Dream Magic

by B. V. Larson

  Still, Trev persisted. He thought he had little to lose. Trapped in a mesh of woven steel cables, he knew he was helpless. He might well be dropped down a shaft into a bed of magma, or left trussed up on the floor of the tunnel for the next scavenging kobold to dine upon.

  Desperation set in when he noticed the air in the tunnel had become hotter and oppressive. He decided to force the other to act.

  “Honorless cur!” he shouted. “I demand you remove that red cloak from your unworthy back!”

  This made the Kindred straighten from his bent-back toil. He stopped dragging Trev steadily downhill into the Everdark. He turned slowly.

  “Keep a civil tongue, half-breed snot,” Harrdin said. “I’ll not suffer you much longer—one way or another.”

  Trev didn’t like the sound of that, but he had finally gotten his captor to stop dragging him, so he pressed his luck.

  “I made a deal with you. We were partners until we found an answer from the wise creatures that dwell down here.”

  “You mean the dragons?” Harrdin asked, grinning with gleaming teeth. “I already did that, fool. Why do you think I brought you?”

  “What are you saying, cur?”

  A boot drew back and then flashed forward. Trev formed a ball with his body, but the blow still made him taste bile and cough.

  “I’m saying,” Harrdin answered in a conversational voice, “that I already made a deal with that which lives down here.”

  “Why then am I in a net? Why am I down here at all if you already have the information you seek?”

  “The dragon wanted it that way. We’ll learn about the Jewels together—but only one of us will be in a position to gain from it. When you looked like you might run off and get yourself killed, I figured this would be for the best. You can’t trust a fool to keep himself alive…but you can trust a fool in a net.”

  Harrdin went off into a gale of laughter after that. He also turned and began to drag Trev again by a bundle of cables over his shoulder.

  “I see how you got into the Warriors then,” Trev said. “It takes this kind of double-dealing to get into a clan you’re not worthy of. You must be a natural at it. Again, I demand you remove that cloak. You stain it with your dishonor. You—”

  Harrdin stopped dragging, ran back to Trev with an oath, and began to beat the boy. This wasn’t exactly Trev’s plan, but he took the opportunity he was afforded. He jabbed the Warrior in the thigh with his dagger. The point dug deep and Harrdin slapped his hand away, howling and pressing at the wound. Then he backed away, eyes hooded and breath drawn through clamped teeth.

  The two regarded one another. Both were bleeding and in pain. Trev was desperate. He held his dagger in both hands, determined not to lose his grip on it.

  Finally, Harrdin took a great breath and let it out. Then he laughed aloud. The sound rang from the walls of the tunnel and Trev thought that there was a twinge of madness in that laughter.

  “You know what they use these nets for, boy?” Harrdin asked him.

  Trev shook his head. He was glad the Kindred Warrior was talking to him. Anything that made time pass might give the madman a chance to see reason.

  “To catch elementals. Small ones, that is. Too big, and they wreck the net and won’t fit into the boiler, anyway. Too small, and they would slip out of the holes. This net was woven just tightly enough to hold a middling salamander, but not with a mesh so fine it catches the squirming younglings.”

  Trev stared. His breathing slowed, but he kept his weapon at the ready.

  “That’s what makes it a perfect fit for you, don’t you see that?” Harrdin asked. “You’re just the right size. You would fit into a crawler’s belly and I dare say there’s enough piss and vinegar in your blood to power it for a mile or more.”

  Another gust of half-mad laughter rang from the tunnel walls. Harrdin turned then and took up the cables. He leaned into them and kept dragging Trev.

  The boy’s mind was working again, and he began to understand.

  “You’re doing this for the witch in the woods,” he said. “How did you meet her?”

  “In the forests, same as you did.”

  “I can understand why you want to please her. But why do you hate me so?”

  “Is it not obvious? Because you’re a rival for her affections, child. Did you not lay with her in the leaves? I have yet to be given such a gift. I intended to change that. The next time I meet my Lady Fair, she will give me what I really want. With you out of the way, that outcome will be all the more likely.”

  Trev noticed the Warrior was limping slightly, but the wound didn’t seem to discomfit him much. Kindred Warriors were a tough breed, and cuts did little to slow them.

  “If she likes me so much, don’t you think she’ll be displeased to learn you mistreated me?”

  The Kindred shrugged, but then nodded.

  “Possibly,” he admitted, “but then she’s unlikely to learn of this little adventure from me.”

  Trev thought he might cackle again, but the conversation broke off as they reached a place in the tunnel Harridan seemed to recognize.

  “Ah,” said the warrior, dropping the cables. “We’ve come to the spot at last.”

  Trev strained but had difficulty seeing what the other was talking about. He was harshly grabbed and dragged forward to where he could see over the lip of a hole in the tunnel floor.

  “You see this then?” Harrdin asked, pointing to the scorched floor of the tunnel. The region they were standing upon was as dark as aged iron and scored by curved gouging marks.

  Trev eyed the marks with alarm. Only the largest of beasts could make such deep rips in a substance harder than stone.

  “The dragon—did another escape this plug?”

  “No, fool,” Harrdin said. “It was not escaping. It was clawing its way back into the cavern below us. Not out of it.”

  “I thought the seals could not be broken by a dragon. Isn’t that why you people place them over entrances like this?”

  “Not exactly,” said Harrdin, seemingly in good mood for once. As he spoke further, he dug in his pack for something. “You see, the plugs can’t keep a determined dragon at bay. They can keep other things from slipping in and out, however, like kobolds, dragon young and the like. But they let the dragons know where the boundary lies, where Kindred territory begins. They usually respect that boundary.”

  As Trev watched, Harrdin found some pitons and a hammer. He went to the wall of the tunnel on either side and drove a spike into the rock. Then he looped a rope over each spike and threw the cables of Trev’s net over the rope.

  “You intend to lower me into that hole?” Trev asked with eyes wide and a voice that broke high.

  Harrdin chuckled. “I suppose I could just kick you in, if you’d rather.”

  Trev gazed at the hole with grim fascination. Wisps of smoke and an unpleasant smell that reminded him of burnt matchsticks rose up from it. The hole in the plug was as dark as midnight at the bottom of a well.

  Before he could speak further, he was hoisted up and lowered unceremoniously into the hole. He squirmed and slashed at the rope at the last moment, desperate to do anything to take charge of his fate, but the effort failed.

  When the cables were at full length, the grunting Warrior above him moved about, causing shifting shadows and light. Trev felt helpless. He had no idea how deep the hole was. When at last Harrdin dropped him, would he fall a foot or a mile? It was so dark down here, hung and suspended over nothing, he could not tell what the truth might be.

  Determined not to beg or cry out, he only sucked in his breath in a hissing gust when the cables ran out and Harrdin got tired of lowering him gently. Trev felt himself falling. He crashed down on the rough stone a good ten feet farther below.

  With the wind knocked out of him, he struggled to get to his knees. Frantically, he worked at the steel net, but it was beyond his strength and skill in the blackness to open the tightly cinched bag-like entrance.

&n
bsp; Above him, Harrdin had hooked another cable and was lowering himself by rasping inches. When at last he stood near Trev, the half-elf lunged, thrusting his dagger for the legs again. But the Warrior was wary this time and avoided the attack.

  “Huh, you’ve still got some fight in you, I’ll give you that much,” Harrdin said. He then proceeded to kick and cuff Trev until he lay panting on the floor in his net.

  The cables were drawn taut again, and the dragging went on. Now, however, Trev was beginning to feel real fear.

  There was a sense of unnatural doom about this forbidding place. He’d never been in the lair of a great beast before, and so he had nothing to compare it to. But he did think to himself this must be how a cow felt when it entered the butcher’s abattoir.

  The floor of the tunnel was slick, rather than dusty. It felt like smooth, melted glass. Fused into the glass were strange artifacts which he bumped against as they passed by. Boots, melted right into the stone. Bone shards sticking up at odd angles. Everything was burned and smelled of melted fat, brimstone and sulfur.

  Ahead, a light source grew as they passed a kink in the tunnel. This light source was a lurid red in color, and the sensation of fantastic heat just around the corner grew and grew until they rounded it—and he felt the full, searing effect as if a blast-furnace door had been opened and his face was shoved close to the breach.

  There, that had to be it! A huge shape that glimmered like a giant dying coal the size of a cottage. Was it made of stone, metal, or flesh? How could the dragon stand its own heat?

  “Hail, dragon!” Harrdin shouted, his voice echoing and loud in the still chamber, “I’ve brought you the half-breed, as I promised.”

  “I smell it,” said a deep voice.

  At first, when the dragon spoke, Trev could not understand the words. They were too bass, too resonant. Each word sounded as if fingers had been drawn across a bowstring. But after the words were uttered and his mind was given a moment to digest the sounds, he found he could separate the tones into words.

  “Bring it to me. Fulfill our bargain.”

  “Hold Lady,” said Harrdin. “Tell me what I must know.”

  Lady? thought Trev. It was only at that moment he realized the dragon was female.

  There was a stirring in the chamber. A plume of hot ash rose up, and Trev felt it touch his skin and burn there. The dragon had shifted and turned.

  There! Eyes like green jets of flame, scales shining blue.

  She regarded them both. The intellect in that alien face was terrifying. In that single instant, Trev was sorry he’d ever left his mother’s house. He was too young, too inexperienced. It was just as the adults had warned him. He was ashamed, and angry.

  “I will tell you of the Jewels,” said the dragon. “One by one. But you must come closer, and bring my prize.”

  “Humph,” grumbled Harrdin. “I see no point to these shenanigans. Tell me something first.”

  “As a sign of good will, I’ll begin,” she replied. “The first Jewel to appear in recent times was that of Vaul, the Green. A good soul—some say the best of us.”

  Trev frowned at this. The best of us? Did the dragon think she was somehow related to the Jewels? He’d been given to understand this was a twisted myth from the past.

  Grumbling, Harrdin hauled Trev closer with ill-grace. “On with it.”

  The dragon mentioned each of the Jewels in turn. Lavatis the Blue, which powered the skies and the rains, and which manifested itself as a rainbow from time to time. That was in the hands of Tomkin now, but the Blue had languished in Trev’s grandfather’s possession for much longer in the past.

  The dragon continued her list, speaking of each Jewel at length. There was Ambros the Golden, which powered Brand’s Axe and filled its wielder’s eyes with the madness of battle. Osang the Lavender, which Old Hob used to sail silently through the night. The Red Jewel, which always appeared as a tiny bloodhound and thirsted for the blood of all living things. That monstrous Jewel sought to re-form life into abominations of a twisted nature. Pyros the Orange could burn stone. Necron the Black ruled over the Dead—

  The dragon stopped speaking, and Harrdin stopped approaching the blazing green eyes. Trev had been listening to its words with fascination. Along the way, he’d learned the name and power of each Jewel, and who carried them now. He was fascinated despite himself. There were details to the lore he’d never heard from any other being. He learned, for example, that the Black Jewel was now in the possession of a young necromancer named Slet. He’d always been told the Black was entombed in the Drake Crypt. How had it gotten out and when, he could only wonder.

  “Don’t stop now,” Trev said suddenly. “There are only two left. Tell us of them.”

  Both Harrdin and the dragon regarded him in surprise.

  “I’d thought the creature had been knocked senseless,” the dragon said. “But it squeaks with vigor. You’ve done better than I’d hoped you would, Kindred traitor.”

  “Traitor?” barked Harrdin suddenly.

  “What else would you call one that waylays a friend and drags him to his death?”

  “This half-breed bounder was never a friend of mine!”

  “A dupe then, a kidnapped babe?”

  Trev wondered at the dragon’s reluctance in discussing the last two Jewels. He almost opened his mouth to ask again, but kept quiet for once. His two enemies seemed to be antagonized with one another and even he could see it was time to leave them undistracted.

  “He was never a friend of mine!” insisted Harrdin.

  “Ah, does a lack of friendship make it acceptable to break a bargain? To go back on a deal arranged and agreed to?”

  “What are you getting at, dragon? Fulfill your sworn words! Tell me of the last two Jewels! Where are they, and who possesses them?”

  “First, I would understand Kindred honor,” the dragon said. “Just consider it a courtesy on your part to explain it to me. I’m giving so much—surely you would do this one thing for me in return?”

  Harrdin stood tall and straightened his cloak. At his belt hung the traditional battle axe of his folk. Trev eyed him and sensed he was still prideful, despite his trespasses against his own code of honor.

  “I told the manling I would bring it to a dragon who would tell us of the Jewels. That is happening even now. I’ve broken no deals with it, as I did not guarantee its safety, nor pledge to protect it.”

  “Manling…It…” echoed the dragon. “Very curious wording.”

  “Why?”

  “Because twisted words such as these are the marks of the eighth stone, which I will now tell you of: The White. It is a shard of the original whole Sunstone, you see. Among all the Jewels, it is the most pure. Unlike the rest, it is a blend of all. It shines with all colors, and none at all. The White has the unique power to bend the mind of any living creature. Clearly it has bent yours, Harrdin of the Warriors.”

  “I deny your accusation. But tell me where the White is now.”

  “In the Deepwood. Standing upon a mound, hanging from the neck of its mistress. For it disguises itself as a clasp on a shimmering robe.”

  Harrdin frowned. “Why does she stand upon a mound?”

  The dragon laughed. The sound was like that of a boulder rolling down a mountainside. “Now you ask too much, for I know not. Maybe she awaits Twilight, so she may walk around the mound and travel someplace, or somewhen, else.”

  Harrdin seemed upset by this answer. “She was to meet me in the Deepwood. She wasn’t to go anywhere.”

  “Perhaps she’s meeting another star-struck mooncalf like yourself. She has many suitors, you know.”

  Harrdin lifted his battle axe and shook it. “You’d best keep a civil tongue!”

  The dragon laughed again. “She shows vanity there! Let me guess: No one can offer her insult? You’ve been commanded to defend her honor as well as do her bidding? She takes things too far. Arrogance and pride proceed every fall. It’s a trait we dragon’s know all
too well.”

  Harrdin sputtered. Trev had listened at the feet of the other two for as long as he could stand it. Now, he spoke up at long last.

  “Please great Lady, could you tell me of the last Jewel. What of the Quicksilver? Where does it lie, and who is its master?”

  “Hmm,” said the dragon, turning its head to look at Trev again. “A delicate question. But I’ve made no bargain with you, elf. I will not answer at your whim.”

  Trev opened his mouth to ask another question, but an explosion of light bloomed in his head. Harrdin had brought the haft of his battle axe down upon this crown.

  Trev slumped and felt blood trickle into his mouth. He retained consciousness, but only barely.

  “Talk to me then, as we agreed,” Harrdin demanded of the dragon.

  “Very well, puppet,” the dragon said. “But first, I’m afraid I must cut your strings.”

  Without further warning, the dragon’s huge claw plunged down and stepped on Harrdin. Raging and gasping, he was driven onto his back. The dragon leaned forward, dipping its great head. It stared into the Kindred’s face, and Trev thought to himself that the heat of that face and the weight of that foot must be unbearable.

  Harrdin’s axe flashed upward toward the long, sinuous neck. The blow was a mighty one, but it sparked against the blue scales and bounced off. Numb fingers lost their grip upon the weapon. It fell with a clatter into the bed of ash and stones that littered the lair.

  “You seek to slay me?” asked the dragon in mock surprise. “Don’t you wish to know where the last Jewel lies?”

  “Speak then, honorless Beast!”

  “Honorless? Where does this insult come from? We agreed you would bring me the half-breed, and that I would tell you of the Jewels in turn. No one said anything about leaving.”

  “You clearly plan to devour me,” said Harrdin, breaking off into a coughing fit, “the moment you tell me your last secret.”

  “That’s true,” admitted the dragon. “But I was under the impression that would fit with your code of honor rather nicely.”

  “You twist my words and will be known to all as an oath-breaker!”

  “I’m no Fae,” said the dragon. “Being shunned among social circles is not unusual for my kind. Now, would you hear of the last Jewel or not? I’m sure your mistress would be more pleased if you succeeded in completing her quest.”