by Paul Cude
31 Hoodwinked
Lumbering breathlessly across the renowned bridge constructed purely out of magic by the naga contingent a short while earlier, an aged, primordial, dark shape, seemingly unable to take flight, straight out of history, hushed every other being in the king's private residence. Those few that didn't recognise him were cowed by the menace and power radiating off him in waves.
Very little frightened the king, after all he'd been there, done it... seen everything. But the sight of the being in his prehistoric form, that had tried to overthrow the kingdom all that time ago, terrified him right to his very core.
Battered, bruised, bleeding and yet to recover from Manson's brief interrogation of her, Janice was in a sorry state, suffering from as much pain as she'd ever known in her entire life. On catching a glimpse of the monster that laboured their way though, all her worries were trumped by something far more nightmarish.
Like the young bar worker right beside him, Hook had taken a beating and then some, but his injuries were far more severe. Left arm hanging limply by his side, clearly broken in more than one place, the pain feeding into his brain from that part of his body was agonising. Legs torn open and bleeding profusely made him look as though he'd been mauled by a pack of dogs. That was nothing compared with his head. Thick, dark red blood oozed from gaping wounds at the back and above both eyes, each of which could barely be seen, so horrendous was the purple and blue swelling. All of this was set off by a nose that was more mashed than broken, and what few teeth remained hung on loosely at unusual angles. A mess, he looked as though he could barely stand, wobbling uncontrollably every now and then. But just like his human comrade, everything was put firmly in perspective with the arrival of the ferocious looking beast that was now nearly upon them.
Earth's breath still tickling his ear, Peter's gaze flickered all over the place, barely able to believe what he was seeing. Just the sight of her broken and battered body caused his heart to swell, a vast array of emotions threatening to consume him. JANICE! OH JANICE! What the hell was she doing here? He'd thought he'd lost her, thought that she'd disappeared out of his life forever. But here she was, battle hardened by the look of things, standing alongside Tank and... HOOK, another human of all things, here in one of the dragon domain's most sacred places. Holding on to the love he felt for the young woman before him, he glanced over at the king, hoping for some kind of reassurance, anything that might make him think they'd be all right. Simply put though, absolute terror was the last thing he'd expected to see etched across the warrior monarch's face. Up until that point, a tiny part of him thought this was all a feint, a double bluff, and that the king was trying to hoodwink Manson and his cohorts. There and then, the hope inside him fizzled out, leaving him feeling helpless, powerless and full of regret. It had all gone so wrong, and now not only were the ones he loved about to pay the price, but the rest of the planet as well. In an emotionally charged delirium, momentarily his mind found itself back on the Astroturf on that cold November night, terrified and frightened, a stone's throw from death's door. Through the pain and the anguish he'd had a chance to finish off his bloodthirsty tormentor. And after short lived joy at thinking he'd done just that, the stark realisation of failure hit him only moments before the ice cold snowflakes pummelled his compromised falsehood of a body. If only he'd done it then. It would have ended. It would have been over.
As the end of the bridge shuddered with every one of Troydenn's laboured steps, most of those held captive averted their gaze, desperate not to catch the attention of evil personified. Only the king watched, forcing himself to out of a mistaken sense of duty, well aware of what was to come.
One of those too afraid to look directly at the monster reaching the end of the bridge, Peter glanced across at his nemesis... Manson, and was surprised to see just the vaguest hint of fear embedded in his face.
'Odd!' he thought. 'Why would he be so afraid?' But there was no time to dwell on that, as the aged matt black beast spoke.
"Ahhhh... how delicious. Do you see how the roles have reversed, old dragon? Now I'm in charge of your fate, and by God you'll pay for encasing us all in that icy fortress. And I don't mean a little. I'll make sure you're tortured to within an inch of your life, and then brought back from the brink. Over and over it'll go. Years will pass as steadily you lose your mind, loathing and regret at losing not just the dragon domain to me, but the entirety of the planet will slowly consume you. And once your mind is lost, I'll parade your broken husk of a body across the earth so those that are left can see who and what was responsible for this sad turn of events. Don't worry though, those here won't be around to study your shame. They will have long since died."
While the nagas' faces remained deadpan, sickening, twisted grins writhed across most of the dark dragons' prehistoric jaw lines, at the thought of what was to come.
Momentarily, George considered taking his own life, denying Troydenn everything he wished for. But that was gone in an instant. Not only was it a coward's way out, something he most certainly wasn't, but it would have been difficult to achieve without the power of the real ring, something Tank now carried in the miniscule pocket of his right shoe.
Thrusting out his right arm, palm facing upwards, Manson stepped up to the king.
"Hand it over, old timer. NOW!"
A look of utter resignation ingrained on his face, George forced tears from both his eyes, determined to give no hint that anything was out of the ordinary. Slipping the ring from his finger with one hand, and wiping the tears from his eyes with the other, he searched for the words that he needed.
"I don't know what's wrong with it, but it hasn't obeyed me for some time. At first its conscious will rebelled against me. After that, it just fell silent. I have no idea what's going on. Good luck with getting it to work."
Snatching the ring greedily from the king, Manson smiled smugly.
"It'll work for me. I assure you."
Tank and the king knew otherwise.
During all this, Janice kept her eyes firmly shut. The reasons for this were threefold. First, she didn't want to see any of it. Having caught one glimpse of the monster crossing the bridge was more than enough to see its evil intent and to know that things had gotten impossibly worse. Secondly, inside her mind, she was fighting against the pain of her injuries, trying desperately to put it to one side. That, however, wasn't really working. And last, but by no means least, she was trying to take a leaf out of Flash's book. And by that, I mean trying to contact what she now considered an extension of her... Fu-ts'ang. Having watched in awe back at the marketplace in Salisbridge as Flash had used just his mind to alter the trajectory of the deadly weapon as it had cut through the air, the young bar worker had wondered if it was at all possible for her to do the same. After all, it had spoken to her, and she did feel the resonance of some sort of connection, almost black and white if you will. Total opposites bonding because of that, the dark soul of Fu-ts'ang, designed expressly to kill, complemented perfectly with the purity of her beliefs. They say opposites attract. In this case, they couldn't have called it better. Through the haze of the pain, she was almost sure Fu-ts'ang was there, hidden somewhere just in the background. Wishing and pleading hadn't worked so far, unless of course he was just ignoring her. Doubling her determination, she delved further into the depths of her mind, searching for that elusive connection.
Shivering involuntarily, Tim found himself riddled with fear, wishing to be anywhere but here. Nightmares and horror movies had nothing on what was going on here and now. It wasn't possible. He'd told himself this dozens of times, but however hard he tried to believe, his surroundings remained, and the dreadfulness playing out in front of him continued. Throughout his suffering, one thought occupied his mind:
'I'm the White Dragon. I'm supposed to save them all. Just what am I expected to do?'
Full of himself as usual, and making a big play of it in front of his very 'captive' audience, Manson ruefully slipped the ring deftly o
nto his finger, ready and waiting to make its consciousness do his bidding. With everyone but Janice watching, the evil, dark dragon prepared to wrap whatever magic was within the ring, up into his overinflated will, forcing it to surrender to his every wish. But as every being there looked on with wonder and curiosity, the seconds ticked by, and as you might well have guessed, nothing happened.
Despite the seriousness of the situation, it was all the king could do not to smirk or laugh. Just watching him probe the inert ring with his mind, was utterly hilarious. Now he just waited for the impatience to show, his temper to rise, and he knew who would bear the brunt of it. It didn't take long.
"YOU! You've done something to it haven't you?" raged Manson at the king, from only a metre or so away.
"I've told you already. It's answerable to no one. I would have restored the bridge with the magic from it if I could have. But it would not obey my will. It refused steadfastly, before going totally silent. I have no control over it. Only the ring itself will choose whether or not to cooperate. It's happened in the past, but never quite on this scale. I don't know what else to say."
Sensing at least a hint of sincerity in the king's words, Manson turned to face his father Troydenn, hoping he would provide a different insight into the workings of the famed magical artefact.
"I sense no deception from him," grunted the matt black prehistoric monster, weaving his jaw around like a tree being blown in the wind. "I do know, however, that when the ring is passed down from king to king, it can often take days or even weeks before it responds to its new owner."
"Why the hell didn't you mention that before?" bellowed Manson, continuing to screw the ring up and down his finger.
From out of nowhere, one of Troydenn's gargantuan wings swept through the air, knocking Manson's feet from under him, causing him to crash to the ground unceremoniously. A sharp intake of breath from nearly every being there echoed off the walls.
"I don't know why you want that stupid bloody thing anyway. I've told you before it's the trident that you want, not the ring."
Much as the sight of both of them scared the living daylights out of Peter, in his mind he egged them both on, recognising the same madness in each, hoping that they would battle each other here and now, making each weaker, with the distinct possibility of death for one of them.
Tank couldn't take his eyes off what was happening, like one of those awkward videos people post on the internet, thinking they're funny when they're most certainly not. It was a car crash moment. His thoughts, just like his friend's, centred on whether or not a fight would ensue. He hoped so, if only for the distraction it might create. If it allowed him to retrieve the ring, then who knew what was possible? Not having liked hearing that previous monarchs had taken days or even weeks to bond with the magical artefact, he needed it to be instantaneous, here and now. If it was, just maybe some kind of resistance was possible. If not, then they were all well and truly up that creek, with only their hands to use as paddles. That was something that didn't bear thinking about.
'Crikey,' she thought. 'You go for ages without any psychopathic dragons coming along, and then like buses, two arrive almost at once. What are the chances?' Not knowing what to make of what was going on down below her, she let a little more of the power from the laminium dagger fill her now human body, sensing that the time to strike might almost be upon her. If the two bat-shit crazy dragons down below could effectively neutralise each other, a rescue attempt might just be a real possibility, however unlikely. In her mind, it all came down to the King's Guards, dotted around the residence. If they could put up some real resistance against the nagas and dark dragons tasked with holding them captive, and if she could free one or two of the others, then just maybe they could finish off the leadership of the rebellion and... BOOM! Everything would be back to normal. But for that to happen, Manson and the matt black dark dragon had to start fighting each other. Otherwise it was all a waste of time.
Earth's surface. Washington DC, United States of America.
A tiny, high pitched alert echoed out from the speakers sitting either side of the two giant LCD monitors, indicating that the anonymous account he'd set up had received yet another email. Dropping his oddly shaped lower half to the floor, having had both legs draped across the front left edge of his polished wood desk, he reached for the wireless mouse and clicked the icon on the screen.
'Wow!' was all he could think, as yet more money ratcheted up the total he'd so far brought in for his own personal use from the ransomware attacks. It had only been running for a little over four hours, but now stood at somewhere in the region of eight million dollars. Deliberately avoiding law enforcement agencies, he'd let loose the virus across the world, at first targeting institutions that relied heavily on technology such as hospitals, power grids, pharmacies and refineries, creating as much chaos as he could, before moving on to the average home user. The more mayhem the merrier he'd been told, and that had been what he'd aimed for. The money itself hadn't been important to those higher up, it was all about distraction, and that was something he could get behind.
'I'm a genius,' he thought, reflecting on all the coding and other hard work he'd had to put in to reach this very point. He was, however, more than a little paranoid and with that in mind, strolled over to the panoramic widow that wrapped itself around the tenth floor of his Georgetown condo. Instead of glancing out at the sunrise that had just started to edge above the glistening, flat water of the Potomac, silhouetting the tiny craft moored out in the middle of the slow moving body of water, he pushed his face right up to the reflective surface and glanced down at street level to the entrance to this particular block, hoping for all to be quiet. It was. There was NOTHING! And that included not a single black SUV skidding up to the lobby, with a dozen agents all converging on his position. That was good, he told himself. And besides, he and the others that had done all the work to put him here were way too smart to get caught out by the FBI or some other federal law enforcement agency. No doubt money had changed hands, palms greased as suspicious photos of important people in compromising positions had been brought to the fore. All of this told him he should be safe, at least for now. How much longer would it go on? This was all part of the effort to have his king released from captivity, but it had been going on way too long for his liking. Those at the top had got it wrong, as far as he was concerned, and were now being used, or worse, played with like an injured bird being dragged into the house through a cat flap, with absolutely no chance of escape. The first to laud and recognise everything the king had done for their race, pain tore away at his magical body hidden away behind this false form, at his belief that it was time to let their leader go and break free from this spell these evil dark dragons constantly held over them. Of course, it wasn't his choice. He was just a tiny link in the chain, able to offer up very little in the way of input. For just a moment, he imagined being free along with the rest of his kind, surfing the achingly cold, white water of the Antarctic, gobbling down whole penguins, rolling in the soft snow. A wave of pleasure at the picture rolled through him, before another high pitched alert jolted him from his thoughts.
32 A Room with a View
Lying prone, ignoring the blazing fires in the reflection of the window, the view was almost entirely as he remembered. Well... apart from the wicked looking beasts patrolling the perimeter, some strolling purposefully in pairs, others slithering in and out of the wreckage on their own, all armed to the teeth with magic and, by the look of things, all prepared to use it. It had been many decades since he'd been here, for an interview with one of the papers if his memory served him right. They'd wanted to know all about the Emporium's fall from grace and just who might have been behind it all. So he'd headed across London early one morning to meet a very attractive and very intelligent reporter in her office, in one of the buildings he was currently looking out on, right at this very moment. Fleet Street itself, here in the dragon domain, was a series of high rise offices, the t
allest over twenty storeys high (second only to the council building in Buckingham), all laid out in concentric circles around the country's main node exchange, a single storey building lying smack bang in the middle of those circles, housing the mystical crystals that amplified the telepathic transfer of information. That was their objective today. As the memory of that day splintered into fragments, his thoughts centred on that reporter, hoping she'd not been anywhere near here when things had gone straight to hell. Back in the here and now, Gee Tee locked his vision on a point out past the nearest fires, trying desperately hard to see the front of the building that contained the telepathic node, the whole reason they were here.
