Dragon Secrets

by Christopher Golden

  The guards took up a position to block any escape, focus sticks sizzling with magic and aimed at the intruders. A moment later captain Simons strode into the chamber.

  “Timothy Cade,” she said, her eyes narrowing to slits that made her look unbearably cruel, “you will surrender immediately.”

  Ivar stood facing the guards and the captain, but Timothy was still on his knees, holding on to the fallen Wurm. He lowered his head as though in dismay and surrender, his face turned away from the guards. But his eyes were open and he stared at Verlis, willing him to awaken, trying by sheer force of will to shake the Wurm from his stupor.

  “Verlis,” he whispered. “This is it. I thought Ivar and I could get you out of here, but it looks like it was a three-person job. You’re the third one. We got you out of the cage, but if you don’t wake up and do something, we’ll all be in Abaddon for the rest of our lives.”

  “Boy!” Captain Simons barked, her voice echoing throughout the chamber. “I am only going to give you one opportunity to do this painlessly.”

  “Verlis, please,” Timothy hissed.

  The dragon nodded his great, horned head and his eyes flickered open. An understanding passed between them, and Timothy stood, turning around to join Ivar at the edge of the cell’s platform.

  “Captain Simons,” the boy said, speaking loudly, “it’s a pleasure to see you again.”

  The captain strode closer, her focus stick lowered slightly. “How did you get in here, boy? Who granted you access?”

  “I got in here on my own,” he explained.

  She stopped before the raised platform, her guards following behind her. “Impossible,” she snapped. “This facility is impregnable. To think that a mere boy could—”

  Verlis surged up from where he lay, a deafening roar escaping his cavernous mouth as he unfurled his wings and began to beat them with great ferocity. The guards jumped back, focus sticks raised, but before they could fire, the Wurm belched liquid flame down among them, the searing heat causing them to panic.

  Blasts of magical force crackled through the air, aimed at Verlis. The Wurm had surprised them, but it would be for nothing if they could not take advantage of the moment. In a matter of seconds the room would be overrun with prison security.

  “Verlis,” Timothy called as the Wurm let loose with another stream of orange fire. “We can’t escape the way I intended. Magic is our only hope. Your magic.”

  An arc of crackling white power struck the Wurm in the shoulder, and Verlis roared in fury. The chamber was filling with thick, billowing black smoke from Verlis’s fire breath, and the three companions had a moment—just a few heartbeats—to collect themselves.

  “They’re getting braver, Timothy,” Ivar said, crouched in a battle stance but waiting to act until they had a plan.

  Verlis furled his mighty wings, bringing them in closer to his body. “I will need a few moments to gather my strength.”

  “And you’ll have them,” Timothy said. He left Verlis to move closer to Ivar. Even without the smoke, it would have been difficult for their enemies to see the Asura there. Timothy did not have the same good fortune, but he was prepared to fight.

  “Verlis needs some time. Let’s see what we can do about giving it to him. Hold back, and wait for my signal.” Timothy smiled and Ivar nodded in return. The boy leaped down off the platform, into the billowing smoke, and the warrior followed, his skin taking on the hue of black smoke. Through the obstructing haze they could hear the guards eagerly approaching.

  They’re afraid of us, Timothy thought, gathering up his courage.

  Time to really show them what there is to fear. And the boy charged at them with a ferocious cry filled with rage and desperation.

  The guards clutched their focus sticks tightly Captain Simons was shouting orders, but no one was listening any longer. Chaos had erupted. They opened fire on him with the magically-charged weapons, multiple arcs of white magic, like lightning snaking through the air. But the attacks—the devastating energies summoned up by the guards and channeled through their weapons—dissipated inches away from him, not even singeing him.

  The astonishment upon their faces, the confusion and fear, gave him more than a little pleasure. Magic made people arrogant, he had determined. And it was always entertaining to see what happened when the arrogant learned that magic could not solve everything. He advanced on the guards. Foolishly, they attacked again, as though somehow their previous attacks had gone awry.

  “Try all you like,” he told them as their magics failed miserably. “The results will always be the same. Didn’t anyone tell you? I’m the un-magician.”

  Out of the corner of his eye he saw the slightest hint of movement, a distortion of air, something that an eye unfamiliar with the Asura warrior’s abilities would fail to notice. Ivar was standing right in the midst of the guards, his presence hidden to them.

  “Now, Ivar!” the boy shouted.

  The guards were poorly trained in physical combat, depending too heavily on magic. Timothy and Ivar moved among them with swift brutality, using Asura fighting techniques that the guards simply could not counter. One after another, they were beaten and thrown or kicked to the ground. The guards were in total panic, some fleeing from the room, unable to comprehend a foe whom they could not defeat with magic.

  Captain Simons had retreated to a corner of the chamber when the smoke had begun to clog the air. She kept a careful distance now, bellowing her commands across the room. Timothy grabbed a terrified guard by the front of his uniform, swept his legs out from underneath him, and brought him down hard to the floor. He chanced a quick look toward the platform where they had left Verlis.

  The Wurm appeared to be in deep concentration, his talons performing intricate gestures, as an incantation flowed from his mouth, accompanied by grunts and clicks of the tongue.

  A guard who had mustered some courage tried to strike his head with a focus stick, but Timothy easily disarmed him, tossing the metal weapon away. The guard’s courage evaporated and he fled, running from the room as if the devils of Harrdishak were chasing him.

  “Timothy, I believe it is near time,” Ivar said, gliding gracefully up alongside him. The Asura’s color briefly returned to its natural state before shifting again to near invisibility.

  Ivar was right. As he looked to the platform, Timothy saw that Verlis had conjured a swirling black hole in the air, and the portal was growing larger.

  “Let’s get out of here,” Timothy said. He and Ivar sprinted to the platform. The portal was even larger now, and as the boy peered into its swirling innards, he realized that the sight he glimpsed on the other side was familiar.

  Father’s study?

  “Quickly now,” Verlis grunted with exertion. “I’m not sure how much longer I can hold it open.”

  “You first, Ivar,” Timothy said.

  The Asura turned to give Abaddon one final look. Face twisted with contempt, he spat on the floor, then leaped into the yawning hole to be swallowed up.

  “Now, Timothy,” the Wurm urged. “If you love the sky, go now!”

  The boy could see that the doorway was indeed growing smaller.

  “See you on the other side,” he told the monstrous creature that he had learned to call friend.

  Timothy Cade hurled himself into the swirling vortex.

  Chapter Ten

  Leander awakened in a dungeon chamber deep in the lower regions of SkyHaven, with Edgar and Sheridan watching over him, waiting for him to return to consciousness. The three of them were trapped within a shimmering, crackling cell made entirely of magic, a box created by a network of powerful spells to hold them imprisoned. He sat up, his body still aching from the manner in which Grimshaw’s deputies had attacked him even though Leander had surrendered. The constable had commanded his men to attack regardless. The Grandmaster would not soon forget.

  He said a silent prayer to the bright ones, wondering what had become of Timothy and if Grimshaw had managed t
o catch up to him. The worst part of being incarcerated here was that he had no way to find out if the boy had succeeded in breaking Verlis out of Abaddon. How devastating it would be to have risked so much, and failed, he thought, but quickly pushed such negativity from his mind. Timothy Cade was a remarkable boy, and if anyone in the whole of the world could accomplish such a feat, he was the one.

  The walls of their cell hummed with the strength of their enchantment. Beyond that shimmering magic he could make out only the shadowy recesses of the dungeon.

  Edgar waddled close to one wall of their cell and studied the red ripples of energy that ran across it. “Not to complain,” the rook began, slowly stretching his neck toward the shimmering barrier, “but with you being the Grandmaster and all, I would have expected you to have enough power to counter this spell.”

  The wall sparked as the tip of his beak touched it and the bird fluttered back, his jet-black feathers practically standing on end.

  “Don’t you think we’ve exceeded our trouble quotient for today, Edgar?” Leander asked, sitting up and swinging his legs over the edge of the cot where the guards had left him. He folded his arms across his barrel chest.

  Sheridan’s release valve hissed as the mechanical man placed his hands on his hips. “Yes, unless you want the three of us to end up in Abaddon along with Verlis,” he said, a hint of annoyance in his tinny voice. “Poor Timothy will have to rescue us as well.”

  The rook fluttered up from the floor to land atop Sheridan’s head. “I just wanted to know if the option was there,” Edgar squawked, beginning to groom himself with the side of his beak.

  “Truthfully, I’m not certain I could escape,” the mage admitted, combing his fingers through his thick, red beard. “But I don’t think it would be wise even to attempt it. Any further action on our part would only sully what little credibility I still have with Parliament. I think it best that we bide our time until we learn of Timothy’s fate. If he has been captured, rash action might become necessary. But perhaps he will succeed, and he is already on his way to Draconae. I have always wondered about the world of the Wurm. I wonder what marvels he will have to share with us upon his return.”

  “Do you honestly believe he will be allowed to reach Draconae?” asked a soft voice from the shadows of the dungeon, beyond their arcane cell.

  Leander rose to his feet and peered through the magical barrier into the shadows. “Who’s there?” he bellowed. “Show yourself at once.”

  Cassandra Nicodemus emerged from the gloom of the dungeon, her skin unusually pale, almost spectral, in the faint light.

  Her red hair framed her face, draping shadows across her eyes.

  “I had hoped that the news of your arrest was nothing but a misunderstanding,” the girl said with an air of disapproval.

  Leander offered her a slight bow. “So sorry to have disappointed you.”

  “Caw! Come to gloat, have you?” Edgar crowed, flapping his wings, feathers ruffled in annoyance.

  “You presume to know me, familiar,” the girl said haughtily. “But let me assure you that you do not. I am not your enemy.”

  “Then why have you come?” Leander asked. “To offer us our freedom? You’ll forgive me if I am skeptical.” Leander studied her, deeply curious. This girl was a mystery.

  “Oh yes, that would be lovely.” Sheridan perked up, his inner workings clicking and whirring excitedly.

  Cassandra smoothed the front of her green silk cloak. “I am afraid that setting you free is not within my power at the moment,” she said. “You have broken the law, Professor Maddox, and I’m sorry to say that you and your compatriots will remain imprisoned until the constable sees fit to arrange for your trial. Word has it that Parliament does not share our fascination with the son of Argus Cade.”

  “ ‘Our fascination,’ ” Leander noted, sitting back down on the cot. “I wasn’t aware that the boy had so captured your fancy,” he said, a smile growing on his face.

  The young woman appeared flustered. “I find him … interesting,” Cassandra said, nervously twisting a lock of her hair and looking everywhere but at him, “and Parliament’s fear of him completely unfounded.”

  Leander chuckled. Cassandra was flustered and he thought that it suited her, made her more like other girls her age. “Then if it is not to gawk at us fearsome lawbreakers, mistress, why exactly have you come?”

  “Fearsome lawbreakers indeed,” Edgar grumbled beneath his breath.

  “Quiet, Edgar,” Sheridan scolded. “There’s no need to be rude.”

  The rook squawked and tilted his head to glare at the mechanical man. “Have you not noticed that we’ve been arrested?”

  The girl scowled at the bird’s derision, then returned her attention to the mage. “I come with information about Timothy.”

  Leander shot to his feet and approached the barrier that separated him from freedom. “What have you heard?” he asked eagerly. “Has he succeeded in releasing Verlis from Abaddon?”

  Sheridan, with Edgar still perched on his head, moved closer, eager to share in the news of his creator’s fate.

  “Do … do you know if he is well?” the mechanical man asked haltingly, his timbre filled with concern. “I do so worry about him.”

  “Of course he’s well,” Edgar said, annoyed. “I’m his familiar. I’d know if anything serious had happened to him. I’d feel it in my bones.”

  Cassandra moved closer to the crimson barrier that separated them. “All I know is what I have overheard in the halls of SkyHaven,” she said in an excited whisper. “And if the rumors are true, then what he has accomplished is momentous.”

  Leander experienced an odd mix of excitement and dread as he waited for Cassandra to continue.

  “They say that he infiltrated Abaddon prison and has set the Wurm free…”

  The girl was nearly breathless, and Leander noticed a pink flush upon her normally alabaster cheeks. Ah, someone has been charmed by the boy’s adventurous exploits, he thought with amusement. Timothy might have been so impressed by her that he failed to notice they are separated in age by only two or three years, but apparently Cassandra has not.

  “They escaped through a magical portal conjured by the beast.”

  “Caw! Caw! Caw!” Edgar cried excitedly, flying up from Sheridan’s head and soaring about the confined space of the cell. “He did it! I knew he’d pull it off! Didn’t doubt it for a moment.”

  “Edgar, please,” Leander barked, not sharing in the bird’s excitement. There was still too much they did not know, too many things that could still go horribly wrong. “Can you tell us anything more? Has the boy yet returned with his friend to Draconae?”

  Edgar lit upon the Grandmaster’s shoulder and folded his wings. “Good question,” he said, anxiously leaning forward for the answer.

  Cassandra shrugged lightly, a look of worry gracing her delicate features. “I know nothing, other than that Constable Grimshaw and his deputies are pursuing them. The rumors say that the constable was able to conjure a spell to track the Wurm’s path.”

  “Blast!” the Grandmaster exclaimed, feeling ill. “Where to? Where have they gone if they are not yet in Draconae?”

  “August Hill,” Cassandra whispered. “To the home of Argus Cade.”

  Constable Arturo Grimshaw had spent most of his adult life seeking the perfection of order. He imagined that his obsession was likely a result of his upbringing. Though he walked among the wealthiest of mages now and received their respect, his parents had been simple people. Mages who were not from noble or wealthy families were required to choose a vocation in which to apprentice. Grimshaw’s mother and father had met in a clothier where the most elegant uniforms, cloaks, and gowns of Arcanum’s elite were designed and the fabric woven with magic. An honorable profession, and yet young Arturo’s home life could best have been described as chaos.

  Late that afternoon he sat within the constabulary transport as it sped across the sky toward August Hill, and a dark satisf
action settled heavily upon his heart. The transport dipped slightly forward and he knew they were nearing their destination. He tried to push thoughts of the past aside and studied the faces of those who accompanied him. Some of these men and women had been with him since he had first received his constable’s rank; others he knew only from reports of their magical aptitude. They were his tools, his instruments of order. If only he had been in command of such implements in the days of his youth.

  Mother and father imbibed, the juice of the vine helping them to relax after a long hard day at the clothier—or so they said. The drink seemed to release something trapped within the normally placid couple, something wild and turbulent. Many a night Arturo had gone to sleep hungry, forgotten by his parents, listening fearfully from his bed to the sounds of their raucous laughter as they drank themselves further and further into oblivion. He remembered how afraid he’d been, wishing that he had the power, the magic to make them right. To make them stop.

  “We’re approaching our destination, sir,” the navigation mage called from his place atop the sleek, black transport, pulling the constable back to the present.

  “Take us in,” he ordered quickly.

  But the memories of the past were not yet ready to release him fully. With a clawing dread deep in his belly, he remembered the night that an act of chaos took away all that defined his young existence. The investigating officials had said that it was an accident, the careless use of hungry fire. But Arturo knew otherwise, for it had been his first attempt at bringing order to his turbulent life.

  From chaos there will come order, a voice had whispered from somewhere inside his head, and it had compelled him to act. His parents had been drunk again, quarrelling as they seemed to do night after night, and something snapped inside him. As he had lain in his bed, gazing up at the cracked and water-stained ceiling of his room, a calm silky voice that he had never heard before that night urged him to take action.