The Chronicles of Dragon Collection (Series 1 Omnibus, Books 1-10)

by Craig Halloran

  And there I stood, at the threshold of all thresholds, looking back over my shoulder for escape but finding none. If I had had some dragon scales by now, things would probably be all right, but I didn’t. With great hesitation and a trembling heart, I stepped inside.

  CHAPTER 4

  Imagine the throne rooms of the greatest kings in the world combined and all their wealth lying at their feet. That’s nothing compared to my father’s throne room, and those kings are nothing compared to my father. There he sat on his golden throne, treasure covering the floor as far as eye could see, glimmering and twinkling in the light of the lanterns. Like a man he sat, more than three stories tall, monstrous wings folded behind his back, dragon head resting in the palm of his clawed hand, eyes closed. There had never been a king that big.

  I pushed the door closed with a loud wump, stirring the golden coins that slipped from their pile toward the floor. To my relief, my father, a heavy sleeper, did not stir, yet my heart pounded in my chest. I supposed that it should be pounding in my chest, but I had figured that feeling, that nervous feeling you get as you tread into the unknown, would fade away with age. It hadn't. I pushed the hair back from my eyes and proceeded forward.

  My father, the largest living thing in the world so far as I knew, was scaled in red mostly, a brick red, with trims of gold along his armored belly, wings, and claws. His taloned toe alone was almost as big as me, and I was big, for a man anyway.

  “Come closer,” he said from the side of his mouth. The power of his voice sent tremors through the room, upsetting more piles of precious metals and jewels.

  I kept going, taking my time, having no desire to begin the conversation but very eager to end it. I stopped a good fifty feet away, craning my neck upward, trying to find the first word to say. My tongue was thick in my mouth, and I thought of all the brave deeds I had done, but it all seemed so minute before my father.

  He snorted the air, opened his dragon’s maw, and said, “You smell dirty. Like an orc.”

  That bothered me. He always had to say something that bothered me.

  “It’s good to see you too, Father,” I shouted back, my words barely a gerbil's compared to his. And I was loud, loud as an ogre when I wanted to be.

  One eye popped open, brown like a man’s but flecked in gold and glaring. The other eye opened as well, the same as the first, its intent no less hostile. My father leaned back on his throne, long, powerful neck stretching between the massive marble pillars behind him, which held the ceiling. He was glorious and powerful; his mere presence began to charge my blood. I was proud to have a father like that, but I hadn't told him so in a long time.

  “Ah … the fear in your sweat is gone already, I see, and replaced by your spiteful tongue,” he said, moving very little, poised rather, pleasant, as if he was being served dinner. “Still, it is good to see you, Son, as always.”

  That part got to me a little, but only because I knew he meant it. The way he said it was the truth. Everything he said was true, I knew, whether I wanted to agree to it or not. My father, which is what I called him, because his real name would take the better part of the day to say, had a voice of a most peculiar quality. Powerful and beautiful like a crashing waterfall. Wise and deep with all the wisdom in the world combined. Soothing and uplifting. But my proud ears had gotten accustomed to it over the years.

  “Yes, well, Father, it’s good to see you, too. There’s nothing quite like taking a long journey home. Scraping and clawing for your life, bleeding out your last drop,” I laid it on thick, “gasping for your last breath, only to be saved at the last moment of life, healed, only to be jostled and dragged here without a moment's rest.” I began pacing back and forth, hands on hips, throwing my neck back. “And you complain, of all things, that I have not had a bath.”

  Ever seen a dragon smile, one with a mouthful of teeth as long as you? That’s what I was seeing now, and it bothered me.

  “Well, you know how I feel about those foul creatures, and I was excited to see you, smelling like orc's blood or not, and it’s been so long, several weeks at least,” my father said.

  Now my father was being ridiculous. Dragons are never in a hurry to do anything. It takes them a minute just to blink. They aren't slow by any means or measure, no matter how big they are, but they take their good time doing anything. Hours are minutes to them, if even that long.

  I plopped down on a huge stack of gemstones, inspecting a few before tossing them away.

  “Father, it’s been almost a decade,” I said, agitated. “Have you even moved since the last time I was here?”

  “Certainly, Son, I've moved quite a bit since you’ve been here.”

  “I see.” He never moved except when it was time to feed, which wasn’t very often. He hadn’t moved since I was a boy, either. “Father, what would you know of me?” I had to push things, be impolite; it was the only way to make this conversation go quicker.

  “I see things as well, Nath …”

  “No, don’t!” I yelled, but it was too late. He began pronouncing my full name, which is as long as a river, syllable after syllable, ancient, poetic, and powerful. I listened, minute after minute, mesmerized, my aggravation beginning to subside. My name was a beautiful thing: prosperous and invigorating.

  “… nan,” he finished, over an hour later. “Have you gained any scales?”

  There it was. The dreaded question about my scales. Here I was, a son of the greatest dragon but without a single scale. Despite all the right I had done, it seemed I’d done my own fair share of wrong as well.

  “No!”

  My father snorted. I saw a look of disappointment in his eyes, and I felt disappointed as well. I’d failed. Despite all my great deeds in the lands of Nalzambor, I was not living up to expectations.

  He sighed, and it seemed such a terrible thing.

  “How long, Son?”

  I kicked at the piles of treasure.

  “Two hundred years.”

  Like a man, my father reached up and grabbed his skull with his four-fingered hands. I knew what was coming next.

  “Son, the first hundred years of your life were the most wonderful of mine. You did everything I said. You listened. You learned. You grew. And when you became old enough, I let you choose. Stay in the mountain and continue to grow or risk losing everything you are just to see the rest of the world.” He shook his head. “I never should have given you that choice.”

  “I wanted to see things for myself. It was my right. You told me I needed to understand the world of men,” I argued.

  “Yes, I did. But I told you not to get too close. Don’t get caught up in their ways. You are not one of them. You are one of us.”

  “How can I be sure? I still look like a man. I talk like a man.”

  He stopped me, head leering over at me, his eyes showing a glimmer of the infernos within.

  “True, Son, but I warned you not to act like a man. I showed you what dragons do, how they act, how they respond.”

  I rose to my feet and resumed my pacing through the hoard, coins jingling beneath my feet.

  “Maybe I don’t want to devour herds of sheep and goats like a beast. I like my food cooked and making use of knives and forks. It’s civilized. Unlike the dragons that pillage the flocks.”

  Father said, “The herds are for feeding, man and dragon alike. Forgive me for forgetting to use my knife.” He waggled a talon at me. “If you had your scales, you’d understand, Son. You are meant to be a good dragon, the same as me.”

  I wanted to please my father. I really did. But, as the years passed and the hairs on my skin became more coarse, I had an aching doubt that I was ever going to become a dragon. There were many things that I could do that men could not. Living long was one of them, but I never felt sure.

  “Father, how can I know that I am a dragon? If I was a dragon, certainly I’d have scales by now. The others do.”

  “Son, you are not like the others. You are like me. As I’ve expl
ained, there are dragons like the rest, and there are dragons like us. I am the keeper of this world, a protector of men as well as the dragons. But I won’t live forever, and who will protect them when I’m gone? It has to be you.”

  Me. Yes, I knew it was supposed to be me. Deep down in my heart, I knew it was true. But one would think I’d have a sister or brother to share the responsibility. I continued to pout.

  “What about my mother? Will you ever reveal her to me?”

  “Oh, stop. You were hatched from an egg.”

  “I was not hatched from an egg like a goose!” I yelled. It infuriated me, him saying that. I knew I had a mother, and I suspected she was mortal, but my father, truthful and wise, had been holding something back all along. And it infuriated me that I did not know.

  “More like a little crocodile,” he said, joking. “You had scales when you were born, we… er, I was so proud. But after a few years, they fell away.” His voice saddened. “And that’s when I knew.”

  He had slipped! There was indeed a mother; I was certain of it. But I could not remember her face or anything of her at all. Was she a dragon or a mortal?

  “Knew what?” I asked, even though I had already heard the answer before.

  His voice was heavy as he said, “That you would be the child that replaced me. That the responsibility was yours, whether you liked it or not. As I did not have a choice, Son, neither have you. There is only one great dragon in the world, and if it isn’t me, it must be you. Without us, the world is doomed.”

  That was it: the ship's anchor strapped onto my back. The burden of an impossible responsibility that weighed me down to my knees. I didn’t ask for this.

  CHAPTER 5

  The more he kept talking, the smaller I felt. It was a big part of the reason that I didn’t come home to visit too much. He told me about the Dragon Wars, where one brood of dragons battled another for the sake of mankind. Every race—man, elf, dwarf, gnolls, orcs, and ogres—had been in danger those days, but the dragons, the good ones like my father, won out. It had all happened long before I came, and it was impossible to believe that there had been such devastation. Mankind, all of the races that is, had been on the border of extinction. My father had sacrificed everything to prevent that, and he had the scars and missing scales to prove it. Still, it was all hard to believe, that life on Nalzambor had been so cold and hopeless.

  I stretched on a sofa, as soft and exquisite as one could be, and listened again. There must have been something I was missing. Why didn’t I have my scales? And yet again, he told me why he thought I didn’t.

  “For every life you take, you must save another or more. It does not matter if they are good or evil; who can really tell? There is good in everything, evil as well ….”

  I knew better: orcs were evil. Gnolls, orcs, and bugbears, too. And renegade dragons, remnants of the Dragon Wars, were, too. It never made any sense to me to let them live.

  He knew what I was thinking. “It’s not just the orcs, Son. Men and elves can be just as bad. Have you not seen how they treat people? Would you treat your people like that? Outrageous.”

  It made sense. I’d spent so much time among them that I rarely noticed anymore. Some of their kind, men liked, and some they didn’t like. They would feud and war with one another. Brag and boast about their riches, their kingdoms and princesses. I just laughed at them. They hadn’t seen anything like I had, so their commentary was quite meaningless to me, but the company was very entertaining.

  “My father was the same as me and you. He made this throne, but this treasure was here long before he came, even his father before him. And like us, they were born dragons that turned to men. You are not like your brothers and sisters, nor was I. They care little for the world of mankind, but it’s important that we do. Men and dragons need one another. It’s how life is.”

  I never really understood why dragons needed men except to make treasure, which was still one of those things I enjoyed searching for in my journeys. I met many great men, elves, and dwarves, but I never saw any reason we needed them. They tended sheep and cattle. Made objects that I assumed dragons were too big to craft. That was another thing. I never saw a dragon build anything.

  “When I was your age, I was a bigger man, stronger, faster than the others. Our dragon hearts account for that. Like a horse's times two. I was cocky, too, for a while. I befriended the dwarves and learned about blacksmithing and forged the sword you’ve become so fond of over the years.”

  I jumped to my feet.

  “You made Fang?”

  “Indeed.”

  “But, if you weren’t supposed to kill anybody, then why did you make the sword?”

  “Because it’s a symbol of truth, hope, and strength. The men respected a man that swung a blade. And I never said you couldn’t kill, just that it’s only a last resort. But again, take a life, safe a life or more.”

  “How many did you kill?”

  “Enough to remember each and every one. Seeing life diminishing in a dying creature's eyes is a sad thing indeed. We are here to save lives, not take them.”

  I thought about that.

  “But don’t we save lives when we take the lives of those endangering others?”

  “How can you know for sure? At what cost, Son? Men will always fight and feud, whether we help them or not. They’ll listen for a while, then wage war with one another. In all of your heroics, how much have you really changed?”

  It was true. Battles were won and lost. Good men died, and bad ones lived. Evil withered in the dirt only to rise again into a strong and mighty tower. There was nothing that held it back for long. Not war. Not power. Not peace. This was the part that gave me a headache. Holding back against evil, the despicable beast.

  “Save the ones you can, Son. Expect no rewards nor thank-yous, and move on, which I don’t think you are very eager to do.”

  I liked being with people, but they aged quickly, and sooner or later I would always have to move on. It was hard to watch them fight so hard for a life that wasn’t long lasting. And maybe that was what I liked most about men. Every day mattered to them. Each one was new, never the same, filled with new adventures over every horizon. Men, good and bad, knew how to live.

  I let out a long sigh. I still had no idea how to get my scales.

  “I can see in your eyes that you are frustrated, Nath—”

  “NO! Don't say it again!” I held my hands up.

  “Sorry, Son. You should stay among your brothers and sisters awhile. I’d enjoy your company. Maybe my guidance will sink in.”

  He was talking another hundred years at least.

  “No,” I stammered, a good bit angry at myself, “I want to earn my scales. I want to be a dragon!”

  My father leaned back, dragon claws clasping his knees, and said, “Take the sword. The one you borrowed. It was going to be a gift anyway, but you slipped out of here like a halfling rogue before I could gift it to you. Take Brenwar,” my father’s tone darkened, and so did his smoldering eyes, “and do not return this time without your scales.”

  “What? I can’t come back?”

  An impatient tone took over his voice like a dam about to break.

  “NO! Take with you that which you need. You’ve earned that much at least, but do not return without your scales.”

  I shouted back. “Earned it for what?”

  “Saving our kin. The dragons. Like I’ve told you to. Focus on the dragons. The little green one, Ezabel, was quite grateful for your intrusion. She sends her best. And she’s not the only one.”

  “Really?” I said, surprised.

  “Son, have I ever lied?”

  “No,” I said.

  “Or been wrong?”

  I remained silent. I wasn’t ready yet to admit that, so I shrugged.

  My father shook his neck, a column of red armor over pure muscle. Then he said, “I don’t just sit here as you think and leave every once in a while to gorge myself on cattle. I do many thing
s you aren’t aware of. I see things that you cannot.”

  That was new, but I wasn’t so sure I believed it. If he ever did pop out of the mountain, I was certain the entire world would know; each and every being would be screaming like the world was on fire. I know that I would be if I wasn’t his son. Then I realized he’d gotten me off track.

  “Am I really banished as you say?” I asked, unable to disguise my worry.

  “Yes,” he said, his voice stern. “It’s time you decided. Do you want to be a dragon or a man? Which is more important to you, Son?”

  It was a hard question to answer, and it shouldn’t have been. Among the dragons, I wasn’t so special, but among the people, I stood out. The women, smelling like blossoming rosebuds, running their delicate fingers in my hair, whispering words in my ear that would make a bugbear blush. I liked it.

  And the elves, when you came across them, were so pure and delicate in beauty. Their mannerisms were quaint, direct, their cores as strong as deep tree roots. A bit arrogant, though, and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy humbling them from time to time.

  The dwarves, brash and bold, like my dearest friend Brenwar, were the fiercest fighters and stubbornest competitors of all. They were hardy, grim, and a little mirthful, and I found nothing but comfort among their kind.

  “Ahem.” My father interrupted my thoughts. “Do you really have to think about it so much? By now the choice should be clear!”

  I waved my hands up in front of me, saying, “Oh, no-no-no, Father. It’s dragons. I want to be with the dragons. It’s just that I find myself feeling so sorry for the others.” I lied to some small degree. I also wasn’t so sure I wanted to sit where he sat forever, even with all the treasures of the world at my feet. There had to be more to what he did.