Doomraga's Revenge

by T.A. Barron

  As the withering volley of flames subsided, he raised his head high. “Is that all you have?” he taunted. “Nothing more?”

  Another blast of flames erupted—strong enough to melt the black rock of the ridge, forming sizzling rivers of obsidian. But once again, Basilgarrad’s wings deflected the fire. When at last the onslaught ceased, he lifted his head again. Surveying the ferocious dragons, he declared, “Flames you have, my cousins. Flames and power! But I ask you—what good are they? Are such great gifts worth no more than this, to spend them on lives of thieving and murdering? Is there no greater calling for dragons, the most wondrous creatures in any realm of any world?”

  He paused, letting his words hover on the night air. Lowering his voice to a deep rumble, he asked, “Why not use your great power for something else, something more worthy? Why not use them for the good of all?”

  A few of the dragons, including Lo Valdearg, snorted with contempt or laughed out loud. But Basilgarrad’s steady gaze did not waver. Over on the crater, Merlin nodded in agreement, while Hallia and Krystallus poked their heads above the rim to watch.

  “I ask you, fellow dragons,” continued Basilgarrad, “what is a life of conquest but an empty egg? If everything you own has been stolen from others or ripped from the land, what value have you created? True value—and yes, true greatness—lies not in what we take, but what we give.”

  Surprisingly, a few of the dragons looked anxiously at each other. Another few, feeling the sting of his words, cocked their heads in thought. A small but growing murmur of uncertainty began to rise around the circle.

  “Ignore that treachery!” Lo Valdearg’s voice thundered, echoing on the volcanic ridges around them. As the largest dragon in the ring—even bigger than the orange leader, though still smaller than Basilgarrad—he spoke with commanding authority. All the other dragons turned his way. “For treachery it is.”

  Emboldened by the vastly superior numbers on his side, Lo Valdearg took a few steps forward. Facing the green intruder who had dared to challenge the dragons’ ways, he roared, “You are nothing but a tool—a pet of that wizard over there. He controls your life, not you! And a dragon should be free. Or he is not really a dragon at all!”

  Almost all the dragons around the ring nodded their heads. Several banged their huge tails against the ground, thumping their approval.

  Looking straight into the intruder’s eyes, Lo Valdearg sneered, “You dishonor all your kind. Look at you, green pet! Why, you can’t even breathe fire.”

  Several of the surrounding dragons grunted in surprise. Though only Merlin noticed, Basilgarrad himself winced ever so slightly.

  “That’s right,” Lo Valdearg went on. “He may be big, but he’s still just a Green from Woodroot. He couldn’t light a little campfire, let alone make a powerful blaze. No wonder he preaches peace—he’s not fit for war!”

  Without warning, the scarlet dragon blew a raging breath of fire straight at his foe. So great was the hot blast that Merlin was nearly blown over backward into the crater. But Basilgarrad did not retreat. He merely turned his face away momentarily and took the full force of the attack on the scales of his neck and chest. When the flames died down, he slowly turned back to face Lo Valdearg.

  “You really are stupid.” Basilgarrad shook his head. “Even more stupid than you look. And that’s nearly impossible.”

  At that, Lo Valdearg blew another searing blast at his face. At the same time, he charged with frightening speed, aiming to sink his teeth into any part of Basilgarrad’s body. If only one of those teeth cracked a scale—that would be a grievous wound.

  Simultaneously, the orange dragon called to the others, “Help Lo Valdearg! Vanquish the enemy!”

  Heeding the command, every dragon in the ring rushed forward. Teeth bared, they blew a torrent of flames. So fast did they move, they were on their enemy in a flash.

  Not fast enough, though. Basilgarrad spun away from Lo Valdearg with surprising speed, then did something completely unexpected. Bracing his immense body, he whipped his mighty tail—and wrapped it around the scarlet dragon’s neck. With a deafening roar, Basilgarrad used his enormous strength, along with Lo Valdearg’s momentum, to lift the other dragon off the ground. He whirled his foe around and around, clearing the circle and using the bully’s body as a shield.

  Lo Valdearg, taken by surprise, could only release a strangled gurgle from his throat. The other dragons, pushed back by this huge whirling club, gazed on in fear and astonishment. No dragon in history had ever done something so bold in battle!

  “Kill him! Rush him!” commanded the orange leader. “You cannot be defeated by a single dragon.”

  His soldiers, however, wavered. Only a handful of them charged, and each met with a painful slam by the whirling body. Two were struck so hard in their heads that they toppled over, unconscious. And still Basilgarrad’s tail kept spinning.

  “Charge him, you fools!” The orange dragon shouted louder than ever, spraying sparks from his mouth. “Charge him now!”

  Just then, Basilgarrad arched his broad back and lifted his tail straight up—and with it, the helpless dragon who had become his weapon. Using all the strength he could muster, he brought down Lo Valdearg—right on top of the exasperated leader.

  The colliding dragons shrieked, while bones cracked and scales splintered. When all the clouds of ash finally cleared, Lo Valdearg lay sprawled upon the body of his leader. Moaning in pain, he rolled off and slammed to the ground. The orange dragon, whose back had been broken, never moved again.

  Confused, distraught, and thoroughly frightened, the other dragons scattered in all directions. They leaped into the air and flew away as fast as they could, not daring to look back, lest the bold green dragon decide to pursue them.

  At the scene of the battle, Basilgarrad surveyed the remains of the attackers. Just beyond the crushed corpse, Lo Valdearg, unable to fly, crawled away in anguish. After watching him for a few seconds, Basilgarrad delivered the most humiliating blow of all: He simply turned away.

  Swinging around to face Merlin—who, along with Hallia and Krystallus, gazed at him with grateful admiration—the green dragon narrowed his eyes. With gusto, he declared, “Let that be a warning to anybody who dares to call me a pet.”

  5: FLAMES

  Words are like knives. They can spread butter and honey—or pierce a beating heart.

  Peering over the crater’s rim, Basilgarrad glanced at the portal’s mysterious flames, so like the green fire of his own eyes. Those flames could magically transport anyone around Avalon almost instantly—a dangerous way to travel, but very useful for creatures who weren’t lucky enough to be able to fly at dragonspeed. This particular portal had, apparently, brought Merlin’s wife and son to this fire-blackened realm. But why?

  “Oh, Basil,” said Hallia, her doe eyes full of gratitude. She lay her hand on the crusty black pumice of the rim. “You were marvelous. Truly marvelous.”

  He raised his enormous clubbed tail, then let it slam back to the ground, sending up ashen clouds on every side. “Fighting is just one of those skills you pick up,” he said modestly. “Of course, it helps if your opponent has a brain the size of a speck of dust.”

  “You didn’t have just one opponent,” countered Krystallus. He shook his head vigorously, which made his long white hair—so unusual in such a young man—swish against his shoulders. “You had nineteen! And you bested them all!”

  “That’s right,” agreed Merlin. He tore some tattered shreds of cloth off his sleeve and threw them aside. “That kind of fighting skill isn’t something you just pick up. It’s a rare gift that—”

  “I wasn’t talking about his fighting!” interrupted Hallia. She climbed a step higher on the rim to be a bit closer to the dragon’s face. Though her whole body could have fit inside the pupil of his eye, she gazed at him confidently, as his equal. “No, something else entirely.”

  “Not his fighting?” asked Krystallus, bewildered. “Then what were you
talking about?”

  “His words.” Hallia continued to peer straight into the enormous green eye. “True greatness, you said, lies in what we give.” She beamed at the dragon. “That was marvelous.”

  Lowering her voice, she added, “It doesn’t matter at all that you can’t make fire in your belly . . . when you can make such fire with your words.”

  Basilgarrad’s eyes blushed slightly.

  Merlin, standing atop the rim, grinned at the dragon. “Better watch out, old boy, or you’ll find yourself an adopted member of the deer people.”

  Hallia gave his leg a shove. “We’d be honored to have him. Especially since the last person we adopted was a clumsy young wizard with a terrible habit of getting into trouble.”

  “Well!” the wizard replied, feigning insult. “That description of me is entirely out of date. Now I’m a fully grown wizard with a terrible habit of getting into trouble.”

  Her doe eyes, usually so warm, seemed to freeze over. “Not only with dragons,” she scolded. “Right now you’re in trouble with me.”

  Merlin’s face fell. He averted his eyes, as if he felt guilty about something. Turning back to her, he started fumbling for words—something Basilgarrad had never seen him do before.

  “My love, I know that—I, well, you . . . ah, well . . . you must understand. But no, of course you don’t! Not yet. Just let me . . . I’ve been wanting to, ah, tell you, but—no, no, not here! Not now.”

  “Why not?” she demanded, her gaze still icy. Like an impatient deer, she stamped hard on the ground.

  Merlin waved his torn sleeve, making it flap in the air. “Because it’s . . .” He glanced over at his son, and then at the dragon looking down at them. “Private! That’s why. It’s private. Between you and me.” He reached out his hand, hoping to take hers. “I promise you, as soon as we have time—”

  “Time!” she said frostily, pulling away from him. “That’s what we don’t have anymore. Time together. It’s gotten to the point I have to beg Krystallus to take me through a portal just to see you—and then only until the next crisis takes you away!”

  Merlin cringed visibly, and Basilgarrad felt a sharp pang of sympathy for his friend. But something inside the wizard seemed to snap. His expression suddenly changed from guilty to angry. Very angry. But instead of exploding at Hallia, he directed his rage at Krystallus.

  “You never should have brought her here! Don’t you know how dangerous portalseeking can be? How could you risk your mother’s life that way?”

  The young man scowled. “I know about portals! More than you, probably. Don’t talk to me like I’m three years old.”

  “Hard not to, when you act like—”

  “Stop changing the subject!” broke in Hallia, stamping her foot again.

  “The subject is your safety,” retorted the wizard.

  “No, it’s not.”

  “It is!” Merlin twisted his staff into the ashen ground, grinding its tip forcefully. Turning back to his son, he declared, “Risk your own life, if you must—traveling all over Avalon, for whatever reasons. But not someone else’s! And especially not hers.”

  “What would you know about my reasons?” The young man’s fists clenched, turning his fingers almost as white as his hair. “When I was small, you never cared, and when I left home early, you never even noticed.”

  Both his father and mother winced at those words. But Krystallus merely shrugged, as if none of that mattered anymore. “The fact is, I love exploring. Finding new places. Drawing the first maps. What’s wrong with that? What’s so irresponsible about exploring—compared to abandoning your family?”

  Hallia touched his shoulder. “Wait, now. That’s too strong.”

  “No, it’s not.” Krystallus glared at his father. “He cares a lot more about his work—those chances to show his famous wizardry—than he does about either of us.”

  Silence fell over the group. Except for the crackling flames of the portal, and the occasional skittering of a pumice pebble that rolled down the volcanic ridge, no sound could be heard. Basilgarrad watched his friends with dismay. And with growing frustration: He had no idea how to stop this argument, and no idea where it might lead. For the first time in a long while—only a few moments after he had vanquished an army of dragons—he felt totally powerless.

  Merlin was the first to speak again. To the dragon’s relief, his voice was calm, even kind. “Look, son,” he began, searching for the right words, “I know I haven’t . . . been much of a father. I suppose . . . I thought, when you grew up, we could find—”

  “When I grew up!” spat Krystallus, quaking with rage. “Once you decided I didn’t have any wizard’s magic, you forgot all about me. Not that I care! Just don’t pretend you ever wanted to be a real father.”

  Merlin staggered, nearly losing his balance on the rim of the crater. His complexion, lit by the flickering flames, whitened again with anger, and his eyes flashed. “I could have done better, that’s certain. But I didn’t have much material to work with.”

  Ignoring Hallia’s gasp, he added, “You never showed any sense. Never! Which is why you think nothing of trying to impress your mother by dragging her through a deadly maze of portals, right into a battleground.”

  “I didn’t drag her.”

  “You could have killed her! Portalseeking isn’t child’s play. Surely I at least taught you that!”

  Krystallus stared at his father. In a voice as hard as iron, he said, “You never taught me anything. Except how to be a terrible father.”

  Hallia bit her lip, glancing from one of them to the other.

  Merlin’s eyebrows, thicker than brambles, lifted. “And you never taught me anything except—”

  “Stop,” cried Hallia. “Say no more!”

  But her husband ignored her. “How to be a miserable son.”

  Krystallus slowly sucked in his breath. Then, without another word, he spun around and strode straight into the green flames of the portal. A loud crackle split the air—and he was gone.

  Basilgarrad slowly shook his gargantuan head. How, he wondered, had the evening’s victory turned so quickly into defeat?

  Hallia drew her blue shawl closer, as if a chill wind had blown through the desolate lands around the crater. She looked up at the stars for a few seconds, hoping to find some guidance or, perhaps, some comfort. But the deep lines on her brow showed she had found neither.

  Merlin, meanwhile, stared into the shimmering flames that had just swallowed his son—and any chance of an ongoing relationship. Slowly, his coal-black eyes lowered, until he was gazing morosely at his boots.

  Hallia turned to him and snapped, “You foolish, foolish man! Don’t you know that he’s become one of Avalon’s boldest explorers? That he’s been through more portals than even Queen Serella of the elves?”

  The wizard frowned. “No . . . I didn’t know. I’ve been too—”

  “Busy, yes, I know.” She snorted.

  Defensively, Merlin grumbled, “I still say it was reckless to bring you here! Even if you did ask, he should have known better. Why would he do such an idiotic thing?”

  She strode closer. “Don’t you see, you brainless oaf? By bringing me all the way here, he was trying to impress someone—the person whose opinion matters most.”

  “You, of course.”

  “No!” She glared at him. “You. His father.”

  Merlin looked into her face, genuinely taken aback. “Me?”

  “How else, without any magic of his own, does he prove himself?” Her voice dropped to a quaking whisper. “How else does he make himself worthy of being the son of Merlin?”

  The wizard didn’t answer. He merely turned and gazed into the restless, shape-shifting flames.

  6: MAGICAL SPARKS

  Learning a new language is easy—even the underwater words of mer folk, or the whistle-speak of cloud faeries—compared to learning how to raise a child differently than you were raised yourself.

  Two weeks later, Me
rlin and Basilgarrad sat together by a crackling campfire in the Volcano Lands region. Although these flames were markedly different from the green fire of the portal where he’d argued with Krystallus, the wizard watched them with the same silent despondence, lost in his thoughts.

  The dragon, meanwhile, lay stretched between a row of small volcanoes. Whenever one erupted, spitting an annoying fountain of superheated lava into the air, he merely rolled over and crushed it. How else to make it keep quiet? Unfortunately, the lava usually found its way to one of the other volcanoes, making it necessary to smother that one, as well. This continued well into the evening, as the realm darkened around them. Eventually, Basilgarrad sighed a deep dragon’s sigh: Volcanoes could be so pesky! Yet another reason he didn’t like Fireroot.

  As Merlin’s friend, he knew that it was pointless to try to coax the wizard to talk before he was ready. During the entire time since that debacle with his son, Merlin hadn’t spoken about it—except to Hallia. Soon after Krystallus’s departure, the married couple had taken a long (and, judging from their faces when they returned, tearful) walk together. Then, after a somber embrace with Hallia, Merlin asked the dragon to take her where she wanted to go—to one of her favorite haunts, a rolling region of meadows and glades in the heart of Woodroot that the deer people called the Summerlands. When Basilgarrad returned, the wizard only wanted to talk about work—and suggested they might try to craft some sort of truce between the fire dragons and the dwarves. Although Basilgarrad could sense that there was something else troubling Merlin, something much bigger than this feud in Fireroot, he could also sense that the wizard still wasn’t ready to explain.

  In time, he told himself. He’ll tell me in time.

  Alas, their efforts to arrange a truce had failed miserably. Hard as they tried, they couldn’t even start a conversation with the fire dragons. Whenever Merlin appeared by himself, the dragons only wanted to battle him to the death. And whenever he appeared with Basilgarrad, they instantly fled into hiding.