Dragon Secrets

by Christopher Golden

  His thoughts still upon the past, Grimshaw gazed out the window at the darkened manse. They had arrived. He felt his officers’ eyes upon him, and turned to look at the men and women awaiting his orders, waiting for him to take charge of the situation as he had done that night so long ago.

  That night. Just a boy, younger than the Cade freak, he had lain in his bed, fighting the lure of sleep, waiting for his mother and father to succumb to the effects of the alcohol. When the house was finally silent, he had carefully crept out into the main room. Colorful reams of magically spun cloth lay strewn about, waiting to be fashioned into fabulous clothing for some socialite to wear to a gala ball. How his parents had yearned for an existence that would have found them invited to such events, but that was not the path their lives had taken.

  He had found them slumped in their chairs, surrounded by their work, the stink of fermented grape wafting from their gaping mouths. They were silent, but he knew it was only a matter of time before the pandemonium that was their life would rise up again to claim them.

  From chaos there shall come order, the voice whispered, and he had known what he had to do to carry out that edict of change. Beside each of his parents was a small lantern of hungry fire, the flame within its metal casing casting a light far superior to that of ghostfire for the purposes of their intricate work.

  His thoughts were interrupted again by the voice of Hestia Trill, one of his deputies. “How shall we proceed, Constable Grimshaw?”

  Grimshaw could not respond. He was trapped in his memory.

  In his mind he could still see the way the hungry fire danced, eager to leave its confinement, ravenous for a taste of the magically woven cloth. As he had stood, watching everything he had ever known consumed in the growing flames, it would have been so easy to be caught up in the flow of madness. But the voice inside his head had not allowed it.

  I have special plans for you, it had whispered, urging him from the burning home into the cold, dark night. I shall make you an instrument of my return.

  “Sir?” urged a voice from somewhere nearby.

  Grimshaw finally focused his eyes on the present and saw Deputy Denham standing before him, a look of concern upon his normally stoic features. Hestia was behind him, her features also etched with worry. They were frightened of him, these law mages. But they cared for him as well. It was a delicate but valuable balance.

  “Yes, Deputy?”

  “We’ve reached our destination, sir,” Denham explained. “How shall we proceed?” he asked.

  The constable considered the request, again glancing out the window. He saw the Cade estate and imagined it engulfed in flames.

  “Move in, but use extreme caution,” he ordered. “And, Deputy, if you are met with any resistance, kill them.”

  From chaos there shall come order.

  “Kill them all.”

  “Verlis? Verlis, please try to stay with us. Time is short,” Timothy said, gnawing on his lower lip as he watched the Wurm slip in and out of consciousness.

  They had arrived at the home of the boy’s father through the portal Verlis had conjured, completing the first phase of their mission by escaping Abaddon. Now they desperately needed to begin phase two, but in order to do that, Verlis had to conjure yet another portal, this one interdimensional. Without his full strength, such a spell might be impossible. Things did not look promising.

  Ivar knelt beside the Wurm and placed a gentle hand on his armor-plated back. “Whatever the mages used to dull your senses,” the Asura said, “you must overcome it. For our sake, and for the sake of your clan.”

  “Something in the food they fed me in that damnable place,” Verlis hissed, his horned head seemingly too heavy to hold aloft. “Makes it difficult for me to stay awake.”

  “But you have to,” Timothy urged. “You have to conjure the doorway that will take us to Draconae.”

  The Wurm’s eyes began to close. “Perhaps if I had some time to rest,” he grumbled, his large skull beginning to droop toward his chest.

  “No!” Timothy cried, moving to stand before the dragon, grabbing hold of one of his horns. “Time is something we don’t have.”

  Verlis opened his eyes to slits, the normally dark, piercing orbs clouded with a milky film.

  “Constable Grimshaw and his deputies are sure to figure out where we’ve gone. It can’t be long before they’re pounding on our door,” he told Verlis. “What can we do to help you? Think, Verlis, think really hard, because my brain has just about had it for today.”

  The room was eerily silent except for the heavy, bellowslike breathing of the Wurm. They were losing him again, and something told Timothy that it would probably be some time before they could wake him.

  “Perhaps if he were to eat,” Ivar suggested.

  The logic seemed sound. After all, if they had been feeding him food spiked with drugs at Abaddon, maybe untainted sustenance would act as a purifier and move the poisons through the Wurm’s system faster.

  “What do you think, Verlis?” Timothy asked. “If you were to eat some untainted food, could it help?”

  The dragon considered the idea. “Perhaps,” he said weakly. “It has been a very long time since I consumed a proper meal.”

  “Excellent,” Timothy said, trying to restrain his excitement. “What can we get for you? I think there’s some bread and biscuits in the pantry, and some fruit preserves—”

  “Volcanite,” the Wurm whispered, slowly lifting his head.

  Timothy was confused. “Volcanite?” he asked, looking to Ivar for clarification. “What’s that?”

  “It is the food of the Wurm,” Ivar explained. “The common rock you know as heatstone.”

  “Heatstone?” Timothy said aloud. “Volcanite is heatstone?”

  Ivar nodded as Timothy felt the world drop out from beneath him. Back on the Island of Patience the black rock was found in great abundance, and he had used it to fuel his forge. But that was Patience, and he doubted there was time for a trip to the island.

  “Heatstone,” the boy said, sitting down hard on the floor beside the barely conscious Wurm. “All the things we brought over from Patience, and it had to be heatstone. It couldn’t be Yaquis fronds, or whiskerfish skin; it had to be heatstone.” He shook his head in disgust. “The one thing we didn’t take with us.”

  Timothy felt himself slipping deeper and deeper into despair. If they couldn’t come up with a way to make Verlis well enough to use his magic, they would never be able to reach Draconae, and everything they had accomplished so far would be for nothing.

  “We have heatstone,” Ivar said flatly.

  “What did you say?” Timothy asked with surprise.

  “We have heatstone,” Ivar repeated, raising his arm to point in the direction of the solarium where they had built the diving sphere. “In that room. At least a barrel of it. Sheridan thought that it might be useful.”

  “Sheridan? Remind me to give him a new coat of polish!” Timothy jumped to his feet, suddenly optimistic.

  Then a series of explosions rocked the Cade estate to its very foundation.

  Dusk was falling across Arcanum. The homes on August Hill cast long shadows. The constable’s deputies stood on the stone stairs leading up to the Cade house, their transport hovering in the air alongside the steep face of August Hill, which was nearly a cliff at this height. Powerful energies sparked from their hands as they attempted to breach the Cade estate’s defenses, working in the shadow of the house.

  In unison they raised their arms, casting spells that threw waves of destructive force at the façade of the esteemed residence, but all that raw power went to waste. The attack was harmlessly deflected by enchantments infused into the structure. Grimshaw had expected as much. Argus Cade had been a powerful mage and a gifted conjure-architect. Had the defenses of his home been anything less than formidable, the constable would have been greatly disappointed.

  “Stand aside,” he commanded, climbing the stone staircase.

/>   “The shields are like nothing I’ve ever seen,” Deputy Denham noted as the constable studied the structure, searching his vast memory for a spell that would be strong enough to counter the arcane artistry of Argus Cade.

  “Understandable,” the constable replied. “You’re a law mage. Whereas I have studied many skills, many vocations. Conjure-architecture among them.”

  Grimshaw could almost sense his prey inside, the boy’s horrific handicap a stain on the magical fabric of the world. And he was determined to remove that stain. The constable sang out his spell of deconstruction, the staggering energies unleashed from his hands assailing the barriers established by Argus Cade. At first the opposing force held, standing fast against his casting, but then, slowly, small cracks in the structure of the magic began to appear.

  “Most impressive, sir,” Denham said with a bow while the other deputies prepared to storm the house.

  Grimshaw’s hand slowly moved up to smooth the ends of his mustache, even as the large double doors exploded from their frame in jagged fragments. He smiled.

  “Yes. Isn’t it, though?”

  The house shook as though a storm raged against its walls. Thunderous explosions reverberated through the halls as the defenses constructed by Timothy’s father were torn away.

  “We’re running out of time,” Timothy said nervously. “Does he look any better to you?” he asked Ivar as they watched Verlis slowly bring another jagged heatstone to his mouth. He and Ivar had managed to bring the heavy barrel of volcanite from the solarium into Argus’s study and had fed their friend until he had the strength to do it himself.

  “I could not say,” the Asura replied with a sad shake of his head. “I have always found the look of the Wurm disturbing.”

  Another explosion rocked the house. Timothy glanced up in alarm and shot Ivar a nervous look. Ivar nodded. They both knew that time was running out.

  The Wurm bit down on the black stone, producing a spray of sparks that rained upon the floor.

  “What do you think, Verlis?” the boy asked. “Are you feeling up to it?”

  The Wurm swallowed with a wet rasp and looked at the boy with hooded eyes that revealed nothing.

  “Here,” Timothy said anxiously, reaching into the barrel for another chunk of the stone. “This looks like a good piece. Eat up.”

  Verlis silently accepted the heatstone.

  There came a clamor from the front of the house … but this time the thunderous noise was different. Closer. And it was followed by the pounding of booted feet. Timothy knitted his brows and glared at the closed, double doors of the study. They were inside now. There were intruders in his father’s home—his home—and he felt his blood begin to boil.

  “Not much longer now,” Timothy said to Ivar.

  The Asura’s flesh had already begun to change, jagged patterns blooming upon the pale, exposed flesh of his face, chest, and arms—the markings of war.

  “We will fight them?” he asked, reaching for the knife hanging at his side.

  Timothy shrugged. “Don’t really see the use now.” He looked back to Verlis who now knelt, his great wings wrapped around his crouching form as if protecting him from the cold. The last of the heatstone lay in fragments on the floor. “He doesn’t look better. He looks worse than ever.”

  He whipped around, ready for a fight, as angry fists began to pound on the study doors.

  “Surrender!” a voice boomed from outside the doors. “Give yourselves up, and we guarantee you will be treated fairly!”

  “Why don’t I believe that?” Timothy muttered. His gaze shifted from Ivar, who was crouched and prepared for battle, to the deathly still form of Verlis, enshrouded within his wings. The Wurm’s scaly flesh had taken on a dull, grayish hue.

  “Because you are not a fool,” Ivar told him, freeing his knife from its sheath.

  “I’m sorry, Verlis,” Timothy said softly. “We tried, but it wasn’t enough.” He reached out to touch the Wurm’s flesh and found it unusually hot.

  The doors to the study exploded inward, sailing through the air to shatter against one of the bookcases across the room. Ancient texts spilled from the shelves and littered the floor like falling leaves.

  The deputies swept into the room, their hands radiating crackling magic.

  Ivar tensed, preparing to spring at the invaders, when Timothy reached out to grab hold of his muscular arm. The Asura looked at the boy, violence in his dark gaze.

  “No,” Timothy said flatly, shaking his head. “We’re done. We’ve failed.”

  There was the slightest hint of resistance from the Asura, a moment when Timothy wasn’t quite sure if his friend would submit, but then he felt the coiled muscles in Ivar’s arm begin to relax, and the grave expression on his face receded, replaced by one of bitter resignation.

  “If that is your wish,” Ivar said quietly, returning the knife to its sheath.

  The deputies encircled them, fear in their eyes. They knew that their magical powers would have no effect on Timothy, but still they had a job to do. Though he did not agree with the deputies’ mission, the boy could feel nothing but respect for their courage.

  “Timothy Cade, you are under arrest for crimes against the nation of Sunderland and the Parliament of Mages,” proclaimed a particularly nervous law mage.

  “You can relax,” Timothy said calmly. “We won’t be putting up any fight.”

  The deputies looked at one another with quick, nervous glances, none of them wanting to be the first to trust his statement.

  “Are you sure about that, Timothy?”

  The boy glanced at the ravaged doorway just in time to see Constable Grimshaw strolling casually into the study, hands clasped behind his back.

  “Are you absolutely certain that you and the motley crew you call friends wouldn’t care to resist us?” The constable stopped in the center of the room, his eyes darting about the study, as if searching for something. “My men were so looking forward to killing you,” he said idly.

  “Sorry to disappoint them,” Timothy responded with equal vehemence.

  “Oh, well,” Grimshaw replied, and from behind his back he produced a pair of heavy manacles similar to those that had been used on Verlis. “I had these made especially for you.” The constable tossed them to the floor in front of the boy. “I suggest you put them on at once.”

  Timothy stared at the chains coiled at his feet as if they were a poisonous serpent. Slowly he bent to pick up the restraints.

  “Timothy, no,” Ivar said, defiance in his guttural tone.

  “That’s enough out of you, savage,” Grimshaw warned. “Go ahead, boy. Put them on.”

  “It’s all right, Ivar,” he said as he opened one of the manacles. They were much heavier than he imagined. “Maybe if I do as I’m told, they’ll treat you and Verlis better.” He looked at each of the deputies and then Grimshaw, hoping for some kind of confirmation.

  “Of course. They will be treated the same as all criminals; fairly, humanely”—Grimshaw paused, his eyes twinkling maliciously—“before they are put to death.”

  Timothy felt as though he had been struck. “No,” he cried, shaking the chains at the lawman. “You can’t! What crime have they committed that was so terrible you would execute them for it?”

  Grimshaw chuckled. “Escaping Abaddon, assaulting officers of Parliament. And if I were you, I would be more concerned about my own skin.”

  Timothy threw the chains to the floor, feeling both enraged and helpless. “You’re a monster,” he spat, scalding emotion filling his eyes.

  Constable Grimshaw smiled cruelly as he motioned for his deputies to retrieve the manacles. They converged on the boy. He fought hard, but these were not ordinary mages. In addition to magic, they had been trained in hand-to-hand combat, and their number soon overwhelmed him. He felt his urge to struggle bleeding away. Two more of the deputies had restrained Ivar, containing him in a sphere of crackling force.

  This is it, Timothy thought as he f
elt the cold metal touch of the manacles.

  They were preparing to put them on him when he noticed an odor. It was familiar, but he’d never smelled it quite so strong. It was the smell of the forge in his workshop, of heatstone brought to its highest temperature.

  Volcanite, he thought, looking to where Verlis huddled, wrapped in his wings. Vapors had begun to drift upward from the now glistening flesh of the Wurm, and the pungent aroma of superheated rock filled the room. A slight tremble passed through Verlis’s flesh. “Something’s happening!” he called out, loudly enough that Ivar could hear from within the containment sphere that now imprisoned him.

  Magic sizzled and danced along Grimshaw’s fingers as he raised his hands. “The Wurm!” he bellowed to his officers. “Contain the—”

  Verlis unfurled his wings and let loose a ferocious roar, his eyes blazing with such fury that even Timothy was terrified for a moment. The heatstone had done its work. The Wurm was healthy again. And enraged.

  “Don’t just stand there,” Grimshaw barked, but his deputies had frozen, stunned and terrified by the sudden turn of events.

  The Wurm opened his jaws and everyone in the room could see the churning inferno deep in his throat. Smoke furled from his nostrils. Seething heat radiated from his flesh. All was silent in Argus Cade’s study, except for the sound of liquid flame dripping from the corners of Verlis’s vast, razor-toothed maw, sizzling and hissing as it landed on the floor.

  Drip, hsssssssss, drip, hsssssssssssss, drip, hsssssssssssssssssss …

  A tension built in the air and time seemed to stand still. Timothy was reminded of the anticipation he felt when he lit one of his own explosive devices, and the deceptively prolonged wait as the fuse burned down to detonate the deadly mixture within.

  “Kill it,” Grimshaw commanded, his voice cutting through the palpable silence. “Kill the beast and be done with it!”

  And that was when Verlis exploded.

  The great Wurm’s roar was deafening, his wings expanding to pound the air. Plumes of liquid fire erupted from his gaping mouth, scattering the constable’s men. Tim watched as the glowing bubble that encased Ivar dissipated now that its conjurors were seeking cover from the dragon’s wrath and could no longer focus on it. His concern for his father’s house was quickly relieved as he witnessed enchantments instilled in the walls cancel out the raging blaze before it could do any serious damage.