Mystic Dragon

by Jason Denzel

  Oxillian lumbered forward, looking uncharacteristically dazed and frightened. He stumbled like a drunkard, falling at times halfway into the ground before climbing out and tumbling forward. Mistress Yarina limped beside him. Her normally immaculate hair was tossed in disarray, and her red gown was torn. Blood covered one side of her face, and she cradled what appeared to be a broken arm.

  A roar sounded behind Pomella as a flaming section of the eastern wall toppled inward. A storm of rioters rushed onto the Kelt Apar grounds. More than one caught fire as they scrambled across the still-burning remains of the wall.

  Suddenly the ground erupted upward as Oxillian rammed pillars of soil toward the sky. “You cannot invade this domain!” he cried.

  “Don’t hurt them, Ox!” Pomella cried, looking quickly over her shoulder as the Green Man continued to pound rock and dirt toward the rioters.

  This was all wrong. Pomella thought of Brigid, and the peaceful demeanor the Saint had demonstrated in Fayün. She thought of Lal, and his smiling face as he had so often swept leaves across these grounds. How could everything have come to this?

  Shevia.

  Pomella rounded the far side of the tower and saw her, wearing an actual cloak of fire across her shoulders. The young woman carried a strange Mystic staff. Pomella’s stomach lurched when she saw that it was made of bone and there was a severed head and pile of flesh near the woman’s feet.

  In her other hand Shevia held the glass sphere. The moth within it—Lagnaraste, Saint Brigid—frantically bounced against its prison. Shevia held her arm out wide, spoke some words Pomella could not hear, and let the orb roll from her fingers toward the ground.

  “No!” Yarina yelled, and stretched out her hand.

  Pomella watched it fall. Ena could catch it. All she had to do was command her to streak across the grass with the speed of a shooting star and bring it to her. The hummingbird hovered beside her, poised and ready.

  If the glass broke, everything that the High Mystics had worked for would be undone. For nearly a thousand years, hundreds of the world’s greatest masters had dedicated their lives to ensuring it remained intact. Kelt Apar’s central tower and Oxillian had been raised up to protect it.

  Unbidden, something Brigid had told her about Lal came to Pomella’s mind. It’s why he retired when he did. He did not want to be a part of Crow Tallin. Perhaps, Pomella thought, he’d come to understand what she had, that the old Lagnaraste—the last of the dragons who tore the world apart—had been defeated long ago by Brigid and that the High Mystics’ purpose for holding her back no longer applied. This Crow Tallin marked the end of an older way of thinking.

  The world needed to move forward. Moth needed to embrace a new tradition, a new way of thinking. It could begin, right now, with her, by freeing the Saint who had inspired untold lives over the centuries.

  This was the moment to set Brigid free.

  With a silent command, Pomella summoned Ena to her palm, withholding her from catching the sphere.

  The glass sphere smashed into the ground. Its shards blew outward with a tremendous rush of wind and energy. Yarina fell to her knees and screamed. Oxillian stumbled to his knees. Half of his body sank back into the ground. He seemed to be fighting against the soil, trying to remain upright.

  Oblivious to the carnage, Shevia knelt beside the glass shards. She held out her palm, which, even from this distance, Pomella could see was trembling. The silver fay moth stood calmly among the shards. Wispy smoke wafted off its wings as it pumped them slowly. It crept forward onto Shevia’s outstretched finger.

  Yarina stared in openmouthed horror. The High Mystic shifted her attention from the shattered orb to Pomella. The sadness on her face broke Pomella’s heart. She knows, Pomella thought. Somehow, the High Mystic knew Pomella could have stopped the glass from breaking.

  Shevia stood upright and lifted the little moth to her eye level. Her cloak of fire rippled around her, yet did not burn her.

  Pomella strode forward. But before she could say anything, a multihued beam of light descended from the sky. It looked like a rainbow, only perfectly straight, or perhaps still curved, but stretching so far away into the stars that its arc could not be seen. A powerful sense of harmony radiated from it as it fell, as slow as a snowflake toward Shevia’s finger. The beam began at the moon, and tapered downward until it shone on the moth.

  The fighting around Kelt Apar slowed and stopped as the rioters turned stunned expressions toward the light.

  Pomella’s heart thundered. Vivianna, Yarina, and the other gathered Mystics stared with mixed expressions of surprise and horror. Those expressions softened as the rainbow light shone peace across the lawn and burning tower.

  The tiny moth that had been contained within the glass fluttered off Shevia’s finger and dissolved into the rainbow. Shevia closed her eyes. Her body tensed and she rolled back her head.

  Suddenly her eyes and mouth flared open. She fell to her knees, screaming silently before falling forward and placing both hands flat on the ground. Her chest heaved.

  A lurking fear rose in Pomella’s chest. Shevia rose, but Pomella could immediately see that it was another person who moved her body. She had the bearing of a queen, and the serenity of a High Mystic. Pomella could feel the Myst thundering around her like a firestorm barely held in check.

  “Saint Brigid,” she whispered.

  * * *

  Sim stood in the center of Kelt Apar as Crow Tallin engulfed the land. Shevia had entered the central tower as soon as they’d arrived, but he knew that was a fight he couldn’t get tangled up with. He would leave the Mystics to their arguments.

  Not a cloud hung in the sky, but Sim knew when a storm was brewing. If the highlands of Qin had once whispered silent warnings to him, Kelt Apar now screamed.

  He walked slowly through the grounds, watching Mystics cluster together nervously. The ones who saw him looked away, not concerned with what a single ranger was up to. The fay ran and flew everywhere. An axthos materialized in front of him for a moment, and screamed. Sim waited calmly for the creature to charge him. His onkai were secured on his back, but always within reach.

  The axthos must’ve seen something in his expression or otherwise changed its mind. It skittered away, looking back over its shoulder at Sim before dissolving back to Fayün.

  Soon enough, Sim mused, there would be no distance between this world and the fay realm. He continued his patrol of Kelt Apar, circling south past the cabins, which appeared empty, and crossed the last bridge spanning the river.

  An explosion erupted from the central tower. Faster than thought, Memory and Remorse were in his hands, their blades reflecting orange and red flames that roared from the tower’s roof.

  A body fell from the upper chamber, and another hung from a ledge. A figure, Shevia, flew skyward, carried by silver, bat-like wings that emerged from her back. As she crested, a thick red shadow crossed over the land. Sim looked toward the moon and saw the Mystic Star’s red light vanish behind it.

  Crow Tallin had begun, and with it came the fay. Hundreds of them, ranging from seemingly regular creatures to shambling axthos, all appeared at once. Within moments, a portion of the eastern wall collapsed, and a crowd of rioters stormed onto the grounds.

  But despite all the chaos, Sim drew his attention to the most impressive sight before him. A massive spire of silver stone appeared, overlaid exactly on top of the smaller, broken stone tower in the center of Kelt Apar. It rose to the heavens, perhaps a thousand steps tall. The entire tower was covered in runes he could not discern from a distance. At the top, backlit by the blood moon and a constellation of stars, stood a single window.

  As he stared at the spire the silver path, shining as vibrant as ever, shimmered into existence at his feet and wound its way across the grass to the base of the tower.

  Calling him.

  * * *

  Pomella watched as a legendary Saint walked across Kelt Apar’s lawn in Shevia’s body. It had to be her. O
nly a woman such as Brigid, who had accomplished so much in her life, could command such a presence. She moved in the same graceful, flowing manner as Brigid’s moving illustration had on the wall of the Tower of Eternal Starlight.

  Brigid—through Shevia—looked at her. “Greetings again, Pomella AnDone.”

  Yarina, Vivianna, and a woman Pomella recognized as High Mystic Willwhite, gathered around the Saint who’d ensnared Shevia’s body. Master Willwhite actually shook with emotion and, unable to remain standing, fell to her knees.

  Master Ehzeeth, the laghart High Mystic, was the last to shuffle forward, assisted by Hizrith. Both of their tails swished with excitement. Ehzeeth’s tongue zipped in and out repeatedly.

  “By evvvvery ssstar and zzzurtttna,” Ehzeeth hissed, “my ladyyy, the lagharttt People are yoursss!”

  Brigid approached him and placed both her hands upon his scaled face. As she moved, her body rippled. Shevia’s tan skin wavered, fading to a paler tone before cycling back. Her dark hair shifted toward red but returned a moment later.

  “Listen Once, hear Me thrice,” Brigid told the lagharts. “From stars to shore, across paradise. I cry, I call, I plea. My lost friends, tell them, tell them, Come Back to Me. Come Back to Me.”

  Ehzeeth stiffened at her gentle touch and her words. When she finished speaking, his eyes widened with rhapsody, and he slumped to the ground, dead. Hizrith fell to his side, his tongue zipping in and out.

  Compassion shone on Brigid’s face. It was a strange expression to see on Shevia’s normally withdrawn, bitter one. “He will carry my call to the kanta,” Brigid said, “whose eyes will open and see the Golden Ones and the People of the Sky for what they truly are. Go forth, Hizrith, High Mystic of Lavantath, and bring our people home.”

  Hizrith closed his dead master’s eyes and then prostrated himself at Brigid’s feet.

  Brigid turned to the other High Mystics. “Sons and Daughters. I am Brigid the Red, Daughter of None but the Woods. For nearly a thousand years you guarded the sphere that kept me locked in the Tower of Eternal Starlight. You sought the will of the Deep, as your predecessors have done. I commend you for your dedication to the tradition during Crow Tallin.” Her face darkened. “But for every year that passed, you ignored my calls to set me free. Only these women”—she gestured to herself and then to Pomella—“mere adepts in comparison to your might and experience, braved hardship and danger to free me. They will be elevated.”

  Yarina stepped forward, and for a moment Pomella could see her regain some of the composure and grace that she normally showed. “Saint Brigid,” she said, her voice only slightly trembling, “I am Yarina Sineese, the High Mystic of Moth. Your coming is … overwhelming. Please understand that—”

  “We will speak later, daughter,” Brigid said, and Pomella could not ignore the reproach in her voice. “Where is my son? I have waited long enough for him. Where is Janid?”

  Smoke, embers, and ash, carried by a light evening wind, were the only answer. Shouts and other mutterings sounded throughout Kelt Apar as people watching spread the word of what they saw. Brigid looked across the faces of those gathered. She stopped when she came to Pomella.

  “My son,” she repeated.

  “We don’t know him, Mistress,” Pomella said. “Please. We must calm the riots. When Crow Tallin is over we will help—”

  “Crow Tallin will never be over,” Brigid said. “The Reunion is upon us, and I will have my son.”

  “I don’t understand, Mistress,” Pomella said. Fear rippled through her.

  “I have sensed him in your world. He was here, at this tower! Where is he?”

  Before Pomella could speak again and try to reason with her, Brigid’s eyes fell upon an exceptionally long Mystic staff lying nearby. She held out her hand and it flew to her. Her eyes danced with excitement. “My old staff. He is here! I gave this to him, so he could escape Fayün. Janid! Where are you? Come back to me! Janid!”

  She stopped as she found a mangled body that had been near the discarded staff.

  Bhairatonix.

  The Saint’s eyes widened and the blood drained from her face. With a scream that tore across all of Kelt Apar, Brigid rushed to the High Mystic’s bloody remains. Another harrowing cry ripped from her, slapping the air like thunder.

  Pomella’s mind raced as she tried to make sense of what was happening. From Lal’s memories, Pomella knew that Bhairatonix had been found as a child in the Mystwood by Lal shortly after the most recent Crow Tallin sixty years ago. In the end I freed Janid, who escaped to the human world, Brigid had told her back in Fayün. “After he escaped the tower, I knew I had to wait until the next Crow Tallin, when the worlds temporarily merged again. Only then would I have a chance to return to him.

  “Vivianna,” Pomella said quietly, feeling a sudden dread rise in her chest, “find Oxillian and the rangers. Get everyone out of Kelt Apar now.”

  Brigid turned her expression on to Pomella, and the motion was like a blade being drawn from its sheath. “You,” she breathed. “You wretched, ungrateful chyat!”

  “Pomella did not kill him!” Yarina intoned. Her serenity had returned, and her voice did not lack for strength. “He was killed by the girl whose body you control.”

  The bloodcurdling scream that tore out of Brigid was the sound only a mother could make at finding her son dead after waiting nine hundred years for him. Brigid surged to her feet and screamed fire from her mouth. She held a Mystic staff in each hand, including Bhairatonix’s spine.

  Hard winds carrying ash and fire from the burning wall suddenly raced through Kelt Apar, surging toward Brigid. The twisted-dragon tattoo on her upper body writhed and began to shine with silver light. The dragon clawed its way across her skin, and then crawled off her body.

  Pomella took a step back. The dragon grew as it separated from Brigid. One of its claws touched the ground, followed by another. The long, twisting body, reminiscent of a huge snake, uncoiled itself as it peeled itself off Brigid’s skin. It continued to swell, growing in size until it dwarfed Oxillian. The creature resembled Mantepis but was far more massive, with huge legs that held it aloft. Massive, bat-like wings unfolded themselves and flexed wide. Silver smoke rolled off its entire body.

  The dragon reared its head and roared. The sound thundered across Kelt Apar. Most of the rioters screamed and ran, although some lifted their weapons against the creature that now stood as tall as the broken central tower. Arrows flew toward it, but they bounced harmlessly off its thick hide. It was strange, even to Pomella, to see a fay creature so real within the human world.

  The dragon loomed high above Brigid. The Saint’s rage and grief contorted Shevia’s face. “Janid!” she screamed, and raised both staves upward into the air. The fay dragon leaped into the air, pumping its wings once, twice, before arcing high into the sky. More shouts and cries from beyond the wall assaulted Pomella’s ears.

  Brigid spun Shevia’s body in a full circle, punching both staves horizontally toward the wall. The fay dragon looped once in the air, tucked its wings, and stormed down in the direction she pointed as if it were a puppet on sticks. It spiraled as it flew, and screamed.

  Blazing fire erupted from its mouth, melting anything it touched. Pomella grabbed hold of Ena and shifted to a safe distance, but her heart thundered as she looked back toward the tower. Vivianna knocked Yarina aside, but their proximity to the dragon’s inferno ignited their clothes.

  Vivianna kept her head, and scrambled to her feet. With a wave of her staff, a rushing wind swept over her and the High Mystic, extinguishing the fire. Vivianna pulled Yarina to her feet and led her to the far side of the tower.

  The dragon blasted through Oxillian’s wall, then arced high into the sky. Brigid swung her staves down in parallel motions from her shoulder to hip, and the dragon responded with another pass.

  “Take me to her, Ena,” Pomella said, and felt the world rush as the hummingbird zoomed her to a patch of ground in front of the Saint. A grass fire
licked at her robes, but she extinguished it with barely more than a thought.

  “Is this your legacy, Brigid?” Pomella called. Ash and smoke billowed across her. “I know you are hurting, but this is not the way of the Myst.”

  “You know nothing of my hurt,” Brigid raged. “I exist in the Deep. Every action I take is informed by a grander vision for the universe that you cannot comprehend.”

  “How can death and fire, born of revenge, come from a place of peace and wisdom and grace?” Pomella replied.

  “You are not a mother,” Brigid said. “You can never understand.”

  She jerked her body again, spinning her staves in a graceful blur of motion, commanding the dragon to attack from another direction. Pomella tried to make sense of what was happening. Shevia had become a wivan, completely ensnared by Brigid. Shevia, like Lal, was lost somewhere in her own mind and body, held prisoner by a captor.

  And like Lal, she had only one place to go.

  “Then help me understand,” Pomella said. She commanded Ena to surge ahead, and a heartbeat later she stood directly beside Brigid. Pomella jabbed her hand out, placing her palm on the other woman’s forehead. She closed her eyes and, with a supreme act of focus, entered the Crossroads, and Shevia’s mind.

  * * *

  The central tower loomed before Sim. Chaos reigned around him as rioters, axthos, and Mystics all battled in different ways. For all their talk of peace and serenity, this was what came of meddling in the affairs of Mystics. Perhaps some, like Grandmaster Faywong, deserved respect, but only because he had seemingly rejected the very aspects of being a Mystic that brought trouble.

  A horde of axthos burst from the western trees. They rushed toward him, quickly closing the wide gap. He turned toward them, Memory and Remorse held firmly in his grip. He did not want to harm any of them, no matter how cruelly they might present themselves.

  A deafening roar rumbled across the grounds, pulling the axthos up short. They skidded to a halt, tumbling over one another. Sim followed their terrified expressions and saw a massive fay dragon, shaped just like the one on Shevia’s shoulder, rise into the sky on the opposite corner of the tower from where he stood. The dragon flapped its wings and twisted into the sky.