The Dragon Machine (Magebreakers Book 3)

by Ben S. Dobson

  KADKA LANDED LIGHTLY on her feet as Iskar lowered her to the ground, Carver and Tinga still clasped in her arms. As soon as he was free to move, Carver bent over his knees, looking queasy.

  Tinga, on the other hand, immediately whirled to stare at Iskar with wide, awestruck eyes. “You’re the—”

  Kadka cut her off. “No time. Will be after us soon.” Iskar hadn’t been able to go far carrying such a heavy load—they were on the street just down from the Thorpe building, and it wouldn’t take long for Roark and his men to come after them.

  “This way,” said Iskar, and beckoned for them to follow. He darted down the road and then left into a narrow alley. A few yards down, he bent to heave open a metal plate laid into the ground. An access hatch to one of the abandoned disc maintenance tunnels the Silver Dawn used to travel unseen.

  Iskar led the way, and Kadka ushered Carver and Tinga down ahead of her, taking up the rear. She pulled the plate back into place above before descending the ladder into the tunnel proper where the others were waiting.

  Iskar’s silver scales gleamed in the dim light of the tunnel’s intermittently functional magelights. Kadka marched toward him with purpose, slid her hand behind his neck, and kissed him hard on the snout.

  “You beautiful dragon-man,” she said when she finally pulled back.

  Iskar lowered his sapphire eyes, unwilling to meet hers. Something was wrong. “Kadka, I—”

  Before he could finish, Carver swatted Kadka hard on the shoulder. “What in the Astra were you thinking?” he demanded furiously. “You could have gotten us all killed! Or worse, you could have died saving us!”

  Kadka was ready to shrug it off with a joke, until she noticed the way he was shaking. He was genuinely upset. She put a gentle hand on his shoulder. “Was only way I could see, Carver. Is no good for all three of us to die.”

  “Well, maybe let me be part of that decision next time,” he said. “I don’t want you trading your life for mine.”

  She cocked her head. “Same way you always ask when you run on airships, or go to killers alone? Is not promise I can keep. Not always time for talk. You know this.”

  “I don’t—” He stopped short, seemed to realize he didn’t have a leg to stand on. His fingers went to the watch case in his pocket, and he took a long breath. “Fine. Maybe you’re right. But at least next time find a way that doesn’t end up with me landing on top of your corpse.”

  “For what it’s worth,” Tinga chimed in, “I was fine with it. I thought we were dead for sure before you jumped.”

  Carver shot her a glare. “Don’t encourage her,” he grumbled, with just a hint of his usual wry humor.

  “Enough,” Iskar interrupted. There was a frayed tone to his deep voice that worried Kadka. “We need to move. Come.” He turned and started down the tunnel.

  Carver must have noticed the same thing Kadka had, because he glanced at her with a raised eyebrow. She could only shrug, and follow Iskar through the flickering magelight.

  After a few turns, they came to a brass door along one side of the tunnel. Iskar didn’t bother with the handle, just fiddled with a broken magelight nearby. The door swung open, and he led them into a small storage room with empty, dust covered shelves along the walls. The four of them had just enough room to stand without getting uncomfortably close.

  Iskar tucked his wings tight against his body, moved to the back of the room, and turned to face them. “It isn’t spacious, but if they come looking, they won’t find us here. The walls are brass-lined, and there is a trick to the mechanism.”

  “I can’t believe the leader of the Silver Dawn just flew me off a rooftop!” The words burst out of Tinga’s mouth as if she’d been forcibly holding them back. Her cheeks flushed a darker green when everyone turned to look at her, and she stammered, “I never thought I’d… listening to you speak changed the way I look at everything. I met Cestra at one of your rallies.”

  “You give me too much credit,” Iskar looked down, clearly uncomfortable—and Kadka had the impression that it wasn’t just the praise bothering him. “The Silver Dawn is more than just one man.”

  “I know that, but…” Tinga spread her hands. “I don’t know, it’s just… it’s an honor to be rescued by you, I suppose? How did you even know we were there?”

  Carver raised an eyebrow at Iskar. “That’s right. How did you know we were there? Or what quarry we needed to look in, for that matter? Did you know about the dragon eggs? I think, given the circumstances, we’ve earned some direct answers.”

  Iskar body went rigid. “The eggs. You’ve seen one? Was it moved?”

  “Thorpe brings it to her lab,” Kadka said, taken aback by his reaction. She’d never seen him so agitated.

  Iskar’s wings flared, and his tail thumped hard against the floor. “No! She’s killed it! After all this time…” He shook his head angrily, and took a step for the door. “I have to—”

  Kadka stopped him, laying a hand against his silver-scaled chest. “You said yourself. They are looking. Need to wait.” She held his eyes, moved herself into their path again when he looked away. “I am glad you save us, Iskar, but Carver is right. Time for secrets is done. Would be good if you tell us something now.”

  Iskar’s shoulders slumped, and his wings drooped behind him. “Yes. You’re right, of course. I should never have sent you to that quarry without telling you everything. If something had happened… I had to come after you. But by the time I did, they were already taking you away. I was looking for a way to rescue you when I saw you on the roof.”

  “Which was lucky for us,” said Carver. “But Thorpe says there’s more down in that quarry. A huge source of Astral energy she’s detected with her machine. ‘So much more’ than just the eggs, in her words. And you clearly know what that is.”

  “I do.” Iskar sighed. “I am sorry.” He looked at Kadka, as if he was saying it just to her. “It… it is a secret I have kept for a very long time. Old habits are hard to break.”

  Kadka took his hand. “I know you. You must have reason for this. But is time to trust now. We can help.”

  Iskar looked at her for a long moment, and then inclined his head. “The power Thorpe’s machine sensed is…” He hesitated once more, swallowed, and then, “The last living dragon I know of in the world. My mother.”

  Kadka didn’t know what to say to that. She’d had her suspicions, but she’d never expected to hear it put so plainly. Apparently the others were just as surprised, because no one spoke for a long time.

  Tinga broke the silence. “Wait. What? You aren’t… I mean, you can’t be…”

  Kadka finished for her. “You are dragon?”

  Iskar shook his head. “I am what I say I am. My father was human. Kobolds have always maintained that they are the offspring of dragons and the sentient races, and this is true. For most, their draconic ancestry is long in the past. My blood is simply closer to the source.”

  “A human and a dragon?” Tinga asked. “How does that even work? Do they even have the…” She blushed deep green. “You know, the parts?”

  “Dragons are creatures of powerful Astral essence,” said Iskar. “It isn’t their… their parts, as you say, that matter.”

  “It must matter to some extent, though,” Carver said. “Biologically, I mean. Male or female and so on.”

  “Such labels are meaningless to a dragon, Mister Carver. I call my mother by the title she chose, but a single dragon fulfils both roles. When a dragon chooses to lay its clutch, it protects the eggs until they are mature, channeling its own Astral essence into them. When the time comes, it gives its life to begin theirs.”

  “But you said you had a father, too,” Carver objected.

  “And… you are man, yes?” Kadka asked, raising an eyebrow. “I have… reason to believe.”

  “I am,” said Iskar. “And I did have a human father. It is possible for a dragon to have children without giving their life, if they bond with one of the other sentient rac
es. Male or female matters little—the mating itself is more about imprinting Astrally than physically, though it happens in… the usual fashion. The children inherit a great many biological traits from their non-draconic parents or ancestors, including more conventional sexes. You have heard tales, surely, of dragons changing forms to walk among the other races, falling in love and the like?”

  “They can shapeshift? Stories are true?” Kadka very much wanted to believe that. The stories about dragons had always been her favorite.

  “Not entirely,” said Iskar. “It was rare. Such unions always result in kobolds rather than full dragons, which was frowned upon by much of dragonkind. And they never ended as happily in reality as in the stories. For my mother, it certainly did not.”

  “She lives, though, if Thorpe’s machine finds her,” Kadka said.

  “She does, but it is… a complicated matter.” Iskar raised his eyes once more, and there was a determination in them now. “If you want the truth, you must know her story. Perhaps it is time someone else did.”

  “Tell us,” Kadka said gently, and squeezed his hand.

  Iskar took a long breath, squared his shoulders, and began. “Her name is Syllesia. Born nearly a thousand years ago, and even then among the last of her kind. A great many dragons died when the sentient races moved into their lands. Most fought back, killed whatever invaders they could before they fell. My mother chose a different way. She took on a human form, and tried to live among them.”

  “If dragons were always capable of that, why didn’t they all do it?” Carver interrupted. Kadka shot him a pointed look, but he kept going. “The history books have them as scourges, burning down cities and pillaging the countryside.”

  Anger flared across Iskar’s eyes. “Your books say nothing of what drove them to it. Their homes and young crushed by the expansion of the sentient races who saw them as monsters. Hunters sent out to kill them so that new cities could be built upon their lairs. And when the dragonrage is ignited, it is… difficult to extinguish.”

  And now Kadka couldn’t resist a question of her own. “Carver says in history, dragons in this rage are violent monsters. This is real too?” She’d hoped that was just another tall tale.

  When Iskar looked back at her, the anger on his face faded again into sorrow. “You must understand that a dragon’s clutch is everything to them. Their life, in a very literal sense. When that life is threatened, a fury falls over them that brings great Astral power. It makes them stronger, faster, capable of summoning dragonfire far past their normal reserves.”

  “Like Thorpe’s elixir,” said Carver. “She’s overdosing them on Astral power to the same effect. Except her thugs aren’t dragons. Their bodies can’t handle it.”

  “Even if their bodies could, their minds could not,” Iskar said. “When that power takes hold of a dragon, it is almost impossible to contain, and it always brings devastation. It comes from a time before civilization, used to defend against other great magical beasts. Against organized armies and mages, it was a different matter. The power of dragonrage became a threat that couldn’t be ignored. Violence led to violence, and there were always more warriors and mages to send. Cities burned, but that never saved the dragon that burned them. Eventually, it always ended the same way.

  “That is what my mother wished to avoid. She saw so many others of her kind fall trying to fight, but she chose peace. She believed that in living among the other sentient peoples, she could understand them, and perhaps in time find a way to make them understand her. Perhaps there were others who tried the same—I do not know for certain that she is the last. But she is the last I know of.

  “For many years, she lived as a human woman, and during that time, she met my father. They fell in love, though he didn’t know the truth about who she was. But eventually, circumstance forced her hand. Or rather, I did. When she learned she was pregnant, she had no choice—she knew that I would not look like any human child. The blood of dragons is too strong for that. And so she told my father the truth.” Iskar’s voice shook there. “A truth he couldn’t bear. He rejected her, and told others. The community raised arms against the monster in their midst. She had no choice but to flee. She never returned. I never met the man who fathered me. He is long dead now.”

  “I am sorry, Iskar,” Kadka said softly. “I know what this is like.” She had never met her own father, a nobleman from Belgrier too proud to acknowledge his dalliance with an orc woman.

  “It was… not an easy thing for me to accept, when I was young,” said Iskar. “But he was only afraid of something he didn’t understand. My mother taught me not to hate him for that, or any of them. Even then, after everything, she believed that there was good underneath all of that fear and mistrust. That a time would come when people would accept us. She raised me in hiding, beneath what is now the outskirts of Greenstone. Showed me how to control the anger I felt towards my father and the people who had shunned us. How to resist the dragonrage that flows much stronger in my blood than in kobolds of more distant descent. To always embrace peace. She was… is… remarkable.”

  “I believe this, if she raises you,” said Kadka. But there had been something else—he’d almost slipped into speaking of his mother in the past tense. That was hard not to notice. “Is still with you, though, yes? Under quarry.”

  “She is there,” Iskar said, with a deep sadness. “But we have not spoken in a great many years. When I was grown, she made a decision. By then, she was the last dragon she knew of in this part of the world. She believed it was her duty to keep dragonkind alive, until it was safe to join the world again. So she prepared to birth a new clutch. I… have already told you what that costs.” He swallowed, blinked back tears. “She… she knew that it would be a very long time before the outside world would accept dragons without fear, but she could not wait and risk growing too old, or being discovered first. She determined to lay her eggs and fall into a long slumber, nourishing them in hibernation until the time was right to give her life for theirs. And she asked me to watch over them, to rouse her when that time came. A charge I accepted. This is why I knew where to send you—that quarry lies above my mother’s lair, and I have always paid close mind to its owners. I knew that Thorpe had acquired it recently.”

  “So you’re hundreds of years old?” Tinga had been listening raptly, but now she spoke. “You said this was centuries ago. Most kobolds don’t live that long.”

  “I have more dragon in my blood than most,” said Iskar. “But even so, you are right. I was born near six hundred years ago, but I have lived less than a quarter of that. For long periods I slumbered alongside my family—I have the same ability to hibernate without growing older. Every so often, I woke to live in the world for a time, to see what it had become, and perhaps to nudge it in the direction of compassion.”

  “So long,” Kadka whispered. “You are alone all this time?”

  “Not always,” said Iskar. “Sometimes when I woke, I would find men and women willing to work toward a common goal. Precursors to the Silver Dawn. I have… left many dear friends behind. I miss all of them still. It was never easy to say goodbye when I returned to sleep. But I would do it all again, given the choice. All these years, I have tried to create the world my mother dreamed of. A world where my brothers or sisters—by blood or no—might live free and unafraid. That is a thing worth sacrificing for.” He hung his head. “Or it would be, if it had served a purpose. Right now, that world feels very far away. People are still throwing spellfire at peaceful demonstrators, the lair I have kept secret for so long has been found, and one of my siblings is already dead. The others will follow, if Thorpe has her way. They cannot survive when parted from my mother until she gives her final gift. I can rouse her, but that takes time she may not have. And she will not give in to the dragonrage, not even to save her own life. I fear… I fear I have failed, in the end.”

  Another silence, then. The story was told, but now that she knew the truth Kadka wasn’t certain
how she should feel. She’d made plenty of guesses about Iskar, but six hundred year old half-dragon hadn’t been among them. He’d lived in the world well before her grandmother’s grandmother had been born. That was going to take time to work through.

  Except just then, it didn’t matter how she felt. What all of this meant for the two of them could wait. He was still a good man—she’d never doubted that for a moment. He was a good man, and he needed help.

  “Have not failed anyone yet, dragon-man,” she said, and clasped his shoulder. “No one hurts these eggs. Not while we can save them. World should have dragons in it.”

  A slow gratitude dawned in Iskar’s eyes as he looked at her. “Kadka of Clan Nadivek.” He said her name with a kind of awe. “In all the years I have lived, I have never known anyone like you.”

  “You don’t have to look so surprised.” Carver’s voice shattered the moment. “Of course we’re going to help. I’ll have plenty of questions for you later, but I’m not letting the last dragons in the world die without at least trying to stop it.”

  “And I still need to get Cestra out of there,” said Tinga. “All the others Thorpe took, too. She doesn’t get to do that and get away with it. It was you who taught me that we need to hold people like her to account.”

  Iskar bowed his head as if humbled by the words. “Thank you,” he said. “All of you. I… I am sorry that it took me so long to tell you the truth. I don’t believe I will regret it.”

  “Thank us when we’ve actually done it,” Carver said. “Because that’s still far from certain. The quarry is well defended, and they’ve got that elixir. Is there another way in that we can use?”

  “There is one way,” Iskar said. “But… I fear it is too long. Before Thorpe dug her tunnel, there was only one way down, and I took great pains to keep it hidden. It requires a long trek through these tunnels, and then down a rather narrow and twisting passage. Time was never of the essence before.”

  “It is now,” said Carver. “With us loose, knowing what we know, Thorpe can’t afford to put things off. She’ll head straight there. We won’t make it in time on foot through a maze of underground tunnels. We’re going to have to take the discs out and go in through the quarry, which means a head-on assault. We need more people, and we need them fast. I can talk to Indree, bring in the bluecaps.”