by Calista Skye
He reaches up with one of his hands and runs a finger through the dust that somehow sparkles even here, in the dark cave. It wouldn’t be enough to fill a thimble. But to me, it looks pretty pure.
“Mine?” he wheezes with a hoarse voice.
“Yours,” I confirm.
He slowly sits up and takes in the gold specks on his finger. “Mine.”
“Yours.”
The he turns his yellow eyes to take me in. “You gave me this.”
Finally, tears are burning in my eyes again, and now I let them flow without interruption. I think he’s getting better. “Yes.”
He bends down and puts his face close to the gold. “So pure. Never melted. Never touched. Very, very old.”
With infinite care, he takes the leaves into his hand and stands up as easily as I ever saw him do it.
He appears to put his nose right on top of the gold dust and takes a deep whiff. “Wonderful. Wonderful! Gold!”
The last word comes as a yell of triumph, and it makes my chest tremble with his bass.
He fixes me with a piercing gaze. “You had gold already.”
I shake my head, feeling too tired to say much. “I had to find it. In a river. A lake, I mean. Remember the waterfall? Where that starts. I panned for it. For hours. Until I found the right place. It was very hard. Is it enough?”
Even in the weak blue light from the alien moon, it looks as if the dark parts of his skin around the wounds are receding, going brighter silver again.
“It is enough,” he rumbles. “Enough to give me strength. Perhaps enough even to
Change. Mine. Gold.” He lifts his head and looks away, into the jungle. “Enough, indeed, for her to be satisfied. Beyond satisfied. Far beyond!”
There is an energy in him now, a wildness that scares me. He’s different. I have never seen him like this.
“Kyandros?”
He doesn’t look at me. “Gold. On this planet! This barren planet! And only I have it!”
“Kyandros!”
He sends me a quick glance, as if I’m only an annoyance. “What is it?”
“Will you show me where my village is?”
“There’s no gold in your village.”
“You promised to show me!”
“The lesser can expect no superior being to be held to any promise.” He doesn’t look up from his gold.
It’s as if all the air has been knocked out of me. “Kyandros. You promised.”
“I don’t even remember. Is there more gold? Show your hands! Turn out your pockets!” He comes close, towering over me.
“There is no more. Kyandros! Don’t be like this. You’re scaring me!”
“It is appropriate for a lesser to be scared of a dragon. If I discover that there is more gold that you’re not showing me, I will kill you so slowly that you will wish you had never been hatched.” He bends down and holds up one finger with a sharp claw on it, close to my eye, making the needle-like point shine evilly in the moonlight. “Indeed, you’re lucky I don’t murder you right now for the immense humiliation and pain you’ve caused me. If you hadn’t brought me gold as tribute, I would have taken great pleasure in it.”
“If I hadn’t brought you gold, from kindness, then you would be dead!”
He straightens up. “That is why I spare you now. I have to leave this planet. Gold! The Duchess must know about this. She must see it! And then… well, she has no love for the natives on this planet. She might want to do some frolicking here before we leave, taste some blood before our long trek through the void. Oh, little human. I am glad I didn’t kill you that day in the woods.”
The huge dragon man, now restored to perfect health and as silvery and beautiful all over as he was in the beginning, strides powerfully out of the cave and vanishes into the darkness.
I stare after him, bitter tears dripping slowly down my cheeks.
He tricked me. It was all fake. All an act.
And I fell for it.
Sudden fury wells up in me. Getting him that gold was the hardest thing I’ve ever done, and he just takes it and treats me like trash?
I try to stand up, to run after him and hit him and trip him up and kick him and slap him.
No, the crossbow! I’ll shoot that bastard again.
I take it off my shoulder with stiff, shaking fingers and stand up.
But my legs won’t carry me and I end up on my knees. The crossbow drops uselessly to the dirt.
I curl up on the dirty grass and let the disappointment and grief do what they want with me. Looks like they just want to wash over me and turn my life to darkness.
26
- Kyandros -
Of course, that stupid Duchess Berilona pointed in the wrong direction.
After walking fast for the entire night, I see nowhere that could be that shelter she was talking about, that Inferior ship. Just broken trees and mud and steep hills everywhere.
I’m tempted to see if this gold is enough for me to Change. If I could be in my dragon form now, I would soar high above and immediately find the Duchess, show her the gold, mate with her, and then take off into space, leaving this hellhole behind forever.
But if I use the gold in that way, I connect it too much to myself. It will then be part of my hoard and I will never be able to give any of it to the Duchess. And she does require to be given gold.
I must stay in my human form and find her like this, walking on the ground like a lesser being, hoping I’m not too late and Galindilan’s silvery stone hasn’t been enough to convince her to pick him.
All the trees look the same from down here, and it’s difficult to get my bearings. I want to hurry, but I can’t be sure where I’m going. I sometimes pass close by the lumbering beasts of this planet, but they never attack me and they usually try to get away. I have no time to waste on indulging in bloodlust. Perhaps once the mating is complete, the Duchess and I will find a tribe and leave their village as a puddle of blood before we leave.
Once or twice on the walk I come close to other dragons, and I barely escape detection. They’re all in human form, and they all look destitute and tired and weak. It makes me happy to see. Certainly, I must be the only dragon on this planet with gold.
Aaaah! The gold gave me such a jolt when I saw it in front of me. It filled me with heat and longing for more, just like it always did.
I speed up, and at the same instant I spot a curious tree with large branches coming out of it far down, before they reach out and up. I’ve seen that tree before, at most three hours ago.
I snarl when I realize that I’m walking in circles.
I speed up even more. Curse this weak body!
27
- Mia -
It’s the weirdest thing. As soon as I walk two hundred yards away from the cave in the sunshine, I recognize an unusual hill in the distance. Based on what I remember from Phoebe’s map of the area, I know where I am. Bune is maybe a three-hour walk in that direction. Our village is much further away.
Still, I hesitate. I really need another girl to talk to now. Someone to confide in, a shoulder to cry on. It would be the hardest cry of my life, and I’d need some kind of support team for that. Sure, I’ve been stupid. Sure, I’ve let my fascination for a freaking dragon get the best of me. Sure, my horniness helped confuse me. Sure, I shouldn’t have fallen for a treacherous bastard like him. But the girls will understand.
Some of them, anyway. Fuck, I wish Ashlynn was here. I’m not sure Brank’ox will comprehend the concept of having his massive shoulders cried on, and I’m not sure it would work as well. I’d have to go up on tiptoes, and it would feel awkward in every way.
But of course, Eleanor is probably at Bune right now. That’s where we were going, and while she isn’t my best friend in the tribe, I’m sure she’ll do just fine.
This morning I just feel empty and used up. Used and tossed away. Tricked and ruined.
I find a bush where the berries haven’t been squashed by the snow, pick a hand
ful of semi-sour little balls, and keep walking.
How long have I been gone? More than a week, certainly. I can’t quite count the days, they all blended together when Kyandros was there. He made everything else small in my mind, distant and unimportant.
Just the thought of him makes me want to kneel down and weep more. But I spent all night that way, interspersed by short fits of sleep and gnawing on old, dried meat so I wouldn’t die of hunger and exhaustion.
Sure, I miss the dragon. But he betrayed me and tricked me.
Did he trick me all along? Was it his plan to somehow force me to find gold?
He couldn’t know about my Discovery Channel habit, could he? Or how a leaf could be made into a pan? I never told him of the idea I had to pan for gold. He sure did look genuinely unconscious, and those wounds were going black.
“Damn it!” In frustration, I slap a tree trunk with the flat of my hand. Still that deceptive guy fills my thoughts, still I make excuses for him. He took the gold and left me and said some nasty, threatening things. That’s all I need to know.
I gave him gold, probably enough to turn him into a full dragon and allow him to terrorize us. Well, my tribe has killed dragons before. He won’t be the first.
Still, the idea of Kyandros dead makes me want to curl up in horror.
Dammit, I have to pull myself together.
Fine. I’ll go to Bune, be safely protected by the cavemen there, and check out that escape ship until I’m pretty sure it won’t blow up. Then I’ll recommend that we get inside it and take off as soon as possible. And if the whole thing blows up after all and we all die? Maybe just as well.
No, no. Positive thoughts.
There is still a lot of melted snow running down from the mountains I pass, and whenever I find a stream with clear water, I drink my fill. Each time gives me a shot of energy that then dissipates in five minutes.
I do my best to empty my mind of the dragon, just marching on and seeing no joy in anything. The sun has gone out of my life, and the only thing I have to look forward to is when we all get inside the ship, activate that weird interdimensional engine, and leave Xren for good. Maybe this will all seem like a dream when we get back to Earth.
I groan. No, it won’t. These few days have been the most vividly real in my life. They will always be etched into my mind in perfect ultra definition and crisp colors and the deepest bass imaginable for Kyandros’s smooth voice. Will there ever be a single day in the rest of my life when I don’t think about him? Long for him? I can’t imagine there will be.
That may be the cruelest thing he’s done to me.
Finally, I see the plain and Bune as an ugly and incredibly alien mountain sticking out of the swamp. I can’t help but marvel at the thought of that thing flying in space. Granted, the lower part with the main rocket engines are still where the ship crashed, and we all saw this thing fly a few months ago. But it’s like people said about the bumblebee back in the day: it shouldn’t be able to fly.
Of course, since then we’ve developed better tools and principles of aerodynamics that show with great clarity why the bumblebee flies perfectly well, but Bune still astonishes the engineer in me. No, it should not be possible.
There’s finally a small light in my soul again. Just the tiniest little shine like a flickering birthday candle in a totally blackened out Boeing hangar, but still. I will soon be able to examine an alien spaceship with the eyes and mindset of an aeronautics student. It could be fun.
As fun as playing in the snow with a dragon?
I sigh deeply, and the darkness encroaches on my mind again. The little birthday candle is blown out. Yeah, I’m not fooling anyone.
I walk up to Bune and try to find the entrance. I can see it, but I also see a lot of dark red on the ground here, as if part of the soil. The melting snow has washed some of it away, but I see swirls of what looks like old spilled blood.
Well, this was the site of a battle many months ago, and I suppose this might have been the place where the guys killed those two young dragons that came out of Bune back then. Except, I would expect dragons to have golden ichor for blood, not the ordinary red stuff.
I would also have expected the guys to have posted guards outside here, and maybe a couple of them behind some of the nearby trees.
Of course, there could still be some, just that I can’t see them.
I stand still for a while. This feels weird.
Did the guys ever reach Bune ? Or were they all killed by dragons around the time when I shot Kyandros? There were the sounds of fighting, I remember that. Maybe they all changed their minds and went back to the village, without ever reaching Bune.
But that was many days ago. They would have had many chances to come here again, either the same guys or others. Because I am still missing, and this is one of two places I might go and where they might find me. I would expect someone here. Delyah would have made sure of that.
But of course, this old spaceship might be bursting at the seams with all kinds of frowning and bossy cavemen from our tribe. There’s just no way to tell from the outside.
It is very quiet. There are no dactyls in the sky, no other dinos either. I haven’t seen any all day.
I’m feeling less and less okay with this. Sure, standing right beside an alien spaceship on an alien planet should feel weird at the best of times. But this is more. I just know that something isn’t right. And at the same time, I really can’t trust my intuition after all I’ve been through these past days. Even a steaming mug of coffee with cream in it would seem wrong and suspicious to me right now, clearly a part of some hideous treachery.
What do I do?
I could go back to the village.
I almost collapse just thinking about it. It’s a long freaking walk, and despite the dried meat and the berries, I’m not exactly a bundle of energy right now.
I could knock on that alien door-slash-hatch-slash-I don’t even know. Maybe a caveman opens and bosses me around, maybe Eleanor opens and hugs me, or maybe nobody opens.
Or maybe Kyandros is in there!
The mere thought makes me take two quick, light steps towards the door before I catch myself.
“Calm down there, girl,” I mutter. “He’s not worth it. Don’t go crazy now.”
Fine. I won’t knock. But I also won’t leave. I’ll sit down behind a tree and keep a lookout for anyone coming out of or going into that spaceship. Then I’ll know.
I walk a hundred yards from the ship and find a suitable tree, where I can sit down on relatively dry ground and even lean my back on another one while still staying mostly hidden from the door in Bune and the approach towards it.
I take my crossbow off me and put it on the ground, ready to pick up and shoot.
Then I suck on another sour berry and settle in for the wait. It tastes the way I feel.
The sun shines warmer today, and there are little dripping noises from the bushes all around me.
Damn him to hell.
28
- Kyandros -
I don’t know what has happened to my sense of direction. Not only am I still running in circles, I no longer have any idea in which direction Berilona gestured when she tried to tell me where her shelter is.
All the trees look the same to me, all the rocks and hills. I never cared about these pedestrian objects before. They had no value. I could always soar above them, anyway. Now they have taken on much greater importance than I ever wanted to experience, and I realizethat I can’t find my way.
Suddenly, I see something I recognize. A clearing with a dry semicircle up against a rock face.
It’s the cave where I spent some days with Mia. I have walked for hours to just end up in the same place.
And yet, for some reason, it doesn’t make me angry. It makes a small thrill go down my spine. A thrill that’s not connected to the gold at all. This is a much different thrill.
Maybe she’s still there.
Yes! That must be her, lying down.
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I run faster. Strange images spin in my mind. Me and Mia flying through space together. Me giving her the gold dust for her own hoard. She hatching an egg that we have made together.
My heart sinks in my chest. That’s not Mia. That’s just the fur clothing that she made for herself. She doesn’t need it now, it’s too warm.
I walk closer. There’s the ladder we made together, using that infernal wire she bound me with. There’s the place where I built the fire the first night so that my captor wouldn’t freeze to death. There are the remains of the large and strange creature that I tore to pieces. There is the saw that I made out of a long jawbone.
And there…
I go inside the cave and sit down, lifting the fur garment she made for herself. Now that I’m stronger, all my senses work perfectly and her scent on it is almost overwhelming.
She made this. It took her days, but she kept going, one little stitch at a time. Another little cut here. Another little piece there. Such patience! And their lives are so short.
I stroke the soft fur, and my fingers come away with a long, dark hair between them.
Mia’s hair.
I put down the leafy ball with the gold inside and pull the hair tight with both hands, holding it up to the sun. It gives off a little bit of shine, and it feels strangely precious to me.
Indeed I wonder now if—
“Resting again? You aren’t sick, are you?”
The voice cuts off my train of thought and I glance up with a nonchalance that I don’t feel.
“I am never sick, Galindilan. I am a dragon.”
“How gratifying. I was told something else, very recently. Apparently, you were lying dead on the ground. Right here, in fact. A blackness had engulfed you.” His voice is sour.
“Then you must be disappointed to find me in the most perfect health.”
He looks me up and down. “Indeed. But it doesn’t matter. The Duchess sent me to make sure that you are in fact not able to provide her with the gold you promised. I can see that you are not, and so I will return to her and report that while you may be alive, my considerable amount of silver is what she can get out of this planet. I will then mate with her, and she and I will leave the planet together. Flying through space, supported by our common egg that will then be gestating inside her. We will find our respective hoards and then go on to expand them, without competition, since most other dragons in the universe are stuck forever here on this rock.”
