The Old Races

by CE Murphy

  "It's possible I should have begun with the children." Janx sat, wrapped arms around a drawn-up knee, and knew Biru loathed his casual air as much as the political stance he'd taken. "They might be more adventuresome and less hidebound. But there are so few of them." The last words were soft, so soft that only one of his own kind might have overheard it. Toka, at only a few centuries old, was a rarity, even for a race that bred slowly. There were a dozen or so more his age, but none younger, and that was unusual again, even for a race that bred slowly. Janx beckoned the boy over, letting Toka sit in his shadow before he addressed the ancient white dragon. "How would you have us win, Biru? Things are different now. There are millions of humans, and some may still worship us as gods or divine creatures, but they have the tools now to kill us."

  "Not easily."

  Exasperated, Janx curled his lip. "Nothing kills the Old Races easily, but we can die. And there are not so many of us--none of us, not just we dragons, but the Old Races as a whole--that we can afford to lose ourselves to idiotic confrontations with mortals. There are reasons we agreed to the laws that govern all of us, or have you forgotten, Biru?"

  There was fire in those icy blue depths after all: anger flared in Biru's gleaming eyes, and beside Janx, Toka took a soft breath. He was too young by far--by eons--to remember the council that had convened to decide the fate of the Old Races.

  There had been so many of them, then. So many wonderful beings, from the female-dominated harpy tribes to the dragons' sea-serpent cousins. Siryns and gargoyles, djinns and dragons, the slow-shuffling yeti and the shore-dwelling selkie. Even the vampires had come to the table. Of course they had, because Janx was there, and Daisani would never stand for him to have a hand in the shaping of a future when Daisani himself did not. They had met at the southern tip of Africa, peoples from all over the land and seas, in what was to be their last great gathering. No one had quite known that then, but neither had they not known it: otherwise the shyer and less populous races would never have come. It had taken weeks simply to decide who would sit at the table and speak for each race.

  Janx had not been chosen.

  It would have rankled, had it been a surprise. But even then--even, as if he had not been old, venerable, ancient, by then--even then he was too independent, too unpredictable. Too close with the vampire called Daisani, for all that their relationship was known to be a rivalry. Daisani had been chosen, despite all those things. But then, Daisani had always called himself the master of his kind, and Janx had never known anyone to dispute that, not in all the years they had been together.

  Biru, of course, had been chosen in Janx's place. Stauncher, more conservative, perhaps older, but certainly more ferocious in declaiming human strength and extolling dragonly survival. He had agreed to two laws: no war amongst the Old Races, no telling humans what they really were. But he had put forth the third, and argued for it passionately.

  No interbreeding. Not with other Old Races--a dangerous prospect at best, as the half-breed children were new creatures entirely rather than half of one parent and half of the other--and not, most especially, with humans. Purity at all costs.

  Even if that cost was extinction.

  No wonder, Janx thought sourly. No wonder Biru was so fond of virgins. Purity at all costs. And tender meat, perhaps, but cattle were more filling and didn't scream or argue against their fate. "There have never been enough of us to rival them," he said on a sigh. "There are fewer of us now. We can't win. Playing at being them is our only choice for survival."

  "There is sleep." Rabn, another ancient, whose scales seemed dyed by the very spices she treasured. It was said she slept in a bed of saffron, and that she had done so since the last great meeting of dragons. It seemed likely.

  And sleep was an option, was always an option, but Janx's nose wrinkled with distaste. Still, he liked Rabn more than he liked Biru--he liked swimming more than he liked Biru, for that matter--and so he tempered his response with politeness. "Even if a council decided we should all sleep, there would be no way to enforce it."

  Biru sneered, expression all in his voice; dragonly faces were not meant for such displays. "Nor is there any way to enforce us keeping to a guise of humanity."

  "Tell that to Quirinus."

  Toka, ill-advisedly, laughed. Biru snapped forward, snake-like strike to assuage his dignity.

  There was never, Janx reflected later, any real danger. Not to an infant. Not from Biru, who, for all the poor choices he had made, was truly determined to see his race survive. Not, in truth, from any one dragon to another, because as a whole they took the laws of their kind seriously. No war amongst the Old Races: it was engraved in the gargoyle memories, written in stone as literally as could be.

  In the moment, though, there was no consideration for Toka's realistic fate. In the moment, if Janx was to be completely honest--which, to be fair, he rarely was--in the moment, Toka's safety was of monumentally little importance to him. It was the challenge that he responded to: the boy had taken Janx's side, and deserved protection for that bravery. Even that, though, was posturing. Janx had disliked Biru for longer than either of them could remember, and that, that was why he broke his own habitual rule, and transformed.

  Toka no doubt took more damage from Janx's transformation than he would have suffered at Biru's whim. The child, sitting so close to Janx, was knocked aside by the concussion of mass returning, by the sudden excess of spitting red dragon face to face, nose to nose, flame to flame, with a white behemoth every bit as large as he. He crashed into Rabn and fell to the floor.

  Extraordinarily, every other dragon in the cave slammed into human form, giving the two ancient dragonlords room to fight. Winding, writhing, hissing, they circled one another in the space allowed. Tight circles, red yang and white yin, because even with the others in mortal form, the caves lacked the size necessary for freedom of movement. That was just as well: transforming had been foolish, had thrown down a challenge, and there was no real way to win. They would never fight to the death, and fighting to defeat would humiliate Biru--because Janx never supposed he might lose--and humiliation would be more costly than death. Biru might, through slow patient persuasion, come to see sense, but not if he fought Janx and lost. It would make him not just a rival, but an enemy, for all time.

  And time was very long indeed, for dragons. Janx bared his teeth, smoke huffing between them, then grim with self-denial, forced himself back to mortal shape.

  Biru went still, a river of frozen ice at the heart of a cave. A solitary dragon winding around a tall red-haired man, and surrounded on all sides by dragons who could hardly be distinguished from humanity. Hardly: like Janx, their colors were saturated, Rabn's hair as orange as her hide, and her skin silt brown. Each of them met Biru's angry gaze, but none of them returned to their dragonly mass. It was not a vote for Janx's path in the way Toka's transformation had been. Instead it was a demand for speech instead of sparring, and Biru, recognizing that, snarled aggravation and finally transformed.

  He was startling, in human form. Not an albino; his pale eyes remained blue, not tinted pink, but the whiteness of him was unrelenting. Snowy hair, not so much worn long as unbothered with, and wrinkled skin that might have been Nordic mountains, all white peaks and valleys. Hawked nose, cragged cheeks, long fingers with no suggestion of warm blood running beneath the nails. His skinny frame should have looked fragile and instead warned of a terrible, unrelenting strength. Men made kings of those like Biru, and once, they had made gods of him.

  For a wrenching moment Janx's frustration with Biru's determined blindness disappeared. Unforgiving regret rose in its place, a regret for what had to be. No wonder Biru had no use for pandering to humanity, when his presence said so clearly that he could rule it. No wonder Janx was such a thorn to him: a dragon who most often showed a playful face, who danced and laughed with humans instead of cowing them.

  He bowed, more than just dipping his head, and meant it with respect. Biru would never see it that
way: he would see mockery and triumph if he saw anything at all, but for a rare occasion the approbation was sincere. When he straightened, though, Janx made sure it was with a smile, because it would never do for Biru to imagine Janx meant the respect too deeply. Rue, gratitude, a hurry to move on; those were the emotions in the smile, and Janx spoke before anyone had time to take offense. "Thank goodness. We would have fished the sea dry to feed us all as we were."

  Comical expressions of horror swept every one of his brethrens' faces, even youthful Toka as he stood and dusted himself off. Not one of them could imagine a desperation of hunger that would drive them to fishing: virgins, no doubt, were more readily available. Janx cast a look of amusement at his own feet, then arched his eyebrows as he met Biru's pale gaze. "What," he asked again, "would you have us do?"

  "Gather." Biru's human voice was deeper than expected from his frail-seeming body. "Gather, and as one lay waste until the lands and skies are ours again."

  "Under your command." A question without mockery, though Biru eyed Janx a long hard moment before nodding. Janx sighed and withdrew to a rocky outcrop where he could sit. "And when you say as one, you mean we dragons, or all of us?"

  Surprise in the white dragon's gaze, and that was part of the trouble. He hadn't considered gathering all the Old Races, only his own people. He lacked the vision to do the job right, and without vision, only desolation lay before them. "They would come to you," Janx said idly. "As many of our people, at least, who could be called to a single banner at all, would come to you. You hold that place among us."

  Biru's surprise faded into suspicion, but Janx spread his hands. "You stood for us at the last council. You're respected. I may disagree with you, but I can see the regard you're held in. I'm arrogant, Biru, not a fool."

  That, at least, cracked Biru's stoicism. His, and others: a hiss of laughter ran around the caves, easing tension. Toka exhaled, soft sound of relief, but that was an emotion Janx would never allow himself. Not that he needed to; fear of what might happen during a council of wyrms had never been a concern of his. It was beyond the caves in the world outside that he saw danger. "There are too many of them," he said quietly. "You must know that."

  "I cannot accept it." Stark words from a stark being, and a rumble of agreement from more than half a dozen chests. Rabn, though, shook her orange hair and took a single step closer to Janx. Emboldened, others did as well: two more females and a violet-eyed male whose interest was clearly more in the females than in Janx's position. It didn't matter, so long as he chose a side. A fourth female, younger than the others, stood indecisive a moment, then took quick strides toward Janx. Fina, her name was; Fina, whose black hair ran to the other side of the spectrum from Toka's, and had red highlights instead of blue.

  That made all the females, then, and of the four who had come to the council, three had borne eggs. Young Fina had not, but she might wish to someday, and a war against humanity would reduce her choices for a mate. They would be thinking that way, Janx suspected, rather than coming to his side because of his charm and wit. They were no less likely or eager to fight--or to eat virgins--but this slight handful of them, at least, saw sense in remaining hidden.

  Biru, though, had more supporters. The rest of twenty dragons stood with him, though one or two looked uncertain as all the females joined Janx. Too late, though; lines were drawn, and Biru's resonant voice was soft. "We will have war."

  A flight of dragons marred the sky. Dozens, more than Janx had ever seen at once in his life, and those years were far too many to count. It took so much anger to bring them together. So much fear. They had come from so far, from the ring of fire that birthed them all and from the lonely stretches they had individually flown to, each settling in their own territory. But they were together now, united in a common cause against mankind.

  It had taken years simply to find them all: the stupid youth who had set it all off had long since died, and been venerated as a dragonslayer. Biru had been unswayed by the detail; there would be others who came for their people, a fact which seemed incontrovertible as the arrowhead of vast beasts made their way across the sky. War on the dwindling Roman empire; that, and only that, would satisfy their anger. Biru himself was visible, a long white cloud against the blue sky. Janx thought of transforming and flinging himself skyward, to make his argument one last time, but stayed the impulse. Laws or no laws, so many of them against one of him might turn out badly for him. Besides, the lake was blue, almost a jewel in itself, and the color would last far too little time if Biru's war came here. Better to enjoy it before it was poisoned or stained with blood.

  "What are they?"

  The girl at his elbow was not to Janx's taste: too slim, too wide-eyed, too young, though everything was young in comparison. But there was something in her question, a hitch of wonder and hope, that mortals all too rarely voiced when the Old Races were about, and so he answered rather more honestly than Biru might have wanted: "Dragons."

  She laughed uncertainly. "There are no dragons. And if there were, the stories say dragonslayers have killed them all."

  "Then they must be very large geese."

  "Colorful, too." Toka joined them, and the girl giggled as she closed the distance between herself and the youthful dragon. Sabra, that was her name; it fell out of Janx's head as soon as he remembered it, each time. He didn't belong here on the shores of Lake Seline; it was Toka's territory, and the girl his prize. But Toka had caught sight of him winging south, away from Biru's advance, and had invited him to visit a while. Undragonly behavior, that, but the boy was young and Janx had, after all, had some hope of reforming the young. He could hardly complain if he'd succeeded.

  "One has broken away." Thin tension came into Toka's voice and Janx glanced skyward again.

  "It's the lake. The color is...enviable. I'm not surprised someone couldn't resist."

  "This territory is mine."

  Sabra laughed again, this time with a note of warning. "Surely you mean it's my father's, Toka."

  It had been nearly two decades since Janx had felt a flash of sympathy for Biru's disgust at considering a mortal-style existence. He felt that same impulse now, watching Toka's lip curl and smooth so quickly the moment disdain was barely notable. The boy said "Of course," and Sabra smiled, peace restored.

  Restored within her heart, at least. Resentment still lingered around Toka's sapphire eyes, tightening the skin there. By human standards the land, the lake, the kingdom, was held by Selinus, Sabra's father, but Toka had claimed it long before Selinus had come to the throne. The whim of a passing man to name a country his own would have meant nothing, had his daughter not been lovely.

  Raven-haired, doe-eyed, still too slim for Janx's tastes, but appealing in Toka's eyes. He had become a man for her, his trove of wealth making him an appealing mate, were it not for the secret he kept. And he would not keep it a moment longer, if the great monster beating down from the sky thought to make this land its own.

  Janx put a hand on Toka's shoulder, staying him. "Don't be hasty."

  "He intrudes on--" Toka broke off, glanced at Sabra, and finished, "On occupied territory."

  "And right now he has no idea it's occupied," Janx pointed out. "Nor will he if you...remain calm."

  Toka bristled, all youthful outrage. He understood clearly enough; dragons sensed each other's transformations, not their simple presence. Still, the impulse was to change and protect, not to let calmness prevail. "And allow him to take--Selinus's--land?"

  "It is a dragon." Sabra sounded cold, all life lost from her words. The beast--sable and cobalt in color, but not one Janx knew by name--landed on the lake's far side, large enough to be clearly visible even at the distance. Sinuous, with long wings tucked against its sides, it was a wyrm indeed, and dipped its head to drink from the lake. "The river feeds our lake there," Sabra went on, voice smaller with each word. "It will poison us, as they do in the tales."

  "That's very likely," Janx agreed. Toka bristled again, all but
hissing, and Janx tightened his hand on the youth's shoulder.

  "My people will die." Just a whisper from the girl, who turned to look at Janx as she spoke. He nodded, and color drained from her face, but her voice strengthened. "The tales say dragons prize virginity."

  "Some do." A ludicrous answer by all reasonable standards, but Sabra nodded as well, then clutched Toka's hand before breaking away, slim shoulders straightening.

  "Then I will bargain with it. I will bring it a virgin princess, and in exchange for that gift I will ask it to leave this place in peace. Will it agree?"

  Absurd fondness for a girl he didn't even like bloomed in Janx's chest. "It might."

  Sabra nodded again, swallowed hard, and stepped off the pavilion overlooking the lake. "Do not tell my father where I've gone. Not until after. Not until it's too late to stop me."

  "Sabra--!" Toka finally found his voice and sprang after the girl, only to come up short as she turned, an imperious hand lifted.

  "You will not stop me either, Toka. You should know that I love you, but I love my people more. I could do nothing less and still hold my head high." She walked away a second time, leaving Toka stunned and silent at Janx's side.

  "That," Janx said after a long moment, "is a fine young woman, Toka. It would be a pity for her to get eaten."

  "I thought you didn't like her." Such a faint, mortal protest. The weak objection of a child to its elder when there was nothing else to say.

  Janx smiled. "That was two minutes ago. Things have changed since then. Stop," he said more sharply, and for the third time put a hand on Toka's shoulder to keep him from chasing after Sabra. "You won't save her. That cobalt monster will snap you in two, and eat her for dessert."

  "Our laws will protect me." Uncertainty in the boy's voice as the dragon across the lake kicked up a spray of water, then settled deeply into the earth. "I cannot leave her to die."