by Dante King
Renji, after giving Brenna an affectionate motherly pat on the head, reached into her pocket and pulled out the Etherstone that I had given her. She set the smooth, light blue stone in front of Brenna and then stood up.
Brenna cocked her little gray head up at Renji, looked carefully at the Etherstone and then around at the rest of us.
“Go on, Brenna,” I said encouragingly. “Digest that chunk of rock right there and you can become what you were always meant to be.”
Brenna looked up at me, a thoughtful line creasing the otherwise smooth forehead. Then, her head snapped around on the slender neck, and she let loose with a blazing bright beam of blue fire at the Etherstone.
Queen Frami let out a soft exclamation as the searing finger of flame hit the Etherstone and a couple of icy sparks showered out at the touch. For a few seconds, the fire bore into the crystal with seemingly little effect. Then, a bubble formed within the heart of the Etherstone, and suddenly, like a souffle deflating, the magical gemstone collapsed in on itself.
Just like that, solid rock had been reduced to a puddle of liquid goop under the brilliant intensity of the baby dragon’s flame.
“Wouldn’t want to get your fingers caught in a burst of that, would you?” Queen Frami said to herself, looking at Brenna with renewed respect.
The little dragon shuffled forward, craned her head toward the bubbling pool of molten rock, and dipped her snout into it. With long, deliberate draughts, she sucked all the liquid Etherstone into herself. Molten rock is hot, to put it mildly, but by the casual and contented way that Brenna settled her bulging belly to the ground, you might have thought she’d just polished off the last of a vanilla milkshake.
In the blink of an eye, the dragonling had curled up in the snow and dropped into a deep sleep. Even as the nine of us watched, the dragonling seemed to crust over in a covering that was neither ice nor rock but looked like a mixture of the two. It was the strange cocoon of sorts in which dragonlings underwent their mysterious transformation.
For a while, we all simply stared at the little statue curled in front of us.
“So… How long does this usually take?” General Shiloh asked, looking at me.
I shrugged. “I’ve only actually been present for a couple of these moments, General.”
“It varies, General,” Penelope predictably piped up. If there was one thing that made her more uncomfortable than speaking up in front of her superiors, it was leaving anyone ignorant of something that she knew the answer to. It was a case of being able to take the Knowledge Sprite out of the Grand Library, but not being able to take the Grand Library out of the Knowledge Sprite.
“Varies by how much?” General Shiloh asked, a bite of impatience in her tone. She was used to giving orders and seeing results, but not so good at waiting for them.
Penelope shrugged. “I imagine that an hour at the very least would need to elapse before we might see Brenna awaken.”
General Shiloh glanced up at the sky then down at the little dragonling, frozen in stasis.
“She’ll be all right out here, even with the snow setting in?” she asked crisply.
“Dragons are hardy creatures, General,” Saya said. “In the state that she is in now, I doubt she’d perish if a landslide settled over her. Dragons stayed dormant as forests grew up around them and mountains fell apart, if you look back in the scrolls. They just wait for the ideal conditions to bust on out. A bit of snow won’t hurt Brenna.”
Queen Frami patted General Shiloh on the arm and nodded toward the cabin.
“Might as well step into the warm, pour a few drinks, and fill in these warriors of ours, General, don’t you think?”
General Shiloh looked like she had half a mind to post a guard by the dormant dragonling but was worried of offending our host.
“Sounds good,” she said. “I won’t deceive you and say that my throat isn’t parched after all those hours of blather that we’ve been inflicting on one another.”
Queen Frami snorted in agreement. “Aye, politics can take a running jump as far as I am concerned,” she said as she led the way toward the cabin. “Vetruscans have always been unbending in the idea that they should be loyal to the land, but loyal only to politicians and leaders when they bloody deserve it.”
Chapter 3
We all piled into the spacious parlor, and Elenari poured drinks for the two leaders. The rest of us helped ourselves and waited on the Queen and General Shiloh to take seats around the scrubbed and sturdy dining table. We sat down after them in no particular order.
“Now,” Queen Frami said, after she had braced herself up with a good gulp of smoking mead, “the General and I have a common bond. We cannot abide any fucking about when it comes to operational procedures. The job of a leader’s attendants is to lay the meat of a problem out on the butcher’s slab, but it is the role of the chef to trim the fat. With that in mind; will someone tell me whether we know how to get a bear cub to consume an Etherstone?”
All of us exchanged looks around the table, but no one said anything.
“I would say that, although there has been a deal of hypothesizing, Your Majesty,” Hana said, “none of us know of a way to bring Rifa to adulthood.” She swallowed and looked across the table at me. “And it is not as if all of us are not equally invested in his wellbeing.”
There was a scattering of curt nods around the table. Each of the women there had carried and birthed one of my offspring. They knew the quiet distress that Hana would be feeling at not being able to make sure that Rifa survived.
I knew I was feeling the strain. I had gone through it already with Saya, when we had been searching for the stone that would save Wayne, our Smog Dragon, from withering away. That was the fate that awaited Rifa if we could not figure out how he was to ingest the stone that would give him his full powers. As far as I knew, these juvenile magical creatures were born with a stored amount of mana that carried them through the first weeks or month of life. If they did not make a connection with an available Etherstone, they weakened, faded, and died.
Queen Frami sighed as she gazed at Hana, who had been her ward for years.
“It is as I feared and we speculated in the councils we have been holding,” she said. “The knowledge of how to do this was lost many years ago, so far as I know, so it will have to be sought out again.”
“How could it be lost?” Elenari asked in a low and serious voice.
Queen Frami looked carefully into her tankard. “The old texts were all consumed in a fire...”
Even a certified oxygen thief, which no one at that table was, wouldn’t have needed too long to figure out where the fire that Queen Frami had mentioned had come from.
“I remember that time in our existence,” Noctis said, his ancient voice suddenly blooming in my head. “It was a time in the histories of beasts and humanoids that was fraught with danger and uncertainty.”
“You remember it?” I replied telepathically.
“Of course he does, Dad,” Garth chimed in, his tone painting a picture of his reptilian eyes rolling. “Dragons never forget.”
“I thought that was elephants,” I retorted.
The conversation was cut short then by Queen Frami saying, “Yes, the records were lost in fire and smoke many long years ago. When things were less… sophisticated, maybe. Anyway, there’s little to be gained from raking up old smoldering coals.”
“Your Majesty, if I might be so bold, and with the General’s leave of course, I was wondering whether I might try and help with this?” Penelope said abruptly.
“Help?” Queen Frami asked.
“Help how, Dragonmancer Glizbe?” General Shiloh growled.
“In the best way that a Knowledge Sprite Librarian can, General,” Penelope said, her voice growing somewhat stronger and more assured.
“The Grand Library,” Tamsin muttered.
Penelope inclined her head. “Let me fly back to our encampment at Galipolas Mountain and then take a ship back to th
e Academy,” she said. “I can go to the library at the Drako Academy to see what I can dig up. Surely, there can be no harm in doing that?”
The General considered this, pursing her lips and tapping thoughtfully at the rim of her mug.
“Yes,” she said after a few moments of cogitation. “Yes, I see no harm in it. You are a fine warrior, Dragonmancer Glizbe. You continue to show more and more promise. More than I really thought you capable of when you were first brought to us. I shall be sad to send you away, but the remaining dragonmancers should be able to hold their own. Or so I hope.”
Penelope smiled cautiously. “So, can I go?”
“Yes, yes,” the General said bluntly. “And you had best get off straight away. From what I have learned of these times, ever since Dragonmancer Noctis landed in our midst, I would say that time is of the essence. Go!”
Penelope got to her feet and made for the door.
“And Dragonmancer Glizbe?” General Shiloh barked as Penelope stepped over the threshold and prepared to take flight into the snow.
“Yes, General?” the Knowledge Sprite asked.
“Just remember that folk are prone to attribute it to luck when you have acted more sensibly than they have. You are one of the most sensible and moral dragonmancers I can remember commanding. Have a safe and lucky flight.”
Penelope bowed her head, gave us all one last look, and then departed. The door shut softly behind her.
“General, if you please,” Queen Frami said, without further ado.
General Shiloh stood up and procured a rolled-up scroll from somewhere under her musk ox cloak. She spread the scroll out with a practiced flick of her wrist, and it unraveled along the table. At the other end of the dining table, Queen Frami slammed a knife into the edge of the scroll to hold it in place and stop it springing back into a roll.
I leaned forward with great interest. Even at a glance, I could see that this was a map of what lay outside the borders of the Mystocean Empire. I mentioned this to the General and she gave me a look that suggested I had uttered one of those increasingly rare comments that branded me as an obvious foreigner to this world.
“This kind of sensitive information and cartography is kept close to the breast of only the highest members of the Empire, Dragonmancer Noctis,” she told me. “The fact that I am the first General in over fifteen-hundred years to be sitting down and sharing a map with a Vetruscan of any kind can attest to the milestone that you all here are a part of. In truth, even you, dragonmancers as you are, would very seldom be allowed to see maps like this, depicting swathes of country to the west and south.”
“Why’s that?” I asked.
“Because if we were to ever get captured by one of our border enemies, the first thing they would try and torture out of us would be what we knew about the surrounding lands, not only our own country,” Tamsin said succinctly.
“Correct,” the General said.
“And that’s why we’re only shown certain sections of maps, depending on what area we’re being sent out to explore or fulfill a mission in?” Saya asked.
“Also correct,” General Shiloh affirmed.
“That makes sense then, I suppose,” I conceded.
“Very generous of you to say so, Dragonmancer Noctis,” General Shiloh said.
Queen Frami chuckled.
“Now, as you are all aware,” General Shiloh continued, “our next tactical maneuver was going to be to take the fight to the Shadow Nations and hit the Bronze Citadel.”
There was a murmur of agreement to these words.
“But no longer, General,” Elenari said. It was a statement of fact, not a question.
“But no longer,” General Shiloh said.
“As part of this new understanding that our two lands have with one another,” Queen Frami said, “General Shiloh and I have pooled our joint knowledge on this Bronze Citadel. She and I have, after careful deliberation, decided that we need more hard intelligence on the bastion.”
“Why’s that, Your Majesty?” Hana asked.
“Because my chief spy and tracker, Scrutor, has made it closer to that damned place than anyone else,” General Shiloh said, “and she informs me that the Bronze Citadel looks far better guarded than we originally thought.”
This surprised me. I had been there when Scrutor had made her initial report to General Shiloh, as had Hana. Back then, the stronghold had looked about as physically imposing as a silverback gorilla wielding a pair of chainsaws in a street brawl. To hear General Shiloh say that it was even more heavily fortified and manned that first thought was no casual thing.
I exchanged looks with Hana. I could tell that she was of the same opinion.
Still, there had been one other important development at the end of our last adventure in the Fey Pass. I now had in my possession the strange device, whether it was man-made or organic I still wasn’t sure, that allowed me to place a dragon simultaneously into different slots. I had increased my power substantially, and so I would be an irreplaceable asset for the fight against the Shadow Nations.
“Not only that,” Queen Frami chipped in, “but from the reports supplied by General Shiloh’s talented scout, it would seem that there are multiple smaller fortifications leading up to the Bronze Citadel itself. These may have to be dealt with before we even attempt to take the Bronze Citadel by force. And done in such a way that no word of their defeat reaches those forces massing in the Bronze Citadel.”
“So what is it that we’re going to be doing?” Saya asked, leaning forward so that her elbows were on the table. “You want us to go out intel gathering, General?”
The General grinned at Saya. “No, Dragonmancer Scopula. I simply pick the right tool for whatever job needs doing for our Empire. In this instance, I don’t think you’re the best tool for this particular job. It requires stealth, finesse, and tact. When I was debriefed about your latest antics, the impression I got was that you five dragonmancers and this bearmancer, Hana, showed so little finesse that you managed to bring down an entire castle on top of a giant bear, isn't that right?”
Saya grinned wolfishly. “It wasn’t a tactful sort of day, General. The sky was raining drakes and Mike had to bring down a wild Frost Dragon that was intent on—”
General Shiloh held up her hand to stop Saya, who immediately ceased her explanation.
“I’m not saying that it wasn’t well done,” she said, flashing us all a grin, “just that your particular skill set is more suited to another mission that Queen Frami and I have devised.”
“Indeed,” the Queen said. “There are plenty of surreptitious and merciless bastards that can gather intel out there, on both our sides; the clandestine wars that have become standard operating procedure in these politically charged times have bred such warriors. However, for a mission that requires a warrior to go charging headfirst into the unknown with a smile on their face and a song in their hearts, against odds that’d make a regular trooper quail, there’s no beating a fuckin’ mancer!”
I grinned. The Queen was right there. Never a truer word spoken. Me and the rest of my mancer friends always left fear at the door.
“So, if we’re not gathering intelligence, then we’re…?” Hana probed.
“I’m guessing this surely has something to do with the mention of the Fateseeker’s Cavern?” I suggested.
It was the only point in my debriefing with General Shiloh that had made the burly woman really sit up and take notice. As soon as I had mentioned the place that Penelope had deciphered from that wall in the snowy mountain temple, General Shiloh’s ears had pricked up.
“An incisive piece of reasoning, Dragonmancer Noctis,” the General said. “And quite right, though I should remind you that the sharp-witted are apt to cut themselves if they’re not careful.”
“Noted, General,” I said, grinning.
“Aye,” said the Queen. “Your mention of this Fateseeker’s Cavern got the General and me to thinking. Prodded us into a quick bit o’ correspo
ndence with that Overseer of yours. All three of us are in agreement; if the Shadow Nations deemed the place important enough to inscribe it on their temple wall, it might follow that there is another relic of some sort there that could help us undo the bastards.”
“Your Majesty,” Hana said deferentially, “is there any evidence to support your guess?”
The Queen smiled grimly. “Hana, if there was evidence, the General and I might have been tempted to send a few battalions to go and retrieve this relic. As we have only the mention of the Cavern, we deemed it more diplomatically prudent to send you. A few powered up mancers might be able to make less fuss getting in and yet have more chance of getting out alive, should things get… undiplomatic.”
“Which,” General Shiloh said, cutting my question down in mid-stride, “brings us to this region in the south, here.” She stabbed a thick finger at a large space on the map.
“A land that is beyond our southern border,” Queen Frami said. “Where the snowy wastes give way to sand and dust and dunes.”
“A desert land, home to a desert people,” General Shiloh growled, pouring herself another drink and knocking back half of it in one go.
“It is the land of Akrit,” Queen Frami said. “Land of the Akritites and home to the great and wealthy capital city of Akrit.”
“They named their capital city after their land?” Saya said. “Not very original, is it?”
“The city was not named after the land, Dragonmancer Scopula,” General Shiloh said reprovingly. “Rather, the land was named after the city. Akrit used to be one small oasis settlement in a land of many small settlements. After a time, its power and sway traveled up the Silver River. Centuries later, the rulers of Akrit commanded all the watering holes and deserts that you will set your eyes on. The land of Akrit was born.”
“It is a place where mancers control and ride and fight on the backs of giant cats…” Queen Frami added, raising a thick eyebrow.
A thoughtful silence enveloped the table.
