Old Dark (The Last Dragon Lord Book 1)

by Michael La Ronn

  “He and his dad showed up at my office yesterday wanting to speak with your boy.”

  “We’ve been on the campaign circuit.”

  “Yeah, which is why they came to me.”

  Celesse’s eyes widened.

  “Kid had a change of mind.”

  “Crap. I told Lucan that boy was trouble.”

  “His father is demanding to meet with Lucan. If not, they’re going to an attorney.”

  “Why an attorney?”

  Gunther laughed. “Forgot to tell you—kid’s arm was in a cast.”

  “We inspected him. He didn’t take a hit in the attack with the dragon. How can he possibly be hurt?”

  “Welcome to my world,” Gunther said. “Don’t tell me you haven’t had people claim things against you that weren’t true.”

  Celesse pulled out her phone and started to thumb a text. As her thumbs hovered over the screen, she remembered that her text message would have geo-data coded into it. She couldn’t betray her location if this got out.

  “Gunther, thanks for the heads-up. Are we still good?”

  “We’re good.”

  Gunther walked away. His voice echoed down the aisle.

  “Besides, that kid’s dad is a worse pain in your ass than I’ll ever be.”

  Intermezzo

  Magic Hope City bloomed into the rose of the western continent. What was once a small city on the western continent’s shores grew to a population of millions.

  Because of its strategic location, the city attracted humans, elves and dragons, and the three races often found themselves in conflict.

  Humans invented computer technology, which gave them the edge in intelligence.

  Elves had mastered the most supreme spells, blessing every sector of the economy with improved efficiency.

  Keeper dragons continued to moderate the aquifer levels, closing it off when the balance was threatened.

  Crafter dragons repaired the land from the aftereffects of casting, filling in enormous craters that elves left behind. They also invented spells to counter the side effects of casting, which brought them into more frequent contact with humans and elves; one learned to feel both comfort and fear when seeing their silhouettes on the skyline.

  But a band of elves challenged this prosperity.

  These elves stood under the clear skies and watched the city swelling with magic. They listened to the predictions of a glorious future, but didn’t believe it.

  These elves had been monitoring the aquifer levels, and had discovered that the constant casting and crafting was causing weakness in the earth. They predicted that a problem was coming. Urging science, they spoke of a world without magic, a withered place that could not sustain the population.

  They forecasted doom.

  Known as “The Returners,” they preached a more responsible society, one that found ways to cast magic responsibly without damaging the aquifer. If needed, they believed in going back to the land and giving the aquifer time to repair itself.

  The Returners were mocked. The newspapers were filled with criticisms of their arguments. Scientists came up with bogus theories to refute them.

  The citizens of Magic Hope City did not want to give up their rich lifestyles. It was not convenient to accept The Returners’ warnings.

  And so The Returners found themselves on the fringes of society. Many of them died in poverty and obscurity.

  The world continued on its course for decades.

  Until a section of the aquifer collapsed underneath the capital.

  The ground gave way one night, swallowing the skyscrapers and roads as if they were built on sand.

  A million lives were lost.

  The aquifer had spoken. A great pink eye in the middle of the city swirled, and for many, it was the first time anyone had ever seen the natural wonder, a flowing river of bubbling pink magic that rushed beneath the earth.

  The government worked for years to fill the massive sinkhole.

  Younger generations began to discover The Returners, many of whom had long-since died. These young elves and humans did not want to see another aquifer collapse. They believed in a balanced future, one with magic and prosperity, but with sacrifices.

  This new, young group—The Believers—won the national election in a landslide. Now they had the power, and wondered how to use it.

  They reflected on the city’s history—the Hope Council and its clear-eyed realism. They sent the greatest minds of their generation to the Hall of Governance—engineers, artists, scientists, politicians, conservationists, humans, elves, Keepers, Crafters, and other influential luminaries.

  Six weeks passed while the world waited nervously.

  The discussion: the natural deposits in the aquifer were still plentiful. One could still find undiscovered deposits on every continent. There were also dragons who lived away from society and who sat on the largest reserves ever recorded. In other words, the short-term future was bright indeed. The long-term future was nightmarish.

  If only society could access those present reserves.

  If only there was a way to protect them at the same time.

  Dragons in the city, who were more comfortable among humans and elves than any generations previously, wanted influence and power. Like Fenroot in the Dawn Age, they knew that their biggest strength was their own private reserves.

  The Hope Council wanted a society that would survive the Magical Problem.

  Their solution was clear: if certain dragons would give up their shares of the aquifer, humans would use their technological prowess to convert the dragons into technological beings that inhabited the city’s infrastructure.

  It was called Abstraction.

  Dragons took on abstract roles; there were dragons of privacy, dragons of love, and dragons of commerce, to name just a few. They oversaw their areas of society better than humans could, embedding themselves into the very fabric of the city.

  It took a very large quantity of magic to put a dragon through Abstraction. However, the dragons’ reserves were so large that the cost was worth it. Humans and elves now had large reserves to tap into for research, and temporary relief in the event of a shortage.

  Society bloomed under Abstraction, but the majority of elves did not support it. Suspicious from years of betrayal, they did not trust the dragons’ motives. They rallied against the process, filling the grounds of the Hall of Governance with peaceful protests.

  But the need for a solution was too great.

  Traditional elven society found itself at a crossroads. One branch of elves believed in the old teachings and of elven superiority. One day, dragons might again have power over the city. Centuries of lessons had shown them the devastating effects of this arrangement.

  Humans would not be reasoned with, for they and dragons had never been direct enemies.

  However, another group disagreed with Abstraction—the dragons who rejected it. They did not believe in subjecting themselves to the rules of an elven society.

  The dissenting dragons retreated into the wilderness.

  The dissenting elves implored the government to listen, and they rebelled to the point of looking foolish.

  When society would not listen, the elders reverted to their classical teachings. They convinced as many elves as they could to gather at remote ranches (called exodus ranches). They preached, drank poison, and committed mass suicide.

  Two-thirds of elven society vanished overnight.

  Not only did the world have to deal with the magical crisis, it also had to deal with the fact that due to racial mixing, in just a few generations there would be no elves with full blood to cast magic.

  Thus elven society itself would die a long, painful death, and take the rest of the world with it...

  ACT V

  XXXIII

  Dark couldn’t stop watching Frog. He stared at the television screen for hours, listening to the dragon’s croaky drawl. Even though the screen was cracked, he could see Frog clearly.


  “In’the bog, when I was a boy, I had a happy childhood…”

  Lucan and Miri had left the room arguing. Lucan insisted that Dark wear the muzzle and that they turn the lights off, but they forgot the television. Earl, the man in black, had tried to say something to Lucan—Dark watched the glimmer in the man’s eyes flare up at the realization that the television was on, but then fade away as Lucan answered a phone call and rushed out of the room.

  Earl started toward the television to turn it off, but Dark growled at him.

  “There’s no harm in watching a news report, is there?” Dark had asked.

  Earl paused, looking at the television and then to the door where Lucan was.

  Then Lucan called his name, and he hurried away without giving it another thought.

  Dark had assumed Earl to be nothing more than a brute, but he was a thinking man indeed. Dark’s estimation of him rose, but only a little. A bodyguard was still a bodyguard—a human one at that.

  When the door shut, Dark found himself alone again, comforted by Frog’s voice.

  Frog!

  The river dragon sat in his studio, speaking for hours in front of the camera. His wart-ridden face took up half the screen, and his throat bulged and flapped sporadically, a transparent green sheet of skin with veins that ballooned and shrank as he breathed.

  On the bottom of the screen was an emblem of a frog sitting on a lily pad with the initials TFC on it. Every few minutes, the frog jumped off the lily pad and into the bottom of the screen; vine-covered text splashed up and landed on the lily pad: The Frog Channel.

  Below, headlines streamed across the screen, advertising news that Dark didn’t understand.

  “Before I announce the weather today,” Frog said. “It’s time I spoke up about the election. I’vad thoughts about it for a while now, but it wasn’tll last night that I’ve wanted to speak about it.”

  Little old Frog.

  How little he used to be. He was the size of his father now, maybe bigger. And that was saying something. To think that he had spent his humble beginnings in Dark’s tutelage.

  To think that he had survived!

  And what of Toad, his father? Now there was a true bodyguard. He remembered Toad’s quiet, humble nature and wondered if he and Earl were the same.

  He remembered that he had dismissed Toad on the night of the attack. If Toad had accompanied him, maybe Dark wouldn’t have been cursed.

  Dark rested his head on the ground, and the smell of raw meat drifted into his nostrils. He couldn’t eat it, and he wasn’t hungry anyway.

  He yearned to see more faces from the past.

  “I’ve seen many springs,” Frog said. “All of them were beautiful in their own right. When I was a boy, my father an’ me celebrated the rains. Great fog would roll off the sea, and we knew that the season was changin’. We’d been under the water, living in caves of mud, breathing soil and protecting our share of the aquifer. But one can only see so much pink before he pines for the fresh colors of flowers. When spring came, my father would wake me up and I’d smell the fog. He’d ask me why’nt I’d’ve smelled the flowers too, for they were bloomin’. I’d follow’im onto the banks and we’d go walking, magic gathering under the webs of our feet so that even our very footsteps glowed. And my father would nod to the skies, put his strong, arms around me, and we’d pray for my mother in the great beyond—bless her heart—and as the fog wrapped around us we’d pray for the other souls lost to the river of time...”

  Dark hadn’t prayed, himself.

  He didn’t think to; his pain was so great and he was in such a strange place that only survival occupied his thoughts.

  Maybe he should have prayed, but there was no sky here.

  That’s a good boy that never forgot his teachings, Frog ... he thought.

  “My father didn’ speak much. He was the bodyguard for Old Dark.”

  Pride surged through Dark and he stood up.

  “And I don’t care if the network wants to censor me or delay the broadcast,” Frog said. “For thirty years I’ve been bringing the weather to the city’s doorstep. I’ll speak my mind, and if anyone has a problem with’at then they can feel the force of my underside.”

  Frog looked directly at the camera and ribbitted. “My father was loyal to the Darks. And they were a good family, as good as good can be given the circumstances of the time. Lords Dark the First and Second took pity on this little dragon, when I was no more’n the size of a croc. They taught me astrology. Dragon hist’ry. I learned to be prouda who I am. And I have the Darks to thank for that. If that makes me a problem to hist’ry, then I suppose I’m a two-thousand-pound problem.”

  “That’s it, my boy!” Dark cried. “Tell them what a glorious ruler I was, and what a father figure I was to you.”

  There was rustling in the studio. Someone off-camera must have been trying to stop Frog. He glanced to the right and stuck out his tongue. It extended off-camera and struck someone. Dark heard a yell.

  Frog’s tongue lashed out again.

  And again.

  Then he settled, swallowed hard, and said, “When one wants’ve make a point, they try to stop’im. But I tell my story about the Darks so that you know where the skies of my position are. There’ve’ll be clouds in it, and fog and rain, but now you can’t misunderstand me. And to the network, I tell you: take me out of context and I’ll provide the weather out of context, seeing as Abstraction makes me the nearest thing to the god of weather.”

  Silence.

  “For the last six months, we’ve’a been hearing about the candidates and their thoughts. No point’n summarizing what’s already been summed up because it’s as clear as a freshwater stream. And none’ve what I’ve heard’s appeased this dragon. The governor points to his record and claims it’s as cool as a noon zephyr. Lucan Grimoire says this, says that and the young people’ve been swoonin’ for’im. And of course there’s Amal Sagewood, who sounds to me like a counterpoint ‘tween the two, though you have to respect a human who wants to spar with a couple’ve rich elves. When you get to be a dragon like me, as old as I am, you start to see that alluv’em are the same. The only thing different is their appearance. And bless my rivered heart, I’m not that old, but old enough...”

  “Indeed, my boy,” Dark said.

  How old was Frog?

  When Dark was attacked, he had been one thousand five hundred years old. Frog couldn’t have been older than five hundred years old then. That would have made the river dragon one thousand five hundred years old now, or the equivalent of a forty-year-old man. If math could be trusted, then that made Dark the equivalent of a seventy-year-old man, now. He coughed at the realization and choked on his own spit.

  His bones ached, as if to remind him of the years that had been stolen from him. He wished for Frog’s youth, though even Frog didn’t have much of it left.

  “And why should we settle for a has-been answer on magical conservation?” Frog continued in his slow drawl. “If there’s one thing we dragons understand, it’s that the wind is breezin’ in the direction of doom. Why, if I still had my shares of the aquifer, I’d’ve voted with my influence. It seems to me that no one has posed any real solutions. And for that, I have chosen not to vote in any election. I will not support anyone who does not impress me with a detailed plan, for this world of ours is too beautiful in’an’o’itself to deserve any less. So I tells the candidates to stop knocking on my door and knock on the doors to Hell, because that’s where we’re all going in a few generations if they fail.”

  Frog stopped, and his eyes widened as if he knew he’d gone too far. His hardened expression softened a little, as if his words had hurt even him.

  “I myself don’t have any solutions, and maybe that’s a fault. But then again, I’m just your neighborhood Frog. If I hadn’t been teased and ridiculed as a young dragon, maybe’ve I’da had more ambition...”

  Frog’s voice was pained, and it hurt Dark.

  Had society bee
n as mean to Frog as he said? Dark and his father had taken Frog under their protection because the other dragons ridiculed him. Toad tried to protect his son, but he could only do so much, given that he had many of the same awkward attributes as Frog.

  What was there not to tease? His face, his big body, his voice, and his seemingly unintelligent, bumpkinish ways made him an easy target for more fit and physically capable dragons like Fenroot.

  Dark had had pity on Frog. He never knew if the boy would amount to anything, but Dark and his parents were not so evil as to let other dragons abuse him.

  Dark was a black dragon, an anomaly in nature. He knew what it was to be different.

  And what a winning gamble he’d made in Frog. Like a time capsule thrown into the future!

  “My boy, I am immensely proud,” Dark said.

  Frog changed subjects. “Tonight we will see some more rain. The Magic Index is eighty-nine, the humidity, seventy-five...”

  Dark had to find him.

  The television turned off. The two men who paralyzed him every few hours had returned.

  One of the men stood in front of the television.

  “No more television for you,” Orion said. He wore a white polo, khaki pants, and a black skull cap. He smelled like a strange smoke, as if he were constantly exposed to burning fire. The smell was unpleasant to Dark’s nose.

  Dark growled.

  “Oh, come on, Orion,” the other man said. He wore a similar uniform, but he had dark skin. “If he wants to watch that stupid Frog, let him. No one takes that damned dragon seriously anyway.”

  “We got orders,” Gus said. “We’re not that professor chick. We break the rules, we get canned.”

  “The Frog Channel is the least dangerous thing he can watch.”

  Dark was sick of these men and he immediately marked them for death.

  “Tell me, young ones: is this Frog really as stupid as he looks?”

  Gus laughed. “You bet he is. Seeing as you’ve been around a couple thousand years, you’d think a dragon like you would know a thing or two.”