California Imperium

by Aaron Crash

  Then Steven saw another vision, one last piece of the puzzle, that changed everything. This was in the past, before the branded dragon was a gardener for a daimyo in Japan. How many years before? A hundred? A thousand? The Dragonknights were old, ancient, as was the branded dragon.

  Steven witnessed Niwashi bowing low before twelve tall Homo Draconi in armor, the Dragonknights of the Round Table. No, they didn’t call it that, they called it the Table of the Eye. For it was searching, always searching for the Zothoric.

  He recognized the beach, the tidepools, the seagulls clustering on the rocks out in the surf. It was the Oregon coast before the Europeans first stumbled upon the New World.

  “You should not bow before us,” the clean-shaven knight had said, shaking his head. Was that King Arthur? Yes, it was, and he spoke in a powerful, commanding voice. “Why do you not join us? You could be our thirteenth knight.”

  The branded dragon had smiled sadly. “My father wanted war. Me? I am torn. I long for peace. I long for beauty. I long for wisdom. And I pine for a world where all three are valued more than conquest, greed, and gold. At the same time, in the same breath, I want vengeance and I want battle and I would kill for peace, which betrays my every thought. I love and I hate. And I am tortured.”

  “You live a sad life,” Arthur said.

  The entity who would become Niwashi had grinned mischievously. “And this sad life will be so very long. In that way, perhaps the bitter can become sweet, and the sweet, bitter.”

  The Dragonknights’ laughter floated away on the winds of the ocean.

  Then the Divination spell waned. Steven could see Uchiko, and her lips were trembling, and her human eye leaked tears. She turned and fled across the stones, toward the waterfall temple where they would learn more.

  It seemed that Uchiko’s teacher had dealings with the Dragonknights, and that their fates were intertwined.

  The rest of his Escort walked up to him. They all gasped at the majesty of the statue of the branded dragon.

  Skylar sailed in overhead. Steven could smell her scent: the sweet smell of cedar. She grew smaller and flew down to him in her partial form. Then she shifted human.

  Steven liked the slight droop of her breasts, her stretch marks, and her little belly. Skylar wasn’t young, and that somehow made her more beautiful to him. She walked up and leaned her head back to take in the statue.

  “Do you know anything about this?” he asked.

  The auburn-haired widow shook her head. “No, I don’t know anything about any of this. But the temple is up ahead. It is clear.”

  “Did you see anyone following us?” Steven asked.

  “I didn’t,” Skylar replied. “But the jungle is so thick. I could hardly see you.”

  Tessa squinted at the statue and wiped her face for the millionth time. “Total Indiana Jones moment. It should’ve been called Sweating Raiders of the Moist Arc. I’m telling you, this humidity will kill me.”

  Zoey let out frustrated growl and stripped out of her clothes, stomping a little in annoyance as she did. She shifted into a wolf, panting loudly and wetly. Her expressive eyes went to Steven as if to say, “This is terrible. I need air conditioning. Now.”

  Steven kept Samael’s Lash ready. Tessa didn’t have Indy’s whip, but she had her Peacekeepers, and they filled her hands. They crept up the trail.

  Aria hit the torch with another round of Animus, and it lit up. An X marked the spot just ahead of them.

  The stone path widened and then ended in a gate, guarded by bedogols, the ubiquitous demon statues that were everywhere in Bali.

  Green moss covered weathered stone. The guardians sat on the haunches of a lion, and they gripped scepters to their chests. Wings had been chiseled into their backs, and each monstrous body was topped with the head of a demon. Their faces showed wide eyes meant to frighten, and their mouths were full of crisscrossing fangs and tusks. Their whole purpose was to keep evil spirits away.

  Steven led the way through the gate guarded by the demons. On top of the wall, Uchiko crouched. She had her short bow out, and she had an arrow nocked. She retreated into the shadows of a tree. She seemed to have shaken off her bitter memories and was back to work, ninjaing.

  Her story had been sad, but that had only been the beginning. She was at least a thousand years old, and her story seemed to only have gotten worse. She’d become a ninja, but she’d failed the Dragonskin rituals. He wondered what Niwashi had thought of that. And what had become of the branded dragon?

  Nothing good, probably. Or maybe his sense of humor helped him turn the bitter into sweet.

  Or maybe the Dragon Slayer finally found him.

  This was the first time Steven had heard of such a thing. Was it another dragon? Maybe a demon? It had driven Niwashi into hiding, and it was something that Mathaal had never mentioned. What could be powerful enough to silence an Alpheros? Or maybe Old Matchstick had simply forgotten.

  Steven passed between the bedogols and got his first view of the waterfall temple with his own eyes. A wide arc of narrow steps fell away from the gate to the main area.

  The temple had been carved into the very mountain. On three sides were waterfalls, dropping down into a pool that was channeled through more crafted rock to separate at forty-five-degree angles across the floor of the wonderful place.

  The demon statues were everywhere, on every wall, in every corner, some with scepters, others with axes, and still others with swords. Some were black with age, splattered by the never-ending gush of the water. Most were green and mossy. They clustered around, facing a central area, divided into the tree sections by the channeled water.

  Steven blinked. Standing on daises were more statues, these twelve feet high and made by the same sculptor who had erected the branded dragon that had shocked Uchiko. These weren’t human, though, but Homo Draconi.

  And they were all reaching upward, to the sky, in a pose like the statues in the Americos Chambers. No, it was the exact same pose. But Steven recognized the features of two of the dragon men. It was Rahaab in the center. The rivers around him left him alone on a central island, which was ironic, because he’d wound up basically alone on a planet of apes and half-breeds, or that was what he would’ve said. To his right was Mathaal. The dragon man to his left had to be the long-lost Icharaam.

  Steven wandered down the steps. The waterfall temple was something out of a movie, something out of legend, and he felt an odd connection to the place.

  Tessa followed. The minute she passed through the gates, however, a shadow seemed to fall across the temple compound. The shining sun muted. Was it the ash from Mount Badur? Or was it something else?

  A crack echoed across the temple. The grating sound of stone moving followed, grinding, squealing, stone on stone.

  Steven whirled. The bedogols were all coming to life. Impossibly, the demon statues were moving, flexing their arms, swiping their weapons through the air, fluttering their stone wings. One let out a roar, then another, then another.

  The water in front of Rahaab’s statue boiled, and something else was rising, something big.

  Strangely enough, every single animated bedogol flew toward Tessa, weapons raised. Steven and the other women of his Escort were ignored as the stone beasts hurled themselves toward the gunslinger.

  She grinned, casting shields and throwing bullets.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  BRUNO ILLICK WATCHED the Drokharis boy and his Escort enter the Alpheros Temple. Roy Right had told him all the names of the women, but he didn’t care about them.

  Not surprisingly, the bedogol weren’t triggered by the boy. No, they were waiting to attack evil spirits. Steven Drokharis wasn’t evil, only ambitious.

  Bruno watched from the cliffside, on a ledge behind a waterfall. He’d found a dry place for his bag of tricks and his bow. On either side of him, the water gushed down, flowing into a mist-covered pool before splitting off into channels.

  He’d arrived in Bali the night before.
After confirming the location using a Divination spell, he’d found his perch and waited. His stop in Hawaii had been brief. He’d eaten a human prostitute. Animus from the kill and sustenance from the meat. No time for the smoke. No time for a bath, and while the waterfall was warm around him, it wasn’t a bath. He’d even put sleep on hold.

  Good thing he had his Animus bottles of beer, for they’d kept his strength up as he soared over the Pacific. He knew magic ways of flying. He wasn’t as adept as the Alpheros, but he’d been practicing the fifth ability on the Path of the Mirror-Souled Dragon.

  The hours upon hours of flight had been pleasant. The waiting hadn’t been. When he landed, he’d searched for signs of the huntress, but there was none. He was safe from her arrows for the moment.

  And now, here he was, being entertained by the bedogol battle below.

  The animated stone statues flew down upon Tessa Ross. That was the Magician’s name, and she was powerful. And she must’ve been evil, for the guardian demons all were aiming for her. Such dazzling magic! She kept two shields around her. Yes, two. Not one Magician in a thousand could cast two Defensio spells at the same time.

  Bedogol demons crumbled into stone as they hit her pink-tinged force fields. Then she raised her revolvers, one in each hand. Those guns boomed. Enchanted bullets blew other statues to bits in small but violent magical explosions. Her ability to infuse her bullets with Magica Incanto was impressive. Also, troubling. Who was this Tessa person?

  She survived the first attacks, but there were hundreds of the statues, of all shapes and sizes. Two gargantuan bedogols ripped themselves out of the side temple walls and shambled forward. Each juggernaut had a tree-sized scepter in its rocky claws.

  Steven dropped Samael’s Lash, an old sword, a friend’s sword. Bruno had known Samael Rexus before, during, and after he ruled the Holy Roman Primacy. It was shame what Rahaab did to him. A shame but not surprising.

  The Drokharis child turned into a long black dragon, beautiful, mighty, huge in the courtyard of the temple. He bathed an oncoming juggernaut in lightning. The electricity blasted through the demon’s scepter and crackled around the arm of the thing, sparking across the stone, until the limb dropped to the ground and exploded. The debris pelted Steven, but DarkArmor protected him.

  The assault made the first juggernaut pause, but the second kept coming. It lumbered across the temple floor, scepter raised. Each footstep was an earthquake. The noise was deafening. A single stroke of that club would turn Steven’s bones to jelly.

  The Drokharis child reached out a claw. A black force field struck the running bedogol’s right leg, and it crumbled. Another flick of his talons and spinning black stars struck the juggernaut’s arms at the shoulder joint. Both limbs tumbled to the ground.

  The first giant statue still had an arm, and it went to slam its fist down on Steven. A whip of his black-scaled tail toppled the huge bedogol.

  The smaller winged statues descended on Steven. He was helping Tessa, the evil Magician, and so the Enchantrix powering the statues saw the Drokharis child as a target.

  Tessa was out of bullets, but she still had her shields. Then? Things got interesting. She cast an Incanto spell onto the water, pulling it into the shapes of men. She laughed, mentioning something about Mathaal and book golems. She knew Mathaal? Who was she? Bruno felt the curiosity like a punch to the belly.

  He held the Hellstring. He had his quiver at his feet. He retrieved an arrow and nocked the bone shaft to his weapon. He’d strike them in a minute. For every spell they cast, every Pugna ability they used, and every Exhalant, they weakened. The stone statues were not alive, and thus they provided no mystical energy upon their death.

  All he had to do was wait. Then he would shoot Steven Drokharis with an arrow and leave.

  No. Now he couldn’t. He had to know who Tessa Ross really was. For her magic was so very much like that of the Magician who had crafted the Hellstring. And yet she was evil, clearly, because the bedogols were attacking her.

  Something about her reminded him of the Dragon Slayer, the awful Slayer, who cut Bruno’s sex from his body and then told him to go home to his father and see if his liege would have any pity on his sexless son.

  Father hadn’t. And Bruno Illick was born.

  The water elementals ran past Steven and were there to protect their mistress from the stone demons. They leapt and took blows above Tessa, their watery forms losing consistency to splash down on her. The water elementals weren’t powerful enough to attack, but they could defend using their liquid bodies.

  She laughed at the rainfall. She laughed, as if her imminent demise didn’t mean a thing. She commented on how hot and sweaty she was. Then she slammed new bullets into her revolver with a speed loader.

  By this time, Mouse, Aria, and Skylar Blacke had arrived. All three were in their Homo Draconis forms, breathing lightning. That scattered another wave of the guardian demons.

  Skylar Blacke slid past them and assumed her True Form. The jungle went silent, the trees, the stone, and the water vibrating for a half-second, and then the skull-crunching thrum of ChromaticFury flashed from Skylar’s mouth, blinding Bruno. Any bedogol caught in the path of that ultimate Exhalant was reduced to rubble and dust.

  Left-handed, Tessa shot the last of the stone statues, and it fell with a thunk to the ground.

  Steven and his Escort were all smiles at their victory. They chatted, and it was all so very friendly. Bruno had seen this before, with his father and his friends, a thousand years ago. For a short time, he had joined them in their camaraderie. He had stood around the Ever-Seeing Eye as one of the twelve.

  The statue that had been hidden in the channel in front of Rahaab was now visible, streaming water. It was a woman, carved into marble, and she had her right hand outstretched. The sculptor had crafted her fingers to clutch something.

  Bruno drew his arrow back to his ear. He smelled the fire and ash of the Hellstring and the slight scent of rot, a sweet, cloying smell.

  Steven approached the statue of the woman. He stopped, head back, looking up at her fine features. There was curiosity on his face, wonder, and then a smile. His throat was exposed. It was as if Steven wanted the arrow in his neck.

  Bruno almost released the arrow. Then he saw the torch in the Indian woman’s hand. That torch, the statue, great magic was involved in both. Bruno wanted to see if the legends were true. He couldn’t help himself.

  STEVEN STOOD APPRAISING the statue of the woman. Unlike the other carvings he’d seen, this one was perfectly preserved. The artwork was masterful. The folds of her gown seemed soft enough to touch. He could see each fingernail was unique. The softness of her lips, the fullness of her breasts, her thin neck, and the delicate features of her face, all were done with patient master craftsmanship. It looked like she might talk at any minute. Then again, they’d already seen the demon guardians come to life to attack them.

  One thing, though, Steven found troubling. Everything was human, the ideal of female beauty, except the tops of the beautiful woman’s ears. They weren’t rounded, but ended in points. And yes, now that he noticed her elven ears, he saw that her eyes were a bit more oval than expected.

  Nevertheless, he stood spellbound by the ten-foot-tall Elf woman. Tessa nudged him as she reloaded her Peacekeepers. “Yeah, she looks like Galadriel, if Galadriel was real and not Cate Blanchett.”

  Steven didn’t disagree. She did have a regal air about her, like an Elven queen.

  Aria shifted and walked to join them, as did Mouse. Skylar remained in her dragon form, blowing flames from her nostrils and keeping watch. Uchiko was also there, on the walls, covered by the jungle foliage.

  Zoey let out a gruff snuffle, almost like a sneeze. She’d gone from wolf to bear and now shambled around to stand at their backs. Around them, the rubble piles from the bedogol battle were scattered over the floor of the temple.

  “Elftears,” Steven whispered. He’d always thought the Dragonsoul medicine was strangely
named, but now it seemed there might be actual elves. If they weren’t in this world, they might’ve visited through a portal.

  Aria appraised the torch in her hands. “This looks like it will fit in her hand. Should I try?”

  “Yes, you should,” Mouse said immediately. “We didn’t come here to fuck a snake.”

  Tessa sighed, acting heartbroken. “It’s not fair that you get two catchphrases, and I don’t get any.”

  “Some girls have all the luck,” Mouse returned.

  The Indian woman went from human to dragon so she could easily place the torch in the Elf Queen’s curled fingers.

  Flames, lightning, and cold energy burst from the torch and soared up and around them. When the electricity touched the waterfall on the right, lightning flashed, running up and down the water. The blizzard breeze erupted out of the torch and went to the waterfall in front of them, and that turned to ice, layer upon layer of frozen water, trapped in cold, shining like diamonds in the sun.

  Steven felt the cold slap him, and when he exhaled, he could see his breath. But not for long. The magical fire spun and struck the waterfall on the left, and that became a waterfall of liquid flame, like burning oil. The fire hit the cold, and steam went hissing upward even as the air was filled with the electricity of the lightning falls.

  The entire waterfall temple thrummed with power. A voice called out, speaking a strange mixture of English, a soft language that sounded like mostly vowels, and a sharp language that had the crunch of consonants to it. The same voice spoke all three languages at the same time. Steven’s mind could understand the hard language, it was Dragonsoul script brought to life. Could that be the language of the Alpheros? He thought it might be. As for the soft language? Elven, definitely.

  In English, the feminine voice of the Elf Queen declared, “Welcome, Dragonsoul, you are the thirteenth knight. You have become Death, the devourer of worlds.”