Heir To The Nova (Book 3)

by T. Michael Ford

  With both of the heads that controlled the creature’s mobility out of commission, the monster’s legs just collapsed under it. Thankfully, it didn’t roll on me, and I watched curiously as the great dragon head bent her long neck around to bring her face just inches from mine.

  “Why?” I asked shakily. Even sealed up in my armor, my mage sight showed me that rows of blood-stained teeth were perilously close.

  “Why, he asks? Because I want something from you, that’s why,” she hissed painfully. “I will die soon without the other two morons, but not before I get what I need…and don’t even consider trying to lie to me. That armor of yours may be resistant to my acid, but I bet if I dump enough of it on your helmet, at least some of it will find its way through to the fleshy bits.”

  I considered her words, and she had a point. Even my armor wasn’t sealed completely, otherwise I couldn’t breathe. I nodded in agreement. I was also relieved to see that a still living, very wobbly pixie had flown back and perched exhaustedly on a display table nearby listening to our conversation. The dragon huffed a bit, still agitated, as if still deciding what to say.

  “Now, be honest with me. You killed my daughters, didn’t you? I wish to know the details of their fates.”

  “We haven’t killed any dragons,” I said simply.

  Her anger flared up. “Lies! I can smell them on you! You killed them only a few days ago; I can smell it!” She thrashed her head from side to side in agitation.

  I shook my head. “You are the first red dragon that I have ever met. The only other two dragons I know are the twins, but they are silver dragons.”

  The fire left her eyes and she calmed down a little. “I see, at least that part worked out. So explain to me, why did you kill them?”

  I shook my head again, frustrated. “I’m telling you, I didn’t kill them.”

  “You are a knight; is that not what knights do? Is killing dragons not part of your faith and honor?”

  “No, I am not a knight; in fact, most people assume I am a paladin.”

  “Fools, then. You do not talk much and have been respectful; paladins never shut up. They are always prattling on about their battles and conquests, about how holy they are, and how many virgins they have saved; the sanctimonious twits! That’s what makes them so easy to kill; one simply has to wait until they run out of breath and then move in for the bloodletting.” She grinned in fond remembrance, and I was reminded that this was not anywhere near a good creature in front of me.

  Interrupting her reverie, I said, “But as I said, I did not kill them. In fact, Dawn and Dusk are our friends and even live with us.”

  She calmed down more and sighed, “Yes, those were to be their names…” At this point, Nia flew closer and perched on my chest. Not at all intimidated by looking up into the great maw, she had a question, “If I may ask, if you are a red dragon, why are your daughters silver dragons?”

  Her huge eyes focused on the pixie in battle armor. “You may ask, but first I must apologize to you, young pixie. I wanted nothing to do with what happened to your people. Your kind has been respectful to me.” Nia nodded sadly as the dragon continued, “Something most scholars do not know is that a female dragon can influence the hatch based on the temperature of the chamber the eggs mature in. In other words, a red dragon needs a very warm incubation chamber.”

  “Then you chose to have silver dragons? Why?”

  “In the hope that they would have a better life than I. Long ago, I lived in solitude, and unlike most of my red sisters, I cared for my eggs with all my heart. Most red dragons leave their children to fend for themselves, but I couldn’t bring myself to do that for some reason. I was happy there for many years, until the Duke came. Normally, a red dragon would have no trouble with a necromancer, me included. But he had something with him from the old wars–a piece of magic to control a dragon. He demanded my service and, normally, I wouldn’t really have had a problem with what he asked of me. Kidnap this princess, burn that town; things like that I do anyway. But I could sense it was my eggs that he truly desired. I knew they would not be safe. It took everything I had to break his will for as long as I did, but it needed to be done.”

  “I stole away from him and took my eggs to a cave, a very cold cave, in fact. There, I buried them in sand and hoped that it would be enough to force the change in them to make them silver dragons. In retaliation for my defiance, the Duke turned me into this abomination.”

  “I did this out of love. That same magic that controlled me cannot be used to control a silver dragon. And, furthermore, I knew that if they somehow made it to adulthood, they would have nothing to fear in this world. I hate to admit this, but adult silvers are even stronger than red dragons. And perhaps one day, they would fight against the Lifebane and bring him down. I am a fool for wishing that, I know; but I can still hope they might have a full life.”

  “I promise you that they are safe and are having a good life, and they have already struck many blows against the Duke’s forces.”

  She eyed me suspiciously. “Why are you helping them? Human-, elf-, and dwarf-kind are not normally friends of dragons, even good ones. Furthermore, who are you?”

  “My name is Alex Martin. I am an enchanter as well as the ruler of Sky Raven Fortress.”

  Her big eyes widened even more. “So you are the Child of Light, then? I can see why the Dark Lord wants you dead so badly and why he is looking for the key. And don’t look so surprised; we dragons know about the key and what it does. We, too, are not happy about what the Duke is planning. Even though we are evil by nature, this is a battle that we want the light to win. So I will help you–with some conditions. First of all, you must promise to take care of my children for me, for I won’t survive even standing at this point.”

  “You have my word.”

  “Good.” I could already hear her voice getting weaker. “Second, you will pass on to them my love, even if I am a red dragon.” I nodded again. “And, finally, you will kill the Lifebane for what he has done to me, my kind and all the other creatures of magic.” Her tail came around and griped the rock that pinned my leg, shifting it just enough to free my leg. I quickly freed myself as the rock collapsed back into place. “The key part is in a vase on the far wall. I found it, but hid the fact from these fools in hopes that they would simply give up. All things considered, I like this ending better.” Her voice was even quieter. Her head was resting on the ground now. “One last word of advice–the others of my kind will simply kill you on sight. Not all are as kind-hearted as I am. Goodbye, my young King, I hope you choose the right path in your choice to come…” Her eyes closed, and she was deathly silent.

  Nia was crying on my shoulder. “I don’t know why I am crying. She was there for the murder of my people, but she loved her children. And she was the twins’ mother. Alex, what are we going to tell them? We basically killed their mother.” She started hyperventilating and waved her hands in front of her face to cool herself.

  “We tell them the truth, that she has been released from the curse placed on her by the Duke; and we tell them she loved them,” I said sadly.

  Nia’s breathing slowed and she thought about what I said before nodding, “I guess that’s the only thing we can do, isn’t it?”

  “There is one more thing we can do for her,” I said, examining the creature with my mage sight. “It looks like when the chimera died, so did its immunity to magic. She deserves to rest in peace instead of being chopped up by the dwarves and her bones sold to the apothecaries. That, at least, we can do for Dawn and Dusk’s mother.”

  Nia nodded, knowing what I was asking her to do. She was still desperately tired, but the short rest had allowed her to recover a little magic. This time, the fireball worked; and it almost seemed like the body was highly flammable, as flesh and bone started to flare up and char with unnatural speed. We stood there respectfully as we watched the fire burn with hardly any smoke, leaving only wisps of ash. In a few minutes, the entire carcass
was just gone.

  While we had been watching the fire burn, my ears had registered booming sounds coming from the direction of the vault door. Finally it stopped, and Darroth stuck his head around the corner and looked around, not seeing the beast. Noticing that we were just dejectedly sitting there, he ventured up to us. A few seconds later, a whole bunch of annoyed, black-clad dwarves swarmed into the room, led by Elsa.

  “What the hell is wrong with you? Why would you decide to come in here and fight that monster alone? We got up there and all the murder holes were strangely glassed over, like the rock just melted. You have a death wish or something?” I simply shrugged because she probably wouldn’t like my response anyway. Huffing, she wheeled on Darroth and pinned him with an angry look. “And you! You let them go in there alone!”

  “It’s not like I would have been able to stop him! Hell, I wouldn’t have even been able to stop the pixie!” Darroth groused, spreading his hands helplessly.

  Elsa shot him a look of exasperation but calmed down, and her face actually looked concerned as she addressed Nia and me, “Ok, so what’s wrong? The critter is dead, neither of you look really hurt, it’s payday time! Why do you both look so sad?”

  “The dragon head of the monster,” Nia sniffled, tears in her eyes, “was the mother of our friends, and she sacrificed herself to save us. Now we have to go back and tell Dawn and Dusk that we killed their mom.”

  Elsa looked genuinely sorry for us, and she reached out and put a hand on my shoulder. “Having to give the bad news to the families is the one thing I hate about this job…well, that and kalo root…wait! You’re friends with a dragon?”

  “Two, in fact,” interjected Darroth. “Twins, actually; sweet girls. We all love them to death, but you don’t want to get on their bad side.”

  She stared at Darroth with a blank face before shaking it off. “You’re friends with two dragons and you didn’t tell me? Wait just a second…ok, you didn’t tell me about Sky Raven and you didn’t tell me about the dragons…what else aren’t you telling me?” Darroth retreated to the last bastion of men everywhere and just gave her a wide-eyed shrug. She was actually pulling on her hair.” Ugh, I hate you so much! Fine then, we will talk about this later.” She turned back to her men. “Alright, Alex here took care of the beast, so now it’s our job to find the crown. It’s somewhere in this mess, so get to it!”

  The twenty or so dwarves broke up into teams of two and began rummaging through the rubble. A half hour or so later a team raised a shout that they had found it, or rather what was left of it. One of the black-clad younger dwarves walked solemnly up to Elsa with it in his hands, and she stared at it in abject horror. It looked as if a bull had sat on it; it was thoroughly squished. But to my eye, the bright side was that all the gems and pretty filigree was still there.

  Elsa took the crown from the man who scooted off quickly; glad to be relieved of the burden. She held it up to the light and turned it back and forth, but it still looked horrible from all angles. “What are we going to do now?” she whispered in a near panic. “I can’t give this to my brother. He’ll blame us all for the damage, and we don’t even have the body of the beast to show him as proof of how huge it was! It will take years to make a new crown.”

  Darroth cleared his throat. “Allow me,” he said as he held out his hands. Hesitantly, she handed him the crown, and he started looking it over. “Uh huh, yep, looks like everything is in order.”

  “In order? Darroth, can’t you see it’s utterly ruined?” cried Elsa.

  He handed the crown over to me and winked. “You must have seen this one coming.”

  “Actually, I was thinking I might have to make a new one rather than just fixing it. But this should do even better.”

  By this time, the rest of the dwarves wandered out of the vault and back to the docks area, leaving just the four of us still within the chamber. Elsa looked at Darroth rather puzzled. “I thought he was your apprentice.”

  “He is, but he is also the second best smith in this world, second only to his father. Now watch this; if this doesn’t drive you to drink, then nothing will.”

  She watched in rapt silence as I floated the crown in the air and started to mold it back in place. I had no idea what the crown originally looked like but, thankfully, there was a painting on the wall of one of the earlier Kings wearing the crown so I was able to copy that. Within a minute, the gems were back in place, the metal framework straightened, and the gold shined up again. I returned the crown to Elsa. She stood there shaking, speechlessly turning it over in her hands and examining every inch in disbelief.

  Satisfied, Nia and I left the two of them alone. I walked over to the wall of the chamber where the dragon had indicated she had spotted the key. Sure enough, there was an ugly glass vase on a wall shelf that was still intact. I reached in and pulled out a heavy chunk of stone that reminded me of the material built into the walls of Sky Raven. It was shaped into a rough triangle; two of the sides were jagged and looked like they fit together with something else. This had to be the artifact. I felt an affirmative pulse from Rosa across our link. Opening my side pouch, I fit it easily into Rosa’s bag of dimensions, which I still carried, and folded it back up, putting it away for safe keeping.

  Darroth and Elsa were still talking animatedly and admiring the crown, more like good-natured bickering; and they didn’t look like they were going to stop anytime soon. Thankfully, outside, a couple of her men offered to boat us back to the landing closest to the inn and guide us there. It was a long, silent trip as Nia nodded off to sleep in her niche, and I became lost in my own thoughts. Once we arrived, we checked on Somnus and the jennies, ate some hardtack from our saddlebags, and found Logen to rent us a clean room for a few hours of sleep.

  Eventually Nia poked me on the nose and said, “We should go, Mr. Alex; I can hear Darroth and Elsa talking in the taproom down below.”

  As usual, the two dwarves were cozened up at a table, hip-to-hip, sipping ale. I had no real problem with that, but seeing them together made my chest ache and an image of silver curls appear in my mind. As we came down, Elsa motioned for us to sit. She was about to order a round of ale, but I waved her off.

  “No, thank you, Elsa; I think we need to get back.”

  “Still pining over that skinny little dusky elf, are ya?” She grinned and shoved a large bag of something that clinked heavily across the table toward me. “Here, maybe this will make you feel a bit better.”

  “I don’t want your money, Elsa; I got what I came here for,” I protested.

  “Yeah, I know the sad tale,” she said, waving off my words. “But I’m a businesswoman, and I like to think I’m a fair one. You and Nia did all the work, plus you saved all our hind ends by fixing the crown. I charged my brother, now the King, a truly obscene amount of gold for this operation and he paid, grumbling all the while. It was worth it tenfold to me just to see the look on his face when I presented him the bill,” she cackled, slamming a fist on the table and kicking back a gulp of ale. “By the way, my conscience also made me fess up to my brother who you are and your role in all this, Alex. Hidebound as the King is, he isn’t a bad person; and I think our people are in good hands with him. Anyway, he’s busy with the coronation and all the backlog of King stuff right now, and I told him you were in a hurry to leave. He asked me to convey his thanks and tell you that you are welcome to visit as his royal guest anytime.”

  I thought about it for a minute and shoved the bag over to Darroth. “Fine, I’ll take it. Darroth, I’m sure the forge at Sky Raven could use some restocking. How about you take the money and buy whatever tools and metal stock you think the donkey cart will hold.”

  Darroth hefted the bag and whistled. “I know just the place. It’s down the street and they keep a supply of excellent deep delver steel in the back room for special customers. I think this bag will qualify us for special customer status.”

  It was several more hours before we received word that we were given fin
al permission to leave. Apparently, the wheels of bureaucracy are just as slow in the dwarf realms as the human. Finally, I mounted up on Somnus and waited for Logen and Darroth to get the two reluctant donkeys back into their traces. The cart was loaded to the top with steel and supplies; and I mentally cringed, thinking about what Lin and Jules would have to say on behalf of the poor donkeys.

  Picking up my thoughts, Nia grinned and spoke up, “Oh yeah, they aren’t very happy, Mr. Alex; but at least they’re blaming Elsa instead of Darroth this time.”

  “Why would they blame Elsa?” I asked, and then watched Nia point out the personal gear that the Princess was loading into the already sagging cart.

  “Um, Elsa, what are you doing?”

  She grinned up at me as she lashed a substantial keg of a sloshing liquid to the side of the wagon. “Why, I’m coming with you, of course.”

  “Huh?”

  “With all the money we made on that last job, I gave the men a few months off with full pay; just enough time for me to investigate some new job opportunities for us. Stories say that this fortress of yours was built to guard the trade road. Now if that’s true, then I foresee a lot of money to be made reopening that road and the seaport that it leads to. Hell, I could make a fortune just opening the road between those vampire-guarded farms you mentioned and the capital. People are damn sick of kalo root!”

  “There’s a seaport?”

  “Yep, we dwarves built it long ago. The port itself is actually situated in an underground cave, making it excellent for protecting ships from the harsh seas. But with the trade road gone, the post had nothing to trade, so it was soon abandoned. I plan to change that.

  “I’m sure something can be worked out, but first we have a necromancer to kill.”