Spark of War

by J. A. Culican

  Mikah shrugged, but he shook his head at the same time. "I didn't lie to them. I've spoken to them individually, but under strict confidence. That's why you didn't hear about it in the council chambers--none of them know the others know."

  "For now, maybe. But what's there to know?"

  "The truth is, I believe war is coming to us whether we want it or not. Nothing is certain yet, but it seems to be getting more likely by the day."

  Jaekob furrowed his eyebrows. "What do you mean, war is coming? Humans don't have any idea we exist, anymore. The last time we Arose, we got rid of any evidence we exist. They had so kindly gathered it all in the Berlin city."

  Micah shot Jaekob a smirk. "And why is it that we hide down here in the burrows if humans don't know we exist, do you think? Wouldn't we be somewhere remote, yet on the surface, instead? I'd rather be somewhere we could stretch our wings."

  Jaekob paused. He had a hard time believing what his father was saying. "Maybe we're hiding from the other Pures?" His voice trailed off. It was a stupid idea, and he didn't bother finishing his thought.

  "They're family, if only cousins. A few of them did know where the warrens are, and I'm sure they've passed that information on from generation to generation. No, it's the humans we still hide from. The Impures. What only a few dragons know is that, when we got rid of the German records and their soldiers who knew of us, we weren't as successful as we first thought. We must have left some trace, some knowledge, after the last great human war awoke us."

  "Why are you saying this?" Jaekob found himself dreading what he was about to hear. None of the ideas flashing through his mind would have been a good reason.

  "Because this time, the humans came to us within days of when we opened our eyes again. Also--"

  "What?" Jaekob blurted out. "Humans can't know. That's impossible! They would never have left us alone for so long."

  After all, humans were broken. They weren't Pures anymore. Some dragons said the humans had been Pures originally, but from the memories about humans he'd gained from his mother during the slumber, he found that hard to believe.

  Mikah looked sad as he gazed at his son. "Humans are in a war, but that isn't why we awoke early again. Not directly."

  "Will you please get to the point?" Jaekob shifted from foot to foot, back and forth. "You're killing me with the suspense."

  "Patience, young man. I'm getting tired of waking up for big human wars, by the way. Rising for a century every millennium ought to be more than enough time awake for anyone. If only they could behave themselves..."

  "Is that why I feel sleepy all the time? Just because we awoke early?"

  "Yes, we only get a few short hours of sleep every night, when a big war has Awoken us, and that's not our way. During our normal century awake, we don't sleep at all."

  "Yeah, and that sounds much nicer. Should I ask if we're in danger?"

  Mikah let out a long, slow breath. He seemed to be steeling himself for what he was about to say. "Humans now have the technology to bore through the earth, not just their surface mines. Now, they can dig down into the earth's mantle--far deeper than Safeholme itself."

  Jaekob's jaw dropped again. "So... they drilled down and just accidentally found us?"

  "Don't be ridiculous. What would be the odds of that? No, to find us, they must have known where to look. They sent two envoys--negotiators, not geologists."

  "What did the humans want? What could they ever want from Pures? We already left the world to them, don't tell me they want our barren tunnels, too."

  Whatever it was the humans wanted, it couldn't be good for Pures... Jaekob listened with rapt attention.

  "Well," Mikah said, and took a deep breath before continuing. "They threatened to bring their war to us, to Safeholme, unless we agree to help them."

  Jaekob shook his head. How could that even be possible? Surely they knew better than to threaten dragons. Hesitantly, he said, "I find that hard to believe. They had to know we'd burn them down if they ever tried to harm us, right? I mean, we're dragons."

  "Be that as it may. Their technology has advanced beyond anything we could have imagined. They've even harnessed the power of the atom."

  "Then why do they need us? And what side wants us to join the war? It's not those Germans again, is it? If it is, we need to hide deeper next time."

  Mika's face fell. "If it were the Germans again, I think we would have just turned their realm to cinders and been done with it, this time. No, the humans are in a war they didn't want. They tell us that their enemies ordered the whole world of humanity to surrender, to submit to slavery and torment. When the humans refused to bend their knees and their necks--"

  "The war began, whether they wanted it or not."

  Mikah took a deep breath and put his hand on his son's shoulder, then looked into his eyes. "The envoys told us humanity is desperate for help. Even though the whole world of humans joined together for simple survival--which is hard to imagine, even for survival--but even that wasn't enough to save them."

  "It would take all the Pures to beat the humans, if they banded together. Who is strong enough to drive the humans back?"

  "The ancient city of Baghdad was utterly destroyed a few seconds ago. No... a few weeks ago. At my age, years seem like minutes. Anyway, Baghdad was the largest city I'd ever seen, when we last Rose. Even bigger than Berlin, which you should have some memories of from your mother."

  Jaekob nodded. Obviously, the city's destruction was no natural disaster for it to have made the humans so desperate. Who on Earth could be attacking them like that? His mind reeled.

  Chapter 4

  Mikah clenched his jaw and stared his son in the eyes as he said, "The human envoys told us that more than a million humans were reduced to souls when the city was destroyed."

  Jaekob's jaw dropped. "Who would do something so terrible? Even humans wouldn't do that... would they?" His mind drifted back to the histories he learned from his mother during the most recent deep slumber. He was born during a time of slumber, in fact. The memories were mostly of fire, war, and pain. Humans could indeed do something so evil, he realized, but they also were capable of great love and unimaginable works of art.

  Mikah muttered, "Your fallen face tells me how shocked and disgusted you are. Good. Your mother taught you well."

  "Was it the humans who did this?" The idea of a race that could kill a million people and knew where dragons laired was a frightening one. Especially since his mother died at their hands, as far as he could recall--those earliest memories were fuzzy.

  "This time, it wasn't a human war that brought us awake before our time."

  "Then who?"

  "They say... They've told us it was done by Pures."

  "What? That's impossible. They're in hiding just like us, and no Pure would do something so evil. A million people dead!"

  Mikah snapped, "You heard me, son! Sorry, but you're being argumentative, not thinking it through. Listen, the elves have apparently led the other Pures back into the human world, crossing over through the shadow-places in the world, and through the darkness on many humans' hearts. The elves aren't content to live in the shadows anymore. They've left the Fae world and returned to the world above, as they had so long ago when humans were a young race."

  "So, the other Pures attacked the world of humans. Is it true?" Jaekob looked at Mikah, skeptical.

  "That's what the envoys tell us, and their descriptions could only come from seeing actual Pure races."

  "If... If there are so many humans now, how did the elves beat them? The old tales say some of them can wield the Art, as the elves do."

  "Humanity's great magics disappeared during their last global war, again thanks to their Germans. Losing that left them defenseless against the Pures now pouring into their world."

  "But their numbers will win out in the end, right? Their technology? If there were a million people in one city, there must be billions up there, now. You have to tell the Council. You have
to--"

  Mikah cut off Jaekob with a chop of his hand, cutting through the air. "You think I haven't told them? I did."

  Jaekob paused before replying, "We aren't going to war against our own kind, are we?"

  "The other Pures are not our kind. Remember that. But no, most of the Dragon Council agrees with me and wants to let the situation develop before we decide. We'll see how things go before we reveal ourselves again to the world at large. Things have been mostly peaceful since we withdrew from humans."

  "Peaceful for us, maybe. Humans became more destructive than ever before. I have some of my mother's memories of what they've done to the place, up there."

  "You have no idea," Mikah muttered, shaking his head. "They have the power to destroy their world, but not the way we do, with magics. What they lack is the power to defeat Pures in open warfare without destroying the world entirely."

  Jaekob followed his father when he began walking again.

  "Come along. We need to check in with Brandon and see where things stand with our security. If the alarms mean the humans attacked us, as they threatened to do, then we'll be forced to join one side or another."

  Jaekob nodded, knowing which side dragons would join if the warrens were attacked. "The wards sense dragon blood, do they not? Only a dragon can get into Safeholme."

  "Perhaps, but that doesn't protect the warrens, just Safeholme. We have other settlements, you know. And don't rule out the possibility of someone who isn't a dragon finding a way in. Magic is temperamental that way."

  Jaekob had as good sense of direction as any proper dragon, so he had no problem keeping track of where they were, first heading this way and then that way as they rushed through Safeholme's many tunnels.

  After a few minutes, they came to a small, rough-hewn chamber about thirty feet across, bustling with activity. Generally, rough chambers were the ones that weren't common knowledge, having been carved out "on the sly." If they were meant for public use, they would have been smoothed out with dragonfire or hundreds of artisan chisels. He had been to that chamber at least a hundred times with both his father and Kalvin, so it certainly wasn't the most classified chamber, but he still enjoyed knowing something almost everyone else didn't. Kalvin's father, Brandon, was the chief of security in Safeholme. Jaekob and his friend had often visited this cavern, Brandon's HQ, since the awakening.

  He spotted Brandon near one of the dozen desks. These were the cheaper kind, made of dried strips of fungus glued and dried into whatever form was needed, like particle board. They were light and strong, but disintegrated in water and didn't last more than a couple decades under normal use.

  Brandon stood tall in his elegant uniform shorts and his weapons bandoleer--fabric was too costly to waste on head-to-toe duty uniforms, and Brandon was a frugal man. Kalvin often joked that his dad was cheap, but most of the older dragons were, having survived the lean times at the height of the Roman Empire or at least the hard times during the second German war. Those were only stories to Jaekob and Kalvin.

  Mikah walked up to Brandon, who immediately got down to one knee and brought his right fist over his heart in the usual salute before standing again. No one but Mikah would be brave enough to approach the security chief so directly. Brandon was a rough and violent man by trade, though he had a good heart and a solid sense of justice, in Jaekob's experience.

  "First Councilor, how may I be of service?" Brandon asked.

  Mikah smiled wanly and shook his hand. "Good to see you, friend. I need a status update. What do we know, and when did we know it?"

  Brandon pointed to a nearby cavern wall segment, which held a map of the warrens on the left, and one of Safeholme on the right. "After the wards were tripped right here, starting the alarms," he said, pointing to a section of warrens that was especially maze-like, near Safeholme's edge, "we sent runners to check them. None were damaged. We also just got a report of some movement in the tunnels near the Ancestral Archives, over here." He pointed to another spot, one of the oldest mazes in all the warrens. "You know what a labyrinth that area is."

  "Yes," Mikah said, "if you haven't already sent teams to investigate the movement reports, please don't let me get in the way of your duty."

  Jaekob spotted Kalvin standing up against the wall to one side, staying out of the way, and left his father doing whatever the First Councilor did when the wards went off. He leaned up against the wall beside his friend so they could talk quietly without shouting or being overheard in the bustling room. "How's it going?"

  Kalvin shrugged. "No one knows what's going on, from what I can see. Dragons are running around like they're Darmians, but without the ants' efficient patterns."

  "You do know Darmians hate being called ants, right?"

  Kalvin grinned. "Yeah, but they aren't even from this dimension. We don't have anything else to compare 'em to. But back on topic, we haven't had a ward alarm in centuries, my dad said, so everyone seems a bit stalag on what to do."

  "I did notice they seem lost. They're out of practice, I guess."

  "Only dragons can get through our wards without a real invasion, which I haven't seen, so why worry about alarms?”

  Jaekob said, "Probably lost people from another settlement, right? My mother's memories tell me that all the recent breaches were invasions, at least until just a millennium ago."

  "Maybe longer," Kalvin said, nodding.

  "And the wards were strengthened after that." Jaekob considered explaining what his father had said about the humans, but decided against it. Kalvin could be impulsive sometimes, but even he couldn't reveal a rumor if he hadn't heard it. Besides, he had the strong feeling that his father didn't want him to repeat what he'd said. After all, he had let the Councilors each think they were the only one who had been told.

  Kalvin growled, a hint of steam escaping his nose. "I hate waiting. I'd rather be doing anything else. Literally anything. The scout teams better hurry up."

  Jaekob chuckled. "They'd better... or what? All we can do is wait around and try not to get underfoot." He agreed, though. His fire was quickening with anticipation of finally being able to do something adventurous. He only needed the right opportunity to get out from under his father's gaze.

  Chapter 5

  Jaekob tried not to grin when the scouts returned without any prisoners and the wards had still continued with the alarms, which echoed faintly in a thumping beat that was felt more than heard. It made him want to dance. Too bad people were watching.

  "Looks like they didn't find the intruders," Kalvin said, stating the obvious. "But the wards are still going off."

  "You noticed that, did you? Good boy!"

  "Well," Kalvin said as a grin spread across his face, "what's the First Councilor-to-be gonna do about that?"

  Jaekob struggled to keep his face expressionless. "I don't want to take over the job."

  Kalvin's grin turned into a frown. "You're missing the point."

  "Am I?"

  "Now I know you're messing with me. I mean, we should go find the intruders ourselves. They can be dragons or the alarms wouldn't be thumping in my chest right now, and if they aren't dragons, what's there to worry about? Even the fur-faces can't beat us in a stand-up fight."

  "Yeah, right. You just want to play a trick on your dad. He's head of security, and it might be embarrassing if you could find what he didn't."

  "I'll get in less trouble than the time I hid his uniform shorts right before Councilor Darren's swearing in."

  Jaekob grinned. "That was funny, yeah. He had to wear his at-home shorts and everything. Really irritated everyone."

  "I had to work on digging out our nursery chamber for a week, but it was totally worth it." Kalvin smiled back at him. "So what are we waiting for?"

  "Fine, I'll go. Just to keep you out of trouble." Jaekob looked around, checking to see if anyone was watching him. "We can head out the north tunnel and swing east. They already checked the north tunnels, so we won't be seen by any patrols, once we get ou
t of here."

  Kalvin didn't say anything, but turned and walked to the chamber entrance. Jaekob followed. They turned right into the tunnel outside, then right again. That tunnel was rarely used since the occupants had moved to the newest settlement, during the last Awakening. They found one tunnel or chamber after the next, all empty except for the leftovers of a vanished people. It made the whole complex feel creepy, but he and Kalvin had been hiding out in there since they Awoke--privacy was hard to come by in the occupied warrens, even in Safeholme.

  Once they passed through the empty complex, they followed the tunnel as it swept to the right, heading south and down. It grew even narrower, until there was barely enough room for them both to walk side by side. He felt vulnerable in those tunnels, with no room to summon his dragon if they got into trouble, but he wasn't about to admit his nervousness. Kalvin would have never let him live it down.

  Kalvin said, "You look a little pale. If you want to turn back, we can. I know how much you need your dragon in a fight."

  Jaekob forced a smirk onto his face, despite his heart beating faster. "You just want to turn back and blame me for it. How are you ever going to take over for your dad if you can't walk down an empty tunnel without sweating?"

  Kalvin's laughter sounded forced. "I'm sweating because we're walking downhill and I have to take such tiny little steps to let you keep up with those short legs of yours. Walk faster, we'll see who sweats."

  "Still you."

  "Ha. You're the one who's afraid," Kalvin snorted. "I hear your heartbeat thumping. Can you hear me over the sound of your own heart in your ears?"

  Jaekob laughed, but sounded just as forced as Kalvin's had. Neither of them had the bad grace to say anything about that, though. "You must be hearing your own heart, mine's like a clock, it beats so evenly."

  Jaekob thought about how much trouble the two had gotten into, just by egging each other on. Most of it, probably... He grinned at the memory of some of their more recent shenanigans.