The Dubious Gift of Dragon Blood

by J. Marshall Freeman

  I kneeled on my bed and checked out the view. Below me, the fog was an unbroken blanket covering the valley. Above, the realm sky was black, criss-crossed by threads, like rivers of blood and gold. There were twinkling stars in it, but also multicoloured tennis balls drifting slowly across the sky. Unlike the view from the roof of the Ambassador, the realms of Air and Water were not visible. Why not? I wanted to ask someone. Actually, I would have been happy to ask anyone anything, to talk about our favourite music, or why your own farts smell okay but someone else’s are toxic. Anything to break the silence.

  It was getting cold, so I closed the window. I examined a set of clothes folded neatly on the chair—pants, a shirt, and what must have been underwear. I unwrapped myself from my fancy-dress duds. It was like undoing a tensor bandage, meters of fabric piling up beside me on the floor as I spun and twisted my way to freedom. I bundled up the material in the corner with my sneakers sitting on top, then climbed back into bed, naked. I didn’t want to turn out the light yet, so I just sat with my arms around my knees, the covers pulled up over my shoulders, with no idea of what I was doing there.

  Introducing Crispin Haugen, Olympic champion of self-isolation. Due to my stupidity, I had lost Altman, Sylvia, and my whole social circle in about ten minutes. Following that disaster, I could have gone home to the parents who loved me, but I was too chickenshit. So instead I left my goddamned planet! And now I was alone, lonely, isolated, cut off, solitary, individual, unique in my patheticness, stuck in a tower like a storybook princess, with nothing to look forward to but an awkward appointment with a chamber pot.

  Then I heard a noise. A tap and a hiss of leather on stone. Silence for a breathless five seconds and then again the tap and hiss. Imagining a lone assassin unsheathing his blade, I looked around for a weapon. The glowing torchstone on its brass stand seemed the best bet. Quietly, quietly I reached for it and touched the rim just below the rock, burning my hand.

  “Ow, shit!” I shouted, because I have no self-control. Tiqokh! You better be watching! But the quadrana was probably still in the dining room. And then maybe he would need to go to the kitchen after and eat his weekly cat or whatever before he went on guard duty. I pulled myself back into the corner of the bed, my back against the cold stone wall, as someone knocked on my door.

  “Come in,” I said, because I guess even assassins deserve some courtesy. The door swung slowly inward to reveal Davix.

  I breathed a sigh of relief. “Oh, it’s you,” I said, then pulled my sheet higher, blushing and giving him a look of annoyance because I needed to feel I had at least some kind of control.

  Davix wasn’t exactly a picture of calm himself. Putting a shh finger to his lips, he closed the door as gently as possible.

  “I thought you’re not allowed up here,” I whispered. “Aren’t you scared they’re going to beat you with a stick?”

  “It’s fine. I got to your room unseen.” He moved my fresh clothes onto a corner of the table and sat backward on the chair, crossing his arms on the chair-back and looking at me with those big brown eyes. “Besides, the authorities have not sentenced offenders to the offering the flesh for tens of cycles.” He was close enough that I swear I could feel the heat off his body.

  “But aren’t you violating your precious DragonLaw? And what with you being Grav’nan-dahé’s personal assistant or something.”

  “I actually have two masters: the Prime Magistrate as well as Tix-etnep-thon-dahé, who you met tonight. I fear I will have to disappoint one of them. Maybe both.” He suddenly shut down, looking all sad again, and I found the patience to just wait, which is not usual for me. After half a minute, Davix snapped back to life. “Technically,” he said, “You aren’t part of the DragonLaw, Copper Guest. There are no official rules about you yet.”

  I tilted my head, either in scepticism or to look at that wonderful nose from a different angle.

  “But I’ll be part of the revised edition,” I said. “Every time I scratched my ass tonight, they wrote it down.” That earned me a smile.

  “Did you scratch it a lot?” he asked. “Will you be remembered as the Copper Scratcher?”

  “Or possibly the Copper Burper.”

  “Really! I’m sorry I wasn’t there to witness it, X’risp’hin.”

  My eyebrows went right up to my hairline. “What did you call me?”

  He looked puzzled. “What you told us to. X’risp’hin.”

  I collapsed sideways, overcome by laughter that kept growing the more I tried to fight it. X’risp’hin meant “adorable little lizard.”

  “What?” Davix demanded, grinning despite having no clue what I was laughing at.

  “Nothing, nothing! It’s…” I tried to stop laughing. “It’s great. Perfect. Use it.”

  Davix was laughing, too. “I was surprised by the name, I’ll admit, but it kind of suits you.”

  That made me laugh harder: “Baby iguana, that’s me.”

  Raucous chortles. Guffaw central. We motioned each other to keep quiet but there was no way.

  When we finally ran out of laughing gas, we just grinned and looked each other in the eye until suddenly, just like that, my whole body wanted him. There’s this thing that happens when someone goes from just handsome, or sometimes not even, to lust object. It’s like you just recognized a piece of a puzzle, and you need to fit it in you, now. But now wasn’t going to happen, obviously. Probably never would. But tell that to my dick, which had become stunningly hard. I bunched up the sheets into a better screen and turned away so he wouldn’t see me blush.

  “Why are you here, Davix?” I asked the stone wall.

  “You had a hard day. And I thought you might be lonely.”

  I dared a look back at those deep, dreamy browns. “Really?” His caring moved me. It also excited me. “No, I’m fine. I got a nice room and, um, fresh clothes and…” My heart was beating stupidly fast. “Well, it wasn’t an easy day, I’ll admit it.”

  “And I made it worse, I’m sorry.”

  I sat up straight, my blanket slipping down to my stomach. “Huh? No, you didn’t. I mean, I was screwing up all over the place, and you were just doing your job.”

  “We’re not used to strangers here. I should have realized how odd this place must be to you. When you went in to dinner, Stakrat said she felt sorry for you, and that surprised me. How could that be? I thought. You’re the Copper Guest, flying across the strands from the original realm with a quadrana. I thought you might even look down on us.”

  “Of course I don’t. And I’m not anyone special. I’m just a high school kid with an average GPA and relationship problems. Sometimes they think I’m Chinese or Korean, and I’m supposed to be good at math. Even my teachers are disappointed.”

  He smiled a little. “I don’t know what any of that means,” he said, “but Stakrat made me realize that you’re just another person, one who left everyone he knew to come here. I don’t think I’d last a day without seeing my friends.”

  “Well, it’s not forever. At least I hope not. But once I knew that I had this, uh, copper blood thing, and I could even speak a bit of the language, I guess I had to come and check the place out.”

  “More than a bit. You even understood the bidahénas.”

  “Well, yeah. I mean, I understood the words, but they were weird as a third nipple.”

  Davix reached out with his long, fine fingers and lifted the wolf’s head off my chest, examining it carefully. “What is this?”

  I was holding my breath and had to remember how to speak. “Uh, it was a gift from my parents. You know, what do you call them? My genetic forbearers. It’s a wolf.”

  “Wolf,” he repeated, unsure. “I don’t think we have ‘wolf’ in the Realm of Fire. Unless…yes, it may be one of the accidentals.”

  “Oh, Korda mentioned those. What’s accidental about them?”

  “When the great dragons gathered up pieces from the Realm of Earth to build the Livingworld here, some creatures were carried a
long unintended. They mostly live in the Chend’th’nif Mountains. That is why only the most experienced rangers trek there.” He let go of the necklace, and it dropped back to my chest, warmed by his fingers.

  “Davix, sorry if this isn’t my business, but you guys were talking about someone named Rinny…”

  “Rinby. She died. Just fifteen days ago. She was the Lead Apprentice in Atmospherics. She was my friend.”

  “And that’s why you don’t want to dance.” We were silent, and I wished I’d said I was sorry instead of the thing about the dancing. “Tix-etnep-thon-dahé said you should bring me to the Atmospherics Tower tomorrow.”

  Davix seemed surprised. “He said that? Why would he…? Okay. I’ll meet you outside the front gates of Etnep House at second bell. And now it’s late, X’risp’hin, and it’s a long walk back to my bed.”

  He reached out his hand again, and I took it in mine, feeling its strength, glad the blanket hadn’t slipped any farther and revealed what was going on down below.

  “I’ll try to be nicer tomorrow,” Davix said, giving my hand a squeeze before letting go.

  “Okay. And I’ll try not to mess up and get you in trouble.”

  He smiled at that and got to his feet. With a little formal bow, he touched his head, his heart, and then, after a micro-pause, his stomach. His smile grew mischievous, and I was dying to know exactly what that gesture meant.

  “Peaceful dreams, X’risp’hin,” he said and slipped out, leaving me amazed and aroused.

  I strained to hear the tiny noises of him on the stairs. Then everything was silent but the croaking of frogs in the treetops. I figured I better call it a night; tomorrow was likely to be another big day. I baffled the light, leaving just a faint, comforting glow, lay back, and went to sleep. After taking care of some urgent business.

  Chapter 13: The Intruder

  the copperblood is right there, where the light went out. The Intruder lowered himself until he hung just outside the shuttered window. we do not take orders from the demi-dragons. I will lay the earth boy’s bloody body at their feet and remind them who is in charge. no no, quiet, quiet yet. secret. He sensed a presence above him and froze. Something on the move, an unexpected hunter. The Intruder dropped to a roof below, silent and alert, and disappeared into the shadows. yet secret, yet secret.

  Chapter 14: Optimal Pairings

  When I awoke early the next morning, bells were ringing across the city, and I felt entirely at peace. The bellboy who knocked on my door informed me that it was first bell. That gave me lots of time for breakfast, a bath, and a tour of Etnep House—Etnep, queen of the Five Dragons, my fiancée according to Tiqokh, but not according to Grav’nan-dahé.

  This was the first time in ages I had slept through the night. Most nights, I spent a good hour in panic some time around three in the morning. I’d go over everything I did wrong that day or might do wrong the next, and list all the ways I was useless and generally doomed. You’d think that a trip to another world full of lizard men and scary clothing choices would have caused even worse insomnia than, say, an upcoming trig test. Maybe it was my copper blood. Maybe for the first time, some deep part of me felt like it was home.

  By the time second bell rang, I was already at the main gates of Etnep House waiting for Davix. First time in my life I was early for something. Beyond the gates, with their fancy copper mouldings, was a wide platform, almost like a stage, that looked out on a huge, cobblestoned square called the Retreat of Tarn. I scanned the square obsessively, not wanting to miss the moment Davix stepped out between patches of fog, smiling, to beckon me close and take my hand in his.

  But it was Stakrat who showed up.

  “Peace and balance, X’risp’hin!” she called.

  Adorable Little Lizard managed to mask his devastating disappointment behind a happy smile as he climbed down the wide staircase to meet her.

  She asked, “You sleep well?”

  “Yeah, where’s Davix?” I said, oh so casually. “I thought he was meeting me.”

  “He flew me a message from the Atmospherics Tower. Said he had to get there early, and I should bring you over.”

  “Don’t you have to work? You know, defend the realm and stuff?”

  “You’re my work. Master Korda assigned me to watch over you today. She liked you, by the way.”

  “I liked her, too. But I figured all the masters thought I was a moron by the end of dinner.”

  Stakrat looked around and lowered her voice. “Some of them felt Grav’nan-dahé acted with disrespect. But we shouldn’t talk about it too much. At least not in public.” She began to walk us quickly across the square.

  But as I bounced along beside her, I was full of curiosity. “So, some people don’t like the Prime Gravy Boat?”

  She bit her lower lip. “Don’t misunderstand, Copper Guest. Grav’nan-dahé is a pious man whose strict devotion to the DragonLaw is an example for us all. We in Defence of Realm are duty-bound to enforce the law according to his interpretation.” I took the message and shut up. The last thing I wanted was to start stepping on toes before the People had even finished their morning coffee. Actually, the local equivalent was called barnberry, and I’d had a mug with breakfast. It was both earthy and fruity and could have used a lot more sugar.

  We exited the Retreat of Tarn and began heading downhill through a neighbourhood of steep, narrow streets. In a lane filled with small craft workshops, a chubby guy wearing a lot of necklaces reached out through an open window and grabbed me by the arm, spinning me around to face him. He was sitting at a messy table making things out of silver—necklaces, rings, tools, statues.

  “Copper Guest,” he exclaimed, his long eyelashes blinking rapidly. “Please touch my offering!” With his other hand, he shoved a little statue at me with the head of a lizard and the body of a busty, wide-hipped woman. “With your blessing, I hope I will be granted a mate.”

  I stammered, uncertain what any of that meant, and Stakrat said, “Brother, let go of the Copper Guest. Don’t pester him with superstition. Trust the Arbiter of Blood to find you a mate. Trust the DragonLaw.”

  The man ignored her, gripping me harder and thrusting the statue in my face. “Please, I need this!”

  Stakrat moved so quickly, I didn’t know what was happening, but a moment later the man wasn’t gripping me anymore. His statue had fallen to the street with a clang, and he was rubbing his hand and grimacing in pain.

  “Be warned!” she said, and her voice had turned all hard and official. “The Prime Magistrate calls on us again to prosecute those who openly practice the Fire Revealed.”

  The man was bowing over and over. “Please, I’m sorry,” he whimpered.

  With my heart still beating hard, I said, “S’okay, Stakrat. I don’t mind.” I bent down to pick up the statue and handed it back to the man, who took it, tears glistening in his eyes.

  Stakrat put a hand on my back and got me moving again. “Sorry about that, X’risp’hin.”

  “He’s looking for a girlfriend? Is that what that was about?”

  “He is hoping the Arbiter of Blood pairs him with a woman so he can have offspring.”

  That sounded the same to me as looking for a girlfriend, but I might have been missing something.

  “And what’s with the statue?”

  “He believes you have blessed it. And now he’ll go home and put it in his secret shrine and pray to it.”

  “And that’s against the law?”

  “It’s…not clear. Defence of Realm awaits further direction from Grav’nan-dahé.” We had descended into a street so thick with fog that I practically had to glue myself to Stakrat not to lose her.

  “Can I ask you a question?” I said.

  “Of course.”

  “It’s kind of…delicate…” Embarrassment almost stopped me, but I powered through. “Are there, uh, gay people here?”

  We arrived at a fence, and Stakrat unlatched the gate and led us through.

  “One m
oment,” she said, and I thought maybe I offended her. But the word “gay” had that funny feeling on my tongue, like it didn’t translate. Stakrat picked up a lantern with a large torchstone that was hanging on one of the fence posts. “Be careful, X’risp’hin, this road is shared by riders on horseback. I’ll hold the light so they don’t run us down in the fog, but you may want to keep an eye on the ground, too.” I could already smell what she was talking about.

  “Now,” she continued. “What are these ghey people you mentioned?”

  I reminded myself that this shouldn’t be so hard to talk about. “You know, people who, uh, do it with someone who has the—the same equipment. Who get it on with the same sex.”

  “Oh, I see. Yes, of course. We are all ghey.”

  Startled, I almost stepped into a fresh pile of manure and had to do a crazy parkour jump to avoid it. “What?”

  “Males and females aren’t allowed to breed freely,” she said. “One of the bidahénas, called the Arbiter of Blood, determines optimal breeding pairs. The dragons want to improve the People’s strength and health, enhance positive characteristics and eliminate weaknesses.”

  “Oh my God, that’s…creepy. Is that why those chaperones follow everyone around?”

  “Yes, but they only supervise young people. It is assumed desire speaks too loudly for us to control in the two cycles following Consolidation.”

  In other words, the adults, as usual, didn’t trust teenagers not to fool around given the chance.

  “Don’t they think you and I need a chaperone? Sorry, I’m not suggesting anything.” We could hear hooves approaching, and Stakrat pulled me up against the wall, holding her lantern high as the horse passed.