The self-important entrepreneurs’ voices rang in Lucan’s head again.
We aren’t selling you anything. We’re creating a future. Surely you believe in it too?
Lucan thought of his campaign manager, Celesse, who was probably sitting inside his air-conditioned sedan, strategizing about where he’d go next. He had tried to convince her to come with him, but she wouldn’t ruin her makeup.
Not for this.
Not for a rumor.
The ground grew softer. Lucan stepped through mud, feeling it pool against his socks. He lamented the death of his leather shoes.
“So what exactly are we looking for again?” Lucan asked. “No offense, but I’m on a tight schedule.”
“Nothing, sir.”
“Nothing? Then couldn’t we have done this in my office?”
“No. That’s it. It’s nothing. See, I was taking a shortcut through here one afternoon. My home isn’t too far from here, you understand. I was skipping a rock across the water when something just didn’t seem right.”
They came to the water’s edge where a giant wooden stake was driven into the ground. Tony patted it.
“This is the spot.”
Lucan pulled out his smartphone and snapped a picture. He pretended to marvel at the patchy water and the weeping willows wavering at the bog’s edge. A rotten, spicy smell pervaded the air.
“I hope you have more to show me than just a scenic picture. You’ve got two minutes before I really get pissed off.”
Tony picked up a rock and tossed it from hand to hand.
Lucan held up his hands in surrender. “You really need to learn how to take a joke.”
Tony skipped the rock across the water. It bounced several times before sinking.
Lucan shook his head and crossed his arms.
Tony took another rock and skipped it across the water. It strayed from its intended path, and a frog leapt out of the water and into a hole in the mud.
Then Tony took another rock and skipped it with all his might, dropping to his knees as he let the rock bounce over the water.
Splash … Splash. Splash-splash-splash-splash.
Thunk. The rock seemed to bounce off nothing before it sank into the water.
“What was that?” Lucan asked.
Tony smirked. He took another rock and skipped it in the same trajectory.
Again, the rock hit something and flew backward into the water.
Lucan took a rock and practiced his swing. It had been years since he skimmed a rock across water. He remembered summers at his father’s lake house, skimming with his brothers. They were all terrible at it.
To hell with this.
He threw the rock.
It struck a surface, but it did not sink into the water.
Instead, it disappeared. An aura of faint pink light flashed. Ahead of them, a jagged white structure lay half-hidden in the trees, like a giant claw scratching against the sky. A rickety boardwalk led up to its entrance, several of its pylons missing.
“What the hell…?”
“Is this a waste of time now?” Tony asked. “I wanted to show you first. If the government finds out about this, they’ll exploit it. I know you’ll do the right thing.”
“Which is…?”
“Protect this place.”
Lucan put a hand on Tony’s shoulder. Then he walked cautiously around the water to the start of the boardwalk. He hovered one foot over the rotting wood.
Then he set his foot down.
An explosion of air tore through the area, knocking him back. He landed against a tree and moss spilled over his face.
“Man!”
He was lucky he didn’t break his back against the tree, but it hurt like hell.
Something whistled through the air, and he saw it in slow motion as it hurtled toward him.
The wooden stake.
He put his hands in front of his face and screamed.
The stake stuck in the ground next to him, inches from his body. Tony landed next to it. Lucan was amazed that neither of them ended up impaled.
They both lay in the mud for a moment, stunned and coughing.
The building was gone.
“Where is it?” Lucan asked, looking around. The blast had winded him and he had lost his orientation. The white claw was nowhere to be found.
Tony shook his head. “I don’t know. The stake was my marker.”
“Shit,” Lucan said.
“Don’t you have tools?” Tony asked. “Can’t you trace magic?”
Lucan laughed. “If this is what I think it is, I’m going to need every tool I’ve got.”
VIII
Professor Miri Charmwell flipped through a stack of papers, her glasses propped on her forehead.
It was summer vacation already. The year had flown by, and she had at least a hundred papers to grade before her summer could begin. The dean of students, a strict Crafter who accepted no less than perfection, would make sure of that.
She had just finished the last faculty meeting of the year, a shouting match masquerading as a committee. The upcoming gubernatorial election had thrown the school’s allegiances into question, now that all the candidates wanted to visit.
Neutrality was Miri’s opinion, but since the school was privately funded, it was voted that they had to take a stance. They would endorse the incumbent governor.
The anti-environment candidate. The one, who, weeks ago, pointed at protesters and laughed, calling them oblivious. The one who called the Department of Magical Sciences a waste of taxpayers’ money. The one who, if re-elected, vowed to dismantle the department.
Her job.
Her career.
Her lifetime of memories and accolades.
She had tried to persuade the other professors to refuse their support, but they were all too afraid for their jobs to listen. Not even Dean Rosehill had stuck up for her, which was disturbing considering his strong pro-magic background.
She was numb as they counted the votes. The result had to be unanimous, and they had cowed her into voting for the governor.
Her head swelled with pain. On her desk was a jar filled with purple cream she had purchased from a magic seller, and she dipped two fingers in and massaged her temples.
She preferred magic to pills. Pills worked slowly and you never knew what was in them. This particular jar of cream was sold by a seller on the fringe of the third district who recycled magic. It had the stamp of a serpentine dragon curled around a well on the front, the symbol of magical purity and recycling.
She shouldn’t have purchased it, not with all the shortages lately, but a woman had to have some comforts. And it was recycled, so she had done her due diligence as a citizen in a world of scarcity.
The cream sank into her skin and worked immediately.
She pumped a liberal amount of lotion onto her hand. Magic always came with consequences, and this cream made her skin bone-dry. Not just slightly flaky and dry, but stiffer than a dead animal’s hide, sometimes so much that she couldn’t move without great effort.
Her lotion smelled like watermelon, and she rubbed it over her arms slowly as she glanced out the window.
She wished she were outside.
From her window on the third floor of the History and Magical Sciences Building, she could see the setting sun casting a fiery slant across the football fields. A flock of crows fluttered by, first over the fields and then toward the endless horizon of skyscrapers in the distance.
Her eyes drifted downward to the topmost thesis on her desk.
HISTORY AND ECONOMICS IN THE REIGN OF FENROOT
Why did so many students gravitate toward the beginning of the Dawn Age? Out of a thousand years of history, there were plenty of better personalities to analyze than Fenroot the Brute.
Fenroot was a common choice, the sign of a student trying for an easy A.
Miri swilled a glass of wine as she read the first paragraph.
If the reign of Fenroot could be summed
up in one word, it would be transformative. Though the sky dragon only ruled for ten years, we can see in his policies something that resembles our racial politico-socioeconomic structure today.
Was that even a word? Racial politico-socioeconomic?
She noted the name on the top right of the paper.
A Construction major.
Made sense. Only people with no real interest in the arts wrote with such muddled together half-words.
She kept reading.
His policies united dragons, elves, and humans, and the dragon himself was exactly what the world had been waiting for—an agent of change.
Miri uncapped her pen. Soon the margins of the paper were ablaze with red marks.
Why were dragons, elves and humans divided?
Who divided them?
What was so important about Fenroot compared to who came before him?
You didn’t explain the significance of his sanctioned executions, or his cronyism. Not even the Darks were this vicious.
He wasn’t revered because of his “goodwill.”
Source?
Source??
Source???
Source!!
Seriously, you’re citing a government-funded documentary?
If you wanted a real opinion for your paper, why didn’t you visit Fenroot and ask him yourself? At least he would have been honest about being one-sided.
Are you so…?”
She paused. She wanted to say “are you so narrow-minded to assume that the world needed Fenroot to come along?”
But she stopped.
This student was a sophomore and she’d likely have him again next year. The last thing she needed was a nasty phone call from his parents. Her job was in jeopardy too much as it was.
She gave him a D+, with a note that said A modicum of research. It’s all I ask.
She thumbed through the rest of the papers.
FENROOT.
TRADE ROUTES.
FENROOT.
THE ROOTS OF ABSTRACTION IN THE DAWN AGE (FENROOT).
ABSTRACTION AND ITS POLITICAL EFFECT.
FENROOT.
ELVEN HISTORY THROUGH THE AGES.
THE BIRTH OF THE MODERN DRAGON (FENROOT).
She shoved the papers aside like a bad meal.
She couldn’t do this tonight.
If they had given her the doctorate she deserved and sabbatical they promised, this would have been some other poor professor’s job, and she would be studying dragons, like she was always meant to do.
She slipped on her white and black checkered pea coat. She glanced at her backpack, and then at her desk.
Should she take the papers home? She could work on them there, if she found the will.
She remembered advice she had heard from a wise Keeper dragon: The world will always keep on spinning until one day it won’t. But for now, do what you want.
Typical dragon speak. Yet she always found herself repeating their mantras, because they made sense to her.
She turned her back and composed herself. Walking away from work took courage.
Slinging her purse over her shoulder, she walked out of the room briskly.
A clean break.
It felt good.
She passed through a great, oak-paneled hallway with an oil painting on the ceiling. Fenroot again, shrouded by clouds with an entourage of dragons flying around him. All down the silver dragon’s tail, civilization bloomed outward like shapes coming to view in fog. The modern skyline ringed the bottom of the painting, endless and jagged against a bezel of crown molding.
Walking through these halls used to mean something. The names on the frosted glass doors had once commanded her respect. She used to feel such a connection with this place. Now, she no longer recognized any of the names and they all seemed to want her gone.
She was halfway down a spiral staircase when she heard her name.
“You’re leaving early tonight, Professor Charmwell.”
She knew that undeniable hiss, the booming bass.
It was the dean.
The staircase rumbled.
He’s been watching me.
The staircase shifted downward and she moved along with it, as if she were on the back of a snake coiling upon itself. The stair she was standing on descended to the ground and she stepped off onto the marbled floor.
The stairs took on the appearance of brown snakeskin, and the railings melted toward the floor, dripping into the shape of teeth. Slowly, the stairway continued to shift form, until it became a tremendous serpentine dragon with horn-rimmed glasses. He was at least thirty feet long, but his head still did not touch the top of the great hall.
Dean Rosehill had helped her get a job as a professor thirteen years ago. Though the school had an elven president, Rosehill was the founder and it was always understood that he was the one really running the place. He invented the idea of “magical excellence,” something Miri had strived to achieve ever since she had heard about it as a young girl. The dragon recognized her talent and became her mentor, and they had a working relationship that was sometimes friendly and other times divisive. Lately he had been in a sour mood, snapping at every little thing, and he was unbearable.
“Something tells me you have many papers left to grade,” Dean Rosehill said, eyeing her suspiciously.
She had to choose her words carefully. He had probably been spying on her, and it showed in his rugged brown face. Because of Abstraction, he and the building were one in the same, and nothing escaped him.
How best to say what she was feeling while also being politically correct?
“I’ve had enough tonight.”
“There are plenty of magical remedies on hand if you’re tired, Miri.”
“It’s not that. I’m just … not feeling well.”
The dean circled her quickly, and the breeze blew her black hair about like a fast-moving fan. “It’s due to the vote earlier this afternoon, no doubt?”
“No.”
“We’re off the clock now. At least you are. I know you’re sympathetic to Grimoire.”
Grimoire? He was almost worse than the governor. The dean was trying to get a reaction out of her—that’s what dragons did. Made bold statements to see what you’d do. It was their way of identifying threats.
“I’m politically neutral, Dean Rosehill, and you should know that. I’m surprised that you allowed the school to get caught up in politics.”
A pained expression eased across Rosehill’s face.
“Would you have the governor dismantle your own existence?”
If the school lost its funding, then the dean would cease to exist. Or something like that. Miri had forgotten.
But she reminded herself that she was on the verge of losing her job. That was just as bad. Relative, at least.
“The vote is over,” Miri said. “I’m not going to challenge it.”
“I know this is hard for you,” the dragon said, his yellowed teeth gleaming. “If the governor wins the election, I will persuade him to give you back your doctorate.”
“After he held it hostage? I doubt I’d accept it without puking.”
“I know it’s a sore point. But in the academy we don’t move quickly. You only have thirty-seven years of age. I have thirty-seven hundred.”
“Okay. Whatever you wish, Dean Rosehill.”
“Good night,” the dean said. His body stiffened and it began to transform back into the spiral staircase. “You forgot something.”
Her backpack slid down the dragon’s back and landed at her feet.
She wanted to roll her eyes, but her instinct stopped her.
“I thank you for your support, Professor Charmwell, and I ask for a little more patience and enthusiasm. This is your one and only warning.”
The staircase returned, and she watched as the dragon’s spirit ruffled through the room, a ball of plasma crawling underneath the walls like an insect. Then he was gone.
She picked up her bag. Her laptop was in
side. And so were the papers.
IX
Lucan couldn’t get a cell signal in the bog. He stared at the “No service” message on his phone and cursed.
This place. You couldn’t get a signal, it was hotter than the inside of a dragon’s ball sack, and it didn’t like to give up its secrets so easily.
Like his ex-wife, this bog had an allure that drew you in at first. Then it baked you like a turkey in a volcano.
He stood at the water’s edge as he turned off his phone and rebooted it. Still nothing. He moved to various areas along the shore, but still couldn’t get a signal.
He wanted to skim his phone across the water, but that wasn’t a good idea.
Night was falling on the bog. The grating of insects grew louder, and the sunset through the broken trees reminded him of an apocalypse.
He skipped a rock across the water and the pink aura deflected it. The white claw was there too, more ominous than before.
He snapped a photo.
Dying light. Weird white claw.
No one would believe him. How many weirdoes claimed they had seen dragon tombs that ended up being nothing?
He couldn’t risk looking like a kook. Not when he was trying to win an election.
“Can I go now?” Tony asked. Lucan had forgotten about him. He had put his t-shirt on and he shifted his backpack’s weight. His eyes were tired. “Monsters come out after sunset.”
Lucan reached into his suit pocket and pulled out a small pistol. He handed it to Tony.
“You’re not going anywhere, kid. A thousand spiras an hour says you’ll stay here while I go make a couple of phone calls.”
“But safety—”
“Congrats, you just got a raise. Two thousand spiras.”
“Listen to me—”
“You’re from here. If a creature shows up, kick some ass like they do in the video games. Plus, you can brag to all your friends that you’re on my payroll for tonight. Health insurance, work comp and all.”
“I told you, I’m not doing it for the money.”
“Riiiight. I believe you.”
After a quick pause, Lucan turned and headed into the woods, not giving the boy time to respond. Despite being tired, sweaty, and in a terrible mood, his spirits had risen at the discovery.
Old Dark (The Last Dragon Lord Book 1) Page 5