Dragons- Worlds Afire

by R. A. Salvatore

  The dragon’s eyes swiveled left then right as he scanned the sloping field below. Cayce tried to shrink even closer to the large rock she had leaned up against. She needn’t have worried; the dragon quickly oriented on Rus as the stout man scaled the ridge.

  The dragon’s neck shot arrow straight up into the sky, and he spread his wings wide, scattering the top half of the rubble mound. Cayce had seen parts of the beast up close, but now he rose whole and complete as he had been when she first saw him… and this time she was well within his grasp.

  As was Master Rus. The dragon swam into the air, his flexible body tracing a fluid pattern up and over the master poisoner. He hovered there, gathering his coils into a series of overlapping loops as his wings kicked up a wind that battered Rus to his knees.

  Cayce saw her master reach into his own mouth and rip something free. Eyes wide, voice clear, Rus raised his grisly treasure in a clenched fist. Through foam— and blood-flecked lips, Rus shouted words to an incantation Cayce could not understand.

  The winds buffeting Rus suddenly changed direction. The master poisoner opened his fist. He smiled when he saw what had become of his tooth: Above his open hand floated a shard of black glass. The pointed sliver’s edges gave off an eerie purple glow that cast a garish light on Rus’s face.

  Rus lowered his hand. The shard remained where it was. He pointed up to the dragon, and the crystal oriented on the hovering beast.

  Mild interest kept those great swirling eyes fixed on Rus’s ritual, the dragon’s expression curious but unconcerned.

  Cayce shuddered as she stared. The beast’s eyes were hypnotic, fascinating—perhaps this was how he manipulated minds? She tried to tear her gaze away but could not. She could see the dragon’s thoughts and emotions taking shape in his eyes, like a chorus assembling before they collectively sang their first note. In those whirling orbs Cayce saw that though cold interest ruled them now, boredom and cruelty were clearly asserting themselves.

  Master Rus gestured emphatically. The black crystal shot toward the dragon like an arrow from a bow.

  The great beast could have dodged. He had enough muscular control to move the center of his long body one way while moving his head and tail in another, and he could have slid under the attack. If his tail was as fast as his striking jaws, the dragon might have even been able to shatter the crystal or swat it aside without touching any sharp points or edges.

  The dragon made no effort to avoid Rus’s black shard, however. The toxic dart punched straight through his outermost scales, extinguishing the blue sparks that danced there. It disappeared under the dragon’s armor and into the meaty muscles surrounding his rib cage.

  Yellow-white light crackled across the dragon’s face, then cascaded down his body like melting snow. A wave of glittering distortion and gemstone facets seemed to envelop the great beast.

  In the midst of this patch of eldritch fog, Cayce saw the dragon clearly. He was not covered in exquisite fused glass or ceramic but in rough black metal still smoking from the forge. He did not have small jags of azure lightning dancing between his scales, but flexible ingots of pale, muted yellow dotted the length of his spine like glowing vertebrae. Smoke and sparks vented from his shoulder joints and from where his wings joined his back. He was not the graceful, awe-inspiring predator that attacked the bridge; he was a smoking, soot-encrusted nightmare that dropped flakes of rusty black with each clang of his jagged metallic teeth.

  The horror stood rampant and roaring in his glittering cloud of amber light and crystalline sparks, his neck stretched high and his wings spread wide. The dragon was undiminished, proud and utterly defiant in the face of whatever effect Rus’s toxic crystal was supposed to produce.

  Earlier, Cayce thought she had seen the dragon in all his fury, that she had seen his true face. Only now did she understand his true might, only now did she know what the stunning mystery the great beast’s outward appearance was designed to conceal.

  Then the monster hitched and shuddered, sending a wave of muscular force rolling along his body from top to bottom. He blinked. The arm closest to the wound left by Rus’s attack stiffened and shot out straight, but the dragon calmly regained control of his limb. As he brought the forelimb back to his side, the beast clenched his fist. The glittering nimbus around the dragon faded, and he appeared as he had before: an awesome, beautiful beast clad in polished blue-white scales.

  The dragon lowered his arm and flexed his neck muscles so that the scales around his face stood on end. He snorted contemptuously then coughed a tiny bulge through his long throat. Barely opening his jaws, the brute spat a melon-sized sphere of crackling energy that flew straight into the center of Rus’s broad torso.

  Her master’s scream barely sounded over the explosion. Cayce turned her head away from the blinding flash and pressed herself flat against the rugged ground behind her rocky shelter. When the noise and the dust settled, Cayce opened her eyes and looked.

  The dragon was overhead, circling the small smoking crater that marked the last stand of Potionmaster Donner Rus. He hissed disparagingly and spread his wings. The wind from each beat sent a fresh cloud of grit against Cayce’s face, but it also carried the monster farther away, off into the cloud-thick morning sky.

  Cayce slumped back against the ground and exhaled. Her breath was returning. Her broken fingers throbbed, and her knee was swelling painfully, but she had made it. She was alive.

  A shadow passed over her eyes, and Cayce opened them. She saw Vaan’s melancholy face and a small, blue-tinged hand offering to help her up.

  “Come with me,” the pixie said.

  Cayce took his hand. “What for?”

  “You must tell the others what I cannot.”

  Cayce got to her feet then cast Vaan’s hand aside. “I’m not staying on this dungheap any longer than I have to. I’m leaving.”

  “You cannot just leave. You must tell them what you have seen.” He locked eyes with her, almost pleading. “I saved your life.”

  Cayce scouted the rubble between her and the path to the ridge. “I’ll write you a note for them,” she said. “Look, I’m grateful you got me out of there in one piece. But I’m really scared, and I don’t want to be here. So I’m going.”

  Vaan’s wings buzzed, and he stood directly in front of Cayce. He crossed his arms and said, “You can’t just go. You must come with me.”

  It was somewhat comical, the miniature man trying to physically intimidate her, but Cayce remembered the power in those tiny arms and wings. She considered testing Rus’s ring on the pixie, but the fact that it was her ex-master’s made it suspect and unreliable.

  Instead, Cayce smoothed an imaginary strand of her ghostly white hair under her headdress. Gingerly holding her broken fingers at her side, Cayce ran her good hand along the edge of her headdress, probing the inner seam of the long wrap where she concealed her needles. Each of the three short spikes was tipped with one of Master Rus’s more powerful sleeping agents, and Cayce expertly slid one of the needles between her index and middle finger.

  Careful to keep her fingers pressed together around the thin metal spike, Cayce raised her palms to Vaan in an apparent effort to calm him down. As she’d hoped, his eyes were drawn to the broken fingers on her free hand and not to the ones pressed tight around the needle.

  “There’s no need to get agitated,” she said. “I was panicking and forgot how important this is to you. Of course I’ll come with you. I’ll tell them everything I know.”

  Vaan relaxed. The bluish tint of his skin seemed to shimmer, and his ice-white eyes glittered. “Thank you, Tania Cayce.” Vaan offered her both hands and said, “With your permission I will carry you down to the others.”

  Cayce nodded. “The quicker, the better.” She stepped forward and, as Vaan took flight to circle around her for the best possible grip, Cayce curled her fingers into a fist and lightly punched the needle’s sharp tip into the pixies neck. Cayce smoothly withdrew the thin spike from Vaan’s flesh
and hopped back to watch him fall.

  Small, powerful fingers dug into her shoulder, and an iron hand clamped onto her fist. Vaan was still standing in front of Cayce, but he was also behind her somehow, forcing her fingers open so the needle dropped to the rocky ground. He took hold of her shoulder and spun her around, latching on to her headdress as he sprang into the air. The long, turbanlike garment unraveled as Vaan shot upward, giving Cayce’s spin an extra unwanted boost of torque.

  The headdress ripped free just as Cayce’s legs twisted beneath her. Awkwardly, she fell, and her hair splayed out crazily across her face. Cayce was blinded and choked by an inescapable cascade of white. Worse, her scalp seared and stung in a hundred different places that until recently held the healthy and firmly rooted strands of hair now dangling from the headdress in Vaan’s tiny fist.

  The pixie’s wings buzzed and he was behind Cayce once more, one strong arm around her throat and the other clenched around her waist. He held her motionless until her equilibrium returned and her view was unimpeded.

  Before her the Vaan she had stuck, the false Vaan created by pixie glamour, faded from sight.

  “Don’t try anything else,” the true pixie muttered from behind her. “And don’t struggle like you did in the cave or I’ll drop you. I swear I will. You can still talk if both your legs are broken.”

  “Wait,” she started, but a powerful buzz rose from Vaan’s wings. Cayce’s stomach dropped as he carried her over the side of the ridge. The ground quickly fell away, and Cayce found herself flying too high and too fast to do anything but cradle her broken fingers, clench her teeth, and endure the ride.

  At least she was moving away from the dragon’s lair. Once she told the others what she had seen, perhaps they would let her go.

  They returned to find Kula and the soldiers waiting. Vaan explained what he had seen then turned away, unable even to tell Cayce to tell the others the dragon’s great secret. It really was a very good geas, she thought.

  Though he couldn’t actually compel Cayce to talk, Vaan’s angry glare effectively conveyed his intentions. He stayed close behind or above her, always within easy reach if she tried to run.

  Cayce considered her situation. Lying was an option, but she didn’t see how that would help her any more than the truth. Also, Vaan had said something earlier about Kula’s ability to distinguish fact from falsehood. Cayce wasn’t eager to test Kula’s magic without knowing more… like exactly what an anchorite was and what one could do.

  So, under the forest woman’s broad shadow and Captain Hask’s empty stare, Cayce told them exactly what she had seen.

  “He’s a machine,” she said. “The dragon we’ve been hunting is a huge machine of some kind. He spits out sparks and reeks of burning oil. He’s a machine.”

  No one responded at first. The soldiers all stared blankly at Hask. Hask himself tilted his head, lost in thought.

  Kula stood angrily with her fists on her hips. “That doesn’t make any sense,” she said.

  “He’s a machine,” Cayce repeated. “Some sort of robot. A desiccated, rusting robot.” She shrugged uncomfortably. “That or a zombie. He shook off two potentially fatal injuries and came back for more as if nothing had happened.”

  “This is too much.” Kula glared, fuming, though Cayce didn’t think the anchorite was angry at her. “Is he a robot or a zombie?”

  “How should I know?” Cayce held the angry woman’s eyes. “He’s a zombie-robot. No! He’s a robot-zombie!” Cayce shrugged sarcastically. “What do you want from me? I can only tell you what I saw. I can’t tell you what it means.”

  “I’ll tell you what I saw,” one of the soldiers said. “I saw a real, flesh-and-blood dragon attacking our fortress. And those farmers.”

  “That’s pixie glamour,” Cayce said. “Vaan and his people must be responsible for it. That’s what they’re enslaved for—to make this thing look like a live dragon.” Cayce held the soldier’s uncertain gaze then turned to face Hask. “I also saw glimpses of it when he chased me up the tunnel. And outside, when he killed my master. He doesn’t look like he’s in good repair. I think he might be breaking down.”

  Kula muttered to herself. Then she said aloud. “That would explain why his behavior suddenly became aggressive and unpredictable. A malfunctioning construct… but if he’s actually a machine, who built him and why? Why does a machine want enslaved pixies to make him look like a real dragon?”

  “He’s a weapon,” one soldier said. “Like the ones the old soldiers describe. A living siege engine like the ones that attacked during the Machine Invasion. The Phyrexians used all sorts of tricks back then, including camouflage and infiltration.”

  Captain Hask’s stern voice cut the other soldiers off just as their voices were rising to contribute.

  “Whoever built him and whatever for does not matter to this mission at all,” Hask said. “Nothing changes because he’s a machine. He still attacked us. He’s still raiding your forest, Ma’am. And we still have to destroy him. The fact that we know he’s mechanical gives us an advantage—we know what he is, so we know exactly how to kill him.”

  Kula nodded as she continued to stroke her broad chin. “Something still bothers me. It’s as if… yes. Captain,” she said, animated. “You and your men have experience in this area, don’t you? You’ve been in combat against machines before.”

  “Yes, Ma’am,” Hask said, his voice hollow. “Two years ago we held off an entire battalion of refurbished Yotians for a month. Man to man, artifact warriors are unstoppable, but we found ways to kill them in large numbers.” He nodded toward Boom the golem, and several of the soldiers chuckled.

  Kula nodded. “As an anchorite I abhor all forms of machinery, especially those that mimic natural life. I know ten ways to render a machine useless just by focusing the forests power against it.” Kula turned to Cayce.

  “Then there’s your master,” she said.

  “Former. Master Rus is deceased.”

  “Your former master, then. Could he have successfully used that abominable stuff you bore for him? Used it against a machine dragon?”

  Cayce hesitated, remembering Rus’s final failed effort to save himself. “Probably. He tried something extraordinary when the dragon came after him, but it didn’t work. Also, I think I hit the dragon with a caustic cloud of something, but that didn’t really do any harm either.”

  “Why not?”

  “I can’t be sure. My guess is Rus didn’t know what he was up against, so he wasn’t using the right substances or incantations. Most poisons can only kill something that’s actually alive to start with, but there are ways to stop a machine creature—as long as you know that’s what you’re dealing with. You can foul fuel lines, clog gears, or short circuit power supplies.” Cayce shrugged again. “The more lifelike something is, the quicker you should be able to find the substance that’ll kill it. Just focus on the life function the machinery is mimicking, and stop the machinery the same way you would stop the living organ.”

  “Charming.” Kula sneered. She looked to Vaan, hovering just over Cayce’s shoulder. “I should congratulate you again, my friend. You got around your geas and convinced me to help you, but you also managed to trick me into assembling a squad of artifact-destruction specialists.”

  Vaan could only smile and shrug.

  “So,” Kula continued. “I say Hask is correct: Nothing has changed, except in our favor. We will confront the beast according to our original plan, but we will be all the more ready for him now that we know his true form.”

  Hask nodded. “Agreed.”

  Vaan shoved Cayce forward.

  “Hey,” she snapped. Her knee was still dicey and her fingers throbbed. Loosed, her long hair was becoming a handicap. She cleared a few locks away from her face, cursing Vaan again for taking her headdress. She paused. The entire group was staring at her expectantly.

  Kula raised one heavy eyebrow at Vaan. The pixie shrugged then turned away.

 
“And this one,” Kula said, “will lead us in.”

  Cayce spun to face the anchorite. “What? Why me? You two are supposed to be the guides.”

  Kula bent at the waist, thrusting her massive round face into Cayce’s “My guidance is for us to keep you in front of us, little poisoner. You and your master haven’t proven to be the most trustworthy members of our expedition. And you have been inside the dragon’s tunnel. Vaan can’t show us where the dragon came from when the beast pursued you two. You can.”

  Cayce swallowed her next reply. Even if she could get by Kula physically and verbally, she would never escape. The entire party had her surrounded, and none of them looked the slightest bit interested in letting her walk away.

  “Besides,” Kula said, “Now that he’s out and a-hunt, there’s absolutely no danger inside his lair. We will be waiting for him when he returns. I plan to have a proper and richly deserved ‘welcome home’ prepared.”

  The soldiers laughed. One of them tapped Boom with the handle of his sword and sent a dull, stony thud across the clearing.

  Cayce sighed. There was no opportunity here, only cold, hard, infuriating consequences.

  “I’ll take you,” Cayce said. “If we survive, I hope in return you won’t hold me accountable for Master Rus’s ill-considered actions.”

  Kula smiled. “If we survive, little girl, I’ll personally carry you down the mountain on my shoulders at the head of the victory parade.”

  Captain Hask grunted. “We will survive—all of us. The beast will not.” He reached around and touched the linen-wrapped sword on his back. “I swear it.”

  Unnerved anew by the officer’s strangely intimate reverence for his weapon, Cayce turned away. She was immediately confronted by the sizeable figure of Kula. The anchorite was breaking off a segment of her live-wood hair band with one hand as she reached out for Cayce with the other. The poisoner’s apprentice yelped as Kula’s massive palm closed over her shoulder.