Obsidian Embers

by Jadyn Chase

  Olivia spread her arms wide and stood very still, out in the open, trying to look as non-threatening as possible. She'd even left her long, straight hair to fall free down her back and shoulders, hoping it would make her look more innocent. "Hello," she called out, to the guards and their flirtatious company. "Hello. Can you help me?"

  10

  The women froze at the sight of her. Their mouths dropped open as they clutched the arms of the men they stood with. "Look," one of the women finally managed to whisper, pointing at Olivia. "Look at her!"

  Finally the two men turned around, and for an instant they froze just like the women did. Then they managed to unsling their rifles and aim them at Olivia. "Who is it?" one of them yelled. "Who are you?"

  She almost smiled at their clumsiness. These people were not soldiers; that was obvious. But a lack of training and discipline could also make them more dangerous than military men who were used to following orders. "My name is Olivia," she said, taking a cautious step forward. "Olivia Montgomery. I'm a survivor, too. And I need help. Can I talk to you?"

  "Are you armed?" said one of the men.

  "No. Search me if you like."

  "We will." Right away the man walked out to her without so much as asking if anyone else was with her, or where she was from. It was just more evidence that they were not trained soldiers and certainly did not have the slightest idea of what hid in the darkness just a few yards from the place where they kept guard.

  The man walked out to her. He was fairly tall and stocky, looking like someone who was probably part Hawaiian and part something else. But she really did not care. Next to Kushanu, any other man seemed like a frail imitation of what a man should be. There was none of the strength and the fire that Kushanu embodied either as a human or as a dragon. None of the unadulterated masculinity.

  But right now, she raised her hands and let this man roughly pat her down. "Okay," he grunted, jerking his head towards the other man. "She's clean. Now, what do you want?"

  She smiled as nicely as she could, and tried to catch the eyes of the women in case they might be more sympathetic. "I'd like to talk to whoever is in charge here. The – people that I'm with would like to make some arrangements with you."

  The men and the women looked both confused and suspicious. More of them were gathering at the makeshift gate, having noticed that something unusual was happening there. "Do you speak for the people you're with?" asked one of the men.

  She glanced over her shoulder, well aware of the gleam of moonlight just off the road in the shadows behind her. "No," Olivia answered. "But he does."

  And she could not help feeling just a little touch of smugness as The Obsidian walked out into the lights and stood in front of the gate, watching the shock and terror on the faces of the people as they tried to decide what to do.

  Most of them turned and ran. Most of the women were yelling so loud that they'd bring the entire town here within seconds. But the two guards managed to hold their ground and one of them raised his rifle.

  "Get back! Get away!" he cried, and Olivia could not help but scream when he fired.

  She dropped to the ground with her ears ringing from the powerful gunshot. And then she covered both sides of her head at the even louder sound of The Obsidian roaring out a blast of fire, sending it straight up into the blackness of the night while the townspeople screamed and ran away as fast as they could.

  Perhaps an hour later, Olivia stood beside Kushanu in the road outside the town. Up on the hillsides where they'd hidden before, the other ten dragons watched and listened while the moonlight glistened off their glassy scales.

  A group of armed men, and a few women, approached Olivia and Kushanu in the road. Kushanu wore only a pair of cutoff fatigue pants that he'd got from one of the human men back at their settlement on the Big Island. Looking him over, Olivia realized that decent clothes were going to be one of the few things they'd need to get from other humans.

  Not that she minded if Kushanu went around naked, as most of the Dragonmen had been doing in their encampment, but it might be better to be dressed whenever they met new groups. Like this one.

  Olivia made herself pay attention to what was happening now and wondered idly how she could feel so giddy here at the end of the world.

  "We heard the stories," said the brown woman. "Some of us even saw that demonstration where dragons appeared around the world. We knew they were real. And dangerous. But – " She looked out into the gleaming darkness. "They're far worse than we thought. Bigger. And that fire – "

  "You're right," said Olivia. "They were intended as weapons. They do fly high. They do breathe fire. They are terrifying. But they are also intelligent. They simply wish to live, as do we all."

  She glanced at Kushanu, who just looked slightly amused. He even took a step back to let her go ahead and do the talking. He saw, too, that these people were not nearly as frightened of her as they were of him and the dragons, and so they might be more willing to bargain if Olivia spoke for the Dragonmen.

  "I don't care what they wish," said the small, round, brown-haired, woman with him. "You better – you keep those monsters away from us."

  "Yes," said the rifleman. "We've got the largest settlement remaining on these islands. If you threaten us, you'll get nothing. There are still more of us than there are of you."

  "We're not here to threaten you," said Olivia. "We – "

  "Good. So tell us about the outside world," insisted the man with the rifle. "We want to know what happened. What really happened."

  11

  "Of course, of course! We'll tell you all we know," said Olivia, trying to sound as friendly and soothing as possible. She took a deep breath. "It was an asteroid. The thing we've been worried about for a long time. The one thing we couldn't prevent. It hit near the North Pole but sent shockwaves around the whole world."

  The rifleman and the brown woman looked at each other. The crowd behind them grew larger, though the rest of the people stayed silent and just listened. "You're trying to say that all this destruction – the loss of the power grid, all of it – you're telling us that was caused by an asteroid?" the rifleman finally said.

  "It was," said Olivia. "The last of our instruments down at the base tracked its final minutes. There was no warning because it came from the direction of the sun. And there was a new moon at the time, so the moon was also in the direction of the sun. The whole planet was caught unaware."

  "So, we weren't the only place to get tsunamis?" asked the rifleman. "These islands are hit with them all the time anyway. But you're saying – "

  "It wasn't just here," Olivia said quietly. "In fact, your city looks less damaged than many that we flew over. Most settlements within ten miles of the ocean were wiped off the map."

  The crowd was silent. Then another man spoke up, from somewhere far in the back. Olivia couldn't see his face. "Some of us think it wasn't an asteroid at all," he said. "Some of us still believe what we believed at the start: that this destruction was all just another weapons test. A test that went wrong."

  All of the people began murmuring among themselves. It was clear, as they fixed Olivia and Kushanu with hostile gazes, that most all of them believed this version of events.

  She raised both her hands to the crowd and again spoke as gently as she could. "This disaster isn't our fault – neither humans nor dragons," she told them. "It was just an asteroid – a random, natural event. It's happened before and will happen again

  .” She shook her head. "Cloning dragons is one thing. Destroying half a planet is another. As much as we'd like to think so, we are not that powerful. And beyond that, our mission was to save lives, not to destroy them – unless someone threatened to destroy the world we lived in."

  "Whether you destroyed the world or not," said the rifleman, "you've brought monsters here with you now. I'm not sure which one is worse, but we've got both. First our world is gone, and then these – creatures – suddenly show up. Wonder what you'd think."r />
  Olivia exhaled a long breath. She was not a patient person by nature and was not going to be able to keep this up forever. But she smiled again, folding her arms across her chest this time, and looked the rifleman in the eye.

  "I'd think," she said, "that the best idea is to find some way to live in peace with these creatures – and find out what advantages there might be to having them around."

  "Advantages? What are you talking about?"

  She shrugged. "Think about it. They are immensely powerful. They can guard you and protect you and give you fire with a breath. They can be your eyes now that the Internet is gone and help you to know what's happening in other places around the world."

  The people frowned and exchanged glances again. "That sounds very nice," said the brown woman. "But there's always a price for everything. Especially now. What do they want in return for all those wonderful things?"

  Olivia nodded. The woman was right. It was going to come up sooner or later. "Well, you see," she began. "They want – "

  "We want women." Kushanu moved forward, stepping past Olivia. "We want human women as mates. For the Dragonmen, when they are in human form. They will come with us to our settlement, down at the southern tip of the big island. They will have the best possible life there."

  For an instant, there was stunned silence. Then the shouting started. "You can't be serious!" yelled another man from the crowd.

  “When all hell freezes over!" a different man chimed in.

  "Maybe what we should do is destroy all of the dragons on sight!"

  "Sure, you're tough, but you're also inhuman monsters and there are a lot more of us than there are of you!"

  "That's right! That's right! You'll never take our women. You'll never – "

  Olivia turned away and hid her face in her arm against the blinding brilliance of ten dragons all roaring out fountains of flame into the night sky. The light and the sound, bright as the sun and as loud as ten jet engines, succeeded in cowering the gathered mob and sending them running back through their little barricade and into their settlement.

  Once the dragons fell silent, and the night was filled with curls of smoke and the lingering scent of scorching fire, Olivia approached the barricade and spoke one last time to the brave people lingering there.

  "We are going now," she called out, "and we will speak to you again at dawn. You have until then to decide whether you want these creatures as enemies or allies. There will be nothing in between."

  By the time the moon had reached its peak, ten dragons lay curled up and sleeping on the hills just off the road . . . the same hills where the people of the city had seen the dragons roar with fire just like the most terrifying of rocket ships or enormous jet planes.

  "They'll be watching," said Olivia, sitting in the shadows at the base of the hills, very near to Kushanu. "The people in the city, I mean. They'll be watching the dragons all night, from those high-rise windows and from the fences they've thrown up around their little settlement here."

  "Of course they will be watching," said Kushanu, lying back and closing his eyes. "I am counting on it. The moon will give them a very fine view of ten dragons changing into Dragonmen. There will be no doubt then that the dragons they've seen truly are shapeshifters."

  "Yes. Those people have to know for sure, or else the rumors will be endless and no one will know what to believe. The women must know, if they are to make the choice to join us as mates for Dragonmen. Or even human men."

  He nodded as she spoke, folding his hands peacefully over his chest. "I will agree that any women joining us must be aware of what we are. They must be certain they are willing to accept us."

  Olivia gazed down at him in the moonlight, watching as it gleamed softly on his dark skin and outlined his perfect form. "Oh, I think you underestimate yourself, Kushanu," she murmured, a smile on her face as she lay down beside him with her arm over his chest. She trailed her fingers across his smooth skin, tracing aimless patterns – at least until Kushanu flipped her over, pinning her arms above her head.

  “Oh yes,” Olivia whispered, peering up at him through her eyelashes. “I can imagine quite a few women who would leap at the chance to spend the end of the world with someone as sexy as you.”

  Kushanu laughed and claimed her lips in a kiss.

  12

  Early the next morning, the first sunlight touched Olivia's face and she sat up in the soft grass of the hillside. Kushanu was gone, it seemed, and she placed her hand in the impression left in the grass where he had lain.

  Was he dragon, or was he human?

  She got to her feet and realized she'd better find out quickly. The people of the city would be back soon, and she had to know what they would see and therefore how to talk to them.

  Quickly she hurried up the hillside. There was one great obsidian dragon off to one side, watching everything closely. But the rest of them – nine strong, handsome, dark-skinned men with very long, straight black hair – sat comfortably in the grass of the soft rolling hilltops, talking and laughing together. It appeared that they'd spent a little time weaving some short grass skirts for themselves so that they would not be entirely naked. Olivia smiled at that.

  The rough clothes did nothing to diminish their beauty in Olivia's eyes, and she could only hope that the people of the town would feel the same.

  Kushanu, of course, wore the cutoffs that he'd brought. That would let him stand out to the other people down in the city . . . but she herself would never have any trouble finding him, no matter how many of his clones stood nearby.

  She walked to him and took his hand, and he pulled her into a gentle embrace. But then he turned her around to face the road, and all of the Dragonmen gathered around as they watched the same crowd they'd talked to last night, walk through their barricade and stand together on the road at the foot of the hillsides.

  The day was warm and fair, the sky blue, and the ocean lovely out in the distance. Were it not for the demolished city behind the crowd of people, with its battered high-rise buildings virtually the only things still standing, it could have been just another lovely dawn in the paradise of the islands.

  Kushanu walked a few steps down the hillside. Olivia remained with the other Dragonmen. "Good morning," Kushanu said to the crowd. "I am very sure you witnessed the shift in form among these men last night."

  The people frowned and shifted a little and muttered to one another. "It's a freak show," said one of the men. "You're monsters."

  "Maybe it's a miracle," said one of the women.

  "Maybe they're demons!" cried another of the women, and the sounds of agreement grew louder.

  Olivia stepped forward. "It is nothing but science. I can assure you of that," she said.

  "Like you can assure us that the world ended because of an asteroid nobody saw coming?"

  She sighed, trying to keep her calm. "Yes. Long ago an asteroid destroyed the dinosaurs, and nearly everything else. We're lucky to be here at all, and if you're as smart as you think you are, you'd better start thinking about how you're going to survive it in the long run – and let us help you."

  "Help us? You expect us to believe that? You aren't here to help us. You're here to – "

  The crowd was silenced by a short blast of fire from the single dragon up on the hilltop. "Thank you," said Kushanu, over his shoulder. "And as for the rest of you, there will be no further discussion. In just a few hours we will return to dragon form and fly back to our settlement to the south. We will take those women who are willing to go with us.

  "In fact," he said, in that smooth and charming voice of his, "we will sit down here on this hillside, as we did last night. Any women who wish to meet us are welcome to do so. And they will still be free to return to your city afterwards, if they wish."

  He waved an arm towards his Dragonmen, and they all sat down some distance apart to wait patiently for the other women to join them.

  And to Olivia's relief, it wasn't long before some of the women di
d step forward, even if they had to shake off the hands of some of the men to do so. Olivia met the women halfway and walked with them to the different men, making the introductions and hoping they would feel at ease.

  Soon each of the Dragonmen had at least two or three women sitting across from him. As she walked among them, Olivia could hear the Dragonmen explaining about the settlement they were creating, emphasizing how safe and well provisioned it would be.

  And the women were responding. They were listening to the facts about the food supply and the small houses that would be built, but most all of them were gazing very closely at these men and seemed enraptured by their soft voices.

  Olivia realized that the Dragonmen were not unlike the most handsome of island men, with their size and strength and dark color and their long, straight, silky black hair. The women were beginning to see, as Olivia and Karen and Julia had seen, that the Dragonmen could take care of them and protect them in this drastically changed and dangerous world.

  But after a couple hours had passed, the visiting women all got up and bid farewell to the Dragonmen and returned to the barricade where the men and the rest of the women waited.

  Olivia could only hope they all realized that this was not a social call. She also hoped the women would think very seriously about the offers made to them today, for the dragons would return very soon – and they would not leave empty-handed the next time.

  Just past noon of that same day, The Obsidian and his ten dragons flew back to their settlement. As they circled overhead, Olivia could see that it was empty except for the human men. None of the other twenty-two dragons had returned yet.