by Morgan Blade
I extended a hand and touched the trunk of one of the trees. I let my golden dragon magic surface in my palm, kissing the bark. I imagined the tree aging six months, the flowers blowing away, the fruit growing in. And I felt my magic draining into the tree.
I opened my eyes and looked into the higher branches. They’d shed their petals like white snow. Some of it fluttered about on vagrant wings. Moonlight silvered the leaves. The light of fireflies and a passing green Will-o’-the-Wisp gave me enough light to see several apples hanging there, offering themselves to me. Three of them were just in reach.
I lifted my hand to claim them.
“No, stop! Those are mine. Everything here is mine!”
Oh, hell! This is getting old.
The Pretender pushed past me and snatched two of the apples, backing away from me warily, as if I was going to fight him for them.
My inner dragon glared at me. You’re being awful generous with our food.
Hurriedly, the Pretender crammed an apple in his mouth and bit in. Chewing furiously, juice dribbled off his double chins.
I smiled as I answered myself. “I was needing someone to test for poison. This place has been trying to kill me, remember?”
The Pretender froze, choking, eyes bulging. He spat out the fruit, staggered back a step, and fell dead—again.
“Even fools have their uses.”
FIVE
“There’s brutal honesty
in a bullet meant to kill.”
—Caine Deathwalker
I crossed several islands, sometimes going laterally to test the gravity of adjoining islets. By trial and error, I worked toward the center isle of the subterranean archipelago. Along the way, there were lulls, but something or other kept popping up to try and bite my head off. No longer messing around, I shifted to explosive-tipped ammo that shredded fey flesh.
Once, a winged python came up out of a burrow. I caught it in my clawed feet and ripped it apart. I built a small fire surrounded by stones and used branches to dangle chunks of the snake meat to roast over the flames.
Some of the Will-o’-the-wisps swooped in to watch me. One gleamed pink with a paler, icier core. Another ball of light was sea foam green. A third pulsed a gentle, royal blue.
You’re really going to eat that? Pink asked.
“Sure. An army of one travels better when fed.”
It could be poisonous. Snakes often are. Blue said.
“That doesn’t mean it’s not nourishing,” I said. “But big snakes like this tend to just crush rather than poison.”
I wasn’t really worried. I didn’t want to be sickened and weakened, but I’d had a run-in with some naga serpent people who’d imprisoned me in a harem. I’d been severely poisoned, sick as death warmed over. I not only recovered from their toxins, but developed a high resistance to poisons.
My inner dragon joined the conversation: We fucked them into submission in the end, triumphing gloriously.
I stared at the wisps. “You guys are supposed to distract me, right?”
Green wobbled in the air. W-what do you mean?
“I’ve noticed you guys are friendly with the Pretender I keep killing. I figure he’s had enough time to come back alive again and find my trail.”
Pink pulsed a little faster. You wound us. Like we’d take sides!
I drew a PX4 Storm and aimed into a large bush. “So that’s not him in there, waiting for a chance to catch me unaware?”
Which bush? Pink asked.
I shot twice into the bush. “That one.”
There was a shriek of pain and a burst of rustling from the leaves. The Pretender fell out into the open. He landed on his knees, grasping a bloody arm. “Damn it, will you stop killing me?”
I smiled. “It’s who I am, what I do. If you don’t like it, stop sneaking up on me. Hey, you got a name or should I just call you Piss Ant?”
“It’s Reginald Ó Foghladh. I am the unacknowledged heir of the often-drunken Lord of the Osprey Cliffs.”
My inner dragon said: His mom’s probably a chambermaid that got knocked up. I think the Osprey Cliffs area is a small keep on the edge of the Summer Court’s domain.
“Your people are shape-shifters right. They become sea hawks, and are known to pirate other fey ships at sea,” I said.
“Everyone’s got the right to make a living.” He made a pained expression, feeling his shoulder, peering at the bloody wound. “What did you hit me with? My healing is dragging out.”
I didn’t answer the question. He didn’t need to know that my current rounds had fulminated mercury—magically stabilized—until shot out of the casing. The crystal tips were also magically enhanced for more kick. I used these when I’m no longer kidding around.
The three wisps drifted over to him. Green asked, Are you all right?
“Do I look all right. He shot me!”
Does it hurt? Pink asked.
I answered for him. “Like a virgin at a gangbang. Getting shot is supposed to hurt.”
I shifted my gun muzzle so it centered on his face. “So, Foggy, tell me why I shouldn’t kill you again? This is becoming boring.”
His eyes flared wide. “You think it’s boring? Try being an immortal sometime who’s lived long enough to have done it all, and then some! And I can’t shape-shift. My mother was taken off an enemy ship. If I could at least shift my father would have accepted me as his own.”
“Whiny bitch.” I shot him between the eyes. The back of his head blew out violently. He was going to have a hell of a headache when he woke up. “You can’t call yourself an immortal if you haven’t made it to the end of time yet.”
You killed him! Pink said.
Dead! Blue added.
“Why is everyone always surprised?” I wondered. “Bullets are made to be used.”
Green said; He’s going to be mad when he wakes up.
“Better than bored.” I holstered my gun. “When he comes back online, tell him not to cross my path again. I expect he’ll stay dead if I cut his head off and make stir-fry from his brains.”
You’re a monster! Pink said.
“Well, yeah! Demon Lord, everybody. I’ve got a reputation to live down to, you know?”
I finished my snake and kicked dirt onto the fire to put it out. As I left, the Pretender’s fingers were starting to twitch back to life.
The next islet had dusky hedges of rock, narrow, pinched paths, and occasional spires like misplaced games pieces. I moved at half gravity, moon-walking with bouncy steps. Tangles of thorn reached for me as I passed. They ripped my pants and the clothes tied around my waist. My skin and dragon wings proved tougher, turning aside the points, refusing to bleed.
I leaped into the air, beating my wings furiously to gain height. I soared over the woodland, and the next stream. My weight fell away over the next islet. This had to be my goal, the place where the Heart Stone used to be.
From the middle of the islet, a wash of green radiance blazed up into the darkness.
My inner dragon stirred in my mind’s dark shadows, his gold eyes seeking me out. It’s odd we didn’t see the green light until we got here.
“Someone was making it hard on us.”
The air tasted of burnt copper and old ashes. Flying was effortless. I glided, skimming several feet over white gravel fields and the ruin of ancient structures made with massive stone blocks. Nothing grew here. No vines, thorn bushes, flowers, or trees. I had an open expanse except for the buildings. The upper lips of the structures were thick with multicolored wisps, like Chinese lanterns mourning at a funeral.
I guess they know this is where everything gets decided.
At the exact center of the islet, there was a stone bowl building with a gap in the side like a coliseum. I went through the gap and found no wisps inside. The green light beamed up from a disk-shaped gravel field with large boulders of tourmaline crystal. This reminded me of a Zen rock garden though no one had raked the green agate gravel in ages. The surrounding cup
walls went up two stories and reflected the green light back on itself so it mostly radiated up to haze the air, obscuring the cavern high above.
“A perfect place for theater.” My voice echoed loudly. The area had perfect acoustics.
I followed an aisle past empty stone benches and reached the middle. Like geode fragments, the boulders had round, convex sides facing the surrounding seats. The concave sides pointed to a common center-point, as if they all could be fitted together around a hollow space.
My inner dragon said: it’s as if the magic soul of Fairy hatched here from a crystal egg,
“Or the outer shell was shattered and its core—its heart— stolen.” This was what my intuition told me.
I fluttered closer, and hovered above one of the boulders, looking down. Despite the loss of gravity here, the gravel and boulders were locked in place, as if frozen in time.
I drifted inside the ring of boulders and gravity returned with a vengeance, slamming me to the agate gravel, nearly crushing me flat. I fought against the pull, locking my arms under me, keeping my head unbowed.
My dragon lent me more of his lifeforce. Flaring raw golden magic coursed through my body. My legs trembled as the ground cratered under my clawed feet, still, I straightened, standing proud, defiant.
“That all you got?” I gritted the words out through clenched teeth.
The central spot between the fractured boulders grew a three-dimension shadow of deep green, a female shape surrounded by the radiant blaze. She cast an infinite shadow above her. She stared at me with eyes of creamy, pale jade. It was the green shadow that had guarded Izumi’s rest.
As I watched, two copies of her separated sideways. The central woman was still, tranquil, an enigma.
The version to her right had whipping snake-like tendrils of hair. Her head swayed, shifting erratically. Her blurring eyes were cadmium yellow. Withered, frail, her body looked starved as she leaned on a staff of shadow. She smiled, more of a death-head rictus than anything else.
The version to the left held a hammer and had pearlescent, powder-red eyes with yellow flames for irises. Her arms were over muscled like a blacksmith.
I was reminded of the threefold Celtic goddess Brigid: The Poetess; mistress of the unknown. The Smith; mistress of making, lady of fire and earth. And the third, The Healer; mistress of life. She was the one leaning on the staff. Needing a good meal, she looked like she needed a healer herself. I think she’d suffered the most when the Heart of the Land was broken.
The Poetess said: “Stranger to the land, choose your path in shadow. Aim your spear, within this sacred hollow. Are you lord of all you fear?”
The gravity slacked, no longer trying to destroy me. If the three shades weren’t riven, but truly one, I’d have already been crushed.
I answered. “I serve myself, but I’m willing to restore the three of you to all you were.”
The starved crone hissed at my words. “You are not my Reginald. What have you done with him. He is the one I called to gather the ties.”
“That idiot? He couldn’t tie his shoes to save his life. You might as well ask a pooka for help.”
The Smith nodded agreement. “Indeed, a badly made tool.”
I nodded. “Yeah, he’s a tool alright.”
“Can you do what we require?” the Smith asked.
I met her flaming stare. “You’re the one who’s been testing me, right? You should know by now.”
She smiled. “You are strong, resilient.” She shifted her gaze to the middle sister. “You gave him his kingdom. I take it he has your full support?”
“He has been gentle and loving with his land. He has built and sheltered the wanderers. He has proven his power in defending the Dragon’s Eye from the other Lords of the fey.”
The old crone spit on the ground. “Well, I don’t like him. I want Reginald.”
“I’m here!” he yelled. The voice came from outside the boulders. I shifted to look for him. There he was, blood still on his face, the three wisps haloing his upper torso with pastel light, stabilizing him and moving him through the weak gravity field.
I shook my head at him sadly. “Can’t do a damn thing on his own.”
He pointed an accusing finger at my face. “That creature stole my crown! Make him give it back.”
I turned my back on him and faced the middle shade. “If he can’t even hang onto a crown, how can he recover the ties? Do you know what he was doing in the Winter Court after seizing control? Rutting and raping while he should be about the task given him. I mean, there’s a time and a place. And what real man needs to force a woman? If such a person gets his hands on the ties, can you trust him to give that power back to you?”
The Smith narrowed her eyes at Reginald. “Doubtful.”
The Healer clutched her staff, as if threatened by a rising wind. “My Reginald would not abandon me.”
He called out. “Of course not. I am a child of Fairy, not some accursed outsider.”
I sorely wanted to whip up my machine pistol and blow him into bloody chunks of Spam, but I needed the support of the Land if I was going to depose the fey Lords and Ladies, and set myself up as the first High King they’d had in countless millennia.
I had the support of two out of the three. I had one to convince. I stepped up to The Healer, brushed her staff aside and gathered her in my arms. My right hand gripped her scrawny ass. I pressed her close so she could feel the rampant hardness inside my pants. I bruised her lips with mine in a passionate kiss. It helped that I imagined it was Izumi in my arms, needing to be thawed. Her head fell back from mine as I ended the kiss.
“Why would you want a boy when you can have a real man? Why ever settle?”
She didn’t answer, hanging all wilted in my arms, drooling. I gently laid her down.
Take a nap, grandma.
The Poetess said: “Three are one, in full consent. The Dragon King with magic sent—shadow to our shadow.”
The Smith held out a palmful of green shards. “These pieces of Heart Stone will help you.”
I took them. “Thanks.”
“No!” Reginald shrieked. “It must be me. Me! It is my destiny. I must prove to my father that I am fit to rule.”
The three shadow-shapes sank back into the ground, taking their leave. Gravity abandoned the area as well, retuning a near weightless state. As the Sisters vanished, Izumi rose out of the gravel in exchange. She lay curled there, still asleep. The sisters had acted in good faith, returning their hostage to me. I’d let her rest a few moments more. There was something I needed to take care of right away.
I jumped and cleared the ring of boulders, landing beside the floating Pretender. Seeing my predatory smile, he paled, wheeled around, and swam awkwardly through air, attempting escape.
“You were warned.” I swung my machine pistol up, taking aim. I opened fire, emptying the magazine. His bloated, bloody corpse rose like the ugliest blimp ever, carried away by a vagrant wind. The three wisps gave chase.
I let my weapon swing back to my side, and returned to Izumi. I lifted her gently, still wrapped in her cloak. Held in my arms, her breathing quickened. Her eyes blinked open. She smiled seeing me. “Beloved!” She reached and encircled my neck with her arms, then took time to look around. “Where are we?”
“Headed home.”
With a gentle flap of my dragon wings, we lazily rose into the air. I flew ever higher. Reaching Reginald’s tumbling corpse, I snagged it with my talon feet, a little present for Kellyn. We soared out the vagina-like slit in the cavern roof, out into the star-strewn sky, high ridges and wild black forest sprawling below.
Izumi rested her head against my collarbone. Her snow-white hair fluttered against my face. I kissed the top of her head. “How’s my little snowflake?”
“I—and the baby—are doing fine.”
“That’s what I wanted to hear. Are you up to stealing the Winter Court away from your mother?”
“We’re not going to hurt her?�
�
“We’re putting the kingdoms of Fairy and the Wildlands back together by the command of the Land herself. Eventually, we’ll be High King and Queen of the fey. The Dragon’s eye will be our capital. Your mom can still run the Winter Count—as regent for our son. Once he’s born, he will be her heir as well as mine. If she knows she’s keeping the kingdom in the family, the transition should go a lot easier.”
“This is rather sudden.”
“As news gets out on what was tried against your mother, more and more players will be going after ties, if only to preempt their enemies from doing it first.”
I’m actually surprised these usurpations took this long to start. My enemies in Fairy know it is the only way to break my power here.
I chose a spot to land. I wasn’t flying us all back to the Winter Court; not when Izumi could open a portal. “We need to be the ones to restore the land, or who knows what hell-scape it may become.”
“If my Lord husband thinks this must be done, his dutiful wife will lift sword and shield beside him.”
“Not ‘til after the baby comes. That’s an order.”
“As my lord wills.”
She gave in all too easily. “Izumi?”
“Yes, my love?”
“You’ve been planning on me doing this for a while now, right?”
“Ever since I learned of you, and bought the mansion in Malibu next to yours. Being long-lived, we fey lay our plans ages in advance. The only thing I’ve been waiting on is getting with child. That was the fun part. Now we get to work.”
I sighed softly in my soul. Just when I think I’m in utter control…
SIX
“Allies serve you best when
they’re on a short leash.”
—Caine Deathwalker
Outside the rift in the cavern roof, on a granite ridge overlooking the dark forest that the silver moonlight couldn’t pierce, I landed, dropping Reginald from my clawed, transformed feet. He hit, bounced, and lay still, not alive yet. I set Izumi down with a great more gentleness. She clung to me.
“Can you open a portal to the Winter Court, or call your mom to pull us over?” I asked.
