Through the Never

by J. A. Culican

  Her breathing came heavier. He brought his face close to hers, to initiate the ridiculous face sucking he’d seen humans of all cultures do as part of their pre-mating ritual. Her heart beat faster, their vibrations resonating with his dragonstone. They were made for one another. A human and a dragon.

  It was time to complete his transformation into human form, to give her what she wanted. “Frzt,” he muttered.

  Nothing happened.

  The connection between her heart and his dragonstone interfered with his link to the ambient istrium radiation. It was amazing how she, a human, could affect him.

  She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She wanted him, yet it didn’t seem appropriate, or even possible, to consummate that desire in this form.

  He grinned. Perhaps like the rest of her kind, she reveled in serving a master. “You will entertain me.”

  The sweat on her brow brought out the redness of her cheeks. Perhaps she found the lair too hot. He extended a talon to the neckline of her sack and drew it down, ever so slowly, so as not to cut her. The roughspun fibers yielded.

  “Let me sing to you.” Her voice, trilling with power, called to his dragonstone.

  It had been so long since she’d spoken, he’d almost forgotten what her glorious voice sounded like. That connection, even in his current dragonoid form, sent waves of ecstasy up his spine. No telling what a song could do. “Sing?”

  She nodded with such enthusiasm, her head might wobble off. “A song like you’ve never heard before.”

  Her voice was already like none he’d ever heard. The way it linked to his dragonstone, it could probably amplify his power even more than a year of sleep among his treasure hoard would.

  As soon as he released her arms, she grasped the cut down her neckline and pulled the edges together. Perhaps her throat needed to be warm in order to sing. Eyes never leaving his, she shuffled on her feet.

  “Well?”

  Tears of joy filled her eyes. She must be ready to perform for him, to share the beauty of her voice. Blinking away the tears, she sank her knees and pressed her forehead to the ground. “Glorious Avarax, you honor me by hearing my song.”

  Yes, yes, of course. Now if only she would get on with it. His body tingled from tail to horns, needing her voice. Just as his dragonstone belonged to her, he could use the connection between them, even more easily than with other lesser beings. “Rise,” he commanded with a Dragon Song.

  Compelled, she rose to her feet. Still, she was stalling, dangling the bait of her song in front of him like a bloody cow carcass. His dragonstone buzzed like a comet strike shaking the ground. Each claw trembled in anticipation.

  Then she raised her voice in song. Dozens of notes lifted in rapid succession, like raging air currents in a typhoon. It was amazing to think the human mouth could produce such a combination of chords. His dragonstone wobbled, and his legs with it.

  Then it slowed. His eyelids weighed down, growing heavier with the lull in speed. A nap would be perfect now. Except then he would have to wait longer to lose his human virginity. He forced his eyes open.

  The tenor of her voice deepened, promising sweet bliss. His tongue shot out over his teeth, nearly cutting on their sharp edges, rousing him from drowsiness.

  She closed her eyes, even as his strength built. Her voice connected to his dragonstone even more than istrium radiation. His very essence shivered at the sheer power.

  Then the music switched. No longer a torrent, it eased into calm, like a breeze above the ocean. It spoke of…love? Humans he’d observed in the last weeks spoke of it, but it seemed foreign, strange. Yet now, perhaps it made sense. In this moment, he would do anything for Mai.

  His eyelids sagged. His shoulders slumped. With one last flutter of his eyes, his knees buckled.

  Waking up without wings perplexed Avarax even more than the purple light that flashed at the entrance to his cave. The glimmer danced among the precious metals and gemstones, which towered above his uncharacteristically small size. A rumble shook the cavern walls, punctuating his rude awakening.

  It had been a pleasant nap. Now someone would die for disturbing him.

  He looked among his horde, searching for his most valued treasure.

  Mai was gone.

  Her scent lingered, but in impossibly minute traces.

  He thought back. Her voice had resonated with the universe, harmonizing with the vibrations of his own life force. Its vibrant tempo, like the torrent of river rapids, had lulled to the dripping of a melting icicle. Heavier and heavier…

  Mai must have sung him to sleep!

  Surely it couldn’t have been intentional. She loved him.

  He wrapped his consciousness around the dragonstone in his core, the almost-infinite source of energy all dragons had. Its pulsations meandered lazily, like a winter stream before the spring melt. It couldn’t have been an accident. She’d tricked him.

  He’d track her down and demand an explanation. Uttering a word of magic, his bipedal form morphed. His size swelled as arms bent into forelegs and wings sprouted. Hands and fingers became talons, while his tail thickened and elongated.

  Ah, it felt great to be a dragon again! He stretched his limbs and spine to work out tight muscles. Sufficiently limbered up, he snaked towards the cave opening to investigate. Night hung over the land, cloaking the world in darkness.

  Another flash lit up the sky. He tracked it to its source, hundreds of miles to the southwest. A column of purple fire streaked down from the heavens, annihilating stretches of a sprawling port city of domes and minarets.

  A city that had not been there when he went to sleep.

  How long had he slumbered? Shrugging his shoulders a few times, Avarax loosened his wings. His claws tore into rock as he coiled his hind legs and then vaulted skyward.

  Flight! The cool night air streaked over his wings. The last time he’d flown, he had held Mai in his claws. Why had she betrayed him?

  Higher and higher he flew, reacquainting himself with a land drastically different from the one he remembered.

  Cities and towns: hundreds of them within his far-reaching sight, oases in wide expanses of farmland. Not ghastly Tivari orc outposts, glaring out from the mountains, nor even the graceful spires of elven citadels melding with their surrounding forests. But rather, the centers of human populations he had seen as a younger dragon, from when their civilizations had grown from nothing more than a collection of mud huts to stone towers and castles.

  They must have overthrown their Tivari masters while he slept. Like all bottom feeders, humans had a way of proliferating when left unfettered.

  His dragonstone sank. There was no way they could’ve expanded so fast within Mai’s lifetime. Given how little of her song echoed in the pulse of the world, hundreds of years must have passed. The one whose voice connected with him more than any other must be long dead and withered to dust.

  He’d search out her descendants and demand answers. He’d wreak vengeance, if it was so deserved.

  Still far in the distance, another blast of energy pulsed down on the city, obliterating the levees restraining the Western Ocean. An inexorable tide crawled across the low-lying lands and swallowed up towns and villages.

  Hell rained down from the heavens—destruction and suffering. Humans deserved as much. Avarax laughed, belching blue sparks from his snout. He started towards the source of the blasts to get a better look, maybe to start searching for Mai’s descendants, but then stopped mid-air. With his energy pent up, and with no telling what threats could have arisen while he slept, he’d need to regenerate. Investigating the devastation would have to wait.

  Veering northward, he streaked towards Celastya’s lair. Even if he could only draw on a trickle of energy, he was more than a match for her. He would rip her open and swallow her Flaming Pearl. The thought had crossed his mind over the millennia, but instead he had regularly mated with her and eaten her clutch of eggs to gradually increase his potential power. He didn’t hav
e the luxury of time now.

  Ignoring the sporadic flickers of purple in the skies behind him, Avarax scanned the landscape below. The plains first rose into rolling hills before vaulting higher into mountain crags. Nestled in a valley, Teardrop Lake glimmered a pale blue, even in the dark of night. The light from the three moons gamboled in its ripples, the reflections dancing across Celastya’s hidden cave entrance.

  He hovered by the opening. Stronger or not, it would be foolish to fight her in her own lair. He would have to coax her out. His voice echoed across the valley, shaking the mountains. “Celastya, out with you! It is time to mate again.”

  If only he’d had a chance to mate with Mai.

  Shaking the thought out of his head, Avarax listened. Celastya was inside. He could hear her shrink back, smell her fear. He would roast her alive and pick through her charred remains for her Pearl. He took in a deep breath and belched into the cave.

  Only a few sparks fizzled out—enough to incinerate a human, but only a tickle to a dragon. His frustrated wail sent the mountains shivering. He clawed at the cave mouth, ripping rock away.

  A burst of reds and oranges erupted high in the heavens, just above the iridescent moon. A roar tumbled across the lands, the shockwave pushing him back from the cave.

  Celastya darted out. She glanced at him with her luminous blue eyes. Her wingless, slithering form undulated past as she levitated close to the ground. Light from the White Moon sparkled off of her silvery scales before dark clouds billowing out from Mount Ayudra blotted out their sheen.

  Avarax gave chase, the gusts from his wings splintering trees below. He barreled into Celastya, sending her careening into the loathsome Tivari pyramid still standing by the shores of the lake.

  Its stones cracked as she rebounded off the walls. He drove his claws toward her, but she darted away, and he ripped into the pyramid’s stonework instead. His talons lodged into something deep in the rock, sending a searing shock through his body. Curse the Tivari for ever building the vile structures!

  Avarax tore his claws free and resumed his pursuit. Celastya flew over the mountains and towards the shore, and then skimmed the ocean as she streaked towards Jade Island.

  The fool thought she could channel the island’s latent energy. Of course, he could, too. Perhaps it would energize his dragonstone, reinvigorate it a little more.

  Mountains along the closed end of the horseshoe-shaped island shielded a port town at the head of the bay. A smooth metal arch, engraved with runes of elf magic, spanned the mouth of the harbor. The arch hadn’t been there before, but now Celastya coiled herself around it.

  As he approached, she unwrapped herself, moving free just in time to avoid a swipe from his foreclaw. With a graceful spin, Celastya twisted around him and tangled up his wings. The air dropped out from beneath them. Wind roared past as the ground rushed up to meet their tumbling bodies.

  They crashed into the shore with a jolt that shook the island, and her strangling grasp around him eased. She seized his forelegs in her own claws, but Avarax was still much stronger. He raked a talon across her neck. Bright blue blood spurted out. They struggled for dozens of minutes, toppling statues and buildings as they thrashed around.

  “Avarax!” A bold voice called his name, and he turned to see a puny elf. He radiated power far out of proportion to his size. Far greater than any other elf. Maybe he was related to the supposed Elf Angel who’d taught Mai; or, given the elves’ long lives, one and the same.

  Though smaller than one of Avarax’s fangs, the golden-haired elf dared to lock gazes with him. He began to chant. The vibrations of his voice, similar yet different to that of the slave girl from before, rolled over him.

  The power of the dragonstone lurched inside of him. A dull ache blossomed into searing pain as his bones broke and reformed. Hulking muscle shrank and impenetrable scales softened. His forelegs and claws withered into arms and hands, his hindquarters transmuting into legs.

  Several excruciating moments of transformation later, Avarax rose on wobbling humanoid legs, a scant head above the elf whom he’d dwarfed just minutes ago. He looked down at his naked, frail body.

  A human! The most pathetic of sentient beings. His skin tone was the same as when he’d met Mai.

  Avarax scoffed. This silly trick might buy them time, but he would pay them back tenfold. He uttered the words to restore his dragon form.

  Nothing happened.

  What? His morale melted away. Instead of a roar that would compel a mortal to obey, his voice merely shouted, “What have you done?”

  “Made you wish you had stayed asleep for another seven hundred years.” The elf whipped out a narrow longsword.

  Avarax felt its power, knew that it held a magic enchantment. His new tiny heart rattled against the narrow confines of his scrawny chest. Was it in fear? He hadn’t experienced that emotion in several millennia.

  He closed his eyes as the tip pushed into his chest. The blade made a divot into the thin flesh covering him. It didn’t even cut the skin.

  It barely tickled.

  A magical elvish blade should have stabbed through a human with ease. Avarax held the elf’s shocked gaze. In that second of silence, Avarax sensed the dragonstone inside of him. It pulsed as feebly as before, yet it still held all the potential energy of a dragon. He spoke a word of power, sending the elf hurtling back into the sand.

  He spun to see Celastya bearing down on him. He slammed his fist into her swiping claw. She recoiled and winced.

  Avarax laughed. Even in this pitiful form, he was still a dragon. He punched again. He hit nothing but air.

  Celastya, the elf, and the horseshoe island were all gone, replaced by wind-driven snow on a mountain top. Ice sizzled and melted beneath his feet.

  Where had they gone? Or rather, had they sent him?

  He evaluated his dragonstone. The elf’s ward dammed up its power. The trickle of vitality left wouldn’t sustain his dragon form, at least not for more than a few minutes.

  Condemned to be a human!

  No matter. Find opportunity in disaster, Mai’s tribe of black-haired, yellow-skinned humans said. Before him lay a new world infested by inferior beings. Even without his dragon form, his superior intellect would allow him to rule over such a weak-willed, borderline intelligent species.

  And when he did, he would find the slave girl’s bones and recreate her.

  * * *

  The End

  The 12-Part Dragon In Man’s Clothing serial continues with Part 2: Avast, Dragon!

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  The Outcast

  Craig Martelle

  The Outcast © 2017 Craig Martelle

  * * *

  All rights reserved under the International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, organizations, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  About The Outcast

  Space may not have cared that his only choice was to go it alone, but his ship did.

  A criminal who can’t be put to death. We’re too civilized for that. Launch him into space on a mission to survey asteroids. Give the criminal an old scout ship. We don’t need it anymore. Like those before him. Criminals sentenced to the same fate.

  One person condemned to a life alone, his only companion a computer determined to make his life hell. His mission will carry on, even if he does not.

  The Outcast

  Day 1

  “You nut-slapping moron!” Benny Driver shouted, looking back and forth between the screens and the spaghe
tti mess of fiber-optic cables hanging from the bulkhead. “Why does it look like this?”

  “I have no nuts to slap, Master Benny,” the ship’s computer replied. “In any case, I’m not sure I can answer your question properly. It looks that way because the light reflects from the surface in a variety of bandwidths that your human eye collects and translates into an image interpreted by your brain.”

  “You are an ass, twelve times an ass, and you can bugger off!”

  “I think you do not understand my nature, Master Benny. I don’t have the anatomy necessary. But I am learning yours. I see why you were sent away. You are not very likeable.”

  Benny scanned the bulkheads of the small scout-class vessel. There was only one space in which the ship’s sole crewman lived and worked.

  “Farging Fungleheimer!” Benny yelled and threw the wrench into the bulkhead. It bounced back, smacking his shin before skipping across the deck.

  He hopped on one foot as he held his leg, grimacing. He balled a fist, but stayed his hand. Punching the metal bulkhead wouldn’t help.

  Banishment. Trapped alone on a small vessel with only a computerized tormentor for company.

  “They can’t kill me,” he said softly. “We’re too civilized for that. To live with themselves, they pay for a spaceship to run a high-risk gig with a crew that has no choice.”

  The ship didn’t answer him.

  “Increase magnification on the schematic, please.” Benny sat cross-legged on the deck, referencing the screen above as he pulled the cables one by one to classify them and then begin the bypass.

  The ship had not been certified for further space travel when he was thrown aboard by so-called competent authority. They patched the hull to a minimum acceptable standard, added the raw materials to fix the systems within, and launched him into space.