Lady Dragon, Tela Du

by Kendra E. Ardnek

  Laura stopped and turned to face them. “Face the challenges set before you, and make decisions worthy of the titles and power that you have been given, as I already said.” She grinned. “I don’t always give this advice because it can steer you wrong, but follow your heart and do what you think you should do. ‘One shall speak the other’s death.’ Do you have your words ready?”

  “If you mean their real names, then yes,” answered Reuben.

  “I let slip a valuable hint all those years ago,” Laura admitted, giving a small laugh. “Yes, much of the spells and magic entangling Silver and Gold can be undone by merely hearing their true names spoken by people who remember them as they truly were before the spell bound them. That is one reason that you and Petra were chosen for the Final War. Now, are you ready for the challenges?”

  “As we’ll ever be,” muttered Petra, repeating Reuben’s words of not long before. “Let’s get this over with.”

  “Very well. Prepare yourselves for the Hall of Blood.” She turned and placed a hand against the door behind her. Rings of silver and gold rippled out from where she touched the wood, like rings in a disrupted puddle, and then the door turned red.

  Laura moved her hand to the doorknob. “Silver was actually bluffing when she said it’d take her a week to prepare the Hall of Blood. As you can see, I do it in moments.”

  Petra tightened her grip on Reuben’s hand but slid her free hand into her pocket to grab her pencil as Laura opened the door. An eerie red light shone out, and they both recoiled at the stench of rot that emerged.

  “You must face the challenge of Courage first,” said Laura. “You may take out your weapons if it makes you feel better, though I can’t say what good they’ll do you, for even I don’t know what you will face. Walk boldly, and soon you shall be able to claim your prize.”

  “And by prize, you mean getting to kill our own brother and sister and then be saddled with their immortality?” asked Petra, stalling their entrance. That smell…

  “Make your choices. Perhaps and perhaps not,” answered Laura. “I shall see you again once you have passed the challenge.” And she disappeared through the door.

  Reuben took a deep breath and gave Petra’s hand a squeeze as he pulled his pencil out of his pocket. “It can’t be that bad. Others have apparently faced this challenge before us and survived to tell the tale. What’s the worst that can be in the corridor?”

  “We both can imagine a half-dozen nasty things, especially given that smell,” Petra answered. “I do know that speculating isn’t going to help, so don’t ask that question.”

  Nothing more needed to be said between them, and they didn’t want to waste any more time. They followed Laura through the door.

  The stench of rot was unbearable. Petra instinctively tried to not breathe, though she knew that she would be in this hallway much longer than she could hold her breath.

  Besides, the smell was the least of her problems. As soon as they entered the hall, they saw the source of the smell – piles upon piles of dead bodies in various states of decay. The bodies were mostly those of animals, anything from birds and fish, to cats and dogs, to horses and cows, even elephants and giraffes. However, some of the corpses were distinctly human.

  Reuben drew Petra closer to him, letting go of her hand to wrap his arm around her shoulders instead. “Close your eyes,” he whispered. “I’ll guide you through.”

  “We’re supposed to face it together,” she protested, even as her eyes closed automatically at his suggestion.

  “I don’t want you having nightmares from this,” said Reuben.

  Reuben, we share dreams, may I point out? And I see your memories when you kiss me.

  It’ll still make me feel better if your eyes are closed.

  She sighed. Don’t worry. For what good it’ll do, they already are.

  And it really didn’t do much good. The stench was still terrible, and echoes of Reuben’s vision played against her closed eyelids. Still, it was a small comfort to allow him to face the worst of it and to guide her step.

  Of course, that also meant that her mind was free to wander.

  Where had all of these dead bodies come from? Had Laura harvested them from other worlds? How morbid was that!

  Well, she supposed that things could be worse. The dead bodies were just that – dead. It wasn’t as though they were zombies that would come back to life and try to take their brains or anything nasty like that.

  Reuben’s step faltered, and his arm tightened around her shoulders.

  What’s wrong, Reuben?

  She opened her eyes. Nothing seemed to be amiss, beyond the terrible amount of death that surrounded them.

  He leaned his head against hers, more for his comfort than hers, so she let him. Nothing. My eyes were just playing tricks on me. I thought I saw something move, but it must have been simply my overactive imagination listening to your commentary.

  Sorry, I’ll try to not…

  Her thought cut short as she saw a very dead cat pick itself up and start stumbling towards them, followed by an alligator a moment later.

  Petra drew her stick from her pocket, willing it to take its proper shape. Reuben’s arm fell away as he, too, extended his weapon. They shared a glance.

  Laura didn’t sound too encouraging when it came to odds of us fighting anything we meet in here, Petra pointed out.

  Because she didn’t know what we would face.

  There wasn’t time to dwell on the thought, for the cat launched itself at them at that moment. Reuben brought up his stick sharply and sent it flying. It landed sickeningly on one of the piles. What sort of terrible place was this?

  The alligator was still advancing, but Reuben slammed the end of his staff down on its long snout. Moments later, it exploded into a cloud of gray dust.

  Other dead bodies were moving now, advancing slowly towards them. Petra could feel that Reuben intended to make a stand and fight this out. She laid a hand on his shoulder and used a simple trick that Spiraldream had taught her. Using his thoughts, she slipped him a subtle reminder that they were supposed to be walking through the challenge and not stopping partway through. Petra didn’t like using this trick on him, but it was surprisingly easy to do, and he’d had as yet to notice when she did.

  He hesitated a moment, but then turned and grabbed Petra’s arm. “We’ve got to get out of here.”

  She nodded, not trusting herself to say anything. They ran, and he let go of her arm to knock the zombie animals out of their way.

  Petra froze at the sound of hooves. There was a horse headed straight towards her. Its eyes were wide and wild. Any moment, it would run her over. She should move, she had to move … but her legs refused to obey any mental order. Any moment now…

  Reuben yanked her out of the way, wrapping her in his arms as it thundered past.

  “You okay?” he asked, after a moment.

  She nodded as she pulled out of his arms. “Let’s keep going and hope that we don’t meet with any more horses.”

  “How about elephants?”

  Petra gave a small gasp as she turned to see that an elephant was, indeed, headed towards them. It was huge, and there was no way around it. Reuben pushed Petra behind him, ran forward, swung his staff around, and smacked the elephant’s trunk. The trunk went flying, but the rest of the body continued forward, forcing them to retreat. Fortunately, it wasn’t moving very fast.

  Reuben swung the staff again and this time held it against the beast for several seconds, as he had with the alligator. The elephant exploded in a similar cloud of dust.

  Petra stepped forward and gave Reuben’s hand a squeeze since she could feel him trembling. “That was close,” she whispered. “I wasn’t looking forward to the prospect of darting between its legs.”

  He swallowed. “I wasn’t either. Come on, let’s keep moving.”

  And so they did. They continued to press forward, whacking zombies out of the way when they had to. Thankfully, only the
animals were attacking them, and none of the humans had decided to take a second shot at life.

  The things they would endure to save their siblings! For a moment, Petra wondered if it were really worth it. After all, Amber had killed Sarah. Could they honestly justify pardoning her sister’s murderer, even if the murderer was her other sister? Amber hadn’t known and had apparently been controlled by the scale, but…

  Petra gasped as a human body rose from the pile. It was female and wore the rags of what had once been a blue dress. Its face was perfectly preserved, however, and caused Petra’s heart to clench.

  She was Sarah.

  Were all of the bodies in this hallway Amber’s victims?

  Sarah slowly stumbled towards them. Feet refusing to move again, Petra held up her staff, even as she knew she’d not be able to use it. This was her sister’s body! She couldn’t just…

  A terrible roar tore the silence. Petra turned to see a small red dragon flying towards them. Reuben pulled her back and out of the way just as it opened its mouth and released a torrent of flames that consumed Sarah in a moment.

  More dragons in a myriad of colors flew into the corridor, setting the piles of bodies alight. The resulting smell was even more horrible than it had been before. Without a word, Reuben pulled Petra into a tight hug, and they stood in the middle of the fire, which remarkably didn’t even touch them.

  Now was not the time or the place for it, with the fire raging around them and the dragons still flying about. But the dreadful lizards did not seem to be interested in bothering them, and Reuben was keeping watch. This reminder of Sarah’s death had shaken her, and seeing the body burn had ripped open a wound that hadn’t had a chance to properly heal yet.

  She would afterward blame the smoke, but a few tears slipped out and rolled down her cheeks. Reuben’s arms tightened around her as he laid his cheek against the top of her head.

  I saw you, Petra.

  She stiffened.

  That last zombie. She wasn’t Sarah to me. I saw you. Dead. Stolen from me by a dragon’s fire.

  She drew back and placed her hand against his cheek. “Well, you’d better be glad that I don’t have any plans of letting Amber kill me.”

  Then he kissed her, in the middle of the flames, in the midst of the destruction and death. His memories poured into her, as she’d come to expect in the three weeks since their first kiss. She mostly saw his recent memories of this corridor, and they were bitter indeed, though sweetened by her presence.

  As she automatically compared his memory against her own, something suddenly clicked. She jerked back to stare at the flames.

  “Petra…” whispered Reuben. He hadn’t been paying attention to her train of thought and was wondering why she ended the kiss so abruptly.

  “The smoke isn’t real,” she said, pulling out of his hold. She deliberately put her hand directly into a nearby column of fire. It pulled back, refusing to touch her skin. “It’s hot. I can feel the heat, and smell the smoke – but if it were real, we’d be suffering asphyxiation by now.”

  “This place is an illusion,” Reuben realized, finally following her train of thought. “I had thought it was strange when I turned zombies into dust by simply hitting them. Our staffs don’t work that way, so far as I know, and the fact that they were animals meant that they should have been under Tyler and Summer’s powers, not ours. You see, I was willing them to become what they were supposed to be – and the truth was they were nothing.”

  Petra tightened her grip on her staff. “This place is feeding off of our own fears,” she continued. “I had a passing thought about zombies that you went along with, so they were made real. You thought of me facing the Dragon while I thought of Sarah. It came about.”

  “But our staffs somehow are able to destroy the illusion.”

  They didn’t need to say anything else. They both understood what they needed to do. They each took a few steps backward, away from each other. He held his staff, she held hers, tightly in both hands. As one, they brought them up and then down, pounding the staffs hard against the ground, willing pure and undiluted truth into the illusion.

  The flames flickered out, which left them in perfect darkness for a moment. Then torches appeared on the walls, burning with a strange, intense, but achingly real light. The carpet at their feet was blood red.

  “We did it!” Reuben cried. He rushed forward and nearly smothered her with another hug. His excitement was contagious, and soon they both were laughing – not at anything in particular, just from the sheer joy of being alive and together. Petra wasn’t sure when she’d last laughed like this.

  “You’ve solved the challenge of Courage. Congratulations.”

  They both turned to see Laura, and their mirth instantly died.

  “So, what’s next?” Reuben asked.

  “That was traditionally supposed to take you all night,” Laura admitted, a smile twisting her own lip. “But it’s never been faced by the King and Queen of Eliue. Since I created it with a drop of your power, it would be only natural that you could dispel it.”

  “With our power?” Petra repeated.

  “It’s a long story. I’ll have to tell it to you some other time when I remember. Don’t remind me. However, for now, you can rest.” Laura opened a door leading off of the hallway. “Here’s a lovely bedroom that isn’t a torture chamber. Can you believe it? It’s as if I totally knew that this was as far as you’d get. You don’t mind sharing, do you?”

  “No,” Petra admitted. Though they had made several attempts to sleep separately since gaining the mental connection, they had found it impossible. One would fall asleep, but without physical contact, their dreams couldn’t properly join, and it would keep the other awake. She’d been the first to experience the sleeplessness, the night after their first kiss, so she’d never argued about it.

  “Good,” said Laura, nodding. “You can sleep here then. I’ll come wake you in the morning for the final challenges.”

  Chapter 10

  Amber awoke with her head on Granite’s chest, the drum of his heart pounding under her ear. A wave of nostalgia washed over her. This was how she used to sleep every night since the first night of their marriage. It calmed and steadied her to listen to his heartbeat and feel it echoed in her own chest. Her nerves had been in desperate need of calming following their battle against her parents, and it had grown into a habit that had lasted thousands of years.

  How long had it been since she had stopped, she wondered. When had he grown cold and distant? Not since they had come to Rizkaland. That was certain. Not since…

  The truth crushed down on her painfully. Not since she had taken up the Dragon Scale three thousand years ago. Even from the first, it had been a wedge between them. He had always refused to see the good it could do in their hands. He had…

  No, she had. This truth was even more painful. She had been the one to make the distance. She was the one who had grown cold. He’d been the one reaching for her all these years, no matter how much he disagreed with her. She’d been the one who rejected him – unless it just happened to be convenient for her or if he had frustrated her to the point where she’d do anything to make him leave her alone.

  She pushed herself up to stare at her husband, careful not to disturb him, which wasn’t an easy task since his arms were around her. Fortunately, he was a deep sleeper, and always had been. For the first time in three thousand years, she truly looked at her husband. Even in sleep, he frowned. Her stomach twisted. He never used to frown. He was the one who would annoy her with his incessant cheer. Now when was the last time she had seen him smile? In the last three thousand years, she had used up every bit of joy, every bit of hope he had.

  On impulse, she slid a finger down his nose and placed a kiss on his cheek. For the briefest moment, the frown relaxed into the slightest smile. He did still love her, and despite what he had come to believe in those long years, she still loved him.

  She’d just come to love the scal
e more.

  Their marriage had been sealed under binding vows of blood magic, a terrible power so foul, she had never used it before or since. She had only used it then at Laura’s order. Granite had not fully comprehended what they were doing, so he had spoken broad words. She had chosen her vow carefully, merely promising faithfulness. She’d written further vows upon her heart, promises she had wanted to fulfill on her own and not be forced into by the magic. For three thousand years, she had.

  One of these had been that she would never let anyone or anything, beyond Yehu Himself, become more important to her than Granite. Her stomach churning, she gingerly climbed out of bed and pulled the dragon scale out of her pocket, though she refused to look at it. She had broken that vow a thousand times over, and what was worse, this thing had become more important than Yehu – El Shaddai, they had called Him in Lintooalintae, Alphego here in Rizkaland. The name didn’t matter. She’d turned her back on Him.

  As she considered her other vows, it further sickened her. She had broken almost every single one.

  Granite had every right to demand she destroy the scale. She marveled that he’d been able to endure so long.

  She turned sharply and fled to her study before she could change her mind. Digging through her desk drawers, she found the palika, two flat disks that had been a gift to Queen Pearl. Theirs was the power to destroy any magical item, no matter the strength or origin. She had used them before against items with lesser crimes.

  She placed them on her desk and laid the dragon scale on top of one. Taking a deep breath, she picked the other palik back up and held it poised to crush the offending scale. As she hesitated, however, she saw flickers of a vision in the black depths, and her heart failed.

  What was she thinking? This scale was valuable! Powerful! It…

  No. No, it had come between her and her husband, her and her Lord. She squeezed her eyes shut, tightened her hold on the palik in her hand. She would destroy this scale! She had to!