Dragon's Cage

by Daniel Potter

  "Where is Sin?" Yaz'noth peered at the curious onlookers.

  "Here Lord!" Sin stood up not far from Ishe's cage, eyes shining.

  "All this celebration has given me an idea. Fetch me all your favorite books." Yaz'Noth boomed.

  "Yes sir!" The girl took off at a run.

  "Someone go help her carry them and get a team of porters to bring up my magnifiers. The rest of you, I want this entire warehouse cleared in a day. Party time is over. Today you are beginning to work toward your immortality." Yaz'noth laid down as the humans scurried to obey and gave Ishe a tired smile. Eyes slightly unfocused, Ishe recognized it as the sign that his attention had turned inward, working on something within his forge.

  Ishe found herself more ignored than she had in a week. The Dragon Swore worked with focus of a colony of insects. Wheel barrels schlepped out the dross and piled it into the back of the cavern. The racks of weapons were dragged out of the magazine and put on display. Tannis's desk was moved outside. A line of excited dragon sworn formed in front of it, they had the grimy look of the miners. The din of the warehouse made it impossible to hear them, despite only being thirty feet away. Tanis presented each with a contract, a smiling young man handed each a plain metal shield and a young guardswoman handed them a sword. In the cleared area these recruits we formed into to somewhat uneven lines.

  A shiver ran down Ishe's spine as guards began to convert Yaz'noth's labor force into an army. Ridiculous, she told herself. An army of hundreds verses the thousands of the city watch alone. Not to mention the marines. Yet the mountain of black scales radiated a confidence she couldn't bring herself to dismiss. Ishe slumped against the bars of her cage and stared balefully at the lock on the door. At this moment, within the buzz of frenzied activity she could probably walk out of here totally unnoticed if only she could undo that lock.

  Something about the metal bars around the lock caught the light oddly. As if- Ishe shuffled around the cage for a moment- Yes! The bars around the lock were bent ever so slightly. As if they'd been kicked by something immensely strong. Directly across the bars bowed out ever so slightly, Ishe touched the bridge of her nose, remembering. Inching even close to the lock she swallowed, the lock had been housed in a rectangle of metal. Its mechanisms covered with a plate that shined like steel. The entire cage had no bolts or screws, everything had been welded together. The lock's casing sported fine, almost invisible seams where the plate met the structure. And there, along the seam farthest from latch was a crack.

  Chapter 23

  "Don't bite me girl." A new voice. A sense of movement.

  "Set her there." "Crystals?" "Oh dearie me. Will you look at that scar. Who in the world did that to you girl?"

  "She's burning up. You could cook meat on her! Draw a bath."

  A light in that darkness.

  Slowly that light resolved into a single glow crystal hanging from a wet stone

  Someone coughed. Yaki turned her head to see a cot next to her, occupied by a big someone completely covered by pile of Blankets. Beyond him a woman with a short bob of black hair sat at a desk chocked full of glass wear. A beaker of water boiled over a heat crystal, its vapor flowing up into a maze of spiral glassware. She had her back to Yaki and was bent over journal.

  The room itself appeared to be a cellar of sorts, all stone walls with gray bricks.

  She moved and felt the soft sound of water lap at her ears. Looking down she found her body shimmering with rippling water. She lay in a tub of water, ropes looped under her arm pits to prevent her from slipping beneath the surface of it. Rough chunks of ice float idly on the surface, like bath toys forgotten by a child. For a brief blissful moment as floated free of pain. Her heart sounded with an intermittent Kaaaa-Cluuummth as if it were to drowsy to bother beating.

  Then like cage beast that had poked with a sharp stick her stomach screeched with need. Yaki entire body spasmed and her head fell back on the wall behind the wooden tub with a hollow sound. "Food?" She moaned, "Please."

  The woman carefully flipped her hood up over her head and adjusted something within it before turning around on her stool. "Hungry, are we? That is a good sign dearie." She rose and shuffled toward Yaki bed.

  Internally a little priest yelled Unclean! Unclean! Unclean! As the woman settled next to her. Within her hood she wore a simple mask from the theater, a smiling woman, although it sat unevenly on the face below it. The woman's hazel eyes were clear through the mask.

  "Do you have a med crystal?" Yaki reached up to tug at the ropes that held her in the tub. "I can pay. More than what's in my purse."

  The woman reached out and with a firm hand returned Yaki's questing had to her side. "No more medical crystals for you young lady. Drugs or nothing until your body decides what to do with that thing in your chest. Any more use of a medical crystal and your body might forget how to heal on its own."

  "That shouldn't happen. I've only been using it for two weeks." Yaki said, unable to keep the plaintive whine from her voice.

  "But the one you used to save my nephew was old and cracked I'd reckon. Bought it off a trader who fished it out of a disposal pile." She made a clucking noise with her tongue. "Not bad for a sprained ankle or busted arm but for something like well..." Those aged eyes drift to Yaki's chest where her scar lay naked below the surface of the water.

  Yaki twisted away, desperately trying to pull a lie from the murk of her mind but the only thing she found was hunger and pain. "Please. I need to feed it now. It hurts." She blurted out.

  "What’s it eat?" The woman's voice did not raise.

  "Food, not starch. Meat and vegetables. A lot of it. Enough for three or four." Yaki said.

  The woman kicked the cot containing the sleeping man. "Rufus! Stop faking and get our guest something to eat.

  This elicited a deep surly woof from the man who rolled over to give Yaki a glare with mismatched amber and blue eyes, one human, the other lacking any white to it. His malformed face with enlarged canines jutting from the right side of his mouth had three stripes of dark fur across it, like scar that had grown fuzzy. These lines widened into rivers of fur down the side of his neck, joining with a thick pelt at his shoulder. His arm was not an arm at all but a shaggy front leg of a beast. The way the thin tendrils of fur stretched across his torso gave the impression that it was spreading into his body. He grinned, showing a mouth half full of sharp teeth, "Pretty ain't it? Down here I'm quite the looker." Rolling from the bed he picked up as a black cloak from the stand beside him before Yaki managed to pull her eyes away.

  "Rufus!" The woman scolded, "There is no need to scare her further." She continued in a softer voice intended for Yaki, "He's not contagious, it’s a curse, not a disease."

  The man yawned loudly, "What time is it? Midday?"

  "What? Midday?" Yaki tried to rise again and the woman forced her back down with a single gloved hand.

  "Eat first."

  Yaki struggled but the woman's gentle grip on her should might as well been a steel manacle. "I have to get back to Guro. He'll be worried!"

  "Guro? Is he the one who did this to you?"

  "Uh, no he's..." Yaki bit her tongue to prevent the entire story from flowing out of her. It took a monumental effort to focus it back down into her mind. "A friend." She gasped.

  Rufus came back with a tray of half eaten pastries from the market, cold kakobs and a steaming bowl of broth. The sight of the food set Yaki's stomach audibly roaring.

  The room filled with a sound something half way between a saw cutting timber and a disgruntled elephant. Food! Yaki gripped the side of the tub, arms straining against ropes that bit into her shoulders. Behind her, the sound of cracklining wood filled the room. The dog man froze like a deer in a glow light.

  "Rufus put the tray down." The Doctor snapped.

  Shaking himself Rufus searched for an available surface with a canine whine.

  "On the floor!"

  Rufus put the tray onto the floor as something gave way. Ya
ki exploded from the tub, falling on the food like a starving animal. Food! Her heart and her brain sung with joy! She tore into the food stuffs and guzzle down the broths. The collapse of the pain in her stomach brought tears of sheer relief to her eyes.

  "Get more Rufus." Yaki heard, "Meat this time."

  Something passed near her and she hissed in warning. MINE! It backed off.

  More came, stringy meat on sticks. A pile of raw tubers. Both of them crunched in her jaws but it was the tubers that she devoured entirely.

  Finished, Yaki flopped back onto the stone floor with satisfied groan. Her stomach bulged, a round dome protruding from her thin torso. It filled the room with happy gurgling noises.

  Yaki belched forth a small cloud of black smoke. "Thank you," She laughed. Even to her ears it sounded mad.

  "Mercy me, how long as it been since you've eaten?" The Doctor asked after Yaki became aware of her surroundings again. And aware that she was completely naked in front of two strangers. Two enshadowed, and she the unclean one, covered in broth and crumbs. Rufus handed her a wet ragged and she used it to wipe the sticky remnants of her meal from her chest and mouth.

  "I didn't eat enough at the party." Yaki thought out loud. "Hoped if I ignored it, it would go away." Yaki rubbed her scar with the knuckles of her fist. Heat radiated from it. It ached dully, the sensation was mere splinter compared to between impaled on a hot poker.

  Yaki stood and dizziness drove her right back to her knees. "Did... you drug me?"

  "A bit of this and a bit that." The Doctor said. "Mostly we kept you cool and gave you fluids."

  Rufus extended his human hand and Yaki clung to it for support. He attempted to guide her back to toward the tub, or the cot next to it. She refused to move in that direction. "Look, thank you. Thank Gama and his friends when you see them. Tell him we're definitely even now. I don't have time to rest. I need to go back to my apartment. My... servant is probably worried sick and is frantic."

  "You can thank him yourself in a few moments. From that cot. Unless you want to be naked when he shows up." The mask continued to smile.

  "My dress?" Yaki allowed herself to be guided to the cot.

  "I'll trade it back to you if you tell me what's in your chest. That water nearly boiled when we dumped you in it. Its freezing now. You should be dead twice over." The doctor said. "Why does it tick?"

  Yaki sighed. "A heart. Same as most people. Mine is simply made of metal. More than that I swore an oath not to tell. But I'm on borrowed time to begin with. Long term thinking isn't an option for me."

  The doctor did not hurry as she shuffled over to her desk and opened a drawer. "And who gave you that girl, has Yokoyama's crystal twisters so desperate for something new that they're splitting women open now?" She pulled the red dress from the bottom drawer, Rufus took it from her without a word and laid it on the foot of the cot.

  "It wasn't them. And I can't tell you who." Yaki began to slip into the dress.

  "Why? Why protect them?" She pressed.

  Yaki kept dressing and clamped her mouth shut. Enduring the woman's stares, she fumbled with the strings of her corset. They kept slipping out between her fingers. "Nobody can help me." She small girlish titter. No doubt about it. Death Panther or not. Yaz'noth's mechanical heart was going to kill her. Course without it she'd already be dead. She was one step away from eating rotting corpses. Some those pastries she had just eaten were probably halfway to rotten. Maybe she was a ghost and Yaz'noth contraption allowed her to animate her body?

  "Stubborn girl." The doctor concluded with an aggravated huff. "I don't care if you're planning to assassinate the Steward or a spy for Lyndon. I'm enshadowed. Quartered down here during the day for having nasty looking skin condition. And like it or not, you tangled up my nephew in whatever time you've managed to borrow."

  "We're even now." Yaki said fiercely. "He just saved my life. I saved his."

  The doctor took off her mask, her face was covered with small cylinders of loose skin, like thick fleshy hairs. "Did you save his life as a favor? Did you expect repayment?"

  "No!" Yaki said with more force than intended. "He saw the Death Panther and I followed him. And I..." Yaki's paused grasping for a motivation, Mother tsking in the back of her head. "Because I was curious, I saved him because I could. Because everything else is hard and painful. Because my sister is in danger and to save her I'm going to have to hurt more people than I have already! And if Gama and his friends are nearby then they'll just be another stepping stone. And I don't want them to be!"

  Yaki blinked away blurred vision and swore as she felt the tears run down her cheeks. Whipping around, Yaki stared at the ceiling and tried to prevent herself from breaking down into a sobbing mess... again. Mother would beat her body black and blue if she could see how weak her daughter and Ishe, Ishe. Yaki imagined her sister hunched and miserable in that cage the Dragon had vomited up. The cage she was still in because Yaki had done nothing but flounder since she had touched down in the city.

  A hand squeezed her shoulder, "It’s not using someone if they know what they're signing up for."

  Chapter 24

  Yaki still felt miserable as she walked up into the midday sunshine. The full scale sobbing collapse had been warded off but it was still there in her head, like an evil spirit held at bay by a thinnest circle of salt. All it would take was a stiff breeze and she in the middle of an emotional maelstrom again. Past experience held that she needed go hide in a dark place and bawl for an hour.

  But instead she stood under a too bright sun wearing a scandalously red dress covered by a tradewoman's robe in the middle of the market district. To top that off, Gama's oversized eyes watched her anxiously. He had been perched on crate nearby when Yaki pulled herself out of the cellar that his Aunt had converted into an enshadowed infirmary. A thick book lay open in his lap.

  "Badger!" He shut his book with an audible clap. "You're looking much better."

  "Shouldn't you be in class?" Yaki asked, filling the air with something other than anything else than what was on her mind.

  "I am on a medical leave of absence." He smirked, unconsciously fingering the spot where Chimon's blade. "Been rethinking my choices in light of certain events." He scrambled down into the alleyway to walk besides Yaki. Yaki herself was walking but not in any particular direction but away from the illegal infirmary seemed like a prudent first move.

  "Determined Badger isn't my name." Yaki said, deciding that delaying this with small talk.

  "I figured that." He said.

  Yaki watched the ground pass beneath her toes. Lies bubbled in her head. "If you want more truth than that-"

  "You're Yaki of Madria." Gama blurted out. "I went back to that garden, I saw a shrine. Chimon's entire family have been scribes for generations. They pulled the records on the families that were responsible for it. It listed who was the last shrine maiden. You grew up in the house across the street. There are not too many drawings of you in the archive but I'm guessing you're the shorter twin."

  That emotional line wobbled. "Yesss." Yaki hissed out. Going to grandmother willow, another mistake but the Kami had prevented Yaki's discovery at the port.

  "You're here on a mission from your mother?" Gama asked.

  "No, She's dead." Yaki said unable to summon the energy to lie. "Heh, if mother was haunting me she'd probably tell me to kill you now."

  Gama swallowed.

  "Mother was killed by a dragon she attempted to double cross. He's holding my sister hostage as an incentive to steal back ten tons of Quick Silver. If I don't he'll do to her what he did to me. But not being a deathwalker, she probably won't survive the process." Merciful gods I wish I hadn't right now.

  They stopped walking at the point the alleyway joined with the main street, which ever it was. Gama stared at her, eyes focused somewhere twenty feet through her.

  Yaki blew out a strand of hair that had escaped her braid then tucked it behind her ear. "That’s the truth of it if that’s
what you wanted. I'd appreciated it if you kept it to yourself. After it all blows up in my face, maybe you can visit me in the prison spire before this," Yaki tapped her chest, "burns a hole through my spine."

  Gama blinked and swallowed, "So Ryouta and his cronies have what you need?"

  Yaki gave a half laugh. "The Quicksilver is in one of two places." She pointed up towards the mountain, where the royal palace towered over the city, "Or." Swiveling she pointed toward the dome of the foundry. "They all know me at the palace. Sneaking in would be impossible. I have to go home, pretty myself back up and figure out where the Nishamura's boys hang out." Yaki let out a breath.

  Gama looked down at his feet for a moment. Probably seeing whatever hope, he had for romance down in that dirt. Yaki took a step into the street.

  "I know where they are."

  Yaki stopped.

  Gama had this little smirk, his eyes still weren't focused but they had a vicious little glint to them. "I could tell you a lot about them. Where they hang out, little scandals they've had. Who they've publicly courted." Finally, his eyes found Yaki again. "Would that be helpful?"

  "Why?" Yaki step forward, fully knowing she needed to stop asking that question and accept his help. Use him. But she had to know. "You've got a good thing. Sounds like you have a family and helping me could endanger them." Family first.

  "They don't need me. I was supposed to die, remember? Mother had me talk to our medicine man and he turned white as a sheet when he saw me. He had known somehow that Raven had been coming for my eyes. Told me I walked under different stars now. Yours I think." He swallowed, then cracked a wide smile. "Besides their a damsel in need of saving right? From a dragon? Who can turn that down?"

  A brief flash of Ishe in a white dress fawning over rescue Gama dressed in ill-fitting samurai armor fluttered across Ishe's mind and shattered her dour thoughts. A girlish titter escaped.

  "What?"

  "If you rescued my sister she'd be so disappointed in herself." Yaki said, laughing.