The Dubious Gift of Dragon Blood

by J. Marshall Freeman

  Oh, I should say something about the foxes. Sur liked them a lot. A pampered pack, maybe nine in total, had free run of her quarters and their own dedicated octona to groom them, prepare special food, and pick up their poop. You couldn’t sit still for a minute without two or three of the demanding little brats cuddling close and whimpering for head scratches. But they were crazy cute, and I didn’t even need blankets during the night, as I had my own squadron of warm critters packed in tight around me.

  Octonas came and went, bringing me warm stew for breakfast and laying out a fresh set of funky dragon duds. Today’s outfit was all about forest colours and featured shoulder pads which made me think of Consul Krasik-dahé back on Earth. As I climbed into the big, sunken bathtub, I realized I didn’t know anything about her. How old was she, for instance? She obviously came from the Realm of Fire, but how long since she’d been back for a visit? Why was she the only “dahé” among the mixed beings? Maybe when I got home, my parents could invite her for dinner, and I would tell them all I’d seen on my adventures. I liked the idea of bringing Krasik-dahé news from home.

  X’raftik entered with a head and heart bow, just in time to help me with the buttons on the back of my tunic.

  “Thanks, X’raftik,” I said. “How are you doing?”

  “If the Dragon Groom is content, then I am, too.” My mom would have called that unhealthy codependence.

  “Is Sur back?”

  “Great Sur is sequestered in her Sanctum. She may not be disturbed.”

  I gritted my teeth in exasperation. “Why did they even bring me to Farad’hil if I can’t—”

  Sur’s voice filled the chamber. “THE DRAGON GROOM IS TO ASCEND AND JOIN ME.”

  It was like she was standing beside us even though she was clearly not in the room. X’raftik, unsurprisingly unsurprised, led me to another big corner of Sur’s abode where there was a large hole in the high ceiling, obviously for Sur to fly up to this sanctum.

  “Um, how do I…?” I said, and the octona pulled aside a glittery blue curtain to reveal a ladder bolted to the wall.

  I climbed up and looked around curiously. Every bit of Sur’s Sanctum was teeming with words in the dragon tongue script. Some of them were on scraps of paper pinned to canvas bulletin boards and some were graffiti scrawled on the copper-plated walls. But in addition to these reassuringly stationary texts, thousands of words were in flight, like the ones that had been circling in Renrit’s Editorium. But these loose words weren’t polished prose waiting for their place in the DragonLaw. They were loners. Some shot around the chamber as if desperate to escape, and others were so much dandelion fluff, floating lazily through the air before coming to rest on a random surface, like they’d lost the will to describe.

  There was a pervasive background hum of the words whispering and muttering to themselves. Closing my eyes and concentrating, I could just make out: “corroborate,” “incredulous,” “stem and bowl.” One of the loudest was a “the” that just kept saying its name over and over like an annoying three-year-old.

  Sur sat on the floor in the middle of this chaos, grabbing at phrases, licking their backs, and slamming them down on a huge sheet of paper. When nothing useful was at hand, she would beat her heavy wings and fly into the air to nab a juicy adjective circling a torchstone fixture. I kept out of the way, sitting in the corner and occasionally swatting at a stray word that flitted around my eyebrows.

  Spotting me, Sur rose up on her hind legs, holding the big sheet of stiff paper to the light.

  “DRAGON GROOM! I WILL READ YOU MY NEW POEM.” She took a deep breath. “IN NIGHT’S OBSCURE PASSAGES/YOU BEAT AGAINST THE CREEPING SPECTRE/PROPHECIES LIKE THORNS IN FLESH/FESTERING WHERE YOU CANNOT REACH.”

  After a long pause, I realized she was waiting for me to say something. “That’s great. Uh, five stars.”

  “ONE FOR EACH DRAGON,” she said, pleased, I hoped.

  I’d never had much luck with poetry—you remember what happened with my last attempt—so I decided to change the subject. “Hey, what are we doing today?”

  “FOLLOW,” Sur told me, spreading her wings and flying down through the hole in the floor. I scrambled down the ladder, but by the time I reached the floor, she was nowhere to be seen. While searching for Sur, I stumbled across a huge horse who seemed just as unnerved to see me. It reared up on its hind legs, spread a huge pair of dragony leather wings, and emitted a very unhorse-like roar.

  Back away slowly, I thought, backing away fast.

  I finally found Sur. She was staring out a huge picture window that looked out onto the central cavern of Farad’hil, petting the fattest fox I’d ever seen. Two octonas were hard at work, tying jewelled balls to the leathery strips of her mane. I came to stand beside her head.

  Sur spoke without looking my way: “TODAY, WE VISIT THE DOMAIN OF INBY AND VIXTET/WHERE WONDERS ARE BORN.”

  “Awesome,” I said. “Listen, can I ask you something? About your poem?” She didn’t answer, so I blundered on, hoping I wasn’t being inappropriate. “You mentioned the, um prophecy. Flesh tearing and stuff. Do you mean the prophecy about a dragon dying? That’s why I’m here in the Realm of Fire, right?”

  “WE ARE MARKED BY FATE/A RED JEWEL IN OUR BREAST/PAIN/THE FALL OF A MIGHTY TREE.”

  “Grav’nan-dahé doesn’t believe in the prophecy. He says if it isn’t in the DragonLaw, then it’s bullsh…Uh, nonsense.”

  “LITTLE GRAV’NAN LOVES US SO/HE WANTS US IMMORTAL/LIKE THE ROCK BENEATH HIS FEET.”

  The octonas, finished with their hairdressing duties, bowed to us and left.

  “But you’re not immortal, right? Do you think the prophecy is true?” I suddenly felt sad for her. “Are you scared it’s you?”

  “I ONLY FEAR THAT I WILL NOT FINISH/A POEM I LABOURED UPON WITH LOVE./I DO NOT WANT TO DIE/BEFORE I FIND A RHYME FOR ‘K’RIZAT-ZHIS’.”

  “Yeah, that would suck,” I said. “Wait. How about ‘D’zastat Zhis’?”

  “AN IDENTITY IS NOT A PROPER RHYME, DRAGON GROOM.”

  It turned out the flying horse was meant for me, but I declined the offer as politely as I could. No way was I getting up on that thing. I climbed onto Sur’s back, which at least I was used to. We flew past Renrit’s Editorium on our way to our destination, and I asked Sur, “You guys fly over Cliffside during Sarensikar, right?”

  “WE ARE THE PEOPLE’S BLESSING AND INSPIRATION.”

  “So, Renrit…He’s kind of on the big side…and he wears all those heavy jewels. Can he even get airborne?”

  “WE THROW HIM FROM HIS WINDOW/AND HOPE THAT HE’LL FIND LIFT/BEFORE THE GROUND COMES UP TO MEET HIM/THERE’S A PRICE TO EVERY GIFT.”

  I wished I could read her inflections better, because that sounded like straight-up shade. She beat her wings heavily, and we climbed to the highest part of the central cavern. Sur came in for a landing on a wide ledge in front of a huge oval mirror. I slid off her back and approached my reflection. Something was different, and it wasn’t just that I was decked out in Farad’hil’s fall line. I looked good. I mean, I wasn’t hot or anything, but…Here’s the thing, usually I avoid mirrors—one quick look on my way out the door. And even if I’m dressed right and it’s a good hair day, some little voice in my head always tells me, “You’re an ugly loser.”

  Was it possible the voice hadn’t made it across the strands?

  Sur reached over my shoulder with one big clawed fingertip and touched the middle of the mirror. The whole surface swirled like a cappuccino in progress, and then the glass was gone. Just gone.

  “FOLLOW ME/TO WHERE THE MIXED ARE MADE MANIFEST.”

  Beyond this doorway was shiny darkness. Everything was metallic black, dimensions barely discernible by complex patterns of light in the walls that winked on and off in inscrutable sequence. It could have been a machine display or it could have been art. In either case, there was a sense of power, like mighty forces were at work behind the walls.

  As we walked, the space opened up into
a chamber several stories high. Spotlights illuminated work areas on different levels accessed by wide, curving ramps. In the dimness, mixed beings stood before panels of black glass, and as they passed their hands across them, the lights jumped and danced in response. Up to this point, I had seen nothing in the Realm of Fire that looked so sci-fi, and I felt an odd annoyance, like the world couldn’t decide on its genre.

  I followed Sur up a ramp to a balcony that overlooked an even larger cavern, its far end invisible in the black distance. A sci-fi console to my left lit up, and I was shocked to find another dragon had been standing beside me in the shadows. It was as long and tall as Sur but probably only weighed a third of what she did. This skinny dragon was all lanky limbs, sliding against each other with a sound like sandpaper on glass. The bones of its torso opened and closed like umbrella ribs as it breathed, and its skinny hands, though still five times as big as mine, worked the controls of the console with delicate precision. It reminded me more of a stick insect than a dragon.

  Sur didn’t seem like she was about to introduce us, so I said, “Hi, I’m the Dragon Groom. What’s your name, Dragon Sir? Ma’am?”

  The dragon turned a pair of eyes on me that shone with so much intelligence, I felt smarter just looking at them.

  “¿¿DO YOU KNOW WHY WE KEEP THE BLOOD OF THE GROOM ON THE REALM OF EARTH??”

  “Uh, no.”

  “¿¿WHAT WOULD HAVE HAPPENED DURING THE GREAT REALM WARS HAD ALL OUR GENETIC MATERIAL BEEN HERE??”

  It was like being called on in class on the exact day when you forgot to read the homework. “Uh, nothing good, I guess? I guess invading dragons from some other realm might have wiped you all out.” The skinny dragon blinked for the first time, and I hoped that meant I was right.

  “So, which dragon are you?” I repeated. “I mean, you’re probably not Queen Etnep. So…” I counted dragon names off on my fingers, like Snow White’s dwarfs. “You’re either Vixtet or Inby, right?”

  “¿¿IF I TOLD YOU THAT VIXTET MANAGES THE BALANCE OF THE LIVINGWORLD, AND INBY OVERSEES THE BLOODLINES, WHICH DRAGON WOULD YOU INFER I WAS, EARTH BOY??”

  “Well, since this place seems more Frankenstein lab than test garden, I’m going to guess you’re Inby. Sir.” Eye blink.

  Inby dropped a claw on the console, and the cavern in front of us lit up. The wavering green light came up through the waters of a narrow stream that cut through the featureless black floor. The stream snaked toward us in a gentle zigzag from the dim distance, reminding me of the lazy river ride at the water park. I half expected to see little dragons floating our way in big inner tubes. In fact, this guess wasn’t completely wrong.

  “Why do those look like bodies?” I whispered, and the answer was because they were. Three figures, floating on their backs, were coming our way down the stream, feet first, single file. They were naked. No inner tubes. Unmoving as they were, somehow I knew they weren’t dead. They were bursting with life like ripe fruit, ready to jump up and break into a dance routine.

  “What’s going on?” I asked, astonished.

  “¿¿IF INBY DESIGNS THE MIXED BEINGS AND FORMS THEM FROM THE MATERIALS OF THE REALM, ARE THEY TRULY ALIVE??”

  “You mean, you make the mixed beings?” I asked, a bit slow on the uptake.

  “¿¿HOW DID YOU THINK THEY CAME INTO BEING, EARTH BOY??”

  I was too amazed to answer. The river was a literal birth canal, and I was watching mixed beings being born. Having never seen a naked mixed being, I had to check out their junk. It was kind of half-formed down there, even the mostly human-looking octonas.

  A creepy question occurred to me. “Inby, could you grow humans that way, too, if you wanted?”

  “¿¿OF COURSE, BUT HOW WOULD THE LIVINGWORLD EVOLVE IF THERE WAS NO UNPREDICTABLE ELEMENT??”

  Sur, who had been silently watching the parade of newbies rising from the birth canal, said, “THE MIXED BEINGS ARE BORN TO LOVE THE DRAGONS, KHARIS’PAR’IH’IN/DEVOTION AND LOYALTY WOVEN INTO THEIR VERY FLESH.”

  I was working hard to keep up. “But humans need to learn to love you?”

  “WE CHERISH THE IMPULSE OF THE PEOPLE/THE BEAUTIFUL ILLOGIC/THE LEAP OF FAITH/A SUBLIME CRY OF WONDER/THE NIPPLE HARDENS.”

  I couldn’t decide which was more irritating, Inby’s question-answers or Sur’s poetry-answers. There was a narrow spiral staircase leading down to the dock, and I went down it without asking permission.

  The air smelled of lavender. Or was it the newborns that smelled that way? The older mixed beings were helping them from the water, and I got splashed in the face by some of the warm liquid, which I decided not to think of as amniotic. There were two new octonas and one quadrana, and they were already teenagers at birth. That saved time, I guess, but they had no parents, no childhood with teddy bears and tantrums, no secrets shared with best friends. I felt kind of bad for them.

  The adults dressed the newborns in pale silver robes and fed them their first meal, a thick green soup in an earthenware bowl which they slurped up hungrily. They didn’t look confused or dazed like you might imagine. They weren’t drooling, wide-eyed infants, pointing and going “Wazzat?” No, they looked happy and ready to play their part.

  The quadrana in charge told them, “You are in Farad’hil, home of the great dragons.”

  The newborns beamed. “Oh! I love the great dragons!” one said.

  The quadrana looked at me and then said to the newborn, “What would you do if I told you to harm this human?”

  “Hey!” I shouted, stepping back and almost falling into the water.

  But the newborn looked more horrified than me. “I could never do that!”

  “That is correct,” the quadrana answered. “Boy from Earth, the mixed beings will never let the humans come to harm. Remind them in Cliffside.”

  I nodded, but I couldn’t take my eyes off this fresh-from-the-farm creature, born loyal, loving, and ready to serve. I didn’t like it at all.

  Just before Sur and me exited through the mirror gate, I noticed another corridor leading back into the mountain, pulsing orange lights glowing from deep within.

  “Hey, Sur, what’s there?”

  “THE DOMAIN OF VIXTET/WHO KEEPS THE BALANCE/ WHO MOVES THE PIECES ON THE BOARD/SO THE LIVINGWORLD MIGHT THRIVE.”

  “When are we going there? Maybe after lunch?” I realized I was hungry again. Were there any good restaurants in Farad’hil? If I was designing this place, I would have built one behind the waterfall. I’d call it “Sprinkles.” Or “Make a Splash!”

  But Sur’s answer caught me by surprise. “GREAT VIXTET IS ILL/SHE BATTLES INFECTION/FIGHTS FOR THE INTEGRITY OF HER BEING/FIGHTS TO KEEP THE DRAGONS FIVE IN NUMBER.”

  “She’ll be okay, though? The prophecy isn’t about her, right?” I thought about Davix. He was a member of Vixtet House. Did he know his dragon was sick?

  “SHE WILL LIVE OR SHE WILL DIE/THIS TOO IS BALANCE/ALL ELSE IS A LIE.”

  “Sur, Inby didn’t ever call me Dragon Groom. Doesn’t he believe in the prophecy?”

  “SUR ALONE CONSULTS THE SEERS/SUR ALONE HAS BORNE THE FEARS/WHO BELIEVES? IS THERE ANOTHER?/ONLY SUR AND HER GLORIOUS MOTHER.”

  So even the dragons didn’t all believe in the prophecy. That sounded good to me. Maybe I’d get to go home without doing the deed, like when Dad was dismissed from jury duty. For once, I wanted that jerk Grav’nan-dahé to be right. But as I climbed onto Sur’s back, I swear I could feel her tension. Sur believed. And so did Queen Etnep.

  Chapter 21: Two Days before Sarensikar

  After leaving Tix-etnep-thon-dahé’s office, Davix had climbed the path back to Cliffside and wandered its streets alone. When people came his way, he hurried around corners or ducked into dark alcoves. He was sure they would see in his face all his renegade thoughts, his impurity, his impiety. He spent the night in a quiet room of the Comfort House, turning away young men who wanted to bond with him, sometimes with a gentle demur, sometimes with unearned harshness.

  H
e did not return to his duties in the Atmospherics Tower the next morning. He was so inexperienced with defiance that he couldn’t gauge the seriousness of his absence. He just knew he couldn’t be in the tower with Tix-etnep-thon-dahé. Nor could he be with Grav’nan-dahé, who was undoubtedly blessing sites and preparing rites for Sarensikar. Davix walked down to the anti-spinward gates of the city and sat with the guard there, watching the dance of fog on the unplanted fields. The guard shared a rumour about the Curator of Sites Historic and his disappearance, a possible unsanctioned love mating, the couple escaping in the night. But none knew of a missing woman to complete the tale.

  When the guard changed, Davix rose and walked the city perimeter until solitude finally broke his spirit, and he went in search of friends. He thought he knew where he’d find Grentz and perhaps Grentz’s closest ally, the mischievous Ragnor, apprentice in Health and Healing. As expected, they were high up in the city, sitting on the ground in what had once been a tool hut, a narrow, stone room whose roof was half gone. This space, forgotten by everyone, was a perfect clubhouse for their little gang, providing it wasn’t raining.

  When he entered, the boys whooped in surprise. Their surprise was matched by Davix’s own. He had expected Grentz and Ragnor, but he was shocked to see Stakrat, sitting peacefully beside the boys on the old straw mattress, and Kriz’mig, painting a mural of the four realms on the wall.

  “You are unchaperoned!” he stammered.

  They all laughed, and Stakrat said, “Davix, you’re so stiff-backed, I’m scared you’ll snap in two. Sit down and have a drink.” Stakrat looked utterly relaxed. Her feet, almost always clad in soldier’s boots, were bare. She reached a flask up to him, and he drank a long swallow of the musty water, warily lowering himself to sit against a wall.

  “Sarensikar approaches, Davix!” Grentz said. “The rules bend, the watchers’ eyes grow cloudy.” As if demonstrating, Grentz turned his own eyes to the sky and became silent, drifting into a reverie, as if his friends weren’t there.