The Dragon-Child

by B. V. Larson

  Therian directed the vessel to pursue the Innsmouth. Gruum knew that his mind burned with the desire to retrieve his own ancient blades, which in his view her crew had stolen from him. The derelict vessel they rode upon followed his silent bidding as if the ship were fully-fit and well-manned.

  Gruum tried to relax, but instead shivered and dripped seawater. He was unsure that he preferred the ghost ship’s deck to floating in the clean sea. He thought of going below to get out of the wind, but rejected the idea. He feared he may meet up with the horrors he suspected may well lurk beneath the rotted, barnacle-encrusted timbers.

  -6-

  They headed southward on their enchanted ship. After the breezes dried Gruum’s clothing, he was able to think more clearly. He sat huddled at the stern, where scraps of rickety railing still stood and felt reasonably secure. When the dawn tinged the skies pink, he found himself nodding off. It had been an exhausting night.

  He dreamt strange dreams. In them, the things beneath the ocean moved. The mountains that lurked there in the silent dark shifted and glided about quietly. They made waves that ruffled the surface. They made the storms rise up, as a boiling pot made steam rise into a smoky kitchen.

  He awoke with a start to the welcome heat of the sun in the sky. It warmed his bones, and for the first time he truly appreciated the warmer clime of the southern seas. Therian still stood in the prow of the vessel, his black cloak and equally black hair fluttering in the winds.

  “Master?” croaked Gruum. He rubbed salt from his bleary eyes. “Where are we?”

  Therian treated him with a cool glance. “We have paused in our journey. Our quarry is nearby.”

  Therian pointed to the starboard. Gruum followed his gesture and squinted. He shielded his eyes with his hand. Before he saw the ship, he noticed an island of fairly large size dead ahead of them. The island was covered in rocky hills and thick green vegetation. Looking along the shoreline, Gruum spotted what must be the Innsmouth. The ship had an odd appearance to it. He had to stare for a few moments before he understood what he was gazing at.

  “The sails are in tatters and the ship lists to one side. They have anchored at that island?”

  “They’ve run aground, more likely,” said Therian. He produced a small spyglass from his pouch and handed it to Gruum. The lens had cracked at some point, and the metal shaft of it had some seawater sloshing about inside, but the instrument still worked.

  Gruum eyed the ship and the island further through the spyglass. It seemed to him that he could still see the sparkle and shimmer of the wind spirits from time to time, as if they winked at him. Gruum stepped up to the prow at Therian’s side. “I’m surprised such experienced men would run aground in broad daylight.”

  Therian turned him a half-smile. “The wind-spirits are without guidance, but are still chained to serve the ship. They have gone mad, and have driven the Innsmouth hither and yon. Now that it has run aground, the crewmen are probably more petulant and insufferable than usual.”

  “Couldn’t they steer away?”

  “A strong enough wind will break a rudder or render it useless.”

  “They should have brought down the sails then,” suggested Gruum.

  “Yes. But I doubt there were many volunteers for the job of climbing the rigging and facing irate spirits,” said Therian with a dark chuckle.

  Gruum looked at the ship and the island with uncertainty. “Perhaps we should just sail on and head to our destination, milord?”

  Therian shook his head. “I can accept the loss of honor and even their rudeness at putting me off their ship. But I’ll not lose Seeker and Succor so easily.”

  Gruum rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Only the two of us, half-armed and in broad daylight… do you think we can take the whole crew, sire?”

  Therian stood silent for a time. Then slowly, he nodded. “Yes. If we must. This makeshift vessel will soon return to its rightful place at the bottom of the sea in any case. Notice the freeboard. We are half-sunk even now as the power of my spell fades.”

  Gruum looked over the side and saw with alarm that Therian was right. In fact, if anything, they looked to be three-quarters sunk. “Are we just going to walk up there and demand they return your swords?”

  “Certainly not. Give me your saber. You will bear your dagger. It will have to do. We will have to pull around to the lee of the island and head into the forest there. We will need fresh water and food… or at least, you will.”

  Gruum made no arguments. They were sinking, and he could tell that arguing would be useless in any case. He would have to trust to his master’s prowess once again. He handed over his saber and tucked his broad-bladed dagger into his belt. He did not relish facing that crowd of angry cutthroats again, with a weapon that was less than a foot in length. They would be desperate now, driven perhaps more mad by the spirits Therian had left behind to swarm over their vessel. They would see the once beneficial spell had turned into a curse, and they knew with certainty who had laid this curse upon the Innsmouth.

  Out of sight of the other ship, Therian brought his derelict around the island to float in a lagoon on the far side. Both men jumped overboard and Gruum found himself soaked and floundering again. At least this time he was able to wade out of the water onto solid land.

  Therian stood upon the white sands and faced the sinking derelict from the deeps. He made dismissive gesture. The ship reacted as if stricken. It drifted away, to the deeper end of the lagoon, then quickly took on a fatal dose of water. The nameless dead vessel listed to one side, then rolled over slowly and sank. Gruum stared into the clear, light blue waters. He could still see the dark hulk of the wreck down there. He shivered, despite the growing heat of the day.

  Gruum turned to find Therian striding up the beach toward the cool, green gloom of the forest. He hurried to catch up. Once they entered the forest, Gruum was stricken by how different the growths were here. The plants were brighter green and had leaves of great length and breadth. They waved like a thousand scarves in the beach breezes that never seemed to pause.

  As they walked into the interior, Gruum tasted many fruits and found most of them palatable. They found a stream and drank their fill. Therian ate only sparingly. Gruum felt his belly roil and growl within him. He longed for a clean haunch of freshly roasted meat.

  “I wonder if there is any game on this island. Besides the squawking birds, that is.”

  Therian pointed aloft. Gruum followed the gesture. A monkey regarded them curiously from the strange treetops. The creature ate seeds and spat out the shells one at a time.

  “I’m not eating that!”

  Therian shrugged, bored with the topic. They climbed toward a rise on the island. The entire scrap of land, Gruum estimated, could be no more than a league long and half as wide. Still, while climbing in the hot sun, it seemed large enough. He hoped they would not run into the crew of the Innsmouth on open ground. He doubted they could beat them all, and he knew Therian would be too proud to run from them.

  They reached a long open slope of crumbling land. Nothing here grew, as the land was blackened and volcanic in nature. An ash field, Gruum recognized it to be. They stood near the peak of the highest hill on the mountain, and Gruum studied that peak. Was that perhaps, a wisp of sulfurous vapor rising up from the top?

  “Oh, hold milord.”

  “What is it?”

  “This, I do believe, is a volcano.”

  “Of course it is, Gruum. These islands rise up from the distant floor of the sea. I’ve read about such places. What we walk upon is the crown of a huge mountain that is buried beneath miles of seawater.”

  Gruum swallowed. He tried not to look sick. “Milord, such places are vile in every way.”

  “Not always. A bit of healthy caution is in order, however.”

  Therian continued with the ascent to the crown of the volcano, but Gruum held back. Finally, he forced himself to follow his master. He’d never scaled an actual volcano before, but in his ow
n lands such places were known to harbor the worst of fiends.

  It was there, in the open exposed lands at the top, that they met the men of the Innsmouth. The crewmen had come up the volcano from the other side. Apparently, each group had had the same idea, planning to move to the high ground and spot the other.

  Therian stood tall. Gruum halted at his side. The cone of the volcano was filled with water, not lava. The crater of the volcano was an open, steaming lake a hundred yards wide. On the far side of the lake the crewmen of the Innsmouth stared back at them.

  Bolo pushed through his stunned, muttering men and stood staring at Therian and Gruum.

  Therian put the cracked spyglass to his eye. “The impudent bastard dares to wear my blades.”

  Gruum eyed the group, looking for crossbows. None of them were in evidence.

  Bolo cupped his hands and called out to them. “Fancy meeting you here, sorcerer. Come closer, so we may parlay.”

  Therian cupped his own hands and called back to them. “What is there to discuss?”

  “We have a ship, but it is cursed. Lift that curse and all will be forgiven. We will take you to the nearest port.”

  “And what of my blades?”

  Bolo hesitated only an instant. “They will be returned,” he shouted back.

  “Don’t trust them, sire,” said Gruum in a quiet voice.

  Therian huffed. “I would sooner trust an eel.” He raised his voice to shout back to the crewmen. “I would forge a different bargain. Thrust my blades into the earth where you stand and retreat down the mountain to your ship. After I retrieve the swords I will release the wind spirits.”

  “What of you?”

  “We will fend for ourselves here.”

  This seemed to surprise them. For a minute or so, they talked amongst themselves. The men, by their gestures, appeared to like the arrangement. Bolo, however, seemed less than pleased.

  “I’m sure his plans did not include letting us live,” said Gruum.

  “That is my reading as well.”

  In time, the crewmen agreed. Seeker and Succor were thrust upstanding into the soft earth of the volcano’s cone. The crew left them behind.

  Gruum was in favor of moving around the cone of the mountain with great caution and stealth. Therian would hear nothing of it. He strode to his blades and drew them from the earth. “They have been scratched in several places,” he complained.

  Gruum, hunkered down and moved almost on all fours. He came up beside Therian, looking everywhere at once. “I expect an ambush at any moment.”

  Therian shook his head. “There is nothing to fear right now. They want the curse lifted. Time is on their side. Once I have released their ship, they can decide to hunt us down or leave. If the curse does not lift, they believe they can kill us to lift the curse directly.”

  “Will you lift the spell, sire?”

  “Of course, I gave my word. But I did not specify when I would lift it. I have not yet decided upon the timing of the act.”

  Gruum looked at his master sharply. It wasn’t like his master to go back on a deal. He eyed the stern lines on the other’s face. “You think they will come back up here for revenge, once the spell is lifted?”

  Therian flicked his eyes to Gruum, then back to the downward slope that plunged to the shores. Barely visible over the treetops was the Innsmouth. It still sat listing in the waters offshore.

  “It is my revenge that needs to be feared upon this scrap of land,” said Therian. “But as to my concerns, have you thought, Gruum, of how we will leave this island once they maroon us here?”

  “I had thought you might raise the sunken vessel again. I had thought sorcery would be employed to rescue us.”

  Therian nodded slowly. “I have fed the Dragons a single soul in the last dozen days, that of the lookout I dropped upon the deck of the Innsmouth.”

  “What of the other sailors you fought with, milord?”

  “I had not the time, nor the breath to spare, to relieve them of their souls—just their lives.”

  “Ah, so you’re saying you don’t have the strength left to cast more powerful sorceries?”

  “I have enough strength to fight, but without a fresh soul, I doubt I will be able to get us off this island.”

  “A fresh soul?” asked Gruum. Certain realities began to sink into his mind. “If the sailors leave, that leaves a few monkeys and birds… and me.”

  “Exactly.”

  Gruum’s eyes slid about in his head. “I think the crew of the Innsmouth do not deserve to be dealt with honorably, sire. They mutinied and broke our deal. They attempted to murder us in our beds.”

  “Now,” said Therian, turning to him with a wintry smile, “I believe you and I have achieved a mutual understanding of the situation.”

  Gruum gazed downslope at the ship sitting offshore. “Soon, they may calculate that you are delaying. They will assume you have broken your word. They will come back… and they will be insistent.”

  “Just so,” said Therian. “We must prepare for them.”

  “How master?”

  “We will dream.”

  “Dream?” Gruum asked. He thought immediately of the last time he was invited to dream with Therian. He suppressed a shudder with difficulty. “Why would we dream here? Will you ask Anduin for aid?”

  “She would not give it.”

  “Why then?”

  “Tell me, Gruum, what was the last thing you dreamt of?”

  Gruum thought hard. He wasn’t sure at first, then the memory of the things under the water, the unseen things of the deep, came back to him. “I recall something about moving mountains—under the water. Vast creatures.”

  “Only one creature was there.”

  “You mean… my dream was true?”

  “One vast being,” repeated Therian, as if he did not hear Gruum. He stared out at the sea thoughtfully. “Did you see anything, when I worked with my lure—that tiny blue light that burned in the water?”

  “I thought I did. I thought I saw something moving down there. It seemed as if the entire seafloor were shifting of its own accord.”

  “You did see it, then. My sorcery tends to attract things…. In this case, it has attracted a being of significant power. It has followed us to this island out of curiosity.”

  Gruum blinked in alarm. “So, if we leave the island….”

  “Yes, the creature’s curiosity might grow. It may decide to take action to encounter us.”

  “What does it want?”

  Therian shrugged. “To know who dares to work sorcery in its domain. To protect that domain. Perhaps, just to know what we taste like.”

  Gruum swallowed. “What will we do?”

  “We have a bit of time until the crew figures out the spirits are not leaving their ship. Night will come in a few hours. I suggest we eat what we can find and prepare to meet with this being of the deeps.”

  -7-

  Gruum dreamt of another place. It seemed to him that he awoke there, and that the real world was a hazily recalled dream.

  He did not awaken on dry ground, but rather suspended in deep water. The water wasn’t cold, but rather pleasantly warm. It was very dark, the only sources of light being a white, wavery shimmer far above and a lurid, red glow far below. He could not breathe, but he felt no urge to, and no panic for the lack of it. Experimentally, he moved his limbs and found them operable. He stroked toward the surface, naturally enough. He proceeded at a leisurely pace. There was no need for air, no hurry to reach the distant surface.

  Something caught his attention during that long slow rise toward the roof of this watery world. Movement, huge and dark gray. A shadow loomed. He regarded it, hands drifting at his sides, hair floating like seaweed in his face. A tiny stream of bubbled rose from his nostrils.

  A huge face regarded him thoughtfully. It was not a human face, but rather that of a leviathan. A monster of the deeps. Gruum returned the stare, and slowly, as the black eyes stared back, each as b
ig as his own puny skull, he began to feel fear grow inside him. It was a familiar, but unwelcome sensation.

  What if this was the real world? What if—somehow—Therian had worked a spell while he slept that let him breath in the deeps? Such a sorcery he could easily believe. The King had done things far more surprising than that. Gruum stared at the monster a moment longer. Maybe he had no need to breathe, but he certainly could be consumed, if this were the real world he floated within.

  Gruum screamed. His mouth opened, and bubbles shot outward. A silvery mass of them. He could hear his scream, muffled and indistinct, in his ears. Knowing not what else to do, he swam upward. He grabbed at the water as a man might grab at the earth while sliding over a cliff. With desperate clawing motions he swam upward. But the surface seemed so distant, so impossibly far.

  The creature followed him, nosing along in his wake. He could feel its presence. Perhaps it was curious about him. Perhaps it enjoyed the chase. Those jaws. He had not yet seen them open, but he had no doubt they could swallow him without chewing. He was no more than a gulp to this creature. No more than a wriggling sardine in a fisherman’s pinched fingers.

  #

  The dream tore to shreds and Gruum sat up, gasping. He coughed and spat. Ants had swarmed over his body while he slept. He clawed at his face and slapped at his hands. He coughed further, gasping for air and blinking in the night.

  Gruum looked around, befuddled. Therian lay sleeping beside him. A dozen paces away was the bubbling lake. Gruum stared at it. Had he been down there? Had he seen the future, the past—or had it all been a world of phantoms, like most dreams. For a time he sat there, allowing his breathing to slow and become even. He smashed the last of the ants with his thumb and stood up.

  What had awakened him? Were the cutthroat crewmen of the Innsmouth creeping near? It seemed insane to him then that they had both slept out in the open, waiting for their enemies to set upon them and slay them in a helpless state. He vowed he would not soon go on another of Therian’s dream journeys without good cause.