by James Maxey
“The world thinks we are supernatural beings wielding powers drawn from some invisible world,” Vendevorex had said when he had first given her the tiara ten years ago and began training her in his art. “In truth, there is nothing supernatural about our abilities. The invisible world we manipulate is the very foundation of what is natural. It is a world of magnetism and light. All matter as an assemblage of infinitesimal building blocks. In time, I’ll teach you to manipulate these blocks with the assistance of equally small machines.” As he’d spoken these words she’d placed the tiara on her head and her world had changed. She became aware of a fine silver haze that coated every inch of her skin—the residue of Vendevorex’s powers. Vendevorex had opened her hand and allowed a trickle of shimmering powder to drift from his fore-talon into her palm.
He’d told her, “I will show you wonder in a handful of dust.”
She pulled herself from her reverie as the tunnel they traveled through joined with a larger shaft. The shaft was almost perfectly rectangular. She could see from the gouges in the rock that this tunnel had been carved by some machine wielding massive steel teeth. She could still see traces of the iron scraped into the rock, now turned to rust by the ages.
Adam broke the silence. “I’ve been told this was all carved by men, long ago,” he said. “The world wasn’t always ruled by dragons.”
“The very rocks that surround us disprove you, Adam,” Hex said. “The libraries of the biologians are filled with fossils of the giant reptiles that eventually became the dragon races. We inherited the world from these ancestors. The evidence is clear that humans are merely apes who’ve gained the ability to speak only recently, from a geological perspective. I say that with no malice; it’s simply a truth written into stones. A few radical biologians argue that the ruins of the world show evidence of a once dominant human culture. But if your kind was ever more technologically advanced, it must surely have been under the guidance of dragons. If humans were as advanced as some argue, how did they possibly lose control?”
Adam shrugged. “The goddess judged the time of human dominance to be at an end.”
“The goddess?” the elder Bitterwood scoffed, his voice low and firm. “We worshipped Ashera in the village of my birth. I was later shown that she was nothing but a block of polished wood. The carving was destroyed and the world carried on. The seasons still changed, the rains still fell, the sun continued to rise. Everything we were taught about her power was demonstrated to be a lie.”
Adam didn’t look angry at his father’s words. He answered in a patient voice, “You saw only an idol of the goddess. The true goddess is the living embodiment of the earth. She’s the model for all the statues that have been carved of her, but that is all they are—statues.”
Jandra found herself intrigued. Her upbringing had left her certain, despite Adam’s eye-witness testimony, that they weren’t truly being led to a goddess. Jandra couldn’t help but wonder: Were they being led to a woman who wielded power similar to her own? Invisibility, command of elements, a healing touch—it wouldn’t be too difficult to convince some people that these were the powers of a god.
Vendevorex said he’d stolen the helmet. What if he’d stolen it from her parents? Could it be that this so-called goddess might be related to her? Jandra tried to suppress the thought, knowing it was absurd. And yet… she hadn’t simply sprung from dust. She had parents. She had to be related to someone in this world. If she were to ever meet a brother or sister, would she recognize them?
Would she be any less tongue-tied than Bitterwood and Adam?
They walked on in silence once more. Hex slowed his pace slightly. Jandra, astride his shoulders, wondered why he was creating the additional distance between them and the Bitterwoods. Hex twisted his serpentine neck back toward her and said, softly, “I notice you’ve had little to so say to me since I killed that long-wyrm rider.”
She was surprised he’d interpreted her silence so effectively. Vendevorex had never known what to make of her quiet moments; Bitterwood and Pet hadn’t displayed much skill at it either.
“I don’t think it was the killing that bothered me,” she whispered back. “It was the way you swallowed him, and then announced that he tasted good. I know that Albekizan used to hunt humans for sport. Did you?”
“Of course,” said Hex. “It was part of my upbringing.”
“Did you always eat the men you killed?”
“It would have been wasteful not to,” he said.
“When I first met you, you denounced the oppression of the weak by the strong. How can you justify eating humans if you truly believe the things you say?”
“I haven’t hunted men for sport in thirty years,” said Hex. “I didn’t hunt that long-wyrm rider; he attacked you, and I acted in your defense. I wasn’t making a political statement by eating him. I had meat in my mouth; I swallowed. Pure instinct. I’m sorry that this disturbed you. I’ll be more careful in the future.”
Jandra again found herself surprised by his words. Dragging an apology out of any other male she’d ever known had been almost impossible.
“I’m not angry with you,” she said, realizing that, in truth, she wasn’t. “I suppose I’ve just been having an identity crisis. I grew up among dragons. I’ve come to think of dragons as my family. It’s always a shock when I’m confronted with the reality that I’m human, and that dragons aren’t my family, but are, quite possibly, my mortal enemies.”
“I’m not your enemy,” he said.
“I know,” she sighed.
“As long as we’re on the subject of enemies, however,” Hex said, “is your friend the true Bitterwood? Is he the man that killed my brother and father?”
“Yes,” she said.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I worried you’d kill him when we met him.”
“Would he not deserve it?”
“No,” said Jandra. “You yourself said your father deserved his fate. Bitterwood has given me his vow he won’t harm you. I don’t want you seeking revenge against him.”
“Unlike my father, I haven’t a vengeful bone in my body,” said Hex. “Endless cycles of revenge poison all our cultures, both dragon and human. I do, however, have a strong sense of self-preservation. If your friend so much at looks at me with evil intentions, I won’t suffer the least remorse when I bite his head off. However, I will promise not to swallow.”
Hex’s words sounded loud to her in the relative quiet of the mine shaft. By now, Trisky was several hundred feet ahead of them. Could the Bitterwoods hear their conversation?
Bitterwood, astride the long-wyrm behind his long dead son, listened closely to the whispered voices behind him. Were the sun-dragon’s words a ruse? Perhaps Hex was attempting to lull him into lowering his defenses. He sensed that this dragon was craftier than others he’d tangled with over the years.
Bitterwood welcomed this threat so near his back. He’d grown used to the life of the hunt. He’d become accustomed to the daily risk; the knowledge that the next dragon he faced might be the one to spot him at the last second and lunge, faster than he could react. What did it mean that he only felt alive when he faced such danger? When he’d killed Bodiel, he could have put an arrow into his brain on the first shot. Instead, he’d targeted his arrows into non-lethal spots, crippling the giant dragon, leaving him struggling in the mud, slowly bleeding to death. He’d taken his time, savoring Bodiel’s anguish. Was he courting death by indulging in such sadism? Was he, in truth, as much a monster as his prey?
The close presence of a potentially hostile dragon gave Bitterwood a welcome distraction from the obvious question of why his son was alive, in service of the goddess, and dwelling beneath the earth.
Adam, perhaps growing tired of waiting for questions that never came, began to answer them.
“I was too young to remember, of course, but I’m told I was discovered by Hezekiah. He found me in the well in Christdale and gave me to the angel Gabriel, who brough
t me here to the goddess.”
Bitterwood’s guts twisted at the mention of Hezekiah. “Hezekiah disdained the goddess. And Gabriel isn’t associated with the goddess myth at all. You’ve gotten your religions confused. Gabriel is the Biblical angel who informs Zechariah that his son will be John the Baptist.”
“The Bible is a false document. Hezekiah is a false prophet. The goddess created him to play the role of deceiver; she said Eden wouldn’t be paradise without a serpent.”
Bitterwood saw no point in arguing his son’s fractured theology. Adam’s tone was that of a true believer. Had Adam inherited this gullibility from him? He’d been deceived by Hezekiah. Adam was correct, at least, in calling Hezekiah a false prophet.
Adam continued, “The goddess told me you were still alive. She said that the fabled Bitterwood that dragons feared so greatly was, in truth, my father. I asked permission to find you. She said I wasn’t ready. Now I see that she planned to guide you here all along.”
“No one guided me here,” said Bitterwood. “No supernatural force, at least.”
Adam turned around to face his father. “You’ve been somewhat argumentative since we met. Have I in some way offended you?”
Bitterwood swallowed. It was impossible to look at his son without seeing the echoes of Recanna. He glanced away as he said, “You’ve committed no offense. All the sin is mine. I’m sorry.”
“There’s no sin,” said Adam. “You’ve nothing to apologize for. You didn’t know I survived.”
“No. I didn’t search the village. Hezekiah told me if I didn’t repent he would kill me. I fled from Christdale in grief and fear. The only emotion that gave me strength was my hatred. A more loving or courageous man would have stayed to search the ruins and bury the dead. I would have found you had I been a better man.”
“You couldn’t know,” said Adam. “And if Hezekiah told you he would kill you, he would have. While he wore the clothes of a human, he was, in truth, an angel like Gabriel. No human could have stood against him.”
“Hezekiah was no angel,” said Bitterwood. “It took me years to learn the truth, but he was nothing but a machine. I don’t understand his workings, but he was no angel.”
“Wasn’t he?” asked Adam. “Perhaps angels are machines built by a mind beyond the understanding of men?”
Bitterwood could see no way to argue this point. He was distracted, anyway, by a change in the atmosphere. The rotten-egg stench of the mine was slowly giving way to fresher air. He could smell the faint hint of flowers carried by an underlying brine-tainted breeze.
In addition to the change of scent, the tunnel ahead no longer stretched into dark infinity. A bright square showed the tunnel was leading toward a daylit sky. Twenty minutes later, they came to a ledge awash in warm sunlight.
Hex drew up on the ledge next to Trisky. A valley stretched before them, long and green, untouched by the early winter they had left behind on the surface. A placid lake, its waters deep and blue, filled much of the valley. The odor told Bitterwood the waters were saltwater, not fresh. In its center sat an island speckled with flowers of every color. Thick forests covered the island, the tree branches sagging with fruit. In the center rose the marble pillars of a temple. Bitterwood recognized the structure instantly; it resembled the temple that had stood in his home village, only on a much larger, grander scale.
Jandra studied the valley, feeling dizzy as her enhanced senses struggled to catalogue the scents, colors, and sounds before her. The songs of countless exotic birds filled her mind with images—parrot, canary, gull--though the birds were only specks of color in the distance. The walls of the valley were sheer rock covered with vines, stretching so high that it seemed as if the sky was merely a painting resting upon them.
“Daylight!” said Hex, sounding joyous. “I thought we’d never leave that cursed tunnel!” Jandra dug her fingers into his neck fringe as he suddenly bounded toward the edge of the cliff.
“Wait!” shouted Adam. “It’s dangerous to fly here!”
“It’s dangerous to fly anywhere,” Hex answered, as he leapt into space and soared toward the blue above. “Every dragon lives with the knowledge that his next flight could be the one where gravity wins!”
Hex said the words with such defiant joy that Jandra felt joyous herself. Hex seemed utterly fearless as he climbed upward. Jandra clenched her legs tighter around his neck as he spiraled toward the upper reaches of the stone walls and the open sky beyond. The hairs on her neck rose as her eyes began to pick apart the sky racing toward them. Suddenly she realized that the expanse above was mere illusion.
“Watch out!” she shouted, thrusting her right hand forward, willing the blue sky to vanish. As she willed it, the sky obeyed, parting in a wave, revealing the valley to be capped by the same stone as the tunnel, a solid ceiling now mere yards away. Hex twisted in the air, nearly dislodging Jandra. She fought to maintain her hold, grateful for her improved strength and reflexes. Hex had pulled his head back in time to avoid a collision, but there was a terrible jolt as his tail smacked into the stone. He fell toward the water, seemingly in complete surrender to gravity.
Then, Hex’s wings caught the air and their descent quickly halted. Hex soared over the lake in a long circle, turning back toward the cliff they’d leapt from. The bright sunlit room was growing dim. The sky continued to ripple like water into which a heavy object had been dropped, the waves growing in violence. In places the sky was ripping, with large fragments of blue sloughing away in sheets. A snow of silver dust filled the air as the sky crumbed, revealing that they were still completely encased beneath rock. A moment later, only a few shards of blue sky still stubbornly persisted, carrying on as if unaware that the illusion was now pointless.
Jandra let some of the silver dust settle on her outstretched hand. They were part of a Light-Emitting Nanite System—a LENS—something she herself knew how to use to create images from light. But, the sky had covered miles… Who could possibly have the concentration to maintain such an illusion?
Hex alighted next to the long-wyrm. It coiled backward, skittish at his approach.
“Steady,” said Adam, stroking Trisky’s neck.
“What witchcraft is this?” Bitterwood said as he stared wide-eyed at the shattered sky.
“This is no witchcraft,” Adam said. “The goddess transformed this cavern into the paradise you see. Have no fear. The sky will repair itself.”
Jandra had a hundred questions about the goddess. Before she could ask even one, however, there was an angry shout from the island, loud enough to be heard even though it was miles away.
“My sky! Who broke my sky?”
A woman emerged onto the stone steps of the temple. Jandra again found her eyes confused by the strange perspectives of the cavern. Either the island and the temple were much smaller than she’d judged, or the woman was at least twelve feet tall. The trees around the marble columns must have been half the height Jandra had assumed. The woman looked toward the cliff where Jandra stood. She walked toward them, growing with each step. After two steps, the trees were no higher than her waist. After four steps, they were at her knees. Then, she had left the trees entirely and walked across the lake, her body now hundreds of feet high, her eyes at the level of the cliff where they stood. The lake water dented beneath the woman’s footsteps, yet the waters held her.
“The goddess, I presume,” said Hex, his body tensing as if preparing to fight.
Jandra suspected Hex had good reason to anticipate combat. The goddess didn’t look happy. Her face was mostly human, but her eyes glowed like twin bonfires. Her skin was the color of new spring grass, with her lips a darker, mossy shade. Her hair was a tangle of kudzu, the locks draping down her shoulders to cover the nipples of her otherwise bare breasts. Whether the draping was due to modesty or chance was debatable, however, for there was no such cover for the lower parts of her body. Her pubic mound was a tangle of thick, dark ivy. Her broad feminine hips rested upon shapely legs, long an
d artful.
Jandra was used only to her own, girlish proportions. The goddess was of a more womanly shape, heavy-breasted and lushly curved. She walked with a hip-swaying gate that Jandra found slightly obscene. As the goddess drew near, the heat radiating from the fury of her eyes caused Hex to step backwards. Jandra raised an arm to protect her face. Beside them, Trisky lowered herself to her belly and Adam dove to the ground, pressing his face to the stone in either fear or reverence. Bitterwood had drawn his sword and was crouched low beside the great-wyrm.
“A sun-dragon?” the goddess said, sounding both puzzled and pleasantly surprised. Her voice was powerful yet not overwhelming and, save for its volume, not that different from the voice of a woman of normal size. The flames in the green woman’s eyes faded, revealing orbs of a more human structure, albeit still over a yard across. The irises were made of brilliant turquoise. Within the dark circles at the core, stars twinkled in the void.
“I haven’t seen one of your kind in my little kingdom in centuries,” the goddess said, focusing on Hex and ignoring Jandra. “I’ve taken precautions to keep you away, in fact. How curious that you overcame your fears to come here.”
Hex stepped forward, drawing up into the normal two-legged stance of the sun-dragons. Jandra leapt from his back, not wanting to weigh him down if he was about to do something risky. Hex inhaled, puffing out his chest in a manner that reminded her of Albekizan, and announced, “My name is Hexilizan. I have no fears to overcome; I’m of royal blood. Courage is my birthright.”