Right, he should stop gawking and save his son. Sarn sent a burst of magic to collect the boy, and his magic wrapped around his son, cocooning him in an impenetrable shield. Ran floated on a cloud of green energy safely into his arms, and he hugged that boy tightly.
“Thank you, Papa.” Ran hugged him hard. The talkative tyke seemed none the worse for wear, thank Fate. That was a small miracle judging by the anger flashing in the dragon’s peculiar eyes.
In fact, the dragon was a lot smaller than Sarn had thought one would be in the flesh. She was maybe twice his six-and-a-half feet in height. Shouldn’t she be a lot larger? Her horned head didn’t even touch the ceiling. Granted, the stalactite-covered ceiling was about forty feet high. Weren’t Dragons supposed to be massive? Well, this one wasn’t.
The dragon approached, but she wasn’t heavy enough to shake the floor, not with the protective spells in the stonework redirecting her weight.
Sarn backed away from her and the blue light shining out of her eyes and horn. “What’s going on here?” Sarn relaxed his tight embrace, so he could look his son in the eyes. Ran was a small, bubbly copy of him, but thankfully, the tyke didn’t have any magic yet.
“You should run now,” Ran said into his shoulder.
“Why?” Sarn looked from the dragon exhaling smoke rings to his son. What was all that smoke for?
“Because the dragon might still be mad at me.” Ran ducked his head to hide his guilty little face.
“Why is the dragon mad at you?” Sarn regarded his son in perplexity. What could such a sweet child possibly have done to upset a dragon?
“I might have said a few things, but they were all true.” Ran started to cross his heart, but Sarn stopped him.
“Don’t swear. Promises are binding. You have to be careful what you say to people, especially to me.” Sarn squeezed his son’s hand then let go. A string of well-intentioned promises had bound him, body and soul, to more masters than he wanted to think about, and Sarn had no way out of that. Nor did he want that kind of life for the boy he held close to his heart.
His son should be free to pursue whatever he wanted, not tied to a bunch of promises made in ignorance. Sarn knew he should cut himself some slack. He’d been a stupid teenager at the time he’d made those promises. Unfortunately, that didn’t make them any less binding.
A fireball struck the shield around them, cutting off the recriminations looping through his mind, and it exploded in a shower of sparks.
Of course, Ran reached for them. “Ooo, pretty.”
No, they weren’t, so Sarn kept a firm hold on his son.
“Face me!” the enraged dragon beat her fisted claws against her chest, and that sounded like a fine idea.
Sarn had some frustration to work off, and a dragon was the perfect opponent. But first, he had a son to put somewhere safe. Preferably, somewhere the boy couldn’t interfere, like their cave. It was even more fortified than this tunnel. Ran would be safe in there, and it wasn’t far away.
In fact, his cave was in the next tunnel. Sarn backed into a wall, and his magic seeped into it. Let me pass. The stones behind him liquefied and flowed away on either side of him, forming a temporary doorway he slipped through before it closed, revealing a solid wall again. Thank you. Sarn rested a hand against the wall then turned away.
“Did we just walk through a stone wall?” Ran stared at him in awe.
“Yeah, it was in the way.” Sarn didn’t see what was so special about that. “My magic likes rocks. I just let it rearrange them.” Sarn shrugged.
“That was so cool. Can we do that again?”
His son’s eagerness took Sarn by surprise. “I guess we could.” What he’d done wasn’t hard. Sarn just hadn’t thought of it before.
The wall shook as the dragon rammed it, and cracks appeared in the stonework. This section wasn’t reinforced by ancient spells, and that was the only reason Sarn had even considered going through it. But it wouldn’t stand up to a concentrated attack for long.
Sarn sprinted to his cave and flung the door open. “Stay here. I’ll handle this.”
Before Ran could protest, and his son had been about to, judging by the stubborn set to his jaw, Sarn set the boy down inside their cave and shut the door.
A loud bang echoed through the tunnel followed by loud footsteps. Sarn sent some of his magic into the stone lintel, and it hugged the door. Keep the door closed. Protect my son. There, that should do it. Ran would be safe now, but he wasn’t. Sarn turned to face the dragon running toward him.
Cryptic Bears
[Mount Eredren, Shayari]
Papa had done his worried parent thing again and put a solid door between us. It was just him and the dragon now, and I didn’t even have a keyhole to peer through. So not fair.
What if something bad happened to Papa? How would I know? I pounded on the door as hard as I could with my little fists. “Let me out!”
The door to our cave was usually secured by a metal bolt, but I threw it back, and the door still wouldn’t open. I kicked it for good measure. Green light seeped between the door and jamb ensuring it stayed firmly closed. Even Papa’s magic was in on the ‘stop Ran from participating’ game. That was even more unfair because there was no arguing with Papa’s magic when it got all protective like this.
“Hang it up, kid. He won’t let you out until it’s safe, and that might take a while,” Bear said.
“But—” I pointed futilely at the door that refused to budge.
Bear shook his head and turned the page. My stuffed friend appeared to be reading. But Bear didn’t have eyes. He had two buttons that shined when his spirit was in residence as it was now.
“What are you reading?” It looked like a book, but some books had stories in them, and some didn’t. I didn’t want to assume this was the storybook kind. I crossed to the mattress where he sat to get a better look at it.
“Some legal stuff.” Bear didn’t even look up from the book.
“Whatever for?” I glanced at them, but the pages were covered in tiny words. There wasn’t a single picture among them. I gave the book a moue of distaste.
“No reason, just curiosity.” Bear shrugged.
“You’re curious about what?” I fingered the crocheted throw at the end of the ratty mattress. It was new to this cave, and I wondered if it had come from Melinda’s apartment. Sometimes, we borrowed things from her.
“How damages will get repaired. With a dragon around, things will break. I’m curious about who pays to fix them.” Bear gave me an unreadable look.
I just shrugged. “That sounds like a good puzzle for Papa. He likes solving mysteries, and I like helping him. Do you think he’s okay out there?” The door still glowed faintly green and probably wouldn’t open if I tried the handle again. I folded my arms over my chest while I waited for a response, but Bear just turned the page. Was he ignoring me?
A loud bang startled me, and the door rattled and shook. When it stilled, the cave was silent again until Bear turned another page. “Is Papa okay out there? He’s all alone with an angry dragon.” And I couldn’t hear anything anymore because our cave had thick walls. That was also Papa’s doing. He had an affinity for rocks, and so did his magic.
“He can shield. The dragon can’t,” Bear said finally as he continued to read. He wasn’t concerned at all, but worry had twisted my little tummy into knots. Bear rolled his button eyes. “What? Oh, don’t look at me like that. He’ll be fine, and all that shielding is good practice. Your father needs a teacher.”
“True, but I should be with him We always adventure together.” I willed the door to open and for Papa to walk in whole and undamaged.
“In case you haven’t noticed, we’re not on an adventure at the moment.” Bear frowned at what he was reading and flipped several pages before reading some more.
“But we could go on an adventure at any moment.” I bounced on the balls of my feet. Excitement filled up all the worried places inside me, leaving no room fo
r anything else. I loved adventures, even the dangerous kind.
“Maybe. One never knows when an adventure will knock on your door.” Bear furrowed his furry brow as he riffled through the book, searching for something.
“Or where that adventure will take you.” I reached for the door handle. Maybe this time, it would open. It didn’t. Drat.
“It’s a mystery, my young friend, but so are many things.” Bear winked a button eye at me and turned another page. This time, a sword poked out of the blocks of words. Bear shoved it back in with a swipe of his well-padded, and quite furry, paw.
I eyed the book curiously. I liked stories with swords in them. Papa didn’t have a sword, but he wanted one. Some dumb law said indentured servants, like Papa, couldn’t bear arms, and that included swords. There was another law that outlawed the use of magic. Papa broke that law just by existing, so he had to be extra careful whenever he left our cave. If anyone ever saw his glowing eyes, he could be in big trouble. Why were all the cool things against the law?
A red light shined out of the book. Bear gave me another impenetrable look and pushed the light back in between the pages. But I was onto him. He was trying to distract me, and it was working. The questions were bubbling up inside me again. I needed answers.
“What are you really reading?” I pointed to the book. When another sword thrust out of it, I retracted my hand and backed away as that wickedly sharp blade swept toward me. “Where did that come from?”
“Nowhere important.” Bear clucked his tongue as he batted the sword away, and it melted back into the book. But he was enjoying this. The more I squirmed; the more he fought the grin his lips had been stitched into.
What the heck was he reading? I bit my lip to keep from asking again, but the question was on the tip of my tongue, burning a hole in me the longer it went unanswered.
Bear knew it too. His button eyes shone with mirth as he turned another page and winked at me. “What do you think I’m reading?”
Tête-à-Tête With The Dragon
[Mount Eredren, Shayari]
“Why were you chasing my son?” Sarn glared at the dragon. Magic filled his cupped hands, warm and emerald-bright, ready to be cast.
But down here, there were so many spells worked into the walls, ceiling, and floor. Sarn had to be careful not to hit or disrupt any. Otherwise, he could cause a cave-in. Never again. One cave-in was enough. It had been years ago, but the nightmares still plagued him. All thoughts of them vanished as the dragon charged.
Sarn threw up his hands to block her, and magic shot from them into a green half-dome. The dragon crashed into that shield, driving Sarn backward until he struck the door. Blue-glowing ones and zeroes fountained off the dragon as she pushed against his shield, intent on crushing it. Her scaly hide disintegrated where it touched his magic, exposing the luminous lines of code that had spawned her. But what the hell was she doing here?
Sarn hadn’t recognized the so-called Newsletter-Dragon at first, but he was used to seeing her as a two-dimensional rendering of code on a screen, not a scale-and-bone dragon. The more she slammed into his magic, the more her physical body devolved back to the bits and bytes that usually comprised her. She seemed to be unraveling, layer by layer, but there wasn’t any blood underneath those leathery scales.
“How did you get here?” Sarn shoved the dragon with a burst of magic. Magic disrupted tech, but what effect did tech have on magic?
“Wouldn’t you like to know.” The dragon grinned then exhaled another fireball larger than the first. It washed over his shield, eating away at it.
Some of the fire got through and singed his green uniform. Damn it. It was expensive to replace. Sarn fed more magic into his disintegrating shield and scanned the wall behind the dragon. It wasn’t load-bearing. Good. Sarn pulled on it with his magic and rocks pummeled the dragon’s back, and that cut off her fire.
She growled and bared her teeth. Smoke curled out of her mouth, but no more fire shot out. “Is that all you’ve got? Because it’ll take more than a few stones to stop me.”
No, that wasn’t anywhere near all he had, but Sarn had to tread carefully because there was a mountain on top of them and ten thousand souls lived inside it. How could he defeat a dragon? What would his heroes do? Sarn searched his memory for an answer. One of the Guardians of old must have faced down a dragon in centuries past. Shayari had been a wilder place then. What would they do in this situation?
Sarn didn’t know, but he needed a plan fast or to stall until he came up with one. Stalling looked like his only option. Damn. “Why are you after my son? He’s just a little kid. There’s nothing he could have done to incite such anger.”
“That’s for me to know and you to wonder.” The dragon lunged for him, but Sarn dodged, and the dragon crashed into a wall. It didn’t even flinch though because the protective spells in it evenly distributed the force of her impact so no one section took the brunt of it.
“This isn’t about some comments he made. So what’s it really about?” Sarn grabbed the fallen rocks with his magic and slammed them into her back, but they broke upon the spikes along her spine.
“Maybe he has something I want.” The dragon snapped a kick at Sarn, but she hit his shield instead, and he collapsed its outer edge and wrapped it around her foot.
She spun, using her tail to balance, and kicked out with her other foot, but Sarn repeated the trick and captured that foot too. The dragon landed on her side, teeth bared in a snarl, as he punched out with his shield and sent her sliding down the tunnel. She dug her claws into the stones and stopped herself halfway down the tunnel, buying him a moment to regroup.
Sarn staggered as exhaustion mauled him, and the world threatened to gray out for a moment. He shook his head and his vision cleared in time to see the dragon charging not at him but at the door, her mouth wreathed in flames. Oh no, you don’t. You’re not getting past me.
Sarn stepped in front of it, and the dragon crashed into his shield, driving him backward with the force of the collision. The door behind Sarn swung inward, and he skidded across the floor, shoving the dirty laundry out of the way. His sixth sense screamed at him to protect his son as the dragon sucked in another breath to fuel another fireball.
Secretive Bears and Their books
[Mount Eredren, Shayari]
“If I knew what you were reading, I wouldn’t have to ask.” I flopped onto the mattress beside my stuffed friend and his ghostly inhabitant. It didn’t pancake under me because I only weighed a fraction of what Papa did. I didn’t care if this put me in sword range. I needed to see those pages and the words written on them. I couldn’t read, but I could memorize the shapes of the letters and draw them later for my uncle, who could read.
Bear turned the page to a blank one. No fair. “If you’re good, maybe I’ll read you some of it.” Bear adjusted his hold on the book as the door flew open.
Papa slid backward across the uneven stone floor of our cave on a thin layer of magic. Green lightning raced over his boots, stopping him well short of the wall.
“Papa!” I sat up and crashed into a sparkly wall of magic pressing me into the mattress. Darn it. Papa was doing his protective thing again. “Let me up. I can help.” I shoved at the magic holding me down until a fireball struck it. Maybe Papa was onto something with this whole shielding thing.
“I’m fine. Stay where you are.” Papa waved at me. His green eyes blazed with magic, and his hands were all lit up too.
Indeed, he looked okay. His green tunic and trousers were a little singed in places, and his equally green cloak was mending a tear in itself. A half-dome of green energy stood between Papa and the angry dragon pushing on it. He fell back a step as the shield collapsed inward, hugging him more tightly. The dragon raised her horned head for another go at him, but her gaze caught on the fiery-purple hoop floating nearby.
Uh-oh. I’d paid so much attention to the dragon and Bear; I hadn’t noticed the portal had appeared in the back corner of ou
r cave.
“So that’s where you’ve been hiding it.” The dragon sidestepped Papa, and his shield, and dove through the portal.
“We have to stop her.” I pushed against the magic that was still holding me down. “Let me up, Papa.”
A loud crash drowned out whatever Papa had been about to say as the portal started shaking.
“Why’s it doing that? It’s never done that before.” I stared in fascination at the dancing portal.
That purple-glowing hoop functioned as a magical doorway to our Scribe, Melinda Kucsera’s, apartment. Through its quaking aperture, a slice of her living room went in and out of focus. I just hoped the computer I used to send Melinda’s newsletter each week was okay. The dragon who’d just left had tried to take it over on more than one occasion. I had to get to that computer and stop her.
Papa’s magic released me as he passed the mattress, and I grabbed a handful of his pant leg to stop him from doing that protective parent thing and declaring that I had to stay here or some other nonsense. Because that wasn’t happening, and he should know that by now. “I’m coming with you.”
“Of course, you are.” Papa bent and set me on my feet.
“Where you go, I go,” I reminded him, just in case he was having second thoughts about that, and right now, we needed to go through that portal. We couldn’t allow anything dangerous near our Scribe, and that included angry dragons. “Are you coming, Bear?” I glanced at my stuffed friend.
Bear turned another page. “Not right now. You run along without me.”
“Are you sure about that?” Because the book he was skimming didn’t look like it was all that unputdownable. No more swords had appeared, and its pages didn’t glow anymore. The book looked ordinary in his paws now.
In answer to my question, Bear nodded his bulbous head. His stitched lips didn’t so much as twitch when he spoke, but I heard his words loudly and clearly, and so did Papa. “I’ll be along later. Give the dragon my regards.”
Dragon Spells Page 2
