Dragon Chameleon: Paths of Deception

by Sarah K. L. Wilson

  You’re too heavy!

  I looked back to where the Magikas stood in the moonlight, my view careening wildly with our flight. I only saw snatches - one of them was standing on the log Zyla and Zin had been sitting on. He raised a hand and it bloomed with light. Others were racing in from the trees, shouting and gesturing.

  We needed to get into the air and fast!

  My heart was racing as I reached forward to brace myself.

  “Keep your hands to yourself!” Bataar sure was jumpy!

  Saboraak’s powerful wings gave a flap and we jumped into the air a few feet before falling again. My teeth smashed together as the landing jarred me, triggering that awful headache. Pain and light ricocheted through my skull. Ugh! How could a man stay upright with so much pain in his head? I gripped the saddlebags with all my might, hoping Saboraak could launch in the next flap.

  There was a yell from the Magikas. “On my count! Three ...”

  Saboraak tried to lift again, her wings beating at the muddy ground as she fought for lift. We slid further down the hill, but her belly never left the earth. She was panting so loudly that I could hear it and now I was starting to worry ...

  “Two ... “

  Come on Saboraak, you can do this! Come on, you old girl!

  “One!”

  Five fireballs launched toward us at once. Magenta, green, and fuchsia, searing through the night sky like a celebration of Spring.

  Saboraak twisted jarringly and just when I thought my spine might have snapped from the sudden movement, we were tumbling forward again. Has she lost her grip on the hill?

  A fireball splashed on the ground behind us – a little faster than the others. One of the larger sparks hit Saboraak’s tail and she hissed so loudly, it sounded like opening up a furnace.

  Her mighty wings flapped and her tail seemed to push off on the rocks and then we were bobbing into the air, the fireballs splashing uselessly in the ground where we had been.

  Got it! There’s a trick to taking off with four people!

  Our flight was erratic, up and down, left then right, as if Saboraak was struggling to gain enough height to get over the trees. And then we were up! Her feet scraped the top of a spindly pine, but a moment later we were bobbing above the forest.

  I breathed a sigh of relief.

  I’m not old, by the way. I’m not your ‘old girl.’

  Of course not. She was anything she wanted to be – especially if that thing could fly just a little faster.

  I do appreciate your confidence in my ability to do the impossible.

  Just keep doing the impossible, Saboraak. That’s all I ask.

  Trying. You guys really are heavy. Are you sure you need all that bread?

  I rolled my eyes, but I felt warmth rising up in my chest. Saboraak had just risked her life to save us – and I kind of felt that she probably would have done that for just me.

  You’re my human as much as I’m your dragon.

  Well, stick with me and we’ll keep pulling ourselves out of impossible situations.

  Is that a promise?

  Sure. I was getting good at surviving deadly situations. Maybe that could rub off on her. I felt heady and confident up here in the air with the wind in my hair.

  That’s called an updraft.

  And Magika fireballs falling uselessly beneath us made me feel even better. For people with magical fire ability, they sure were useless in a fight.

  You only say that because we escaped. If they’d hit you with one and burned you alive with that sticky fire, you wouldn’t be so confident. The others are scared out of their wits. I can hear their hearts pounding and their breathing coming way too quick.

  I wasn’t scared.

  You should be. This is scary stuff. Look! They lit the forest on fire. They’re like hatchlings who haven’t been fire-trained!

  She was right. Below us, orange flames licked up along the edges of the pine forest where we had been a moment before. It was only a few trees, but a fire like that could spread fast.

  The wind is not in our favor. It blows west and we are headed northwest. It speeds our journey, but the fire could easily spread northwest and follow us.

  Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.

  “Tor?” Zyla asked from the front of the dragon.

  “Yeah?”

  “Do you think they can follow us?”

  “They don’t have dragons,” Bataar said arrogantly. “Not like us. We are in a superior position.”

  I wasn’t so sure. They didn’t have dragons, but Saboraak couldn’t keep this up for long, and now there was a forest fire to worry about. I didn’t like fires. They still filled my nightmares almost every night.

  I know.

  How did she know?

  I heard them the last time you slept.

  She could hear my nightmares? Ugh.

  Don’t be so bashful. We have a special kind of relationship. With it comes a predictable intimacy.

  Intimacy? She was making my skin crawl. Why couldn’t I have had a boy dragon like everyone else? I bet he wouldn’t use a word like ‘intimacy.’

  Most certainly not. But he also wouldn’t have my kind of patience for your shenanigans.

  Zyla spoke again, her voice raised to be heard over the wind. “I’m just wondering, how far can the dragon take us?”

  “Her name is Saboraak,” I responded. They should call her by name. She deserved that.

  Thank you.

  “How far can Saboraak take us before she needs to rest?”

  I didn’t even want to think about that. Not yet.

  At most, I can fly like this for a few hours. I see the foothills of the Devil’s ribcage up ahead. I might be able to make it that far.

  I couldn’t see anything in this dark except the people I was traveling with.

  Trust me.

  “A few hours, maybe,” I said.

  “And when we land, can we sleep? I’m not asking for myself,” she said hurriedly. “But it’s been a while since Zin had a rest and she needs it.”

  I looked anxiously at the fire behind us. I could see the glow of that still. It wasn’t that big. Maybe it would just burn out.

  “Of course,” I said absently. After all, who cared what I said? I wasn’t in charge of their lives.

  But I watched the glow behind us anxiously as we flew. It wasn’t getting bigger ... was it?

  Chapter Four

  Saboraak flew for as long as she could – about three hours by my guess. I watched that forest fire swell through the entire night. With every passing moment, I felt my own anxiety rising, bubbling up like boiling tar and occasionally bursting in a quick-breathing fear before I brought it under control. I kept seeing visions of Saboraak tiring and of setting down only to be unable to rise again and then of the flames coming and swallowing us up.

  I do have to set down. I am too tired to go on. But those flames are far away and panicking about them won’t make things any easier for you.

  I scowled. I wasn’t panicking.

  What would you call those little breathing attacks?

  Realism.

  Get a grip. Zin is asleep. Zyla is holding her in the saddle. They need rest and so do I.

  I really wasn’t panicking.

  The moment Saboraak’s feet hit the ground, I loosened my straps and leapt off her back. The ground was rocky and uneven, and I nearly twisted an ankle.

  Remember when I told you to look before you leap?

  I rolled my eyes.

  But it’s good that you have lots of energy. You have an important job.

  I sure did. I needed something to eat and then a nice long sleep.

  No. I need to sleep so I can fly us again in a few hours. I’m going into a deep recovery sleep. It will heal my wounds and rest me enough to be able to carry four people again. That means it’s up to you to keep watch for enemies and to wake me if there’s trouble.

  What would she do if there was trouble?

  Bataar slowly
dismounted as we were communicating, dragging the saddlebags down after him.

  Flame it, obviously.

  You didn’t flame the Magikas back there!

  I didn’t want to start a forest fire.

  Well, nice work. There’s one anyway.

  I was busy trying to fly with four people on my back!

  You could have bought us some time!

  “I’m not building a fire this time. I’m just going to curl up in a blanket and go to sleep,” Bataar said sleepily. “Don’t wake me unless we’re under attack.”

  “Can I get a hand here?” Zyla asked and I rushed to help her. She could twist an ankle if she got down too quickly. She needed to be careful. “Zin fell asleep. Here. Help me lift her down.”

  “There are only two blankets here,” Bataar said from where he was squatting over the saddlebags.

  “Well, excuse me for not anticipating the need to provide for you,” I said irritably.

  “Zin and I will share one,” Zyla said as I helped her carry her sister to a flat area near where Bataar had arranged the saddlebags.

  We laid her down and Zyla took the offered blanket, covering her sister and then snuggling in under the blanket with her. The ground was damp. No one was going to be very comfortable. I noticed Saboraak move a little closer to the girls, bringing the heat she gave off a little closer.

  “I get the other blanket,” Bataar said.

  My eyes narrowed. Maybe he should keep the blanket. We didn’t need to fly with four people. We could fly with three and go a lot farther. He could use the blanket to keep warm while he hiked through the mountains.

  Tor?

  I was surprised by how vulnerable my big dragon sounded. I spun to look at her. Was she okay?

  I have something to admit.

  Was that all? Girls! They were so dramatic.

  I don’t like killing people. That’s why I didn’t flame the Magikas back there. I ... I don’t like it.

  I frowned, but inside I felt a burst of affection for her. She was really too soft-hearted to be a dragon. Go to sleep, Saboraak.

  Goodnight.

  There were already snores from where Bataar was huddled under his blanket. Of course. He stole my blanket and now he was sleeping like a baby. The other blanket was still and motionless, too. I saw the tip of Zyla’s nose peeping out of the blanket. I sighed. and the nose twitched. I’d better stop sighing. I didn’t want to keep her awake.

  But now that everyone was quiet and motionless, exhaustion began to creep over me. I yawned, letting my eyes drift over the hillside we were camped on. The rocks were so large where they peeked out of the hillside – as large as dragons – that it would be nearly impossible to see if anyone was coming. I’d have to keep a close watch.

  I fished some bread out of the saddlebags and began to eat. Only to keep myself awake, of course. My stomach rumbled the moment I smelled the bread and it took everything I had just to eat slowly and prolong the moments. Minutes dragged like hours. The cold damp had crept into my bones, making them feel brittle and sore.

  I alternated between sitting and standing, stomping my feet to get them warm and looking often at the pendant Ephretti gave me. It seemed to catch the moonlight in a strange way, reflecting back on me. I even pulled out the small book Hubric had given me and flipped through it. I couldn’t make out the words by the light of the moon, but there seemed to be drawings, too. Sketches and maps. I would have to look at them better later. I tucked the book in an inner pocket of my trousers. I didn’t want to lose it any more than the pendant. I didn’t own much, so what I owned was precious.

  The cold bit at me, leaving my breath in wispy clouds and clinging to any exposed skin so that I huddled deeper and deeper into the cloak.

  It wasn’t like I hadn’t slept in the cold before, though now I couldn’t sleep at all. That figured. Tor has to come up with the plans and do all the work, but then he doesn’t get to sleep. Oh no, Tor gets to stand out in the flaming cold and freeze.

  I circled the camp, letting those thoughts stew as I looked at the scraggly bushes surrounding us. The trees had petered out leaving hard, leafless bushes and scattered tufts of grass. This place was mostly made of loose stone and dirt. What a miserable land. No wonder it wasn’t part of the Dominion. We had proper dirt for growing things back home, and proper trees that could make a fire. I couldn’t even see enough trees to find firewood here.

  I kept watching for the forest fire, but it was still only a far-away glow on the horizon. It had better stay like that.

  My circles grew larger and larger. Moving helped. It kept me warm and awake, though my mind wandered a bit from tiredness.

  It didn’t really matter, did it? As long as I kept the others in sight – or at least sort of in sight. They disappeared when I went around the larger rocks and then reappeared again when I made my way around the obstacles. That was what you did as a guard, right? You guarded things. And with these larger and larger circles, no one could sneak in and surprise us.

  My circling was closer to the camp when I was above it on the hillside. The slope was too steep there to climb far without resorting to hands and knees – which I was not going to do – but when my circle reached the point below the camp, I found it widening and widening.

  The rock formations and bushes were interesting, and I might even find a creek if I looked hard enough. It beat sitting around the camp listening to everyone else snoring or mumbling in their sleep – Zin did that, though her words were too muddled to be understood.

  It was on a particularly wide arc below the camp, that I stumbled across a narrow opening between two dragon-large rocks. The roots and deadfall above them were so tangled that I hadn’t been able to look down behind the rocks from above, but this crevice between the two rocks was almost like a door.

  I shouldn’t go in the crevice. Even with my brain this tired, I knew that. I shouldn’t even be this far away from camp. I was supposed to be guarding the others, and I was getting too far away from them.

  And yet ... there was something about that little hole in the rocks that longed to be investigated. Maybe, if I just lit a torch and held it in the crevice, it would be enough to satisfy my curiosity.

  I grabbed a likely looking bush, cursing when ripping it out of the ground tore my skin. Who would have known that the trunk of it was lined with talon-like thorns?

  It was dry as the inside of my mouth and twice as dusty. Maybe there would be a well or a spring in those rocks. I’d heard of water coming out of rocks in dry places.

  It was long minutes before I managed to really light the shrub. I had two others ready in my free hand. When this one burned down, I could light the next and then the next. I didn’t admit that I was planning to enter the rock crevice until I was jamming my body through and wishing I’d eaten less bread.

  Chapter Five

  I didn’t need to light those torches.

  That was the first thing I thought when I squeezed my way through the crevice and into the space beyond. But anyone could have been forgiven for not expecting this.

  Someone, a long time ago, had been very clever.

  They had laid out a dais and then put a door? Arch? A something like a door at the top of it. And then, cleverly, they had laid mirrors out around the dais and they reflected the moonlight back and forth, amplifying it so that this little, hidden space was almost as bright as day.

  How did they get all this past that narrow crevice in the rock? And what kind of thing is so important that you would go to all this trouble to hide it after you built it?

  I yelped. Pain shot up my hand and I dropped the branch. I’d forgotten about the licking flames in my wonder at the cavern.

  How had this place come to be covered by deadfall? I squinted up at the roof. Was that a wide mesh net that covered the ceiling? It was hard to make out with all the light below, but I thought that perhaps whoever had put this dais here had covered it with that net.

  Those super clever people had a se
cret. And I just found it.

  Excitement filled me. After all, people only hid valuable things, right? They didn’t hide things they thought were worthless. This was going to turn out to be amazing! I just needed to follow their lead and find whatever treasure they had here.

  I took a step forward, cursing when I kicked a rock.

  “Skies and Stars!”

  It was a rock, alright, but more of a marker stone than a random rock. Something was written on it, but the writing was filled with moss and worn by time. Either that, or it never meant anything at all, and I was just imagining it as writing. No one hid treasure in rocks anyway.

  I shrugged and hurried to the stairs leading up the dais.

  No one had been here in a long time - or at least, that was the impression I was getting from the dust and woody debris that lined the stairs to the dais. Had people forgotten about this place? Maybe its creators had hidden it too well.

  Whoever had built it must love stairs. I was twenty stairs up and my legs were starting to ache before I reached the top of the dais. The crumbling rock of the floor was arranged in a mosaic pattern so that the floor looked like a rising sun. In the center of the sun, the strange empty doorway stood. It was large enough for a dragon to walk through – if a dragon ever wanted to walk through a door to nowhere.

  It was difficult to make out fine detail, despite the light from the mirrors, so I stepped in close, looking at the frame. It was shaped like an arch and the stones that formed the doorway fit together so tightly and were cut so precisely that it was hard to make out where one stone ended, and another began. On each stone, symbols were carved. I squinted, trying to make them out. One looked like a stylized sword, another like a tongue of fire, a third like a blowing wind.

  I circled the doorway, looking at it from all angles. It seemed normal enough. I could see through it to the other side, no matter what side I stood on. Why build a doorway to nowhere?