The Devil's Influence

by Chris Pisano

  As the dragon went limp, Dearborn fell backward. On her hands and knees, she scuttled to the dragon’s head and beat on it. Crying to the point of blindness and wailing past the point of burning her throat, she slammed her fists against the carcass again and again. Hands grabbed her and pulled her away. She wanted to tear apart whoever interrupted her mourning but stopped herself when she saw that it was Bale.

  “Not now,” he said. “Later. We have to move.”

  He was not exaggerating. As soon as they stepped away from the dead dragon, a gust of icy wind swept through, freezing the carcass and the ruined building. Atop a neighboring building, the ice dragon crawled from the roof and hissed, preparing to release another breath of frozen horror.

  Dearborn almost laughed at Bale’s chivalry, standing directly in front of her with his fists clenched as if he could protect either of them from their impending deaths. They needed much more than an ogre’s determination if they were going to survive. They received it in the form of magic.

  Faint at first, arcs of green electricity danced along the building façade, the telltale sign of Qual’s magic. Silver in Qual’s body floated above the building, his hands pulling the green strings like a marionette. The lightning grew brighter and faster, massaging the building into a new shape. The bricks moved, giving the building a life of its own. The dragon crawled to the ground and hissed again. Wings pulled tight against its body, it stayed low, ready to strike, frost spreading across the ground from where it stood.

  The building continued to change, splitting into two. Rows of bricks pulled away from the larger structure and formed fingers. By the time Dearborn realized that Silver had changed the building to hands, they grabbed at the dragon. Its wings fluttered as it reared back, trying to dodge the strike, but the stone hands grabbed it. Even though some of its icy blasts frosted the bricks, it was not enough to stop the hands from pulling. The dragon gave one last screech before being ripped in twain, blue blood and entrails splashing to the ground.

  A glimmer of hope flickered within Dearborn. Maybe they could stop the princes and their mystical dragons? Hope was a creature with a short lifespan in this world, dying as soon as it was born, blasted away by a lightning strike. Bale tackled her just as a green arc singed the ground where she stood. Random bolts flashed around Silver as he clutched at his own head, insect legs clawing at the air. He was in pain, and the swirls of lightning worsened.

  A dragon’s shadow swooped closer to Silver. Dearborn wondered how stupid these creatures were. It was no shadow, though. It was the void dragon, the dragon of darkness. With slow, languid flaps of its wings, it approached. The lightning never once got close to it as it hovered before Silver. The wizard calmed, his pained spasms stopped as did the lightning. Silver held out a hand and created a portal. The dragon enveloped Silver within its wings and the two fell through the portal. A second later, it winked out of existence.

  Hopelessness formed within Dearborn’s gut, sour and filling. The one power great enough to stop the dragons just vanished. Diminutia, her husband, sacrificed his life for Silver’s cause, and the wizard repaid the act by deserting the besieged city like a coward.

  “Come on,” Bale said as he grabbed Dearborn’s arm and pulled her to her feet. “We have to get to the castle.”

  “What a coincidence,” a voice came from behind them. “We were just heading there ourselves.”

  Dearborn recognized the voice. She did not want to turn around, did not want to see the smug look on Daedalus’ face. Still leaning on Bale, she had no choice, but to move as he did. Sure enough, a smile was smeared across his face and oozed hubris. His bone dragon clawed at the ground, getting ready to strike. Oremethus guided his bejeweled beast to flank Dearborn and Bale.

  Dearborn knew the war was over.

  thirty-three

  “How are those things even flying?”

  “I have no idea,” Landyr replied to the soldier. “Just keep firing!”

  Hurried, the soldier cranked the ballista while the other soldier next to him armed it. Together, they swung the weapon after their target—the lightning dragon. Blue electricity skittered over its silvery body as it flew. It was thin and fast, like a shark darting through water. The soldiers aiming the ballista could target it. They just could not hit the beast.

  The soldier on the trigger pulled the mechanism and fired. The six-foot arrow whistled through the air only to shatter against the armored skin on the metal dragon, the beast swooping in at the last moment to protect its flock mate.

  “They are too coordinated,” the soldier yelled. “How are they so coordinated?”

  Landyr wondered that as well and assumed it came from sharing a pre-birth connection to Qual’s malevolent heart, or whatever connection they now had with Oremethus. “Just keep firing! We are due for some luck.”

  Landyr ignored the words of doom being mumbled under the soldiers’ breaths and left them to their tasks. He ran down the stairs of the castle turret to see how the rest of the soldiers were doing. Those along the parapet were faring no better. Archers with longbows and other teams of two working mounted crossbows all shot at the dragons, none hitting their mark. The dragons of metal and stone made sure of that, reducing the projectiles to flimsy sticks. Arrows simply disappeared when striking the void dragon.

  Arms crossed around her waist, Chenessa stood and watched the madness below—burning buildings, people dying. A small army of living skeletons clattered through the streets, using their bony fingers to tear into those citizens trying to flee. From this height, the skeletons seemed slight and insignificant, almost toy-like, but Landyr could clearly see the faces of agony as the creatures reached into a person’s flesh and spill their innards. Where the fuck are these things coming from?

  Hemmer led a few other wizards against the cadre of skeletons. Landyr could not hear the skirmish but saw the exaggerated hand movements and colorful flashes of light accompanying the spells.

  “They seem to be doing well,” Landyr said to Chenessa.

  “It seems that way, yes,” she replied, her tone holding more melancholy than fear or anger.

  “Do you wish to join them? I could pull some men and escort you down there. Offer support.”

  Tensing her muscles, she shook her head. Looking to a different group of buildings, she whispered, “I believe my fate to be elsewhere.”

  Confused by her words, Landyr looked to where her gaze fell. Silver. It always seemed to be Silver. However, possessing the body of a powerful wizard such as Qual had its advantages. With only a few gestures, he transformed a building into two hands and used them to rip a dragon in half. There were some downsides to that kind of power, though.

  “He cannot control it,” Chenessa said.

  She was right. Even from this distance, Landyr could see the pain wracking Silver as he struggled to contain the power of Qual’s body.

  Chenessa turned to Landyr, giving him her full attention, and tears streamed from her eyes. “I am sorry, Landyr. I am so sorry. I pray there may be a way to come back, but I do not think there is.”

  “Sorry? Come back? What are you—?”

  Chenessa cut him short by stripping naked. Not knowing why he just knew this was the last time he would see her like this. He knew well enough to absorb this moment, remember her like this. Her blemish-free body rippled, wrinkled, and twisted. Crags formed in her lips as they dried and spread wide in a grimace over teeth that shifted from perfect to pointed, a mouthful of haphazard razors. From Elfin to gargoyle, her ears grew alongside the horns protruding from her head. Extending at such a rapid rate, her hair grew to her ankles as if blood gushed from her scalp.

  The hideous creature stood exposed before Landyr and with malformed lips whispered, “I love you.”

  Unable to move, think, breathe, Landyr stood like a statue as the demon shifted its corporeal form to that o
f shadow. With purpose, the black mass shot through the air and struck the void dragon. The creature curved its body in unnatural ways, struggling to escape as if caught within a net. As it twisted, it changed in subtle ways. Thin, barely noticeable blood-red veins spread over the dragon’s wings, the color of Chenessa’s hair. Its claws and teeth glimmered the same shade of crimson as the sunlight glinted off its body as it writhed and screamed. Finally, the dragon righted itself and ascended higher into the sky, under control of its actions. Landyr knew that it was no longer the void dragon, but rather Chenessa trapped inside of its body, possessing it.

  Chenessa flew straight to Silver and then hovered before him. Landyr had no idea what she was doing, but it seemed to be working. Silver calmed and the storm of lightning around him diminished to nothing. Almost like a lover’s embrace, the dragon wrapped its wings around the wizard. A portal appeared and the two tumbled through.

  Gone. The woman he loved sacrificed herself for another man and then disappeared. He cursed himself for allowing schoolboy thoughts to dominate his attention as he was brought back to stark reality when he heard a scream, “Incoming!”

  Landyr dropped just as the air dragon swooped in. Scales as white as a cloud, the air rippled and swirled about it. With a roar sounding like a howling hurricane, it opened its mouth and released a blast of wind, blowing half of the soldiers from the parapet.

  Jumping to his feet, Landyr ran to the closest doorway and yelled, “Retreat! Run!”

  The remaining soldiers along the parapet screamed, repeating the orders while running to one doorway or the other. A few refused and continued to man the crossbows. To no avail.

  The water dragon followed the air dragon and landed halfway along the parapet. The beast looked down one length of the parapet and released a wave, a torrent strong enough to sweep everything away. Landyr grabbed the iron ring of the door and yelled at his soldiers to hurry through as the dragon turned. The water dragon’s tail twitched and it spread its wings, reeling its head back, readying itself to strike. The last soldier ran through and Landyr pulled the door closed as the dragon vomited forth an ocean, the wave slamming into the door. The hinges rattled and the wood moaned, but it held.

  The two dragons attacking the castle did little significant damage to it, just the soldiers, while the far more destructive dragons terrorized the city outside the castle walls. It made sense to Landyr—it would do little good to reclaim a throne surrounded by rubble. But if the dragons were attacking the castle, then that meant . . .

  “The throne room!” Landyr yelled to the soldiers. “To the throne room!”

  Along the way, they gathered a few more soldiers. Landyr had told the remaining staff to flee, though he briefly debated if that was the best advice or not. Did he give them a chance to live, or did he send him right into the insatiable maw of death?

  The clatter of the soldiers’ armor echoed through the expansive room as they poured in from the back of the chamber. The king was on his throne, surrounded by guards, all readying their weapons to strike as the new contingent entered the room. Even the non-human tagalongs looked prepared, except the satyr and the centaur—they hid behind one of the dozed fluted columns.

  “Landyr?” Perciless asked, standing from his throne. “How goes the battle?”

  Screams from the front of the throne room, behind the closed doors, answered his question. Half of the king’s guards and the newly arrived soldiers ran to the doors, swords drawn. Before the ringing of the last screams had faded, the doors burst open. Two dragons, two princes.

  The dragons walked in, heads raised like steeds befitting royalty. Walking between them were Dearborn and Bale. Landyr was surprised to see them alive, finding it hard to believe the mad prince Daedalus would take prisoners.

  The guards attacked. And failed miserably. The bejeweled dragon that Oremethus rode sprayed a mist from its mouth. Not a mist, Landyr realized as the opalescent spray separated the armor and skin from the soldiers, but a condensed nebula of mote-sized gem shards. The flayed men writhed on the ground, blood oozing from millions of cuts.

  The bone dragon Daedalus sat upon retched out a cloud of powder, one just as deadly as the other dragon’s. The soldiers within the miasma halted their charge and tore off their armor to claw at their throats and bodies. Their skin shriveled within seconds, and their eyes desiccated. Sloughing their skin away like paper, their skeletons continued to move as their organs dried to dust. When only bone remained, they were under the control of Daedalus. “Kill them all.”

  “No! Stop!” echoed through the throne room, the command bouncing from wall to wall. King Perciless stood tall and proud, seemingly in control, though he had none. “Stop this madness now, Daedalus!”

  The skeleton army stopped as Daedalus regarded his brother. “Now, now, Perciless. Father is not here to back your bullying of me.”

  “I never bullied you, brother.”

  “You did by never once disobeying the rules, by always listening to father.”

  “He was the king, Daedalus.”

  “The king is dead!”

  “No, he is not.”

  Daedalus held out his skeletal arm, his bone fingers curling together as he could strangle Perciless from a distance. “Not yet.”

  “I do not mean me.” The room went silent, stunned by his words. As Perciless descended the steps from the throne, he made his way toward Oremethus. “Is that not right?”

  Oremethus straightened his posture upon the dragon. “It is.”

  “You are just giving him your crown?” Daedalus asked, incredulous.

  Perciless removed the crown and started to hand it to Oremethus, but pulled it back. “If it means the siege ends. The people do not deserve to die just because they are alive.”

  The two older brothers locked gazes, both stern and unyielding. Oremethus nodded. “The people will be spared. The war has stopped.”

  Oremethus dismounted from his dragon and Perciless placed the crown upon his head.

  Landyr’s eyes widened. The remaining guards and soldiers looked at each other, confused. Were they to serve Oremethus now? Or would they be executed for fighting against him? What of Perciless? And why was Haddaman clapping?

  “Well done, my lord, well done,” Haddaman said while strolling to the new king. The king’s dragon shifted as did the bone dragon, both keeping their heads low and mouths open. Haddaman stopped and raised both hands up in front of him.

  “The man who was in allegiance with Qual, whom we took from the mountains with us. I never did catch your name,” Daedalus said.

  “Well, my prince, I am Haddaman Crede, and I offer my services to the new regime.”

  Daedalus smiled, the way a predator might before pouncing on its prey. “What services might those be?”

  Haddaman lowered his arms so he could use them to emphasize points and flourish his words. “I offer many talents, but I think they might best be suited for an advisory role.”

  Daedalus lost his smile. “The king already has an advisor.”

  “Ah, yes, I see that now. Then I offer you information. All the information you could ever need during your rule as—”

  Haddaman’s words ended as if he had forgotten how to speak, his concentration shifted to the air dragon and the water dragon as they entered the throne room. They each took a nearby corner, acting as mere decorations.

  “You do not seem very informed now,” Daedalus said.

  “Ah, yes, yes. The dragons. I assume King Oremethus is demonstrating to the former king that he is keeping his word, showing that the slaughter of the people is now at an end.”

  Oremethus smirked and looked at Daedalus. “Well, he is not wrong.”

  Daedalus frowned. “Information, you say? For as long as he’s king?”

  “Aye, milord.”

  “What sort
s of information?”

  “Everything happening in the kingdom.”

  Daedalus chuckled. “That would be quite an impressive task.”

  Haddaman opened his mouth to speak but paused as the fire dragon and acid dragon made their way into the throne room, accompanied by hisses from the droplets of acid or lava hitting from the floor, echoing through the chamber. The beasts also did their best to remove themselves from the center of attention by moving to the nearby walls, their claws clacking on the floor. Satisfied that they seemed content with where they stood, Haddaman continued, “I am an impressive person. My reach extends to all cities, all communities, every tavern and brothel.”

  Squinting, Daedalus leaned forward. “How is such reach possible, I wonder.”

  Haddaman bowed deeply at his waist and answered, “I am Vogothe, and my reach is limitless.”

  Many in the room gasped, even some of the soldiers whose fates had yet to be sealed. Dearborn tensed as the thought of rending him limb from limb burned through her. “The great lord of the underworld?”

  “The one and the same, milord, and I wish to offer my services.”

  “What makes you think the king needs them?”

  “As I said before—information. And opportunity. I control the underworld, the one place upon this continent that will forever remain eternal. Cities rise and fall, but as long as there is at least one building to cast a shadow, I will control whoever hides within it.”

  Daedalus looked to Oremethus and rubbed his chin, pondering. “Thoughts?”

  Oremethus shrugged a shoulder. “He could be useful. I trust your decision in this matter.”

  Serpent’s smile returning, Daedalus looked back down to Haddaman. “We accept this arrangement. After we finish the other business of the day, we will fix your room.”

  A bright smile lit up Haddaman’s face. “My own room? In the castle?”

  “Indeed.” Daedalus dismounted from his dragon and strolled to the nearest skeleton that once was a soldier. He picked off the remaining pieces of skin from its face and relieved it of its sword. The other newly turned skeletons shuffled toward Haddaman.