The Dubious Gift of Dragon Blood

by J. Marshall Freeman

  The guy was really getting on my last nerve. “Of course I don’t mind! Wait…what instructions?” Then I realized what he meant. I had to go and wait for my, uh, appointment with Queen Etnep. Somehow, I had forgotten about that, and now that I remembered, I wanted to forget again. I grabbed Davix’s hand, taking the opportunity to pull him back from the edge. “Yeah, come with me, please. Forget about Vixtet.”

  Gulga, a girl of maybe twelve in Earth years, was assigned to lead us. She was shy of me but held Davix’s other hand as we walked up the road. I was glad to see her mind hadn’t been poisoned against him.

  “It’s beautiful here, Davix. And it was so much fun riding the sky-steeds. When we arrived, all the dragons were waiting for us. Inby’s my patron, and I got to touch his head!” She was practically dancing with excitement.

  “I am surprised they sent children to Farad’hil, Gulga.”

  “The dragons asked them to send four kids. Maybe it’s because we could all fit on one steed. Mostly we’re running errands and helping the dragons get dressed and such.”

  That was when I realized where we were headed. “They’re putting us up in Sur’s abode?”

  “The dragons said you stayed there before.”

  When we got to Sur’s gates, we were startled by a sudden flash of black and red shooting out of the air.

  “Flak!” Davix cried in delight, as the kingsolver landed on his shoulder.

  Gulga clapped her hands. “Oh good, he flew off after delivering his message, and no one’s been able to catch him.”

  The bird played with Davix’s hair, and Davix reached up to scratch his head. “He knows me.”

  When we entered Sur’s abode, we found everything was a mess—curtains pulled down, trunks upended, like she’d been turning the place upside down looking for her phone.

  “What happened here?” Davix asked.

  “It was like this when we arrived. We think Great Sur did it before she flew to the Chend’th’nif.”

  The sight really upset me. What had been going through the dragon’s head? My vanity wanted to think she was crazy with worry about me. But then I thought of the prophecy. Maybe Sur went nuts because she knew she would die if she went to the Chend’th’nif. Maybe she was beating back at death itself. But if leaving Farad’hil meant death, why did she do it?

  Because. Because she alone of the five dragons was brave enough to face the invaders. She flew to her death because she didn’t believe she had a choice. Ekdahi. Shit, I would have trashed my room, too.

  My thoughts were interrupted by the sound of yipping. Four foxes ran out from a little alcove and began jumping all over me, licking any piece of my flesh they could get to.

  “Hey, guys!” I said, laughing, squatting to scratch their heads. Flak cawed in alarm and flew up to sit on a beam near the ceiling.

  Gulga made a face of disgust. “Lak’wyr plans to shoot those pests when he has a minute.”

  I turned a serious eye on her. “You tell him—are you listening carefully? You tell him that the Dragon Groom forbids it. These were Sur’s pets, and they will be treated with respect and taken care of. Is that clear?”

  “Y-yes, Dragon Groom.” Gulga made a fast head and heart gesture at me. “But watch out. Their scat is everywhere.”

  While Gulga filled the big bath for us, we wandered through Sur’s abode. It felt haunted. We even climbed up the ladder to her sanctum. All of the flying words that had buzzed around my ears like talking mosquitoes were gone. The scraps of swirling paper lay lifeless on the floor and on her work table. Despite having been right in front of Sur when she died, despite having watched her disintegrate, I don’t think I really believed she was gone until I stood in that dead room.

  My voice came out hoarse. “We need to gather up all her poetry, make sure someone takes care of it.”

  “You must give it to Great Renrit for inclusion in the DragonLaw,” Davix said. I supposed he was right. The DragonLaw was the best place for it, but somehow that sounded like a sad fate. Her work shouldn’t just be an appendix, next to last year’s corn crop yields and the number of cases of diarrhoea in Cliffside.

  When we returned to the bedchamber, I couldn’t wait to get into the bath. I washed off days of dust, sweat, and fear, and then just luxuriated in the heat and enjoyed the show of Davix stripping to join me in the big tub.

  After Gulga served us dinner, a woman from Health and Healing examined my arm and told me it was only sprained. She rubbed a warm cream into it that smelled like mint and fitted me with a fresh sling.

  When they all finally left, I climbed into bed, exhausted, but also wired and horny.

  “The mattress is really comfortable, Davix,” I said, hinting as broadly as I could, dropping onto it and rolling back and forth on the cushions and sheets. But I could tell he was still upset. He walked back and forth, muttering something too quietly for me to hear.

  “Is that a prayer?”

  “The Prayer of Balance. We recite it every morning as soon as we wake up. But I haven’t said it in a long time. Not since I was arrested, probably.”

  “Why don’t you come to bed?”

  “I’m not sleepy, but you go ahead.”

  I was too shy to just ask him to have sex. Up till now, he had always been the one to start, and I didn’t know if it was creepy for me to just ask like that. Davix, meanwhile, had approached a table with a huge book the size of the sandwich board in front of a trendy coffee house.

  “What’s that?” I asked, more out of a need to keep the conversation alive than real interest.

  “Sur’s book of the DragonLaw.” It was a dragon-sized volume, and he needed both hands to open it. “Beautiful,” he breathed.

  “Hey, can you look up something for me?”

  “What?”

  “See if any dragon groom has ever died doing, um, his job.”

  “X’risp’hin, no! There is nothing in the Law about grooms dying. I’m sure you’ll be all right.”

  “I wasn’t last time.” I reached under my shirt and felt the bone spur on my rib.

  “Last time was not the appointed time. It was a terrible mistake.”

  “Or maybe an assassination attempt.” Only when I’d said it did I realize it might be true. Maybe getting rid of the Dragon Groom was part of the mixed beings’ plan for killing off the Fire dragons.

  “Try not to worry,” Davix said, returning to the big book.

  “So, what are you looking for, then?”

  He searched for another minute and then read me the passage. “‘The death of every dragon diminishes the Realmverse. The dragon killer scars the beauty of all creation.’”

  “It wasn’t your fault! Why are you fucking torturing yourself?”

  “I’m not.”

  “Liar. I want you, Davix. Come to bed and touch me.” I was finally being direct, but it didn’t help.

  “Soon, X’risp’hin. I just want to read from the Law for a while. It will make me feel better.”

  I rolled over, sulking. A sleepy fox barked his objection as I pulled the blanket from under him. But what about me feeling better? I wanted to say. I have another date with Etnep, and I’m scared!

  Tangled up as I was in all this emotion, I didn’t think I’d ever be able to sleep. But in the end, my fatigue proved stronger than my fear, stronger even than my desire to stick parts of my body in Davix and parts of him in me.

  I dreamed I was in an adventure-horror game set in my house. It started with me waking up in my bedroom on Earth. A big, red arrow blinked on the right side of the screen, so I navigated my avatar out into the hallway. There I found a girl Gulga’s age sitting on a chair. She had big dark eyes and long, straight black hair that fell across the shoulders of her plain blue dress.

  “You have to go downstairs,” she told me.

  “Have you already done this level?”

  “Yes, twice. But every time is a little different.”

  We walked down and down the carpeted stairs—the gam
e version of my house was, like, seven levels high. As we descended, I checked out the family portraits on the wall. There were my parents as a young couple, goofy and in love in the days before I existed. Then I appeared—first as a happy, careening little ball of destruction, then a serious kite-flyer on some sunburnt beach, and finally the sullen years, where I looked like someone had me in a secret half-nelson to keep me from running out of frame.

  On level three, I caught a glimpse of my mom through a half-open door, but just as I was about to call out to her, she closed the door with a decisive bang.

  We reached the ground floor at last, and I asked the girl, “What’s your name?”

  “I’m Ethel. Come on, there’s a clue in the living room.”

  Consul Krasik-dahé was sitting in the easy chair just as she had when she visited our real house. Her back was straight, and her eyes closed. She held a long, red crystal. I waved a hand in front of her face, but she didn’t wake up, so I took the crystal, and it appeared in my inventory at the top of the screen. An eight-bit trumpet fanfare sounded, and a set of glowing, gold clothes appeared, hung over the back of a chair.

  “Put them on,” said the girl. She looked different now, more like my age, with hips and breasts, sitting cosily on the sofa with her legs pulled up under her.

  “Sorry, what’s your name again?”

  “Juliet.”

  I undressed down to my shorts with my back to her, because my dumb dick had chosen that moment to get hard. I tucked it to the side as best I could as I pulled on the gold pants and tunic. When I stood up to examine myself in the mirror, I realized Krasik-dahé’s eyes were open. A blinking red arrow pointed down and to the left.

  “You must go down,” the octona told me, so I took the stairs to the basement. Instead of the cramped junk room with our washer and dryer in one corner, the basement was an enormous cavern, its ceiling thick with glowing stalactites in every colour of the rainbow. My dick was still super hard, and it was distracting me a lot. It might even have been the source of the barely audible whispers that were filling the air.

  I had forgotten about the girl—the woman—but she was there, waiting for me, tall now, very tall, her long hair braided, with strips of leather woven in.

  “You’re making me question my homosexuality,” my avatar told her.

  “Give me the crystal,” she replied.

  My heart was pounding as I pulled it from my pants pocket and handed it over. “What did you say your name was?” I asked over the sound of the shouting whispers, over the singing and the drums.

  “I AM ETNEP!” she replied, as she slipped the long red crystal up her dress. At the top of the screen, my score shot up into the stratosphere.

  So, that woke me up!

  Davix and three of the foxes were in bed with me. Through the big window, a beam of moonlight lit the gold pants and tunic, which hung neatly over the back of a chair, just like in my dream game. I climbed out of bed and dressed in silence, leaving my left arm in its sling under the loose tunic. I knew what I had to do. I had been instructed.

  I think I was only person awake in Farad’hil as I walked the long, spiral road down from Sur’s abode to the very bottom of the core. The only sound was the waterfall. Maybe half an hour later, I stood before the jagged crack in the wall that marked the entrance to the Matrimonial Tunnels. Voices whispered in my ear, and other voices sang. When I concentrated, I could make out the words, mostly in the ancient dialect of Fire, but also some poetry in English. Roses and thorns and blood flowing black in the high-contrast moonlight. It was like watching a movie with the director’s commentary on, the movie sound playing quietly underneath.

  I climbed through the crack, and inside a wide foyer stood Tiqokh as well as the last person I wanted to see: Grav’nan-dahé. The floor was a mosaic featuring a huge dragon with her wings spread and a much smaller dragon flying her way. To my eyes, the little guy looked kind of intimidated. Tiqokh was standing near me at the entrance to the foyer and Grav’nan was deeper inside, in front of a second cave entrance, shaped with eye-rolling obviousness like an egg.

  “The Dragon Groom approaches with joy and awe,” Grav’nan chanted, waving me over. Despite the fact that this was the last thing I wanted to do, I obeyed.

  “So, you’re done with the ‘Copper Guest’ stuff?” I asked, but my heart wasn’t really in the snark. Walking closer to the egg tunnel was making me woozy and unnaturally calm. I peered through the door. Torchstones were mounted on the wall down its length, disappearing deep into the roots of the mountain.

  Grav’nan wasn’t interested in chit-chat. This was obviously some ceremony he had stayed up late studying. “Hundreds of cycles ago did Great Rob’stel hide the copper blood in the Realm of Earth, safeguarding the dragon succession.” He laid his bony hand on my shoulder, squeezing a bit too hard. “Now you stand here, Dragon Groom, ready to insert yourself into history. Why must this duty be fulfilled?”

  “There must be Five?” I heard myself say. Was it a good guess, or was my copper blood offering up the answer, like cheat notes on the palm of my hand? Judging by the almost smile Grav’nan made, it was the right answer. Yay me. My mouth was dry, the voices in my head growing louder. As in the game, my dick was hard.

  “Then go in joy and adoration. Queen Etnep awaits you.”

  My feet were already carrying me toward the threshold when Tiqokh spoke.

  “Come back, Crispin.”

  Grav’nan made some noise of objection, but I turned right around. It seemed at that moment, I would obey anyone or anything. As I walked farther from the egg tunnel, my head cleared, and my fear returned.

  “I would like to hear your unambiguous verbal consent before you go any farther,” Tiqokh said.

  Grav’nan’s voice was icy. “That is not part of the ceremony, quadrana.”

  “Forgive me, Grav’nan-dahé. Perhaps the cycles I spent in the Realm of Earth have altered my perspective, but I will not allow this young man to proceed if he does not do so of his own free will. So, Crispin?”

  I thought about it. I knew I would change when I passed through the egg door, but whatever I was going to become inside the Matrimonial Tunnel, I was still, at least for the moment, Crispin, and I still had free will. I looked up into Tiqokh’s eyes, remembering how they had freaked me out when I first met him.

  “Look, I won’t deny I’m scared, but I also have a responsibility to the copper blood my father passed to me, a responsibility to this realm. People have taken care of me since I got here, saved my life—you included—and people gave their own lives in the war. In comparison, is this such a big deal? Most of all, I have a responsibility to Sur. She gave her life to save us, so the least I can do is, you know, give back some life. So, yeah, Tiqokh, I consent.”

  I turned from him and walked past Grav’nan, who gave me a head and heart bow, and through the egg door into the Matrimonial Tunnels. The mind fog and the voices returned, stronger than ever. The torchstones passed in my peripheral vision, slowly at first, then faster and faster, as if I was falling instead of walking. I couldn’t understand the messages my body was sending my brain. Why did my feet feel so far away and the ceiling so close? I was stretching through space and time both, not sure where I ended and history began.

  My vision was different, refracting through different eyes—eyes that saw colours humans had no name for. I looked down at my long clawed feet on the floor of the corridor, I snorted tones as deep as the earth, I shook my wings, and they slapped against the walls and ceiling. The songs in my head—for Farad’hil is always singing—grew louder, first a deafening, meaningless mess, and then coalescing into a beautiful unison, strong and clear: the voice of Etnep.

  And the queen said to the dragon, “COME TO ME, MY GROOM.”

  Chapter 48: The Edge

  It was still dark when Davix awoke and found X’risp’hin gone. The panic overtook his whole body, as if he was back in the moment when the Air dragon had stolen away the Earth boy. His heart p
ounded, and sweat dampened his underarms and forehead. But he saw no signs of violence in the room, and the cat soldiers could not have gotten to Farad’hil so quickly. Davix calmed himself with slow, deep breaths. Would he ever again find the tranquility the war had stolen from him? He dressed and went looking for his fleshmate. Boyfriend, X’risp’hin had said with pride and overflowing happiness. Davix couldn’t find him anywhere in Sur’s abode, so he went out to the spiral road.

  Dawn was just beginning to brighten the dragons’ mountain home through the massive glass dome overhead. Davix moved to the inside edge of the road to look down into the core. There was no railing, and he should have kept well back from the drop-off, but a perverse impulse made him walk even closer. The terrible pit opened beneath him, and its precipitous depths seemed to call to him. He could do it—just lean forward and end his life. What was he now, after all? A heretic and a dragon killer.

  He was no longer on the holy path that might have led him one day to the exalted post of Prime Magistrate. He wasn’t even sure he still had a place in Atmospherics. And soon he would lose X’risp’hin. His boyfriend would return to the Realm of Earth, as he’d always known he must, and Davix would be left with a permanent hole in his heart. Another hole, alongside Grentz and Rinby, alongside his former tranquility. The solution was so easy. All he had to do was let himself fall forward into yet another hole.

  His body began shaking violently. Even his teeth chattered. Head spinning, he dropped to the ground in terror. He didn’t want to die. Not now, not like this. Davix crawled away from edge and sat on the ground beside the gate of Sur’s abode, breathing hard. A pear tree was growing just up the road, and in it sat Flak, staring at him intently, head cocked to one side.

  “All right, bird, you can spare me your disapproving glare,” Davix told the kingsolver. “This life is the only one I have, and come joy or come sorrow, I won’t discard it so lightly.”