by J. K. Barber
As the echoes of his sneeze faded from the room Jared heard a loud noise come from the doorway. The cacophony was unmistakable, even over the intervening distance and the thick castle walls between the sound and the hunter’s ears. It was the roaring of dragons. A quartet of draconian voices screamed in the distance.
Jared walked around the crystal, noticing that the writhing tendrils of revolting purple inside had begun to swirl faster. As he looked closer, strands of a nauseating green and a sickening color that Jared could not name but reminded him of rotten meat had joined the roiling riot of pigmentation inside the black crystalline pillar. Whatever Katya, Chyla and Niko were doing, the crystal did not like it. Jared continued circling the outer edge of the chamber until Sasha came into sight. The warrior noticed him immediately, giving him a questioning look. Jared tapped his ear with his right hand, pointed forked fingers at his eyes and then pointed towards the large open double doors that led to the hatchery. Sasha nodded her understanding of the gestures; Jared was going to investigate the dragons’ roaring in the courtyard beyond the rookery.
Sasha gestured towards the doorway, moved her finger slowly across the room to where Jared had been standing and then stabbed her finger pointedly to where the hunter had once stood. Sasha wanted Johnson to take Jared’s place. The woodsman tilted his head in concern. They had taken great care up to this point to hide the existence of the Nhyme from the soldiers of the King’s Army. Sasha was going to expose the tiny creatures to Johnson if he took Jared’s place. The red-haired warrior nodded her head and repeated her previous gesture with more vehemence. Jared indicated his understanding and walked quickly out of the room.
In the next chamber Jared found Johnson standing tensely in the middle of the vast room. He was turned towards the huge doors that led out into the courtyard beyond, the source of the horrendous noise of four dragons roaring in concert. The hunter was certain that the solider, with his attention focused on the cacophony outside, had not heard him enter the room. Not wishing to startle Johnson, Jared called out to the nervous looking soldier.
Johnson turned quickly, raising his blade, but then relaxed once he saw Jared. The hunter closed the distance between them and spoke loudly over the noise. “I need you to go into the room with the crystal and take my place on the side of the room opposite Sasha.” Jared nodded in the direction of the dragon’s roar. “I’m going to go check that out.”
“You’re welcome to it,” Johnson said, speaking just as loudly as the woodsman. The soldier’s tone was one of nervous humor. Jared could not blame the man for being scared. Reading about dragons in stories was one thing, hearing four of them roar only a room away was something else entirely. Jared’s animal instincts deep down in his being were screaming at him to run away and hide, but his mind overruled his gut feeling. If there was something outside that threatened the ritual going on in the room behind him, it needed to be dealt with. Jared was not sure what aid he could offer four dragons, but their continued racket could become a distraction to Katya and the Nhyme.
Johnson turned to go, but Jared grabbed the soldier’s arm, causing the man to face him. “I am swearing you to silence regarding what you see in that room,” Jared indicated the crystal’s chamber with a nod of his head. “What you see… who you see in there, you must speak of to no one.”
Johnson made to speak, but a look from Jared silenced the veteran. The hunter was not trying to threaten the soldier, only impart, through his manner and expression, that the matter was serious and not open to debate.
Johnson offered his hand to Jared, which the hunter accepted, clasping forearms. Though the veteran soldier was nearly twice Jared’s age he regarded the hunter with complete sincerity. “You have my word,” Johnson said.
Jared released the soldier’s arm and Johnson walked through the doorway between the chamber and the room which housed the crystal, disappearing into the room beyond.
Pushing down the instinct to flee from the noise of four large predators roaring in the courtyard beyond, Jared crossed the room where the dragons had been born and approached the huge, iron-bound double doors. Saying a quick prayer to the Great Mother that he wasn’t going to regret his decision to investigate, Jared pushed open one of the doors just enough for him to poke his head through. He was not prepared for the sight that greeted him on the other side.
Lying on the huge flagstones of the courtyard were the four dragons, hunched down low to the ground. Each of the dragons had their tail curled tightly up against their massive bodies, and their wings folded in a manner which reminded Jared of a man hunching into a thick cloak in the middle of winter. Sirus and his sisters had their long sinuous necks bent around so that they could tuck their horned heads into the crook of their shoulders, their wings covering most of their reptilian faces.
Each of the dragons issued a strange sound, long and mournful. As Jared listened to the creatures he realized that they were not roaring as he had first though upon hearing the strange noise. The dragons were moaning, though for what reason the woodsman couldn’t fathom a guess.
Jared approached his former mentor cautiously. If the dragons were in pain, which it sounded like to the hunter’s ears, he wanted to make sure he was well out of reach should Sirus lash out. Jared had seen trapped animals, driven mad with pain, striking out at anything or anyone that came near them. The woodsman looked at Sirus’ huge claws as he approached and slowed even further. The dragon’s talons had found purchase along the edge of one of the flagstones, a slab of stone that must have taken ten men at least to set into place, and had broken the huge portion of rock into dozens of pieces. Worse, it looked as though Sirus had shattered the flagstone absently in his pain. Jared thought of what the dragon could do with his talons intentionally and stopped dead in his tracks, a score of paces away.
Jared called out to his former mentor, but the dragon did not respond. The woodsman tried again several times to get Sirus’ attention, and it was only after Jared yelled at the top of his lungs that the huge dragon responded. Sirus slowly pulled his head out from beneath his wing and swung his draconian snout around to regard the hunter. Even though Sirus’ eyes were deep pools of dark purple Jared thought he detected an unfocused quality to them.
“What?” Sirus said slowly as though through a fog. Despite the alien throat from which the voice sprang, the dragon was obviously fighting against some sort of pain.
“Are you alright?” Jared spoke to Sirus, but indicated the other dragons as well with a wave of his hand. In his former life, the grumpy natured older woodsman had never shown pain in front of his pupil. Jared was taken aback. The hunter reminded himself that many things had changed in the years since last he had seen Sirus, not the least of which was staring Jared in the face with the visage of a dragon. The woodsman wondered what else, besides the obvious, had changed about his teacher in the intervening seasons.
“No,” Sirus replied shortly. The terse response was not made in annoyance, but as though he was having difficulty speaking. Rather than push his old mentor, Jared waited for Sirus to be able to respond more fully. Despite a burning desire to return to the room where Katya and the Nhyme were trying to cure the corrupted crystal, some instinct in Jared told him to stay put and attempt to discern a connection between what was going on in the crystal’s chamber and out here in the courtyard. As Jared waited, a light snow began to fall, covering the dragon’s pale scales as though the sky was trying to erase the blackness that coursed through their veins.
After a few moments, Sirus collected himself enough to respond further. “Something is going on which we do not understand. Suddenly, we all began to feel a… pull,” Sirus seemed to struggle to put a word to the feeling.
“The Ice Queen is trying to summon you to her again?” Jared said, backing up several paces. If the Empress could exert her control over the dragons again, the Illyanders chances of survival, much less success purifying the corrupted crystal, were slightly higher than none.
“No,�
� Sirus said quickly, seeing where Jared’s thoughts were taking him. “It’s not the Ice Queen. It’s different from that.” The dragon paused for a moment to catch his breath. “When the Empress commanded us we only felt pain if we disobeyed. This is different. The pain is not as sharp but it is longer lasting… and deeper.” Again Sirus’ seemed at a loss for words to describe the feeling. “It’s as though something deep within us is trying to rip its way out. Or, perhaps more accurately, it’s as though something is trying to rip it out of us.” Sirus’ body shuddered in pain, as did the other dragons’ huddled forms in unison.
Jared’s knees went weak with the implications. If Katya, Chyla and Niko did manage to cure the crystal, he had no idea what it would do to Sirus and his sisters. Jared’s eyes passed over Misae, Isa and Niambe, their massive forms had seemed impervious when he had first seen them, but the pain they were in was obvious, by their body language and their long, mournful cries. Jared’s heart ached to see the dragons this way. The woodsman hated to see any animal in pain, though to call the dragons animals was a gross oversimplification. The creatures were sentient and from what Sirus had told him still very young. To see such a young life, and Sirus’ rebirth, cut short was a high price for what they were trying to do here.
“Sirus,” Jared said, waiting to see if the dragon heard him. When Sirus nodded his head slightly, the hunter continued. “I think what’s happening to you is because of what we’re doing inside.”
“Well, of course it is,” Sirus responded, his rumbling draconian voice colored with mirth, despite the obvious pain he was in. “We’re not stupid, boy.” Jared had always hated it when Sirus had called him that, but now, given what may be happening to his old friend, the woodsman did not mind. “We were born from the crystal. The corruption that is within it runs deep through our veins.” Sirus raised one of his wings to show the thick translucent scales underneath. A black web of blood was clearly apparent still beneath the dragon’s skin.
“I’ll go stop them,” Jared half turned. With a speed that belied a creature of his immense size, Sirus struck out with his huge front talon, placing it firmly in front of the hunter. Jared stopped and turned back to his mentor.
“No,” the dragon said simply, but definitively, reminding Jared of his lessons learned at Sirus’ feet. “Let them continue.”
“But,” Jared said, his voice sounding slightly panicked. “It might kill you. It might kill all of you!” The woodsman made to dodge around the dragon’s massive limb; however Sirus closed his talons, securing Jared gently, but firmly in his grip. The hunter looked incredulously at the dragon, sputtering. “What are you doing? Let me go!” Jared beat ineffectually at Sirus’ thick scaly hide.
“You’re right, boy,” the dragon said, his deep voice rumbling down his arm so that Jared could feel it in his own chest. “What the sorceress is doing might kill us. But,” Sirus said significantly, “it might also cure us.”
“What?” Jared said
“Think about it.” Sirus replied. “We were born from the crystal in there. The corruption that is in it is also in us. If your friend can cure it, it might, in turn cure us.”
“Or it might kill you!” Jared yelled, trying to wriggle his way out of Sirus’ iron grasp.
“It’s a risk we’re willing to take,” Sirus said with finality. Jared stopped struggling. He knew better than to argue with his teacher once he had made up his mind. “Misae, Isa, Niambe and I discussed it once the pain started. We suspected what it was and its cause. We don’t want to live our lives under the Ice Queen’s thumb. Seemingly, if we’re far enough away from her, the distance dampens her control over us. But we don’t want to wake each morning wondering if this is the day that she returns to enslave us again.” Jared thought that Sirus’ face took on an earnest look, though with the dragon it may have only been wishful thinking on the hunter’s part. “We want to be free, Jared. If we have to risk our lives to make it happen, then so be it.” Sirus released his hold on his former student, but Jared did not move.
“But I don’t understand,” Jared said weakly.
“Of course you do, son,” Sirus replied, gently. “Why did you leave?”
“What?” Jared asked, perplexed.
“When you left my house, why did you leave?”
“Because you kicked me out,” Jared replied, his voice warming with an old anger.
A low rumbling sounded from within Sirus’ huge chest. Jared now recognized the noise to be laughter and his blood heated even further. Before he could respond, Sirus spoke again.
“I told you that if you wanted to leave, you should go. But, I never told you to go.” Sirus’ resonant laughter died away, his voice growing somber. “However, I recognized it was time for you to make your own way in the world, out from under my roof and influence. Every creature, sooner or later, has to leave its den and become its own master. That’s all I wanted for you.”
“But you…,” Jared started to say, but was cut off by Sirus.
“I know, I said a lot of things to you that day that were somewhat hurtful.”
“Somewhat?!” Jared said in mock outrage.
“We both said some things that day, that we probably regret,” Sirus said, lightheartedly. “Are you sure you want to go down that path again?” The dragon’s tone was slightly jovial, but there was a hardness underneath that Jared recognized. What Sirus had said to him that day had hurt him, but the hunter had responded in kind. Given the matters of the day though, who said what to whom seemed insignificant when viewed through the lens of so many years.
“No, Sir,” Jared replied. The woodsman hesitated for a moment before asking, “But why did you say them?” Jared tried to keep the hurt out of his voice, but found he could not.
Sirus’ tone became gentler. “I said them because that’s what you needed to hear at the time to leave. And, you needed to leave so that you could make your own life in your own way. I hated to see you walk out that door, but it also made me proud that I had raised you in such a way that you could do it, on your own, in a manner of your own choosing. I knew you would be fine, I just needed you to know it too.”
An uncomfortable silence stretched out between the hunter and the dragon, as Sirus let his words sink into Jared’s mind. Only the low rumbling moans of Sirus and his siblings filled the quiet, as the light snow began to coat the courtyard in a fresh layer of white flakes. From time to time, Jared saw his teacher’s draconian body twitch in pain, and a low moan of pain would escape his massive jaws, but otherwise Sirus said nothing.
After a few minutes, Sirus spoke again. “Listen. There’s something else I need to tell you, just in case…,” the dragon’s voice trailed off, the words unspoken but understood. Jared could only nod to indicate that Sirus should continue.
“Though some of us have been here for many years, dragons do not come from Aronshae,” Sirus began.
“Then where…?” Jared started to say, before the dragon cut him off.
“Just listen!” Sirus snapped, his body shuddering with a fresh wave of pain.
“Sorry,” the hunter said weakly. Jared waited for the discomfort to pass and then motioned for Sirus to continue.
“No, I’m sorry. You’re not causing this, I shouldn’t….” Jared waved off the apology, again gesturing for the dragon to carry on. Sirus took a deep breath and began again. “Dragons are not from Aronshae. We are from another world, one that is far away. It takes a long time for us to cross the distance between this world and our own; long even by our own reckoning.”
Jared opened his mouth to ask a question, but quickly closed it. Sirus was obviously working through a lot of pain to impart this information to the hunter, but the dragon thought it important enough to do so, and so Jared held his questions.
“There are unique… conditions on Aronshae that make it a perfect place for dragons to lay our eggs,” Sirus explained. “The innately magical aspects of the land allow young dragons to incubate, hatch and mature before we are ready to
take to the skies beyond the clouds.” Jared couldn’t help but notice that Sirus was referring to himself as a dragon. The man that the hunter once knew was truly gone.
“Now that we have hatched,” Sirus continued, “the older dragons will be returning soon. When they do, they will take us with them back to where we come from.” The dragon paused for a moment. “And I plan to go with them… if they’ll take me. If they’ll take us,” Sirus indicated his sisters. “We’ve met some of our other siblings.” Jared’s eyes widened in shock. “Oh, yes,” the former woodsman said, his voice one of mirth, but subtly laced with sorrow. “We’ve seen them playing in the sea and skies around the Sapphire Isles.”
“Where?” Jared asked, unfamiliar with the islands that Sirus had named.
“The Sapphire Isles,” the dragon replied. When the hunter showed no recognition of the name Sirus continued. “They’re a group of islands south of the Eastern Kingdoms on the far side of the Sea of Twylight.”
“You’ve flown that far?” Jared gasped.
“In a manner of speaking,” Sirus said with a toothy draconian grin. Jared knew the facial expression was one of humor, but being that close to a giant maw of fangs the length of his arm made the hunter take an involuntary step backwards.
If Sirus and the others here are this large, I can hardly imagine what a full grown dragon must look like, Jared thought to himself. Much less the elders that Sirus spoke of.
“I’ll explain later,” the dragon responded, “if there’s time. For now, suffice it to say that we’ve met other dragons from other crystals, but...,” Sirus’ voice trailed off for a moment. The dragon was not in pain, but something was clearly bothering him. Jared waited as patiently as he could for his mentor to continue. The hunter did not have to wait long. “But, Misae, Isa, Niambe, Walron and I are the only ones who bear the taint of the Ice Queen’s corruption.”