A basic, elementary error, to neglect to look above me.
He dove, a green and amber missile, just off Kodály's left wing, spinning us, and the drag of the aerodynamic wash hurled us down. My stomach lurched as we plummeted, towed along, Kodály fighting to regain control as we reached out to the dragon, frantic to make some connection.
He screamed, trilling his heartbreak, and we called and called again and still he did not hear us. He dived at the village, another attack imminent, and all three of us shouted as one, aloud, in our minds, with our hearts, in every way we had.
“We're sorry. We did not know. Forgive us.”
The dragon's dive leveled out above the treetops, and it rolled over on its back and gazed upward at us.
And then the pain. The anger. The fury and lust for revenge, the righteousness, the unquestioning need to eliminate the threat. We felt the dragon's rage and it shocked the wind from our chests. An inferno of hatred engulfed us and forced a choked cry from our throats. Loneliness. Agony. The breaking of a mighty heart. We lost lift and plummeted again toward the earth.
Against this tide of misery we sent understanding. Companionship. Peace.
We broadcast awe at his magnificence, pain at his bereavement, beseeching for his mercy. It was no tongue man can speak, simply the joining of one creature to another, mind to mind and soul to soul.
For millennia, humans had written and sung legends about the dragon, a creature of empathy, of supernatural power. We had no idea.
It still was not enough. We could feel the dragon readying the scorching flame, searching for a new target, but Kodály refused to give up. In the console, the cube began to play. Re-enacting the day, images and sound scrolled through our minds, through the dragon's mind, fused as we were; I couldn't find a reason for this. How could the recording of his dead mate's body not make things worse?
But I had forgotten. At the end, as I prayed and gave honor to the dead, the scene unleashed a shattering grief as the dragon saw and felt our sadness and our deep respect.
Had any one of us attempted this on our own, without the support of the others, we could only have been overwhelmed by the psychic power of the dragon, crushed by his boundless suffering, driven mad by it. But we were not alone, and the three of us, sisters, joined as one, were enough. We could stand the tide of pain, embrace it, and send back in its place soothing calm.
At first I thought it would still be too little, as the dragon considered the town, but then we felt his agony crest and recede. He had heard us. The fiery snout came up and sniffed the wind, and fury decayed into mere wretchedness.
The dragon screeched his understanding, rose to eye us in wonder—we felt it from him like the rays of the rising sun—then wheeled twice around the smoldering village and flew off, mighty wings carrying him over the peaks to the west, into the setting sun.
* * *
The corps was not ready for what I reported. I kept most of the details to myself, but in every important respect, Ana's report and mine coincided exactly. Imre was the first to reject it out of hand, and send me for evaluation.
“Sorry, and all that. But what you've reported is impossible,” he said.
“You watched the recording?” I said, knowing he would have, and that he would have seen nothing. What had really happened was not on any cube.
“I did. There's nothing there to see, except that you flew against a dragon. You're lucky to be alive, but you're also clearly insane.”
That was that. I needed the rest, anyway, after the ordeal. And getting away to central HQ in Vienna was relaxing. I kept feeling the pull, though, from Kodály and from Ana.
Based on her excellent work, I recommended her for a promotion to the Dragonflies. When I returned to full duty, she came to see me, riding her Sorescu, out of Bistrica. She was still so green, so reckless, but she embraced me with abandon and flew with me the same way.
“She's not awake, not like Kodály,” Ana said, when she was sure no one else was listening.
“She will be,” I said, my forehead pressed to Sorescu's head. “When you need her.”
We fly together often, Ana and Sorescu, Kodály and I.
We go looking for dragons.
About Cj Lehi
Christopher Jones (alias Cj Lehi) is known mainly for short stories, having published a collection of his own (And the Kitchen Sink), fifteen solo stories on Patreon (patreon.com/cjlehi), as well as with Solstice Shadows Publishing and this lovely anthology with Incandescent Phoenix. Not limited to fiction, Cj has published dozens of technical articles in newspapers and magazines (mainly on mortgage finance), and his nonfiction book Mastering the Six Channels of Marketing was an Amazon Top 25 book in Advertising. Cj resides in Lehi, UT, with his wife Jeanette, their eight children, two cats, and a stray hummingbird.
The Witch's Son
by Diane Dubas
The city always made Nico nervous. Too many people, too many strange smells, too much colour. He preferred his pod by the seaside; he preferred that his customers come to him. But it wasn't a customer who had summoned him, not tonight.
Nico made his way through the main streets lined with immaculate buildings, where sun filtered through coloured stained glass and made rainbows on the sidewalk. There was so much green here, so much life. He couldn't say for sure what it was that put him off so much. It had to do with the infrastructure, somehow. Buildings were still made of concrete and metal, even if they were lined with plant life and breathable to the world. They still weren't natural.
He made a sharp turn down an alleyway devoid of light, a sliver through time when alleyways were always devoid of light, and therefore life. The walls of these buildings were dying from the lack of sun, even despite obvious attempts to bring them back. Nico dragged his fingers along the wall, dried vines and dead leaves catching on his skin. The city was no place for a witch.
The alley made way for more twisting, tight corridors between and behind buildings and the deeper Nico went, the more claustrophobic he became. His breathing hitched and caught as he was forced to slip sideways down a narrow passageway.
“Jupiter's rancid breath,” he muttered as his satchel caught on an overgrown vine.
He paused to yank it away and kept moving. There was nothing to fear. He knew this, but still his heart pounded and his senses went into overdrive. He could feel the warmth of magic, unbidden and swirling under his skin. He'd have to ramble off a few charms just to calm himself before he made it to the Red Door. He couldn't go in there jacked up on magic, who knew what would happen?
By the time he reached the Door, he was sweating beneath his jacket and irritated to the high hills of Mars. Whispering under his breath, he muttered charms to release some of his pent up magic. He scowled when half of the vines on the wall he was leaning against not only came to life, but were blooming radiant night flowers, each a deep purple.
“You're a two bit wiz, Nic,” he mumbled to himself, disgusted at his own fear.
He drew in a deep breath and raised his hand to knock on the door, massive and red, as advertised. Three sharp raps, a thirty second pause, then seven light raps, as instructed. And then he waited. And waited. He rolled his eyes and yanked his communicator off the arm of his jacket, scrolling through his messages until he found the summons. Three sharp raps, a thirty second pause, then seven light raps. He hadn't missed anything. The date was correct. The location was correct. His irritation was abject.
Muttering curses, he snapped his fingers and amplified the knocks.
“ALL RIGHT.”
The words were a wall of sound that sent a wave of vibration through Nico's body, every cell bouncing inside his skin. It was exactly the sort of scare tactic she had used when he was little—only instead of scaring him, it increased his irritation.
“You could at least answer the damn door,” he hissed to no one.
There was movement in his pocket, a warm, pointed scurrying. Nico raised his hand to cover it.
“It's al
l right,” he murmured. “She's just being mean again.” Nico paused as the door opened and squinted at the shard of bright white light that escaped into the alleyway. “Unnecessarily.”
The woman at the door was not one he would have recognized if he had passed her on the street. She had billowing red-gold hair that dangled past the small of her back and her face was unlined. He wouldn't have known her at all except for her mismatched eyes—the grey eye that matched his own, and the other, black as pitch.
“Nothing I do is unnecessary,” she said, her voice like a tinkling bell.
Nico rolled his eyes and dropped his hand. No need to call her attention to his pint-sized companion; she'd just take all the credit and leave nothing for him. He pushed past the beautiful, unfamiliar woman.
“Is that any way to greet your mother?” she said, her voice as light and airy as if she were speaking to a lover.
Nico shot her a sideways glance and wry frown. “Hello, mother,” he said flatly. “You can drop the act.”
The witch sidled up beside him and rested her chin on his shoulder, again as though their relationship were something other than it was. Nico hated it when she played these little games. Appearance spells were her specialty, that and conning whichever hapless member of high society had played into her hands. The Red Door was synonymous of all things forbidden: sex, drugs, magic, and petroleum. Are you a duke with a penchant for diesel engines? The Red Door is your place. A countess with a kink for motor oil? The witch behind the Red Door is there for you.
It was only once Nico had made it past the entranceway that he realised they weren't alone.
“Nicomedes, behave,” the witch hissed in his ear, quiet and fast and in her own voice.
She swished past him, a bevy of satin skirts and billowing hair. For a split second, he saw her as she was, hobbled and much older, a grizzled shell of a woman held together by magic and spite. He'd never understood his mother and why she insisted on living the way she did; she had to get something out of all her malice.
Nico followed her into a sitting room. On one side of the den, tucked in a corner, was a man sniffing a bowl of gasoline. The faint odour turned Nico's stomach and he willed himself to think of the scent of sea spray on the wind. He longed for home.
In the centre of the room, a small group of well-dressed people passed a smoking roll of paper around, heavy grey smoke tendrils reaching toward the ceiling. A woman laughed, a high-pitched, jarring sound that sent Nico's spine rigid with distaste. He glared at the back of his mother's head and scowled. Oh, what company she kept. Perhaps his problem was not so much with the city and rather with the one who bade him come to it.
A girl caught him by surprise, her hand falling on his chest, dangerously close to the precious cargo in his pocket.
“Aren't you exotic?” she breathed, her cool fingers grazing the side of his face.
Nico bristled at her choice of words, his spine straight and a sharp admonishment on his tongue. He turned a glare on the girl and was startled to find himself lost in green hazel eyes and caramel skin. Freckles dotted her brown nose and her smile was pleasing. Nico had to blink to be sure she wasn't an illusion sent to distract him from whatever it was the witch had brought him here to do.
“Half-Japanese,” the witch replied in her honeyed, false voice.
“What's the other half?” the girl asked, pushing herself closer.
She couldn't have been any older than Nico, if even that.
He caught her elbows and pushed her back, shooting his mother a bemused grimace.
His mother smiled at him, one eyebrow cocked, and replied to the girl, “Something far more interesting.”
Nico's grimace changed into a glower. “I'm not for sale.”
“Everyone is for sale, Nico,” the witch replied.
“I'll leave.”
“Don't go!” the girl cried, lunging toward him.
He pushed her back and looked into her eyes again. Her pupils were dilated, enormous. She was drugged or entranced or both. Nico leaned toward her.
“You should go home,” he whispered, letting magic colour his words. “Sleep this off. Find meaning. You're better than this.”
The girl blinked and to Nico's great relief, took a step backward. “You're right,” she murmured, “I should. I am.”
Nico smiled to himself as she turned and marched right out the big red door she'd come through earlier, seeking oblivion from the witch in the city.
“Now, was that necessary?” His mother sighed.
“I'm sure she's already paid. Be satisfied,” Nico said. “I could make it my business to clear the room.”
The witch smiled at his empty threat. “You could, but you won't. Come. There's someone I want you to meet.”
Nico hesitated, again watching his mother's back as she disappeared into the long hallway leading to the rearmost room. There must be someone important waiting for him—this room was not for normal clientele. With a sigh, he followed, knowing he'd be unable to sate his curiosity otherwise.
The Red Door was not where Nico had grown up, but many of its curiosities were familiar to him—from the door itself, heavily enchanted with very old magic, to the baubles and trinkets that lined the walls and bookshelves in the hallway. These had been part of his life in the cottage in the valley, when the witch had allowed herself to age properly and helped instead of hindered those she met. She was a healer, and still is, Nico supposed, when it suited her. The magic Nico had learned from her had been only the very best, pure and whole and untouched by technology. That wasn't to say technology didn't have its place in the world, but for a time it'd had too much of a place.
Humanity had turned the tables on its dying planet in the twelfth hour. It had taken a massive culling of human life from rapidly changing weather conditions to spur the change, though the signs had been present for decades. But this was long ago, long before Nico was born. In the stories his mother told, magic had all but faded from the earth, drained out through mining and drilling and destroying. The golden age of magic had come to an end and with its demise, the dragons had left, too. Unconsciously, his hand went to his pocket and gently closed over the bulge there, his fingers a loose cage, comforted by the warmth and bulk inside.
His mother had slipped through a curtain of thick merlot velvet that Nico scanned quickly for magical influence. There was nothing save a spell to keep sound locked within their folds. So this meeting was in confidence. Nico stepped through the curtain. The laughter and hum of the front room cut out abruptly, replaced only with the sounds of wood crackling in the hearth.
The room was dim, but even in the darkness Nico could tell it had changed since the last time he'd visited. His heart thumped against his ribs as the details set in, from the heat of the wood fire to the threadbare rug on the floor, to the books on the shelves and the worn desk in the corner. Nico turned to his mother with wide eyes and she smiled. It was probably an illusion, but he saw her as she had been once, warm with soft greying hair and kindness in her eyes. She'd gone to great lengths to make this room into a replica of their cottage in the valley and Nico wondered at her aim. It couldn't be good. She touched his arm and directed her gaze to the chair in the corner, turned toward the fire.
“You have much to speak of and I have clients to attend,” she said quietly, in a voice that was her own.
Nico's eyes stayed trained on her back as she passed through the curtains and out of sight. It wasn't like her not to make introductions; it wasn't like her not to moderate the conversation and direct it how she wanted.
“Nicomedes Darkwater, let me look upon your face, boy.”
The voice was deep and ancient, rich with the undertones of a knowledge older than Nico could imagine. Nico's senses were overwhelmed by magic in those words, not compelling but simply there, lingering on every syllable. There as though it were impossible for it not to be. It spoke to Nico of mountains, and not the peaks where the air ran thin and unbreathable but the very centre, where
the rocks whispered history and magic still built as easily as it did in Nico's fingers.
Nico took a shaky step toward the chair, shrouded in the dancing shadows of the flames, his feet surprisingly leaden. The witch never called him here unless it was a matter of great import. Although what she considered “great import” had changed over the years and Nico had let his guard down. He'd expected some fool scheme to rob imprudent men of their money, not to meet with someone who knew the arts. No, that was wrong. That's not how this person felt. This was someone who was the arts and such people were so very rare. Even Nico and the witch were poor substitutes for the sorcerers of the past. Sorcerers like the person in the chair.
“Come,” the voice said with a gentle edge, “I mean you no harm, boy. I only mean to look upon you.”
Nico was struck by a memory of the time he dove off the cliffs and into the sea on a dare. He'd stepped quickly into danger, as the only other option had been to run from it and that was an alternative he couldn't abide. It was the same walking toward the voice. He rounded the chair and halted, surprised to find a strong, young man with trailing dark hair and brown skin, a sharp jaw, and golden eyes that burned like the sun. Nico looked away, blinking rapidly and feeling the man's eyes on him.
The man laughed, a deep rumble that shook Nico to the core, not unlike his mother's amplified voice earlier. Unlike her tactic, however, the laughter resonated warmth and pleasure. There was movement in his pocket at the sound and Nico rushed to cover it with his hand, glancing at the visitor. He'd kept the secret safe for so long, safe from his mother, safe from those who would stamp its life out—Nico had no intention of handing it over now. The man's eyes had fallen on the pocket and a faint smile touched his lips. Nico's back straightened and he considered arming himself with magic against this strange man.
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