by James Maxey
Jandra's skin crawled as Jazz ran her fingers along the line of her jaw. She felt sickened by the fragrance Jazz wore: faintly floral, yet corrupted by the scent of tobacco.
"We're going to be best friends, Jandra Dragonsdaughter. You're so pretty, you're like a little doll. I'll dress you like I want to; we'll play games together. You'll always lose, of course. And you know what?"
Jandra couldn't answer. Even her tongue was no longer her own.
"One day," whispered Jazz, bringing her lips to Jandra's ear, her hot, dry breath stinking of ash. "One day love will be the only thing I see in your eyes."
Bitterwood had met the gaze of many dragons over the years. In his hatred of the beasts, he'd come to know them intimately. He could read the finest subtleties of thoughts that crossed the visage of a dragon as it lay dying: the futile hopes, the unrequited angers, the remorse over promises unkept, even the last faint flicker of peace as a beloved memory swept across a fading mind.
At this moment, however, looking into Hex's eyes, he experienced something he'd never felt before: camaraderie. Suddenly, in this strange and terrible paradise, the two blood enemies became the only ally the other could truly trust.
Hex gave a slight nod of his head. Bitterwood nodded back, his hand falling to the sword he'd taken from the long-wyrm rider, still tucked in his belt.
Hex lunged, his reptilian muscles uncoiling with the speed of a rattlesnake striking. With his powerful jaws he clamped down on the marble torso of the goddess, biting her hard enough to send cracks spiderwebbing through her body. He whipped the living statue around, slamming her head straight into the center of Gabriel's chest. The angel was knocked from his feet by the blow, landing on his back on the grass at the bottom of the steps.
Bitterwood leapt, raising the sword overhead with both hands, and then driving it down with his full weight into the angel's belly. To his relief, the sword penetrated the angel's flesh. Bitterwood's momentum drove the sword deep. The blade sank into the earth beneath the angel. Bitterwood sprang away before the angel could recover sufficiently to grab him.
Gabriel didn't look so much hurt by the attack as embarrassed to have been pinned like a bug. He grasped the hilt and started to withdraw the blade, when suddenly Hex struck again with the living marble, driving the ten foot statue down onto Gabriel's head like a hammer. The goddess shattered from the blow. Gabriel was suddenly obscured by dust.
Bitterwood spun around as the false Jandra leapt toward him. He caught her in mid air with an uppercut to her jaw that left his whole arm numb. Jandra was knocked back but seemed unfazed by the blow. Where he'd punched her, the flesh of her chin peeled away, revealing a steel jawbone beneath.
So. This, too, was a machine, just as Hezekiah had been.
He danced backwards as she charged him, swinging her feminine fists in rapid punches that would have killed him if they'd connected. Suddenly, she fell, tripped by something long and serpentine-Hex's tail! The false Jandra looked up as a shadow passed over her. Hex's open jaws shot toward her. Bitterwood cringed as the sun-dragon's jaws snapped and Jandra's body was suddenly headless. Sparks flew from the neck as Hex spit out the feminine head, the hair now wet with saliva and blood. Bitterwood could see that several of Hex's dagger-like teeth had snapped from their sockets. Bitterwood was familiar with the ache of freshly missing teeth, but he had no time to express sympathy for the dragon.
Suddenly, the jungle itself came to life. The tree branches jerked toward Hex, throwing out long lassos of vines. Hex snarled and kicked, leaping from the ground, his powerful wings beating. Bitterwood was nearly knocked over by the force of the wind.
Hex's attempt at flight proved futile. The vines continued to shoot from the trees, wrapping him in a net of green, dragging him down beneath their weight. Bitterwood turned to run, aiming his flight toward Zeeky. Adam and Trisky still stood frozen, no doubt in shock at seeing the goddess shattered to dust. Zeeky was only inches from Trisky's jaws; if Adam recovered, he could make things unpleasant.
Bitterwood reached out to scoop up Zeeky, wrapping his arm around her chest as he ran past. Yet, Zeeky was not to be scooped. She stood her ground and seemed to weigh a thousand pounds. Bitterwood was thrown from his feet as his dash came to an abrupt halt. He skidded on the grass, trying to make sense of what had just happened. He rolled to his back as Zeeky came flying down from above, her small foot landing on his midsection with breathtaking force. He doubled over, unable to breathe, feeling as if her blow had pressed his bellybutton against his spine.
His vision blurred as he fought to remain conscious.
"What is it with you people?" Zeeky growled. "Do you go into other people's homes and break all their pretty things? I should kill you right now, asshole!"
"Goddess, please," Adam said, leaping from Trisky, throwing himself prostrate before Zeeky. "Spare him. He knows not what he's done."
Zeeky frowned. She stared at Bitterwood with murder in her eyes. Then, just as quickly, she relaxed, and grinned.
"Oh, why not?" she said. "You're spared, Papa Bitterwood. But, I'm warning you." Zeeky bent down and waved a finger in his face. "Damage one more of my toys, and I'll break your arms and legs and dump you in the middle of the Nest wearing only a Bitterwood nametag. My valkyrie buddies would love using you for target practice. Understand?"
Bitterwood did understand. Zeeky was a machine like Jandra, also animated by the mind of the goddess. He should have known Zeeky wouldn't be here without Poocher.
"If you've hurt Zeeky, I'll kill you," Bitterwood whispered.
"Yeah, yeah," said the false Zeeky, shifting her foot to stand on Bitterwood's throat, pinning him, cutting off his breath until the world faded away.
Chapter Twenty-One:
The Last Easy Kills of the Night
Pet had been allowed to sleep in Ragnar's tent to recover from his grueling ride. He woke as night was falling. Distant shouts had pulled him from sleep, but when he sat up everything was silent. Perhaps he'd dreamed the voices. He hadn't slept well. His bed was a mat of woven reeds over cold, bare red clay. He'd been given a scratchy wool blanket that might have once been white but was now a drab, uneven beige and carried Ragnar's signature unwashed aroma. Despite the stench, Pet pulled the blanket tightly around him as he rose on aching, blistered legs. He stepped out into dying sunlight, teeth chattering. The air was thick with the smell of campfires and countless iron pots full of black beans and salt pork.
The camp was oddly quiet. All around, men stood by their fires, their eyes turned toward Ragnar. He was kneeling over a fallen horse, helping a woman rise. Pet's sleep-clouded mind took a second to recognize her. It was Lin, the Sister of the Serpent who had split away from Shanna and him earlier. She looked as if she hadn't slept in days. Her fallen horse was still alive, but its jaws were foaming; its eyes gazed off in the distance with a dull, unfocused stare. It looked as if the beast had collapsed from exhaustion only seconds before Pet left the tent.
Lin looked up into Ragnar's bearded face. Her eyes were full of reverence as she said, "It's done. The fox entered the henhouse."
Ragnar nodded and looked over his shoulder toward one of his men.
"The hour is nigh," said Ragnar. "Tell Burke we can tarry no longer. The great day of His wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand against us?"
The tunnel Nadala led them through was a tube nearly twenty feet in diameter. They had walked at least a mile, slogging through half a foot of icy water over slimy stone. Their way was lit by a small lantern Nadala carried.
"The humans who once ruled the world built this aqueduct to supply cities hundreds of miles from the lake," Metron said. Though no longer high biologian, he still had a way of talking that made it seem that he was delivering a lecture. "Water once filled this pipe to the ceiling."
"I've always been skeptical of legends that human built the dam," said Nadala. "You biologians approach knowledge on an abstract level only. We valkyries actually get out and touch the world. We've
maintained the dam and kept its floodgates and pumps functioning since time immemorial. Scholars think of holding back a thirty-mile-long lake as a math problem. We warriors think of it as merely another aspect of our world that can be managed with muscle, sweat, and iron gears."
Graxen admired this aspect of Nadala. She was right. Biologians seldom solved problems because they never wearied of debating them. Valkyries were more practical-minded.
Soon they arrived at a pump station. Nadala produced a key that led them through a gate of welded steel bars. They passed through a long, tall tunnel with hundreds of pipes running overhead. Water dripped and drizzled from a hundred tiny leaks, producing staccato splashes that echoed through the concrete tunnel like drumbeats. The passage went on for many yards before ending at a platform with cement steps leading up to a set of double iron doors.
"Ah," said Metron. "I remember this well. The Thread Room lies directly above us."
Nadala handed the lantern to Graxen as she walked up the stairs. The twin doors were bound together with a heavy steel chain. The lock was a strange one-there was no slot for a key, only a dial with numbers upon it.
"We'll have to break it," Nadala whispered.
"No," said Metron. "I recall the combination."
His aged talons took the lock and spun the dial in precise turns. Seconds later, the lock clicked open.
"Sarelia didn't change it," he said, sounding relieved. "A good omen."
As the doors creaked open, Graxen thought he heard something behind them, near the leaky tunnel. A splashing sound, like footsteps.
"Did you…?"
"What?" asked Nadala.
"I thought I heard something," Graxen whispered, walking back down to the platform. The singing of the falling water, like countless fountains, was all he heard now.
"Perhaps it was a rat," said Metron.
"It's gone now, whatever it was," said Graxen.
Graxen climbed back up the stairs and pushed his way through a curtain of thick cloth to join Nadala and Metron in the Thread Room. They weren't far from the giant chalkboard, with its dense jotting of notes. Metron moved to better see the board. The room was lit with a series of lanterns. Graxen could read the board clearly from where he stood. His father studied the chalkboard and chuckled when he reached Vendevorex's name surrounded by questions marks.
"What's so funny?" whispered Nadala.
"I knew Vendevorex would vex her," said Metron. "The most famous sky-dragon in the kingdom and his origin an utter mystery. He came to Albekizan's court long after Sarelia and I had stopped speaking. I wrote her a letter concerning my theories about Vendevorex. I never sent it. Though I wrote it in the most professional voice I could manage, I feared she might read between the lines of the subject and find that I still loved her. At the time, it seemed as if it would only cause pain to send that missive."
"Whose pain?" a voice asked from across the room. Graxen looked behind him to discover the hunched form of the matriarch standing before a fluttering tapestry. She walked toward them, her cane clacking on the tiled floor.
"My pain?" the matriarch asked. "You should know the females of our species may endure limitless agony, biologian. If you've not spoken to me for nearly two decades, the weakness lies with you, not me."
"You're correct," Metron said. "You were always the stronger one."
"Not always," said the matriarch, now only a few yards away. "I gave in to your request not to destroy our great mistake." She cast Graxen a baleful gaze. Then she narrowed her eyes at Nadala. "Why are you in the presence of a tatterwing and a freak? Where are your armor and spear, valkyrie?"
Nadala bowed her head respectfully. "Matriarch, I've fallen in love with your son. I've admired him since the day he visited this isle. We've come to ask your permission to…" her voice trailed off. She took a deep breath, then raised her head and looked at the matriarch with bold eyes. "We seek permission to breed."
The matriarch scoffed. "You've gone mad, Nadala. Even if you were allowed to choose your seed-giver, you know you couldn't breed with this discolored freak."
"Of what importance is the color of his hide?" asked Nadala. "Why must all sky-dragons look so much alike?"
"Because physical variability leads to hatred," said the matriarch. "I've studied histories forbidden to you. I know what happens when different colors are allowed to spread within a race of intelligent beings. It leads to strife and warfare. I would spare our race these evils."
"You perpetuate these evils," said Nadala. "Why would we fear difference if we aren't taught to fear it?"
"Enough, valkyrie," the matriarch snapped. "It's not your position to decide the genetic make-up of our species. It's your job to kill intruders-a job you have failed miserably."
"Mother," said Graxen, "Don't speak to Nadala this way. She only wants-"
"Yes!" the matriarch cried, lifting her cane and waving it at Graxen. "She only wants. She is poisoned by desire. Her hormones have addled her mind. I know too well the danger of only wanting."
"You're correct," said Metron. Graxen felt betrayed by the words, but Metron continued. "Our own chemistry can ruin our reason. Fortunately you've had two decades to free yourself from the biology of desire. Tonight, we can have the conversation our bodies prevented us from having so many years before. No dragon alive has studied the question of our genetic destiny more than you. However, as high biologian, I was guardian of the true secret history of our race. I've come to persuade you that the age of guided genetics can now end. Everything the early biologians wanted to accomplish has been accomplished. We've flourished as a species without falling into the many genetic pits that could have doomed us. We needed many generations of careful guidance to avoid inbreeding and allow for the slow rise of mutations to give our shallow gene pool depth. Now, however, that guidance is crushing genetic variability. Graxen does possess visible mutations. Yet, despite his coloration, he has also shown speed and agility that is nearly unmatched in our race. He has excelled in scholarship despite the burden of constant abuse from his peers. Losing Graxen from the gene pool would be a tragedy."
The matriarch shook her head. "Our genetic threads were always contraindicated. I wouldn't have allowed Graxen to breed if he'd been born blue as the winter sky. It's my duty to keep the threads untangled. If not for the wisdom contained in this room, our species would have vanished from the earth long ago."
"You can't know that," said Graxen.
"She can know that," said Metron in a scolding tone. "These threads guided us from almost certain extinction. Yet we're no longer the same fragile race we were when the first tapestries were sewn. Our species numbers in the tens of thousands. We can safely let go of the old ways and begin to experiment with new ways. Humans have endured eons without a guiding hand. There may be advantages to allowing individuals to choose their mates."
The matriarch grimaced, as if she'd just bit into something bitter. "Do you truly advocate the breeding practices of savages?"
"Humans have survived disasters we couldn't," said Metron. "Plagues, for instance. Dragons have been spared plagues due to our relative newness as a species. A thousand years is insufficient time for a microbe to have adapted to us as a carrier. What happens when that day comes? With all the females clustered together in the Nest, a single disease could wipe out our species overnight."
"We're spared plagues due to our superior breeding and fastidious hygienic practices," the matriarch said, in a tone that made it seem she was addressing a hatchling instead of the most learned sky-dragon in the kingdom. "Our isolation is a barrier to disease, not an opportunity."
"An intriguing hypothesis," said Metron. Then his eyes twinkled. He looked as if he'd just guided the matriarch onto the exact intellectual ledge he'd wanted her to stand upon. "Since we're rational creatures, we can test it. We can select a pool of candidates to live outside the Nest and the Colleges. The test subjects may settle where they please, and find mates as they please. A hundred members of each sex sho
uld provide a reasonable study group. Then, we will track their offspring for ten generations in a second Thread Room to analyze if the genetic health of their offspring improves or declines compared to the main population."
The matriarch tilted her head in such a way that it looked as if the idea had lodged in her brain and suddenly weighed down her left lobe.
"A second Thread Room?" she said, her voice almost dreamy. "I can think of many questions that such an experiment could answer."
"Nadala and I could be the anchor for such a population," said Graxen.
"No," the matriarch said, raising her fore-talon dismissively. "The control group must start with untainted candidates. Neither you nor Nadala would meet the criteria."
"I would hope, as designer of the experiment, that I would have some say in selecting the population," said Metron. "I will choose half the males and half the females without restriction; you shall select the other half."
"No. No, while I'm intrigued by your proposal, I fear you're overlooking a rather clear set of facts," said the matriarch. "You're a tatterwing. Your wings still stink of pus and scabs, and already you've forgotten your status? Your presence here is a crime punishable by death. Graxen, too, was told that if he returned he would face execution. It would be poor precedent for me to reverse that decision. And Nadala… my poor, deluded, hormone-poisoned Nadala… your sins are greater than either of these males. You're a traitor to the Nest. As such, your punishment will be far worse than either of these fools."
As the matriarch spoke, she punctuated her words with sharp, rapid taps of her cane against the tiles. The tapestries that lined the room bulged outward. Fifty valkyries poured into the chamber from unseen doors. Nadala sprang to place herself between Graxen and the guards. "Run back to the stairs," she hissed. "I'll hold them off as long as I can."