A dragon’s tomb.
Dragons lived for thousands of years. To find a grave was to stumble upon a relic of ancient times. Dragons often hid their dead with dislocation spells for fear of grave robbers. Dragon body parts were supremely magical, and wielding one gave you incredible power.
It wasn’t about the money. Lucan had made millions already. Financing his campaign wasn’t an issue. He had built his fortunes creating what he called The Grimoire, the closest thing to a genome for magic. It was sophisticated computer software that could analyze a spell and break it down into its parts; it could even predict the side effects of a spell and recommend remedies. He used magic to embed this information onto cardstock, which could be used to cast highly focused spells.
He had dropped out of engineering school in order to start his business. The government paid him handsomely for a license. He then sold grimoires for businesses, students, and individuals, each programmed to meet his customers’ needs.
His company, The Grimoire Company, was worth three billion spiras, and that was a conservative valuation. He was worth eight hundred million—just shy of the billion mark, but he didn’t care about the money. It was the governorship he was interested in.
Images of his opponents cycled through his mind’s eye. None of them had ever found a dragon tomb. If they found out about this, they’d use it for their own political gains. Especially his uncle. The old man was already playing dirty.
Lucan imagined the headlines:
GOVERNOR’S NEPHEW CLAIMS FALSE TOMB
GOVERNOR ORDERS PSYCHIATRIC EVALUATION FOR CANDIDATE GRIMOIRE
To hell with that.
And the photos—good God, the photos! They’d show him making weird facial expressions in order to undermine his visionary persona. His uncle was above nothing.
He crunched through a clump of dead leaves, then parted a group of branches and stumbled onto a dirt roadway. He had never been so glad to see a road.
Ahead, a large black sedan idled on the side of the road. He ran toward it, waving.
A door opened and a little girl in a white dress climbed out.
“Daddy!”
She hugged Lucan, and he picked her up and swung her.
“Are we going home now?” she asked. Her blue hair radiated in the evening light. She had dyed it just a few days ago; she wanted to be like the girls in the magazines: blue hair, pointy ears and jewel-green eyes. The dye had cost him one hundred and fifty spiras. The first of many beauty expenses, he imagined, and she was only seven.
“Not yet, sunshine.”
“What are you doing out here, anyway?” Madelaide asked. “No offense, Daddy, but you stink.”
Lucan sniffed his arm and got a renewed whiff of himself.
“It’s only going to get worse.”
He wished he hadn’t brought her. She had to be bored. But it was his week to have her, and it would have killed him to break his promise to see her every weekend during the campaign. It also would have been fuel for another custody battle.
A rear door of the car opened. A woman in a white blouse and pencil skirt stepped out, tapping her wrist. Her red hair was wrapped into a bun, like the librarian types, and a pencil stuck out of the bun at a diagonal angle. Her lipstick, a vibrant maroon earlier in the day, was fading. She had brighter skin, rounded ears, and that angry air that humans got when things didn’t go their way—a mean streak you just didn’t see in elven women.
“Where have you been?” Celesse, his campaign manager and girlfriend-of-the-moment asked. Not a bead of sweat on her. She’d probably stayed in the car’s air-conditioned splendor the entire time. “We should have left here two hours ago. I kept calling, but you didn’t answer.”
“No service,” Lucan said, panting. “Cancel all my appointments tonight.”
Celesse frowned. “No. Get in the car. Earl, let’s go.” She tapped the trunk.
Inside, a human driver dressed in a black suit and chauffeur’s cap turned the key in the ignition, and the car hummed to life.
“This is more important,” Lucan said. “Trust me.”
Celesse tilted her head at him.
“Hypothetical conversation,” Lucan said. “What if one were to find a historical monument in the bog?”
“What kind of monument?”
Lucan glanced at his daughter and hesitated. “A t-o-m-b of a d-r-a-g-o-n.”
“You spelled dragon, Daddy!” Madelaide said, laughing.
“At seven years old you can already spell better than your mother.” Lucan planted a kiss on the girl’s forehead. “But Celesse, this is s-e-r-i-o-u-s.”
Celesse suppressed a grin. “On government grounds?”
“Yes.”
“It would belong to the government, then.”
“Who, specifically?”
“I don’t like where this is going, Lucan.”
“Hear me out. It wouldn’t belong to the g-o-v-n-r, would it?”
“No, it wouldn’t belong to him. Not technically. Though he could assert control by executive order.”
“Which would take at least a day, and he’d catch hell from the Governance and the public for domineering a magical resource. Lord knows he’s done that plenty of times.” Lucan rubbed two fingers together, thinking.
“It would be in the primary control of the Department of Natural Resources, Lucan.”
Lucan snapped his fingers. “I have friends there.”
Celesse flushed. “Speaking of friends, you missed three meetings with donors and a rally in District Three.”
“The Half Eight? I’m going to win that district. I don’t need any more donations.”
“You’re twenty points behind. It’s not about the money. It’s about the support. One of them was a delegate, Lucan.”
“My uncle was twenty points behind twelve years ago. No delegates to his name.”
He grabbed Celesse by the waist and brought Madelaide closer. “I think it’s time for a Madelaide sandwich.”
“No!” Madelaide screamed.
Lucan brought the three of them into a big bear hug and squeezed as hard as he could. Madelaide yelled gleefully with a gap-toothed smile.
Lucan whispered in Celesse’s ear. “Research the Magical Lands Act. I seem to remember some odd caveats there that could help me. My uncle can’t know about this.”
Celesse waved her hands. “Fine. I’ll do whatever you want. I take it you want me to continue babysitting?”
Uh oh. One of those loaded woman-questions. The correct answer was an unequivocal no coupled with an apology. But he wasn’t the husband type and he was never any good with women. Shame on her for asking.
“Please do,” Lucan said. He pecked her on the cheek and saluted the driver. “Earl, you don’t suppose you can call out for pizza? I hope to God the drones will deliver.”
The chauffeur tipped his cap and pulled out a smartphone.
He had forgotten! Lucan whipped out his phone.
Two bars.
“Bless your little heart,” he whispered to the phone, dialing.
X
Miri took the long way home. It was a cool night, threatening rain. She debated whether to hail a cab. It was chilly, but warm enough for walking. The weather in the capital often changed quickly, and a decision to walk could have turned into one she regretted.
She listened to the news in her earbuds as a drawling voice read a report.
“We’ve’ll have to expect rain tonight. But not until what after the candidates’ speeches.”
She had time.
“We ought to be grateful for a cool summer. We waitedt’all winter for the rains and the renewal’a Spring. The heavens blessed us this year with renewed vigor in the aquifer, too, and if you don’t pray on that, there’s a problem with you. The Magic Index is eighty-five, pollen, high, with a little bit’a haze over the northern districts. The Half Eight is surprisingly clear tonight. Heaven is smiling on the governor for his speech, and let’s hope his positions’re as clear�
�s the skies. Over to you, Jim.”
Another reporter took control. “Indeed, and we always appreciate your insights, Frog. Tense crowds are gathered at the stadium tonight ahead of the governor’s speech...”
She switched the news off and took her earbuds out.
She was going to walk.
She followed a paved stone path through the Boulevard of Saints, where flags with runes inscribed on them rippled in the wind and street lamps ran on magic, tingeing the area with a faint pink glow.
The windows of the Administration Hall, a wide stone building with a gabled roof, were all black. The staff had gone home for the night. Across the grassy lawn, the Academy of History and Magical Sciences was lit up like a skyscraper. She imagined the other professors at their desks with their hands on their heads.
She, it appeared, was the only one with the courage to leave for the night.
She passed the Academy of Business. It was dark.
Figured.
The Academy of Modern Construction, an enormous brick building (the oldest and most expensive on campus) with a sculpture of the Governor in front. It was all dark.
The Academy of Economics. Dark.
The Academy of Performance Arts. Dark.
Miri seethed.
You want to cut my department, fine. But then you make us work harder as punishment? This isn’t right.
Her anger rose at Dean Rosehill. She tried to let it go.
She turned and walked through the Lawns of Destiny, the place where the college held student orientations and students played sports and ate lunch on sunny days. Beyond, the cafeteria with its glass exterior lay ahead, smelling of fried fish and roasted vegetables, harkening to the earliest time of elves.
Miri was half human, half elf. But her father killed himself when she was young, so she had a hard time identifying with her elven side.
The obsession with magic, the fetish over history—she understood. But the mistrust of dragons, the insistence on tradition and values in a society that no longer cared about them, that she couldn’t understand.
She wondered why she was even at the university sometimes.
She walked through an avenue of trees. The patch of oaks wavered in the breeze and let down their rustling, like so many hands crinkling up paper. There weren’t many trees in the Half Eight, but the university was full of them.
She heard the whoosh of wind. Above, a shadow soared hundreds of feet in the air, flapping its wings then coasting toward the buildings downtown. It spread sideways as it flew between two high-rises.
A deep, throaty roar filled the sky.
Majestic. Graceful.
It was a Keeper.
Dragons had always mystified Miri. She had spent her entire career studying them. Long nights in the library, reading about the way things used to be: how dragons ruled the world like gods, demanded loyalty and respect, and set into motion many of the customs that now governed the world, like currency, religion, and order.
But history was lost on most, even her students.
She loved dragons. She knew how to talk to them, a rare skill. You could say she had an affinity for them.
But the world had changed, and the dragons who roamed thousands of years ago, living remnants from the past, changed with it, so much that she didn’t recognize them from the history books anymore. The oldest of them became quiet and vengeful; the new generations, aloof and self-serving.
She came to the end of the university lot and turned into a street flanked by brownstones. The buildings were clustered tightly together, the floors bulging out over each other like malformed clusters attached to a metal post. In the ancient times, elven villages were built into trees, and modern builders figured out a way to mimic the construction while marrying it with human sensibility. Such was the power of magic that every building was like an abstract painting.
A lone car zoomed by.
She walked in darkness, avoiding puddles where she could. The multi-colored fraternities and sororities, normally full of music and laughter, were empty for the summer. The moon was in the sky and the smell of wisteria in the air.
Beautiful night for a walk.
She rounded a corner, into a barrage of lights. It was as if someone had flipped a switch and turned on all the lights in the city.
Bars. Elves sitting on verandas and terraces drinking wine.
A band played jazz on the corner. She snapped her fingers as they played. Paper lanterns hung over the sidewalk. More cars rumbled down the street with their windows down.
She felt alive. The vibrant air of the Half Eight rejuvenated her. She could think of nowhere else to live. Originally a slum, it had been overhauled by the university and was now the go-to place for college kids, hipsters and other trendsetters in the capital. It commanded an important influence in the political bloc. No politician was able to win without it.
Miri had made her home in this twenty-block section. It was a slice of the world that shouted, ‘We’re going to be conscious. We’re going to be aware. We’re alive. And we’re going to be good stewards of the environment, damn it!’
Miri waved to a couple on a terrace who held their glasses up to her.
“Join us, Miri?” the woman asked.
“Not tonight. But I’ll be seeing you.”
A human waiter in a tuxedo and a buzz cut offered her a sample of sushi, a slim piece of tuna resting on a bed of rice.
She picked it daintily off the waiter’s silver platter and ate it. She felt a tingle in her cheek, and flavor exploded in her mouth. It tasted like prime rib, rich and meaty.
Surf-and-turf redefined. Gastropub at its finest, enhanced by magic.
The waiter gestured for her to enter the restaurant, down some shaded steps into a quiet, dimly lit bistro. But she declined.
She heard a commotion nearby. A group of people were gathered in front of a giant stucco building that looked like a mistake among all the old brownstones.
Gavlin’s, a chain of magic stores, was thoroughly human, on a stable foundation with no bulging floors or magical construction. Its logo, a silhouetted figure with a glowing scepter riding a dragon, glowed from the top of the building.
She checked her purse and pulled out a memo that she had scribbled earlier in the morning. She was running low on lipstick, lotion, and perfume.
She made her way through the crowd of people, who stood around talking and laughing.
A neon sign in the window dazzled neurotically.
NEW GRIMOIRES TONIGHT!!
A new grimoire was an event. The Grimoire Company hadn’t launched a new one in over a year. Lucan Grimoire, the CEO, was too busy running a campaign. Besides, there were so many grimoires that it was hard to think of another one. She owned a professor grimoire that helped her decode spells and explain their historical context to students. She couldn’t have lived without it, so naturally this was a big event. She had been so busy grading papers that she hadn’t read the news.
Two men whispered as she moved through the crowd. She paused to listen, pretending to check her phone.
“What do you think it’s like?” one man asked.
“They say it ties into the election. It’s for voters.”
“Figures. I wondered when Grimoire was going to throw his money around.”
“You gotta love the balls on the guy.”
“Oh, no doubt. But when it comes to elections, I don’t care about balls. I care about facts and what the hell he’s actually going to do about the magic shortage.”
“I wouldn’t be upset if he crushed a few dragon skulls. They’ve all been flying dicks since the campaign started.”
Miri rolled her eyes. Typical conversation. Politics was the only thing people talked about lately.
She was sick of the viciousness, the attack ads, the piss and vinegar from both sides.
Gavlin’s was a standard grocery store, with tiled floors, can lights far up in the ceiling above, and shelves upon shelves of food, jars, and plastic card
s representing spells that you could take to the front counter and redeem.
She cradled a basket under her arm and picked a jar of lotion off a wooden shelf. Then she tested a bottle of perfume, spraying a sample of a vanilla scent on her wrist.
She was making her way toward the grimoires in the back when the store erupted into applause and photoflashes.
All heads turned to the door as an entourage of people entered. She could only make out several pairs of sunglasses and pointy ears, and a bald head in the center.
Her stomach sank. She knew that head anywhere.
Several voices cried out. “Mr. Governor! Mr. Governor!”
The bald head stopped and a hand went into the air, waving.
“Hey, guys.”
Two people moved out of the way and Miri seized the opportunity, hurrying toward the cash registers where the governor greeted shoppers.
Ennius Grimoire was tall, with silver tufts of hair sticking out from the sides of his head. He had a trim goatee. Like all politicians, he wore a slim navy blue suit and tie. She could smell his cologne from across the room, a scent like a sickly blend of cigar smoke and lies.
He had won re-election twice, and if he won this year, this would be his third and final term. Few governors served less than three terms, and if he lost, it would be a notable historical moment.
Two men in suits stood a few feet away from Grimoire. A white orb hovered around him in a strange, elliptical orbit. Rumors were that the governor had made a deal with a dragon for protection, and that the orb was a dragon in Abstraction. If it was true, the dragon had never revealed itself, and no one knew what the Abstraction was.
Maybe it was Corruption—at least that’s what Miri had always thought.
The crowd quieted as Ennius spoke.
“You’re probably wondering why I’m here today.” He straightened his tie and glanced around with a sly smile. “I had to see what my nephew’s new grimoire was all about. Since I’m the governor, I wanted to rule out any product defects for myself...”
A few people said “Oooooooh.”
Miri groaned. The trash talking was about to begin.
Old Dark (The Last Dragon Lord Book 1) Page 6
