Rise of the Dragon

by Wayne O'Brien

  The nameless man began to remove Turpin's cloak. Turpin saw the man was carrying as many weapons as a knight of Bristork. He had two bent knives, like the one Turpin had just been given, a short sword slung on his back, the restraining strap over his shoulder, and another short sword hanging upside-down under his left arm. There were also small claws embedded in the palms of his gloves.

  The hard-faced man fed Turpin's left arm through the loop in one strap and fastened the other under his right shoulder. Another strap was then attached to Turpin's belt. Turpin looked over the claw shaped knife. The pommel was an open ring, wide enough for any finger to enter with ease, attached to a padded leather grip.

  "You will be trained in the many uses of the karambit, but first you must retrieve an item tonight," Frost’s voice was somber, distant, looking through Turpin as if he was irrelevant.

  "I need rest!" Turpin protested.

  "No time. Your little escapade has caused a bit of a panic in the keep, and the target will soon be out of our reach. The client will not be pleased. You must retrieve the Dragon Shard from the Keeper."

  "The Keeper?" Turpin asked.

  "Yes, the shard should be with him." Darkness grew in Frost's eyes. "In his study."

  "Where is that?"

  "Outside the castle walls, you will be pleased to know. Agste and Castle Road, north of the wall."

  "Once I have it?"

  "Bring it back here. No tricks, no traps, and no one following you. Then your training will begin." Frost smiled wide, exposing his sharp yellow teeth.

  A chill shuddered through Turpin when he remembered the darkness where the fire had come from. Warily, Turpin agreed and moved to leave the chamber. He knew he had to head to the west, and circled round the chamber.

  "One more thing," the Claw leader yelled after him, "Jaques is going to be burning when he awakes. It shall be entertaining to see what he will do." He let out a dark, loud laugh. Turpin turned and continued on his way out of the sewer hub.

  The army of thieves, assassins, and the occasional brute, began chanting, "Claw, claw, claw," as Turpin walked through them until he was out of hearing. He turned north then west again until he found a drain. Across the river of excrement he saw a door that gave access to one of Bristork's sewage control offices. An old board acted as a bridge.

  "Great!" Turpin thought. "A stick to help me cross the River Shite."

  He tested the sturdiness of the plank with a tentative foot, slowly inching it forward, easing his weight on it. The board groaned and creaked under him but gave no indication of wanting to break. Turpin spread his arms gently, lifting his torso up with invisible bars. His knees bent and helped hold his weight up in the cool breeze beneath the streets of Bristork. Step by step he worked his way across the filthy water.

  At length he made it to the other side and examined the door. Locked. He removed his satchel from his hidden pocket, knelt, and began working on the lock. A minute later the bolt clicked dully and he opened the door. Beyond, a flight of stairs rose to the street.

  Turpin ascended the stairs. He found himself in a small room. Long poles, stained almost black from years of use in the sewers, lay in a rack against the wall. Opposite stood a small desk with two ledgers, an ink well and a quill. Flanking the desk were two doors, one leading to Castle Road, the other to the courtyard of Bristork Castle.

  He used his tools once again, unlocked the door to Castle Road, and was soon standing on the foot path that ran along parallel with the street. Directly in front of him, across the excrement stained stone sewer roof of the street, stood the house of The Keeper. Turpin stood there, thinking of the possibilities as to the location of the study.

  He doubted the Keeper's study would be on the third floor, which would usually be reserved for storage only. Turpin had heard many stories about the Keeper. Some called him Dragon Keeper, still others the Keeper of the Flame, yet all the stories were agreed on one thing; the Keeper was a warlock of some kind. In which case, Turpin mused, the whole house could be his laboratory, and only the gods knew what he did in there.

  The night sky slowly began to show signs of lightening. The streets of Bristork were eerily quiet and still. The night was ending and the hidden things bunkered down in the predawn.

  "Ithys, be praised," Turpin said under his breath. It was a marriage between a prayer and a curse. He crossed Castle Road.

  "Top down, exit the front." His thoughts rang loudly in his mind, as he slid into a narrow alley on the west of the Keeper's abode. With deft hands and strong fingers, he used the small edges of the stone and timbers to quickly scale the side of the building and mount the roof.

  Three flutes protruded from the chimney in the center of the roof. There was a small, flat standing area for the cleaners. On the side of the roof, just below the landing, Turpin saw a window. He crept across the slanted roof and worked on the lock until he heard it click softly open. Below was a steep ladder leading down into the dark attic.

  Turpin closed and latched the window behind him. He slowly inhaled deeply through his nose. He wished he had his oils, or at least his pipe. Exhaling through his mouth slowly, he cleared his mind from what was not to what was.

  He looked around the room to examine its contents. It was as he had suspected, storage. He moved silently to the top of the stairs at the far corner, paused, and then started down.

  At the bottom of the stairs was a smoking room that doubled as a library, books lined the walls on shelves; there were some tables here and there with unlit candles on them, and a chair for each table. In the center of the room was a large desk; on it were scattered papers written in different scripts - most Turpin could not make out - and small jars containing unidentifiable specimens in a greenish yellow liquid.

  He walked, light footed, over to the door and crept through. Nothing was there save stairs to the main floor and another door, leading to the bedroom he presumed, yet he needed to make sure. As he had surmised, it was the Keeper's sleeping quarters. He found nothing of importance in that room either. A cold dread crept over Turpin, threatening to paralyze him. He knew there was only one more area to search, and there had been no sign of the Keeper himself.

  His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of chanting. It was in a dark, inhuman, tongue. A voice from the abyss. Turpin, uneasy from the otherworldly singing, slowly descended the final staircase to the main floor. He found himself in the Keeper’s living quarters. Apart from a separate cooking space there was nothing else.

  The air grew thick, and cold. He felt the presence of an unseen creature. Like a thousand eyes circling him, watching every move made.

  "There's nothing here," Turpin thought, frustrated. He began scouring the walls in search of a trick door. The chanting started again, this time with a chorus from an abyssal choir. The air in the house stood still, and Turpin felt an ominous, barely perceivable chill.

  Turpin moved to the naked wall next to the fireplace, heat had colored the stones an unnatural white and blue. How could there be a chill when such an outrageously hot fire burned? Yet the chanting continued, coming from beyond the wall.

  The pillar of a wall that stood proudly holding up the rest of the house was too small to completely mask another staircase. Turpin held his ear to the wall, his heart pounding so hard he felt it would further shatter his already broken ribs. His hands shook, his palms moist with sweat.

  He heard a faint click and a panel of the wall swung free. He saw a ladder leading downwards within the wall. The side closer to the fire was slightly charred. Turpin took his courage in his hands and climbed down the ladder. He was met with stifling heat, and he felt as if he was descending into the flames of the underworld.

  He was sweating profusely by the time he reached the cellar. This, he thought, was no doubt the laboratory of the Keeper. It smelled of rotten flesh and mold. The putrid stench was so pervasive it seemed to surround him and penetrate his skin. It smelled like a thousand corpses lying on a battlefield, a month after the battl
e was done.

  The room was filled with arcane artifacts, beakers over flames with boiling liquid. Even a dissected gryphon. Its wings were nailed to the wall, spread wide, wider than the height of two grown men. It had been skinned, its muscles displayed for all to see. The claws, although lifeless, were there and as menacing as if it still lived. The entrails of the beast were nowhere to be seen, only the hollow corpse of a not fully grown gryphon.

  In the far corner the warlock stood in front of a fire pit, chanting and swaying. The dancing shadows from the flames appeared as men, singing a hymn of darkness. Turpin hid behind a table, stained from years of research, and watched.

  Turpin could not determine whether the Keeper was there or if what he could see was just an illusion. He seemed to be fluctuating between being a solid body one moment, and assuming the unsubstantial form of a wraith the next. It was at that moment he realized the Keeper was standing in the flames, his robe as one with them.

  "You trouble me." A voice intoned, sounding as if it came from everywhere and yet nowhere. "Why have you come Turpin of Bristork? Have you come to take that which is not yours yet again?"

  Turpin froze. He felt the hair on the nape of his neck stand on end. There was no way he had been seen entering ... unless those eyes, the unseen eyes he had sensed...

  "Speak!" The voice commanded. It was all around him, even within his own mind.

  "Who are you?" Turpin asked, trying to subdue the fear in his voice. Deep, dark laughter seemed to shake the walls, making them expand and contract. It felt as if he was inside a giant's chest.

  "We have met once before, yet not under such pleasant circumstances." Turpin felt as if the whole building smiled malevolently when the voice spoke again. "Did you think I would allow you to leave the castle unless I wanted you to? I let you leave. I gave you the strength to overpower the man who has taken the name Treg. I have followed you, and I have studied your soul."

  The voice began to centralize as it spoke, sending a chill through Turpin's blood. At last the disembodied voice found a home with the specter standing in the fire.

  "I will never let anyone take my power," the phantom said as it turned to face Turpin. "I am the Warlock of the East. I am the Keeper of the Flame. I am the Dragon!"

  Turpin stood rooted in shock when he saw the face of the creature that spoke to him. Its skin was the pale pink color of a human, but was layered like scales. Its nose was flat and almost nonexistent, nostrils rising up to the end of its elongated snout. The shape of the creature's skull was almost feline.

  "You cannot kill that which never lived," the voice said. A jagged red crystal floated between the hands of the Keeper, the Dragon Shard.

  Suddenly Turpin was struck across his face from behind. Whatever it was wrapped around his head, whipping him. It was as hot as glowing coals. He screamed and lurched forward, clutching his face. He turned to find the Keeper now standing behind him. His eyes glowed like fire with a core pupil of jet black. Inhuman. Empty.

  Turpin lashed out at the Keeper, his hands like stones tied to his suddenly rope-like arms. He swung hard and quickly, without aiming. The warlock disappeared and then countered with a savage blow to Turpin's chest which sent him tumbling backwards onto the table of specimens. He felt one of his fractured ribs break cleanly, pain knifing through him. He rolled off the table and onto the floor, wheezing. The warlock reappeared and stood as still as a tree on a windless day, his feet inches off the cellar floor.

  Turpin stood slowly, the cut on his arm beginning to throb again. Before he stood up all the way, the air in front of him materialized into a hand of flame. The hand reached out and struck Turpin across his face. He collapsed to the floor again, landing on his left side.

  A hand, unseen, stretched out and took a grip on Turpin's throat. Another hand joined it, both squeezing his throat tighter and tighter. Life-giving air was completely cut off from his lungs. He thrashed and clawed at the invisible hands he could not remove. There was no fear in him, although he was but inches from death; only outrage. A deep, animalistic rage for survival grew rapidly within him.

  Writhing in pain, unable to breathe, Turpin saw the feet of the Keeper appear before him. Demonic laughter shook the room again. Turpin unsheathed a knife and lashed out. The blade sliced through the Keeper’s tendon, just above the heel. The Keeper yelled and fell onto his back. Blood flowed from his wound, running redly across the floor.

  Turpin pulled the other knife from its sheath. Holding it in a downward grip, he stabbed hard into the meat of the Keeper’s upper leg. Turpin quickly reversed his grip on the knife in his right hand, from heaven to hell, and sunk the blade into the other leg. Pulling himself across the floor with the knives in the Keeper's legs, he stabbed again, this time into the warlock’s stomach. He heaved again, using the knives embedded in the warlock to haul himself up the Keeper’s body. His pain had subsided, somehow merging into the noise in the background. Wild rage burned within him. He went on climbing up the Keeper, like a mountaineer would scale a waterfall of ice.

  Finally, he was above the Keeper. Dark blood pooled all over the floor. Turpin didn’t hesitate. He knew that if he did, all would be lost. He plunged his blades deep into the Keeper's eyes. The Keeper’s screams had been piercingly shrill since the moment Turpin’s knife had sliced through his leg, but the blinding of the Keeper moved the sounds to a whole new level of terror and pain. Turpin reversed his grip again. He pulled the knives from the warlock's skull, and quickly sliced his throat with both blades.

  Turpin sat there breathing heavily. He watched as the fountain of blood slowly dwindled to a sputter and then stopped altogether. He stared at the mutilated corpse in shock. He had never imagined a single body could hold that much blood. Dark red droplets fell onto the shard, still grasped in the warlock's dead hands. Turpin looked up. The cellar ceiling was covered in blood that had jetted from the slashed throat.

  Turpin grabbed the shard and ran to the ladder, climbing it as quickly as he could. The air was still, the watching eyes gone. He rushed out of the front door, leaving it open, and ran back to the sewage office. He retraced his steps through the sewer, back to the central point beneath the market. The adrenalin that had fueled his rage was wearing off, and the pain in his ribs returned. He could still see the distorted, eyeless face of the Keeper and hear his screams in his mind. That was all he could see and hear. Never before had he killed a man in such a manner, nor had he seen a body ripped open as close.

  He finally made it to the lair of the Shadow Claw, his face still burning from the warlock's spells. The crowd that had been there earlier had dissipated. Only a few brutes and archers stood guard. Frost looked at him, curiosity in his eyes, when Turpin entered the chamber.

  "Had a little trouble," Frost asked, smiling at the wide-eyed, blood covered boy.

  Turpin looked at him and nodded. Then silently showed him the Dragon Shard. Frost stood and walked to Turpin, smiling gleefully at the shard. He took it from Turpin and examined it closely.

  "Finally." Frost said. "And now you are truly one of us. Your training may begin." He turned and moved towards a tunnel leaving the central chamber.

  "The Keeper said something about giving up his power," Turpin said.

  "The power of the Dragon." Frost confirmed as he paused to look back at Turpin. "Mystical and religious the Keeper is." Turpin could see Frost wore the necklace and ring he had stolen days before. "He thinks he can steal a birthright. He studies and plays and pretends to be true born, yet he is nothing to those who were born to rule this land."

  Frost's face and features began to change before Turpin's eyes. Suddenly he was someone else entirely, voice and body. Then, like the shifting of sands, he was another person, old and decrepit.

  "You're a shifter!" Turpin said in wonder.

  "That I am, I was born with this power. Bred to command and conquer. I appreciate your assistance in gathering all I need to take that which is mine."

  Turpin had never felt as use
d and betrayed as he did at that moment. The whole thing had been a set-up! Frost waved his hands imperiously and the men standing guard turned to follow him. All of them except one.

  Frost smiled unpleasantly. "Graegor will take care of you," he said as he disappeared around the corner. His voice floated back. "Your training shall now begin."

  Turpin moved to go after Frost but was hit in his back, throwing him forward to his knees. The sound of a blade hissing from its scabbard came from behind him. Cold, sharp iron touched his neck.

  "Did ye think we would 'ave ye join us, boy?" Graegor said. He was a big man. His thick arms were covered with scars. He looked as strong as an ox. "That was ne'er the plan."

  "And you think they would tell a simpleton like you the real plan," Turpin scoffed.

  Graegor snarled angrily and drew the sword back to strike at Turpin's neck. The blade descended in a strong, short arc. Turpin tucked his head down to his chest. He leaned forward, pulling one of his knives from its sheath. He twisted sharply under the sword, thrusting his knife up between Graegor's legs, cutting deep into his inner thigh. Blood sprayed across the floor as Graegor grabbed his crotch. He hovered for a moment, pure agony contorting his unbelieving face. Then he toppled over and lay still.

  Turpin ran after Frost through the sewers. He ran as fast as his side would let him beneath the streets of Bristork. He was heading, as best as he could tell, just north of the castle, towards the walls that enclosed the city. The occasional Shadow Claw member marked the direction he needed to turn, and Turpin took quick care of them when he silently rushed them with knife in hand.

  Turpin’s once prepubescent face, at one time as soft and gentle as a farmer's heart, now held the hard determination of murder written across it. Until, suddenly, the trail went cold. There was no longer any sign of where Frost had gone. But there should be, Turpin was not standing at an intersection of sewers, but at a turn. There were no other tunnels Frost could have gone into, yet the trail of faintly visible footprints and the Shadow soldiers, used as cannon fodder in Turpin's personal war, had both disappeared. There was only a blank wall, which, it seemed, Frost had walked through.