by Dante King
“My apologies,” I said through gritted teeth.
The Overseer, of course, had retained her composure. She cleared her throat ever so slightly and said, “The Transfusion Ceremony is something that will indeed take place, but first Jaghilda here will need to bond with your dragon.”
And then, I remembered.
“The crystal,” I said. “She has to touch Garth’s crystal.”
I recalled then how I had been required to touch the Onyx Crystal that now hung around my neck. It had been on the very first day that I had met Elenari.
That had been about five seconds after she had disemboweled the thief who had recently stolen my phone. Naturally, I had been a little frazzled, and it might not be so surprising that my memory of the event was a little bit disjointed.
However, Elenari’s doubts had been quickly and easily dealt with. She had pulled from a pocket the black onyx crystal in which Noctis had been, unbeknownst to me, residing in. A single touch had been all that was needed to convince her that I was, indeed, the very man that she had been sent to seek.
“That’s right, Dragonmancer Noctis,” the Overseer said to me gently. “Jaghilda needs to simply touch the crystal that Garth bides in to find out whether she is suited to being bonded with him. It is a mere formality at this point.”
“A formality? How?” I asked.
“A lot of research goes into hunting out the bloodlines that are suitable and due to be bonded to a dragon, Noctis,” General Shiloh said to me. “The Lorekeepers are very much aware of which race is due to be bonded to the next dragon, which races do not yet have representatives amongst the dragonmancers, and where such candidates reside. Hell, that’s the very reason that the Lorekeepers exist! And why they are so exalted.”
“If it’s such a foregone conclusion, then why bother with touching the crystal at all?” I asked.
“Because the Lorekeepers are not infallible,” the Overseer said. “Like anything, their prognostications and calculations can fall to nothing.”
“I guess that’s the thing about nothing, huh?” I said. “It’s the same as something: it can happen anywhere and at any time.”
“Quite,” said the Overseer. “Now, if you would be kind enough to bring forth the crystal…”
I did as I was bidden. Sometimes you just have to.
I pulled out the rose quartz crystal in which the essence of Garth resided. It was a good thing that the dragon wasn't going to be required to show his face in all its physical splendor. Knowing Garth, he probably would have appeared in a form roughly the size of an African elephant and knocked everything flying, uprooting the tent and sending General Shiloh into the sort of fury that could only be described as incandescent.
The crystal was warm in my hand, burning with the potent lifeforce within it. I held it out at arm’s length.
Suddenly, I felt much like how old Bilbo Baggins looked in The Lord of the Rings, when Gandalf had asked him to cough up the ring. Garth’s crystal, like Noctis’s, was enmeshed within a fine golden cage hanging on a chain around my neck. It dangled from my fingers, swaying slightly.
Then, with a swift deftness that still did not seem like a snatch, the Overseer leaned easily forward and procured the crystal from my hand. I felt a frisson of anger shoot through my limbs, out from my heart, all the way to the tips of my fingers. A glance from the Overseer’s kindly face, though, calmed me. It was a look that told me, without a single word, that I could trust her.
The Overseer turned from me and presented the dangling pink crystal out toward the dwarf who stood waiting with bated breath.
“All I have to do is reach out and touch it, is that right?” the dwarf asked.
There was a large double headed war axe slung over her shoulder. Even though she had Satan’s meat cleaver sitting on her back, Jaghilda looked nervous. I didn’t blame her. Magic, after all, was magic. It was nothing if not unpredictable. Nothing if not fucking dangerous. She might very well have been an excellent hunter and a skilled warrior and woodswoman in her own right, but she was about to experience magic.
“That's correct,” said the Overseer. “All you have to do is reach out and touch the crystal and we will know. There will be a modicum more certainty in your future than there was only a few seconds ago.”
Steeling herself with a deep breath or two, Jaghilda reached out and placed a finger to the slowly revolving little block of rose quartz. There was a pregnant pause and then…
Nothing.
“As I said before,” I said, after three seconds had dragged by, “nothing can happen just as easily as something.”
I doubted that the Overseer ever went as far as looking nonplussed, but there was a definite hint of consternation in the corners of her eyes. She looked as if, for the first time in a long time, she had witnessed a result that she had not anticipated in the slightest.
“Overseer?” General Shiloh asked.
Jaghilda was looking from the Overseer to the General to me with a look of complete bewilderment on her face.
“Was that supposed to happen?” she asked.
“Supposed?” the Overseer said. “Maybe. Was it expected to happen? No, I should not think so, in all honesty.”
There was a definite air of perturbation in the tent now. It had sprung up between the Overseer and the General in the same way that a squall would spring up between two advancing stormfronts, like the subtle volcanic pressure that starts building when tectonic plates rub together.
“But - but - but…” Jaghilda stuttered, looking around the room. “Surely, I should have felt… something.”
“I should blazing well say that you should have,” General Shiloh griped.
“If you’d be so kind as to excuse us, Jaghilda,” the Overseer said politely to the dwarf. “We will send word to you if things become resolved. In the meantime, I think it would be prudent for you to speak of this to as few others as possible. What has happened here, in this tent, is not something that is likely to please the Martial Council.”
“And anyone knowing of such things would do well not to mention their knowledge of such things,” General Shiloh said, with not a little hint of warning in her tone.
Jaghilda ran her hand once more through her mop of ginger hair. With a tight bow that seemed to cause her difficulty, she departed back through the tent flap.
“I did not speak incorrectly when I said that the rest of the Martial Council aren’t going to like this,” the Overseer said.
General Shiloh snorted. “Excuse my Vetruscan, Overseer, but who gives a flying shit what those lot think about it? It is how the Empress Cyrene is likely to take the news that most troubles me.”
The General made a move toward the jug that stood on a shelf nearby, the jug which I knew to contain an alcohol known as Hangman’s. The potent liquor was nicknamed Hangman’s because it only took one drop and the drinker was as good as dead. Before her fingers brushed the handle of the jug, she dropped her hand. Clearly, she was of the mind that clearer heads were needed to nut out this problem.
“Does it really matter if Garth didn’t hit it off with Jaghilda?” I asked. “Can’t we find another potential dragonmancer to touch the crystal?”
General Shiloh didn’t answer, but the Overseer returned to her chair with a slight sigh and handed me back the rose quartz pendant.
“That dwarf, young Jaghilda, was a candidate that the Lorekeepers were unanimously sure would be able to bond with a dragon,” she said. “That she has fallen at the first hurdle, at the touching of the crystal, is not something that I have witnessed in all my time at the Drako Academy.”
“A long time,” General Shiloh muttered, her chin sunk moodily on her chest.
“Indeed,” the Overseer said.
“It doesn’t bode well?” I asked, only half ironically. I had always found that expression slightly over the top.
“No, it does not bode well at all, Dragonmancer,” General Shiloh snapped, “and I’ll thank you for reining in your smar
tassery.”
I nodded.
“So… What do you want to do?” I asked.
The Overseer motioned to the chair opposite her, and I took it once more.
“The Lorekeepers will indubitably have a second candidate that they will send for in short order,” General Shiloh rumbled thoughtfully, running her calloused fingers through her hair. “They will not want it to be generally known that they failed in this. It will be a stain on an almost perfect record. Something that men and women like that cannot abide.”
The Overseer inclined her head in grave agreement.
“I have always found it wise to have a contingency plan, no matter how unlikely it is that the original scheme or ploy should fail,” she said. “Expecting surety in a scheme’s success is a dangerous thing. It smells of wishful thinking: the most dangerous trap that any master tactician can lay for themselves. Allowing yourself to wish for something can too easily turn that wish into hope—”
“And that hope into expectation?” I butted in.
The Overseer gave me another one of those stun-grenade smiles of hers. “That’s right, Dragonmancer Noctis,” she said. “That’s exactly right.”
“You have a backup plan, is what you’re saying, Overseer?” General Shiloh said, sticking her travel-stained boots up on her desk.
“Yes, General, I do,” the Overseer said.
“What is it?” I asked. “And, why really, do we need a backup plan?”
“Because ever since your existence and your, ahem, skillset shall we call it, surfaced, the hope of the Martial Council and, subsequently, of the Empress Cyrene, is that you would return the Mystocean Empire to its former glory. By making dragons. What to do with your gift takes up much of the conferences of the Martial Council, Dragonmancer Noctis. Your reluctance at following the orders of the Council, and the otherworldly way you conduct yourself, has not endeared you to those who preside on the Martial Council.”
A small smile of satisfaction curled my lips. “The ego is a hell of a thing. Amazing how some people can get as much sustenance from feeding it as most do feeding themselves with bread and meat.”
The Overseer did not say anything, but General Shiloh shifted her feet. “Careful, Dragonmancer Noctis.”
“So, this backup plan then?” I said. “It’s to appease the Martial Council as much as anything?”
“To appease them, yes,” the Overseer said, “but also to give you some breathing room from their attention.”
“And why, if you don’t mind me asking,” I said, shooting a quick look at General Shiloh to make sure that I wasn’t about to be the recipient of a very frank and forthright telling off right in the earhole, “would you take my side over theirs?”
“I am not taking sides,” the Overseer said equably. “The only side that I am on is that of the Mystocean Empire.”
“Right,” I said.
“And, as such,” the Overseer continued, “I believe that you have much to give us and much to help us with, Mike Noctis. We need you, and I will not let anyone obstruct the Drako Academy’s ability to do what is best for this land.”
General Shiloh slapped a large hand down on her desk, setting her quill and ink pot to rattling.
“Well said,” she enthused.
“Now,” the Overseer said, sitting up and leaning in to me, “as you are probably unaware, the Bearmancers of the Vetruscan Kingdom have since returned to their homeworld. They took with them the prisoner of war that you brought back with you from the Subterranean Realms.”
“Hana? You let her go?” I asked. “Why?”
The Overseer waved her hands. “They may not have been of the Empire,” she said, “but those four were not our enemies.”
General Shiloh made a slightly disagreeable noise at that. I, on the other hand, was inclined to believe the Overseer. Hana had not struck me as someone had wished us ill, even though she obviously viewed the Transfusion Ceremony as some sort of abomination.
“Then, why were they here at all?” I asked. “The soldiers’ gossip made it sound like they had appeared to barter for the life of Hana. I never thought they would have had time to know that one of their bearmancers had been taken, let alone make the journey here.”
“You were right,” General Shiloh cut in at that point. The tough-looking dragonmancer was filling a short stubby pipe with a dried herb as she spoke. “They wished to make an alliance with the Mystocean Empire’s dragonmancers and combat the Shadow Nations in the Subterranean Realms. Or so they said.”
“You don’t believe them?” I asked.
General Shiloh lit her pipe with a match struck on her boot heel. Her head was wreathed in blue smoke that smelled faintly of blackcurrants, but she said nothing.
“They came bearing other news,” the Overseer said, averting my attention back to her. “It was not, perhaps, news in the traditional sense, but a piece of information that they wished to use in their negotiations with us.”
“And this nugget of information,” I said, “was something that they hoped would convince you—the Empress, I mean—to fall in with them with their war against the Shadow Nations?”
The Overseer nodded.
General Shiloh took a deep pull on her pipe. When she spoke, each word was etched with fragrant smoke.
“They mentioned that there exists a certain fabled mana-boosting relic in their homeland, in Vetrusca,” she said. “Hidden somewhere in the labyrinthine hills, gorges, and caverns that make up much of the land.”
“A relic?” I queried, leaning forward and planting my elbows on my knees.
“A deeply magical device that can literally break open a person’s mana reserves and make them, practically, bottomless,” the General said.
I looked over at the Overseer to see what she thought of all this but, naturally, her face gave nothing away.
“I assure you what I say is what the Vetruscans believe, Dragonmancer Noctis,” General Shiloh said, impatience in her voice. “I was at the blasted meetings after all. This device can allow a mancer to use the same dragon in multiple slots…”
“That, of course, wouldn’t exactly be the same as your dragonlings being given to regular folk to make them into dragonmancers, Mike Noctis,” the Overseer said, “but it would make you far more powerful.”
“The General is right,” the Overseer said. “You would become far more powerful, in a far shorter space of time than is usual for a dragonmancer.”
“I can handle that,” I said, trying not to let the elation show too much on my face.
“There will be advantages to this, of course, but making you more powerful isn’t exactly what the Empress, or the Lorekeepers want,” the Overseer said.
“They do not want you on the frontlines, Dragonmancer,” General Shiloh growled. “They have never wanted that. The Lorekeepers are furious enough as it is. Shitting kittens is an expression that comes to mind, if you’ll excuse me, Overseer.”
“The General is right,” the Overseer said. “The Lorekeepers wish you to be kept safe, behind lock and behind key and behind ward, if that is what is required to ensure the future of the Empire.”
I felt my expression grow wooden.
“I think you have a fair idea of the kind of person that I am, Overseer,” I said. “With all due respect, you’re well aware that you’ll have to chain me up if you don’t want me on the frontlines. This is my home now, and I have a family here, so I’m going to fight for them with everything that I have.”
The Overseer gave me a level look. While she made gruff noises of protest at me talking to the Overseer in such a way, I could tell that the General approved of my mentality.
“So, I’m guessing that you want me to head out to retrieve this said item, this mystical what-have-you?” I asked. “It’s a stealth mission of some kind, is it?”
The General snorted.
“Not quite, Dragonmancer,” she said. “The Vetruscan Bearmancers will give up the general location of this relic.”
I bl
inked, deflating a little at the thought of this mission slipping through my fingers. “They’re just going to give it to you?” I asked.
“Try not to look so damned disappointed,” the General said sarcastically. “I was going to say that they will give us the general location on one condition: they want to know the secrets of the Transfusion Ceremony.”
I looked at the Overseer.
I wasn’t about to hide the fact that I was extremely surprised about this turn of events. True, I had only had any sort of meaningful discussion with Hana, the bearmancer that we had captured in the abandoned ratfolk township in the Subterranean Realms, but I thought I had gleaned more than a little insight into the mentality of those people as a whole, regarding the Transfusion Ceremony.
It was Hana’s point of view, and one that she did not feel compelled to sugarcoat in any way, that the whole process of dragons and their riders mingling their blood so that both became stronger and more in harmony with one another was an anathema to her. And her people as a whole, from what I deduced from her words.
Hana did not strike me as the sort of person who wouldn’t know the truth if it slapped her upside the face. On the contrary, my initial judgement of the pretty, wild bearmancer was that she might be loyally reticent, but when she did feel compelled to speak, she spoke only the gospel. If she did speak the truth, and was not just some fervent zealot that opposed the ceremony as an individual, then it made me wonder. What could have changed within the Vetruscan Kingdom to make them want to revise their view on the Transfusion Ceremony?
It was another head-scratcher. It only added to the feeling that I was getting that shit was about to get crazier than a cockroach that had just been sprayed with a healthy dose of Raid.
“And you said yes?” I asked her.
“Absolutely not,” she said crisply. “But, knowing the need that the Mystocean Empire has for that thaumaturgical relic, I argued the point. I told them that we will provide the Transfusion Ceremony to three select bearmancers. In exchange for the rough location of the relic and permission to find it in Vetrusca.”