by Dante King
I turned my attention to the dragon.
“I enjoyed your work,” I said in a loud voice, “but we have one little job left to do.”
The Amber Dragon gave me a stony look.
I willed a mental image of what I was going to need the huge beast to do into the dragon’s head. The Amber Dragon let out a snort, which was most definitely a sigh.
“Come on, pal,” I said. “You’re on my side now, remember?”
Leah and Mallory arrived on the scene just as I was climbing onto the dragon’s broad back.
“Get up here,” I said. “We need to find a safe place to dump this ticking time bomb, but I can’t leave you here to face the wrath of the Queen. Otherwise, I’d do this alone.”
“How chivalrous,” Leah said, sketching a mocking bow and sticking her tongue out at me.
Mallory tossed something up to me.
It was a stick of silver sealing wax bound to a seal. I looked at the bottom of the seal and saw that it depicted a pair of crossed quills. I looked at the Mallory in puzzlement.
“The third relic,” she explained.
I stowed the innocuous relic away in the pocket that held the bottle of red ink. I had been so caught up with defeating the monster and the demon that I had almost forgotten the reason we had gone to all this trouble in the first place.
“Okay,” I said, holding out a hand for Leah and helping her up into the space between the Amber Dragon’s wing joints in front of me, “time to fly.”
“One moment,” the Holy Mage said.
She swirled her hands in a broad circle and enveloped the Armageddon Sphere in a similar cloudy spell as the one she had used to subdue the dwarf guard earlier in the Chamber of Lock and Key.
“That will buy us a few extra minutes,” she said, allowing me to pull her up to sit behind me. “The Armageddon Sphere has almost reached capacity—you can tell by the pulsation. My Holy magic should give us enough time to get clear of the city.”
Without discussing anything further, I gave the dragon we were all sitting on the mental spurs.
With a lurching of titanic muscles, the Amber Dragon boosted into the air. Its tail was wrapped around the Armageddon Sphere and, as it rose, it brought the ticking time-bomb with us.
On a normal day, the power of the mythical creature might have astounded me, and the cold of the air might have taken my breath away. However, when you have the magical equivalent of a nuclear bomb in your trunk, there’s not much room left in your head for anything else.
We soared out of the courtyard and over the walls of the Castle of Ascendance. The dragon may have been an older model, but the old-timer still flew like a champion, its great wingbeats thumping through the air and propelling us on at a hell of a speed.
It was not long until we were out over the open country. Snow-covered fields spread out below us like a checkered blanket. Smoke rose from chimneys. Patches and swathes of woodland looked like smears of brown and green acrylic paint. All in all, it looked like a happy little accident that Bob Ross might have painted. It was a cozy scene. One that I was reticent to drop a magical bomb on.
“There!” Mallory cried from behind me, sticking her arm past my face and pointing ahead to a patch of dirtier white amongst all the white.
For a brief moment, I didn’t know what the hell she was indicating. Then I realized: a lake. A frozen lake.
“I see it!” I said, and relayed the order to the Amber Dragon.
The dragon tucked its legs into its body a little tighter and banked in hard to the left. Mallory, Leah, and I huddled in closer to the creature’s scaly hide and watched the frozen lake come closer and closer.
Then, we were over it.
The dragon opened its wings, applying the air-brakes, and uncoiled its tail.
The Armageddon Sphere dropped away from us. A pulsing blue globe, a cloud-wrapped weapon of mass destruction.
It hit the surface of the lake, punched through the ice, and disappeared.
“Bit anticlimactic, wouldn’t you—” Leah started to say.
The lake evaporated in a truly, truly cataclysmic reverse explosion.
The air around us seemed to vanish for a moment, and the dragon plummeted about a hundred feet before the void was filled. Below us, evergreen trees on the banks of the lake were sucked inwards and bent like straws until they snapped. The water and ice simply vanished. Poof. Gone. The noise was like a couple of drunken tornadoes yelling over one another in a busy bar. Ice and snow and dirt were thrown skywards as the atmosphere reeled.
And then…
Silence.
I looked down.
What had been a fully frozen expanse of freshwater only a few seconds before was now nothing more than a vast crater.
“Holy… Holy fuck,” I said.
“Yeah…” Leah said. “That about sums it up.”
“Demonic power,” Mallory said.
We sailed along in silence for a full minute, each of us lost in thoughts of how close to being turned to atoms we had come. Eventually, I cleared my throat and stirred.
“Do we head back to the Castle of Ascendance?” I asked. “We’ve left Thunder and Lightning at that stable, Leah. What if that guy does manage to sell them? When word gets out about what happened here, he’s going to assume that we’re either dead or on the run.”
From her position in front of me, Leah waved a casual hand. It never ceased to amaze me how unflappable the Chaosbane clan were. It had been one hell of a day, in anyone’s books, but even after all we had been through, Leah looked just as unfazed as she always did. Her eyes were closed as she enjoyed the sensation of flying, despite the frigid air that rushed over us.
“Nah, don’t worry about it, syrup-lips,” she said breezily. “I’ll get Chubbs to go and get them. If the guy has somehow managed to sell them, they’ll only end up giving their new owner the slip and heading back to the ranch.”
“We have the third relic,” I said thoughtfully, looking down at the Christmas card countryside that slipped by below us “but we left Gertrude back at the castle. I doubt we’re going to be able to sneak back in there after just unleashing a demon.”
“Now that she knows who you are and what you need,” Mallory said, “I should be able to have her meet with you again. But, for now, you should focus on the important things.” She reached around from behind me and gave me a squeeze. “Haven’t you heard? It’s Yuletide! I’m sure that tomorrow morning, when things have calmed a little, I can get word to her and make sure that she takes a nice, refreshing ride out into the countryside. She and Great Granddaddy Gorlbadock were close, after all. Perhaps she might come and visit the old grouch?”
I sighed as Mallory nibbled affectionately at my earlobe and rested her head on my shoulder. Things sounded like they were all coming together.
“Where to then?” I asked.
Leah leaned back into me and said in her snootiest voice, “Home please, driver!”
I laughed, relief flooding through me, replacing the adrenaline that had been powering me along for the past however many hours.
I willed the Amber Dragon to take us back to the Chaosbane Ranch, grinning as I imagined the faces of the rest of the clan as they saw us swoop in on dragonback.
I shook my head. What was I thinking? Enwyn might be vaguely surprised. As for the Chaosbanes though, they’d probably act as they always did and take it in their strides.
Chapter 18
The Amber Dragon touched down with surprising grace on the main lawn in front of the Chaosbane Clan Ranch. The sail-like wings snapped open with a deep boom, arresting our forward motion and jerking us only a little where we sat. The massive shoulder muscles acted as shock absorbers as the clawed feet sunk into the snowy lawn.
We slid off the Amber Dragon’s back and waited for the welcome committee to show up. What we got, though, when the huge ranch door was booted open, was Great Granddaddy Gorlbadock stumping out onto the front porch. The old boy was limping a little, as he wa
s once again carrying his walking stick vector like a Remington 870.
When he saw that it was one of his kin who had parked a fully grown, airplane-sized dragon on his lawn, he lowered his stick and leaned on it.
“It’s about fucking time, whippersnappers!” he yelled. “Get that thing out of sight and get inside. You’re just in time.”
With this jovial greeting, he turned around and crabbed off back into the warmth.
I snorted. I loved how the old boy simply told us to get the dragon out of sight, like it was a stolen Camaro or something.
Leah tossed me an object, and I caught it instinctively. It was the capture orb.
“Thought you might need this,” she said casually, putting her arm around the still weak Mallory. “I was going to leave it behind because, honestly, what girl hasn’t always wanted a dragon as a pet, but I didn’t think that Great Granddaddy Gorlbadock had the barn space to accommodate Kazrith.”
“Kazrith?” I asked.
“The Amber Dragon,” Leah said reproachfully. “I’m surprised you didn’t ask him what his name was, sweet-tip.”
“I’d rather mine wasn’t sweet-tip,” I said to her.
Mallory laughed.
I focused my will on the dragon, thanking the ancient being for, basically, saving the day. I tried to instill in its mind just how grateful I was to be able to be standing in front of it, instead of floating on the wind in a zillion separate particles.
The dragon cast one rheumy amber eye at me and growled deep in its throat.
“Well, you’ve earned some R&R,” I said. “As soon as I’m able, and if you’re interested, I’ll have you out of this orb and you can chill out by our pool back home or something.”
The dragon made another rumbling growl, and I heard it speak inside my head.
“The orb is plenty spacious enough for me, Earthling,” it said, its powerful, primordial voice echoing through my head like a rockslide in a subterranean ravine.
I’d heard him speak before, but that had been when he was trying to kill me. This time, his tone had a different quality, something that might have almost been approaching goodwill.
“When a dragon is contained in its spiritual form, space means little,” Kazrith continued. “In that pure, elemental form, we are as capable of filling the sky just as we are capable of filling an oyster shell.”
Sounded like some hippy shit to me, but Kazrith was pretty old—he probably knew what the hell he was talking about.
I held the capture orb out and, this time, instead of willing the dragon inside, I invited him.
Kazrith’s slightly cloudy eye widened at this unexpected, and probably quite unfamiliar, show of respect. Its great head bowed, and the dragon vanished into the wooden orb in my hand.
“Manners,” I muttered. “They’ll get you far.”
I caught up with Leah and Mallory just as they reached the steps to the ranch. Mallory had shrugged off Leah’s help and was walking determinedly under her own steam. She still looked a little exhausted, but the warm orange glow emanating from the ranch windows and the smell of cooking that permeated the air seemed to be restoring her.
“You going to tell me how you got the rest of your scars?” I asked Leah from behind her as we mounted the wooden steps. I was looking at the small patch of blood on the shoulder of her baby blue sweater. The crimson had long faded to a dull brown. “Or am I going to have to guess?”
Leah turned and cocked her head to one side. She smiled lazily. “You want to know how I got these scars?” she asked, reaching a long arm behind her and touching her back.
“If you want to tell me,” I said.
“My father,” Leah said, “was a drinker, and a fiend. One night he goes off crazier than usual—”
I waved my hands in front of my face. “Whoa, whoa, whoa, are you fucking kidding me? Have you been to Earth or haven’t you?”
Leah’s smile widened mischievously. “What makes you think that?”
“I mean you’re quoting one of the all-time best villain monologues,” I said. “That shit can’t be coincidence.”
Leah shrugged her skinny, slightly gangly shoulders.
Once again, I was struck how she could have made a killing on Earth as a model—and not one of those lame Instagram ‘models’ that any egomaniacal, delusional woman who pulls her swimsuit up her ass and poses on a beach seems to like to label themselves. Leah could have been a proper, cigarette smoking, Rockstar-dating, Kate Moss, I-don’t-give-a-fuck models. One of those models who could swap clothes with a homeless person and make filthy threads look like she had just brought them from a Tom Ford store.
“Everyone should have a few scars,” she told me, in a voice that was simultaneously dreamy and prosaic, “just like everyone should have a few enemies. They help weld you and meld you. They show that you raised some hell and ruffled some feathers. They show that, at some time, you just didn’t give a shit, honey-bunny. That’s becoming a rarer and rarer quality in this world.”
We walked into the house, down the warm, oak-paneled hallway, and out into one of the spacious living areas. It was a huge room, lit with a couple of peryton antler chandeliers and liberally decorated with comfortable mismatched sofas. There was a log fire doing a damn good, festive job of roaring away in the massive hearth, alternating between burning with red, green, and orange flames.
Around the shelves and sitting on tables and the backs of sofas were small elf-like creatures, which at first glance might have been mistaken as being ornaments. On closer inspection, these little guys were alive and kicking—literally kicking in many instances, as the only thing the Yuletide race liked better than drinking eggnog from thimbles was kicking the snot out of one another once they’d drunk their fill.
All this was peripheral, though. The main feature of the giant, festive sitting room was the group of people gathered in it.
Great Granddaddy Gorlbadock, Aunt Ruth, Reginald, Mort, and Igor were there, naturally, as were Idman and Barry. Idman, for a dude who continually proclaimed what an excrescence he found the poltergeist, sure did spend a lot of time chatting to the ghostly keeper of our fraternity dungeon. I kept my thoughts to myself, but I suspected that the former High Warden of the Eldritch Prison had taken a bit of a shine to the poltergeist. I imagined that Barry’s long memory held a lot of interest for a man of Idman Thunderstone’s intelligence.
More notably, next to Idman, occupying high-backed armchairs near the fire, were none other than the beautiful figures of Alura, Cecilia, and Janet. I opened my mouth to express my surprise, when I was stopped by a cork that flew across the room and hit me in the side of the dome.
“Where the hell have you been, friend?” Rick boomed from where he was sitting in an opposite corner with Damien and Nigel.
“Where the hell have I been?” I said, trying to not act too surprised at seeing all my pals gathered here. “I think the better question would be, what the hell are you three assholes doing here? Can’t a guy enjoy Yuletide in peace?”
I went and sat down with my fraternity brothers and shook hands with all of them. Call me Sally and fuck me with a fruit fork, but it was good to see them.
“So,” Damien said, “what kept you? Nigel and I must have arrived just after you and Mallory and Leah left. We got here first thing and you’ve been gone all day. Some chubby little werewolf cowboy told us that you’d gone to the Castle of Ascendance on a couple of Great Granddaddy Gorlbadock’s prized pegasi, or some such shit. What were you three doing?”
I sank a little deeper into the comfort of my armchair and gratefully accepted the goblet of ale that Nigel Windmaker handed to me.
“Cheers, Nigel,” I said. “And lads, please excuse me, but I really cannot be assed to get into what we just went through. Maybe, I’ll tell you tomorrow. Right now, though, I just want to chill and hear what the hell you guys are doing here.”
“Well, somehow, I got the feeling that you would be needing my services sooner rather than later,” Ri
ck rumbled, slurping from a huge tankard that some knowing Chaosbane had acquired for the big Earth Elemental. “I spent a bit of quality time with my father in the forge—there is no better or more intense time than sharing the cramped confines of a forge with a tribal chief, especially when he also happens to be your old man.”
The Earth Elemental’s amiable green eyes glinted merrily.
“You and your dad are both big men with big personalities,” Damien hedged. “Was three days all it took for the two of you to want to murder one another?”
We laughed at this, but Rick remained diplomatically silent, only the twinkle in his eye telling us how close to the market Damien had hit.
“So, you’re ready to bust into my mother’s crystal?” I asked, taking a sip of ale. It tasted like the ambrosia of the gods. “The forge is hot and ready to rock, metaphorically speaking?”
Rick inclined his head. “Ready when you are, friend,” he rumbled.
I tilted my head back and stared at the ceiling. “I’m sure my mom wouldn’t mind if I had a few more days of relative peace before we start kicking the hornet’s nest around like a soccer ball again.”
Rick grinned, showing almost every one of his tombstone teeth. He raised his tankard in salute.
“And what about you guys?” I asked, turning my attention to Nigel and Damien, who were lolling on a couch, looking as relaxed and full of good cheer as I was feeling. “How was Earth?”
Nigel leaned forward. He was bright-eyed and had the dangerous look about him that he sometimes got. It was the look that informed his conversational partner that he was about to start giving an account of such detail and length that the only way they were going to be able to stop him talking was with a heavy, blunt instrument.
“Justin,” he breathed, after he had wet his whistle with a slug of delicious smelling apricot brandy, “there is so much that you neglected to tell me of your home-world. So many wonders!”
I chanced a glance at Damien. The L.A. native was obviously trying hard not to laugh.
