Dragonforge

by James Maxey

  She’d never actually met Zeeky’s pig, but her porcine examiner seemed to fit the bill.

  “Poocher?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  It took her half a second to realize it hadn’t been the pig who answered. She sat up and discovered a girl standing in the center of the room. She was dressed in a white robe; her golden hair was washed and braided. She stood before a glass orb the size of a man’s fist, which floated in the air seemingly without support. The girl’s eyes were fixed upon the orb in an almost hypnotic gaze.

  “Zeeky!” Jandra cried. “Are you okay?”

  “Yes,” said Zeeky, not taking her eyes off the orb. Her tone made it sound as if Jandra’s voice was an unwelcome distraction.

  She rose, looking once more around the room. Jandra somehow recognized it though she’d never been here before. It was a cell built by Jazz, accessible only via an underspace gate. She had a faint memory of building it.

  “How did I get here?” Jandra asked. “Did you guide me here somehow?”

  “Yes,” Zeeky said again, tersely.

  Jandra walked over to her and placed her hand on Zeeky’s shoulder.

  “Is something wrong?”

  Zeeky turned away from the orb. Tears welled in her eyes as she said, with a trembling voice, “Everything is wrong! I don’t know what to do!”

  “What’s happening,” Jandra said, squatting down to Zeeky’s level. “What’s the problem?”

  “My family and my neighbors are still inside,” Zeeky said, wiping her cheeks. “I can hear them; we’ve been talking. But they’ve been in there too long. It’s changing them. They’ve forgotten what their bodies looked like. They say they don’t want to come out. They say it’s like heaven in there.”

  “Heaven isn’t what I experienced,” said Jandra.

  “It wasn’t what they first experienced either,” said Zeeky, running her fingers along the glass orb. “They said it was more like being dead. They’re spirits without bodies. It terrified them at first. But, slowly, they found out that the place responded to their thoughts. It became what they wanted it to become. They imagined heaven, and it became heaven. Now they want me to go inside with them.”

  “Could you?” Jandra asked. “Does this crystal ball have that power?” She looked into the transparent sphere, but saw nothing but the distorted image of Poocher on the other side.

  “Jazz left it here for me. She says there’s a tiny slice of underspace forever opened at its heart, but I can’t reach it while it’s sealed in the globe. The globe isn’t really glass… it’s some sort of energy that that looks like glass. Nothing in this world can ever break it.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “The villagers told me. They’re telling me so many things. I don’t understand half of what they’re saying. Freed of their bodies, existing as pure thought, they’re beginning to know everything… but they’re forgetting what it was to be human.”

  “Jazz told me she wanted to stay inside underspace because it would make her omniscient,” said Jandra. “Perhaps she was right.”

  “Jazz can’t be allowed inside,” said Zeeky. “They don’t want her there. Jazz is a bad person.”

  “I know.”

  “They say I should go with them to escape her,” said Zeeky. “But, I don’t want to. I don’t want to live without a body. I want to stay in this world with Poocher. I want to see Jeremiah again. I just want things back like they were.” A tear traced down her cheek as she spoke. Her lower lip trembled.

  Jandra wrapped her arms around Zeeky and pressed her wet cheek against her own. “It’s okay,” she whispered. “I won’t let anything happen to you.”

  “How touching,” said a woman’s voice behind her.

  Suddenly, the room smelled of cigarettes.

  Bitterwood had come once more to the shores of the island. He walked its perimeter, trying to find something he could use as a boat. He came at last to a broad beach of black sand. In the distance, he could see a second island. Perhaps Zeeky was there. His search of the temple island had certainly proven unproductive.

  Bitterwood looked up as he heard the rustling of leaves in the forest behind him. The greenery parted as the copper-colored heads of three long-wyrms pushed through onto the beach. Adam rode the wyrm that led the way. Behind him were two riders Bitterwood had never seen.

  Adam’s voice shook with outrage as he spoke. “The temple is destroyed! Gabriel is dead! One of your arrows was discovered near his remains. What have you done, father?”

  “You know what I have done,” said Bitterwood.

  “The goddess possesses infinite grace,” Adam said. “She may forgive any insult if you approach her with a repentant heart. Throw down your bow, father. Surrender yourself. She may yet show you mercy.”

  “I do not desire mercy,” said Bitterwood. “I have slain her angel. Is this the act of a repentant heart? Let Ashera show herself if my actions anger her. I want very much to see her; I still have arrows in my quiver. Let her test her power against me.”

  “Blasphemer!” shouted the rider to Adam’s left.

  “Calm yourself, Palt,” said Adam.

  “No!” he cried. “He speaks of arrows. We are the arrows in the quiver of the goddess! We are the missiles of her wrath! Let us fly, Adam. We shall strike this heretic down!”

  Adam looked toward Bitterwood once more. “Father, if you’ve any love of life, you will drop your bow. Do not make us kill you.”

  Bitterwood lifted his bow and calmly drew an arrow. He took aim, dead center of Adam’s chest.

  “I have no love of anything,” he said. “Kill me if you can.”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven:

  Bad Woman

  Jandra spun around.

  “You’ve locked the helmet,” Jazz said, taking a drag on her cigarette. “Interesting.”

  “I didn’t enjoy being your doll,” said Jandra.

  “Then we won’t be having tea with Mr. Teddy?” Jazz said, her voice mocking Jandra’s accent. “Fine. You still need me, Jandra. Those memories I gave you won’t be of much use without me to guide you through them. And I kept a lot of the good stuff to myself. Wouldn’t you like to learn to open the underspace gates? Wouldn’t you like to tap into a thousand years of experience and wisdom without the tedium of actually having to trudge through all those centuries? Swear your loyalty to me Jandra, and I’ll help you become a goddess.”

  Jandra guided Zeeky behind her. Poocher came up next to her knees, grunting as he stared at Jazz.

  “Godhood doesn’t hold much attraction for me,” Jandra said. “I’m having a tough enough time learning to be human.”

  Jazz rolled her eyes. “You’re such a drama queen. Fine. You don’t want to be my friend. But, we don’t have to be enemies, either.” Jazz stepped aside as a glowing rainbow opened in the air behind her.

  “Here’s the door,” she said. “It leads back to Shandrazel’s palace, your old stomping grounds. Get out and don’t bother me again.”

  Jandra looked at the gate. It would be so easy just to grab Zeeky and leap for it. But, escaping Jazz wouldn’t solve anything. If escape were all she wanted, she wouldn’t have come back from the Nest.

  Then, to her surprise, Poocher charged toward the rainbow and leapt in. Zeeky ran past her, grabbing her hand. In Zeeky’s other hand, she cradled the crystal ball. “Hurry!” shouted Zeeky, dragging her toward the gate.

  Seeing a look of shock flash across Jazz’s face, Jandra decided to trust Zeeky. She leapt once more into the place that was not a place.

  The long-wyrms ridden by Palt and Adam lunged toward Bitterwood and the third rider took aim with his crossbow. Bitterwood stepped aside as the man fired. The bolt whizzed through the air behind him. Bitterwood shifted his aim from Adam to Palt’s charging serpent. The creatures were more a threat than the riders. He let his arrow fly, targeting the long-wyrm’s left eye. The creature jerked, its legs twitching spastically. Black sand flew as the long-wyrm crashe
d and Palt fell from his saddle. By now, Trisky was only a yard away, opening her maw wide. Without dropping his bow, Bitterwood drew Gabriel’s sword, willing it to flare into white brilliance. He tossed the sword down Trisky’s gullet and jumped away from her charge at the last possible instant. As momentum carried Trisky past him, he reached out and grabbed Adam’s leg. With a violent tug, he tore his son from the saddle.

  As Adam landed hard in the sand, the third long-wyrm rider reloaded. Before he could take aim, Bitterwood drew another arrow. He saw the skittish look in the long-wyrm’s eyes. He released the bowstring and the man toppled from his saddle, an arrow jutting from his heart . The long-wyrm panicked as his rider fell, turning in a nearly perfect arc and darting once more into the forest.

  Trisky’s head was beneath the surface of the lake now. Water boiled up around her, white steam rising into the air. Her body was wracked with spasms as Bitterwood vaulted over her. He looked toward the first worm he’d killed. The rider was back on his feet, his sword drawn. Bitterwood fired his bow once more and the man fell to his knees on the black sand, a confused look on his face. Then his body sagged, and he fell to his side.

  Bitterwood let out a long, slow breath. There was only one foe left. By now, Adam would be recovering from his abrupt dismount. Bitterwood clenched his jaws, contemplating the unpleasant task before him.

  Jandra expected to land in the familiar rooms of the palace. Instead, she emerged from the rainbow back in the clearing where Bitterwood and Hex had been held captive by the vines. The same place she’d departed from to reach the Nest.

  “What?” she asked. “How did we—”

  “I don’t know how to open a gate into underspace,” Zeeky said, still pulling on her hand. “But once you’re in the warp, the villagers can push you out anywhere a gate has ever been opened. I don’t understand how they do it, but it works; it’s how I got you to find me. I couldn’t leave Jazz’s prison, though, because I couldn’t reach a gate.”

  “But we’re still on Jazz’s island,” said Jandra. “If you wanted to escape, the palace would have been further from her grasp.”

  “This is where the villagers say we should be,” said Zeeky. “This is where your friend will be.”

  “Do tell,” said Jazz, now standing in the clearing before them, a rainbow closing behind her. “So, you can talk to your family inside. You’ve been holding out on me.”

  “I’ll never help you!” Zeeky screamed. “You’re a bad woman!”

  “Oh, screw this,” said Jazz. Lightning wreathed both her hands as she lifted them. “I’m through playing nice. You’ll do what I tell you, girl, once I get rid of your would-be protector.”

  Jandra suddenly felt as if millions of tiny hooks dug into her skin. She gasped as the hooks began to tug, ripping molecule from molecule. In seconds she would be torn apart, shredded to her component atoms by Jazz’s nanites.

  She lifted up her hands and watched her fingernails fly off into the breeze, carried by flecks of silver dust.

  Bitterwood dropped his bow as his son climbed onto Trisky’s corpse. Adam had his crossbow loaded. His visor had been knocked loose when Bitterwood had thrown him to the sand. His eyes burned with rage as he screamed, “Why are you doing this? What can you possibly gain by defying the goddess?”

  Bitterwood asked, “What can you gain from obeying her?”

  “I owe everything to the goddess! My mother was gone. You abandoned me! If she hadn’t showed me her divine mercy, I’d have died as an infant.”

  “Everyone dies eventually,” said Bitterwood.

  Adam growled as he took aim. “I’m weary of your mockery. To be smiled upon by the goddess is like being smiled upon by the sun. There is no better joy than to serve her.”

  “Huh,” said Bitterwood. “It’s been a long time since joy motivated me. But I remember it. I remember the last time I felt happiness. You were there.”

  “What do you mean?” Adam asked, still staring down the shaft of the bolt.

  “Back in Christdale. I had two daughters by your mother, Recanna. You were my first son. I loved my daughters. I was happy. But the first time I ever held you in my arms, I felt something greater than happiness. You were my hope and my future, Adam. I could see myself in you. I looked forward to teaching you as you grew: how to fish, how to hunt, how to plow. I wanted to teach you everything I knew.”

  “And what have you taught me now? Blasphemy? Hatred? Revenge?”

  “This wasn’t what I planned to teach you. I used to think of Christdale as Eden, even though times weren’t always easy. We were farmers working fields full of stones. Most years, we didn’t get enough rain. Other years, we lost the crops to storms and floods. Yet we endured as a community. We shared our food. We worked together to feed the children and care for the aged. I wish you could have grown up there. But then the dragons came. They ruined everything. I thought they’d killed you.”

  “Earlier, you said you wished they’d killed me,” said Adam, lowering the crossbow.

  Bitterwood nodded. “I was angry when I spoke those words.”

  “You’re always angry!” Adam snarled. “You’ve been hostile since the moment we met!”

  “I know. And, I also know I could have killed you just now,” said Bitterwood. “You were my first target.”

  “I know you had me in your sites. Why didn’t you fire?”

  Bitterwood sighed. “I almost died not long ago; I think I caught a glimpse of heaven. I don’t know. It may all have been a dream. Still, your mother was there. When I cross over to the other side, if there is another side, I don’t want to tell her I was the man who killed you.”

  “I’ve already been assured of my place in heaven,” said Adam, aiming the crossbow once more. He stared down the length of the weapon to look Bitterwood in the eyes. “Why shouldn’t I kill you?”

  “I can’t think of any reason you shouldn’t pull that trigger,” said Bitterwood. “If you spare me, I’m going to kill your goddess, or die trying. I’m the antithesis of everything you hold as good in this world.”

  “You’re nothing like the man I used to dream about, the great dragon-slayer.”

  “I’m not the man I used to dream about either,” said Bitterwood. “But maybe today I found out something I didn’t know about myself. Something that makes me think I might yet have a hope of heaven.”

  “Go on,” said Adam.

  “In twenty years, I’ve never changed my mind about a target. I’ve only aimed at what I hated, and I’ve always let the arrow fly. For twenty years, I thought that hate was the only thing left in my heart. But, Adam, even though time and fate have left us on opposing sides, I don’t hate you. You’re brave, you’re reverent, you’re merciful; you’re everything I failed to be. One day something’s going to kill you, son… but it won’t be me.”

  Adam stared at his father. He let out his breath, and lowered his crossbow.

  “Despite all you’ve done, I don’t hate you either,” said Adam.

  “What about the fact I still plan to kill your goddess?”

  “You only risk your own life. If you seek out the goddess, she’ll surely destroy you.”

  Bitterwood leaned over and picked up his bow.

  “No man lives forever,” he said.

  Jandra’s battle with the goddess unfolded on a microscopic level. She imagined her skin was a sheet of iron, too hard for the tiny machines to penetrate. She focused the nanites that swam within her to her blood, to resist the invading molecules and repair the damage as quickly as Jazz inflicted it.

  “Ah, you’re a little more advanced at this than I thought,” Jazz said as she flicked away the butt of her cigarette. “I figured you’d be reduced to dust in five seconds. Maybe you’ll hold out for a few minutes. But all it’s going to take is one stray thought to distract you, girl. Then your epidermis will peel away. Your hair will fall from disintegrating follicles. You’ll be able to watch it all because your eyelids will be vapor. Panic will set in, and be
fore you know it, poof, you’ll be nothing but a pink cloud, drifting off in the breeze. Kind of a lovely image, if you think about it.”

  As if the warning of a distraction made it so, Jandra’s attention was captured by a shrill squealing sound. It was the cry of an enraged pig. Poocher charged up behind Jazz, a furious one-hundred-pound torpedo of black and white fur. For half a second, Jandra’s mind lingered on the sight. Instantly her skin began to crack and flake. Poocher plowed into Jazz, clipping her at the knees. The tiny hooks that tore at Jandra vanished as the goddess’s feet flew into the air.

  Jazz landed on her back, shouting out a string of obscenities.

  Jandra took the brief second of respite to repair the skin that Jazz had torn away. Then, she summoned twin balls of Vengeance of the Ancestors around her fists.

  Jazz sat up, rubbing the back of her head. “Ow,” she said.

  Jandra threw the fireballs. The raging plasma crackled toward the goddess. As the flaming orbs reached her they fell apart, transforming into a cloud of rose pedals that fluttered down onto Jazz’s lap.

  “Come on, Jandra,” Jazz taunted. “The pig did better than that.”

  Poocher now stood next to Zeeky. Jazz glared at him.

  “You know, I’ve been vegetarian for a thousand years. But I always did love the smell of bacon.”

  The petals in her lap rose in a small tornado, coalescing into a ball of red flame once more. Jazz gave the glowing orb a slap and it raced toward the pig. Poocher darted aside, but the orb seemed to suddenly possess intelligence. It turned, pursuing the pig. Poocher squealed and darted off into the underbrush.

  Zeeky charged toward Jazz with her left fist clenched. She still cradled the crystal ball in her right hand. She shouted, “Don’t you dare hurt Poocher!”

  “He started it,” Jazz said, kicking out, catching Zeeky straight in her gut. Zeeky flew backward from the force of the blow, landing breathless on the grass. She curled up in pain, yet never released the orb.