Old Dark (The Last Dragon Lord Book 1)

by Michael La Ronn

  “Lord Alsatius Dark,” Miri said, smiling. “Welcome to the future.”

  XXVIII

  Miri stepped back as Old Dark snapped at his cage. The dragon broke a tooth, and it bounced across the floor.

  “What do you mean I’m in the future?” he yelled.

  “A lot has changed since your reign,” Miri said. “But some things are the same. That is why we can understand each other.”

  This had been, to date, the most exciting day of her career. How many scholars got to interview their favorite historical figures? She resisted the urge to bury her head in her notebook and comment on Dark’s every move. She regretted that she hadn’t set up a camera to record the encounter.

  “If this place is the future, then I am its lord,” Dark said.

  “No. There are no more dragon lords.”

  The words hit Dark like an attack. He was out of breath from snapping at the cage, and the exchange was draining him of all the energy he had regained after eating.

  He’s not what he used to be, Miri told herself.

  Old Dark must have been fearsome in the days of his reign. A big black dragon with a massive wingspan. If you saw those wings flapping in the sky late at night, you were in trouble.

  Now, he was the equivalent of an old man. He had missing teeth, dry scales, one of his wings was broken, and he only had one eye.

  She couldn’t help feeling sorry for him. She wanted to help him recover. But in the back of her mind, all of her research told her, Be careful. He’s not your typical dragon.

  “If this is the future, I demand more proof,” Dark said.

  Miri walked over to the television screen and turned up the volume. Footage of Governor Grimoire streamed across the screen.

  “That is our governor.”

  Dark regarded her statement. “A governor ... as in, one who governs? He’s your elder, then.”

  The term “elder” made Miri shudder. Elves no longer arranged their society like that. The word made her think of mass suicides and mounds and mounds of bodies.

  “He is an elder, but not in the sense that you’re thinking.”

  “Hmm.”

  The governor shook hands and stood on a platform giving a speech, gesturing bombastically.

  “He looks like an elder to me.”

  “Elves no longer live in villages,” Miri said. “Fifty years after your curse, they gathered in big numbers. They now live in cities.”

  “Which are?”

  “Really really big villages.”

  “So that explains the large metal and glass huts.”

  “They’re called high-rises. Or skyscrapers. But yes. The early cities were comprised of huts. Elves evolved over time. They created new tools and learned from humans how to build stronger buildings.”

  “You refer to elves as ‘they.’ You, too, are elven, are you not?”

  “I have elven blood, yes, but my mother was a human.”

  Dark gasped. Then he laughed. “Oh, this is something. Elves lying with humans. Never in my reign did I imagine that. If you have human blood, how in the world do you use magic then, girl?”

  The sarcasm in his voice irked her. She didn’t know if he actually believed her.

  “I can cast magic,” she said. “But if I have children, they may not be able to. Soon, within the next few decades, no one will be able to use magic.”

  “As it should be,” Dark said, scowling.

  “Do you believe what I am telling you, or are you testing me?” Miri asked.

  Dragon tactics. Sometimes you had to be unpredictably blunt.

  She had taught Dragon Communication 101 for ten years. You had to approach them like you approached a wild animal: with compassion. But unlike the case with most animals, you also had to have the willingness to do harm. Otherwise they wouldn’t take you seriously.

  Old Dark grinned. “You, my dear, understand dragons far more than any elven woman I’ve ever met.”

  “Am I wasting my time trying to help you?”

  “Your mythology,” Dark said, “is interesting.”

  “It’s not mythology.”

  “Anything that does not revolve around me is mythology.”

  “The world no longer revolves around you.”

  “Then tell me who is in charge of this so-called future.”

  How was she going to explain the concept of democracy? Sometimes she didn’t even understand it.

  “No one in particular is in charge. Everyone lives according to a set of laws. We have leaders, but they aren’t lords.”

  Dark laughed again. “What kind of society doesn’t thrive on power? Force! That is the only language you elves understand. And what of dragons? Why haven’t they sorted you out?”

  Miri frowned. “Dragons are not the same as they used to be.”

  “I demand that you stop being cryptic.”

  “They no longer wield control of magic.”

  Dark blew smoke from his nostrils.

  “Explain yourself or I will send you and your friend into flames.”

  He was bluffing. Dragons could breathe fire, but to do so in such close quarters would mean his own death, too. He wouldn’t be able to escape from the cage if he set the place on fire. He didn’t strike her as a suicidal soul, no matter how angry he was.

  “You wouldn’t dare burn me,” she said, taking one step closer to the cage.

  At her words, the smoke wafting from his nose stopped. And then a fist-sized flame leapt into his mouth from his throat, and he blew it in her face. The flame stopped just inches in front of her, and she felt the volcano-like warmth, as if someone had brought a furnace next to her face and then turned it off quickly.

  Her face tingled and she wanted to feel it to make sure she was okay, but she held her ground and never took her eyes off Dark.

  “That is a cruel thing to do to the woman who is helping you.”

  “I don’t need your cursed help!”

  “Then I’ll be quiet and you can keep wondering what happened to the rest of your race. Good luck figuring it out from your cage. Come on, Earl.”

  Earl gave her a look so as to say “you’re not serious,” but Miri about-faced, slung her purse over her arm and strode to the door.

  Earl’s heavy, labored footsteps sounded behind her.

  “Uh, Miss, are you sure—”

  Miri shushed him.

  She walked two hundred feet to a pair of double doors, and had her fingers wrapped around the handle when Dark called out to her.

  “Oh oh, aren’t you a fiery one, my girl? Return to me.”

  “Under one condition!” Miri shouted, not looking back.

  “I am the only one with the authority to set conditions.”

  “You didn’t let me finish.”

  Dark chuckled.

  “Are you listening?”

  “I am listening, dear.”

  Miri said nothing.

  “Were you going to speak?” Dark asked.

  “I don’t answer to ‘dear.’ I’m not your subject, and if you think you can treat me like one, I’ll make sure you get nothing else to eat.”

  Dark chuckled again. His low-pitched laugh was sarcastic, sinister, and it unsettled her. However hurt he was, his legendary manipulation tactics were still at their height.

  “I will tell you everything I know as long as you tell me everything you know,” Miri said.

  A long pause.

  “What could you possibly want to know about me that isn’t already exalted to the heavens?”

  “That’s for me to decide, not you.”

  Another long pause.

  She pushed on the handle, and a metal clicking reverberated throughout the open factory floor.

  “Goodbye, Mr. Dark.”

  She had one foot out the door when the dragon yelled for her.

  “Return. I accept your terms.”

  “Really?” Miri said, trying to project disbelief.

  “Yes. I give you my word. Now, return and tel
l me what happened to my race before I set this place on fire. I deserve to know.”

  Miri turned around and walked back to the cage, grinning.

  XXIX

  Lucan stood on a platform in front of two thousand people with a microphone in his hand.

  He was in a cathedral with a tall, sloping ceiling. A massive pipe organ took up the entire wall behind him, and the air smelled like wax and burned-out candles.

  The crowd, who had been quiet since he took the stage, hung on his every word.

  He’d had a hard time reading them at first. Not because they were in a church that just four years ago had supported the governor, but because his head reeled from his meeting with Ennius. The dragon had hit him hard, and he couldn’t see straight for an hour afterward.

  The crowd rustled, and his head spun again.

  Whispers spread through the mass of people like electricity.

  Push through it, Lucan told himself. Don’t let a dragon throw you off.

  He leaned against a podium and gestured at a poster:

  LUCAN FOR GOVERNOR

  He pointed at the sign. “You guys rock.”

  The people cheered and waved their hands at him.

  “I just met with the governor.”

  A few boos surged through the crowd. He’d expected that. Celesse had even written it into his speech:

  Pause for boos.

  “What, that’s all the booing I get?” he asked. “Let’s try that again. I just met with the governor...”

  The crowd booed again, and people stomped so hard they shook the pews.

  He pretended to be surprised. “That’s more like it. You guys want to know what we talked about?”

  The crowd begged him.

  “Yes!”

  “Tell us!”

  Lucan waited for the suspense and grinned. “Not a whole lot, actually.”

  He unfolded a sheet of paper and held it up. “I had planned on talking about my Magic Conservation plan with him. He keeps talking about how I don’t have any plans, and when I give him one, he ignores it. All he talked about instead was himself. Can you believe that? I hope you do. Because you all deserve better than that.

  “Governor Grimoire—my uncle—talks a lot of crap, but you know what he hasn’t mentioned? Our environmental crisis. Everyone in this room will be affected by it. It should be the topic of this election, but except for me, the other candidates are ignoring it.”

  He slid a grimoire out of his pocket and activated a wheel. It let out cool, pink waves that emanated throughout the church.

  “What you see here will soon no longer be possible. Your kids, my kids, and the children of the future won’t be able to use magic. This entire city is going to crumble like a sand castle in the rain. I thought our civilization was about making each generation better off than the last. Doesn’t seem that way to me.”

  He turned off the grimoire and paced around the stage as a small pocket of the crowd near the stage clapped.

  “Thirty years ago, a group of elven elders got together and talked about the crisis. They knew that one day, someone like me would be on a stage talking to you like this. They heard about studies that showed the aquifer was shrinking at an alarming rate. The very energy that was powering our society, that was so plentiful ages ago, was in danger of vanishing forever. These were great men and women. They were forward-thinkers. They knew that the rampant magic casting could not last. So they did something about it. They locked a hundred of the greatest scientists, engineers, and politicians of their generation into a room and didn’t let them out until they figured out a solution. My uncle was among those men. So was my father. Their solution was a good one, but it was temporary: Abstraction.

  “Dragons gave up their shares of the aquifer in exchange for a stake in our society. We used inordinate amounts of magic to embed them into our culture. The plan was to use the gains that the dragons gave us to find a long-term solution to the crisis. Instead, politicians just punted the problem down the road. I don’t need to tell you any more, because you’re living the reality of Abstraction. But whether you like it or not, that’s not why I’m here.

  “The traditional elven elders didn’t like Abstraction. With hundreds of years of history as their guide, they lectured society on why making deals with dragons was a bad idea. I don’t agree, but I understand where they were coming from. No one listened to them, though, because the benefits to our society were too great. But I’ll tell you something: I don’t know what the elders were thinking when they gathered and forced the majority of elven culture to exodus ranches. And I don’t want to think about the vitriol, the violence, and the mass suicides...”

  A groan came from the crowd.

  “All I know is that two-thirds of elven society killed itself. And Governor Grimoire took office twelve years ago and promised to find solutions. He hasn’t. We deserve someone in office who is committed to the survival of our culture. I built a billion-dollar business by creating real solutions to the magic problem. You see, we have to be responsible. What we have now is deficit casting. The government just uses more magic every year. Few, if any, of its programs have conserved magic. If we keep this up, we’ve got a very bad future ahead of us.”

  He held up the paper.

  “So back to my plan,” he said. “When I met with the governor, I told him, ‘I’m sick of your policies, and I’m going to be your worst nightmare.’”

  The crowd erupted into applause.

  “I told him I’m sick of the world’s resources—our resources—being wasted. And if the government won’t do anything about it, I will. I am going to expose every single instance of wasteful casting by my uncle’s government. And when I win, I’m cleaning out the Hall of Governance. They’re all gone. Gone!”

  More applause.

  “Ennius Grimoire was capable, but he’s been bought by dragons. Sorry to be so harsh, but it’s true. I’m my own man. I’ve got almost a billion dollars of my own money, so you can’t buy me.”

  The crowd jumped to its feet.

  “I’ve got nothing to lose, so they can’t bribe me,” he said. “They can’t turn me against you. I’m on your side, no matter what.”

  The crowd cheered and he waved.

  He jogged down and met the people in the audience.

  XXX

  Dark watched a replay of Lucan’s speech on the television. He studied Lucan in high definition; before, the man had been only a speck, just a shape of an elven man to be smashed.

  He still had a hard time understanding him. But now that he could communicate with Miri, his ear picked up the new speed at which people in the future spoke, and how they enunciated words differently and ran them together. At first he had thought they were speaking a different language. Now he knew that it was the same language, just evolved.

  It unsettled him. But so did his raw scales. His broken wing. His eye socket that pulsed and throbbed.

  Dark lay on his stomach with a piece of raw steak in his mouth, tearing at it as he watched the screen.

  He licked his bottom gum. Miri had ordered a salve for him to help with his sore mouth. She had rubbed the clear salve on his gums, and it made them numb so that he couldn’t feel the pain.

  He wanted to spread his wings, but the cage held him. His broken wing hung at his chest, tightly wrapped in mountains of gauze.

  Lucan finished his speech and the crowd clapped. Dark had never seen so many people in a single structure before. That crowd could fill an acre. For them to spill into the space around a man like Lucan meant he wielded tremendous power. All bargaining had to be done through him. Yet he was like a little boy traipsing around in a grown man’s body. Dark mentally scoffed at his feminine-like shamble across the platform, his strange layers of clothes that hugged his body like formalwear.

  “Gripping good speech,” Earl said.

  Miri, who was sitting in a chair next to Dark’s cage, nodded. She stood and stretched. “It was good, but long.”

  Dar
k wished for his second eye. From where she was sitting, he could have watched her facial expressions.

  This woman.

  She was well-versed in the ways of dragons, more than any elven citizen should have been.

  It disgusted him.

  He had wanted to rip her apart with his claws for the way that she had spoken to him. Boldness came too easily to elves and they needed to be shown the importance of respect. This woman was no different.

  Yet, she knew more than he had expected. She knew enough to help him, enough that he was willing to tolerate her.

  “Tell me,” he said. “Who is he?”

  “His name is Lucan Grimoire,” Miri said. “He’s a businessman.”

  “Like a merchant?”

  “Yes, but a really really rich merchant.”

  “What does he sell?”

  Miri gestured to the river of metal shafts and belts that stretched across the room as far as Dark could see. “He sells magic.”

  Magic!

  He knew there was a reason he hated the man. Every drop of his blood boiled at the idea of a merchant sitting at the aquifer and selling vials of the forbidden magic—his birthright, the one thing he had failed to protect as the dragon lord.

  Was this man to blame for it all?

  “Is that so? A seller of magic, eh? Tell me, Miri Charmwell, where does he get his magic?”

  “My name is Miri,” she said defensively. “Call me Miri, not by my full name, please. It’s awkward and unwieldy.”

  Ah, a nerve! He grinned and said, “I thought we made a promise to share information.”

  Miri’s posture stiffened as she searched for a rebuttal. Then she gave up, and in the middle of a sigh, she said, “He recycles it.”

  “I don’t understand. Who is his supplier from the aquifer? Knowing your vagrant ways, he must have someone who specializes in pillaging from it, does he not?”

  “Yes, but I don’t know the answer to that,” she said.

  “Then answer this,” Dark said. “When will he return? I wish to speak with him.”