The Girl Who Dreamed of a Different World

by Niall Teasdale

  It’s not like I’m not attracted to her. I may want to be a woman, but I’m not attracted to men.’ Rain gave a shrug. ‘Don’t ask me.

  I just live in this body.’

  Kana forced a grin onto her face and gave her own shrug. ‘Well, yeah. Of course you’re attracted to women. Men are gross. Naked men are even worse. I mean, whoever thought all that hanging junk was a good idea?’

  Rain’s grin was a little less forced. ‘Soansha, supposedly.’

  ‘Ah, but didn’t humans come from another world? Like me, but in bulk. Soansha created the elves, but she probably didn’t create humans.’

  ‘Elf hanging junk is no different. Unless you believe the rumours.’

  ‘Rumours?’

  ‘Rumour has it that elves are, um, smaller. Like, a lot smaller.

  No idea whether it’s true.’

  ‘Maybe we could ask Aneshti. I’m pretty sure she’d blush like–’

  ‘Hush!’ Rain waved her hand to add emphasis to the command and Kana fell silent. They stopped walking and Rain looked out across the grassland which, after several hundred metres, became marshland. The only way you could immediately tell was because the grass gave way to reeds, and none of that was currently visible anyway since it was night and there was only half a moon to give light.

  ‘I can’t hear anything,’ Kana said after a second. Then her eyes widened, partially at the utter cliché of saying it. ‘And that’s the point.’

  ‘There were night birds,’ Rain said, nodding. ‘A few other sounds. Now…’

  The silence was a little oppressive. Nothing seemed to be making a sound for miles in every direction, as though someone had thrown a blanket over the village. ‘What could make everything shut up?’ Kana asked in a whisper. ‘Dracs, maybe, but a drac raiding party wouldn’t have this effect, would they?’

  ‘Something bigger. Maybe an ogre. Or… No! No way is it–’ Rain cut off as the sound which both had heard but not realised they were hearing became more obvious.

  ‘Wings,’ Kana said. ‘Really, really big wings.’ They looked up just in time to see something dark pass overhead. Something large and dark. Kana guessed at something around seven metres in length with a pair of huge wings adding to its apparent size. There was only one thing it could be. ‘A dragon? A real dragon? No way is my luck this bad.’

  ‘It’s heading for the village,’ Rain said, and then they were both running, even if there was no way they could give any kind of warning fast enough.

  They were reaching the huts when two things happened at the same time. Rain looked back toward the marshlands, and the sky lit up as the dragon dropped in low over the centre of the village and

  let out a stream of fire. ‘Shit!’ Rain exclaimed. ‘There are dracs coming up from the swamp. Quite a few dracs.’

  ‘Great. How do you kill a dragon? Are they fireproof?’

  ‘As far as I know, they’re no more fireproof than anything with a thick hide and big scales.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Dragon!’ Aneshti said, appearing from between a couple of huts and joining the rush toward the village’s square.

  ‘We know,’ Kana replied. ‘Are they fireproof?’

  ‘True dragons are pretty much everything-proof. Lesser ones are just armoured. The fire breath is magical. You can breathe fire.

  That thing’s no different.’

  ‘Okay. Good, I think. Is it just me, or does it seem like there should be more things burning.’ They were running through the last ranks of huts now and there was, in fact, nothing on fire.

  The dragon was circling above them, raining down flame on the thatched houses below it, but the fire was not catching.

  ‘It’s not that easy to burn thatch,’ Rain said. ‘The weather hasn’t been dry. Plus, that breath weapon seems to have lousy range.’ That was true – the dragon had to be about twenty metres up and its breath was barely reaching the ground. Mimi was crouching over a villager who looked like he had taken a hit from the monster in the sky; his clothing was burned, as was his skin, and Mimi looked concerned. Constance was watching the dragon, standing guard over Mimi.

  ‘We have a problem,’ Constance said.

  ‘Two,’ Rain replied. ‘There are dracs coming up from the marshes.’

  ‘Damn. At least that thing hasn’t set any fires yet. I think it’ll need to get a lot closer before it can torch any huts.’

  ‘Like it did last time it came,’ Kana said. ‘This explains the pattern of burned houses. I think it’ll land soon. That way it can burn things and use its teeth and claws.’

  ‘Don’t forget the tail,’ Rain said. ‘That tail could do real damage if it hits you.’

  ‘Good point. Can you guys hold the dracs in the lower village?

  I’ll handle the dragon and then come down to help.’

  ‘On your own?’ Rain immediately answered her own question. ‘I guess if anyone can…’

  ‘I’m going to use a lot of power. I hope the dracs back off after that thing’s dead.’

  ‘That would be good,’ Constance said. ‘And whatever you’re going to do, it should be soon. Here it comes.’

  ‘Help me get this man out of the way,’ Mimi ordered.

  Kana stepped forward a little as Rain and Mimi pulled the dragon’s first victim out of the way and everyone started for the southern side of the village where the dracs would be attacking first. The dragon had swept around to the eastern side of the village and was swinging in for a landing. Kana raised her staff, sweeping its tip in a circle over her head and transcribing a red magical circle in the air which dropped over her, leaving a trail of red sparks in its wake. Then she braced herself and began her next spell.

  The dragon landed with a very audible thump, stretched out its wings and neck, and let out a bellow. Calling it a roar was not quite right. It was half like the sound of an elephant trumpeting, half the sound of an angry bear. It had to be scary as Hell, Kana figured, if you were not hopped up on enough adrenaline to fell an ox. If it decided to just eat her, she was possibly in trouble, and the thought turned her stomach over.

  Still, she did not have the time to be scared right now. A red circle appeared at the end of her staff and she held it there, waiting for the spell to charge more.

  Kana’s first ever dragon was something to behold and strike fear into the heart. It was a classic western dragon, rather than something out of Chinese legend. It had four powerful legs, wings like a massive bat, large, thick scales like small shields, and its head had a ridged, horned frill which protected its upper neck. Jaws which could probably make a meal of anything human sized were filled with the kind of teeth you saw on the bigger carnivorous dinosaurs. Its feet came equipped with talons the length of small swords and possibly as sharp. Red, malignant eyes looked down upon the puny human who appeared ready to defy the creature on her own. The monster stretched out its neck toward Kana…

  Then the world turned into heat and light. The dragon’s breath hit Kana right in the face at no more than two metres. Behind Kana, one of the huts started to burn thanks to the enhanced heat from this close up. The ground blackened as the dragon kept up the torrent of flame.

  Fire exploded out from the dragon’s eye sockets and then burned its way out from under the creature’s neck plate. More flames burned out from between the scales on its neck and it lurched back, collapsing into the middle of the village’s firepit.

  Kana was standing right where she had been, apparently totally unharmed by the creature’s breath. ‘Ha! You’re not fireproof, but I am. Baka!’ By now, it seemed like the dragon’s entire body was burning; Kana’s fireball had gone straight into the monster’s open jaws and then, it seemed, it had gone everywhere it could go, including right through the roof of its mouth and into its skull.

  Turning, Kana raised her staff once more and used magic to extinguish the flames on the hut. ‘Fire mages,’ she said as she started running toward the battle with the dracs, ‘your answer to pretty much anyt
hing.’

  25 th Ankarte.

  As it turned out, there had not been much of a fight with the dracs. They had looked a little disturbed when Kana made it down to the outskirts of the village. Two of them had been felled, probably due to Aneshti and Mimi, but that did not seem to be sufficient cause for them to have held back. Nor was the threat of Rain’s sword.

  When Kana had shouted out that the dragon was dead, the reason became clearer. They had seen something in the distance that had made them worry, and the ones who could understand Alabethi had their worst fears confirmed. They began to break and ran back toward the swamp. Then it became a rout and Kana did not think that tossing fire after them would be a worthwhile use of her magic. Constance had seemed happy to let them run, so that had been that.

  Now, however, Constance was not happy, and the cause of her disquiet was Tolar. The elder had turned up in the middle of the morning, taken a look at the damaged hut and announced that the village would be unable to pay the entire amount of the party’s fee.

  ‘You are joking, old man,’ Constance said, her voice low and dangerously calm.

  ‘I am not,’ Tolar responded, pulling himself up to his full height, which was several centimetres shorter than Constance. The height disparity did not help his case. ‘You let one of the villagers get badly burned.’

  ‘And our cleric healed him of all his injuries within half an hour.’

  ‘And one of the huts was badly damaged.’

  ‘Badly?! Kana put the flames out within seconds. Any competent woodworker could fix that in a couple of hours. When the dragon came the first time, it did a lot more damage.’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

  Kana had come out with Constance to stand in the drizzle which had set in that morning and see what Tolar had to say. They were standing beside the charred skeleton which was all that was left of the dragon. Setting fire to flesh was not a terribly easy thing to do, but Kana had used as much power as she could manage in her Firebolt; it had been very hot indeed. Now she used another spell and got exactly the result she expected. ‘Don’t lie to a mage, Tolar Greybeard,’ she said. ‘Once we knew about the dragon, the pattern of burned huts became a lot more obvious. It landed right here, where it now lies dead thanks to us, and it roasted a few huts to make its point. Why didn’t you tell us there was a dragon involved?’

  The old man glowered at her. ‘We didn’t think anyone would come if we said there was a dragon.’

  Kana gestured again. ‘Lie.’ She gave the man a rather malicious grin. ‘Don’t make me go searching around in your head for the real answer. It won’t be pleasant.’

  ‘He was hoping there would be more damage when it came again,’

  Constance said. ‘That way it would be easier to claim we hadn’t done our job and stiff us on the payment. As it is, he just looks like a fool for trying.’

  ‘I would never–’ Tolar began, all affronted pride.

  ‘Lie,’ Kana said. ‘Okay, so we have our reason. Your house is way out of town, right? You could leave a few villagers homeless without risking anything yourself. You’re going to pay us just exactly what we agreed. Personally, I hope it bankrupts you, but I suspect you’re the kind of miser with huge bags of gold hidden under his mattress. It would be best if we didn’t have to come looking for our money.’

  ‘I’ll… see to it,’ Tolar grumbled. He turned without another word and hurried away. There were a few villagers around, listening to the exchange. They did not seem especially surprised by Tolar’s ploy, but some of them looked a little angry, maybe at Kana’s assertion that the old man had not cared about their homes if it saved him money.

  ‘Could you really have read his mind to find out what he was up to?’ Constance asked.

  ‘Uh, well, maybe,’ Kana replied. ‘I know a spell to read surface thoughts and I probably could’ve hacked something together to dig deeper, but it was mostly just an empty threat.’

  Constance grinned. ‘Awesome. Though, I’d rather you didn’t read my mind. Ever. I’m usually thinking something inappropriate.’

  Kana giggled, turning to head back to their hut and get dry.

  ‘Constance, I don’t need a spell to know that. I always assume you’re thinking something inappropriate anyway.’

  Chapter Ten: Blighted

  The Dragon Blight, 29 th Tankarte 6024.

  Kana was falling. Or flying. She was not entirely sure what was happening to her. She was spinning and tumbling in empty space and there was a sense of movement, but the rapid changes in orientation made it hard to work out whether she was going up, down, or anything else. That and the pain.

  The pain was like nothing she had ever felt before. She was fairly sure she was screaming, but she could hear nothing and see nothing. Taste was another matter. Taste and smell. She could taste blood in her mouth and smell burning flesh, probably her burning flesh. She was burning though she could see no fire. She was also freezing. The cold was working its way into her bones as the heat burned her flesh to a crisp. Her blood had turned to acid in her veins. Crushing pressure threatened to powder her bones at any instant. She was dying. She hoped she was dying.

  Blazing light filled the darkness and she screamed silently as her eyes burned out or felt as though they did. She was definitely falling now, toward that blinding light. It was rising up to swallow her. Something terrible would happen when she met that light. Something would change forever. She wanted nothing more than to stay away from it, but there was no stopping her motion. She fell into the light and out of it, onto a cold, stone floor on which was inscribed a magic circle.

  And then she woke up, screaming. She briefly heard Rain’s voice somewhere nearby, and then she blacked out.

  ~~~

  ‘I was reliving how I got to Soken,’ Kana explained. She was huddled in a blanket beside the campfire, talking to Constance and Rain. Persuading Aneshti and Mimi to go back to sleep after their rude awakening had been difficult; Constance had, apparently, had her own nightmare and was not ready to try to sleep again. ‘I thought I’d forgotten. Or repressed the memory. I couldn’t remember when I first arrived, and it came back over about a month. I decided I didn’t want to remember it and I thought I’d forgotten.’

  ‘It sounded… bad,’ Rain said.

  ‘When I arrived, I couldn’t even speak properly. My tongue ached and my throat was raw from screaming. Every muscle hurt. It was like…’ Kana shook her head. ‘I can’t explain how much pain I was in. Think of the worst pain you’ve ever had and then multiply it

  by a thousand or something. The Master said something once about being remade during the transition. It could have been like I was torn apart and rebuilt, I guess. Anyway, that was what I was dreaming about. I’m sorry I startled everyone.’

  Constance shook her head. ‘It’s this place. There’s something evil about this place. Why did your Master think it was a good idea for us to come here?’

  Kana shrugged. ‘I was told “to see if anything’s changed.” When I can work magic worth a damn, I’ll let them know that nothing has.’

  ‘Well, tomorrow we’re leaving. I don’t care what the Master of the White Castle says, I’m not staying in the Dragon Blight another day. Or night.’

  ‘No argument here. What did you dream of?’

  Constance frowned. ‘Torture. I was being tortured to death by my old coven. I got separated from all of you, captured, and…

  Anyway, it was not a very nice thing to dream about.’

  ‘No kidding,’ Rain said. ‘It’s almost midnight and I’m supposed to get some sleep. I’m not sure I want to.’

  ‘Go. Sleep. We’ll take the watch for a while. I… want to sit here and talk to someone for a while.’

  ‘Okay,’ Rain said, getting to her feet. She looked around the dead, empty landscape of the Blight which only seemed worse in the dark. ‘The Dragon Blight. It’s a really appropriate name for this place.’

  ‘It certainly is,’ Kana agreed. ‘I
t blights everything that comes near it, including us.’

  1 st Dekarte.

  ‘We found the excavation Cadorian told you about,’ Kana said over her link to Sharassa. They had crossed the Blight and made camp as soon as the feeling of oppression from the place was gone. Now Kana was reporting her findings. ‘Nothing was different that we could see so we went into the Blight like you asked.’

  ‘And how was that?’ Sharassa asked, her tone neutral in the manner of someone who thought she already knew the answer.

  ‘It was…’ Kana bit back on her immediate, angry, response and tried again. ‘It was next to impossible to work magic. Most of us are suffering from some form of sleep deprivation after one night in there. Constance and I had nightmares. As far as I could tell, and Aneshti agrees with me, it’s no different now than it was when Cadorian and the others were here. It’s the same as it’s

  been for the past several thousand years, in fact. I don’t know why the Master thinks it would be different.’

  ‘He believes that the removal of the skull will result in the land returning to normal. He’s not sure how fast and wanted information on whether anything has changed in the time since Cadorian and Garan were there.’

  ‘Right. Well, the next time the old man wants to know what it’s like sleeping in a place like that, just because he’s curious, he can get off his behind and go there himself.’

  ‘Kana, that’s a little disrespectful. The Master gave you–’

  Anger rose and this time Kana did not feel like stopping it. ‘I think you keep forgetting that the Master has given me nothing .

  I think he actually thinks I owe him something, but that’s just the way his antiquated mind works. Teaching me magic? I wouldn’t need to know magic if he hadn’t dragged me to this forsaken hole of a world in the first place. I don’t owe him anything , Sharassa. I wish I’d never even heard of the White Castle or the old bastard who runs it!’

  Chapter Eleven: The Gift of the Slavers of Sintar Arabar, 17 th Dekarte 6024.

  Arabar was a cattle town – just like something out of an old Wild West movie – about twelve days’ travel to the north and west of the Dragon Blight. It did not have a guildhall for the Adventurers’ Guild, but it did have a noticeboard outside the town hall on which had been posted a flier indicating that adventurers were needed to deal with a band of cattle thieves operating in the area. Three days after arriving in the town, some of the bounty for the quest was being spent in a local tavern to celebrate the successful removal of the threat to local commerce. The first round had even been on the house since the owner’s brother was a cattleman who had lost stock.