by S. W. Clarke
I swallowed. Stopped struggling. “I can see why Seleema loves you, Frank.”
He snorted. “It’s mostly my cooking.” He turned us toward the tail end of the line of volunteers. “Now let’s go see a dragon.”
We finally arrived at the entrance to the underground parking garage for the hotel. The volunteer leader held the door for us, ushered us through and into the semidarkness of the garage.
“Now you see,” she said to the group of us, feathers trembling with enthusiasm, “Lust’s quite busy, so she couldn’t be with us right now. But she’s been kind enough to allow us to come take a peek at one of the only dragons left in the GoneGod World. Please wait your turn—he can get a bit riled up.”
She giggled, hopping backward and leading us with both talons as we approached a big, blitzed-out tour bus. When we came around the other side, I stopped hard.
Percy lay on the asphalt, every part of him pulled tight. His wings were held close to his body, his legs tucked underneath, his tail curled. His eyes were lidded as he stared into nothing.
And all four ankles were shackled.
I’d never had so much trouble standing. Then again, I’d never seen my child in such a state.
It was horrific.
Percy’s shackles were attached to chains which ran to the massive support pillars holding up the garage itself. They had been latched to enormous bolts bigger than my head.
Around him stood four security guards, each with semi-automatic rifles at their hips. They stared at us, eyes scrutinizing. The message was obvious: Try anything around the dragon, and we won’t hesitate to pop a cap in one of your appendages.
But I was still tempted. Tempted to run, tempted to scream.
My knees began to buckle with adrenaline, grief, rage—all three at once. Frank caught my elbow, holding me with surprising firmness, and his grip was the only thing that kept me from heading straight toward Percy. Calling out. Cutting through the crowd and clawing out the eyes of anyone who got in my way.
It was primal. Instinctive. A mother’s protectiveness.
Frank’s hand lowered to mine, and his fingers interlaced with my own. “Don’t do it.”
“Do what?” I seethed, my eyes still on Percy.
“Don’t go to him.”
“But look at him. It’s inhuman. You wouldn’t even treat a dog—”
“I know. You’re right. Look at me.”
My eyes met Frank’s, and he squeezed my hand. I’d never seen him so solemn, so in control of a situation. “We have a mission, Tara. Running to him right now won’t save him. You know that.”
I knew that. If it was Seleema, you wouldn’t be standing here, I wanted to shoot back, but of course, that was part of why Frank was here with me. If it’d been Seleema we were going to see, I would have been the one with my hand on his elbow.
All rationality went out the window when we saw our loved ones in chains.
The tour leader came forward, gesturing down to Percy from a distance. “This is Lust’s pet, Basil.”
Basil. Lust had named him after an herb.
The gamayun had gone into tour guide mode, explaining how special Basil was, telling us about how ferocious he could be and how fast he could fly. And not to worry, his shackles were unbreakable.
“Unbreakable?” someone piped up.
The gamayun’s feathers fluttered as though she’d anticipated this moment, and she straightened. “Yes. They are of ancient origin, forged from the chains used to hold Prometheus against the rock.”
Various murmurs of surprise and awe passed through the crowd. But all I could see was how much Percy had grown. He was significantly bigger than the last time I’d held his face in my hands outside Valdis’s mansion a few months ago.
And that killed me. I’d seen every moment of his life from the instant his little golden eye appeared from a crack in his egg, and now I had missed months of his life. So many changes in him, large and small.
I had wanted to be there for his whole childhood. Lust had taken part of it from me, and for that alone, I hated her.
“He seems to be in fine spirits today,” the gamayun went on, “so we’ll go ahead and feed him. He loves chocolate cake pops.”
Cake pops?
One of the other volunteers passed a box to the leader, who slitted it open to reveal a dozen pops with extra-long sticks. “Now, everyone can feed him one cake pop. If you’re feeling brave, you can even touch his nose.”
A volunteer gasped. “He won’t bite?”
“Don’t worry—he’s never bitten anyone.” The leader smiled. “He’s well under Lust’s control.”
I bristled with anger, my neck and cheeks heating. I wished he would bite one of them.
She went around the group passing out cake pops, holding them with surprising deftness given her lack of opposable thumbs. When I received mine, I resisted tossing it on the ground and stepping on it.
A cold fury like I’d never known had taken hold of me.
The volunteers began lining up to feed and pet Basil the dragon. One by one, he ate the offered cake pops, allowed his nose to be stroked. He never spoke, and he never looked any of them in the eye.
My dragon, who’d always had so much fire in him. So much independence.
When it came my turn, I knelt by his side and set one hand on his neck. His scales felt different—warmer, tougher, like even they had matured. “Perce?” I whispered so low, only he could hear me.
No answer.
That was the worst torture of all. Even when he was feeling petulant and angry, he’d always acknowledged me when I talked to him. At the very least, he’d responded with a ruffle of his scales or a sweep of his tail.
But it was like I hadn’t even touched him. Hadn’t spoken at all. He sat like a zoo animal, unseeing, dead inside.
Fingers snapped nearby. “Cake pop. If you don’t give him the cake pop, he’ll get testy.”
I shot a glare so menacing, the volunteer leader hopped back. The guards exchanged glances.
“Percy?” I whispered again, stroking his neck.
He didn’t seem to see me; his eyes stared straight ahead into nothing. It was exactly how he’d looked the night Lust had put him under her spell.
And he was still under it now.
I lifted the cake pop, extended it toward him. In one motion, he opened his mouth and snapped down on it, stick and all down the gullet.
One of the guards moved toward the tour leader, and I heard him say, “Sheila, you’ve got two more minutes with the dragon. He’s needed for the next event.”
Sheila urged me to stand. “Time’s up, I’m afraid.”
I didn’t stand. I gazed at Percy, and even though I wasn’t sure he would understand me, I leaned close to his ear and whispered, “I’m coming for you, little egg.”
Chapter 6
Once I’d gotten outside the hotel, I paced the sidewalk as Frank tried to calm me.
“Basil.” I threw my hands up. “She renamed him Basil and she feeds him cake pops and keeps him in shackles.”
Frank watched me sympathetically. “I’m so sorry, Tara.”
“He’s watched like a hawk,” I went on. “Security never took their eyes off him. I bet he’s never even out of those chains unless she’s riding him.”
“Probably not.”
“Why does she even keep him under her spell if she’s got ‘unbreakable’ shackles around his ankles?”
“I don’t know.” Frank paused. “Maybe Jen Brovavick would …”
“No.” I crossed to the side of the building, leaned against it as I dialed a number. “Not your librarian ex. I know exactly who to call.”
He would know about these chains.
He would know what to do to save Percy.
I fingered the whistle around my neck as I waited for him to pick up.
On the third ring, Ferris’s voice came through. “Don’t give me problems, Tara.”
“Ferris.” I was breathless. I beckoned
Frank, and we ducked into a secluded alley beside the hotel. “Lust has Percy under her spell. He’s in chains.”
“Woah, woah.” Ferris’s voice was soothing, in control. “Start from the beginning.”
So I did. I told him everything that had happened since we’d last spoken, including Lust’s plans to inhabit Ariadne and control the world.
“Ah,” Ferris said at the end. “So you’re calling me with problems. Color me surprised.”
“I need to break Percy free. I suspect the chains are all part of Lust’s show, so if you can just tell me how to break them, then …”
“Describe them to me.”
I did so in harsh, raspy detail.
“Oh, Tara.” Ferris sighed when I’d finished. “You don’t know anything about Lust, do you? Her most prized possessions would be held closest to her chest.”
I leaned against the wall, stared up into the strip of sky above.
“Lust is all about the story, the illusion,” Ferris went on. “But no one would believe in the illusion if some portion of it wasn’t true. From what you’ve described, I suspect Percy is bound in Samson’s chains.”
“Samson’s?”
“They’re chains of legend. They are truly unbreakable, except perhaps …”
I straightened. “Except what?”
“Perhaps a full-grown dragon’s fire would do the trick.”
I stared at the dumpster across from me with blank eyes. “A full-grown dragon.” I only knew one full-grown dragon. Yaroz, Percy’s birth mother. The matriarch who’d lived a thousand years. “But even if we had dragon’s fire, we’d still need to get Percy out from under Lust’s spell.”
“Funny you mention that,” Ferris said. “So I have a completely untested theory. Long before the gods left, the goddess Eris cast a charm spell on several young dragonlings and made them her pets. To break the spell, the hero Actaeon was doused in a matriarch’s urine.”
My eyebrows rose. “Care to explain why?”
“Like cats, dragons establish their hierarchy through urine.” Ferris had that slow cadence he sometimes used, as though it was all obvious. “And no one holds greater standing in their world than a dragon’s mother.”
I didn’t like where this was going. “So you’re saying if I douse myself in Yaroz’s pee, it’s going to break Lust’s spell over Percy?”
“That’s my theory.”
Meanwhile, Frank—who could only hear my side of the conversation—stood with folded arms and a fascinated, semi-horrified look on his face. Here I was inexplicably talking about dragons and their pee. He’d heard stranger things from me, but not by much.
“And you’re sure that would work?” I asked Ferris.
He sighed. “Well, I don’t know. That’s why it’s an untested theory.”
“How about instead of going to one of my arch enemies and asking her to piss on me, I tell her her little boy’s in trouble, and we could use her help?”
“Eh, that could work.”
“Only problem is,” I said, “I don’t know where to find her.”
Ferris paused, and I could hear what sounded like typing in the background.
“Ferris wheel, I swear I can hear you using modern technology.”
“I’m talking to you on the phone, aren’t I?” he snapped. I couldn’t tell whether I’d annoyed him more by using his nickname or by teasing him for being a luddite.
“Yeah, but other technology,” I said. “With keys.”
“Yes, your ears work,” he growled. “It’s a mechanical keyboard. I’ve recently realized the importance of these things you call computers, and I’m doing research. So just give me a minute, would you?”
I smiled. It always gave me a little pleasure when I got under his skin; the gruffer he got, the more I knew he cared about the issue at hand.
A minute later, he let out a long breath. “Yaroz is back to her cult-ness.”
“Oh really?”
“I’m sending over the details.” He paused. “Brace yourself.”
I pulled my phone out of my jacket and waited for Ferris’s email. When it came through, my head jerked back.
Frank stepped closer. “What’s going on?”
I turned the phone around to face him.
As his eyes traveled over the screen, he glanced up at me with raised eyebrows. Then back down at the screen. Then up at me. “Wow.”
“Yeah. Wow.”
This was the last thing I’d ever expect from Yaroz, the Keeper of Flame.
The green goblin set his palms together before me and bowed as I stepped inside the doors of the massive compound. “Namaste. Please, follow me.”
The goblin began leading me down a massive, perfectly maintained walkway bordered by a beautiful koi pond on one side and a Japanese Zen garden on the other side.
The whole place smelled floral.
The Shanti Heiwa Hépíng Compound was an hour’s drive outside New York City, which gave me seven hours until I needed to be back for the New Year’s Eve party. “I thought you all were Buddhist,” I said to the goblin as we walked.
“We are.” He slowed to walk beside me. “And we are also Daoist. And we practice Confucianism and Pantheonism, among others.”
“Pantheonism?”
“Some of our residents prefer to believe the gods will return. Those who do are considered ‘Patheonists.’ All religions—human and Other—are embraced here. But all worship in the presence of the guru Lakshima.”
I’d read about this guru before coming here. He was some kind of Other, and apparently he was considered to have a connection to the gods, an ability to speak to them ... wherever they were.
Two years ago, he had prophesied that the gods would return. He claimed he’d had a vision accompanied by a message from a goddess who said that some of the gods would return.
Some.
And that when they did, there would be a great upheaval …
It wasn’t clear when, or how many of them would come back, but he and his followers were certain of it. I guess that explained the Pantheonism.
Ferris was right: Yaroz was back on the Kool-Aid.
“And what are you?” I asked the goblin.
“I am a Pantheonist.” He gestured to his beanie. “This is the signifier of our religion.”
We turned a corner and passed under a beautiful stone archway into a circular, roofless room with tall, expansive trees and an enormous cave built into one side of it. At the center, a second pool gurgled as a stone dragon spouted crystalline water from its upraised jaws.
It looked like a miniature Yaroz.
I stared at the fountain as the goblin kept walking. He paused, turned to glance at me. “It is quite beautiful, is it not?”
I nodded.
“The guru Lakshima had the fountain constructed in Yaroz’s likeness when she arrived here. He declared her a miracle of the GoneGod World, and has devoted this entire room to her and her children.”
I glanced at him. “And where is she?”
He nodded toward the cave and the pitch blackness at its mouth. “She resides here. It’s possible she sleeps right now, but we shall see.”
The two of us approached the mouth of the cave. I squinted in, but couldn’t make out a thing. I did, however, hear deep breathing in and out of what sounded like massive lungs.
“Disciple Yaroz,” the goblin pronounced, “Keeper of Flame, Spark of the Old World, Mother of the World’s Dragons Entire, Pronouncer of Good …”
A blast of hot air blew over the both of us, and the goblin struggled to keep his beanie on.
“You have interrupted my meditation,” a voice echoed from inside the cave. It sounded like silk and caramel and death. “What do you want, Disciple Glonk?”
“I have brought a visitor to see you. She says she has met you once before.”
Out of the darkness, two golden eyes appeared as though they’d been drawn on a black canvas. They looked just like Percy’s eyes.
A familiar
old shiver went up and down my body. I had forgotten the primal feeling of being in the presence of a full-grown dragon. It was unlike anything.
Movement sounded over the stone, and out of the nothingness an ebony face appeared, white canines jutting over the edges of her jaw. The cunning golden eyes shifted to the goblin, and then to me. Her nose neared me, took a great whiff so strong my braid flew toward her nostril. Man, this was giving me deja vu. “I suspected I would see you again.”
That surprised me. “You did?”
“Yes. I had a vision during my silent retreat. I saw you—and Percival. But only you have come to me.”
“Your silent retreat?”
Her eyes slowly closed, opened again. “For two weeks I did not speak. I remembered the whole of my life’s history, and once I had parsed each day and year and century, I came to the present. I considered the state of the world as it is without the gods. And finally, with the guru Lakshima’s aid, I looked into the future.”
Well, this was different. “And what did you see?”
“Love,” she murmured. “And peace.”
As she said it, two of her children—Greenie and Red—sidled up next to her from inside the cave. One of them yawned and leaned against her like a chick.
This was not the dragon I’d had to stop from attacking New Orleans.
I folded my arms. “You know, when a lot of people say they’re going to destroy the world, they mean it as a euphemism. But when you said you were going to destroy the world, you were being very literal. I find it hard to believe you’ve become a hippie.”
Yaroz chuckled. “Oh, young human. You have so very much to learn about the world as yet.”
A gong sounded across the compound, and the goblin straightened. “Oh! I must leave you. Be well, mortal Tara Drake.”
As the gong sounded again and the goblin Glonk scurried off, a deep voice filtered from the main section of the compound.
“Embrace the power of mortal destiny,” the voice called. “Come, let us practice transcendental meditation together.”