. Only the tip of her black, wet nose was untouched. Her pink tongue hung out, the first warning sign of dehydration.
“We’ll find a place to stop,” Alvia said reassuringly. “I know you need some water, too.” Alvia then fel
t her own throat grow scratchy.
They had been walking for five hours, stopping every now and again for rest and drink. Her canteen was almost empty, and she felt terrible about it because it meant she had nothing for herself—something she was accustomed to—and nothing for Pepper.
Of all the things in the world that you couldn’t magick, drinkable water was one of them.
One of the rules of alchemy. If you could create water out of nothing, then that would throw off balance of the world. If you could magick money out of the air, you’d be invincible.
You could create water, but it would be dirty, brackish salt water. That was nature’s revenge.
And lord knew the bog water wasn’t drinkable. So she walked, on and on in hopes that she’d find a city, or a traveler who would take pity on her.
And here she was. In Bogville.
She didn’t know where she was going or why she was here. All she knew was that this place was in the middle of her path.
The front of her robe was covered in dust and her coughing was perpetual now, every few seconds.
“I doubt they sell robes here,” she said, sighing.
***
Every night for the past month since she escaped from the mountain compound, Alvia awoke to night terrors.
She dreamed of dragon teeth, growling, raspy voices.
“You can’t just leave.”
“We took you from the cradle. You belong to us.”
And then a deeper voice that made her body break into a cold sweat.
“After all I’ve done for you, girl, you chase freedom?”
Her body shook every time as she replied. “My elven ancestors before me—”
“Damn your ancestors! If you neglect your duty, you’ll join them. We’ll all join them when the Great Darkness washes over this land and shackles chains of fire on us all.”
“Why should I spend my entire life in a monastery, practicing for some day that will never come?”
Sirens underscored her dreams, the clarion call that they heard in drills on the first night of every month. The gong-like whirl that made her spring up in bed and march into the cold night. Every time she wondered if it would be the one night where it wasn’t a drill. Her legs just moved. Her body knew what to do. She climbed out of her bed, followed the other elves in robes as they lined up along the mountainside, their hands glowing with magic.
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