Ren of Atikala: The Empire of Dust

by David Adams

  It felt good to be out on my own again.

  I was reluctant to leave Ssarsdale behind. I knew it was in good hands, more or less, but once I got out into the winding tunnels of the underworld—a place I had spent considerable time, both after the destruction of Atikala and my escape from Northaven—I felt strangely better.

  Neither of those times were pleasant memories for me, but there was something about the familiarity of the stone tunnels and ancient water-carved passages that, with every step, let the tension out of my body. For the first time in a long time, all I had to think about was the present; I was not considering what to say to the council or how I would weave enchantments into my suit of armour.

  A shame it was not ready. I would have liked to wear it to the surface, but I had no idea what kind of impression that would make on the humans above. Or if the amulet would resize it.

  Slowly, as I put one foot in front of the other, my thoughts turned to the task ahead.

  I had been to this place before. When I had wandered into this human village, they had immediately made me their prisoner. I had cooperated, and fairly rapidly, we had established a rapport. One of their elves spoke Draconic.

  Then, Khavi had broken me out. Several humans died, including at least one child.

  I had to put all of that out of my mind. I hadn’t done anything wrong; it had been Khavi. The thought of him doing wrong hurt me, but I tried to process things objectively. He was long gone. It was time to put his memory behind me and leave him in the past.

  Easier said than done.

  I followed my memories, and the air grew fresher as I ascended, but soon it was tainted by a familiar smell—dead things decomposing. Faint, almost imagined, but I knew what it was. Kobolds and humans and horses.

  Cevota’s body, and the bodies of animals and men splayed out on the stone, rotten and desiccated. Still, after all these months, the skin taut to their bones. They stank after all this time, but the smell was fading. The bodies were too high for the Fresh-Cleaners to consume, too deep in the soil for surface scavangers. They would lay this way seemingly forever.

  I had promised to return, one day, and give everyone involved a proper burial. I knew I should, but things had gotten away from me. Damn the council and their endless meetings; this should have been a simple task.

  I walked through the faded scorch marks, the broken weapons, and the bodies mummified by the dead air, and I tried to put my promise out of my mind.

  I would do it, one day. I would.

  The smell vanished, and the air grew fresher. Colder. A thousand memories drifted back to me of the cold nights on the surface. The light of the moon peeked around the corner, and before I was truly ready, I was squinting in the bright glare.

  The surface. A cave on top of a mountain. In the distance, below me, there were trees and white powder everywhere. It had snowed. Dorydd had taught me of such things. In the distance I could see other mountains, just like this one. They always reminded me of teeth.

  It was all brighter than I remembered. The moonlight shone off the freshly fallen white, and I looked at it, deliberately, until my eyes watered. I needed to force myself to endure it…soon the sun would rise, so much brighter, and I would need my eyes if I wanted to see.

  “It sometimes makes me cry too,” said a voice so close I nearly jumped out of my scales. “The land cloaked in winter; the north is so beautiful when it’s gilded in snow.”

  Tyermumtican, the dragon in kobold form, was resting against one of the stones near the mouth of the cave. I had not noticed him, blinded by how bright the world was. His scales were white like the snow.

  “I’m not crying,” I said, a wide, uncontrollably happy smile spreading over my whole face, my maw split from cheek to cheek. “The light hurts my eyes.”

  He propped himself up on his feet, blue eyes turning towards me, a similar smile on his face. “Goodness,” he said. “What you should have said, was that you were crying because you were happy to see me.” He made playful sniffle noises.

  I laughed and gave him a push on the shoulder. With grace far beyond what his thin, wry form suggested, he drew me close to him, wrapping his arms around my middle. I hugged him back, and I smiled.

  “It’s good to see you, big lizard,” I said, my tail swaying happily behind me.

  “It’s good to see you too, emergency food supply.” He leaned in and pressed his lips to mine.

  I squirmed happily away against him. I was warm all over despite the cool air. I had not seen Tyermumtican in such a long time.

  I’d missed him.

  “How did you know I was going to be here?” I asked, genuinely curious.

  “Presumptuous,” said Tyermumtican, winking at me with a blue eye. “Why is it not entirely unreasonable to think I was not simply enjoying the view when a friend of mine happened to crawl out of the ground, hmm?”

  “I think it’s fair to presume that you being here is no accident.” I moved away from Tyermumtican and folded my legs, sitting down on the cold stones, looking out past the bright white sheet of sparkling snow to the white ball of glowing light beyond, squinting through the glare. “So…”

  Tyermumtican sat beside me, likewise folding his legs, his arm around my shoulders. The touch was welcome and comforting. “I heard you were leaving Ssarsdale.”

  I glared at him out of the corner of my eye. “You have spies in my city?”

  “You silly kobold,” he said, “of course I don’t.”

  “Then how did you know?”

  “As I said, I heard you. The pitter-patter of kobold feet through the underworld, walking alone, could only be you. I have taken a great interest in Ssarsdale since you have assumed the mantle of leadership…many eyes are upon you now, Ren. Don’t worry; you are safe within its walls, more or less, but I want to ensure that you remain safe, even when outside them.”

  I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. Mostly touched that he cared. Mostly. “I can take care of myself,” I said. “I promise.”

  “You’re a skilled spellcaster,” said Tyermumtican, “but there are things in this world that even I could not protect you from.”

  “Such as Contremulus,” I said.

  “Such as Contremulus,” he echoed. “Not directly at least.”

  “And yet you’ll help me against him?”

  He smiled a wide smile. “As much as I can, as often as I am able.”

  That was good enough for me.

  “So,” he said, settling back against the side of the cave. “What are you doing on the surface?”

  I turned to face Tyermumtican. “I don’t know much about life and danger outside of kobold settlements. I admit it. If I’m going to make Contremulus pay, I need to correct this weakness.” I reached into my pocket and pulled out the amulet. It shone in the moonlight.

  Tyermumtican’s blue eyes lit up, pupils swelling to fill most of his eyes. “I have not seen one of those in…a very long time indeed.” His attention flicked to me. “Have you tried it?”

  “Not yet,” I admitted, letting the amulet spin slowly on the end of its chain. “To be truthful, I’m a little afraid.”

  “You should be.” Tyermumtican’s visage sobered. “This is powerful magic, Ren. Not to be trifled with. Its effects are more than cosmetic.”

  “So Tzala told me.” I twisted my wrist, slowly pulling up the chain as a spider might pull up its prey. “I don’t like having my free will impinged upon.”

  “Wise,” said Tyermumtican. “A surprising number of creatures in this world have free will. So few choose to use it. Even fewer, to value it and exercise it daily.”

  I digested that for a moment, pulling the amulet into my hand. “What will the effect be? How can I prepare?”

  “You can’t,” he said. “You can only experience it for yourself.”

  Ominous. I held the amulet tightly in my hand for a moment, staring at the large opal mounted in the centre. I wiggled out of my chain shirt, unclipped my belt and let my rapier
rest on the stone, and then removed my haversack. All my clothes were piled on the floor, and I was ready.

  I slid the amulet over my head.

  The world began to shrink. Tyermumtican’s head disappeared below my shoulders; my vision blurred and warped as my facial structure readjusted itself, and then slowly grew back into focus. I could feel my bones shifting. It wasn’t painful, but the sensation was disconcerting.

  I shuffled my feet, adjusting my stance. My ankles lowered, my feet dropping flat. My knees creaked as they shrank back, my legs straightening, furthering my upward growth. My fingers itched as my claws shrank away, becoming thin slivers of scales atop my fingers.

  My scales sank into my skin and disappeared. Red ropes—hair, it must have been hair—tumbled down my shoulders. I couldn’t see my snout anymore. My chest changed structure. Breasts, like Dorydd’s, but smaller and different shaped.

  Tyermumtican became smaller and smaller, until his snout came up to my waist, where it stopped. But he changed as well, something about his eyes, his face. He became subtly different, as though the features of his body were being slowly erased. He was more like a painting of a kobold than a kobold…his scales were still white, eyes still blue, but there was something fundamentally lacking.

  I didn’t recognise him anymore. He was just a creature. A stranger.

  And then the world went dark.

  A moment of panic seized me; I could barely see. The moon was a faint disk in the distance, and the mountainside that had seemed so recently to be too bright to comfortably look at was now deep shadows and dark, indistinct shapes.

  I focused inward, drawing out my magical power. For a moment I was worried that the spell would not complete, but a dim light came from my stubby, clawless fingertips. Light. Feeble, it seemed to my eyes, but now I could see again.

  “Did it work?” I asked, and when I spoke, my voice sounded different in a way I couldn’t quite qualify. It was me, but it was deeper, softer, more sing-songy. When my own words reached my ears, they were tinged with a strange inflection.

  “Kraz el nam vek’tan ggr’il tey naxal,” said Tyermumtican, smiling knowingly up at me. The words were at once familiar but different.

  “What?”

  “I said,” he said, his voice yapping and high pitched, “that it did, of course. You’ve lost the ability to speak Draconic, and what you’re hearing now is the Common tongue.” His accent, instead of smooth and pleasant, was so annoying. Like a bark and a growl crossed together and played over words.

  “I don’t like it,” I said, grinding my teeth—teeth that were flat and blunt, not sharp as they should be—against each other. “You sound…bad.”

  “I sound like a monster,” said Tyermumtican. And it was true. The way he spoke provoked some kind of strange fear response in me that came from a deep, primal place.

  “You look different,” I said.

  “This is how humans see the world. How they see your kind.” Tyermumtican’s maw opened in what I intellectually knew was a smile, but the gesture seemed threatening to me, as though he were going to bite. “You, on the other hand, look absolutely amazing.”

  That was a relief. “I really look like a human?” I asked. If the humans recognised me, I would be undone in moments. I had been treated as a prisoner the moment they saw me before. I did not know how I would fare if they knew I was attempting to infiltrate them as one of their own.

  Tyermumtican focused for a moment, raising his claws. The faint glow of magic filled the cave mouth and an image appeared out of nowhere. A human woman.

  She was a tall, tan-skinned woman with red hair that flowed and tumbled down past her shoulders to her breasts, halfway between frizzy and straight, curled at the edges. Her skin was fleshy and smooth, completely scar free. Her lips were red, her features sharp and well defined, her nose smooth and straight.

  And her eyes. Gold as the sun, burnished metal, almost, irises brimming with power.

  She was me.

  The image faded away.

  I scrunched up my face, sticking out my too-small tongue. “That really does not look like a human,” I said, struggling with how unlike me my own voice sounded. “Not like the other humans I’ve seen.”

  “Of course not,” yipped Tyermumtican. “Before you were looking with kobold eyes. Before you just saw a human; now you are seeing a person.”

  It was true. This simple moment had changed so much of how I saw the surface races, physically and otherwise. They were individuals. I had always known this, of course, but there was a difference between knowing something and experiencing it firsthand.

  The breeze changed. A shiver ran through me, and I felt the cold air wash over my skin. It felt as though the temperature had dropped significantly. My skin developed strange bumps on it; I examined my arm curiously.

  “Humans don’t deal with the cold as well as kobolds,” said Tyermumtican. “Nor the heat. They are not like your kind, or dragons, whose scales shield them from the elements. You had best wait until the dawn; the sun’s light will melt the snow and warm your body.”

  “I want to set out now,” I said. “I do not want to sit in a cave for hours.”

  “Impatience is a human trait,” said Tyermumtican, his face un-smiling once again. “You’re adapting to this change nicely.” He clicked his tongue. “Very well, you could probably get started now if you wanted, although I should warn you again to wait. Humans and the cold…”

  I would endure. I had marched through a desert and through the snow before. If my frail human body gave out, I could always remove the amulet.

  It would be okay.

  I turned to the small pile of equipment, now so much smaller. My rapier seemed like a toy; I picked up the sheath, resting my too-large hand on the hilt. It barely fit and wasn’t useable. The straps on my haversack were too tight. My chainmail looked like it was made for Valen.

  “I don’t know why I brought all this,” I said, putting my hands on my hips. I poked myself in the side. My human hips were flared out; they were not thin and wiry like they should be, but were curved and odd. I took a step forward; my stride was giantlike, and I almost overbalanced.

  The stones were hard and sharp against the soft soles of my feet. Walking was not supposed to hurt. This would be why humans wore boots; their feet were soft and frail, barely able to support them. They needed boots.

  Even taking a single step had taught me so much.

  “What will you do with it all?” asked Tyermumtican.

  “I should hide it,” I said. “I’ll pick it up when I come back. There’s no point in carrying all this stuff all the way to the village.”

  Tyermumtican regarded me with that blank, empty, expressionless kobold face of his. “You didn’t prepare human clothing before you left?” he yapped.

  “No.”

  “You’re just going to go like…that? Wearing nothing but the amulet?”

  “Of course.”

  “Right.” He sniggered, a high pitch giggle that I struggled to process. “Have fun,” he said. With a cheerful wave, he stepped back into the tunnel and began walking down the long, winding passage towards the dark, leaving me alone, the cold wind nipping at my exposed skin.

  I walked the other way, down the mountain towards the distant village, the very edge of the sun creeping up beyond the distant mountain range.

  A human.

  CHAPTER V

  COLD.

  COLD, COLD, COLD, COLD, cold.

  The wind, once cool and refreshing, turned icy. The walk barely warmed me up at all. The metal of the amulet became a freezing chunk of pain searing against my skin with every step. It was so cold the metal felt hot. My new human skin reddened all over, my fingers shook uncontrollably, and my feet stung every time they stepped on snow.

  I now know why Dorydd wore so many clothes when she was marching, and why she packed thick blankets for the night. Dorydd struck me as someone much tougher than the average human, and yet even she had to make such
precautions. I had nothing.

  With every step I was tempted to take the amulet off and become a kobold again, but that would be dangerous. The sun was well above the horizon. Its warmth helped a little, but it would reveal me. If the humans found me, they might recognise me as the killer who had visited them so recently.

  Thoughts of how different Tyermumtican looked to me after my transformation flashed through my mind. They might not recognise me after all.

  Maybe it was safe. Maybe I could do it for a little bit, and then when my body had recovered, put it back on. Maybe I could use my spells to make a fire to warm myself…

  No. This was weak thinking. I would have to endure, as I had always endured.

  I walked on, stubbornly pressing forward towards the village.

  And then I realised I was east of it.

  The snow had changed everything, blotting out landmarks and messing with my sense of distance. And my legs were longer now; I had been counting steps to navigate, but that was now wildly inaccurate.

  On second thought, I could be west of it. It didn’t really matter.

  All I could think about was the icy weather. It distracted me; I saw footprints, my own footprints. I was walking in circles. I felt odd. Disoriented, as though I had forgotten my purpose and why I was here.

  I shook my head to clear the strange feeling. I had a mission. I had to find the humans and learn their weaknesses, not freeze to death a short walk away from the start of it all.

  But why did any of that really matter?

  I wandered aimlessly, dragging my feet through the snow, and my eyelids grew heavy. I vaguely remembered No-Kill, or Marjaana or something like that, and how she had cried when we’d forced her to march. Gnomes were weak. Humans were weak, too. Now I was weak.

  Weak.

  I needed a nap. I saw a nice tree, tall and strong, and I stumbled towards it, fighting the urge to close my eyes. I could curl up under the tree, bury myself in snow, and have a long, relaxing sleep. Just for a little while. Everything was going to be okay.