A Most Refined Dragon

by Paul Chernoch

  “Sorry I yelled. I’ve never met a player this good at defense who didn’t also have a good offense. Why is he holding back?”

  “Repossessing the farm of a village elder won’t make him popular.”

  “Think he’ll let me win my money back?”

  Everyone grew quiet. Ren Fa returned and shook Skandik’s hand again.

  Melissa inhaled deeply. She smelled Skandik and Andok, and then got a clear scent from Ren Fa. She darted her tongue back and forth to sample the air, then rendered her verdict. Skandik looked at her and she shook her head without hesitation. No.

  They began their second skiven by repeating the ritual. They unscrewed their horns, pulled out sweet-smelling vials, and oiled up. Melissa’s nose told her the game had changed. Their opponent was applying something sweet to his horn, but it wasn’t spearmint, it was Ren’s favorite beverage: chocolate liqueur.

  Girls love chocolate, and unicorns love girls. She whispered to Skandik, “I know what he rubbed on his horn. I expect it’ll attract coins more powerfully than spearmint. Play accordingly.”

  He did, but Skoffle after skoffle, skiven after skiven, Skandik lost. Coins rocketed up to the tippy-top of the chocolated spike and Ren Fa got crowner after crowner, each worth its seven points, then fought hard to get five pockees to capitalize on them. Shortly after midnight, Skandik’s purse held enough for one last game, one he knew he couldn’t win.

  After the first two skivens, Melissa’s noticed Ren Fa stopped paying attention to Skandik. He’d observed and countered all the farmer’s strategies. No, his eyes were riveted on her. They weren’t the eyes of a man longing for another chance with an old flame. He didn’t need Skandik’s money, he needed Skandik’s misery, and the effect it would produce in her.

  “What do you want, Ren Fa?” said Melissa. “What would you accept in exchange for Skandik’s farm?”

  “Two things,” said Ren Fa. “Nothing complicated. First, open a way back to Earth for me. For my friends, if possible, but this is between us, so make them optional.”

  “Send you back?” said Melissa. “I’d do that for free! What’s the second?”

  “Come with me.”

  Melissa jerked back so fast she almost split a tree in two. “This is my home now. I’m a Claw for good.”

  “Not as my trophy wife,” said Ren Fa. “As my trophy. Don’t worry, you still get to be a doctor. I’ll manage the clinic; you’ll heal the patients. Think of the good you could do.”

  “And all the money you could make.”

  “Doctors today charge money for medicines that sometimes work. We’ll charge a quarter of that for cures that always work. Win-win, no?”

  “Win for you, win for the patients. Not a win for me. I have other plans.”

  “Then let’s make it the subject of our final wager.” He teased his mustache with his thumb and forefinger. “One skoffle. If Skandik wins, he gets his farm and you get your freedom. I win, and I get a new employee.”

  “Slave.”

  “Partner. To show my generosity, even if I win I will forgive half of Skandik’s debt and extend his repayment period by a year.”

  Melissa’s claws dug into the ground and a puff of flame escaped her snout. “I already have my freedom. If we win, I want something from you.”

  “Namely?” He held the sides of his coat with his hands, thumbs extended upwards, and worked his elbows with eagerness.

  “Everything you’ve learned about Kibota and exactly what you’re up to.”

  “Game on,” said Ren Fa. He took out his flask of chocolate liqueur from an inside coat pocket, uncorked it, drank a swig and recapped it. “Victory will be sweet. I’ll even put your name on top of the sign at our new clinic. Pick a city. Beijing? Hong Kong? Boston? Every nation in the world will issue us a passport. And if we run out of paying customers, there’s always the circus.”

  Flame. Claws. Teeth. Tail. Drop from great height. Which would be the most satisfying way to wipe the smirk off his face?

  “I can’t play,” said Skandik.

  “What?” said Melissa. “You have to!”

  “My family is my responsibility. I can’t be responsible for your freedom. I lost. I have to accept that. Thanks for trying.” He turned to leave.

  “Wait! If you won’t play, I will. Lend me your horn.”

  “Crazy,” said Skandik.

  “You have to advise me. I barely know the rules.” Melissa held out her paws. “I have claws. Not ideal for sliding tiny disks.”

  He put his hands on his hips. “I will advise you. Don’t do it.”

  She turned to Ren Fa. “I will play you. One game, stakes as previously decided.” They shook.

  “Since you have never played, I will allow you two opening shots.” Ren Fa opened the drawstring on his purse.

  The click-clack commotion was distracting. “So generous. Our owner is the best! We love Ren. Ren’s a winner!”

  Stupid coins! Stop your flatter-chatter or I melt you down. I’m the one healing people for free. Melissa poured her first coin into her paw. Skandik shook his head, so she took a second, then a third before he finally approved her selection. She set it in the skofflet and gave it a tap with her knuckle. It bounced off the right wall, then the pen, and came to rest in the center, in front of her seat and on the wrong side of center board. Her second shot made it to the other side, but ended up in Ren’s snarrel. He bowed in mock appreciation and pocketed the coin.

  Ren Fa spent his first few turns setting up a defense, blocking the best angles to prevent her from getting a clean shot at the throat. He’s toying with me. At Skandik’s urging, Melissa countered by trying her spinlet. This succeeded in starting a regular dance party in front of her seat. Half the stranded coins on her side hopped up and started spinning.

  “Weeee! La la la, go go go!” The unicoin chatter ramped up and she wanted to smash the board. They whirled and spun about each other like a swing dance party, but never left her side. Two tuckered themselves out and dropped in her snarrel, for a minor benefit, but she still had no score.

  On his next turn, thanks to the path Melissa had cleared, Ren Fa sent a dancer in, picked up two partners and landed a triple spikee. The turn after that, he topped it with a crowner. Together they would count for sixteen as soon as he landed his mandatory five pockees. Melissa countered with a shot from a skofflet, which did a ricky-doo, grabbed some friends and formed a line of seven, and slithered across the backboard like an old arcade game of centipede. Down the throat they went.

  “Rope trick!” shouted Skandik and his son in unison. “You’re back in this!”

  With her extra turn, she scored on a ricky-dee, then lost her momentum. Surprisingly, Ren Fa switched to defense. He clogged the lanes again and bagged lots of coins with his snarrel. Twenty minutes later, his strategy became clear. Ren Fa had succeeded, quite by accident, in making two pockees, but that wasn’t his purpose. The board was littered with unicoins, and Melissa’s bag was empty. She had two coins left. If a player runs out of coins before a match is decided, they forfeit.

  “A starve-out,” said Skandik. “That’s cold. The board’s a mess, Melissa. No way but luck through this.” He tapped her on the side. “I appreciate what you’ve done for me. I’m sorry.”

  With a shaking paw, she set her penultimate coin in the spinlet and fired a roller true. It curved and weaved in and out of the field of fallen unicoins. Seconds passed and it still had not cleared midboard. It found an opening, Melissa’s eye gleamed with hope, but then it doubled back and wiggled its way toward her snarrel.

  “I like you, Missy Lissai,” said the shiny disk. “I don’t want to leave you.”

  “No, no, please!” said Melissa in clink talk. “Go the other way! To the sack on the other side. Please!”

  “You can talk? Hey everybody, the Lissai Lady can talk to us!” The friendly but empty-headed sliver of gold and horn charged toward her, crossed into her snarrel and came to rest.

  Not what I wanted
, but at least I’ll last one more turn.

  Ren Fa couldn’t understand her strange speech, but he stared at her for a long minute before carefully selecting his next coin. It was his kisser. He was going for the kill. He whacked it hard and it launched and rode a second coin around the pen, off the left wall and into the backboard. The kisser drew in one, two, three, four coins and the chain deflected off the back, then the right wall before heading straight for the throat. It never slowed, there were no coins in its direct path, and the certainty of its final destination was written on every spectator’s face, whether by a smile or by tears. Ren Fa needed just three pockees to win, and his kisser was towing one extra. Plop, the kisser dropped in the sack. Plop, a second dropped. The winning coin was a quarter coins-breadth away, and it wasn’t slowing down.

  Melissa shouted, “Stop!”

  The coin stopped. It was hovering in midair, directly over the throat. “I’m not supposed to go in? Isn’t that where we’re supposed to end up?”

  “Come in! Come in!” cried the coins already in the sack. “After-party in the sack!”

  “No, don’t listen to them! Don’t you want to play longer? This is the last game. You can have more fun dancing.”

  “I can? Fun, fun, fun!” The happy little coin started spinning in the air. “Play on!”

  Ren Fa’s face reddened. Melissa could tell he wanted to cry foul, but since all desperate players talked to the ditzy disks when the chips were down, what could he do? He picked up another coin and took his extra move. His temper cost him an easy shot. Melissa’s turn.

  She was down to her last coin, her kisser. The spinning disk hovering over the sack before her was tiring. It would soon drop into the throat from exhaustion. She had to make her shot quickly. A dance party was promised, so she slid the kisser into the spinlet, said a prayer to the Grantor, and smacked it away.

  Her aim was true. The kisser spun about but traveled straight. It bounced once, twice, and rocketed straight for the throat. She needed it to grab lots of other coins as it moved along. It didn’t. One pockee was not enough to win. Being her last coin, if it went in, she’d lose. If it didn’t go in, she’d lose. The hairs of her mane stood on end, all prickly. She was about to become a slave. The kisser hit the pen, came to a halt on the edge of the throat, and wobbled while it slowly lost its spin. It started to do that rhythmic wacka-wacka sound as it made its last few revolutions. The breeze picked up and threatened to blow the coin in the hole.

  Kaboom!

  The prickly feeling in Melissa’s skin made sense. A thunderstorm had arrived. All at once, half the unicoins jumped up in terror and rolled about frantically, while the remainder started bouncing off each other like maniacs playing musical chairs. They all made a run for the two throats at the same time and clogged the openings.

  “Go there! Go there!” shouted Melissa. “No, to the other side.” They all switched sides, and the situation repeated itself. “No, the one farthest from me!”

  “But we like pretty, Missy Lissai!”

  “I like you, too. So be good little unicoins and run to the other sack.”

  “The other sack? Are you mad at us?” They cried tears of spearmint oil. Parting is such sweet sorrow.

  “No! You see that sack over there is my sack. The one close to me is his sack.”

  “That doesn’t make sense. Why is your sack over there?”

  “BECAUSE THAT’S HOW THE GAME IS PLAYED!” A few of the coins started to obey. “That’s good. Single file. No cutting. Keep the throat clear.”

  Clink, clink clink. A fair number of unicoins had a contrary spirit and hopped into Ren Fa’s throat. Soon the roundup was over and the board was clear. They each retrieved their sack from the board and tallied the results. Melissa won by four. As she restuffed her bag, one little darling said, “Is the storm over yet?”

  “No. I’ll tell you when it’s safe. Go to sleep.”

  Money can snore, and it would keep her up half the night, but they won. Ren Fa paid up with a scowl and muttered, “Dumb luck.”

  “We’ll talk about your plans in the morning,” said Melissa. “Strange game.”

  Beyond the edge of camp, animals settled down to sleep. For another day they had rounded up the thunder and set it in order. For another day, Kibota would endure. The howls died out, and a low chorus of sputters, snorts and squeals continued through the night. Melissa slept, and dreamt of drowning in a vast lake of fur. How she wanted that lake to obey her like the silly coins! She spoke to the lake, but it would not move.

  * * *

  Morning, April 24th. The banks of the Silverthorn River.

  The morning of the twenty-fourth barges, rowboats, canoes and floating tree trunks heaped with the wounded ran aground where the river bent. They came for one reason: Melissa. As soon as she looked upon them, a fire in her head ignited. She’d beaten Ren Fa, but there was no bargaining with the stone. Why? Why was I given power to heal yet subjected to this curse? I’m no immortal hlisskan. No other human or Lissai must submit to the stone’s compulsion.

  A coolness seeped into her skull. Are you asking?

  What? thought Melissa.

  Are you asking for help? The voice in her head always sounded like her own voice, but said things she would never say.

  Her wings tensed, her claws grabbed the earth, and her legs flexed. Her body was preparing for takeoff. Yes! I am asking for help! Make it stop!

  First, answer my questions. Do you want sovereign control over your body, the power to tell it to go where you will it to go?

  Yes! Melissa hoped all the questions were this easy.

  These animals that inconvenience you by their rampages, would you direct them with the same firmness by which their hlisskans are now driven?

  Was it an offer? Or a test? Melissa’s hopes hung on opening the door beneath the Census Stone, rescuing the ones trapped in Nehenoth, and stopping the beacon that summoned the madness. Not direct them. Free them.

  Should you succeed, what will become of these ‘free’ animals?

  They will stop coming. There will be peace. The press of Hands splashing to shore and crowding towards her was noisy, so Melissa closed her eyes.

  What will become of the hlisskans? When you ask again, be sure you know what you are asking. The voice departed, but mercifully the pressure from the stone did not return.

  What would happen? If she disabled the Census Stone, would the hlisskans die? Did it mediate the transfer of vitality into the chiefs of each animal kind? Would it strand her here forever? Strip her of her powers?

  Melissa opened her eyes. Hundreds of eyes met hers, connected to men and women with broken bones, paralysis, gangrene, fevers, boils, and convulsions. She set to work. When her flame was spent, she was relieved; no one was left untreated. The call resumed, she took to the air, and flew east. This allowed Ren Fa to slip away without fulfilling his bargain to give her information, but at least Skandik’s family was taken care of. She would run into Ren Fa again. Right now, the Census Stone was her main problem.

  Maybe I don’t have to disable the machine, merely adjust it and control it. The prospect of bossing around billions of critters was dizzying. Wait. If it was the Census Stone that dragged me from my world and now shackles me, then anyone who masters it can control me. She must either destroy it or be the one to control it. Every time she switched back to deciding to destroy it, unformed doubts arose, until she remembered her first day on Kibota. She and White Talon were near death when it began. An outside force kept them alive. If smashing the stone kills the hlisskans, will it kill me, too?

  As a storm of indecision brewed inside her brain, real clouds from the west overtook her. She sprayed black flame in a circle and the lightning bent around her, but she had no special color flame that could protect her heart. She could not round up the thunder in her soul.

  Chapter 34: The Accession at Redbridge

  April 25th. Redbridge.

  Melissa flew above the storm. The puffy whitene
ss below resembled a mattress. She wanted to tuck her wings in and plop down onto it, but the stony siren wouldn’t let her. Through a hole in the clouds she saw a double wing of Reds flying southeast, following the river. She knew the style of flight; it was Anspark. As Melissa soaked up the sun and drew closer to her destination, the tug of the stone diminished, affording her leeway in the course she chose. Wherever Anspark was going, she wanted to be. The next large town in that direction was Redbridge, so that’s where she’d go. A sizable Hand settlement occupied the south bank, by an ancient bridge over the Silverthorn of some magnificence, made not of red stone but by Red Lissai.

  Later she glimpsed Whites flying up from the southwest and recognized Mistfire. A meeting of two hlissaks? This close to Menagerie? Melissa visualized the maps she’d studied. Blacks once occupied Four Rivers to the west, and the Silvers lived on Garden Isle far to the east. She didn’t know where the Blues had lived, but this spot was well situated to host a meeting of all the klatches. Today. They will choose a new hlissosak today.

  Melissa was disturbed. Anspark’s corrupt elixir had not yet been exposed. The identity of the traitor who sent the Silvers to oblivion remained unknown. The possibility of restoring Silverthorn had not been fully explored. A severe migration was near its peak. It was the worst possible time to choose a new leader. Why weren’t they waiting one more week, when the danger was less? Who was agitating for this? She strained against the air and applied the full force of her rainbow power to her flight. She was not going to miss one minute, even if the Census Stone ripped her brain out of her skull.

  * * *

  A throng of Hands crowded the bridge. Some walked, some rode carts pulled by fan-fans or quaggas, and a few sprinted on urgent errands. Most traffic headed north, from the town to the meeting grounds on the north side of the Silverthorn. The bridge was carved from three stones, perfectly joined at two towers in the midst of the stream. The end stones at each shore rose in a gentle arc to meet the flat center span. The river was a hundred lisstai across at that point. Nowhere on earth had any culture ancient or modern ever cut and transported stones of such size. At six lisstai wide, the bridge was capable of handling the traffic from the migration. Along its sides were carved images of thousands of mammals, birds, reptiles and amphibians, and the two towers were capped by larger-than-life statues of unicorns, with their horns pointing toward each other.