by Dante King
Elenari gave a little disbelieving laugh at my somewhat melodramatic description, but the Seer, Claire, looked thoughtful.
“The Seer sees the truth in your words,” Noctis said, his thoughts only discernible to me.
“Exaggerated as your language is, Michael Noctis,” Claire said, “it carries a grain of truth. There are sure to be those within the Empire, as well as beyond its borders, that would think they alone know how best to make use of this gift of yours.”
“My thoughts exactly,” I said. “And you know how things go when people in positions of power begin doing things ‘for the greater good.’ Next thing you know, you’re up to your eyebrows in maniacal dictators, there are all sorts of fucked up plots and schemes coming out of the woodwork, and screwy individuals start to have vastly different views on the pros and cons of genocide.”
“Which is why I suggest we keep this development a secret,” the Seer said. “A secret that is known unto only those gathered here.”
“That’s a strong second from me,” I said.
“You can count on us, of course, Mike,” Saya said.
Elenari put her hand on her belly. Her green eyes blazed. “We’ll tell no one, Mike,” she said.
I believed them too. And, if the dragonmancers were going to keep their lips buttoned up tighter than a fish’s asshole, I had no worries about their dragons letting anything slip, even to other dragons.
“They will say nothing,” Noctis said to me, in a voice that brooked no argument.
“Now, as much as I wish to hope the Empire will not use you in the way that you fear—” Claire began to say.
“By hooking my dong up to a jacking off machine and ejaculating me until my balls are the size of raisins?” I interjected, unable to keep the mental image from my mind.
“Ye-es,” Claire said slowly. “Well, as much as I hope you do not find yourself in that highly uncomfortable-sounding position, it would be remiss of me not to say that I think the Mystocean Empire will make use of you in some other way.”
“We are, essentially, soldiers,” Elenari said. “We are weapons. Tools. To be used in whatever way our commanding officers or, indeed, the Empress see fit.”
“That is the truth of the matter, of course,” the Seer said. “That is why you are born. That is why you are trained. That is why you are bonded with your dragons. That is why, some of you, will die.” Her piercing alien gaze shifted between us, her mismatched eyes glittering with an almost bottomless perception.
There’s a lot of wheels turning in that head of hers, I thought. There are a lot of plans revolving.
“With regards to this ability, with regards to your seed,” the Seer said, “I will bestow a warning upon you—a little piece of advice.”
I looked away then, briefly. There were few things that made me uncomfortable, but I had to admit that listening to someone talk about your jizz in such a familiar way was probably one of them. I gazed around at the peaceful meadow, at the little cottage with its chimney smoking cozily, at the old, bent apple trees, at the forested mountains looming above.
“What’s the advice, Claire?” I asked, a little stiffly.
“I believe there may be a limitation of sorts when it comes to your seed,” the Seer said.
“How does she know this?” Noctis asked, his questioning forming in the forefront of my mind as if I had thought it up myself.
“How do you know this?” I asked Claire, playing the part of my Onyx Dragon’s mouthpiece.
“I have gathered information and material on this matter through abstruse ways,” the Seer said, her eyes gazing off the edge of the cliff on which her little homestead sat. “I have mustered and marshaled knowledge through dreams, visions, and through scrying from afar.”
I nodded, trying not to let my skepticism show on my face. “Dreams and visions, huh?” I said. “I know you’re a professional seer and stuff, but that sounds a little wooly.”
“It’s said that there are books and scrolls on this matter,” Saya said, “but they are locked away, buried deep in the catacombs of the Sacred Library.”
“Sacred Library?” I asked.
“It is the chief depository of the Mystocean Empire’s knowledge,” Elenari said. “Located in the capital, Wyverngarth.”
“It’s whispered among the recruits that even those dusty old crusts who call themselves the Lorekeepers have never laid eyes on those particular scrolls,” Saya said. She patted Scopula’s stony head, and the dragon sighed and closed its eyes.
“And those rumors are quite true,” the Seer said. “None have seen those scrolls, not for centuries.”
“Why?” I asked. “They sound pretty damned important to me.”
“Like I said,” Saya replied, “they are under lock, and the key has been lost.”
“Oh, right,” I said. “Sorry, I thought you were kind of waxing lyrical on me. There’s actually a key required to get to them and find out the definite truth of this matter?”
“That’s right,” said Claire. “These scrolls and parchments are mentioned in a book as being drawn in the blood of an Onyx Dragon.”
“Like Noctis?” I asked.
“Yes,” said the Seer. “Which, as you know, means that they are imbued with Chaos Magic—one of the most potent forms of magic in this world. These scrolls are said to contain the secrets of our history. The secrets of how dragonmancers came to rule this part of our world. People speculate as to whether the secret of how to stop the extinction of the dragons and their magic is written in those scrolls too.”
“Sounds like the sort of knowledge that any right-thinking monarch would want to get their hands on,” I said.
“You’re not wrong there, Mike,” Elenari said. She lowered herself gingerly into the fragrant meadow grass and leaned against the flank of Gharmon. The Emerald Dragon put a protective foreleg around her.
“There is a special band of treasure hunters who answer only to the Empress Cyrene,” Elenari continued as Claire wandered away toward the edge of the cliff that looked across at the topmost battlement of the Crystal Spire. “These treasure hunters are known as the Wardens of Artifice.”
“Bit wordy,” I said, and Saya smiled.
“They are more commonly known as the Wardens,” Elenari said, managing to stop rolling her eyes with extreme difficulty. “The men at arms sometimes belittle them by calling them the Locksmiths.”
“Why belittle them?” I asked.
“Well, it’s seen as a pretty cushy detail, being picked for the Wardens,” Saya said. “They basically ride about the land on horseback searching for this key, following up on clues and rumored whispers. Hardly carries the same threat as going into battle, does it?”
“If one of these Wardens were ever to find this key though,” I said, “that could prove to be the most valuable piece of information in the Mystocean Empire. Very valuable.”
“The key word there, I think,” Elenari said, “is ‘if.’”
A sharp clap stopped this conversation.
The three of us looked over to where Claire stood at the edge of the cliff. The pale woman was silhouetted against the night sky and the stars. Her long white dress flew like a battle standard in the breeze that shipped across the cliff face.
“This is all irrelevant talk,” she said firmly. “I need to conduct a few other tests on these two women before the dragonlings are born, to have complete certainty that Mike’s powerful seed is responsible for the conceptions.”
“I doubt it’s something that they had for breakfast,” I quipped.
“Be that as it may,” the Seer said, “I need to know for certain that you are who, and what, we presume you to be.”
These words brought another question bubbling up to the surface of my mind. One that I could not believe I had failed to ask as soon as my feet touched terra firma.
“How long?” I asked. “How long until we can expect the dragonlings—if that’s what they are—to be born?”
Elenari and Saya
looked fixedly at Claire.
The Seer touched a finger to her full lips, pondering. “I would say that they will gestate for only a few more days, possibly less than that. Dragonlings grow and flourish quickly. They are conceived with survival and strength in mind.”
I looked questioningly at the two warrior women across from me, suddenly a little awkward.
What was the MO here? What was the modus operandi usually in a situation like this?
“Do you need me to… Should I… Would you like me to, you know, wait around and… stuff?” I asked, my words coming out of my mouth in fits and starts.
“No,” Claire said.
I looked over at the ethereal seer and saw that she had turned back to look at the sky again.
“No?” I asked. I looked back at Elenari and Saya. “Are you sure? That doesn’t really strike me as the gentlemanly thing to do.”
Saya actually started chuckling at that.
“What?” I said.
“You are no gentleman!” she choked, slapping her muscular thigh.
Elenari giggled.
“Well, look, you know what I mean, don’t you?” I said. “I just mean that I feel an obligation to stay here and look after you two. Protect you.”
Saya’s laughter redoubled.
Elenari raised a sharp eyebrow at me. “Protection? Do you not recall how we met, Mike?”
I sure did. It wasn’t many people who broke the ice by eviscerating a fleeing criminal in front of your eyes, but Elenari was one of them. That display of ferocity straight out of the gate had, unsurprisingly, stuck in my memory bank.
“And do you not remember who we are—what we are?” Saya said, wiping a tear of mirth from the corner of one beautiful blue eye. “We’re bloody dragonmancers, Mike. We can take care of ourselves just fine.”
Elenari tossed a pebble at me in a good-natured way, and I caught it. She grinned at me. “It was a very sweet offer though, Mike,” she said, her perfect elven teeth shining white in the light of the moon.
“Besides,” Claire said, “you, Michael Noctis, need to ensure that no one knows about this for as long as we can contain the secret.”
“True,” I said, “and that won’t happen if those little bundles of joy, Sergeant Milena and Lieutenant Kaleen, miss all three of us in our lesson, right?”
“Correct,” said the Seer.
“If Sergeant Milena or Lieutenant Kaleen were to hear of this,” I asked Claire, “what would they do?”
“A fair question,” Saya said.
”If they were to discover what has happened, that there are two dragonmancers who are carrying what most probably are going to turn out to be dragonlings?” the Seer asked. “That the male dragon rider who has just proved himself and been let into the ranks of the Dragonmancers also harbors the ability to create said dragonlings?”
“Yes that,” Elenari said, with a bite of impatience in her voice.
Claire pursed her perfect lips. “Mike will be whisked off to the Overseer and the Martial Council. Once they are satisfied with what he tells them, he would likely be subjected to all kinds of experiments by the Lorekeepers .”
I held up my hands. “In that case, you hardass ladies are on your own. I’m very fond of you, but if leaving you here while I act like nothing’s happened means saving myself from being probed—potentially physically, as well as mentally—by some dried-up old farts in robes, then that’s what I’m going to do.”
Elenari laughed. “The Lorekeepers don’t wear robes.”
“Their name makes it sound like they should,” I said.
“There has been, I think, enough talk this evening,” the Seer said, walking back over to the three of us. “Why don’t we make our way inside my cottage? We can pull up chairs by the fire and talk of less consequential matters. I have a pot of quite passable stew simmering over the fire.”
At the mention of stew my stomach gave a little, hopeful gurgle. “I could eat,” I said.
The Seer took me by the arm and steered me toward the house. “Excellent,” she said dreamily, “I thought that you would be a man of appetites.”
Is that an innuendo? I thought.
“Have you ever had slow-cooked roc, Michael?” Claire asked me as we walked slowly toward the house, Elenari and Saya following behind.
“Roc? As in the enormous legendary bird of prey that was said to be able to carry away whole elephants to munch on? That kind of roc?”
“Yes,” Claire replied.
“Oh,” I said. “No. I can’t say that I have. The closest I’ve gotten to that is probably KFC.”
“KFC?” the Seer asked as we walked down the little path of gleaming white stones leading to her front door.
“You know, KFC,” I said. “The dirty bird? The Colonel’s finest?”
Claire shook her elegant head, sending her silver braids to shimmying like a beaded curtain.
“I know little of Earthling history,” she said. “He was a great military man, this Colonel?”
“I don’t know about that,” I replied, “but he knew the way to a man’s heart.”
“That’s very important when it comes to soldiering,” Claire said, and there was the suggestion of a knowing laugh in her voice, though her face remained unreadable.
“Yeah, right,” I said. “I’m willing to bet that he’s ushered more than a few people into their graves with a greasy smile on their face.”
The Seer smiled, although she might have just been being polite seeing as I had seen very little evidence that K-Fry had managed to jump worlds just yet.
“Let the dragons sleep under the stars tonight,’ she said to myself, Elenari and Saya. “Let them breathe the fresh air. The Augury Grove’s atmosphere will do your beasts good.”
The Seer opened the heavy oak door with a thrust of her hand, and the four of us trooped inside.
Chapter Two
The following morning, I awoke feeling as fresh as a goddamn daisy. This was, to be honest, surprising. The Seer had been as liberal and generous with her wine as she had been with her roc stew. Seeing as Elenari and Saya had not been drinking, I had imbibed for three.
I was sandwiched between Elenari and Saya on a nest of blankets, pillows, and straw mattresses that Claire had placed in front of the smoldering fire after dinner. The few rays of sunlight coming through the simple hemp curtains spoke of the dawn.
With exaggerated care so as not to wake the sleeping women, I pushed myself up, fished around in the higgledy-piggledy pile of bed clothes for my shirt, and pulled it over my head. Then I walked quietly to the door and stepped out into the early morning sunshine.
It had been a nice evening; relaxed and convivial. The roc stew had been as good as, if not better than, even the freshest, most perfectly spiced fried chicken. The four of us had talked far into the night, speaking of everything and anything that came to our heads.
Claire had offered to let me sleep there with the other two dragonmancers, and I couldn’t think of a reason that I shouldn’t. The Seer bid us goodnight, and the three of us had lain down next to the dying fire. A large part of my intoxicated brain thought that, perhaps, we were going to do a Motörhead and get a rocking threesome started. However, the girls were not in the mood—which was fair enough seeing as we were essentially camping out on someone’s kitchen floor.
“Not tonight, Mike,” Saya had crooned sleepily from where her head lay in the crook of my left arm.
“No, not tonight, Michael,” Elenari seconded from the corresponding spot on my other side, a wisp of her red hair tickling my nose. “But you might want to ready yourself for tomorrow evening.”
“Oh yeah?” I’d said, stroking both women’s heads and feeling exceedingly at peace with the world. “What’s happening tomorrow night, huh?”
“The Seer says she has some final tests to determine that you are definitely a dragon breeder,” Saya had murmured.
“What kind of tests?” I’d tried to ask, but the two pregnant warriors had nodde
d off.
Now, I took a deep breath of mountain air, feeling the scent of the pines and the river stir my blood as the stink of Los Angeles had never done.
I shook my head and grinned out at the growing day. Here I was, standing on top of an alien world, a world inhabited by every fantastical creature I had ever read about or seen on the silver screen.
What was more, I wasn’t even the tiniest bit hungover or tired. I had only slept for about three hours, and with a stomach filled with wine and stew, but I felt as if I had passed eight hours in a feather bed rather than the floor.
I took another breath of the crisp, fresh air. I had a sneaking suspicion that the reason I was so bright-eyed and bushy tailed had something to do with the Transfusion Ceremony. Apparently, being bonded with a dragon had all sorts of benefits that the average Joe might not think about initially.
What a life!
Previously, I had been worried about how I had not used protection with the girls when we had slept together. Right now though, it seemed like the best thing that I could have done.
Just fucking stop and think for a second, man, I thought to myself. You could be the only person in this whole massive, racial melting-pot of a land who has the ability to bring back the dragons! That’s something!
The sound of the door opening behind me stirred me from my memory of the previous night and my musings about the future.
I turned and saw Elenari and Saya step out into the growing sunshine. The two women would have garnered straight tens for their looks from all right-thinking individuals. Wearing only their semi-transparent shifts and with the sunlight glimmering in their hair, they looked like figures out of a Botticelli painting.
“Morning,” I said.
“Good morning, Mike,” Elenari said, hitting me with one of those radiant smiles of hers that could have illuminated Dodger Stadium. “How’re you feeling?”
“Funny you should ask,” I said, “because I was just mulling this over myself. I must have drunk about two bottles of wine last night, but I feel absolutely fine. Better than fine, really.”
