The dragon with the longest tail turned at his companions.
“What do you say, brothers? I want to go with them.”
“But wouldn’t mother be angry with us?” the smallest dragon asked.
The succubi laughed.
“Why are you laughing?” the smallest dragon said, irritated. But the succubi didn’t reply, it was all part of the trick.
Even the companions of the dragon laughed now.
“It’s because you are still worried that your mother will be angry with you,” the dragon with the birthmark said. “Can you not be dragon enough and deal with consequences yourself?”
“I will go with them,” the smallest dragon said, resolute. Everyone laughed.
“Come let’s not tarry,” I said to them. “Why keep the good things waiting?”
And we began to move away. The dragons did not follow us, maybe they were still confused? I prayed they would come. Use of any force on our part would be in vain. None of the succubi stole glances behind, so that the dragons could make their own decision.
And then, with some hesitation they began to follow us. I felt like a great weight had been removed from my shoulders. The risk had been worth it.
I allowed myself the thought a bit too soon, for the next moment a cry reached my ear. Everyone stopped. I turned and to my horror I saw that it was a dragon. A large one. The largest I had ever seen this close.
It shot towards us.
“It’s that idiot guard!” the smallest dragon cried.
“Come with us quick!” I said to them. And we shot in the direction which would ultimately take us to the tunnel that led to the outer surface of the earth through the volcano.
But the guard dragon had the bigger tail. He got as close as to a hundred metres behind us in seconds!
“Idiot princes!” the guard roared. “They are the succubi! They want to enslave you!”
Yet the princes kept swimming, wanting to come with us.
“Do you not want happiness?” I yelled to the princes, urging them to follow.
“Get away,” the dragon with the birthmark said as he moved past the guard dragon who had blocked him.
“More are coming!” the dragon with the longest tail said. To my horror, I saw more of the guard dragons moving fast towards us. This was not going according to the plan at all.
Finally we reached the opening of the tunnel. But the guard dragons also reached us and even though the succubi, being small enough were able to swim clean of the clutches of their claws, the princes weren’t so lucky. They cried and wept and beat their wings wanting to come with us, yet the guard dragons, over whom we were not in a position to cast our charm, grabbed them and took them away.
I watched, feeling like I had been stabbed in the heart, as the dragons swam away.
“What do we do now, o queen?” one of the succubi asked me, quite dejected.
And then I saw it—a glittering stone a short distance ahead. It was a diamond and belonged to one of the princes. I swam towards it and I grasped it in my hands. A notification appeared in my vision.
Dragon diamond: Among the most powerful objects in the Second World. This can be used to elevate the effectiveness of a spell or a magical ritual by an astonishing degree. Dragon diamonds can be used in a varying number of ways and needn’t be used in any particular way. Dragon diamonds are not found in the outer world.
Note that Dragon diamonds are prone to degradation and can lose their powers very easily.
Among the most powerful objects in the Second World… hmmm. I remembered all about favourable factors. I realised the guard dragons keen to save the princes had been a boon in disguise. And for once I was thankful that we had failed to take the juvenile dragons with us to the outer world. I had never known the diamonds of the dragons were so powerful. I had always dismissed them as mere objects of decoration that the dragons adorned themselves with to appear grander. Apparently that wasn’t the case. This diamond was enough to speed up the ritual. Perhaps all the risk had been worth it after all. A smile came over my lips.
“Come you all,” I said to the succubi as I re-entered the tunnel, “our job here is done.”
***
Chapter 13: Lanak Tanor
The south was where we were bound for.
I trusted the dragon, yet, I felt a certain amount of uncertainty as I observed us moving in a direction opposite to the main place where the succubi queen lived.
After the dragon had awoken, he had danced in the sky like a free bird. Apparently killing him and reviving him was what was needed to free him from the succubi forever. He had told us that while he could return to his own world through a volcano or through another opening in the earth’s crust, he would only do that after he had taken his full revenge on the succubi queen. He had been apparently working for her day in and day out for months, and wanted her downfall like nothing else.
After a while, the sky began to get brownish. The windscreen began to be covered by sand. At the same time my stomach grumbled. The meat of the hog-like creature had run out a good while back. We were making fast progression, but it was making us forget all about food.
“I think we can land for a few minutes,” I said. “And get something to eat.”
“Okay, captain,” Lana said.
“But maybe we should tell him first, sir?” Danor asked. The dragon was flying a good distance ahead of us, and he looked more like a giant bird than the dragon he truly was from the distance. “What if he keeps flying and then when he finally turns his head back and sees we have disappeared?”
Danor had a point.
“Lana, can you increase the speed?” I asked her.
“Ugh, I really hate doing that. My head feels like it would burst. But anyway, just this once.”
She accelerated the Sphere with her mind. I went to the entry hole and I pushed open the lid. There was a lot of sand in the air and I could feel it impacting my face as I put my head out of the entry hole. I covered my nose. I definitely didn’t want to breathe any of it in. Finally, Lana had accelerated the Sphere enough that we passed the dragon and came in front of him. I signalled him that we were going to land.
“What for?” he asked, not wanting to land apparently.
“We are hungry,” I said.
“Can’t you control it?” the dragon asked. “I have not eaten for months myself.”
“But we don’t have a big tail like you where we can store food to survive us for months,” I said. The dragon got my point.
“Fine.”
I closed the lid.
“Wow, your hair is brown,” Danor observed.
No wonder, there had been so much dust outside.
“Don’t worry, once we land and we go out for food, you’ll get brown hair as well,” I said.
Lana landed the craft behind some trees so that we could be somewhat protected from the sand blowing outside. We began to go out. The dragon landed near us, and to protect us from the sand further he put his great wing in front of the Sphere.
“Go, get whatever you want to eat,” he told us, “but hurry, because the queen would have realised by now that I am free. The volcano would be showing signs of eruption in a few days and the resourceful queen would find a means to speed up the ritual.”
We were able to catch a rabbit. Despite the wind we could create a fire and cook it. Barely were we done with the meal that the wind started to blow hard, and the sand in it increased ten folds.
The area went brown. We struggled to see the dragon in the distance.
“What do we do?” Lana asked.
“Let’s get to the Sphere,” I said, fighting to keep the sand out of my mouth. We kept advancing towards the place where we believed the Sphere to be, although we couldn’t see it due to the sand and the wind. It was getting hard to breathe even though we had our noses covered. Danor broke out into a fit of coughing.
He fell to the ground.
“I can’t… go… further… sir,” he said.
<
br /> “Not leaving you,” Lana said and she immediately picked up Danor on her shoulders like he was weightless thanks to her powers even though he was easily three times her size. Battling the sand and the wind we finally reached the Sphere.
And then I realised something. The dragon wasn’t there. Even with the sand and the wind it should have been possible to see him since he had been so close to the Sphere. As Lana and Danor entered the craft, I moved around the Sphere, hoping to find him but it was all in vain. I entered the Sphere and closed the lid. Quite a bit of the sand had gotten inside and everything had turned brown. Danor was on his knees, breathing heavily. I was thankful that at least we didn’t need to suffocate inside the Sphere.
However, I doubted that we could get moving before the sandstorm was over. The windscreen had turned to brown and it was impossible to see anything outside.
“He isn’t there, is he?” Lana asked me, apparently having noticed the absence of the dragon.
“Maybe he went in search of us?” Danor offered.
“That wouldn’t have been a great decision on his part,”” I said, brooding as I sat down on the floor of the Sphere, “he would have known that either we would stay where we were and wait for the sandstorm to get over or make our way here.”
“Maybe he decided to continue on the journey towards the vessel?” Lana said, “Didn’t he say that we should hurry?”
That was a possibility. Yet, I doubted the dragon would have left without us. But there was only one thing we could presently do— to wait, and so we waited.
The sandstorm didn’t cease. If anything it got only stronger. All three of us were getting bored, there was little to talk even. And then I suddenly sprang to my feet with a start. What an idiot I had been!
We could continue towards the vessel even with the storm going on! I had the map after all and the dragon had told me about the location of the vessel earlier. I now realised that the dragon could have only gone after the vessel himself, since we had been taking time. He probably thought we would be able to make our way to it ourselves.
“I am taking the controls of the Sphere,” I said as I went to the table that had the hand print.
“But the sandstorm?” Lana said, confusedly.
“Doesn’t matter,” I said.
I closed my eyes as I sat down on the seat. I opened the map in my vision and kept it there. I made the Sphere rise and began to advance towards the location of the vessel. This required more mental energy as I found out. The wind continuously hitting the Sphere like a river in the sky didn’t help at all.
I kept my eyes closed and put my full concentration into directing the Sphere.
We had advanced a short distance, when I felt the definite bump of something against the Sphere. This was followed by the scared voice of Danor saying that there was something outside.
I opened my eyes, although I kept the Sphere flying.
“What did you see?” I asked, though with the brown windscreen it wouldn’t be possible to see any more than a few inches directly in front of the Sphere. “What hit the Sphere?”
“I saw the shadow of a man,” Lana said and she was equally frightened as Danor, “except I am not sure if it was a man.”
Barely had she uttered these words that I felt more hits on the backside of the Sphere.
My heart began to race. What could be the thing hitting us?
I heard a sound overhead near the lid. Like something was pulling at the lid from the outside.
I walked over to the lid and put my hands to it.
“Are you going to open it, sir?” Danor asked. I reconsidered my decision as the sound continued. A shiver caught hold of me. Deserts were mysterious places. I had been to one desert earlier, but that one had been in the central part of the main continent to which the sub continent was attached to. Locals had told me of sand spirits carrying off children.
“Whatever is outside probably wants to harm us,” Lana said.
“Don’t worry, I am not opening the lid,” I said. I went back to the seat and sat down. If there were demons outside, they would eventually give up. The Sphere was the only vehicle inside which protection was a given. Nothing could break inside the Sphere. At least that was what I convinced myself of as the Sphere was being continuously hit. The sounds were chilling my core.
And then the windshield was hit once again. I saw the shadow clearly. It was man, a bald one who wore nothing. His arms were rather long while his legs were short. Barely had he hit the wind shield when he disappeared.
“Did you see it?” Lana said.
“I saw the man,” I said.
“Did you see that he just dissolved into the air?”
“What do you mean?” I asked. I thought the man had fallen off. How could someone dissolve?
“His skin was grainy,” Danor said.
By now I was actually feeling like going out and seeing the man and his companions. I didn’t like being spooked out.
“I am done with this,” I said. I slumped down on the seat, closed my eyes and accelerated the Sphere, hoping to shake the demons off. My mind hurt like hell, but I didn’t care.
Five minutes went by, but then I saw that our position in the map hadn’t changed at all. It should have moved at least half a centimetre. I was confused.
Was it possible that we were not moving?
The windscreen had become darker for one thing and there was barely any light coming in through it. Had the strange aerial men with the long arms done something so that we couldn’t move? I swallowed. I decided to land the Sphere. Nothing happened. The Sphere never touched ground. My suspicions were confirmed. I broke the bad news to Lana and Danor. They just stared at me with horror stricken faces.
“Then we will have to fight them, sir, whatever they are,” Danor said.
“Yes, Danor, I guess we will have to,” I said.
“I am the strongest one,” Lana said, “I’ll go out to fight them.”
And she marched towards the lid. But I did not let her open it.
“I am the captain,” I said.
Lana gave me an exasperated look.
“The last time you did something after saying that, things didn’t go exactly as planned,” she told me.
“But things did turn out all right… eventually,” I said. Lana shook her head and folded her arms.
“Fine, go out and die, I won’t save you this time.”
I approached the entry hole. My hand shivered as I was about to push the lid open. Whatever we faced was way different from the succubi. This might even kill us all.
I pushed the lid open. The moment I did this that sand poured in with such intensity that I fell to the floor. But somehow I managed to get to my feet once the sand had stopped pouring in and I put my head out. There was nothing outside, just wind and the sand in it. There were no aerial men with long arms holding the Sphere in place preventing us from moving.
And then the shriek came. It was from inside the Sphere. It was Lana.
I put my head back in. I had a heart attack when I saw that the number of people in the Sphere, excluding me, had gone from two to eight.
Except the new six people weren’t really people. They were humanoids made of sand. They were holding Lana and Danor preventing them from any moment. I made my sword appear in my hand.
“Let them go,” I said.
One of the hands of the sand demons disappeared. Next moment, I watched helplessly as the sand particles came together around my hand that was holding the sword and constricted my hand with such force that I had to drop the sword.
“Okay,” I said. There was no way to fight the sand demons. Even Lana with all her powers was helpless against them, “What do you want?”
“You trespassed in our land,” one of the sand demons said.
“We were just passing here,” I protested.
“You will be taken to the queen, she shall decide your fate.”
There was no way to make the sand demons change their minds.
They took all three of us out of the Sphere, and they also carried the Sphere along. The sand storm was finally subsiding and it was getting easier to breathe. Had the sand men taken us out a few moments back, we might have suffocated or choked to death. The sun was hard. I felt sweat worming down my back. For at least twenty minutes the sand demons carried us. They took us further into the desert. Here no trees grew at all. Sand dunes were all over the place. In the very far distance I could see mountains.
And then we finally reached a great castle. It was located just behind a great sand dune. The castle was made completely of sand.
When we reached the door of the castle, the door changed features such that a face formed on the door. I reckoned the castle wasn’t made of sand, but of sand demons. A living castle.
“Who do you bring?” the face on the door asked.
“Trespassers,” one of the sand demons replied. “They were travelling over our land in a strange object that we have also brought along. We could have killed them, but since they possess the capacity to fly they must not be ordinary humans and hence we have brought them to the queen to decide what must be done to them.”
“The queen is inside,” the face said, “all hail Arini!”
“All hail Arini!” the demons holding us cried as well. The door swung open following this. The demons took us in. The great hall inside was interesting, for the ceiling allowed no heat to come in, yet there was much light inside the hall, thanks to strategically placed holes all about the walls and the ceiling. On the other end of the hall there was an elevated platform and atop it there was a great throne of sand, or perhaps sand demons.
On the throne sat a woman of extraordinary beauty. She wore garments of sand that stuck to her body like they were a part of her. The most important feature of her was that she possessed horns… and wings as well. I reckoned there was a tail to present behind her too.
Was she a succubus?
Why would sand demons make a succubus their queen?
The demons took us to her and we were forced to kneel down, even as the demons themselves kneeled and kept their heads bowed as one of them spoke to the queen and explained the circumstances under which we had been taken.
Chains of a Succubus Page 15