The Dragon's Heart

by David Powers King

  Celesia turned away and stared toward the badlands. “We’ve wasted enough time. The sooner we restore the Dragon’s Heart, the better. Lives are at stake.”

  “True.” Groth scratched his head. “Should we wait for Master Flint? He’ll want to know if you’re—”

  “Let Flint worry about himself, like he always does. We should’ve finished our journey months ago.” Celesia searched her figure, secured the few possessions she had on her belt, and left Groth’s side to stir the horses. They tittered at her soft touch. “We need to start early today Hilander, Tamsyn. Can you be ready soon?”

  “I suppose.” Hilander’s legs buckled as he stood.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked. “Are you injured?”

  “I will be fine, but any weight is unbearable ...”

  “Then I won’t ride today,” Celesia said, more sharply than she meant to. “I can walk my share. Don’t think I have to rely on you to carry me every step of the way.”

  “Princess?” Tamsyn asked as she stood. “Why do you guard yourself when no defense is warranted?”

  “I’m not guarding myself,” Celesia nearly yelled.

  Taika buzzed over her. “Sounds like it to me.”

  “Stop butting in! Do as you will. I’m going!”

  Celesia turned, seized her cloak and walked into the fog. She heard Groth calling for her to come back, but she ignored him. She couldn’t wait for them. They had no time to dawdle, as they were close to finishing their quest. She had to solve these impossible riddles, only then could she go home and save her kingdom, free her father—and be with Tuke. The thought nearly made her pause—where did that come from? The memory of his kiss surfaced on her lips, as well as the warmth she felt from the dragon’s side. Did Tuke even know that his master was the dreaded Alchemist? Celesia shook her head. Now wasn’t the time for unhelpful thoughts or desires. If Alkivar was in command of her beloved home—with the alias of Mavarco—she had to find a way to put a stop to him, and find a way to cease the dangerous feelings that were creeping inside her chest.

  Why are my thoughts all over the place, and why am I being so short with everyone? She already knew the answer. It was the stone. The Dragon’s Heart dangled around her neck, hidden under her shirt. Its influence was taking hold, racing her thoughts, manipulating her emotions.

  She exposed the stone to the world, stretched out her arm, and concentrated. What she needed to focus on was about as clear as the fog before her. The farther she traversed into the cloud, the more blankets of mist came for her to wade through. She heard the others call for her. Finding the last fragment was more important.

  She wanted—no—it wanted to be whole.

  “Princess!” Hilander cried like an apparition.

  “Slow down,” Groth said. “We can’t find you!”

  “Follow my voice. We mustn’t stop now!”

  “We can’t tell where you are,” Taika called out.

  Celesia was about to say more, but a bulging stomach appeared out of thin air, and muffled her voice. She bounced to the ground and stared at a creature who had to be taller than Groth by a few feet. It had thick, olive green skin, and sported little more than a loin cloth. The creature’s shoulders and torso were bare. It stood with large calves, disproportionate and misshapen compared to the rest of its heavyset body. It was too large to be an ogre. Too small to be a giant. This left Celesia with only one idea as she swallowed a dry gulp. The strong smell of pungent sour eggs carried on the troll’s breath.

  Celesia didn’t dare say a word, sitting frozen on the ground while her companions carried on through the mist, their voices drifting away. She was on her own.

  “Purrrrdy!” the troll growled. “Zorp dikes larty!”

  “Sorry, what?” Celesia said. “I don’t speak troll.”

  “What a liberation!” he replied with an abrupt and clear euphemism, as though he were educated in a royal court. “Intolerable the jargon I come up with in order to maintain my brute image. Ghastly really. Anyway, up with you, then. No sense screaming or struggling.”

  Celesia didn’t have a chance to ask the troll what he meant as he grabbed her by the waist with one hand and lugged her over his great shoulder. Sometime during her abduction, she felt her dagger was missing. She looked for the quaternary as she squirmed herself upright. The silvery blade was sticking in the ground behind them.

  She must have dropped it, somehow.

  “So far so good,” the troll hummed.

  “Where are you taking me?” Celesia asked, frank and calm. She had to find a way out of this. “If you want me to come with you somewhere, you just need to ask.”

  “Afraid that conjecture is irrelevant,” the troll said with a singsong in his throat. “Asking you to follow me politely goes against the Guidebook.”

  Celesia raised her brow. “You have a guidebook? I wasn’t aware that trolls could read.”

  “If you are familiar with procedures of protocol, you would understand the fundamental praxis of Trolldom,” he answered with a bounce. “This is precisely what I am to do with you.”

  When the troll said nothing more, Celesia strained up to see where the creature was going. She saw a book in the troll’s free hand, filled with jagged writing, and the label, The Troll’s Guide to Trolldom, on the page. There she saw a picture of a troll carrying a helpless girl over his shoulder, just as he was doing now. Odd. A creature had abducted her while reading a book that illustrated his actions. Under the picture was a title in larger letters that read: Stealing Maidens and What to Do with Them.

  Celesia had to say something, to keep herself from laughing about the troll’s book and its ridiculous titles. “Did you happen to come across a magician—I mean—a chandler, recently? He said he had met a troll.”

  “A peddler of common goods?” the troll answered, skipping with his large feet. There was no way for her to know if the others would find her at this rate. “I may have met such a man. He used a blind horse to pull his rickety cart? Yes, I saw him. Why do you inquire?”

  “He met a troll. Are you the same one?”

  “That’s awfully considerate of you to ask,” the troll sang. His pace started to slow down as well. “Something doesn’t seem right.” He flipped through the pages of his guidebook. “You are a maiden, but according to this passage, you should be kicking and wailing. So far you have been nothing but compliant. How peculiar. I am not really sure how I am to proceed from here.”

  “What were you planning to do?” Celesia asked. She heard the dagger clanging against a rock behind them. Good. Thanks to the tethering charm, it followed them.

  “According to my sources, I could hold you hostage, use you as a personal maid or servant, and I could even braise you in a stew, as it says so right here.” The troll thumbed at a thick line in his book. “Like I said before, you do not match the description of a maiden.”

  “Well, is that what a maiden looks like?”

  The troll scratched his forehead. “It must be. There is a diagram on the next page that is more specific. See. Long hair, fair skin, wearing some kind of dress ...”

  “That’s your problem—I’m wearing no dress.”

  The troll stopped in his tracks. He held Celesia with outstretched arms, peering at her like a child examining a doll for the first time. His uneven eyes surveyed her from head to toe. Celesia dangled awkwardly in the air, waiting for the creature to come to a conclusion. Any conclusion. He lowered her to the ground and stumbled back before sitting down. “I suppose I am inclined to apologize for mistaking you as a maiden. If you did wear a dress, you would match a maiden perfectly. What are you, a girl clad in men’s attire?”

  “I’m only a traveler,” Celesia said. “I’m here to look for something.”

  “A treasure seeker?” the troll asked with an awe of understanding. “That chandler was a traveler, but I can tell by your appearance that this is your first excursion.”

  “Appearances can be deceiving.” Celesia kept herself r
elaxed and light. Nothing was as unpredictable as an eloquent troll. Would he chase her if she decided to run? “Since we’ve settled that, I must be on my way.”

  “Doesn’t matter, I still can’t let you leave.”

  “But what good am I if I’m not a maiden?”

  “There’s something about that here!” The troll pried his guidebook open. “As I thought. It says right here, in appendix three: if you happen to capture a human female commoner or traveler—mistaking her for a princess or a maiden—do not be alarmed! You have every right to proceed with the individual at your discretion. In other words, if you are hungry, eat her. Trouble is, I am not very hungry right now. How about: if the person wishes to leave, she must conquer you at a challenge of the victim’s choosing. Should the victim win, she may have a ten-second head start to run away. If she loses, you must destroy her immediately. We can’t allow such clever humans to wander around the world spreading stories of how they bested a troll, now can we? ”

  Celesia frowned. What an absurd book ...

  The troll closed it. “Come to think of it, I never thought I could read until that chandler came along. He bestowed me this book, free of charge. Amazing what humans will do in order to keep themselves from being eaten. Deer and other creatures don’t mind so much.”

  Not that they have the means to protest ...

  “Do you always accept what you read as truth?”

  “Everything I have read so far has been accurate and exceptionally helpful,” he said, grinning. The length of a man’s foot could fill the gap between his front teeth. “If it’s in a book, it must be true, right? Well then. What sort of challenge do you wish to pin against me?”

  It was evident that there was no way to convince the troll that the book was a hoax. She had to play by the rules if she wanted to escape with her life. What kind of challenge could she suggest? She pondered. No feat of a physical nature would work. However, she did manage to persuade the troll that she was a commoner ...

  The troll started to rap the ground impatiently with his massive knuckles. “Decided yet on how we shall resolve this? I have bridge duty within the hour.”

  “I will challenge you to a duel of wits.”

  “Wits? You mean the exchange of riddles?”

  She nodded. “If you can’t answer true, you lose.”

  The troll laughed. “One of my favorite pastimes,” he said. Green slime drooled from his open mouth. “My brother and I played this often. You are in for it now, girl. How about I let you go first, to be fair.”

  Celesia paced, trying to think of a riddle that would be impossible for the troll to answer. She remembered what the gargoyle had said in the ruins of LaVóndia. Would that same riddle work here? She recollected the gargoyle’s words precisely, and said them to the troll.

  “A rock,” he answered, without as much as a flinch. “Diaigmas are unwise to use in a riddle match.”

  “Diaigmas? I’ve never heard of those.”

  “But you just told me one! A diaigma is a riddle with two ways of revealing the answer. First, the riddle itself, and second, the answer is hidden in its words. A wizard was famous for them, made diaigmas so complex that no one could solve them. Once you unravel a diaigma, they become too easy to answer.” The troll paused to sneeze. The noise was deafening. “Let me give you one, a little different: Who is defeated when forgotten?”

  “Who is defeated, when forgotten?”

  The troll nodded.

  “That’s ... a good one.” Celesia released a courteous laugh and began to think. If what the troll said was true, there had to be a double meaning in there somewhere, but it wasn’t spelled out like the other diaigma was. She thought hard about the word ’forgotten’ and wondered what would happen if she broke the word apart. For-got-ten. If defeat was another way to say that someone got another, then it was a play on words combined with numbers—four instead of for. The riddle was tricky and simplistic at the same time. She inhaled and prepared herself for the worst as she answered, “Ten?”

  “Correct,” the troll said. “Brighter than I estimated of you. Very well, it is your turn next in our little game. I have limited time left to play. Hurry along.”

  “Let me think.” Celesia concentrated as she nibbled on her lower lip. Nothing else came to mind, except for the riddles that she was striving to find the answers to. She thought of asking the troll if he knew Flint’s real name, but that was a direct question, not a riddle. Then she remembered something from Groth’s transcript.

  There was no harder question, or riddle, that she could come up with on her own. “Try and answer me this one: for six to come and death be won, the Seven shall name the One. How is the One to be named?”

  “Now that is a riddle,” the troll said with a deliberate snort. “The answer is simple. With the anticipation of a sixth child, the five siblings and their two parents were to bestow something in and of themselves that would constitute the name of the future child. It is distressing that we will never know the keywords of that name. None of the Royal Magical Family is alive to tell.”

  “They don’t need to be alive to name him?”

  “Of course not,” gaffed the troll, looking at a small sundial on his wrist. “The eldest son was killed before the last child was born. The name was afore appointed to the child from what Queen Rhea foresaw. The child would have a name based on something unique in each member. Their skills, personalities—anything. We will never know. The Days of Shadow were terrible for trolls, tricked into doing the will of the Alchemist. That was before my day. Well miss, this was fun, but I must go. Let us finish with my turn: what is my name?”

  “Zorp,” Celesia answered without hesitation. “Does that really count as a riddle?”

  “Wait, how did you know?” Zorp bellowed. “We were never acquainted.”

  “It was the first thing you said to me, after purrrrdy or whatever you said.” Celesia breathed a sigh of relief. “I’ll ask you the same in return: what’s my name?”

  Zorp said nothing as he scratched his nose. His eyes surveyed her figure again, as if trying to read into each of her fair features, like the shape of her body, or the wave of her hair would reveal clues to her name. After doing so for a minute, Zorp slumped. He was beaten.

  “It is ... Liana?” Zorp guessed.

  Celesia brought her arms to her side. “Nope.”

  “Drat—I allowed myself to fall into that one,” Zorp sighed in defeat. “According to the book, you have a ten second head start to run. You are favorable to have won this challenge. I was starting to have an appetite. Might I know your name, nonetheless?”

  “Sure, after I enter the fog,” she said, smiling. She waved to him and plunged into the thicket of moist air. The sash of her cloak was loose, so she tightened it and placed the cowl over her head. She had to find the dagger. It couldn’t have gone far. “My name is Celesia.”

  “What!” he roared. “The Princess of Bëdoustram? You tricked me! Come back here!”

  Celesia’s heart raced. He knows?

  She turned as a thunderous thud crashed behind her. Zorp moved so fast that he overshot her. He didn’t see her, but he was resourceful enough to know that she couldn’t have fled far. He stopped and roamed about in circles, grunting in distaste. It was hard to tell where the troll was in the dense fog. He could step on her at any moment. One of Zorp’s feet missed her by inches, then the creature shouted in pain. The ground thumped as the troll hopped around on one foot. Celesia followed the sound until she found the dagger with its handle buried, the blade pointed up, stained with orange blood.

  There was a sudden whoosh in the air, followed by the troll having the air knocked out of him. She shielded her eyes from the wind. Enough of the fog blew aside for her to see what was going on. The dragon wrestled the troll to the ground. Zorp raised his hands, showing his surrender. Flint towered over him with heat blowing in his nostrils. He told Zorp to leave, and he obeyed. The furious face of the dragon calmed to a cordial one.
<
br />   Flint composed himself. “Are you hurt?”

  For some reason, she couldn’t answer.

  “Did that creature harm you, Celesia?”

  “He carried me on his back for a while,” she snapped as she yanked the bloodstained dagger from the ground. “I wasn’t waiting for you to rescue me, by any means!”

  Flint backed away with a puzzled snort. “Why are you short with me? I don’t understand.”

  “Do I need a reason to be short? It’s better to watch and save us only when we’re in trouble, right? You must feel awfully pleased when you come to save me.”

  A secret fire, one that Celesia had never seen, burned within his eyes. “You’re angry with me for wanting to protect our company?” he roared. “I know you’re fully capable of defending yourself, Celesia. You were in no real trouble when that creature carried you away.”

  “Another thing, Flint, you ... You saw that?”

  “And heard it! My eyes see and my ears hear through rock if need be. I don’t know why you think I’m waiting for you to fall into trouble, because I never would!”

  “But ...” Celesia stammered. “Wait, I ...”

  Flint silenced her by unfurling his wings. “Wait for what? I never planned to help you unless your situation called for it. If you insist on devising evil assumptions about me, then I’ll leave you alone. Good morning!”

  The dragon leaped and soared into the late morning sky. Celesia didn’t speak for a moment. She then called for Flint to come back, but his speed increased at the sound of her voice. He ignored her. Intentionally. She watched the dragon as he disappeared into the sun. Not even the revealing landscape could distract her muddled thoughts as the fog dissipated around her. It had to be the Dragon’s Heart. The stone was responsible for the way she had been feeling. She grabbed the stone and sobbed as she yanked the thin chain from her neck.

  “Princess!” Groth cried. “We see you!”

  Celesia looked up, and found herself on the edge of a plateau. To the north was a steep slope that descended into vast pools of steaming water—the mouth of the badlands. A number of lakes and ponds bubbled with an unspeakable stench. Some teaming pools spewed jets of hot water across many gullies. A temptation welled in her, to discard the Dragon’s Heart into the waters.