Dragon Coast

by Greg Van Eekhout

  Cupping the bone in his hands, he blew on it with care, as if trying to ignite a smoldering bundle of dry grass. It grew heavier and heavier, tons of weight compressed into an object the size of a coin, like it wanted to drop through the earth’s crust and plunge through dark zones of rock, back home to the molten center of the world. It wanted to drag Daniel down with it. He was holding on to a bullet in flight thundering toward the ground, and it wanted to burst through the cage of his clasped fingers.

  Daniel held on. The magic of a thousand creatures lived in his bones, and he used their strength to maintain his grip on the axis mundi. He used the strength of the osteomancy his father had given him, and the osteomancy he’d claimed for himself, from every morsel of griffin claw to the Southern Hierarch’s heart. He used the early lessons his mother gave him about doing whatever he had to do to survive, even if those things were ugly. He used his love for Sam.

  The axis mundi was the most powerful bone Daniel had ever touched, and it wanted to return to its deep source of magic. Daniel overrode what it wanted. He held on.

  The dragon raised its head on the towering column of its neck. It swept back its wings to their full breadth, blotting out the sky behind sheets of swirling color and generating a wind gust that fed the flames. Blue fire exploded from its yawning mouth, high enough to reach the moon.

  Daniel staggered in the heat blast. He fell, chin hitting baked concrete. He didn’t search his bones for defensive magic. No Colombian dragon to protect him from the heat. No hippogriff to run away. He needed all his strength to keep hold of the axis mundi bone, and he couldn’t spare the magic.

  Writhing on the ground, he held on.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  “Does it hurt?”

  Sam could barely breathe. “Yes. It hurts a lot.”

  He’d been shot through with kraken lightning. He’d been yanked from his perch high in the brainworks and dashed to the ground far below. He tried to summon fire from his bones, but his bones were all cracked, and all his magic was spilling out.

  The Hierarch sat cross-legged and leaned over him, his massive body occupying everything in Sam’s vision. There was color to his flesh now. More muscle. He was a vision of what Sam might have become had he eaten more magic and grown in power.

  The Hierarch winced, not with his own pain, but in sympathy with Sam’s. “I’d really prefer not to eat you.”

  Sam tried to speak and coughed till he had spots in his eyes. He swallowed, took a breath, and tried again. “That’s a first. Too full from gorging yourself on my friend?”

  “Your friend. Oh, the girl with the hydra.”

  “Annabel Stokes.”

  The Hierarch looked confused.

  “That was her name. Annabel Stokes.”

  “Annabel,” the Hierarch said, as if trying to commit her name to memory. “Yes, Annabel’s healing magic was helpful. But I don’t want that kind of help from you, Sam. Discovering myself alive in the firedrake was a surprise. And a nice one. As I once gave you life, you gave it back to me. Thank you for that. I mean that. Thank you very much. But now I want your mind. My own isn’t quite fully formed yet. I suppose you may have noticed.”

  “It’s noticeable,” Sam agreed, spitting the words out in a sob of pain.

  The giant smiled. He was a good sport. “May I have it? Your mind?”

  “I need to think about it,” Sam said. “Catch my breath.”

  “You’ll have to think quickly, I’m afraid. Daniel Blackland is right outside us. I don’t know what he’s doing, but I’m sure he means the dragon harm.”

  Of course Daniel was outside. Where else would he be? Daniel always showed up eventually.

  Sam reached deep for the last of his magic.

  His remaining fire wasn’t strong enough to roast a marshmallow.

  But fire wasn’t what he needed.

  He needed healing. He needed the hydra he’d inherited from the Hierarch. The hydra the Hierarch had devoured.

  What he needed was Annabel Stokes.

  He searched through his bones and through all his cells, reconstructing the memory of Annabel’s scent, just as Daniel had taught him. She’d been inside the dragon as long as Sam, so she smelled mostly of sour acid and bitter flame, of viscera and meat. That’s what everything smelled like in the dragon.

  He thought of the sound of her voice. A bit of a gruff alto. He thought of her eyes, not afraid to look at Sam, not afraid to see him.

  “I think you’d better go ahead and eat me,” Sam said.

  The Hierarch blinked. “I don’t understand.”

  “I mean I don’t want to be your copilot. I mean I would literally rather you eat me than force me to spend another minute with your pizza-dough face. I mean screw you, you idiot. Down the hatch with me.”

  The Hierarch leaned forward and brought his face close to Sam’s. His breath smelled of his last meal. It smelled of hydra and of Annabel.

  He opened his mouth wide, and the last thing Sam saw before he closed his eyes and braced himself against the pain of ripped flesh and muscle were the Hierarch’s teeth.

  The Hierarch let out a small squeal of surprise. White bumps formed on his forehead and grew outward, elongating like wriggling fingers. A pair of fully formed hands followed, and then wrists, and forearms, and then elbows.

  “What are you doing?” the Hierarch said, his voice strangled with pain.

  “Looks like something you ate doesn’t agree with you.”

  His forehead bulged out with the crackle of dry spaghetti. It was the sound of a splintering skull. Sam watched in horrified fascination as a human form continued to grow out of him—the crown of a head, shoulders, and a back.

  The Hierarch shrieked. And the dragon shrieked. And Sam shrieked.

  “This hurts. This hurts.”

  Sam didn’t know which one of them had spoken. He clutched his head, and the Hierarch’s eyes bulged in pain.

  “Stop it. It hurts.”

  They writhed together, the Hierarch’s giant form and Sam’s tiny body, joined by magic and pain. And if this was how it ended, so be it. The end of Sam and the end of the Hierarch.

  But Sam changed his mind. Even in his agony, he didn’t want to die. Even in this form, a thought inside a dragon, a reflection of the Hierarch, he wanted to live. He wanted grass tickling his bare feet. He wanted cool fog on his skin. He wanted flavors on his tongue. He wanted to feel a warm hand in his. He wanted to talk to someone, to tell truths and not hide behind made-up identities. He wanted these things and he wanted Em, and he wanted to live.

  He wanted to heal.

  The Hierarch’s head came apart with a gush of liquid magic, and a form fell to the ground like a birthed calf.

  Annabel lay curled among the Hierarch’s remains, naked and gasping.

  Sam held her, and even though she came out of the healing magic in his body, he hoped he could somehow give healing magic back to her. In a just universe, things would work that way.

  He couldn’t say how long they stayed together like this. He felt the firedrake’s heart like a big, deep drum in his chest, strong and slow.

  He didn’t know how often the dragon’s heart beat. A dozen times a minute or once an hour or once a year. But when Annabel opened her eyes, he felt the thudding in his chest quicken, and the flow of blood through his body strengthened him.

  She was still healing him. He released her.

  “I have to go to the cockpit,” he said.

  “Why? What’s so great about the cockpit?” Her voice was rough, as though she’d swallowed acid.

  “The Hierarch said Daniel’s on the outside. I have to go see.”

  He began unbuttoning his shirt.

  Annabel blinked. “Sam? Why are you taking off your clothes?”

  “Because you’re not wearing any. You can have my shirt.”

  “Oh. Turn around.”

  She plucked the shirt from Sam’s outstretched hand.

  “Thanks,” she rasped.

&n
bsp; “Well, you saved my life. You’re my hydra.”

  “So I can keep the shirt?”

  “Yeah. Sorry if it stinks.” He helped her to her feet.

  “It’s a stinky world, Sam. The whole thing. Inside and out.”

  Leaning on each other like drunk friends stumbling home, they made their way to the cockpit.

  * * *

  Sam took the pilot’s seat and turned a knob, and the dragon raised its head. With the movement of a few levers, he spread the dragon’s wings out to their full span and laughed a little with delight.

  “Are you doing that?” Annabel said.

  “Yeah. The Hierarch’s dead. Or … you healed the part of me that was the Hierarch. The part of me that wanted the dragon to burn people. The part of me that just wanted to consume. Hell, I don’t know. But I think I can operate this thing now.”

  “Let’s see what’s happening on the ground,” she said.

  “Okay, okay … I think it’s this one.” He turned another knob, and the dragon stretched open its jaws and shrieked flame into the orange sky. “Oh, crap.”

  “Maybe you should be a little more careful.”

  “Sorry, sorry … here. It’s definitely this one.” He touched a control, and the dragon’s head angled down. The scene outside the dragon’s eyes was one of burning structures, charred mechanical equipment, melting wires, billowing smoke, and spreading flames.

  Daniel knelt in the middle of it, a small man confronting a colossus. He struggled to his feet, his chin smeared with dirt and blood. He looked like a mess. He always did. It was almost comforting to see him this way.

  Daniel clasped his hands and spread his legs, as if trying to lift an enormous weight, something the earth was trying to claim for its own. Sam felt its gravitational pull as well. He braced his feet against the control panel, afraid he’d fly through the dragon’s eyes and out into … what, exactly?

  Daniel was working some kind of magic. In his grip was probably an osteomantic bone, and he’d no doubt gone through great pains to obtain it, and to bring it here to Sam.

  Annabel held him in the seat by his shoulders. “What’s wrong with you?”

  “Don’t you feel it? Daniel’s pulling.”

  “No,” Annabel said, somber. “It’s just you.”

  Sam flew from her and smashed into the control panel. He gasped, pain in his ribs.

  Annabel wrapped her arms around him.

  “Maybe you should let go,” she whispered in his ear. Her breath was warm, her lips brushing his jaw. “Maybe you should go home.”

  “Go home to what?”

  “He’s your friend, right? You trust him?”

  Sam didn’t want to live in a world where he couldn’t.

  “I trust him,” he said.

  “Then stop fighting it.”

  It was decided, and they both knew it. But Sam still didn’t want to give in to Daniel’s magic.

  “What about you, Annabel?”

  “I have to stay here.”

  “But how can you? You’re part of me. If I leave, then you—”

  “Don’t be so full of yourself. You are not my entire universe. And if you are, well, I’m willing to risk death to prove I’m really alive.” She ran a hand across the control panel. “It’s good this way. Someone’s got to fly this thing.”

  A dragon with healing magic at its core? It was too good to believe in.

  “Now,” she said. “Do you want to jump, or shall I push?”

  Clutching him tight, she pressed her body against his, and they kissed. Just when he was sure he should change his mind and remain with her in the Pacific firedrake, she pulled her hands free.

  Sam became untethered, and everything he was—body, mind, magic—flew free.

  TWENTY-NINE

  Gabriel arrived at his office with an empty bag. After twenty minutes of sorting through his desk and shelves and files, the bag remained empty. It turned out there was nothing he wanted to keep. He was tempted to douse the whole place in gasoline and toss in a book of lit matches, but that would be pointless. He’d long ago outfitted all his facilities with quality fire-suppression systems.

  Instead, he’d just walk away. One of his lieutenants would inherit a nice corner office with a view. Or maybe they’d seal the doors and leave the place in static perpetuity, like a pharaoh’s tomb. Maybe Gabriel’s office would serve as a cautionary tale of what happens to good bureaucrats when they try to promote themselves to rulers.

  “How long are you going to mope?” Max said from the sofa. He’d been sitting there when Gabriel showed up and remained, silently drinking coffee.

  Gabriel wore a patch over his right eye, and he had to turn his head nearly all the way around to see Max. He didn’t like moving his head. It brought him nausea and fresh hammers of pain.

  “Not much longer. I’m almost done here.”

  “Does that mean you’re going to stop moping, or you’re just going to mope somewhere else?”

  “Don’t mock me, Max. You don’t get to do that anymore.”

  Max arched his eyebrows. “Why not?”

  Gabriel zipped his still-empty bag shut and stuffed it in the wastepaper basket. “Because you shot me in the head.”

  “With a rubber bullet,” Max said, apparently dismayed that Gabriel was even bringing this up.

  “In the head, Max. I might have died.”

  “But you didn’t.” Indeed, Max had managed to drag an unconscious Gabriel to the waiting airplane at the Pulgas Water Temple south of San Francisco, and they were halfway home before Gabriel woke up with a concussion and blind in one eye.

  “So, you’re packing it all in, just because you’re angry with me?”

  Gabriel sat on the surface of his desk. It was exhausting to remain upright for longer than a few minutes. “I’m packing it in because you were right to shoot me. The water mage controls a lot of power. The minute he starts to think his job is more than delivering water to the realm, the minute he starts to think he should have his very own firedrake—”

  “That’s when he becomes another Hierarch,” Max said.

  “Yes. And that’s when it’s time to pack it in.”

  “So, you’re not going to thank me?”

  “No, I’m not going to thank you,” Gabriel said, careful not to raise his voice, because raising his voice made him dizzy. “You shot me.”

  “With a rubber bullet.”

  “In the head.”

  “There are worse places to be shot, Gabriel. Anyway, here, I have something for you.” He got up and dropped a file folder on Gabriel’s desk.

  “What’s this? Going-away present?”

  “Status reports from when we were gone.”

  Gabriel moved his hand away from the folder as if it were a venomous spider. “This no longer concerns me.”

  “Okay,” Max said, opening the folder. The top page was a bullet-point list of priorities, and without realizing he was doing so, Gabriel started reading it.

  There’d been a major reduction of water flow on the Ten Flumeway east of La Brea.

  Electrical output at the Long Beach wave-generation facility was down 3 percent.

  Someone had sabotaged the new dam under construction at Lake Castaic. The intelligence report indicated it was Mother Cauldron’s work.

  “You shot me, Max.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  Max hit a button on the wall, and the doors to Gabriel’s private elevator opened. Together, they descended to the subbasement, where Gabriel climbed the ladder to his throne, a chair of moderate comfort poised before a sprawling array of switches and wheels. He reached out and opened a valve, and then another, and before long he found himself watching over the realm’s water.

  Below, standing at the foot of his throne, Max watched over the realm’s water mage.

  * * *

  Daniel headed for the storage facility in San Pedro as soon as his boots hit Los Angeles. He rolled up the door and discovered a scene of violence. Bulle
t casings and fragments of cracked ruhk egg littered the floor. Scorch marks marred the walls.

  “Em?”

  When there was no answer, he called her name louder: “Em!”

  “Back here.” Her voice sounded weak from behind her sandbag barrier.

  Daniel squeezed through a gap in the sandbags. Em sat on the folding camp chair in front of the crate, her rifle resting across her lap. Lines of encrusted blood striped her face. One of her eyes was swollen shut. Her left arm was in a sling. She gripped a pistol in her right hand.

  The crate containing Sam’s golem-body looked as pristine as when Daniel left it in Em’s care.

  “Did you get the bone?” she said.

  “You need a hospital.”

  “I need to know if you got the bone.”

  Daniel set down his heavy bag, reached in with both hands, and lifted the bone. “Right here.”

  Em closed her good eye. “Great,” she said.

  He knelt before her and got out a jar of eocorn paste. “Looks like you had company. Who came for him?”

  “Who didn’t?” she said. “But nobody stayed very long.”

  “Of course they didn’t. Not with you here.” Gently, he dabbed her swollen eyelid with the paste.

  She let out a long breath and smiled lazily. “That’s warm. I like it. How’d the job go?”

  He thought of Gabriel Argent, shot by Max.

  He thought of Ethelinda.

  “We got it done,” he said. “Everyone did what they had to do.”

  The rest fell to Daniel.

  He set up a folding table, little more than a cot, and fussed with a blanket to pad the metal framing. Em handed him a crowbar, and Daniel went to work on the crate. The nails came out with small cracks and squeaks, like extracted teeth. Inside the crate stood a steel tank, about the size of a large water heater. It bothered Daniel that the steel was dull, with lumpy welds like scars. He wished for everything to be clean and precise and sterile. But when was life ever really like that?

  He could barely make out the golem’s face through a small square of cloudy glass.

  “How does this work?” Em asked him.

  “Messily. Is there a bucket?”

  “Here,” Em said, passing him a yellow plastic pail.