The Scarlet Dragon Saga

by J. P. Rice

“Why me?” he shouted.

  “Just the luck of the draw,” I lamely explained.

  “So I lost my life strictly because of bad luck?” he asked, incredulous and plucked the torch back out of the dirt.

  I tried not to respond, but ended up uttering, “We didn’t pick you for any reason other than you had a healthy reserve of magic.”

  He gazed at the wall, twisting the torch in his right hand. “The talented have always been persecuted throughout history. Often seen as a threat. But I was a threat to no one. I used my magic benevolently. For the benefit of my family. That was it. And it sickens me to think about what you have used my magic to do. To cause suffering. Despicable.”

  He spat in my face, knocked the two tiny torches away from my head and walked out of the room. I took a few shuddering breaths and watched the torches burn away as his spit ran down my nose.

  Before the spit on my face evaporated, someone else walked through the opening. An immense bearded man wearing layers of boiled leather protection appeared from behind the flames and approached me purposefully. The Bavarian Warlock. His freckled face leaned toward me and he placed his torch near my head, inspecting me.

  His greasy hair swung from side to side as he shook his head and turned to leave. Faster than a tornado, he whipped back around and clocked me in the jaw with a closed fist. I saw spotted lights in my vision, swirling together and streaking left and right.

  If those men hadn’t tied my hands behind my back, I would make sure my lower jaw was still hinged. Instead, I pressed my tongue against my teeth, expecting a few to fall out but they remained in place.

  “Hurts, don’t it?” he said and inhaled audibly through his nose, his nostrils flaring.

  Even if I could open my mouth, I wasn’t going to. The Morrigan had informed me that a person’s thoughts right before death often accompanied them for the rest of time. And I considered her an authority on the subject. If my mind was manic and confused when I died, it would follow my soul, torturing me for the rest of eternity. Even though I knew my actions were wrong, I had to remain resolute.

  I did what I had to do. I did what I had to do. I did what I had to do.

  The warlock pulled a circular silver tin from his pocket and cracked it open, exposing minced tobacco. Using his thumb and forefinger, he grabbed a pinch and stuffed it into his bottom lip. “As bad as that hurts, it’s nothing compared to what you did to me. I regained strength in my muscles, but my brain and heart never recovered. You didn’t steal my magic. You stole my livelihood. It was how I made my money. How I supported my family.”

  He sat down in front of me and jammed the torch into the ground. He leaned back on his hands, spat out a big brown wad, and continued in a somber tone, “My wife left me, but you don’t care. I thought she loved me, not the money. Wrong. I became so desperate, I resorted to a life of crime. I was convinced I could buy her back. No better than you, a magical thief. I thought if I could just get some money, she would surely take me back.”

  The warlock paused and turned away, fighting back emotion. “The money I stole only got me further away from her. Until one day I stopped and realized that the futile exercise was wearing my soul down to a nub. I purposely got caught hoping the authorities would put me to death. Put me out of my misery.” He faced me, and tears welled up in his eyes. “And I can trace it back to that one fateful day.”

  He spat another brown wad near my foot. “My chivalric nature of helping a woman in distress caused all this. By the time I’d realized it wasn’t a real water dragon but only an illusion spell, my fate was sealed. I went from having the greatest life in the world to a vagabond thief, begging to die. I drink to excess every day in an ill effort to forget it all. But the smoking branding iron of memories only sinks deeper into my flesh, sizzling and never allowing me to forget. It’s torture.”

  Using a crooked finger, he scraped the chew out of his lip. Like he was tossing a Frisbee, he flicked his wrist toward me, and the soggy chunk of tobacco splattered against my shin. “Now that you’ve seen a few of us, I ask, was it all worth it?”

  Tears rushed to my eyes and my lips trembled, but I kept them sealed.

  The warlock stood up and grabbed his torch. “I’ll take your silence as confirmation that it wasn’t worth it. I look forward to watching you die. In my sad existence, a bright red light lies ahead.”

  Sixteen more visitors marched in. Each one assaulted me verbally and physically. I started to realize that even if I didn’t respond to their questions, these sounds and images would haunt my soul. I couldn’t keep my head clear before my execution.

  The pain in the front of my shoulders led me to believe that my arms could fall off at any moment. How long had I been here? I’d lost consciousness a few times. How long was I out?

  My feet ached and I was ready to die, when a tiny creature marched into the room. The last visitor had left a torch planted in the ground, but I still couldn’t make out the colorful being.

  As the six-inch figure came into focus, I noticed four transparent, membranous wings lined with a spiderweb pattern. Next, I saw the tiny head. She had a bright orange face with silver compound eyes, a defined nose and mouth and two short antennae on her chin. Her giant scarlet ears resembled earmuffs on a human.

  Her purple thorax matched her slender segmented abdomen. I noticed she had a big lump on each side or her body, in between the thorax and abdomen. The bulges caused her to lean forward as she walked. An elongated stinger carried the color of burning coals and extended from her abdomen to scrape the floor when she walked. She marched right up to me and flailed away at my ankle with her two miniscule hands. If her attack weren’t so embarrassingly pathetic, it would be downright adorable.

  The dragonfly stepped back and wiped her hands off. She spoke in a cartoonish, high-pitched voice, “I would have flown over here, but you stole that from me. Along with all my other special skills. Luckily, I can still walk. Most dragonflies don’t have that ability.”

  She paused for a few moments and backed up. “I used to have the greatest hearing, freakish in fact. I was tasked with keeping our village safe because I could hear an oncoming attack from over a mile away.”

  I had a bad idea where this story was headed, as she continued, “You robbed me of keeping my village safe. Two months after you stole my special abilities, my village was slaughtered. I failed to protect the nymphs of the pond. Everyone died except me. I could have saved them.”

  She extended her right arm toward me. “You. You killed them. Their blood is on your hands.”

  She swallowed down some emotion. “I was shunned and thrown out of the village. I tried other places to no avail. Once dragonflies realize who I am, they run in the other direction. Won’t even talk to me. I should have let you kill me. I’d rather be dead than live like this. If I wasn’t such a coward, I’d have killed myself a thousand times by now.”

  Her words hit me like a two-by-four upside the face. If only I had taken their immortality. But I hadn’t. No. It was much worse than that. I’d taken their will to live. And yet they remained chained to immortality, waiting for the glorious day of death that would never come. Swimming in a sewer of lifelessness, struggling just to keep their heads above the waste.

  My death was on the horizon and I couldn’t hold it in anymore. I needed to confess and cleanse my soul. “Do you really want to know why I did it?”

  “I need to know,” she said as she paced in front of me, the still firelight shining through her patterned wings.

  I took a deep breath and let it rip. “Okay, here goes. My mother and father are both Gods. I grew up in a village of elves and I didn’t find out who they were until I was twenty-two. I couldn’t understand why I didn’t have magical abilities. Soon after, I found a husband and cast all those worries aside. And then one day, he went away on a mission for Lugh’s Spear. He left June 14, 1805, just after midday. It was unseasonably cool with only a few clouds in the sky.”

  I caught my breath and co
ntinued, “He was wearing a golden ringmail jacket over layers of boiled leather. The jacket gleamed so bright in the dull sunshine. I remember seeing the trails of steam come from his mouth when he said goodbye. He reached inside his collar and pulled out the gold half-heart locket hanging from his silver chain. I held up the other half to the gold heart, and we matched them up perfectly, sharing a brief hug. He waved and turned his back. And I haven’t seen his face since.”

  The dragonfly stopped pacing. “Boo freaking hoo,” she commented, shaking her head.

  I didn’t blame her one bit. “I don’t expect sympathy. After a year had passed, I was at my wits end, my stomach constantly knotted in worry. I set out to save my Darabond. I befriended the Morrigan and asked for her help in finding my husband.”

  “You’re friendly with the Morrigan?” she asked and perked up.

  “I am. She’s one of my closest friends, oddly enough. She corrupted me, to be honest. Convinced me that the only way to find my husband was by taking magic from others. Told me that was what everyone did. I’m not sure if I believed her, and regardless, I went along with it. She used me as a guinea pig, seeing how much magic she could stuff into me before I exploded. I was desperate to find Darabond. I would have done anything.”

  The dragonfly stared at me, and for a brief second, I thought she would take mercy on my plight. However, she shook her head quickly, then went back to pacing. “Don’t try to make me feel bad for you. Not happening.”

  I said, “I’m just telling my story. It feels good to get it off my chest. Reflecting back on it now, it’s easy to see I shouldn’t have done it. But as I said, I would have done anything to reunite with Darabond. After the first taste of magic, I couldn’t get enough. It turned into a feeding frenzy.”

  “It’s good to be the fisherman and not the bait. I wouldn’t know,” added the dragonfly.

  “I’m sorry. Wait, what’s your name?” I asked.

  “Titania,” she announced proudly.

  A grin started to take shape on my face until I remembered the situation. “Like the Queen from A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”

  She stood up straight and leaned up against the torch, the flickering flames only a few inches above her head. “Yes, yes. Everyone says that. But I don’t want to be compared to a little faerie from a Shakespeare play who whispers in people’s ears. I’m no damselfly in distress. I wanted people to think of me as one bad bitch. And I was on track for that until you hunted me down for sport and drained my will to live.”

  Titania’s words were like dagger blades in the gut. I told her, “I said I was sorry.” I stopped and thought for a moment. “Whoa. You’re the first person I’ve ever apologized to. For what it’s worth.”

  She looked at the ground and made a ‘patoot’ spitting sound. “It’s worth nothing.” She raised her head, her strange eyes judging me. “You know, it takes a special kind of asshole to steal the powers of a tiny dragonfly. Even with my special skills, I didn’t pose a threat to you.”

  “Look, they’re going to kill me soon. Is there anything I can do to make it up to you?” I genuinely wanted to know.

  Titania thought for a few moments. “Because of my reputation, no other dragonflies will socialize with me. Do you understand how lonely I am? How desperate for friendship someone becomes after a hundred years of being shunned. I need a friend. The only thing you could possibly do is give me back my friends and my magic. But since you cannot do...”

  I cut her off, “I can do that.” So she was desperate for friends and magic.

  “What?” she asked in shock and her multifaceted eyes bulged. Her arm slipped from the torch and she fell to the ground. “Son of a bitch.”

  “I can give you back your magic and then some. The same way I took it from you. I can turn you into one bad bitch,” I promised.

  Titania contemplated my words as she got up and dusted off her thorax and abdomen. She asked rhetorically, “What would it all mean if I have no one to share it with? I don’t have anyone to raise hell with.”

  “Ha, you sound just like the mopey and melancholy Morrigan. She and I used to cause some major destruction.” If I was going to die, I could at least give Titania back her magic.

  Titania walked toward me as she spoke, “I don’t have any friends. Do you think she would be my friend?”

  “I would be your friend,” I said softly.

  She stopped in her tracks and looked up at me. “You would? Nobody wants to be my friend. Hey, wait a minute. You’re my enemy. You ruined my life.”

  I’d found a chink in her armor. She didn’t want friends. She needed them. Despite her tough words, I could hear the desperation in her voice inflections. “Think about the trouble you and I could cause. Throw in the Morrigan and we would be something to mess with.”

  “But you’re going to die,” she reminded me, slapping me back into reality.

  I tried to shove all the physical pain to the side so my brain could operate at maximum capacity, but the raw rope burn was impossible to ignore. If I could bring Titania to my side, I could get out of here alive. “Let’s see if we can fix that. If you want your magic back, you need to pull up my pant leg and cut my flesh in a crisscross to make an X. Then do the same with your body and line both cuts up.”

  Titania did as instructed and waited for me. I stared into the opening in the wall to make sure nobody was coming. The dragonfly could take some of my magic without sucking out all of it, then help me escape this hell.

  I peered around the room one more time and whispered the powerful words of the blood magic spell to Titania. She was the first person I’d ever told. The dragonfly joined the two cuts together and repeated the words.

  I repeated the final line to her, “Freely, I give my blood and all it possesses unto thee.”

  I felt the blood draining from my veins and watched Titania’s purple body shift to a deep burgundy. Her stinger swelled, the lumps between her thorax and abdomen grew and she wobbled around for a few moments before falling onto her side. The dragonfly immediately sprang back up.

  “Wow. I feel much stronger,” she announced and performed a few strange-looking jumping jacks. If we had performed the ritual correctly, Titania would take back all the magic she had given me and then some. Due to her size, she couldn’t absorb much more magic than that, which left plenty for me.

  “Try out your wings,” I suggested.

  Titania beat her wings and cocked her head to the side from the wondrous rippling sound she hadn’t heard in a hundred years. She rose about a foot off the ground and sped like a meteor into the stone wall. A chunk of the wall came loose as Titania crashed to the ground and kicked up a cloud of dust.

  She jumped up and shouted, “Holy shitballs. I didn’t feel a thing.” She pointed at the wall. “I did that and I didn’t feel a thing. I’m one bad bitch. Wow.” That injection of magic seemed packed with pure adrenaline.

  And she couldn’t hold back her yearning for friendship. Hell, I could always use a good friend, too. Life worked in mysterious ways.

  “Yes, you are. And yes, we are if you can help me get out of here,” I hinted.

  “Alrighty. How do we make that happen?” she enquired enthusiastically. All right, I’d given her one thing she desired. Now to play the friendship card.

  I instructed, “You need to shoot some fire out of your little tush there and burn these ropes off my arms and legs.”

  Titania huffed. “It’s called a stinger, silly. What about all the guards? They’re stationed everywhere. We could get past Groggy Todd and Sleepy Pete because they don’t know magic, but the rest will surely capture us.”

  Every time I’d taken magic from another entity, it was followed by a period of euphoria that lasted about an hour. It appeared Titania was in that boat right now, and I needed to take advantage while she was still riding high. Hopefully, the magic injection had caused her to forget the past for a while.

  I said, “If you can get me loose, I can call on our third frien
d to help us with a distraction. She might not show up, but she will surely send some friends to assist us. She’s never let me down before. Look. If you want to tell me how to get out of here and meet me on the outside, I’ll understand. You shouldn’t put your life on the line for me.”

  Titania spoke a mile a minute. “What? And let my new friend down? Unfathomable. I’ll guide you out. I am your navigator. I can’t be stopped with my new magic.” She raised her fists and jabbed at the open air like a boxer before a fight.

  Titania had no problem burning off the ropes around my ankles, which had been tied to the post. My arms were wrapped around the wooden post with my wrists tied together. Titania flew around behind me and got started.

  My fingertips burned, and Titania yelled, “Sorry. I’m a little shaky right now.”

  I bit my bottom lip and kept quiet so I wouldn’t attract any attention. Titania hit my pinky again, and I ground my teeth together, biting back the urge to scream. My body fell forward as the rope on my wrists burned away. I yanked my arms forward, and a rush of freedom streaked through my chest.

  My momentum carried me forward and I fell onto my hands and knees, but I didn’t care. I was loose. I checked out my fingertips but it was hard to assess the burns with the dirt covering them. Ignoring the discomfort, I immediately went to my wrist and pried my skin open to expose the raven’s eye.

  I pressed down with my thumb, covered the eye completely and waited a few seconds. A surge of energy rushed through my body and I slid my thumb to the side, exposing a glowing red eye.

  I moved my wrist close to my face and pinched open the skin again. “I need your help. I’m at the Lair of Justice and I need help sneaking out of here.”

  I pulled the torch out of the ground and followed Titania over to the opening. An awful thought hit me. The Morrigan had never specified how long it would take for her to respond. What if she didn’t get the message soon?

  “Why don’t you check out the scene,” I suggested as I tried to calm my nerves.

  “Be right back,” the hyper dragonfly said and flew through the crack.