Dragon Chameleon: Episodes 5-8

by Wilson, Sarah K. L.

  “I’m the type who likes to keep his teeth,” I moaned, but my pleading fell on deaf ears.

  When Katlana arrived as the sun finally rose over the horizon, I’d given up any hope of the mimic seeing things my way.

  She released my bonds.

  “Up.” Her tone was curt. “There’s water here. Drink sparingly. This must last us all day. Drink, eat, do what is necessary. Be quick. You ride with me today. Don’t bother attacking me. You’re a mess and I am well rested.”

  She looked well rested, and the sword she carried helped with the tone in keeping me in line. I drank and tried to dress my wounds without bandages, but I didn’t eat. My insides didn’t feel right after the fight and the beating this morning. One eye had swelled shut and the other was blurry. Best to avoid food if I couldn’t be sure I’d keep it down. I wrapped the dust veil around my face and head to keep today’s sun off and submitted silently when the time came for her to tie me up again.

  “Give me no trouble and you can ride sitting. Trouble me, and I will truss you like an animal,” she said.

  I wasn’t planning on causing trouble, but I watched my mimic from the corner of my eye. He was enough trouble for both of us.

  Chapter Fourteen

  THE REST OF THE JOURNEY had been agonizing.

  Metal golems were hard to ride – not at all like dragons. Their metal carapaces were cold in the cool of morning and burning hot in the afternoon. They were stiff under the tailbone in a way that made every part of a man ache, and the shape of them felt uncomfortable under human legs.

  When I rode Saboraak, she wasn’t soft, but she was alive. She responded to a rider. She moved to keep you in the saddle if you started to slip.

  This thing was mindless. There was no heartbeat. I’d grown used to Saboraak’s heartbeat.

  I missed her badly. It ached in me almost worse than my guts did where Shabren had kicked me. And there was something definitely wrong with them. The swollen eye and split lip bothered me throughout the day, but it was the visceral pain of something wrong inside me that made me ride hunched over, my bound hands cradling my aching core.

  I thought I might be feverish.

  The glare of the sun left everything in distance hazy and the hot sun beat mercilessly on my head, but my mind drifted constantly and holding a full thought in it was hard.

  Broken, painful thoughts missing Saboraak ran right into worrying about Bataar and his people and then rolled into wondering if Hubric and Kyrowat had been okay. I drifted into thoughts of Zyla – at least she and Saboraak were together! I kept remembering that kiss we’d shared – long and lingering, like she was enjoying it as much as I was. It was the one nice thing I could think about as I huddled in pain on the back of the golem.

  I worried for her, too. Would she stay safe? Would she do something risky? Could Saboraak stop her? She hadn’t been very good at stopping me, though her scolding stuck in my head. She’d been right about the mimic. He would be a problem.

  What did Shabren want so badly with him? The mimic thought I’d be at a loss without him, but Shabren had been clear that he didn’t plan to keep me alive after that, anyway. So why take the shadow? Did he plan to use him to fuel the life of a golem?

  “No. I’m more valuable than that,” he whispered from behind me.

  And how was he valuable?

  “I don’t think that Shabren and his shadow are separate. I think they merged a long time ago.”

  I thought that was what the mimic wanted – for us to merge.

  “Ha! Then we’d both be in trouble. The best thing for you – and therefore for me – is for us to be separate. I give you wisdom. I’m there when you need me, but no one can take too much of a good thing.”

  What did that even mean?

  “It means that if you merge with your shadow, then you become a monster. The shadow swallows up your compassion and willingness to put someone else before yourself. It swallows up the traits someone might think of as ‘good.’ Oh, you need me. And I need you. Or at least, I need someone real to hold on to and in this case, it’s you. But you don’t want to be me. Do you understand?

  “You don’t ever want to embrace the monster for more than a few seconds. Maybe you’d find me deep within in a moment of crisis and maybe then I could fuel you to think of a solution you wouldn’t have considered if everything was roses, right? Maybe I could help you kill ... if you needed to. You’re not really a killer without me.

  “But that’s the problem. If we merged completely – if you ever let go and I took over, well then I would be Tor and you would just be an echo floating around in my head – or maybe you wouldn’t exist at all.”

  Did that happen to Shabren?

  “If I had to guess, I’d say he welcomed it. He lives for that monster. He’s not ... well, let’s say that there are humans like him, he’s not unique, but he’s also not someone you ever want to meet.”

  Then why did he want my shadow if he had already absorbed his own?

  “Maybe he thinks it will make him human again,” the mimic suggested. “Or maybe he just wants to see if I could make him even more of a monster. I could, you know. I’m more evil than you even know. If I was ever in charge of you, you’d never emerge again. I’m stronger than you can imagine.”

  I shuddered and Katlana reached a hand back to slap me lightly.

  “Stay still back there. I don’t like squirming.”

  I wasn’t too worried about what she liked. I was a lot more interested in what my shadow was suggesting, because if what he was suggesting was true, I had a real problem on my hands – and maybe a solution, too.

  Maybe I should just shut him away in the back of my mind forever.

  “That’s just as bad,” the shadow said. “Because if you cut me off completely, you’ll never learn from me, never grow from me. Ignoring a thing is not the same as conquering it.”

  We stopped for a break at noon and Katlana offered me water and food. The water I took, but I didn’t dare eat, choosing instead to huddle on the ground and try to rest while I could. They’d taken my knives – or at least the ones they’d found. There was still one between my shoulder blades, but I couldn’t reach it with my hands tied the way they had them, and I wouldn’t have tried to escape here anyway.

  We were days of walking from anywhere on a dry expanse that rolled out cracked and flat in every direction as far as my eyes could see. There were spiny bushes waist-high and some of the dead ones tumbled along the ground, but it wasn’t a fertile place and there was no water. Escape here would be a death sentence.

  Katlana went to socialize with the other golem rider, or whatever they were doing. Making plans, perhaps, and I huddled against the golem, flinching at the pain in my belly.

  “Grow a thicker skin,” my shadow-self suggested.

  Heartless. It was easy to be heartless when you were nothing but a ghost.

  “I’m something more to Shabren,” he reminded me and although I’d had a drink just moments ago, my mouth felt dry at the thought.

  It seemed to me that there must be some way I could use my mimic to escape. Maybe he could distract Shabren the next time we were talking and then I could escape. I still didn’t know why Shabren could see him at all.

  “He’s a Magika. He can access things that regular people can’t. Seeing me is part of that.”

  So, any Magika we came across would see him.

  “So, it would seem.”

  And that would make me a target to them.

  “I bring a lot to our relationship.”

  Could he distract Shabren the next time I saw him?

  “Better to take that knife out and kill him with it. If we meet up with Apeq, he will do more than kill you. Those marks you wear won’t make him very happy.”

  It was strange that Shabren hadn’t commented on them.

  “He spoke to Apeq before he came to find you. I suspect that he was told what to expect.”

  If he was sent to find us, would he really k
ill me? He would. He had promised he wouldn’t leave me alive. But maybe he could be content just to take my shadow.

  “But will you be alive without me? Really?”

  Ummm yes?

  “Ha! I suspect not.”

  Which meant that if I wanted to live, I would need to escape with my shadow intact, and before we saw Apeq again.

  “Good plan.”

  If only I could come up with more than that.

  “I have total faith in you.”

  Really?

  “No. But it’s something people say.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  I FLEW BEHIND KATLANA for the rest of the day contemplating my options – few – and my chances – poor – and wishing that Saboraak was with me. She’d know what we should do. She’d have a plan. And it didn’t hurt that she was also a massive flying fire-breather with an armor-scale coat and claws the size of my hands.

  We arrived in the evening at a river. As we headed south, away from the band of burning earth closest to the sun, the desert was fading into scrubland. Stunted trees and higher bushes with occasional tufts of grass dominated where there had only been cracked earth before and hills rose from the endless flat plains.

  It was among these hills that a small river snaked and rolled. On either side of the river, with a small bridge connecting them, were low buildings with wide earthen roofs and open sides. Smoke and firelight poured from some of them, but others carried the sounds of people talking and eating together.

  I would have liked this place if it had not belonged to Shabren’s Magikas.

  “This is Aden Rhee,” Katlana said to me as we arrived. “Don’t talk to the Kav’ai servants. They still think this place is theirs.”

  “Why do you keep them here?” I asked through my thick lip.

  “Shabren wants their gray powder. It’s hard to make and the rest of us are needed for the army. You need to be a Magika to power these golems, even with their internal magic. Which is important for you to know – don’t try to steal one. You’ll only damage it. You can’t control the speed, stop, or land if you aren’t a Magika. I’d rather not see mine wrecked for no reason.”

  “Are we spending the night here?” I was surprised she was feeling so chatty. She’d been silent the entire ride except for telling me to stop wiggling. I had a feeling that she was not just the leader of the golem riders in name. They watched her and looked up to her. She might be as well respected as Shabren was.

  “I am,” she said. “Shabren has plans for you.”

  Of course he did.

  We flew through the town and I stared into every building looking for anything I could learn. Even at this late hour, people were working.

  In some of the buildings, people worked at mortar and pestle, their areas dark, the lanterns far away and covered carefully. Perhaps what they were working on didn’t like fire.

  In other buildings, the fires flared hot. Those were clearly forges, and the pounding and clanging coming from them backed that idea up.

  On others, rack upon rack of tubular metal bars stood ready. Whatever they were building must use those as a component. I needed to remember Aden Rhee. If I lived through this, we needed to know where it was. If any of this grey powder became a problem, we would know where to go to stop it.

  Katlana didn’t stop as we flew past the inns and taverns, but the other golems did, peeling off in twos and threes together until we were the only ones flying behind Shabren. He led us through town to a hill on the other side of the city. He landed in front of a low building, lit brightly with lanterns and torches.

  Katlana moved to land beside him but he gestured above, and she flew past to the top of the hill above the building. There was a fire burning there already and a pair of Magikas in full robes stood on either side of the fire. Behind one of them was a tall tree, gnarled by the weather, its roots extending into the pale sand of the hilltop. Strange to see such a big tree here. Stranger yet was the sap that ran down it, white and thick.

  “Shabren the Violet has plans for this captive,” she said, grabbing my bound hands and easing me off the side of the stopped golem.

  “More like Shabren the Violent,” my mimic said, wandering around the fire, kicking rocks and poking the flames with a stick. He could look nonchalant, but I wasn’t. It couldn’t be a good thing that I was being brought here instead of to one of the buildings.

  “What’s with the silver pattern on his face?” the first Magika said, grabbing my upper arm.

  “Shabren will tell you if he wants to,” Katlana said.

  “We could burn those on permanently, if you want,” the Magika offered. My scar felt hot at his lie. His words were just bravado. Interesting. The scar was still working, no matter what else might be broken inside me.

  “Having a campfire?” I asked dryly.

  “Yeah, me and Rollen are just camping out,” the other Magika said with a laugh. “We aren’t dabbling in experimental magic or anything.”

  Behind him, a rough rack was laid out and as I looked at it, I saw a row of vials stretching across the rack, some empty and some filled with dark liquids. On the rocks around the fire, three small brass cauldrons sat. I never understood what Magikas did with their concoctions or what they were for. I suspected that they were just a ruse – a bright bubbling distraction to keep our minds off what they were really doing.

  “Sucking the life force out of the earth – and now people – and harnessing it for their own ends?” my mimic suggested.

  Yeah. That.

  “You shouldn’t tell him our names,” Rollen said sullenly as Katlana kicked off and left us in the dust that swirled up after her golem left. I watched her longingly. She hadn’t been a bad sort. Whatever Rollen and his buddy were planning couldn’t be as nice as riding in silence with her had been.

  “Yeah, because he’s such a threat,” the other Magika laughed.

  “Just tie him to the tree, Kreg.”

  Rollen and Kreg. Clearly the brains of this operation.

  I jerked against the rope, trying to pull free, but Rollen stepped forward and cracked me on the side of the head with his fist. I stumbled from the blow and they used that moment to pull me forward, tightening the rope that held my hands and then feeding it through a ring in the tree above my head.

  The tree smelled strongly of something between pine sap and strong liquor. They jerked the rope tight until I was standing on my tiptoes, my midsection stretched out and exposed. Pain flared through me as my guts elongated. They still ached from Shabren’s kicking.

  I set my jaw firmly. It was obvious what was coming next and I didn’t want to be the guy who started crying. Not that my eyes didn’t feel just a tad dry suddenly. I could almost see what would happen next like threads being woven into a pattern.

  I was keeping a running inner dialogue going, trying to silence the part of myself that was gibbering like a fool. There was no point in breaking. It wouldn’t stop what was coming. Those threads were weaving fast.

  Kreg set a metal poker into the fire to heat it. He’d better not get too ambitious, or Shabren wouldn’t get his crack at taking my shadow.

  I bit the inside of my cheek to try to keep my focus on anything other than what my imagination was spitting up to the forefront.

  “They’re going to brand you with that,” my mimic said. “Or take out your eyes. Do you want the last thing you see to be Kreg? I don’t think so.”

  I shut my eyes, remembering Zyla’s big golden eyes instead. Remembering how it had felt to kiss her.

  “Or maybe they’ll gut you with it.”

  “Or ram it into – ”

  “Shut up!” I yelled. “Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!”

  “I don’t think I will,” Shabren said coolly.

  My eyes shot open. He was taking the poker from a grinning Kreg, looking at the cherry red metal on the end of it.

  “Your shift is done,” he said to Rollen and Kreg, staring at them until they shuffled off reluctantly.

/>   He turned back to me.

  “Your shadow is a wealth of interesting suggestions. Perhaps we will try some of them.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  THERE WAS NO CHANCE left for me, but I wasn’t a quitter. And this wasn’t the way I wanted to die. I rubbed my back against the tree, trying to dislodge the knife back there, but it wouldn’t loosen. All I got for my troubles was tree sap all over me.

  “That sap is very flammable. You’d go up like a torch with that on you if you came near flame,” Shabren said, toying with the poker. He was watching me speculatively.

  Okay, mimic, I said in my mind. We need to work together.

  “Not much I can do from here,” the mimic said, examining the tool rack under the potions. He was holding an axe, turning it over and over in his hands.

  “He’s only a shadow,” Shabren warned with a grin. “He can’t cut down the tree you’re tied to. He can’t sever that rope. He can play all he wants with that axe, but it’s only a shadow axe to him. He can’t touch the one made of steel. He certainly can’t kill me with it.”

  His grin grew wider as he took another step toward me. He was turning the poker around and around in his hands.

  “All that remains is to see how much pain it will take from you to get that shadow to release.”

  The scar on my hand tingled cold. That was the truth.

  I needed to think while I still could. I needed to look carefully, while I still could. I had the knife at my back that I couldn’t get to. I had the mimic who was only a shadow with his shadowy axe. I had ... grit? Fat lot of good that did.

  There was an answer there if I could puzzle it out.

  Shabren raised the poker.

  “Perhaps we’ll test it first. See how hot it is.”

  He lunged suddenly and I screamed as he poker blazed toward my face.

  I couldn’t duck, couldn’t dodge. All I could do was scream.

  It hit the tree behind me with a thunk.

  Lightning sprouted around me, shaking me like a rope in a dragon’s mouth. I was jerked and pulled against the rope, my jaws locked together, my eyes rolling wildly, my breath caught in my chest. I could have sworn my heart stopped. There was no feeling at all.