Dragon Magic

by Megan Derr

  No, that wasn't true. It had been the night his father had thrown him out. "I'm tired of your sickness ruining our lives. Tired of pretending all is well when it's not. Tired of this place that encourages your mad behavior. You're no daughter of mine. Take your perversion and get out!"

  His eyes stung, but he'd already bled out all his tears. Instead, he took another pull from his latest bottle of ass-flavored rotgut and wandered through the bar back to his table in the corner, where everyone had long learned to leave him alone. He wasn't proud he'd been terrifying people, but he also just didn't care anymore. Especially since nobody recognized him. He knew damn near every face in the bar, every facre he'd passed in the village, and all of them had regarded him like he was a stranger.

  Sule dropped into his seat and drank more. The alcohol burned, and his stomach gurgled a warning that it wouldn't tolerate much more, but Sule was an old hand at drinking until he was sick and then starting anew.

  Hopefully this time when he passed out he wouldn't wake up. He was damned tired of waking up only to find that life was exactly as wretched as he remembered, instead of a bad dream as he'd hoped.

  Why had he thought the anger and hurt would fade? Was he really that stupid? A year and a half had passed since his father had thrown him out while his siblings did nothing, and that moment still hurt like the wound was only days old.

  Nearly half a year, somehow, since the Heart had fallen, but that pain remained a bleeding wound.

  The Heart. If he had no tears left, it was because he'd shed most of them for the one place where he'd felt truly at home, where he'd been trusted and good at his job, and people had been happy to see him. Maybe he'd never been able to be completely honest, but he was entitled to his secrets, and they'd liked, or at least respected, the man they'd known.

  But oh, how wonderful life had been for a few precious hours when he'd had to hide nothing.

  Sule took several gulps of liquor, burning away the thoughts and longings and regrets that threatened to rise up. The goal was to drink until true apathy or death set in, whichever came first. Maybe he should douse himself and start a fire.

  At least alcohol had never persuaded him to try to go see his family. Thankfully they still lived, as near as he'd been able to determined, in their little cabin on the far edge of the village, quiet and tucked away where they could work in peace and avoid poisonous temptations like the tavern.

  Sule turned and threw up in the chamber pot he'd started keeping by his table.

  When he'd finished heaving, he rinsed his mouth with liquor and spat it out. Leaving the empty bottle and the chamber pot, he went to the bar and ordered a new bottle.

  "Get on with you," the barkeeper said. "I don't need some drunk soldier tearing up this place like you always do."

  Sule laughed bitterly. "Like you didn't start half those fights before you lost the leg, Riker." Ignoring the startled look on his face, Sule took the bottle of liquor, drank a long swallow of it, and stumbled outside. Nobody questioned or bothered him; most turned away to avoid him, and a few watched him to be certain he wasn't going to start a fight.

  Sule touched his face where even drunk enough for six, he could feel the bruise from the fight he'd gotten into on his way into town, with some thieves who'd quickly regretted their decision.

  Outside, he dropped to the ground and sat with his back to the wall, watching all the people milling about in the street, eager to get home before the light faded entirely. He took several swallows of liquor, set the bottle aside, and stretched out his legs. He pressed the heel of one hand to his spinning head. Still not sufficiently drunk if he could think at all, though if he sat still long enough he'd probably pass out anyway. Yes, that sounded nice. Sleep for a bit, let his stomach rest, then resume drinking. At some point it would either turn off his brain, or kill him, and Sule wasn't certain he much cared which.

  He'd just settled into a doze when the sound of someone screaming jerked him upright—and he nearly fell right back down. Sule looked around, stared uncomprehendingly at the woman looking at him as she screamed again.

  It was only as she ran off that he realized she'd been shrieking in surprise, not alarm, and that she was an old friend of his sister's. Well, it was the risk he'd accepted when he'd decided to come 'home' after—

  No, he wasn't thinking about them. He refused. They'd caused him enough anguish.

  Snarling, Sule sought out his liquor, snatched the bottle up once he spotted it, and guzzled most of what remained. How much money did he have left? He'd taken it off the thieves who'd tried to steal from him, and it had been a tidy sum, but nothing bled through coin like liquor.

  But he had enough for a couple more bottles, which should suffice.

  He'd just finished the last bit in his current bottle and started tumbling toward the tavern entrance when someone called his name.

  "Sule!"

  The sound of his father's voice made Sule flinch. Furious with himself, he set his shoulders and resumed walking—only to be grabbed and turned. He knocked his father's arm aside. "Get away from me."

  "What are you doing here?" his father hissed.

  "Drinking. Leave me alone."

  "You're making a disgrace of us!"

  At that, Sule laughed—loud and long and bitter. "Us? There is no us, old man. You disowned me, remember? I can't disgrace strangers, so you must have me confused for someone else."

  His father bristled, hands balling and unballing in that way they always did right before he lost his temper and started shouting—spewing, really. "If you were just going to come home like this, you should have stayed in that accursed city! Why can't you just come home and be a proper daughter—"

  Sule threw the bottle so it shattered against the wall behind him, then rounded back to face his father. "Why can't I be a fucking proper son? I was exactly that for years and years. I brought more money home for the family in a month than the rest of you did combined in one year! All I ever asked was for my family to accept me."

  "You're not—"

  "I am what I say I am!" Sule bellowed. "I hurt no one! I was devoted to my family! All I wanted was to be a man—is that so much to ask? It's my body, my life, my choice. All you had to do was love me exactly the same as you always had. But apparently my happiness with myself isn't important to you. Go away. You threw me out. I'm of no concern to you." He turned away again, fumbling in his purse for coins to buy more liquor, determined to be unconscious or dead before he finished the bottle.

  His shoulder was grabbed again, and this time Sule lost his temper. Whipping around, he punched his father hard enough to send him reeling back. "Do not ever touch me again."

  "I'm trying to help you!" his father snapped. "You're going to drink yourself to death."

  Sule laughed coldly, the kind of laugh that had sent more than a few soldiers running for their lives or left them desperately wishing they could. "What do you care? You're the one who called me a disgrace. An embarrassment. Perverted. You're the one who threw me out without a single moment of hesitation, despite all that I did and sacrificed for my family!"

  "We wanted what was best for you!"

  "You should have wanted what made me happy!" Sule bellowed. All around them people had scattered, fled, save for a few who seemed to be enjoying the show. He thought he glimpsed his sister and brother in the crowd, but didn't care enough to look to be sure. "Leave me alone, old man. You wanted nothing to do with me, don't pretend to care about anything but your own skin now."

  "You are drinking yourself—"

  "To death, yes, I know," Sule retorted. "What business is it of yours? Go away. I'm getting closer to sober than I care to be."

  He turned away again, but hadn't gone more than two steps when something struck the back of his head. Sule reached back, and his fingers came away bloody. He turned and eyed the crowd that had gathered. "Who did that?"

  In response, three men lunged forward and threw more rocks—and more still came from cowards hiding a
t the back of the crowd.

  Sule snarled and threw out a hand, throwing his magic out with every scrap of rage and anguish that had festered since he realized his family would never love him.

  Every last rock froze in the air, glowed brilliant orange, and fell to the ground in thick orange puddles that sizzled and burned the grass, the dirt, and anything else they touched. People screamed and fled from the molten rock and the ring of fire rapidly forming around Sule.

  His father stared at him, complexion gone ashen. Nearby, Sule's siblings looked equally shaken. "You—you shouldn't be able to do that."

  "Leave me alone before you find out what else I shouldn't be able to do," Sule said, quietly but with force.

  They fled.

  Sule sighed, and with a sharp jerking motion, balled his hand into a fist, extinguishing the flames and cooling the molten rock, which lay in black lumps all around the scorched street.

  Dragon have mercy, he just wanted to be left alone.

  Stumbling away once more, Sule sighed as he reached the cool dark of the tavern. Making his way to the bar, ignoring the deafening silence all around him, he slapped a coin on the scarred counter and gestured for another bottle. Riker handed it over in silence, and Sule threw the cork to the floor and chugged before ambling off once more.

  This time he made his way upstairs to the room he'd rented. Usually such a tiny village wouldn't bother, but this one had enough traffic from the soldiers in the town a few hours away that someone was always needing a room for a night or three.

  He expected someone to come after him—his father, some other villager—but thankfully all he heard from the hallway was other people coming and going.

  Grunting, Sule took several more swallows of alcohol, then collapsed on his bed and immediately passed out.

  *~*~*

  Screams jerked him awake, and Sule stared blearily around before he realized he couldn't see anything because the room had gone dark.

  The screaming came again and Sule jerked to his feet, nearly falling right back over and slamming into a wall in an effort to stay upright. Swaying on his feet, using the wall for balance, he made his way to the door.

  He followed the screams down the hall to a door that was slightly ajar and pushed it open—to reveal three men beating on a young woman and a boy who couldn't have been more than ten summers. "What—what—" Sule swayed, grabbed the door frame to steady himself. "What in the Dragon's Name do you think you're doing?"

  One of the men dropped the woman, jerked his head at the other two. Sule went for his sword—and swore as he realized he hadn't bothered to grab it. Stupid. But he was drunk, had he really been thinking at all?

  "Back off!" he snarled, lifting one hand and summoning a ball of fire. He lobbed it as they drew close, but it went wide and then they were upon him, shoving him into the hallway where they kicked and punched and slammed him around.

  Sule threw up on their boots, though there was little enough in his stomach left to come up.

  The victim shuffled back in disgust. "Ew!"

  Sule wiped his mouth and looked up—then surged up and swung, fist slamming into the bastard's nose. He felt it break, saw blood come pouring out. He didn't have time to gloat, however, because the sound of someone drawing a sword came from behind him.

  The ringleader had joined the fray, though he wasn't much of a fighter if he thought he'd get anywhere with a longsword in a narrow hallway.

  Sule's head spun, but the fight had cleared it some, and brought up all the rage and pain and despair he'd been trying to drown. "You want to fight? Come on!" As the man lunged for him, Sule threw a hand out behind him and summoned fire, then slung his arm forward—

  And buried a sword made of fire in the man's gut. The man stared at him wide-eyed, his own sword falling to the floor in shock.

  Then he burst into brilliant, scarlet flame.

  Sule jerked back, away, his sword vanishing in curls of smoke. He sucked in a sharp breath, then closed his eyes and focused—and opened them a breath later, equal parts relieved and dismayed to see the ashes smeared along the hallway, the scorch marks on the floor and walls. They were all lucky he'd somehow managed not to set the walls on fire.

  The remaining brigands stared at him, then shoved past him and ran, pounding down the stairs so loudly it set Sule's head to pulsing in time.

  He swallowed, turned, and walked back down the hall to his room, and slammed the door shut.

  Striding over to the abandoned bottle of liquor, he drank until his throat and stomach protested, threw it all up again, drank some more to clean his mouth, and shuffled over to the bed.

  He blacked out as his head hit the pillow.

  *~*~*

  When he next woke, it was to the sound of voices outside. For a single moment, he swore they were familiar, but the state of his head, his mouth, and his aching bladder were all he needed to reinforce that he was deluding himself.

  Climbing to his feet with a groan, Sule relieved himself in the chamber pot, washed the nasty taste from his mouth with more liquor, then shuffled back to bed and passed out again.

  *~*~*

  The sound of voices, his name, drew him out of sleep the third time, and he moaned as his stomach warred between wanting food and wanting to heave again. He lay in bed, face buried in a rank pillow, until his stomach and head had faded to a moderate roar.

  Bracing himself, he levered up, turned to swing his feet over the edge of the bed, and sat up properly. He looked around the room—and stared, feeling like he'd just been punched. He must be asleep still. He had to be asleep. Or so drunk the hallucinations had started.

  "Fuck this." He might have been working hard to destroy himself, but he wasn't a fan of torture. He lay back down on the bed and dragged the pillow over his head. Eventually the hallucinations would go away, if only because he smothered himself into unconsciousness.

  The first hallucination sighed, sounding very much like a put upon Binhadi. "Get him up. I came here to have a discussion, not tend a drunk. This room smells like something died. I'm going to arrange better lodgings. See he's capable of making it that far."

  "I'll do my best," said the second hallucination, speaking in Cemal's infuriatingly cheerful voice.

  Sule worked harder at smothering himself.

  The pillow was yanked away, and Hallucination Cemal fisted a hand in his annoyingly overlong hair and yanked him up. "You heard Binhadi. Time for you to sober up and stop acting like a petulant child."

  Sule sputtered and tried to twist free, but all he got for his efforts was one arm twisted up high behind his back.

  "You're an embarrassment to the Royal Army of Orhanis," Hallucination Cemal said. "You know what, I think this calls for divine measures. You know how we deal with priests stupid enough to wander about drunk, or worse, wander about booze-sick the next day?"

  Sule started to reply to that, then thought better of it.

  Hallucination Cemal dragged him out of the room, down the hall to the backstairs, and out to the yard behind the inn.

  As he saw where they headed, Sule tried again to squirm and twist free, but all he got was a sound cuffing upside the head.

  And then the evil damned hallucination dropped him in front of the water pump.

  Sule screamed as cold water poured over him, helpless against the boot planted on his back and his own dizziness and aching head. "Stop! Stop! Dragon's teat, stop!"

  It took several more minutes of protest, but finally the deluge ceased. Sule struggled to his knees and wiped water from his face, shaking hard as he glared up at Cemal. "Where in the Dragon's name did you come from?"

  "My mother," Cemal retorted, then grabbed him by the hair again and hauled him to his feet.

  "Let go!" Sule smacked his hand away that time. "Don't fucking touch me unless it's to give me a blanket or some other warmth." He stalked back toward the tavern, soaking, freezing, head aching, but a good deal more awake and functional.

  Cemal caught up to him at
the door, gently took his arm and guided him around the inn instead, and then a short distance down the street to the house of a moderately wealthy merchant whose name Sule couldn't recall.

  They encountered Binhadi in the entryway. Sule swallowed, feeling punched and raw all over again. "What are you doing here?"

  "Let's get you dry and warm and sober first, hmm?" Binhadi said, reminding Sule far too much of how Binhadi had been at the start of their stupid quest. Binhadi looked at Cemal. "I've rented this house for three days. That should be enough, but if not, I'm sure they'll be happy to let us rent it longer. The family who owns it is not currently here, and the caretaker gave us leave to use it as long as we like." He didn't wait for their replies; in typical Binhadi fashion, he simply strode off with the expectation they would follow unhesitatingly.

  Wait a minute. Sule frowned. "How is he walking already? His ankle was badly broken."

  "Yes, and there was more wrong than we could see. He nearly died," Cemal said quietly.

  Sule flinched. "How did you get a healer in time?"

  "I turned into a griffon." Cemal swept off with a taunting look, and clearly he had been spending too much time around Binhadi to mimic his imperiousness so flawlessly.

  Sule was going to clobber both of them. Gritting his teeth, he trailed after Cemal into what proved to be an enormous, open, surprisingly pretty and luxurious room.

  Binhadi sat ensconced in one of the chairs by the fireplace, looking like some dark, bewitchingly beautiful king waiting impatiently to administer harsh judgement upon a foolish citizen.

  It didn't take intelligence or sobriety to know who would be playing the role of foolish citizen. The irritating part was that it wasn't exactly a poor casting.

  Sule heaved a sigh and trudged over to the other chair. "So why are you here?"

  "The more important question is: do you want me to go?"

  "Fuck you," Sule muttered, but when Binhadi kept staring in that implacable way of his, he finally said, "No." He slid a look around the room, landed briefly on where Cemal was fussing with a bathtub and a basket of soap and other sundries. He dragged his gaze back to Binhadi. "But that doesn't really explain why you're here."