by Otto Schafer
Apep held up a hand for silence. “You tortured people all by yourself, Jack? How did you do it? Did you tell them Goch would kill them if they didn’t tell you everything?”
The elf seemed to find this funny, judging from the stupid look on his face.
“No, I diseased them, got what I wanted, and then killed them both. Then I went down into the place they called Undertown and killed several more Keepers. I did it all on my own with no help at all from your dragons,” Jack said, meeting Queen Azazel’s eyes.
“Diseased them?” Apep asked.
“That’s right. Then we flew around for four days until I finally suggested we search the Mississippi River.” Jack could feel Goch’s red eyes boring into him. He didn’t need to look to know how angry the dragon was becoming. “That’s where we found Garrett and the others. At first, Goch wanted to take him alive, but I figured he was just as good dead. Your little dragons tried to burn him, but dragon fire wouldn’t work. And as your young dragons and I fought the others on the boat, they killed the young dragons off, one after the other.”
Jack ventured a glance over at Goch, and boy was he pissed. No turning back now. “Goch just stood there talking about how Garrett was blood marked. I could hear the fear in his voice. He tried to fly away and save himself, and that’s when I knew it was going to be up to me. I started killing those on the boat one after another, and when I finally had Garrett facedown and diseased, I broke his ribs and crushed his hand. He was as good as dead. But since your general abandoned me, I was forced to fight everyone, and well, one got a lucky hit and knocked me over the side and into the river. Next thing I know, Goch snatches me out of the water and flees like a coward!”
“Enough!” Goch shouted. “That is not how it happened! The human would have drowned if not for me. Had we tried to go back, we would have died!”
“Actually, that’s exactly what happened,” Jack said.
“General Goch! Does this human child speak the truth? You ran away from humans?” Queen Azazel asked.
“No! Yes, we fled, but… no! I came to tell you of the blood marked. He attacked with Sentheye!”
“And did you even attack?” the queen asked.
Goch turned to Jack and roared.
Jack squared his shoulders and stared the giant beast in the face. He could feel Apep watching him, judging his story, weighing his actions – every moment, every mannerism scrutinized for cracks. Jack had learned early on that the key to a good lie is to stay as close to the truth as possible. If you can stay close to the real parts, then you can believe your own lie, and if you could believe it, you could make others believe it too.
“Do not burn him, Goch, or I will kill you,” Apep said, calmly but firmly.
Azazel hissed. “You dare to threaten my general?”
“Your general is a liar and a coward who left a little human child to fight a battle he should have either won or died in. He directly disobeyed your orders, Azazel. Do you allow your soldiers to disobey so easily? Even worse, your generals?”
“Goch, is this human’s story truth?” Azazel asked again.
“This is ridiculous! You would take the word of a human over one of your own?” Goch twisted his head from side to side, looking at the other dragons. None would meet his eyes as they waited for their queen to speak.
Jack smiled inwardly. Now it was time to drive the nail into the coffin. “He told me if I lied and told his story, I could ride on his back, and that if I didn’t go along, he would kill me.”
“That’s a lie!” Goch shouted.
“This you claim is fabrication, Goch?” Apep frowned. “This you are adamant about? Then please, by all means, explain why an elder dragon would allow a human to ride him – to ride him like a slaver!”
All the dragons hissed and screeched, and for a moment Jack thought they were angry with Apep, but he quickly realized it was Goch… they were shaming him.
“Silence!” Queen Azazel commanded. She stood then to her full height and opened her wings. “General Goch the Red, I sentence you to burn in the fires of a thousand suns!”
“You would take a human’s word over your own general?” Goch roared.
“No, not without proof,” Azazel said. “But I ask you, General, if the human is lying, why did he sit upon your back?”
“I… I…” The dragon raised his hackles and bared his teeth.
Queen Azazel roared. Beneath her black scales, her neck began to glow so bright it was as if her throat were about to birth a star.
Jack waved his arms high above his head, trying desperately to be noticed as he shouted as loud as he could. “Wait! Stop!”
Azazel thrust her head down to within an inch of Jack’s face, her mouth still open in an incredible roar.
Jack forced himself to stand firm and not look away. He was taking a risk. Maybe more than he needed to or should, but he was never one to be afraid, not of anything.
“What?” Azazel said finally.
“I… I should be the one to kill him!” Jack said.
“You?” Azazel shouted, the glow beneath her scales fading to black.
“He has a point, Azazel,” Apep said. “You would have killed him if your general’s lie had been more convincing.”
“If you think you can kill an elder dragon before he kills you, little human, you’re welcome to try, but I will not save you,” Azazel said evenly.
Goch turned on Jack and roared. The beast’s long red-scaled neck lit up like molten iron. It reminded Jack of that time the school took the entire class to Mapleton, Illinois, to visit a giant foundry where they made these massive engine blocks. Engine blocks bigger than a full-size car. He’d gotten to watch ’em pour iron from this huge ladle with a crane. It was so bright he almost couldn’t look at it. That’s what Goch’s neck looked like, just like that glowing iron pouring from that ladle in Mapleton.
Jack planted his feet and thrust out his hands as he stared into Goch’s open mouth. Flames ignited all the way in the back of Goch’s throat. So that’s where Jack focused all the sickness, all the disease, and all the pain he could muster – right at the source of ignition, right at the back of Goch’s throat. The flame died out before it ever left the big bastard’s mouth. But Jack didn’t stop. He wanted them all to see what the little human boy was capable of. He pulled the life from Goch and into himself.
The dragon’s eyes bulged and burst as Goch tried to scream but couldn’t.
The other dragons shuffled backward as Goch worked his mouth, trying to breathe in or scream out, but no air went in and no sound came forth as Jack stole everything, even the magnificent beast’s screams.
Jack stared up at the monster with all his hate. That’s what he felt, and that’s what he was – hate. He pulled and pulled and pulled, and he hated, and he pulled. And he did both with all he had – all he was. He hated his father for belittling him, his mother for leaving him, and most of all Garrett for taking away the only person he loved. We got him, Danny! Let them see! Let them see what we can do!
The dragon’s snake-like tongue writhed and shriveled in its diseased mouth. Still no sound came, only teeth, as they fell from the dragon’s open mouth. Its scales turned from crimson red to rotten black as the edges curled up like dead leaves and began to slough off. Like the dragon’s tongue, his whole body withered. And as Goch tipped to the side, the scene reminded Jack of the little dog he’d killed the first time he remembered using his power to heal himself. Even now, his own bruised chest bones felt suddenly recovered from whatever the hell Pete had hit him with. He sucked in a long, deep breath. But this was more than the dog, more than all those people he had killed behind the door in Undertown. This power was so much more – immense!
As the dragon lay in the throes of death, Jack realized he couldn’t stop. He couldn’t stop pulling the power from the dragon! The sensation changed from amazing power to pain! His hands shook, and he screamed. He felt like he was holding on to a fork shoved into a light socket and he c
ouldn’t let go! Jack looked pleadingly to Apep, but he couldn’t form the word help.
Apep stood next to Queen Azazel with his hands calmy clasped and the strange crown thing sitting all crooked on his head. “Release the power, Jack. If you don’t, you’re going to pop,” he said, as if he really didn’t care if Jack “popped” or not.
Jack looked past Apep to a nearby ridge. He thrust his hands out in desperation and imagined dumping all the power into the ridge. A wave of energy, so dense it was visible, shot from Jack’s hands. His eyes went wide with the shock of what he was seeing. It looked like tar, all wet and thick, like the kind you used to mop a roof or coat a driveway. By the time the stream of black reached the ridge several dozen yards away, it was still rushing from his hands. Dirt exploded and the ground shook as the black stream seemed to dissipate into the ground.
When it finally stopped, Jack bent forward and vomited.
Goch lay on the ground, dead. The remaining four elder dragons stood silently.
“Well, that was quite the surprise, Jack,” Apep said. “You—”
The ground started to shake again, drawing everyone’s attention back to the ridge.
Jack wasn’t sure what was happening, but he knew he wasn’t the one doing it. He followed everyone else’s eyes to the ridge. A landslide of dirt started down the mountain as a single bone-white dome pushed up through the ground, right where he had released that black stuff. As the white dome continued to grow larger and larger, Jack noticed something else: the color was becoming darker. First the bone white changed to a dirty brown then ashen grey, and now it was almost black.
Jack looked back to the others, hoping for some hint of what he was looking at, but they all watched, not saying a single word. When finally the object was as large as a bus, the ground went still. A sudden and awful crack rang out as if the mountain itself had just broken in two. Jack flinched back, the sound reverberating throughout the mountain, through Jack’s bones, rattling his spine. Then came the next crack and the next, none as loud as the first.
What the hell is it? Then, as if in answer, a black-taloned claw pushed outward from inside the dome, and he realized with astonishment exactly what he was looking at.
“It’s a dragon egg!” Jack rasped.
29
Bulldozing for Answers
Thursday, April 21 – God Stones Day 15
Mexico City
It was fast approaching the midnight hour. High atop El Tule, Breanne and Gabi listened to something – strange. For the last fifteen hours, the only sounds had been the wooden groaning of forward movement by thousands of trees, now only visible as ghostly moonlit shadows. But underneath it they heard something else… something new. Only sound at first. Explosions? Maybe, but Breanne didn’t think so. As they drew closer, the sound became louder, and they could feel it now, even high up on the platform in El Tule’s canopy. Rumbling… crashing… smashing. Distant shouting? Fire – that was fire up ahead! Then Breanne knew, and her pulse quickened. They were about to pass through a large city. Not around it – through it.
Thousands of trees were destroying the city. Even as far back as they were, they could hear the buildings toppling – feel the ground shake as the largest of the city’s buildings fell.
“Watch, Gabriela De Leon! Watch the capital of your country fall,” Jurupa said.
By the time El Tule made his way through Mexico City, it was already reduced to rubble. The worst wasn’t seeing the city in ruin. The worst were the screams. Even high above it all, through the twisting branches, creaking limbs, and shifting rubble, the screams found the two girls with horrific veracity as far below, survivors of the city’s annihilation scrambled to find safety after being caught up in the nightmare of a rampaging forest.
“Listen to them! They run in fear! Listen, Breanne Moore. Listen, Gabriela De Leon! Listen to the glorious sound of your new world!” Jurupa said, pointing out into the ocean of trees as they pressed forward, an unstoppable tide.
Don’t watch it, Gabi, and don’t listen.
But Gabi did watch, and she did listen. Her face fell blank as the screams reached her. But in her mind the door closed as she sat quietly, staring ahead.
Breanne didn’t press on the door and instead left the girl to herself. She would let her process this in her own way, and when she was ready, they would talk. She couldn’t imagine what this was like for her. She knew if she didn’t have Gabi here with her, she might lose herself. But Gabi was here, leaving Breanne no choice but to stay strong – Gabi needed her.
As they moved away from the city and into the morning hours of a new day, darkness and distance hid the horrors of the capital’s fall.
Sleep eluded Breanne as she sat thinking about Jurupa. She had seen for herself how Jurupa rooted into the ground or connected to another tree in order to communicate. She had also learned only trees that were around one hundred years old could walk. This was the information Breanne knew to be fact, and it was all she had to work with, but it was something. It was enough to get her started. Time to sit and think without the fear of immediate danger had given her the ability to analyze what she learned from Jurupa and what she had seen for herself. Archaeology was all about patience. Her father had taught that. She almost laughed to herself as her father’s deep voice came back to her: Bulldozers wreck dreams, baby girl! He was right. She had to peel back the layers and slowly coax out the answers. If she went at Jurupa too hard, she would end up hurt, or maybe even dead. She had to be smart. She had to push, but not too much. She had to get answers, but she couldn’t do it with a bulldozer.
Beyond what she knew from observation, she also suspected that when Jurupa connected her roots, it was like plugging into the internet. The first time Gabi pointed it out, Jurupa was rooted right into the ground and someone or something seemed to be feeding her information. The other time was when Gabi noted Jurupa was rooted through her hand into El Tule. But it wasn’t enough just to connect to El Tule. To talk to others, El Tule needed to be rooted too, and for that they needed to stop and root into the ground. Maybe when they were rooted, they could all talk to each other all the time, all the trees hearing everything. Wouldn’t that be too much data to process? Maybe they could choose who to connect with, like dialing a specific phone number. She wasn’t sure that seemed right either, but she was positive Jurupa was in contact with this queen she kept mentioning, and Breanne was sure it was through the root connection.
Then there was Jurupa’s comment about “not just trees” gaining consciousness when they reached a hundred years old. So then there must be other things besides trees that developed a consciousness when old enough. But what? Other life to be sure. It couldn’t be something that wasn’t living, right? She didn’t think so. How weird would it be for a hundred-year-old doorknob to come to life?
No, trees were already living things, so it made sense the reference applied to already living things. So then, what other life-forms lived to be older than a hundred years? Tortoises came to mind. They lived to be pretty old, but hold on, weren’t they already conscious since they could move? Jurupa said another level of consciousness. How was conscious defined? What she would give for her laptop right now. Consciousness meant self-awareness, right? So, weren’t animals already self-aware? Crap, she wasn’t sure about that. Look from all the angles, baby girl, she could hear her father saying. So, what did it mean to Jurupa? What was elevated consciousness to her? Breanne had to assume Jurupa meant it in the same way trees were now conscious. Thinking for themselves, making decisions, moving with purpose rather than instinct, and communicating.
Okay, good. She would shelve that for now and focus on the more immediate questions she needed to answer, like why was Jurupa able to transform into different shapes? What was she before Breanne’s dad had opened the chest containing the God Stones? If she were a tree like the others, then why didn’t the other trees transform too? Maybe it had to do with her age, or perhaps her species. Plus, she could use the power of
God Stones to cast spells. The other trees didn’t cast, or if they did, she hadn’t seen it. Breanne could only deduce Jurupa was something else… but what?
Unable to sleep, Breanne thought through these questions most of the night, but she needed more information. When Gabi woke, the door to her mind was open.
You doing okay? Breanne asked.
Yeah, I just wish we knew why this was happening. What do they want with us?
I don’t know, but I’m sure it has something to do with Garrett.
Well, we are going the wrong way, Gabi said.
The wrong way?
The dragons are far to the south. That is where Azazel is. That’s where I should be going, she said as if the statement were a matter of fact.
The girl was unwavering in her determination to kill that dragon. Gabi? Try to talk to El Tule.
Are you sure that’s such a good idea? Gabi asked, her dark brows scrunching.
Risk versus reward. No, I’m not, but it is an idea and I think it is worth the risk.
Gabi nodded. I’ll try.
For the next three days, hundreds of miles fell away as Gabi split her time between trying to crack the tree language and talking to El Tule. So far, there was no response to anything Gabi said, and the language between Jurupa and the other trees was proving difficult to solve.
Jurupa stood at the front of the platform still as a statue – or maybe a tree – except for twice a day when she animated, approached, and asked, “Gabriela De Leon, does your survival require anything further?” Gabi would answer no, and Jurupa would turn to Breanne and ask, “Breanne Moore, does your survival require anything further?” It was weird, almost robotic. Breanne didn’t just answer no. Instead, she took each opportunity to ask Jurupa questions, which the tall tree woman ignored completely, responding instead with, “Very well, Breanne Moore,” before turning back to her frozen pose rooted into the platform.
