by Erik Reid
“The Goddess maintains the barriers between worlds. Those barriers protect those who seek to dwell in peace, should any single realm fall into war and strife.
“A coven of heretic witches pooled their foul magics and crafted a series of keys. They believed the Goddess did not shield us from war, but instead from power. From medicines and machines that would improve all of our lives.”
“And?” I asked.
“Their bodies were buried in graves full of salt to absorb the wicked thoughts they harbored,” the queen said. “At least, the ones we found. Others slipped away, using their new keys to break open the Goddess’s divine barrier and escape to forbidden realms.”
“Shucks,” I said.
“We credit them with allowing the demon A’zarkin to enter Silura,” the queen continued. “His reign of terror lasted sixty years. His bloodhound children hunted the draykin day and night. They nearly drank our race to extinction.”
“Those snarly little beasts are his children?” I asked.
“So he called them,” the queen replied. “The vampiric demonspawn conjured by the demon’s sheer will. They are not full demons in their own right, not the way a true son or daughter would be. During his last reign, A’zarkin claimed to hold a human woman captive that might provide such a true heir to his demonic powers. A woman in her position could incubate a demon more vile than any bloodhound.”
“Talk about post-partum depression,” I said.
“If the heretic witches sought to punish the draykin for killing their coven sisters,” the queen continued, “they succeeded in part but not in whole. In their zeal to explore every realm behind the Goddess’s divine veil, they opened a breach that drew a human man to our decimated kingdom. A hero.
“He was armored from head to toe in a suit that augmented his strength and his senses. He vowed to protect our people, and he did. He chased A’zarkin to the northern mountains and trapped him along with his bloodhound children beneath a glacier wider than a mountain is tall.”
“I like your thinking,” I said. “Have a problem witch? Bury her in salt. Problem demon? Just add ice. There’s really nothing that can’t be cured by shoving it underneath something else.”
“Why have I never heard of humans before?” Dani asked. “Or these witches, and bloodhounds, and A’zarkin?”
“Our human defender vanished after returning our kingdom to its rightful peace,” the queen said. “The only evidence that he ever set foot on our soil was a single glove, separated from his armored suit. Draykin monarchs have guarded that glove ever since. It bears no power to a wearer of our race, but our mages detect great energy contained within.
“Royal decrees forbade discussion of the human race and the war that nearly eradicated our people,” the queen said. “After generations, only the whispered stories of the senile carried any memory of our defender. We could not risk allowing the glove to fall into the wrong hands, and so we relegated these stories to the status of myth until any mention of them had died out completely.
“The truth is shared only among the royals and our sworn advisors,” she continued. “Or it was, until now. If the five-fingereds have returned to Varrowsgard, they have come for the glove. The secret cannot be kept.”
The queen motioned toward her nearest advisor, who reached for a series of levers that were built into a nearby column. He leaned hard on several, pushing them into varying positions, and he pulled upward on others, setting them by memory in a pattern that had no visual appeal, but which entered the combination to a giant, complex locking mechanism.
The stone dais that held the queen’s throne began to spin and lift from the floor. Slowly, the golden seat before us completed a single revolution, lifting several feet higher and revealing a cylindrical support column beneath the disc she sat on. The whole thing was a slow-grinding affair.
“Psst, Dani,” I said, leaning toward her as we waited for the queen’s seat to finish rotating. “How much gold would you need to eat to lay something like that?”
“Only the royals lay golden eggs,” Dani replied. “If a queen’s egg does not glisten with gold, she is immediately deemed unfit and replaced with another ruler.”
“That’s too bad,” I said. “Where I’m from, girls sell their eggs for thousands of dollars. It’s a real thing, I saw an ad on the bus about it, and those eggs weren’t even precious metal.”
As the queen’s advisor continued to work his levers, a gap spun into view within the cylinder beneath the monarch’s seat, opening like a door to the center of a hollow pillar directly below the draykin ruler. A glass box rested there, with a black glove sealed within. Metal studs lined the knuckles, glinting back the faintest light from the nearby torch pits.
Gretna’s nostrils flared and her lips tightened. “This secret chamber was never disclosed to me.”
“The castle has her secrets,” the queen said. “My throne has always hidden the Finite Gauntlet.”
“You can’t call it that,” I said.
“It helped end the reign of A’zarkin, which all thought might endure for infinity,” the queen said. “This glove ends the un-end-able.”
“Still nope,” I said. “If anyone can travel to an undiscoverable realm and sue the pants off a kingdom of dragon descendants for infringing their trademark, Marvel can.”
One of the queen’s advisors leaned closer to the throne and spoke behind a cupped hand.
“I am reminded,” the queen said, “that our ancient hero called his armored suit the Onicite Skin Cohesion-AR. Oscar, for short. This is Oscar’s fist.
“Gretna,” the queen continued. “I must entrust this artifact to you. Take this far away and—”
“Bury it,” I said, masking my words with a slight cough.
“Precisely,” the queen said. “Far beneath the sands of the Rundune Desert, where draykin rulers have long interred that which would threaten our tranquility. Perhaps the arid ground will deter a foe so thirsty as the vampiric beasts that hunt our kind.”
“It would be safer here, at the heart of our defenses,” Gretna said.
“It will attract A’zarkin,” the queen said. “He will quest to unlock the power within and chase the glove’s holder to the end of Silura. I cannot risk luring him here while my egg is still vulnerable. The heir to our kingdom must be safeguarded.”
“And I must be here when she hatches,” Gretna said. “Your highness, I have prepared for that day my entire career. No one else will treat her care with the same exactitude. I cannot—”
“There is time enough,” the queen said. “The hatching is weeks away. Your duty as royal guide and protector to our future queen is in no jeopardy from this task. You will journey first, and take my daughter under your care upon your return.”
Gretna breathed deeply and the tension left her body. “Thank you, your highness. I will plunge the onicite artifact so deeply into the sand that it will never see the sun again. I will make you proud.”
“Looks like Gretna scored herself a power glove,” I said. “Is there a zapper gun to go with it? Maybe a power pad?”
The queen made a puzzled look and glanced at Dani.
“I apologize, your highness,” Dani said. “He says odd things like that often. I doubt he means anything substantial.”
I chuckled, and not for the first time during this exchange. It was tense as fuck in here, but I might have gone overboard with the wisecracks. Everyone scowled at me except Dani and Clara.
“It does not surprise me that you decline to take this matter seriously,” the queen said. Her voice had grown harsh now, and she leaned forward to stare down at me from the throne that was lifted high off the floor. “It is a role you play, and you play it well, feigning ignorance of the artifact you came here to steal.”
I cocked my head to the side and gave her a puzzled look. “I don’t follow.”
“Gretna will take the artifact,” the queen said. “The five-fingered remains here. He is no human, only a demon’s dog sent to
fetch the one item that links us to our saving past. Guards, kill him!”
The draykin guards that surrounded the queen rushed toward me. Gretna pulled her sword from her scabbard and held the blade toward my chest.
“You don’t look like the demons in my book,” Gretna said. “Whatever you are, I take no joy in your death.”
“That makes two of us,” I said. “Listen, your highness, you’re right about one thing. I haven’t been taking this seriously enough. It’s bewildering.
“We just saved a kobold with healing magic from a fat, angry, baby-factory of a woman; murdered a screw-toothed blood-sucking fiend-monster, and now I’m face to face with a draykin queen coddling a golden egg, spinning tales of inter-dimensional magitech suits and men who slay vampire dogs to protect dragon women from demons.
“I’m out of my element, but I am absolutely, one hundred percent human.”
“Lies are the easiest form of subterfuge,” she said, “but the least likely to carry weight in my royal court.”
“I’m a lot of things that aren’t great, but a liar isn’t one of them,” I said. “I’m not some bloodhound in disguise or a demon’s henchman. I’m as human as the next guy. More human, in fact, if that ‘next guy’ is an Eagles fan. Fucking Philly, man. They don’t even want people to like them.”
Gretna’s blade touched my bare neck, sinking the sharp tip into my skin.
“Right,” I said. “Being serious. I forgot.”
“There is nothing you could say,” the queen said. “Our fabled hero was a giant among our kind. His skin radiated with the light of pure intention. His smile alone once disarmed a band of bloodhound warriors long enough for the swing of his blade to slice off three of their heads. You lack the charisma, the fortitude, the presence.”
“Your human hero became a tall tale,” I said. “A legend that grew out of proportion over time.
“You said the glove reacts to a human’s touch,” I continued. “Let me show you I’m human. When the glove does fit, you must acquit.”
“I am no such fool,” the queen said. “Execute—”
The front entry to the castle flung open, slamming the heavy wooden doors against the old stone walls behind them and sending a booming echo throughout the wide, open chamber.
The orange light of the evening sky lit a man from behind as he stood in the center of the open doorframe. The whites of his eyes were made more striking by the hue of his electric blue skin. A pair of twisted horns spiraled up from his bald head, darkening until their tips were midnight blue.
He strutted forward with a handful of bloodhounds behind him. They leapt from side to side on all fours, yipping and yapping insensible things to each other.
“A’zarkin,” the queen said from her throne.
“Yes,” the demon man said. “I have awoken.”
CHAPTER 10
“You cannot have my egg!” the queen yelled. “Guards!”
The few guards that attended the queen jumped down from her throne’s elevated stone dais and braced for the onrush of bloodhounds that accompanied the blue-skinned demon, taking their positions next to the guards that had accompanied Gretna in our arrest.
Gretna seemed conflicted, holding her sword against my throat but turning her gaze toward the new attackers. Dani and Clara took measured steps backward, putting distance between themselves and the castle’s exit while also positioning Gretna and the guards as the first line of defense.
A handful of bloodhounds took a snarling, bounding leap all at once, launching the throne room into a raucous battle of blades, teeth, and claws. One pounced on Gretna, whisking her blade away from my neck and her strong, sturdy frame away from my body.
I stood there for a moment, separated from Dani and Clara and totally exposed to any attackers that picked me for an easy target.
My life depended on not being drained like a Capri Sun pouch by a pack of bloodhounds and their demon daddy. But, then it would depend on proving to the queen that she shouldn’t just chop off my head anyway.
Hmm.
The queen hugged the golden egg in her lap, using her body as a shield for it while her guards rushed toward the intruders, leaving Dani and Clara to stand around unarmed, but behind the line of skirmish. Gretna let out a guttural war cry as she swiped her sword at the bloodhound that attacked her.
I ran away from the fight and toward Oscar’s glass case.
“What queen are you?” the demon asked. “I’ve been on ice so long I’ve lost all sense of time.” He stepped forward gingerly while his minions battled against the queen’s guards. His every step left a trail of ice behind, a thin layer of glacial blue frost that started melting the second his foot lifted from the stone floor.
I punched my left fist as hard as I could against the glass that separated me from the gauntlet. My joints cracked and a bone or two may have bruised, but the glass barely cracked. I shook my hand out, hoping to distract my nerves from the pain and prepared to try again.
“I am Queen Zolocki,” she replied. “Master of moons, tamer of wild rivers, and breath of the birds of song.”
“Ostentatious as always, you royals,” he replied, sauntering ahead while blood sprayed from draykin and bloodhound alike. He ignored the war waged in his name and ran his hand across a stone column as he passed it by. “You know your blood tastes no sweeter than any other of your race.”
My fist crashed against the glass again. This time, pain shot all the way up to my elbow, my whole arm stinging with the sharp impact.
“You should have let cold death lure you into a peaceful sleep,” the queen said. “We will not rest until your head parts ways with your neck this time, demon. Our people are stronger than our last encounter!”
A’zarkin laughed. “We are stronger too,” he said. “We have a human again. Just as I built my family on a foundation of draykin suffering, so too shall my son.”
My hand was weak and shaky as blood rushed toward my injury, swelling my fingers and turning everything bright red. My skin had split across my knuckles, forcing thin rivulets of blood down the back of my hand.
That glove sat limp inside its glass box, resting in the center of that stone cylinder, trapped beneath the queen’s throne. It taunted me through the cracked glass, teased me with its proximity. My fist could barely close again, thanks to the swelling and mind-numbing pain that resulted from catapulting my knuckles into that flat sheet of glass.
One more time, I promised myself. I can do this one more time. I have to.
I pulled my arm back and it shot forward without a moment’s hesitation. To hesitate would be to think, and to think would risk letting self-preservation coddle my throbbing hand while sacrificing my very life.
This time, the glass shattered. Dozens of tiny crystals broke loose, as if this panel of glass had always been a mosaic of perfectly-sized hexagons. The rush of relief that sprang from that success forced the pain to recede to the back of my mind.
For a second. That’s how long it took the queen to gasp and lean forward to see what I was up to down here. “The anti-magic volcani-quartz shielding!” she yelled.
Shit.
A’zarkin’s laugh deepened. I reached with my right hand into the glass box I had broken, and lifted the glove. It was feather-light, made of a thin fabric so smooth there was no texture, no weave, no visible seam. Four short metal plates fastened to the back of it, one at each knuckle, hard and impossibly shiny for an item that sat dormant for so many years.
In the single second I spent admiring the glove, it flickered an electric blue the same color as A’zarkin’s skin, then it floated out of my grasp. It whipped away from me, through the air and toward the demon’s outstretched hand, now glowing with an aura the same blue hue.
I sprinted after it.
Gretna stood over a dead bloodhound, just yanking her sword free of the beast’s stomach. A draykin guard lay slumped against the wall, breathing but bleeding from a series of claw scratches that had torn his dense leather
armor apart like tissue paper. Other guards and bloodhounds grappled with each other near the throne room’s front entry, but Clara and Dani stood back from the fray.
I charged onward, following the floating fist of Oscar toward the demon that summoned it.
Dani stepped aside to clear my path toward A’zarkin. I swiped my hand out and caught the thumb of that glove, tightening my fist around that smallest finger sleeve and resisting the demon’s pull.
He stopped laughing and grunted, bringing his second hand up and doubling the arcane energy he aimed at this glove. A spark of blue lightning gathered at the tips of his horns and then connected in the middle, forming a tendril of electric magic that reflected off his bald head.
My heels scraped along the stone floor as my body was dragged by preternatural forces, but my grip didn’t loosen. I brought my injured hand into the mix, cradling the glove while my good hand tried to find a better spot to hold onto.
“I have waited a century for this moment,” A’zarkin said. “I need that glove.”
“No, I do!” I said. “I need to Cinderella this stupid thing onto my human-sized hand and prove I’m what I say I am.”
Dani came up behind me and looped her arms around my waist, holding me steady and stopping the demon from drawing me toward him. He took long strides now instead, closing the space between us the old-fashioned way. One step at a time.
She planted her face against my back and tightened her grip. My bloody fingers fumbled to be of much help, but then they found the lip of the glove, the thin band of slippery fabric that formed its opening. I pinched as best as my blood-slicked fingers would let me.
I moved my good hand toward that opening, poking my fingers into the glove. There was only one thing left to do.
I yelled out as my bad hand yanked that glove into position, sliding my good hand into the gauntlet and pulling it tight against my fingers. The sleeve reached halfway up my forearm and the fabric gripped my skin tight.
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