Tala Phoenix and the Dragon's Lair

by Gabby Fawkes

  “Remind me why you guys didn’t buy like, a hundred of them that time at the airport?” I asked my friends. I’d been passed out after going all crazy attack-btsan at that point, so I had my excuse.

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” Kian said, her mouth full of chicken. “Maybe we should go to Earth now and pick you up a bunch.”

  Meanwhile, on the grass before us, the Romms still hadn’t eaten their chicken legs. Instead, they had them thrust into the air and were doing a kind of high-knee skipping dance that reminded me of the ones done by Native Americans.

  They were also singing. The song went something like:

  “Romamagi way, Romamagi hey,

  Today is the Romamagi day.

  Let there be the best of food, let there be the best friends,

  Romamagi to the end of ends.”

  I recognized quite a few Romms by now. Like the man who wore a cloak of raggedy-looking stew-colored feathers, who seemed incapable of opening his wide-set eyes. There was the little murderous colorful-haired girl who’d called for our demise, and who now, whenever she caught my eye, drew her finger across her tiny throat. There was the old woman with the shawl so long that it fanned out like a paisley-covered wedding veil several feet behind her. There was the man who was made mostly of wood and creaked around, who had only randomly smiled at us a few times since he’d proclaimed us as being ‘the ones the DSA seek’.

  They were among the dancers and singers – it looked like the whole band had to be going at it – dancing, and whooping and calling out into the star-studded night sky.

  Jules strode amongst them, his arms spread. “Romamagi! I have a proposition for you!”

  As if a switch had been flicked off, all the voices, the music, everything stopped. All eyes swiveled his way.

  I gulped. Why did I have an ominous feeling about this?

  Because you recognize that this Romm fool is an even greater fool than you are? PV suggested.

  -Shh, I responded in my head.

  Jules was speaking, saying: “It is known that, not so long ago, our band possessed wands of matchless great and mighty power. Wands that could go so far as to act on their own accord. The invicto wands.”

  “Invincible wands,” Kian muttered, half to herself.

  The Romms were murmuring amongst themselves too.

  “Yes,” Jules continued, “we are Sorcerers of the Hands, and will always be so. But imagine, if you can, a return to the Golden Days. When Romamagi did not have to run, they walked. Where they could dance freely in any street they wished. When any who dared speak against them found his mouth stuffed… with rotting gourds.”

  Some good-natured laughter sounded. Kian and I exchanged a worried look. Clearly, I wasn’t the only one who suspected there was more to this.

  Sure enough, Jules swung an arm our way, blasting open the door of our cage.

  “The outsiders claim they wish us no harm. Claim we should trust them. Well, I say, why not? Let us see if they are willing to reclaim these magical tools for us. Let us see if they are up for living and winning the Romamagi way.”

  His pacing followed the circular pattern marked by the purple shape-filled octagons painted on the grass. He waved another hand and a tomato appeared. He bit into it, thrust it in the air, then thrust his untouched chicken leg up with it. “Romamagi! What do you say?”

  “Aye!” they cried, although there was slightly less gusto in it than before. That didn’t stop the music and dancing from continuing just as boisterously right after, as the Romms began chowing down their chicken legs.

  “What do you guys think?” I whispered to my friends, as we stood, eyeing our open cage door.

  “Ah, panem et circenses,” Demi said, sighing as she dug into the last of her chicken leg.

  “Uh?” I said.

  “Food and entertainment,” she said airily. “The basic needs and desires to keep someone happy. I’m just glad I’m eating chicken and not that mush, is all I’m saying.”

  Kian was about to say something, but fell silent as Jules approached.

  “The offer has been made,” he said. “Accept it, reject it - it is of no consequence.”

  “We’ll accept,” I said, turning to my friends. I couldn’t be alone in thinking that practically any chance we had of getting out of here was worth taking. “Right?”

  “Yep,” Kian said.

  Demi paused, finishing chewing before nodding and saying, “Carthago delenda est.”

  Jules eyed her suspiciously. “Latin?”

  “You know it?”

  He said nothing, still frowning.

  “Literally, it’s ‘Carthage must be destroyed’,” I explained. What was less easy to explain was why Demi was suddenly in a Latin-y mood. Guess the chicken had cheered her up. “Just that she’s agreeing with us.”

  As Jules digested this, Kian said, “Point is, we’re in. Stealing back some wands, how hard can it be?”

  Milsindra had joined Jules and laughed, long and throatily, although there was no mirth in it. “That school really taught you utterly nothing useful, didn’t it?”

  “We learned a few tricks,” Kian said, cracking her knuckles.

  I knew what she was getting at – in one-on-one combat, no magic, we’d probably whoop Milsindra’s superior ass, thanks to Kakernacker’s intensive gym mat drills. Only right now, the first time we’d been offered anything resembling a shot at freedom, was so not the time.

  Milsindra was waving her hand, anyway, scowling as she said, “It is due to this task’s tremendous difficulty and danger that the Romamagi have not attempted it recently. The invicto wands are stashed away in Vologda, which is”—she shook her head—“essentially impenetrable.” Her glare shot to Jules. “You are a monumental fool for attempting this. We shall lose our bargaining chip, if not our own freedom. Is that what you want?”

  Jules sniffed. “We have a dragon shifter; how tricky can it be?”

  “You may have been too young to remember the eleven missions that failed,” Milsindra said stoutly, “but I wasn’t.”

  “And the prophecy spoke of the twelfth that would succeed!” Jules protested.

  Milsindra shook her head, and her hand rose to her forehead in a weary gesture. “No, the prophecy foretold that the ninth, and then the tenth, and then the eleventh would succeed. Conveniently, the prophecy changed after each mission failed.”

  Jules squatted down on his haunches, biting into his tomato thoughtfully. “Well, no one can be right all the time.”

  Milsindra left with a final exasperated huff.

  “Don’t mind her,” Jules told us confidently and quickly, before any of us could speak. “We have an A-team joining you – some friends, as well as Milsi and myself. You’ll see.”

  “What is Vologda?” Demi asked.

  Which was the main thing I was wondering – along with why it was impenetrable.

  “Ah, yes, Vologda…” Jules rubbed at his chin. “It is, in a way, a prison for our kind.”

  “A witch prison?” Kian said, brightening noticeably. “Could my parents be there?”

  “What do you mean, in a way?” I said, trying to pick out what expression I was seeing on his face.

  Jules let out a little laugh. “Oh, nothing, nothing. You’ll see. We’re attempting it later tonight.”

  “What?” my friends and I gasped.

  He gave us a last smile and a wink. “Of course, it is entirely your decision.”

  We could only gape at him as he sauntered off.

  I was about to step forward when he did an about-face. “Almost forgot.”

  With a wave of his hand, the door to our cage crashed down again. I turned to the others. Demi was chewing on her thumbnail, while Kian was reapplying her black lipstick over lips that looked caked with it. Although we’d been quick to agree to help, after hearing actual details and the lack thereof… things had changed. Clearly, this ‘plan’ made my friends as uneasy as it was making me.

  “I don’t know, guys,” I
said. “Why won’t Jules tell us what to expect? We can’t afford to be caught by the Mathusalem witches.”

  “What other choice do we have?” Kian said, gesturing to our newly-instated cage door, “Sitting in this cage is getting way, way old.”

  “At least we got chicken today,” Demi said brightly.

  Seeing our looks, she sighed and admitted, “Okay, yes, we’re as screwed as a polar bear in the Sahara. If you want my take, it’s that we don’t go for it. It’s too risky.”

  I nodded, mulling over my friends’ answers. Already, Jules was sauntering back.

  “Made up your minds?” he asked casually, as if the question was whether we’d eat four chicken burgers instead of five.

  “We don’t want to do it,” I told him. “You saw that news broadcast. If those Mathusalem witches get ahold of us, they’ll hand us straight over to the DSA. It’ll be game over.”

  Jules considered this with a grave face, then shook his head solemnly. “I’m afraid I did slightly mislead you earlier.”

  “What are you talking about?” Kian asked.

  Squinting, he bobbed his head left, then right. “When I told you that you had a choice. That was a lie.” His head bowed, his dreadlocks not quite obscuring a face that did not look at all sorry. “And for that, I am sorry.” He walked off without another word.

  “Hey!” I called after him, but he kept on walking.

  “He can’t be serious,” I said, twisting to my friends. “It’s not like they can force us to-”

  That was when our cage was lifted and hefted onto the donkeys’ awaiting backs. Since when had the Romms and donkeys been so quiet anyway? Guess I’d been so single-focused on this hell-no upcoming mission that I hadn’t noticed.

  “Here we go again,” Demi said, slumping into a seated position. In her palm, a tiny pink and blue flower grew and shrunk, grew and shrunk – apparently Demi’s take on a stress ball.

  I forced an optimistic note into my voice, “If we pull this off, maybe the Romms will free us. Out of this cage, at least.”

  “If we pull this off,” Kian said darkly. She was smearing lipstick on, for what had to be the sixth time.

  The journey this time was an all-time low in terms of comfort. Instead of having the star-covered blanket I had so come to hate, this time, we were exposed to the elements. So to speak, since there were none. Mainly because we were underground.

  Kian shivered as we huddled together, clutching our limbs tight.

  “These must be the old trade routes,” Demi said thoughtfully, teeth chattering.

  I could only stare into the condensation-laced stone wall we were passed dully.

  Cold. Dark. And shitty. That was what we were travelling through. That was how I felt.

  And it was in this state that the Romms expected us to breach some witch prison that was ‘essentially impenetrable’?

  It could’ve been a miserable seven hours or two, when, finally, the cart creaked to a stop.

  At some point, I must’ve somehow nodded off. Good old sleep-through-anything abilities. Anyway, now my arms were ridged in goosebumps and, right beside me, Kian and Demi were shivering furiously.

  “Nice… of you to… join us,” Kian said through chattering teeth.

  I sat up straight. Where the hell were we? Gone were the cool wet tunnels we’d been travelling through. They’d been replaced by – I swiveled my head around – a snowy wilderness?

  “We came to some mountain,” Kian explained, clutching herself. “Then inside, it was snowing like a freaking mother.”

  “For John’s sake,” I groaned, feeling as though my brain was crackled with ice. “Must make guarding the stuff and people easy– I don’t even want to move.”

  Or think for that matter. Although our cart had creaked to a stop, I didn’t bother trying to make out what was happening. Thinking hurt too much. Even my PV could only weakly wheeze Burn… brrr….

  “Yes, yes,” I heard Jules’ annoyed voice say. “We have a trade to propose.”

  Several shouts, a cracking sound and then an angry braying. I craned to see what was going on, but the blizzard made seeing five feet ahead of us virtually impossible.

  “Why, you left him no choice,” Milsindra was saying stiffly. “You were going to stun him!”

  Another angry bray, and she said, “Don’t lie to me. Just go tell your superiors that we have a trade to propose. The three girls the DSA wants, in exchange for our family heirlooms. You know, the invicto wands which were appropriated so very cruelly and unfairly from our forefathers.”

  17

  “What?!” Kian yelled, “Hey! You guys said-”

  “Tut, tut, see, there you go,” Jules said, calling after the donkey guard, “Of course they’re not happy about it. Would you be?”

  My hands clenched the bars of the cage, ignoring the sizzling magic burning into my palms.

  -SHIT. How could I ever have been so stupid as to trust them? I should have tried roasting them to a crisp when I had a chance.

  I would say, if only you’d listened to me, PV said dourly. But we don’t have time to waste.

  -Got any ideas? I asked it in my head.

  Hm, let’s see… Nope.

  -Then why bother speaking up?

  Am I not permitted an opinion?

  Demi was anxiously sprouting vines from all her shivering red fingertips. “Maybe if I just encase us in these.”

  “Then what?” Kian said. “They’d have to carry us away in a vine basket inside of a metal cage?”

  “Could be better,” I said, desperate for anything at this point. “If they take us out of the cage, I could try and turn and…”

  I trailed off as the cart rolled on. Apparently, the donkey guard had quickly gotten the message across – and received an answer.

  “There, that’s a good boy!” Jules said to it. “Now remember, if we see any magical trickery whatsoever, we will unfortunately have no choice but to turn you all into an army of donkeys. And that would be embarrassing, wouldn’t it?”

  “Thought these were supposed to be powerful witch guards,” I whispered to my friends.

  “Why can’t they take on the Romms?”

  “Because there’s an exchange involved, they want something from them,” Kian said grimly. “Plus the guards might not be a match against the Romms and their dark magic.”

  Our cart shuddered forward as my friends and I gripped each other.

  “Fight?” I asked them, even though the answer was obvious.

  “To the cold AF end,” Kian said, bobbing her head, her eyes fierce.

  Demi’s vine-cage was getting some traction. So far, she’d cast a thin plant coating over the cage bars. If I had a chance to shift, I’d have to break through it, but she’d live.

  Footsteps, and Jules, accompanied by an unsettling tall and angular man with lime green eyes. What was most unsettling, though, was that despite the freezing cold, he was bare-chested, showing no sign of feeling it.

  “What did I tell you?” Jules said happily, with a flourishing gesture our way. “Here they are.”

  The man peered in closer, and his eyes blinked with a flash.

  Goosebumps crawled up my arm. Did his eyes just… take a picture?

  “Full disclosure here,” Jules said to the man. “Before meeting you, I’d always been a bit, er, disconcerted by your nature – having chosen to permanently affix yourself with certain, ah, mechanical aspects.”

  I stared at him. The loud and emphatic way Jules had said all that had, weirdly enough, almost seemed like it was for our benefit. The tall jolty-moving man didn’t even seem to be listening, after all. What the—?

  “Of course,” Jules continued glibly, “that would make it very most imperative to be vigilant around these girls and ensure they stay locked up, considering the blonde is a dragon shifter, whose fire could potentially burn you into a puddle of bolts…”

  As the man jolted to face him, with a little cough-like laugh, Jules said, “Of course
, you have absolutely nothing to worry about. Only joking. Only joking.”

  “Our wands?” Milsindra said, striding into view with both hands out.

  “In due time,” the man said as he roved around us, his eyes blinking too much. “Once the DSA gets what they want, you’ll get what you want.”

  Milsindra’s eyes narrowed. “That wasn’t the deal.”

  “Too bad,” the man said.

  Jules frowned. “Oh my, we’ve come to this so fast. And here I thought we could have some tea, get to know each other. You could let your guard down around me, tell me some of your most secret childhood wounds. Find out what, if anything, we have in common. Or why a subzero, robot infested, shithole like this is actually good for humanity.”

  He sighed wearily. “I was supposed to wait until the ten-minute mark for this, but you… well, you forced my hand.”

  With that, he slapped the snowy ground. A great crack sliced through it and the next thing I knew, our cage dissolved into dust. I stood there, stupefied for a moment as the heat rejoiced throughout me. Kian and Demi raised their hands, unsure of where to turn.

  “Do we really have to spell it out to you?” Milsindra shrilled. “It was all a ruse. Now fight!”

  Whether she was telling the truth or not, the important thing here was that while we didn’t really want to fall back into the Romamagi hands, we definitely didn’t want to get caught by the Mathusalem witches and handed over to the DSA.

  And… was that the other Romms running away behind us?

  No time– the heat licked through me. My wings burst through my back. I breathed in fresh air and breathed out smoke. There, that was more like it.

  Now it was time to show all these little magic twizzlers just what real power looked like. My tail whipped around, flinging the green-eyed man to the ground. Something smacked into me, and I staggered.

  So, the fools have more fools. Up above me and everywhere around me, figures emerged out of the snow. Puny undead humans, their faces blue and twisted.

  “Ah, so the rumors were true,” the hairy-headed gypsy man groaned.

  “I told you!” the red-haired gypsy woman cried, a fling of her arms sending a feeble spell that knocked one ever.