by JManess
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“And what isss your purpossse here, orphan? Now that you have ssseeen the wonder and beauty of our vassst kingdom, what will you do next?” the queen on the left asked.
“I would like to explore more of your kingdom. I would like to meet the dragons that make their home here. I have never met another dragon before.
Most of all, it is simply overwhelming to revel in the glory of your exalted presence. I did not know that we dragons could wield such power.” The boiling fog of their auras pulsed and shuddered in pleasure and anticipation. They were pleased with her answer but wanted more from her.
“Do you wish to join usss, to become one of the Kin?” the right queen asked.
Sondra felt she’d reached a critical stage. She knew that at some point they intended to invade her mind and see all the lies she’d told. She must hold them off as long as possible by acting agreeable and willing. Hopefully, she would find a way to escape or stall long enough for Tolmac to find her, if he even searched for her.
“What must I do to join your mighty clan, great ones?”
“Ah, yesss. You must be initiated. It is a long and somewhat … painful …
processs, but in the end it will be worth it and you will be one of usss,” the queen in the center hissed.
“We shall allow you to explore, and then eat and ressst. On the morrow you shall return here and we will begin the initiation,” the left queen said, her aura writhing in pleasure and anticipation.
Sondra nearly sighed with relief. She’d guessed correctly about these
”queens”; like all pretentious glory seekers, they wanted to make a spectacle of their power, and even with enslaved followers, it took time to gather them all to witness the initiation. Sondra hoped it would be time enough to escape or think of something else to save herself.
“Essscort her to the city and show her around. We want her to feel at home here,” the right queen ordered the guards. They bowed uncomfortably, still unused to the strange and unnatural gestures of respect demanded by the queens. They motioned to Sondra and she followed. Reluctant to turn her back on the watching queens, she bolstered her shields and was glad she had when she felt a brush, a mere tickle at the corners of her mind. The tendril of consciousness simply tested her, Sondra guessed. She suspected that by tomorrow, no mental shield she could erect would stop the three queens’
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combined efforts to invade her mind and enslave her to their will. She hoped she found a way to escape a fate she suspected might be worse than death.
A stray thought occurred to her as she passed several dragons ranged around the cavern, lounging on their own, smaller beds of coins. They looked so much like the arrogant sycophants that cluttered the human court she was raised in that she could almost see human features superimposed on their serpentine faces. Every one of those that occupied the Royal Cavern bore the same sickly taint. Sondra nearly shook with relief when they left the main cavern—the resemblance to Ariva’s royal court had failed to inspire homesickness.
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The guards did give her a tour of the “city,” which turned out to be little more than a series of tunnels and linked caverns crowded by dragons. Many of the occupants had atrophied wings and shedding scales layered over prominent bones. Th ey appeared to be starving
or malnourished and Sondra guessed that they hadn’t been outside the caverns in many rotas. She wasn’t permitted to speak to those dragons. Instead the guards simply pointed out various sights along the way to the dining hall.
Gilded statues of dragons, supposedly the queens themselves, though the magnifi cent beasts in no way represented the shriveled old creatures in the Royal Cavern, lined every wall. Th
ey appeared to watch every dragon moving
through the corridors.
They passed a stonemason’s shop, and Sondra paused in surprise at the sight of several brown dragons sculpting with their bare claws, the stone melting and reshaping with their movements. The female guard who’d first captured her shoved at her foreleg to propel her forward but Sondra turned and asked her about what she witnessed, unable to contain her curiosity over the sight.
“Those are just stone dragons. You see they have no wings and cannot fly, but they possess an affinity for the earth element and form the stone with their thoughts. They craft our statues and tunnels. Now, keep moving. There is much to see and I would like to eat before the commoners get their scraps.” Sondra moved reluctantly forward, disappointed that she could not watch the stone dragons work their craft. She glanced over at the female guard that seemed to be her new keeper and wondered if she had an affinity for a particular 89
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element. Perhaps all dragons related to a single element more than any other, just like the stone dragons, and her, a storm dragon. Sondra wondered what element the queens possessed an affinity for.
They passed another cavern and the guard attempted to hurry her along but Sondra paused again. She couldn’t resist and didn’t know how the other female could, for in this cavern, tiny little dragons with adorable, nearly round baby faces stumbled and tripped and fell over their own oversized wings as they played with their fellows. It was obviously a nursery and the baby dragons looked so cute Sondra pulled away from her guard to get a closer look. She moved into the cavern and into the wriggling little forms. They squeaked as she got close and, startled, raced away to hide behind their keeper. Sondra looked up, and up, and up into the frigid eyes of another adult dragon. This dragon looked neither sickly nor tainted; her aura bore spots of shadowy darkness but those areas remained firm and solid rather than tattered and wavy. Not a speck of gray moved within her blazing reddish-orange spirit and no scales shed from her glittering red-orange body.
She snarled at Sondra as she demanded mentally, “Who are you that trespass in the brood nursery? Commoners are not permitted here.” Sondra backed off at her angry tone, embarrassed and a little afraid.
The other female stood so much larger than her, larger even than her guard who came up behind to grab hold of her impatiently. The red dragon looked beautiful as well, with a slender head, brilliantly gilded horny headdress and gold-flecked scales. She was the type of dragon humans painted or sculpted into their art: massive, awesome, and menacing and she looked like she wanted to crush Sondra for daring to enter her domain.
“I’m sorry, I’m new here and I saw the babies and I just couldn’t resist a closer look. They’re so adorable.” The red dragon glanced down at the wriggling babies weaving in and out of her legs, curious about the small violet dragon but shy and nervous as many young creatures are. “I didn’t realize I was breaking the law. I will leave right away.” Sondra backed away. The red dragon looked back up at her, her expression inscrutable.
“Did you say you were new here? From where did you come?”
“From everywhere really, I’m an orphan.”
“You’re small for an adult dragon. That is curious. Have you undergone initiation yet?”
Sondra looked at her guard who tugged on her, urging her to hurry to the
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dining cavern, while purposely ignoring the clutch keeper who towered over even her and made her look like little more than an overgrown swamp lizard.
“The queens will initiate me tomorrow. They have graciously granted me the opportunity to rest tonight.”
“You think they are gracious, do you? Well, new female, you may be permitted a bit of freedom for now, but soon enough you will be just another commoner. Your kind is forbidden to interact with the clutch. You’ve seen them; realize that you will never have your own in this city and leave, now.” The red dragon turned away, dismissing her as forcefully as if she’d physically shoved her.
Sondra let the guard drag her
away, sparing one last wistful glance at the little squeaking dragon babies. One pulled its own tail hard enough to knock itself over on its back, and it chewed happily away on the spiky end, rocking on its tiny little spines. The others gamboled about the legs of the red dragon and Sondra caught one last look at the other female as she gently rescued one baby who’d climbed too far up one rugged wall.
“It is almost the end of second meal! We will be left to fight with the commoners for the scraps of third meal because of you. Move it, let’s go.” The guard shoved her along the tunnels until they reached another cavern, this one nearly as large as the Royal Cavern and lit, as all the tunnels and caverns were, by soft, glowing globes that clustered on the ceiling.
Sondra witnessed the largest concentration of dragons yet in the dining cavern—they pushed and shoved and snarled and growled at each other as they gnawed away at unidentifiable meat. In the far corner another tunnel, guarded by dragons that actually wore metal armor, led away into a heated cavern that the guard referred to as the kitchen. The guards needed the armor, she clarified, because many a starving dragon tried to raid the kitchens for more food.
The dragons ate in three meal times. The best and most plentiful food came at first meal, reserved for those arrogant claw-lickers lounging in the Royal Cavern. The soldiers, guards, and craftsdragons ate at second meal, and the leftover scraps tossed out to the common dragons, those who were the least powerful and least skilled of the dragons, made up the third meal. Sondra realized why they looked so malnourished. So many dragons in one place must strain the food supply tremendously.
They reached the servers, dragons that guarded the meat troughs and doled out the food to those that came forward and identified themselves. These 92
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dragons also wore custom-fitted armor, and Sondra wondered who made it for them. Was there a metal smith in the city? Not a very skilled one, she could see; the craftsmanship appeared poor and the metal pocked and pitted, but she supposed it proved effective enough against another dragon. Perhaps the mere sight of it discouraged any attempt at stealing food, especially on the part of already weak and starving dragons.
The guard identified herself and explained Sondra’s presence and one of the servers slapped a hunk of meat into her claws. Sondra looked down and nearly screamed in horror. She held a human thigh, torn and roasted. She struggled not to vomit in front of the watching dragons and it took every ounce of self-control to casually offer the grisly meal to the guard, claiming that in all the excitement, she didn’t have much of an appetite. The guard glanced at her curiously but gladly accepted the gory limb, and Sondra turned away while she gobbled it down.
It took several more moments for Sondra to swallow her gorge, and she tried not to spend those minutes looking too closely at the meat being consumed around her. There were people being slaughtered to feed these horrible dragons. She wanted to race out of that dining hall, find any that yet lived, and free them, but she knew that would serve no purpose. Obviously, the people of Fomoral gave more than gold in tribute to their brutal neighbors.
In that instant, Sondra hated the queens and their horrific city with a passion and wished only to escape it with her sanity intact. She turned her eyes to the cavern itself, wondering how deep within the cliffs she now stood and how she could escape without detection. She tried not to let the hopelessness of her situation distress her. After all, she had stalled the queens of the Circle; now she just needed to ditch her guard and find a way out of this nightmarish place.
The guard finished her meal, licking her chops with her obscene, gray, forked tongue and then motioned for Sondra to follow her. They moved through the dining hall, passing the emaciated dragons lining up for third meal and out into the tunnels again. Sondra finally took a deep breath, trying to purge the stench of burnt flesh from her lungs. For once, her normally voracious draconic appetite didn’t bother her. She wasn’t certain she would ever be hungry again.
She followed her hated guard through the tunnels and into another series of caverns. Here, dragons curled up in groups or singly in small caves. The guard explained that, as she was an “honored guest” of the queens—this said with
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a smirk—she would get her own room tonight. Sondra suspected that if the initiation went as planned she would no longer be an honored anything and would find herself crammed into a room with a bunch of bony, hungry dragons.
That is, if the queens didn’t sense the truth and simply kill her outright.
The guard left her, but Sondra didn’t take heart in her chances of escape.
She had no idea where in the cliffs she lay or how to find an exit. Even if she could somehow move without detection, she didn’t think she could fly past the guards she felt certain patrolled the outer cliffs and the skies over Fomoral. If she were caught trying to escape, the queens would definitely rip into her mind without the ceremony they obviously planned tomorrow. Sondra allowed the hopelessness to swamp her for a moment as she laid her head down in sadness and despair. She didn’t know if she dozed or not but suddenly the soft blue glow from the tunnel globes disappeared and Sondra’s little cave plunged into darkness. She sat up and could barely make out the form of another dragon, one much larger than herself.
“Guard your thoughts, stranger. The queen’s spies are everywhere.” The other dragon waved a claw and a tiny blue globe burst into light, illuminating them both where they crouched in the cave. Sondra immediately recognized the female from the dragon nursery. She wasn’t a dragon one easily forgot.
“Wh—what are you doing here? I apologized for frightening the little ones; I swear that I meant them no harm!” Sondra didn’t know what to make of the other dragon; her expression, difficult enough to read on a dragon, appeared even more inscrutable than other dragons.
“You could not have harmed them had you tried, small dragon. I would have destroyed you in a flash. That is not why I am here. I wish to ask you a question.”
Sondra felt a little put out by the arrogant claims of the other female.
Perhaps she wouldn’t find Sondra so easy to destroy if she knew she was a storm dragon.
“I do know that you are a storm dragon.” The red dragon smirked, revealing long, glittering fangs. “You really should learn not to telegraph your thoughts, especially here where even the walls listen.”
“Fine. You still haven’t asked me your question.”
“True, and I have little enough time. Why are you really here, storm dragon? Did you actually come to join the city?” Sondra decided she had little enough to lose at this point in revealing at 94
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least some of the truth. “I grew lost and blundered into one of the guards. They brought me here.”
“So you are not here willingly? You do not truly wish to join the Kin?”
“Honestly, no. But I see little hope in escaping.”
“There is no escape from the city.”
“Well, that makes me feel so much better! Now if you’re done ruining my night I would like to sleep again, please.”
“Listen to me! There is no escape but there is another option. Are you willing to take a risk; are you willing to do something dangerous to gain your freedom?”
“Is this a trap? How do I know that this isn’t a test and that you were not sent by the queens to ascertain my loyalty?” The red dragon nearly growled in frustration. “Look at me, storm; can you see their taint in my aura?”
“No, but maybe because you serve them willingly.”
“Fool! Nobody serves them willingly! If they cannot control you, they destroy you. The only reason I yet live, despite the fact that they have not been able to breach my mental defenses is because they control me in another manner.”
“The guards?”
“Of course not; they are no threat to me. I speak of the hatchlings. The queens threaten to kill them if I leave.”
/> “How horrible! Why would they do such a thing? Why wouldn’t they just kill you then?”
“The hatchlings are not all prime bloodline and you have seen that we already have an overcrowding problem. The queens have tried to eliminate those that don’t show enough promise already, but I have managed to stall them. They keep me alive because I do possess an excellent bloodline. I am their favorite breeder.”
“Then those babies …”
“Some of them are mine, yes, but all of the clutches are reared together and the best and brightest hatchlings are selected and taken to the queens for initiation. The rest are taken to the kitchen.” The red dragon snarled as flames licked across her body in rage. Sondra stepped back, frightened by the unexpected reaction and more repelled by the confession than by her macabre meal earlier.
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“They eat their own young …”
“Good, I am glad to see that the idea horrifies you, that the perversions of the queens bother you as well, storm. Perhaps you will find my proposal more palatable then.
“I don’t understand; are you the only one that can resist them? Are there no others strong enough to fight them?”
“There is the fire god, but he cares nothing for us ordinary dragons.”
“The fire god?”
“Tolmac, the fire god that lives in the mountains to the North. Once, he destroyed this entire city and nearly killed the queens, but he never finished the job and left us to their mercy instead, him and all the other gods that came to this world with him.”
Sondra struggled to remain upright, completely stunned by the other dragon’s words. Tolmac, the fire god? What could she possibly mean? “What other gods? What are you talking about?” Sondra could barely shield her roiling thoughts.
“The gods the humans worship—Aquea, Vivacel, Morbidon, Zephrona, Terroc, and Tolmac. Tolmac brought them all to this world when he opened a portal. He takes the form of a black dragon, enormous, larger than any of the queens. When they realized that he was a child of Cindara they immediately attempted to capture him, but they weren’t strong enough. So they sent us to him instead.”
