“Augie does have a good professional relationship with her,” said Iolana. “But Senta and I are friends. You came to the right person. Shall we adjourn upstairs?”
The Prince wasn’t too sure of the appropriateness of it, but he followed the two females, one human and one lizzie up to Lady Iolana’s chambers. He ordered Mr. Stigby to wait in the foyer and he wasn’t too sure where Bob was exactly.
Clitus was both relieved and disappointed that he wasn’t led to Iolana’s bedchamber, but to a small study. Here the young woman opened a drawer and took out a hand mirror.
She tapped the surface of the mirror three times and called, “Senta?”
The mirror continued to appear as nothing but a regular member of its tribe.
“Senta!” she said with a bit of urgency, and then tapped three more times. All three of them jumped when the mirror suddenly went black.
“Senta?”
“Kafira’s ass! What time is it, you bloody cow?”
“It’s seven of an evening here,” replied Iolana. “It should be eight of a morning in Port Dechantagne.”
“Eight? There’s an eight in the morning? Uuthanum.”
The face of the Drache Girl appeared in the mirror. Her blond hair was plastered against the side of her head, and she had evidently gone to bed with both charcoal lining her eyes and red rouge on her lips, as both were now smeared across her face.
“You’d better have a bloody good reason for this.”
“I have someone… a man whom I want you to see.”
“He’d better be a naked man,” said Senta.
“Good God, no!” hissed Iolana. “It’s HRH!”
“Harrarrah? Don’t make me spell at eight in the Kafira-damned morning.”
“It’s Prince Clitus, second born of the King of Greater Brechalon!”
“Is he handsome, at least?”
Iolana shook both her fists in the air, one still holding the mirror, and stamped her feet in frustration. Then she shoved the mirror toward Clitus and said in a remarkably sweet voice, “Here you are, Your Highness.”
“Um, hello Miss Bly, um… Is that all right? I’m not sure how to address you.”
“Why you’re just a boy, aren’t you. You are quite handsome though. I don’t suppose you would want to get naked for me?”
“Um, not at this time. I needed to talk with you about something.”
“Is it your little magic club?”
“Um.” The presentation that Clitus had prepared in his head disappeared. “Lord Dechantagne has already spoken to you about it?”
“Yes,” the sorceress smiled. “Let’s say that’s how I found out.”
“It’s important that we sniff out threats to the Empire.”
“Especially from Freedonian anarchists.”
“Um, yes, right.” The Prince watched the sorceress yawn widely. “We just wanted you to be aware, and to know that…”
“You won’t be coming after me?” she said. “See that you don’t. Otherwise your wizards and you will all be joining my snuffbox collection.”
“I don’t know what that means,” said Clitus.
“Yes, that didn’t sound nearly as menacing as I intended. How about if I just say you’ll die horribly? Is that good enough?”
“Indeed. I believe that gets the job done.”
“Fine. As a show of good faith, I have a little information for you to start you on your way. One of your anarchists is planning to set off a bomb in Marcourt Station tomorrow at ten twenty-two, a much more appropriate time to be waking a person, though perhaps not with a bomb. It will be at Platform Six. I gather all the numbers have some significance, but I don’t feel like trying to figure it out.”
“How can you know all that?” he asked.
“I have my eyes everywhere. Just remember that, little prince.”
“I… I will, believe me.”
“Good,” she smiled. “Toodle-pip.”
The image of the Drache Girl vanished and Prince Clitus found himself looking at his own rather pale face.
* * * * *
The next day, Prince Clitus was in quite a good mood. Mr. Meanie, working with Mernham Yard had foiled the bomber, though the anarchist had committed suicide rather than face capture. Still it was a win. He skipped up the steps to the front door of Number 16 Avenue Dragon, just four blocks from Lady Iolana’s palatial home. This house was a similar size, with a columned front and a huge oak double door. There was a wrought iron knocker, which he made use of. Mr. Stigby and Bob took their places to either side of him.
The door opened, revealing a corpulent man, a head shorter than the Prince. Heavy jowls emphasized his heavily-lidded eyes and long nose, and he wore a truly prosperous set of side-whiskers and a mustache that drooped down almost to his chin. He seemed very old, but had no grey in his chestnut hair.
“Mr. Aurium?”
“Who are you supposed to be?” The man sounded as though he had been gargling gravel.
“I’m Clitus.”
“This is His Royal Highness, Prince Clitus of Brechalon,” Stigby carefully enunciated.
“Oh yes. You’re not the heir. You’re the spare.”
“I say!” cried Stigby, but Clitus held his hand up for quiet.
“You know who I am,” he said. “Are you Mr. Aurium?”
“I’m me. What do you want?”
“I need to speak to you. It’s a matter of national security.”
“Come in. Leave your babysitters outside.”
“I’ll be out in a minute,” he said his two men. Stigby looked like he was going to object, but in the end, held his tongue. The Prince followed Aurium into the house, closing the door after him.
The old man led him through a foyer draped in darkness, and the Prince noticed that all of the windows were covered. They passed through a short wood-paneled hallway and into a cramped study. The room was filled with books and artifacts. There were pots from Ancient Argrathia and paintings that looked to be from the early Renaissance, and there was a human skull with a big square hole in the top of it. A metal stove made the room uncomfortably warm, and dust covered everything except a single chair. Aurium took the chair and didn’t offer a seat to Clitus. He pulled an antique pocket watch on a gold chain from his waistcoat and checked the time.
“Speak your piece.”
“Ewart Primula has retired,” said the Prince.
“I don’t follow politics, but even I know who the Prime Minister is. Primula is out and Coop is in. Can’t stand the little prig, but I couldn’t very well not vote Tory, could I?”
“Sir Ewart has retired from his other job, as protector of the realm. I am his replacement. I understand that this was a position that, at one time, was entrusted to you.”
Aurium grunted.
“Simply put, we need your help.”
“What do you think I can do for you?”
“I’m sure your expertise and experience would be invaluable. In addition, we are trying to put together magical assets, hopefully to counteract what more and more appears to be an organized anarchist group in Freedonia.”
“What makes you think I can help you with that,” growled Aurium. “I’m no wizard.”
“No, I know you aren’t.” Clitus crossed his arms. “You are a dragon, though. Are you not?”
Five: The Four Dragons
Zoantheria soared above the lizzie city of Xiatooq. It couldn’t have looked more alien in her eyes if it had been on another planet. Surrounded by great walls of copper-colored stone more than a hundred feet tall, the city faced the empty plain that surrounded its northern side, while its southern side climbed up the slope of a great mountain, higher and higher, built upon terraces carved into the rock. Xiatooq was filled with round structures, large and small, that tapered near the top so that they resembled giant hornets’ nests dotted with windows. The higher up the slope one traveled, the grander these structures were. The city was all the more impressive because this was not just any mounta
in. It was a massive volcano with an open caldera at the top, out of which belched a constant stream of black smoke and white steam. Occasionally, blobs of red lava were tossed up into the air.
The coral dragon was still musing on the strangeness of the sights below her, when something shot out of the city directly at her. She swerved, but the object, nothing more than a streak of blue, swerved with her. Then it hit her in the midsection. It was another dragon, a little more than half her size: one with shining scales of dazzling sapphire. The newcomer opened its mouth and sank its fangs into the base of Zoey’s neck, while it’s claws raked her belly.
Zoantheria rolled onto her back, using all four limbs to pry the beast from her. She folded her wings and dropped from the sky. For nearly thirty seconds, the two struggled, the coral dragon trying to pry the other from her body, and the sapphire dragon seemingly determined not to let go. At the last moment, Zoey threw out one wing, flipping them both over and they crashed into the stone street, the coral dragon on top.
Dazed from the same amount of force that had not so long ago killed a kronosaurus, the coral dragon staggered to her feet. The sapphire dragon lay unconscious on the ground. She grabbed it at the top of the neck, wondering whether to cast a spell or merely bite its head off. But she paused. The shining blue dragon was beautiful. A dozen spikes poked back from behind its face, but unlike any other dragon that Zoey had seen, including the one in the mirror, this one had no whiskers. Instead, a small horn grew from its chin, pointing downward.
Suddenly two solid blue eyes opened. The sapphire dragon sucked in a huge breath. Zoey squeezed her claw until the airflow was cut off.
“Would you like to belch that fire in some other direction?” she asked. “Or shall I simply wait to see if you pop, like a big balloon?”
“I submit,” came a small, breathless voice.
Zoey released her hold. The other dragon looked at her for a moment, and then turned and breathed a huge gout of flame into the sky away from her.
“You’ve won this time, ugly one.” The sapphire dragon’s voice was clear and bright, like a silver bell.
“Ugly? Explain yourself, you blue freak!”
“You were flying over our city—an intruder.”
“I was invited, you half-wit.”
“Invited by whom?”
The coral dragon just pointed up at the top of the volcano.
“He didn’t tell me.”
“Why would he tell you anything, foolish child? What are you anyway?”
“I am Xenarra, the Goddess of War.”
“Some goddess! Some war! I beat your ass.”
Zoantheria looked around. A vast see of lizzies surrounded the two dragons. They were different than lizzies elsewhere. They were larger, with bumpier and darker skin, and they wore animal skins as clothing. The lizzies watched the dragons, whom they worshipped as gods, in silence. Then she saw him, sitting on the edge of a roof, above a crowd of lizzies, a dragon, no bigger than a pony, with emerald green scales, as bright and shiny as those of the sapphire dragon.
“And you, whelp? What are you?”
“I am Urie,” he said, his voice sounding like a teenaged boy. “I am the God of Life.”
Zoey rolled her eyes. “All around me—idiots with delusions of grandeur.”
* * * * *
The three young dragons stood on a terrace, high up on the side of the volcano. The air was hot enough that a human being would have lasted no more than a few minutes before passing out and eventually succumbing, a lizzie even less. For the dragons, it was comfortably warm.
The great red dragon, Voindrazius climbed over the lip from the fiery mountain’s caldera. At more than 650 feet in length and many times the weight of the second largest living thing on the planet, he shook the ground as he took only a few steps to reach the others. He flexed out his wings, so wide that they blotted out the sky to the observers, as he shook off blobs of lava.
“I expected you to be asleep longer, My Lord,” said Zoantheria. “It’s been only days since we spoke on the seashore.”
“I shall be awake for another month. I have much to teach you youngsters. Then I will sleep—a short nap, no more than a year.”
“Why is this ugly one here,” snarled the sapphire dragon, nodding toward Zoey.
“The Goddess of the Sea is important to our plans.”
“Got yourself a pantheon in the making, do you?” asked Zoey.
The red dragon’s head, as big as her entire body, turned to her as he snarled, “I’ve told you before! Watch your tone!”
“Yes, My Lord. I’m sorry.”
“You too, Xenarra. I’ll have no more of your questioning me.”
“Yes, My Lord. It’s just that…”
She was interrupted by a hiss, as Voindrazius sent sparks her way.
“May I speak, Lord?”
He waved her on.
“This so-called Goddess of the Sea is not one of us. She is worse than the other one—the steel dragon. She’s a puppet of the humans.”
“I’m nobody’s puppet!” hissed the coral dragon.
“You two may never like one another,” said Voindrazius. “I don’t care one way or the other. But you will get along. You have to. There aren’t many of us left.”
“How many?” asked the emerald dragon. “Um, My Lord.”
“There are twelve of us—a single dozen between continuation and extinction.”
“There are eggs though, aren’t there?”
“There well may be a few eggs. You three, and most of the others, have hatched within the last ten to twenty years. But there hasn’t been a dragon egg laid in the last three centuries.”
“Why hasn’t there been?” wondered Urie.
“You mean I hatched from an egg that was centuries old?” asked Zoey.
“Maybe that’s why you’re so ugly,” laughed Xenarra.
“You all were hatched from eggs that were centuries old,” said Voindrazius. “A dragon egg, cared for, will last forever. I cannot say how many centuries, but from the looks of all of you, I think your eggs were very old indeed. You look much more like me than the weaklings of the last millennium. I think your eggs may have been thousands of years old. Perhaps that had something to do with their survival. They may have been hidden away, where younger eggs were found and destroyed. As for why there weren’t more eggs, it’s down to two things. First, most of us were killed.”
“Killed by humans,” said Xenarra.
“Most,” agreed the great red dragon. “But many were killed by other dragons. Which explains the second reason. Those not killed, went into hiding from humans and from each other.”
“Why did they kill each other?” asked the emerald dragon. “Why not team up against the humans.”
“We are willful, jealous, and greedy creatures. We had fought each other for thousands of years, always trying to gain the upper hand. When humans came along, we tried to use them as our tools, against others of our own kind, rather than seeing them for the danger they really were. Our fear was always first of each other. I was as guilty as any other dragon. I had my armies of men and my cults of human worshippers. I bit off the heads of more enemies than you will ever see. No more. There will be no more fighting amongst ourselves. I don’t care if you hate each other. The next one to bare claw or fang against our own kind will face retribution—an eye for an eye and a wing for a wing.”
* * * * *
Sunning herself on a great stone platform built for that purpose by the lizzies, Zoantheria kept one eye open and on the lizardmen. She had not forgotten that members of Voindrazius’s lizzie cult had kidnapped her years before. The great dragon had eventually released her, but she still didn’t completely trust her surroundings in Xiatooq.
A heavy whomp heralded the arrival of the sapphire dragon. Zoey rolled her head to the side to look up into the smaller dragon’s eyes. Xenarra blew smoke out of both nostrils.
“He wants you as his mate,” she hissed.
&
nbsp; “Why wouldn’t he?” replied the coral dragon. “I’m fabulous.”
“You take the other one—Bessemer. I want the great lord for my mate.”
“You can have them both, for all I care.”
“What is it about you? Why are you so special?”
“I don’t really know,” said Zoey. “Maybe it’s a simply a matter of expediency. I’ll be mature before you. Maybe he just wants offspring as soon as possible.”
“It would be better for him to wait for me.”
“Would it? Do you know how long it will be? Do you even know how dragons mate?”
“Of course I do,” said Xenarra, dropping her chin near the ground, and whipping her tail around.
“I don’t think you do.”
“I’ve watched the animals mate. I’ll figure it out.”
“Does the prospect excite you? Or frighten you?”
“Nothing frightens me! I am the Goddess of War!” With that, the sapphire dragon shot into the air and away.
“Foolish child,” murmured Zoey, turning to get the best sun.
She lay resting for about an hour, until she suddenly felt a presence beside her. Turning her eye away from the lizzies, she found the emerald dragon beside her. She hadn’t felt him land.
“You’ve been to the ocean,” she said, smelling the sea salt on his skin.
“I went hunting with Lord Voindrazius.” He tasted the air with his tongue. “He ate an entire herd of long-necked marine reptiles.”
“A pod.”
“What?”
“A group of swimming reptiles is a pod, not a herd.”
“I suppose you would know,” he said.
“Did you have some fish? When I was your size, I loved fish. Still do.”
“I prefer fruit.”
She grinned. “A vegetarian dragon? Do tell.”
“Would you go with me? To eat?”
“You aren’t afraid, are you? That wouldn’t do.”
“Please.”
“Fine.” She hopped upright and then shot into the air.
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