Forged in Fire

by J. A. Pitts

  Jean-Paul had been a member of the ruling caste, like his momma, but he played with a second, more sinister team. He was mixed up in a different political faction: one where the dragons called for an open rule, putting the humans in their place, letting us know in no uncertain terms that we were prey.

  Jean-Paul was scum. I’d killed him (twice), but Nidhogg did not begrudge me the acts. Dragons live a brutal life. Apparently they kill each other more often than they want to admit. She told me on my last visit how Frederick Sawyer had come to rule the Portland area. Nasty business, that. Intrigue, assassination, and political favors being traded.

  Sounded very Machiavellian.

  Zi Xiu directed me to the great doors that lead to Nidhogg’s inner sanctum—a vault of a room with a tiled floor covered strategically in rugs of assorted sizes and styles, probably from all over the world. The large fireplace set in the west wall had a fire burning merrily in its humongous depths, and the french doors to the veranda were shut tight, with the heavy curtains drawn against the cold.

  Jai Li, the small cross-stitch girl, sat at Nidhogg’s side again during this visit. She was a cute one, six or seven, and didn’t speak. Zi Xiu had explained that the girl did not have a tongue. Total freak show around here, let me tell you. She smiled at me, this little waif child, and bent her head back to her cross-stitch. I could not tell what vision she saw as she slid the needle through the delicate white cloth, but she did not seem to need a pattern.

  Nidhogg nodded by the fire, her cane propped against the wall to her right and a quilt thrown over her lap. Her gray hair lay fine against her mottled skull and her face seemed a little misshapen, like a candle too long near the fire.

  Jean-Paul had been a small but stout man until he shifted to his full dragon form. That had been sleek and beautiful; eighty feet from tip to tail, with a wingspan to match. He was a sculpted killing machine—powerful and elegant.

  How would Nidhogg appear when she shifted?

  I bowed when I got within the proper distance (as Zi Xiu had taught me) and waited. One did not wake Nidhogg. One waited for her to rouse herself and notice one’s presence.

  That lasted about thirty-eight seconds. I’d been on the bike, in the cold rain, and my jeans were a little too tight for this kneeling on the floor shtick. I held that position, trying to clear my head, but I just couldn’t do it.

  I coughed. The echo fell away, absorbed by the wall hangings and the crackling fire. Twice more I coughed. She did not move.

  Finally, I’d had about as much of this as I could stand. I quietly slid over on my knees until I was near enough to the fireplace; then I swung my leg out and kicked over the cane with its thickly carved metal cap.

  It slid sideways before it hit the floor, and everyone in the room froze, staring at me. It was a millisecond, maybe less, but when the cane clattered to the tile in front of the hearth, it sounded like the Seventh Cavalry coming over the horizon.

  Jai Li looked green around the gills, and the boy near the veranda doors covered his head with his arms.

  Nidhogg took a long, shuddering breath, raised her head, and opened her eyes.

  “I smelled you, you know,” she said, her voice like a silken ribbon.

  I blinked rapidly.

  “You have no patience, no understanding of your place.”

  “Yes, well…”

  She continued with a wave of her hand. “You are quite unlike any who have served me in many a year.” She chuckled dryly, covering her mouth with one gnarled hand. “The rest are so afraid; they cringe if I as much as break wind.”

  I barked out a laugh. Juvenile, I know, but the image of Nidhogg ripping one in front of this crowd was damn funny.

  She smiled at me and clapped her hands. Two young women appeared from behind a long curtain to my left. One strode quickly to retrieve the fallen cane, the other offered her arm to Nidhogg, who took it and stood.

  Once her cane was grasped firmly in her left hand, she waved at me to rise, then reached out to hold my arm as she strode across the great hall.

  As I looked back, the servants had a look of awe and horror on their faces. Way to rock their world, Sarah. I tried really hard not to grin.

  “You remind me of another I knew in the long dust of time,” she said as we exited the great hall and turned down the long corridor to the right. “There was this boy who teased me when I was very young.” She glanced up at me at a noise I made and smiled. “I was young once, even in this broken world.”

  We reached a large wooden door and a footman peeled himself away from his post where the hallways crossed and opened the door.

  Inside was the largest library I’ve ever seen in my life. It was larger than the great hall where Nidhogg spent most of her days.

  “Wow,” I said quietly. I couldn’t help but crane my neck around as we crossed the threshold. The bookshelves rose in three great stacks, tiered upward, wrapping the room in paper and leather.

  You could fit the entirety of the Seattle Public Library and the Bellevue Public Library inside this room and still squeeze out room for the Seattle Storm to play an exhibition game.

  “You approve?” she asked me.

  I looked down. She obviously wanted to go farther into the room but had stopped when I found myself frozen in wonder.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, stepping toward a row of couches near the far side of the room. They were set to allow ample angle for conversation and still face the great fireplace at the end of the room.

  The fire there was already burning. How much wood did this place go through? That was no gas fireplace.

  She sat us on either side of a small table and clapped her hands again, calling out, “Tea.”

  Soon, several young women were placing a tea setting and plates of cookies and pastries on the table in front of us. They poured for each of us, then faded back into the shadows.

  Nidhogg picked up her teacup and sipped the steaming liquid. I took up my cup and blew on it, afraid for the heat.

  “You have news for me,” she said, matter-of-factly. “You have solved the problem plaguing my thralls near Wallace Falls?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I replied, feeling like I was speaking with my mother about homework. “It was a troll.”

  “Troll?” she asked. “Here?”

  I nodded. “She had fled the battle where Jean-Paul…” I froze. Last thing I wanted to do was piss her off by reminding her I’d killed one of her kids.

  “He was a toad,” she said, setting her cup gently back on the saucer on her lap. “So, this troll was marauding through my lands, injuring my thralls, impacting my commerce?”

  “Um, sure.”

  “And you dispatched this creature?”

  A lump rose in my throat as I thought back to the troll falling to her knees, whispering the word “mercy” while her lifeblood flowed into the snow. “Yes,” I agreed.

  “That is settled then.” She reached over and took a fruit cookie from a tiny plate near her. “What are you doing about rescuing my Qindra?”

  I took a deep breath. “She remains in Chumstick, holding a barrier over the breach of the ley line that runs through the area. Nothing has changed.”

  She studied me over her teacup, her ancient gray eyes peering into me. I kept my gaze level, even. She’d know if I lied, could read the intent in my words. I had no fear of her, but I respected her.

  “She is strong,” she said finally. “You will bring her back to me soon. I have dreamed this.”

  Dreams scared the hell out of me lately. They were portents, visions of things to come or things that had been. Not all dreams, but when they crossed that line into premonition, it was like trying to hold on to a two-twenty line with lightning shooting out of your toes.

  For the next hour, Nidhogg told me of her youth. Of the godling, Loki, who tormented her, teased her with his antics and brazen arrogance.

  “One night, as snow fell through the branches of Yggdrasil, he came to me, whispered into my dreams
that the gods were jealous of my beautiful scales. How Freya wanted to have a mirror made of my great eyes and how Thor sought to make a suit of armor from my hide.

  “For three nights he came to me, each time dripping his poison into my ears. Each morning, when I would wake, Ratatöskr the squirrel would scamper down to bid me warning from the great hawk, Veðrfölnir, who sat upon the great eagle at the top of the World Tree.

  “‘Loki poisons you against the gods,’ Ratatöskr said to me each morning. ‘Veðrfölnir sees him with his keen vision, fleeing your nest among the roots. I have heard the trickster myself,’ he told me.

  “But I was young and vain. I feared the gods, and Loki the first among them. They were spiteful and mean creatures, bent on self-aggrandizing and debauchery.”

  She looked at me, as if I was going to contest her account. “Sounds creepy,” I offered.

  A smile touched her creased face and she nodded. “Yes, creepy, as you say, does cover it most vividly. Alas, I hatched my plans from there, cast my words out through the World Tree to my offspring. We waited until Loki tricked the mighty Thor to lay aside his hammer, Mjelinor, and we struck at them, singly and en masse at the end. Freya fell first, under my claws. The rest I left to my brood. I had grown jealous of Freya’s beauty and fearful that she sought to steal my own for her vanity.”

  As the tale wove on, we finished two pots of tea and most of the cakes.

  “I have not spoken of such in a very long time,” she said with a sigh. “It feels good to unburden myself of these memories that haunt my nightmares.”

  “Perhaps,” I offered, feeling daring and brave beyond my measure, “just a thought, but perhaps you regret the way of things?”

  She cocked her head at me, stroking the side of her face as she watched me. “Regret?” she finally croaked. “And more. The wheel no longer turns, the axle is askew. That is what the mad wanderer tells me in my dreams.”

  I caught my breath. Even Nidhogg was plagued by dreams from Odin. “Is there any chance to fix things?” I asked.

  She shook her head, sadly. “It is too late,” she said. “Too much blood, too many sacrifices. We live in a world of our making, and we will rule it with justice and right.”

  It was like talking to that old man in the Indiana Jones movie, the one who protected the Holy Grail for centuries. There was no other path, no other options. This is what I was meant to do and what we always did.

  It was sad and pathetic.

  The world was a mess. How could we not fix it? Was there no hope?

  “I thank you for the story,” I said, standing. “But I need to return home.”

  She nodded and waved a hand again. “I will see you out.”

  The servants who were coming forward to escort me out froze, confused. This just was not done.

  We exited the great library and walked back toward the front of the house.

  As we neared the front doors, Nidhogg paused by a side corridor. It was smaller than the rest and ended in a plain, white door. Small items lay along the floor in front of the door—trinkets and toys, hand-drawn pictures and needlework.

  “The children,” she said, waving back toward the house. “They come here, try to sneak into her room.” She looked at me, sadness in her ancient eyes. “Qindra’s suite.”

  I nodded, understanding.

  “They love her, the wee ones. The older ones, too, I guess,” she said with a shrug. “But this is a room fraught with dangers and magic. They will injure themselves, interfere in things they cannot begin to understand.”

  I’d seen Qindra in action. I could easily believe her room would be filled with things that went boom, in the magical sense.

  “I understand,” I said, grinding my teeth. “Rescue Qindra faster.”

  Nidhogg chuckled and shook her head. “You will find the way, I have told you. It is foretold. I have no worries now that I have seen your true self, young blacksmith. If anyone alive can bring her home to me, it is you. But that is not what I mean.”

  She walked down the short hall and, using her cane, pushed a cross-stitch that lay propped against the door. I knelt and picked it up. It was a beautiful portrait of Qindra.

  “Jai Li misses her the most, I fear,” Nidhogg said, her voice husky. “Since…” She did not finish her thought.

  Jai Li, the mute girl who sat at Nidhogg’s side, working her needle and thread from morning to night. She’d captured Qindra perfectly.

  “I want you to build me a gate,” she said, finally. “Something befitting my home that will keep the children from this hall. Protect them from hurting themselves.”

  I stepped back, gauged the hallway, noting the thick wooden beams across the ceiling and the tiled floor. “And a lock, I presume?”

  “Yes,” Nidhogg said, smiling. “With two keys. One for me to wear near my heart, to keep her safe. The other for you to keep, to remind you of your obligation.”

  “A gate. Sure. I can do that.”

  Nidhogg patted me on the arm. “Go home to your lover, young one. She misses you.”

  I watched her turn and walk away. Emotions warred in me, fear, sadness, and frustration. I hated that she knew about Katie, likely from Qindra. Made me feel vulnerable. But on the other hand, she feared for the children. That spoke of some level of compassion.

  What a complicated creature, this dragon. Nothing like her spoiled, broken child, Jean Paul, had been. And what of Frederick Sawyer? His public persona was one of philanthropy and benevolence. But I knew he was a dragon, through and through. How horrible could he get? I didn’t think I wanted to find out.

  I took my gear from a nearby servant and pushed back into the tepid light of early afternoon. I had to tell Katie everything.

  Six

  I swung by Monkey Shines—my favoritest coffee shop, ever—before heading back to Kent. I wanted to organize some of my thoughts about the gate Nidhogg asked for and do a little research on the intertubes before Katie got home. Mondays were her long day, so it was all good.

  It made me sorta sad, driving by the ruins of the smithy where I used to work with Julie, my blacksmith master. I loved that place. But the damn dragon, Jean-Paul, burned it down along with Julie’s home. I felt it was a victory to come back here, thumb my nose at the ruins that couldn’t be recovered until the dragon taint had been leached from the land. Two years, we figured, as the fireweed grew wild. Then the elves assured us we could reclaim the land. Until then, it remained a condemned property that reminded me of what we all had lost.

  If it wasn’t for Monkey Shines, I may have given up hope. I was welcomed in that eclectic coffee shop, a native—family. It made me happy to walk through the doors.

  The hot, inked, and pierced barista, Camille, was working, which meant I’d get a cool design in the foam of my coffee. Katie and I both joked that Camille was too much for either of us to handle but that she’d make someone deliriously happy someday. I thought it was the tattoos and wild, technicolor hair she favored, but Katie assured me it was the miniskirts and boots. I could see the appeal.

  Camille had been working at Monkey Shines since long before the dragon came, and I’d seen her nearly every day that I worked for Julie.

  She winked at me when I walked in. The kids in front of me were eastside punks, momma’s boys and trust-fund babies by the look of ’em. They wouldn’t tip her. Their kind never did. I always made sure to drop a buck or two in the tip jar. Good karma.

  “Usual?” Camille asked, when the angst-ridden children shuffled to the exit with their six-buck coffees.

  “Yeah, you got any crullers?”

  She smiled and took the last two out of the case, putting them on a little plate before taking my twenty.

  “What’s new in your world?” she asked, handing me back my change.

  I dropped the loose coins and a single into the tip jar while she went over to make my mocha. Gail was working the drive-thru, but the place had hit a lull. Not time for the after-work crowd yet.

  I
rambled on about the goings-on in the blacksmithing world. She asked about Katie, and we generally exchanged small talk. It was our relationship. She was my dealer. I came to her for caffeine and sugar, and in exchange I let her into parts of my world. It was comfortable.

  I grabbed my liquid addiction and went to the back, parked my ass in a great overstuffed chair, and put my feet up on the table. I’d give the coffee a little bit to work its way into my bloodstream before I pulled out the laptop. I took the first sip, let the chocolate and strong coffee roll across my tongue, and gave a wavering sigh. It was nearly as good as sex.

  Once I felt the buzz kick in, I pulled out my laptop and began making notes. This had to be the best damn gate ever built.

  After an hour, I got up to go pee. Camille was out wiping down tables and offered to keep an eye on my gear. When I got back I decided to do a little research along another line.

  When I first met Frederick Sawyer, the dragon from Portland, I’d sat in this very seat and researched him. He was more of a puzzle than Nidhogg. While she sat in her house like a giant spider, pulling her stings, capturing her flies, Frederick was out among the people.

  At any time I could find pictures of him at some social soiree or fund-raiser. He’d just recently been given an award for his work with homeless kids.

  What was creepy, I knew he’d killed a ton of people—eaten some of them by his own admission. The three dragons I’d met were so different I had no clear idea how to correlate a search. I knew other dragons existed. I just needed to find out where.

  I knew from the dwarves that there were dragons in Memphis and Dublin. Maybe I’d start there. How hard could it be to find someone with a lot of power and money?

  I flagged Camille down for another mug of coffee. I felt another project emerging.

  Seven

  Frederick Sawyer breathed deeply, inhaling the intoxicating scent of the young woman who glided at his side. She was elegant, turning the heads of many of the gentlemen and a few of the bolder women. The opera crowd had a pecking order, and this young thing upset the balance of power among the matrons and crones.