The Dubious Gift of Dragon Blood

by J. Marshall Freeman

  The dazzling sun was close to setting—a fierce, cold eye in a sky free of fog. It was called the garden at the top of the world, but if flowers were sleeping under all the mountain snow, we weren’t going to be around to see them pop their heads out. Stakrat went out first and checked that it was secure before gesturing us to follow. It was killer cold, and Davix pulled me into his arms. Tiqokh kneeled and cleared the snow from a large wooden box. He took out a summoning stone and held it in the air, muttering words in the ancient tongue. I wasn’t listening too close until he said something about “Uncloud our eyes.” The realm sky appeared overhead.

  We all stared up at that terrifying beauty. The Realm of Air was just going down to our left, and I thought about Translator. Were his wife and kits staring up into the sky, too, wondering when he would come home? Far to the right, the Realm of Water was rising, blue and peaceful. But above us, just climbing to the zenith of the sky, was Earth. And it was gorgeous. The clouds and continents, seas and rivers stretched across the globe, familiar and inviting. Well, familiar once I realized I was looking at things almost upside down from how a normal map looks.

  “We are in luck,” Tiqokh said. “The Realm of Earth will soon reach conjunction.”

  “It is not luck,” Davix said. “It is destiny unfolding.” I almost rolled my eyes again, but caught myself. Whatever he needed to tell himself today was just fine. We had to wait maybe twenty-five more minutes for the Earth to line up right, so me and Davix and Stakrat retreated back into the stairwell so we wouldn’t freeze.

  Stakrat was holding Davix’s hand, and I was stroking his head, saying, “It’s gonna be okay. I mean, you might puke a bit when we land, but other than that, the flight’s pretty smooth.” I even made a lame joke about getting complimentary peanuts from the cabin crew, but I was obviously just amusing myself.

  Tiqokh finally called us, and we joined him in the centre of the garden. Stakrat and Davix held each other’s eye. The tough soldier girl was crying quietly, but Davix was holding himself together now.

  “We will meet again,” he told her. “I know this.”

  “Dragon Groom,” she called above the growing howl of realm space. “You have been a brave exemplar of Ekdahi. I am proud to call you friend.”

  I didn’t know what to say to that, but before I could figure it out, Tiqokh shouted, “Prepare yourselves!”

  Chapter 50: The Realm Jumpers

  The trip along the strands wasn’t exactly easy, but I was better prepared for it this time. On my last trip, I had spent the whole time gripping Tiqokh in panic and screaming into the void with my eyes closed. Oh, I didn’t tell you that before, did I? Don’t judge me. Anyway, this time I was able to keep my eyes open and experience the ride, like we were in the first car of the roller coaster. I stared up at shooting comets and clouds of mysterious gas that lit up the dark, and I watched the glimmering ribbons of the strands beneath us. But mostly, I looked backward at the craggy football that was the Realm of Fire. I watched it roll as it diminished, the whole Chend’th’nif turning slowly out of sight. I tried to catch a glimpse of Cliffside, but it was a small thing in this majestic expanse.

  Before these three weeks of adventure, my life had felt like a small thing, too—a well-worn path between home and school, a tight orbit around my parents. Now I knew I was part of a great muchness. My life before had already seemed overwhelming, but now there was so much more. There was the copper in my blood and all the beauty and struggle it connected me to. And there was love. I wrapped my arms tightly around Davix. Unlike me, he wasn’t looking at the home he had been forced to abandon. No, he was looking forward at the Earth as it grew. Looking into his future.

  Suddenly, we began to shake. And then the shaking turned to quaking. Davix and I held each other tighter, and Tiqokh tightened his grip on both of us. There was a sound like a train derailing—shrieks, cracks, great boom-boom-boom pounding. I tried to scream over it to ask Tiqokh what was wrong, but apparently talking doesn’t work when you’re travelling the strands.

  Something bright exploded in my peripheral vision, and I looked down to see the strands fracturing, great ribbons of energy shaking themselves across the sky like angry snakes. Davix and I locked eyes, like we were saying our final farewells. The shaking got so bad, we were almost torn out of Tiqokh’s arms. Then, with a sickening sideways lurch, the shaking stopped, but now we were flashing through the void at impossible speeds. The Earth filled every inch of the sky, glutting our senses, pulling us toward some cataclysmic crash. I think I blacked out.

  Chapter 51: Where Credit Is Due

  I opened my eyes. I was breathing hard, and my skin was so hot in the cool air, steam was rising off me. I was lying on hard ground looking up into the sky. The setting sun glowed red in the gap between the clouds and the horizon.

  I sat up and looked around. Davix was sitting on a low rock, head down between his knees. Tiqokh stood above him. I ran over and put my hands on Davix’s shoulders.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Yes, just dizzy.”

  “Tiqokh, where are we?” It was only slightly warmer than it had been in the garden on top of Farad’hil. In fact, we were up another mountain, although nothing as high and impressive as the Chend’th’nif. But I knew we were on Earth because of the paved roads, electric streetlights, and fast food outlets, which all seemed to be closed. We were sitting on the patchy brown lawn of a picnic area shared by the restaurants. No one was around.

  The quadrana put away the summoning stone into a pocket of his kilt. “We are in a resort town in the Laurentian Mountains, luckily not in season.”

  I gaped at him. “We’re in Quebec?” That explained all the French signs. “Why didn’t you bring us back to the roof of the Ambassador Hotel?”

  “Our passage was precarious. Perhaps you noticed?” It’s hard to tell when a quadrana is being sarcastic. “I had to aim for the highest and most accessible of my possible landing sites.”

  “The strands?” Davix asked, because he’s on top of stuff and asks the right questions.

  “Broken.” We shut up and took that in.

  “Damn…” I breathed. It was pretty cold out, and the last of the daylight was vanishing. “We need to get home. I don’t suppose you have a phone in your kilt?”

  “No, but this is Consul Krasik-dahé’s telephone number.” He pulled a scrap of paper out of the pocket. It had a ten-digit number printed on it in neat handwriting. He pointed to a small motel down the road with a sign that read Suites Sauveur. “You and Davix should proceed to that establishment and rent a room for the night. If you call the Consul, she will take care of the charges and make plans for us.”

  I took Davix’s hand, and we walked down the hill. A pickup truck approaching from the down the hill caught us in its headlights, and I automatically let go of Davix’s hand. We were back on Earth, and all my Earth fears were back.

  The wood-panelled lobby of the Suites Sauveur was full of ski kitsch and French signage I could only semi-understand. Davix looked around admiringly, and I realized it takes experience to develop good taste. I rang the bell on the front desk. A woman with long, grey-streaked blonde hair and wearing a cheesy ski sweater emerged from a back room.

  “Oui, bonsoir,” she said, then in unaccented English, “Can I help you?” She was staring at our Realm of Fire clothes suspiciously. We must have looked like we were coming from a slumber party or some Zen ashram.

  “Yeah, we need a room for the night.”

  She blinked. “Sorry, I don’t speak…whatever language—”

  Shit. I closed my eyes and concentrated, and then repeated the request in what I hoped was English instead of the Tongue of Fire. Success.

  “Okay.” She tapped on her computer. “Just the two of you?”

  I thought of Tiqokh, but I figured he was too hard to explain. “Yeah, just us.”

  “Where’s your car?” She leaned over the counter and looked through the front window, apparently still trying to pi
ece our story together.

  “We, uh, hitchhiked.”

  This made her quirk an eyebrow. She turned to Davix, as if she wanted to hear his version of the story. He smiled back and ran a hand appreciatively down the back of a taxidermy weasel on the counter that was snarling at us in frozen fury.

  “And you don’t have any bags?”

  “Not really, no.”

  I handed her the piece of paper Tiqokh had given me. “If you call this number and tell her Crispin is here, she’ll give you a credit card number and everything.”

  “Your mom?”

  “Our…foster mom, yeah.” The lie had a weird core of truth to it. Our dragon mom, I wanted to say.

  As she dialled, it occurred to me Krasik-dahé might be dead. Maybe she had gone down with the other mixed beings, creating a weird mystery for the police. But the desk clerk reached the octona right away, and I breathed a sigh of relief. After a brief exchange, she handed me the phone.

  “Crispin, are you all right?” Krasik-dahé asked in English. She sounded concerned, which was nice, since she had been such a cool customer the last time we met. She sounded almost human.

  “Yeah, we’re fine. I mean, there was a war and everything, but we survived.”

  “Who is the other with you? Is it a human from the Realm of Fire?”

  “Yeah, Davix. Uh, D’gada-vixtet-thon. He had to leave in a hurry.”

  “There is much for you and Tiqokh to brief me on. I will see you as soon as I can.”

  The desk clerk turned out to be the owner of the inn. I tried to make conversation as she led us to our room.

  “I guess this place is hopping during ski season. When’s that start? A few weeks?”

  The woman gave me a look like I was demented. “Ski season just ended, obviously. Business’ll pick up again in another six weeks when the hikers start coming through for the summer.”

  I was confused by this but said nothing. She opened the door of our room. Two beds, a trashy painting of a stag in a river, plastic bedside lamps shaped like big snowflakes. She showed us the bathroom and asked us to please use the bathmat when we showered.

  “I don’t have a lot in the kitchen, but there’s some frozen pizzas. Or there’s one restaurant open down the road.”

  “Pizza’s good,” I said. Even if we had cash to spend, I didn’t want to go out dressed like we were, with Davix unable to say a word, just smiling weirdly at everyone. I realized I was embarrassed about him, and that made me feel like garbage.

  As the owner headed for the door, I finally got up the nerve to ask, “Sorry, what month is this?”

  She was so over us she didn’t even hide the eye roll. “It’s April twenty-third, kid. Shakespeare’s birthday, according to my desk calendar.” She closed the door, and I stood there, stunned. I had left Earth mid-November and spent around three weeks in the Realm of Fire, but five months had passed in my absence.

  Davix was walking around the room, running his fingers along everything, experiencing plastic and polyester for the first time. I could have turned on the TV and really blown his mind, but I was busy freaking out. Five months. My parents must have been frantic. Was Krasik-dahé in touch with them? Reassuring them? How could she? She had no idea what was going on in the Realm of Fire. But I couldn’t face calling them yet. I had too many difficult things to say. One more night wouldn’t kill them.

  As we ate our pizza, I tried to make small talk, but I was barely looking Davix in the eye.

  “It’s okay, X’risp’hin,” he said. “So much has happened. Of course you feel discomfited.” His maturity made me feel even worse about myself.

  Speaking in Tongue of Fire was suddenly weird. I was aware of its “otherness” in a way I never had been when we were on the other side of the strands. And as I watched Davix trying out everything new—eating pizza, using a toothbrush, playing with the controls of the air conditioner—I was aware of his otherness, too. We went to bed just after nine and made out some, but it didn’t go anywhere. We fell asleep in the same bed, but not curled around each other like we usually were.

  I woke up at three in the morning and climbed out of bed. Wrapped in one of the fluffy bathrobes that came with the room, I walked the carpet in tight circles. I looked down at Davix and thought of the promise I had made to him. “I’ll take care of you.” What had I committed myself to? In the Realm of Fire, I had been the weird stranger and Davix had been the cool local kid who watched out for me. Could I be the same for him on Earth? I had no idea. I was supposed to be “tangled” with him. I had been broken-hearted at the thought of leaving him behind, but now I didn’t know what to do with him.

  What would happen at home when I was literally the only person he could talk to? What would he seem like to my family and friends? What kind of freak would he be at school, or at the mall, or anywhere? And what would be the blowback on me of having to explain this incomprehensible boy? I felt like the lowest person on Earth for even having these thoughts.

  I almost screamed when I saw the glowing eyes on the balcony looking in at me. But of course, it was Tiqokh, standing guard over us through the night. I stepped out into the cool, clear night and slid the glass door closed behind me.

  “You cannot sleep, Crispin,” he said, stating the obvious. “Is there anything you wish to ask me?”

  “I just don’t know what’s going to happen. Am I done with my part in all this? The realms? The dragons? Do I just go back to my old life now?”

  “Such a peaceful turn of events seems unlikely, don’t you think?”

  “Yeah, I guess.” I sighed. “But maybe that’s good. Now that I know about everything, I’d hate to be out of the loop.”

  “And don’t worry about D’gada-vixtet-thon.”

  “Who said anything about Davix?” You can’t fool a quadrana, I guess.

  “Krasik-dahé and I led you into the tide of events; we will not abandon either of you to drown.” Tiqokh opened the balcony door. “Now go inside before your body temperature falls further.”

  I climbed back into bed with my back to Davix. It comforted me to know I wasn’t alone. I had Tiqokh and Krasik-dahé, and there were my parents. And scared as I was to drop all of my truth in front of them, like a pet cat bringing in a bloody mouse, I believed deep down they would be there for me. Davix stirred and, without waking all the way, wrapped his arms around me. I was amazed and grateful all over again at the sheer joy of being held by someone I loved. It didn’t take long until I was asleep again, finally at peace.

  I checked the clock when we woke up, and it was nearly eleven. Sleeping that late always felt like an accomplishment, and I hoped it was a sign of a good day to come. I introduced Davix to the joys of showering, and then, for the first time in my semi-adult life, I climbed into the shower with someone. Fun was had, and by the time we got out, the bathroom was steamy as the second day of Sarensikar. We were starving, and I called down for some breakfast, only to be told we had visitors who were on their way up.

  We scrambled into our clothes just as someone knocked on our door. When I saw Krasik-dahé standing outside, I was actually pretty delighted. The Consul was dressed to kill as usual, in a long, green cloak with padded shoulders and fur at the collar, and a big fur hat. Tiqokh followed her into the room, dressed in ski pants and a long nylon parka with the hood pulled up to obscure his less than human head. He was carrying a large suitcase which must have been Krasik-dahé’s.

  A third person was with them. Dressed in a cloak and hood that would have looked more normal in the Realm of Fire, he appeared to be about my height. He threw back his hood, and I saw he was a mixed being, similar to a quadrana, though much smaller than any I had seen before. He shuffled along in a crouched gait, like a chimpanzee.

  “Hi,” I said in the Tongue of Fire. “I’m Crispin.”

  “Srarkraw,” he responded with a throaty bark and squatted down by the wall, where he remained for the next hour.

  Krasik-dahé was busy introducing herself to Da
vix, who made respectful head and heart bows to her.

  “Tiqokh,” she said. “In my bag you will find the makings of a meal. Please move the desk to that open area by the door and lay out the food for us.”

  Over an impressive picnic of gourmet deli treats—I couldn’t stop eating the herb-crusted smoked salmon—me, Davix, and Tiqokh spelled out all the terrible things that had gone down in the Realm of Fire. I was weirdly self-conscious as my lips and tongue wrapped themselves around the rumbling music of the Tongue of Fire. Back here on Earth, surrounded by cheap tourist kitsch, talking fluently about a war of dragons in this otherworldly language felt exotic and unsettling.

  “So, the prophecy came true,” Krasik-dahé said. “And you fulfilled your role as required, Crispin?”

  I blushed. “Dragon stud, that’s me.”

  Srarkraw, still seated in the corner like a well-behaved dog, finally spoke up. “We must convene a meeting of the full Council before week’s end.”

  Krasik-dahé nodded. “I’ll send out a group email tonight.” Here in my new life, the worlds of fantasy and reality combined in an unexpected stew.

  The meeting was making me curious. “Just how many mixed beings are there on Earth?” I asked.

  “More than you’d expect,” was as precise as she got. “And as far as I know, none were felled along with their counterparts across the strands. And in case you’re concerned, humans are on the Council, too.” Clearly, a lot more dragony stuff was happening on Earth than I figured. But my head was already full, so I decided to wait till later to ask the thousand new questions I had.

  See, I thought I was Dorothy, coming back from Oz with no souvenirs but a bump on the head and a tall tale. Then I looked at Davix and realized it was more like if Dorothy had brought the Scarecrow home with her, and they were moving together to New York City to open a ruby slipper pop-up store. Munchkins were hawking T-shirts in Times Square, and the Wicked Witch had a condo overlooking the Park.