Fantastical Ramblings

by Irene Radford

  The longed for son must be the only reason he had waited nearly fifteen years to eliminate the last two men who stood between him and the throne. Fifteen years while he lulled Father and I with false words of loyalty and honor and—choke—love.

  I clasped my hands behind my back instead of pacing. If only I dared move I might keep my blood from freezing.

  A piercing screech sounded above. I looked up. Saw nothing but a bright flash and dismissed it as the wind and storm.

  Krej recoiled from the noise, shifting uneasily closer to the upper slope of the mountain.

  No one had seen a dragon in generations. They were extinct. Surely the were. My sword was the only reality, the only rescue I trusted.

  I shifted my hands to the grip of my weapon.

  Krej swallowed deeply. Then seemed to shrug off whatever had frightened him. He turned his piercing blue eyes on me.

  I could not move. He seemed to drive a spear through my will with those eyes.

  “Only I know how to tap Coronnan’s greatness.” Krej’s voice took on the rhythm of a chant. He began to draw arcane symbols in the air. Red fire followed his gestures, leaving the sigils in plain sight.

  I struggled to free myself from his thrall. Sweat broke out on my back and brow despite the freezing wind.

  “Your oath of loyalty...” I tried to stall while I fought for control of my sword arm. If I could speak, his spell over me was not complete.

  “Loyalty to me is loyalty to Coronnan. Only I can bring our land into its true greatness,” Krej replied in song.

  His words chilled me more than the rising wind.

  He blinked.

  The thrall cracked. I reached for my sword. My cloak tangled around the sheath.

  In a flash and a whirl of spotted fur cloak, Krej was behind me. Between me and the return path.

  Uphill the faint trail narrowed sharply beneath an overhang and disappeared. Legend claimed that only dragons could climb higher upon the mountain.

  No place to run.

  I stepped forward. I needed to pressure Krej into keeping his distance.

  He laughed and held his ground. I still could not get the sword free. He took up his chant again.

  A flicker of movement caught my eye. A small brindled brown cat stalked us. It could not help me and might hinder me in my escape.

  The cat had to be Krej’s familiar. Why else would it be out in this weather.

  Even a dragon would not be caught out in the blizzard to come.

  The sharp smell that had haunted me since hunting the deer wafted across my senses again. An instant of dizziness and blurred vision.

  (Tambootie.) The word came into my head without prompting.

  Poison.

  Dragon salad.

  The tool of rogue magicians.

  “The de Draconis line is weak, Prince Darville,” Krej continued in song. “You waste your time with women and drink, your father dreams away his days and nights with tales of past glories. I shall not allow you to taint the throne when your father dies.” The wind grabbed his cloak. Lifted it. It did not swirl as mine had to block his eyes or hands.

  I flung off my cloak rather than fight it. My sword came easily to my hand now. The wind picked up my garment and flung it in my face. I ducked it and lunged toward Krej.

  He wasn’t there.

  I whirled. He faced me on the path above me. I plunged toward him. The sharp rise of the mountain on my right became an overhang. The path narrowed further.

  Again Krej eluded me. Another giggle that bordered on insanity.

  My sword met only air.

  He danced around me quickly. I barely saw him move.

  The first flakes of snow rode the back of the wind. They whipped past us to plaster themselves against the slope. They showed no interest in melting.

  I had to end this soon. I circled my blade seeking an opening, a moment of distraction.

  “Have you noticed, Prince Darville, how pale and ill your father has become of late?”

  I had.

  “Have you also noticed how the Council of Provinces listens to you less and less and your father not at all?” Again he giggled.

  I’d heard a man giggle like that once before. A condemned rogue magician who had eaten of the Tambootie tree to enhance his magic.

  The poison in the tree sap had rotted his mind.

  And I knew then, with desperate clarity, that Krej too had eaten of the tree of magic to enhance his powers.

  Logic and argument meant nothing to him. Only power.

  “Your father is weak,” Krej cackled. “Growing weaker. At my command. He does not rule Coronnan. I do!” Krej punctuated the air with another sigil, larger and more intense than his previous gesture.

  “You lie!” I snarled. I flipped one of my wrist blades at Krej’s eyes. He ducked it easily.

  Fear began to knot in my gut. “My father rules with the aid of the Council of Provinces.” I said it quietly, logically, to reassure myself more than to convince Krej.

  “And who leads the Council of Provinces, eh? Who makes decisions when your father is too sick or weak to choose ought but which tunic to wear?” Krej smiled showing his teeth in a feral expression. The cat that watched us mimicked him.

  I tried to run, just plow through Krej and get back to the bottom of the hill and the guards who would witness my cousin’s treason.

  My feet refused to move. They felt frozen to the ground.

  “The Council listens to me. They respect me,” I asserted as I struggled to free my feet. Doubt crept into me along with the cold wind. Did the twelve lords of Coronnan truly listen to my advice or did they just smile and nod and then go about their business as if I did not exist?

  “But you are rarely in the capitol, Prince Darville,” Krej said through his gloating smile. His teeth remained clenched and his eyes glittered with malice, not mirth. “I see to that. I send you where you will dissipate yourself with wild escapades with your band of street boys, your women, and drink.”

  I tried to lift my sword. It seemingly weighed more than I did. My arms bunched and strained but still it would not move.

  “Calm down, boy,” Krej laughed again. Insanity shone in his deep-set eyes. “This won’t hurt a bit. And Coronnan will profit from my rule in ways you cannot yet imagine.”

  A sharp screech above the roiling clouds sounded again. Not the wind. A dragon?

  “You are supposed to help me. Protect me!” I called back to the creature who patrolled the skies.

  I thought I caught a glimpse of a translucent wing amidst the snow. Could a creature as large as a dragon do ought on this narrow mountain ledge?

  Krej had chosen well the location for this confrontation.

  My enemy began dancing in place while he drew more sigils in the air. I could see them now. I had no defense against the pulsing red and green magic. Soon they must lock tighter circles around me. I had to break free before he closed the spell.

  If only I could move.

  The dragon screeched again.

  Suddenly the cat leaped to Krej’s back. The creature’s claws dug deep. Its teeth sought the great vein in his neck. Single-minded fury drove it.

  Something deep within me knew the creature attacked its master at the prompting of the dragon.

  The thrall that glued my arms to my side faded.

  I lifted my sword and freed the remaining wrist blade.

  Krej batted the cat away like some annoying insect.

  It twisted, reached out, landed perfectly balanced. Like all of its kind, it prepared for a new attack almost before its paws touched he ground.

  I lunged for my cousin. I hit an invisible wall. The shock vibrated up my arm to my shoulder. Hot pain lanced through to my heart.

  Krej laughed loud and long.

  A fresh wave of snow rushed toward us. I could not see my enemy through it. It must have met the same barrier as my sword and fell in a circle around me. A small circle—barely a pace in circumference—remained clear
of the white stuff. The wind seemed not to penetrate the barrier either.

  I was almost warm.

  The cat leaped again to the back of the magician. It slammed into a similar barrier and fell to the ground stunned. It lay motionless. Confusion showed in its yellow eyes.

  I lunged again. Once more I hit the invisible wall. This time with more force. My sword blazed golden fire. Heat lashed my hand. I dropped the weapon from nerveless fingers. My entire body trembled with the force of the magic.

  Hot tingles became jolts, anchoring me in place. No matter how hard I tried, I could not move so much as to blink my eyes.

  Panic threatened to choke the breath from me.

  With one last singsong stream of words and a wave of Krej’s hand, the magic shot from his fingers into my eyes. It penetrated every hidden corner of my being.

  I could do nothing to stop it.

  The spell was complete.

  My skin itched. I could not scratch it. Golden fur sprouted from my arms and legs. The torment of raw skin beneath the new growth increased. The hair bristled and stood on end. My ears stretched upward. I think I screamed at the pain. My own howl sounded strange, more intense and primitive than a human throat could utter. Tiny sounds pricked my hearing; rocks shifting under Krej’s feet, the wind sighing on several levels beneath the roar through the tops of the trees, the cat sobbing.

  How? What?

  My nose found new smells in the snow, the soil, Krej’s sweat.

  Confusion muddled my thoughts.

  Above us the dragon cried in anguish to mimic my own. The sound threatened to shatter my hearing.

  Krej reeled away, hands clapped to his head, nearly doubled over in pain.

  I wriggled and swayed trying to break free.

  Neither the dragon nor I could stop the transformation. I had only Krej and the little cat as witness to who I had been.

  I think I sobbed.

  My face ached sharply. I sensed my nose elongating into a muzzle. My jaw receded. I smelled my own fear, the pain in the cat, and triumph in my enemy.

  Then my joints began to crack and bend at odd angles. I cried out at the pain. I collapsed. My clothing fell away, including the useless good luck charm in my pocket. Not even magic could hold me upright any more. Fire seemed to engulf me. The sounds erupting from my throat sounded more like the howl of a wounded animal than a man.

  Horror choked off the sounds. My heart beat wildly and I despaired that I would ever see my father again. I wanted to cry and could not.

  As I lay there, rolling about on the ground like Krej’s wounded deer, my limbs contracted and bent. My bones grew heavy and dense.

  Language deserted me.

  My hands became paws without the useful thumb to grasp a weapon.

  I had only instincts and anger left.

  I panicked. I growled and leaped again. And bounced against the wall.

  I opened my mouth, baring my fangs. I could not allow this man to corner me. I ran forward, lunged...

  Krej shoved me backward with another wave of his hand.

  I scrabbled for purchase. The unaccustomed shortness of my legs skewed my balance.

  I slipped on loose rocks. Clothing tangled around my feet. I rolled sideways.

  Krej reached a grasping fist for me.

  I shied away from his touch.

  The wind caught me.

  Suddenly I flew. Only air stood between me and the bottom of the cliff.

  Stargods help me!

  I cringed and flailed for purchase before the collision with rocks and ground that would crush my bones and rip my flesh.

  My hands/paws scrabbled against the rocks. After too many rapid heartbeats my claws found purchase on a protruding boulder.

  The dragon above cried her mournful anguish.

  Krej roared with laughter in answer. “No need to explain your transformation by a rogue magician now,” he chortled. “I’ll discredit the University of Magicians another way. But I shall have to forgo the pleasure of leashing you and keeping you subservient at my side.”

  The cat roused enough to scramble to the cliff edge and look over at me. It extended a paw as if offering me a hand up.

  I had nothing to grip with. No help. Nothing between me and a very painful death at the bottom of a long fall.

  “I think I will tell the court that you chased the spotted saber cat too vigorously and fell to your death. Wild and drunk as always. But they will find no body. If they bother to search when the storm passes. Who will give the body of a dead wolf a second look?” He flicked his fingers in dismissal. “You will rot in this forgotten valley, as you justly deserve. And your father will crumble in his grief. I’ll rule all of Coronnan uncontested before Spring! I won’t even have to kill the king. He’ll just wither away to dust of his own volition.”

  He stomped about in his mad glee.

  I lost my fragile hold. Fell. The ground rushed upward. No exultation. Only heart stopping fear.

  Then I crumpled on the stony valley several dragon lengths below.

  A moment of shock. No breath. No thought.

  “And now, just for fun, you shall join the princely wolf, cat. You deserve punishment for my wounds,” Krej sneered above me. How did his words come to me so clearly?

  , I heard the whoosh of air as he kicked out at the tiny creature that had tried to help me.

  No sound of a heavy boot connecting with a furred body. Only the thump as Krej lost his balance and fell on his butt. Another time I might have laughed.

  He picked himself up, cursing. “You shall pay for this, cat. I shall find you again and make certain you pay!”

  The faint sound of tiny paws scampering over the edge of the cliff drifted toward me.

  Krej’s shouts followed the cat all the way down the cliff. Eventually his noise faded. He must have retreated from the storm.

  The storm that would kill me.

  Chill invaded my limbs.

  Darkness crowded my vision.

  Snow built up around me. My body warmth kept the flakes at bay for a time, but as I chilled even more, the snow would cling and bury me. No one would find me until Spring.

  I could not even tremble in fear or shake with the endless pain. Each breath became a new agony.

  But I had to live. I had to stop Krej and his plans to rule Coronnan.

  The cat crept closer to me, nose working.

  I breathed. Snow moved in a different pattern in front of my nose.

  The cat jumped back. Hissed. Crept forward once more.

  I live, I tried to tell it. Get help.

  My mind spun and drifted. Each time I blinked seemed to send me away for longer and longer.

  Darkness claimed me. I welcomed death. Anything to relieve me of the pain and the cold.

  Some time later, hours, minutes had no meaning anymore, I felt someone digging the snow away from my body. Someone breathed a gentle warmth across me. It eased one discomfort. Magnified others.

  I looked up into the swirling circles of dragon eyes. The nearly invisible creature towered above me. I had to concentrate to see it. Very difficult. My hurts demanded my attention. And yet the dragon drew my gaze, challenged me to look closer. Each hair of its fur was a thread of crystal. Or an icicle.

  Easier to look around it than at it.

  It spread its all color/no color wings to shelter me from the snow and wind. A long spiral horn growing out of its forehead provided its primary tool to remove the accumulation of insulating snow from around me. Once more it blew a warming breath over my fur.

  I watched the snow turn to steam.

  Why did it protect me? My wolf body should have been a tempting meal for the giant predator.

  (You will be safe now, my prince,) the dragon spoke directly into my mind. A feminine voice. A mother’s concern for a pup. (Brevelan will guard you. Remember this day and remember me.)

  Then the dragon launched herself into the sky. The downward thrust of her wings blew more warm air around me. I lost s
ight of her within an eyeblink; obscured by snow and her own camouflage.

  A woman appeared out of the storm. She must be the Brevelan the dragon had called to me. A thick coat of oiled wool covered her from crown to toe. Within the shadows of her hood I detected a wisp of red hair and deep blue eyes. Krej’s eyes.

  I recoiled in fear, baring my teeth and growling.

  She crouched before me, murmuring soothing words.

  A sense of comfort and safety washed over me.

  The brindled brown cat jumped from the woman’s arms and pressed her nose against mine. I blinked in surprise.

  “Golden brown eyes to match his fur,” Brevelan said quietly. “Why?” she asked, looking up into the air. “Why did you bring me out in this storm to save a wolf? You should have just eaten him.”

  I cringed away from the dragon’s roaring reply.

  The woman sank to her knees and covered her ears.

  “All right!” she shouted back to the dragon. But it sounded more like a protest than acceptance.

  A braver person than I to question a dragon.

  “This is going to hurt, golden wolf,” Brevelan murmured.

  Her words invaded my mind and I did not fear her, or the pain I knew must come. Somehow she would make it all better.

  Gently, agonizing inch by agonizing inch, she rolled me onto a blanket she had spread on the ground.

  I tried not to cry out. A noble man did not show his pain. But I was no longer a man; noble, peasant, or prince. Pitiful whimpers escaped me.

  Pain robbed me of breath. I went to a place deep within the core of me, beyond pain, beyond thought. I was still conscious, I think, aware and yet....

  Then wrenching pain. Brevelan grunted and pulled with all of her might on one foreleg. She had planted her tiny foot on my shoulder joint.

  I snapped my fangs. Bit only air.

  Grind. Twist. Wrench.

  My shoulder popped into place. Dull ache replaced sharp pain.

  I retreated once more to that place where pain and memory of treachery could not reach me.