Then he strode back in again to grab Ben's tablet and a torch, begrudgingly grateful to have subsumed Ben's savvy with technology, among other useful knowledge of the modern world. If he was going to locate the portal to Kern-Heliog in a murky wet forest, GPS would be useful. The quest for the fairy sanctuary had been funny little Ben's idea, not Clewell's. Clewell, nevertheless, had gleefully claimed it, and intended to see it through.
Having removed a cumbersome gauntlet, he swiped the screen and went to type in Ben's password, then hesitated. No… he hadn't hesitated. His finger had frozen, the letter combination slipping from his cognisance, and he suspected why. Deep in the recesses of what was now mainly Clewell's brain, Ben tried to thwart him. Clewell concentrated on finding a cruel process to silence Ben, locating a dark cave of forgotten dreams and booting Ben inside.
"You can't win," Clewell told him. "Your plan to seek Kern-Heliog is a noble one, yet it will be me who will be saved, Dragon Rider, not my kin. I have waited millennia for this chance, and my time has come again."
"Like hell is has," came Ben's muffled answer, even as Clewell effortlessly retrieved the password Ben had tried to conceal and headed off out again. He ached all over and his limbs felt heavy, and he half-wished he'd not got armour weighing him down. But Clewell would endure; he'd not let this human body rest until his mission was fulfilled.
Three quarters of an hour later, tablet in hand, Clewell waded through a sea of sleeping bluebells and up onto the banks of a prehistoric mound.
Chapter Eight
Lyle unfurled his dragon's wings and took flight. Sharpening his senses, he discerned the brine of the ocean, and the scent drew him. He sped toward the Cornish coast, bound for Wheal Dogger and Clewell's palace. He was cut up inside from the treasure he'd lost, but it was easier to endure when he'd a furnace in his belly, raging at whatever magic had stolen Ben from him.
A sluggish grey morning had slithered into being when he alighted on the clifftop near the Wheal Dogger mine building. A hundred feet below, peak after peak of Atlantic rollers pushed toward the shore. Crouched like a panther, Lyle let a growl rumble forth, releasing as much of his anger as he could, then he shifted from his dragon form. When a wave of grief crashed into him, he wished he'd stayed scaly.
He plonked himself down heavily among the grasses, chin to his knees and his fins hugged tight about himself. If he was deluding himself, if Ben had simply changed as folk so often did, Lyle might as well sit here until death claimed him, like it should've done in Shanty Wood.
"Bugger that," he muttered. He wouldn't give up until he'd discovered the truth, and he'd somehow find the stamina to do it alone. Still, when his phone vibrated and Cully's name flashed up, he answered it.
"Hi," he said, over a sequence of crackles and hisses. "The line's rather poor, so you'd best make it quick."
"Where the heck are you?" demanded Cully as Lyle strained to hear her above the wind and some squawking seagulls, which wheeled overhead. "I'm back at the lodge, and Ben's acting really weird. I mean, even weirder. He said you'd gone for a walk, but I didn't believe him. Did you two argue again?"
"You could say that," said Lyle, hoping the bad line and general rumpus concealed the tremor in his voice.
"That sucks," said Cully. "I, um, thought you'd like to know that he's conjured up a suit of armour for himself. He's incredibly proud of it."
Lyle inhaled sharply. So that ominous wedding-night vision had been a flash of the future. "His powers are growing all the time, Cully. It's getting scary, which is why I have to—"
"He doesn't scare me," scoffed Cully. "He's strutting about like a pigeon that's crashed into a honeycomb ice-cream tub, but that's not the issue. Things are moving fast. Ben's scouted the woods and located the portal. This is our chance to get things sorted. Now, today, before the bluebells fade. Bella's still a little twitchy, but the rest of the family have voted to pass through. I'm going to fly them here in batches, and could do with a hand, frankly."
Lyle momentarily wondered if he was being selfish, vowing war on the "new" Ben with Ben poised to do so much good. Recalling Ben's aggressive behaviour last night, he remained resolute.
"You don't need me," he said. "Text over the coordinates of the portal, and I'll be there to say goodbye later." He hated the notion of never seeing Bella and the others again. Amid the rest of his troubles, he'd avoided dwelling on it. "If you can't wait, send them through, but please, whatever you do, don't leave any of them alone with Ben. Look after them until the last minute, just in case."
"In case of what? I told you, I'm not scared of him. And what are you doing that's so urgent? We agreed we'd wait to find out what the deal with the sword is."
"I-I can't wait. I don't trust Ben and can't bear to be with him." Even now, the words proved painful to articulate, as if Lyle carved them from his throat with a blunt knife. "That's why I have to find answers. I'll be at the portal in a few hours."
"But where are y—"
He hung up. She should've guessed where he was, anyhow. He still felt bad, hoping she'd assume they'd been cut off, although his mission now seemed all the more imperative.
His first hour trooping through the dank mine, nevertheless, proved fruitless and depressing. His only discoveries were a rusty old cart, broken rail tracks—which he tripped over—and an omnipresent chilly draught. After accidentally wandering back to where he'd started, he located a zigzag path down to a muddy strip of beach, aiming to find another entrance to the network of tunnels that made up the mine and Clewell's palace.
Scanning the headland, he soon spotted the opening where Cully had unleashed her barrage of flame. An icy bolt shot down his spine. He'd hoped to find a better way in than that. Yet before he could rip his morbidly fascinated gaze away, he discerned two pinprick eyes peeping back from the tunnel mouth.
Those were not human. They were more like the vividly coloured irises of a merman or mermaid, but low and close together, like a cat's. The eyes flickered then vanished. Lyle gleaned the flick of a white tail—a tiny forked dragon's tail.
He shifted into his own dragon, took flight, and charged toward it. The matter that his dragon mightn't fit into the entrance occurred only in the split second before he crashed through. Fortunately, he proved slight enough. The ridges of his wings grazed the rock as he folded them, then he segued fluently back into a be-legged form and made chase down the tunnel.
His long legs proved far swifter than the stubby limbs of the dragon he pursued. Diving forward and landing with a bruising crump, he grabbed the tiny beast's tail before it disappeared up a side-tunnel and beyond the reaches of any natural light.
"Got you." Lyle wrapped both hands around its tail and reeled it in. Rather than struggling too hard, the tiny white dragon fixed a cool blue gaze on him. Lyle had decided his new companion was rather dinky when it twisted and breathed flame across his hands.
"Ow!" He dropped the dragon's tail and rubbed his scorched flesh. Fortunately, the creature stayed put, and the burn proved superficial, as if he'd passed a finger through a match. More worryingly, he felt dizzy from the effort of the chase. He was weakening already, his magic running dry after fighting Ben, dragon-shifting, and his long trek through the mine.
"I was wondering if you'd come creeping back," said the dragon, in a high-pitched timbre. "Still, I'm less vexed to see you than when I spotted my damned daughter poking around."
"Your daughter? You mean Cully?" Lyle's blood jumped. "You're Clem! You survived."
The dragon heaved a nonchalant shrug, eerily reminiscent of said daughter. Their mother had escaped Cully's firestorm, despite all the odds. Lyle's already battered emotions gave a mighty heave that he'd not the time or wherewithal to process. He concentrated on the plethora of questions bombarding him.
"How did you manage it?" he demanded. "I didn't know you could dragon-shift. Why are you so small? And… uh, do you know anything about how a golden sword found its way into our hotel room? What about Prince Clewell?
What more can you tell me about him?"
"You want answers," squeaked Clem, "then I've got plenty. But I'm not giving you anything for nothing. Last time we made a deal, you broke your side of it. You do that again, I'll kill you."
Lyle was neither surprised nor dismayed by her ferocity. This creature had deserted him as a child, and then latterly, used a torturous magic collar to rob him of his powers, his independence, and of so much else, he didn't know where to begin. There'd been extenuating circumstances behind Clem's fall from grace, but nothing to justify her crimes against him. She was in no position to threaten.
Yet her dragon looked… aw, so ridiculously cute. When she stomped her foot in a petulant fashion, the clack of her talons sounded fragile, like the cracking of a snail shell. He doubted such a little creature could follow through on her murderous threat. Then again, he knew not to underestimate the apparently feeble.
"Alright," he said. "If we make a deal, I won't break it this time. But I want answers, Clem. And if you backstab me?"
He shoved his face as close to her beaky snout as he dared. Last time they'd met, Clem had tried to convince Lyle he was a monster who'd murdered his brother, whereas even Lyle had accepted Welwyn's death was an accident. On the other hand, Lyle had no qualms in using her own twisted version of the truth against her.
"Remember Welwyn?" his hissed, sending her shrinking into the shadows. "I too can play the killing game, mother."
*~*~*
The previous October
"Clem, where are you, sweetling? Why are you ignoring me?"
At the sound of Violet's deep voice, Clem wedged the tips of two fins in her ears. She poured ever more tightly over the scratchy old text she was translating from an ancient language.
Violet, her merman lover, had been getting on her last nerve, ever since they'd come to Clewell's palace and stumbled on a hidden chamber containing a long-forgotten archive. She'd not even wanted to feast on her gang's usual diet of vengeance and slaughter. She wished to be left alone to read.
The writings, largely Prince Clewell's personal collections, made for fascinating study. This afternoon, she'd made her most interesting discovery yet—a spell that separated out a being's dragon and undine forms. She'd been trying to dragon-shift all her life without success. The last thing she wanted was Violet pestering her for attention as she teetered on the brink.
"Ah, that's where you're lurking. What are you so caught up in this time?" Violet hunched his bulky frame into the crevice, where Clem had huddled up with a candle and her work. She un-stuffed her ears with a sigh, and he scratched his bushy beard. "We've got plenty enough new toys from this place already. Aren't you excited to try that collar thingy we've found on Emmet? I'm going to enjoy watching him squirm as we wring every last drop of his power from him."
She was looking forward to watching her nephew, Emmet, being sucked dry of his magic. It would be some small consolation, after recently learning she'd been robbed of the pleasure of killing her most hated son, Welwyn.
"It'll be entertaining," she conceded. "But while revenge is sweet, power of one's own is even sweeter."
"Aren't I powerful enough for you, Clemmy? Aw, come on out of there… please? Pretty please?"
Violet grabbed Clem's hand and dragged her out of her hidey-hole and into the main chamber of Clewell's palace, where the ancient grotesques leered mockingly down on her. She yanked her hand free, wondering how she'd wound up in yet another bad relationship.
She'd joined these bastards to get revenge on her eldest son, her family, on all the brutes that'd ruined her life. Yet even when she'd had some limited kind of choice, things still went badly. But maybe her luck was about to change. She sidestepped around a blazing brazier, placing a barrier between her and Violet.
"No, Violet, you're not powerful enough," she said. "None of us are, at least not enough for my liking. That collar is never going to be anything other than a torture device until I figure out how to get the powers it steals from our victims back out of it so we can use them."
So she could use them, anyway. She wasn't so sure about sharing.
"Why should it always be you who sorts out the clever stuff?" asked Violet. "Maybe I'll be the one to figure it out for a change."
She snorted. Violet couldn't fathom how to fix the shoulder clasps on his own robes, so it was fortunate he preferred to go naked most of the time. His lumbering brain had two tracks—revenge and sex. She was only grateful he'd found some kind of cloth to cover his manhood today, but even that rag was tented with his obvious lust. He wouldn't stop pestering until she gave him what he wanted.
Fortunately, she had the perfect plan to distract him.
"I'm the one who worked out how the collar robs its victim's ability to draw magic," she said. "I'm the only one with brains around here. You know it, but I'll prove it anyhow."
She took a fortifying gulp of air and prayed to the deities she'd long shut out to aid her in what she was about to do. Drawing all the scant energy she could from the tides near the caves, she connected with the miniscule thread of magic inside her. Noting Violet lumbering around the brazier and looking confused, she speared her fins threateningly then screwed her eyes tight. She hoped she remembered the mantra correctly.
"Maliof a llewl!"
A muffled implosion shook her brain and belly. The unpleasant sensations started mild and then pitched in intensity, until every solid part of her seemed to liquidize then evaporate into a white-hot gas. She faintly registered Violet spluttering her name before she blacked out.
When she blinked herself back to wakefulness, she found herself crouched in a strange position and staring at… herself. Violet cradled and jostled her limp frame, and Clem's hopes lurched. She didn't occupy her usual body anymore, so the spell must have worked. She'd separated out her dragon.
Apart from it hadn't worked as she'd hoped.
The form she now occupied was so pathetically small Violet hadn't noticed it. Ye Gods, if she stretched to full height, her scalp wouldn't reach Violet's knee. Indeed, the tiny heart pattering at a breakneck speed against twiggy ribs suggested she'd messed up the spell and leaped into a rat. She didn't even want to step into the light to properly examine the horror she'd conjured herself into. She wracked her mind for a mind-leaping mantra she'd discovered, glad to discover she'd a squeaky little voice to utter it with: "Elhendrou!"
The transferal of her life-force back into her old body was as eviscerating and unpleasant as the outward journey, but it worked. She came to again, with Violet boisterously slapping her cheek. He looked genuinely relieved when she managed to snarl up at him.
"Clemmy, what did you do?"
"I don't even know," she breathed. She wasn't sure she wanted to either.
When she located the little body and dragged it from the shadows, she wanted to scream. She'd succeeded after all, though she needn't have bothered. A tiny, unconscious dragon lay on the stone slabs—a collection of bones in a bag of saggy white skin, wrinkled like a baby bird and as pallid as a dried cuttlefish. A faint lattice of blue veins patterned its closed eyelids.
"You made a baby dragon." Violet sounded suitably awestruck. "Is it dead?"
"No, you fool," said Clem. "It's not a baby, and it's not dead."
Though it was so puny it might as well have been. She wanted to dash it against the rocks then stamp on it in her rage.
Chapter Nine
"I would've gladly killed it," said Clem. "I wouldn't have hesitated for a moment to snap its spindly neck, if the dragon hadn't been me."
"So you discovered a spell that separated out your dragon and mermaid forms," said Lyle, enraptured, as he sat in the semi-darkness with his mother. "I had no idea that was possible."
"Few, if any, have tried it before," said Clem, proudly. "The knowledge has been kept hidden for thousands of years. I found it in Clewell's collections, which make interesting reading. Even the Wise Mas only know a fraction of the magic Clewell did, so it seems."
&nb
sp; "So it seems," echoed Lyle.
"Dragon-shifting is not only a far greater challenge than any other kind of shapeshifting," continued Clem. "It's a different process to simply shifting between legs or tail, or casting a concealment spell on your fins. To shift into something as wildly different as a dragon, one must first have a dragon self within, or it isn't possible."
Lyle nodded thoughtfully. Given that his dragon had first turned up randomly in the recesses of his unconscious mind, this made some sort of sense.
"Only a handful of our lineage have been blessed with a dragon," continued Clem. "Even less of us can access it. I hoped I had one, so that one day I could teach a few folk a lesson. Unfortunately, when I separated my dragon out, she turned out to be this runt." Balancing on one stunted leg, she gave a languid twirl. "Holding such an unwanted bundle of skin and bone reminded me of my last born child."
"No need to be unpleasant." Lyle sniffed, straightening his sagging spine. He'd be damned if he'd betray any weakness to Clem.
"I do beg your pardon," said Clem, snide as ever. "Anyhow, I feared my dragon would shrivel up and die, so I used the mind-jump mantra to leap between my usual body and this one, allowing me to care for it and flex these silly things." She unfurled cobweb-frail wings, no larger than a pigeon's, and gave them a desultory flap. "I hoped I'd be able to find magic to strengthen my dragon, or at least learn to fly. All I ever really mastered was that mind-jump mantra, though. I could do that in a flash."
"So that's how you escaped when Cully incinerated your other body," murmured Lyle.
"I leaped between them in the nick of time," she said. "Now my mermaid is destroyed, I'm stuck this way, and I've no idea how to fix it. However, with so much time on my hands this past half year, I have found out how to reverse the flow of power from the collar."
The Isle of Eternal Happiness Page 6
