YOU WILL DO NO SUCH THING, the other voice replied. FOR I WILL THWART YOU. AS I HAVE DONE ALL THESE EPOCHS AND AEONS.
The writhing serpent dragon let out one more final howl as the chained cloud shrank into nothingness, taking Aegrim with it, presumably back to wherever it was bound to begin with.
I felt a puzzled sensation inside myself, one that was not quite from me.
Father...lost?
Right. The new guy.
Vinclum, the quiet voice said. He is still fractured, and vulnerable. Tend to him, before Aegrim strikes him again.
I WILL OBEY, the dragon replied. FOR YOU ARE GLORIOUS.
The mighty dragon resumed its flight, gliding in my direction.
Tell him to hurry, the new guy said. Before Father returns.
HE IS NOT YOUR FATHER, the mighty voice said. I AM COMING. HOLD FAST.
The massive wyrm kept gliding toward me, blindingly bright even in the starlight. The light played special tricks with its sapphire-membrane wings, creating a spectrum of different colors all over them, as if separated by a prism. I wondered how the creature would even be able to enter this planet. Vinclum had been at least equal in size to Aegrim, and Aegrim looked like he could have crushed Earth with his coils.
But the sun-and-gold dragon flew on completely unconcerned, pausing briefly in my mind's eye to hover over the misty planet of Avalon.
Contact from Outsider, Avalon reported. Outsider is requesting permission to enter Nascent Lord's territory.
“Permission granted,” I said aloud. Noticing I could move normally, I looked around at everything else. But Guineve and Breena and happy fun ball were still frozen in time. I was wondering how this was happening. And Avalon could tell:
Certain cosmic events occur at hyper-compressed instances of time. Avalon is currently able to assist its Nascent Lord in observing such events.
Like you're doing right now? I thought back.
Affirmative. Outsider designated Vinclum, the Cosmic Dragon of Honor and Bonds is beginning descent. Be advised that entity's actions are still occurring at hyper-compressed time.
So no one but me would notice his awesome power and majesty when he split the starry sky and descended upon this world. Good to know.
Avalon, I thought after another moment. Is it possible to use that time compression for other things? Like using it against the Horde and that Dark Icon still on my planet?
Negative, Avalon replied. Time compression is a trait of Cosmic-class beings and not of the planets themselves. Icons and planets both lack the power to duplicate the effect.
Worth a try, I thought back.
The being called Vinclum descended.
This time the cloud cover parted, revealing what looked to be a falling star cutting through the night. High up in the sky, it looked like a tiny streak among all the other stars. But it kept descending downward, and I grew more worried.
Then I grew confused.
The star grew closer, but no larger. After a while I could see a golden object within the white light, gliding towards me. It still remained the same size, about the size of my thumb. Just as it had been in my vision earlier, except that before the equally small planets and stars had given a sense of scale, letting me realize just how massive the dragon was. The fact that it could grow closer without becoming larger was baffling. But I should probably just chalk it up to 'magic did it' and be grateful the dragon wasn't crushing my planet in half.
Finally, the tiny dot of light came to a complete stop inches before my face.
HAIL, LORD OF AVALON, SERVANT-KING OF THE UNCONQUERED.
The voice from the tiny speck boomed straight into my mind with the same volume it had been using all night. For a moment, it flared into a larger form, of a gigantic glowing, golden lizard armored in burning bronze, with sapphire wings that showed stain-glass images of every color within their membranes. An instant later, the dragon had shrunk and dimmed to the size of my thumb again, golden, but no longer glowing in the night.
I have come to apologize, he said in a much quieter voice.
“I...” I started to say. Something inside of my head had kicked me into trying to provide a suitably formal greeting, because everyone had been calling me some form of royalty ever since the prison break from the night before. But the wyrm's sudden apology had thrown my already overtaxed brain into whiplash.
“What?” I finally said.
I have failed you, son of Earth. Your forefathers aided me in binding Aegrim, and destroying most of his brood. When treachery and subterfuge landed him on your planet, and when others sought to bind your race back to Earth as well, I sought to return a favor owed, and to protect your race from his machinations. I failed, and a drop of his blood mingled with that of your forefathers, forging a pact that should never have been struck. I am sorry. The burden within your blood was not one you deserved to bear.
“I don't understand anything that's been happening,” I admitted. “I'm so desperate for answers that I don't even know what to ask you first. But ever since I got here everyone's been demanding of me and needing me and hurting me and torturing me and telling me I need to save them all and kill the rest.” The words came out of me in a rush. “And the things that say they want to help me the most just want to make me into a bigger monster than I already am. And I am a monster. I'm killing people and bashing their heads in with hammers and frying their faces with lightning bolts and my teeth are itching and—”
Stop, the voice said gently. Rest. All shall be well.
“How?” I asked. If the creature were at his original size, I might have never dared. But for now, when he was no bigger than my hand, my insides couldn't resist venting at something that just might help me make sense of it all.
Because you are not alone. You have never been alone. Not when you were tortured. Not when you were slain. Not when you felt defeated.
“That just means someone else sat back and watched!” I screamed. “How come no one else acted. How come you or Invictus, or Jesus or Buddha or whoever just sat back and let me suffer? How come my whole family suffered? TELL ME!”
At that moment, my scream into the night sky was a greater noise than any dragon's roar. Assuming I was not now a dragon myself.
But Vinclum just lowered his bronze-helmed head in apology.
I am sorry. You were wronged.
“I know I was wronged!” I screamed again. “I have been nothing but wronged! My family has been broken and my body has been broken and my mind has been broken and now there is a demon in my blood! Tell me why!”
Somehow the last word echoed throughout the night sky.
But the wyrm's head remained low.
If there were good reasons for them, the acts would not have been truly wrong. But they were wrong, and there is no justification for them. I am sorry. I cannot undo your injustice. Nor can I rationalize it. I can only offer you aid.
“Aid?” I screamed in outrage, then a tiny portion of my brain kicked itself. “Aid?” I repeated much more quietly, and intently. “You can help me? With my inner demons? Or my recovery? Or with the people under my care? Or with all the apocalypses I have to undo? Or with saving the Starsown from the most disturbing monster I have ever encountered, including the one inside my own body? Because if you're offering your services as a planet-sized, demon-slaying dragon, you're hired. You can start today, in fact. In fact, I'm pretty sure you can wrap up most of the Tumults before midnight, if you have even half of the power I think you have.” I watched him remain silent. “But let me guess,” I continued harshly. “It's not that easy, is it? Despite the quote-unquote 'cosmic power' Avalon has already told me you possess.”
I snarled, half at the seemingly-useless dragon-god, half at myself for lashing out at the only entity who had actually gotten off his divine orichalcum ass to offer me any kind of aid at all.
I may not leave Earth, or Aegrim will escape in his full strength. I can only come to you as a remnant. As a fraction of myself.
&
nbsp; “And what can that fraction of you do?”
I will explain. It will be less than you hope for, yet far more than you fear.
That somehow made me feel a tiny bit better.
“I'm listening,” I replied carefully, bitterness and desperation warring inside of me.
Power. Protection. Awareness.
The voice enunciated each word carefully. I will awaken the dragon in you, and aid you as you strive to master it. I will be the counter to Aegrim's curse, though it will increase both your pain and power.
“The dragon's already awake inside me,” I answered carefully. “How do I get him out?”
You die. Or you master him.
“He stole control from my body,” I retorted. “He wants to hurt, enslave and destroy. He doesn't understand his own power and almost got me killed.”
Only because you interfered! the new guy snapped.
He has been lied to, just as you have been. Let me counter Aegrim's lies. Bind with me.
“What?” I asked.
Earthborn can form many bonds. That of the blood. That of the flesh. And that of the soul.
Vinclum's voice in my head was patient, slow, methodical.
Bonds of the blood can be many or few. You stand here, newly recognized son of Avalon, with the bloodline of this planet's people flowing through your veins even as you tear them back from the dead. And you are just beginning to grasp the power of your greatest heritage of all.
“You mean Aegrim's?” I asked, beginning to understand. “You mean my greatest strength can come from turning the dragon's power to good?”
The hand-sized wyrm shook his head.
No. Your greatest power comes from your being an Earthborn.
“Really?” I spat skeptically. “You're going to tell me that? My being a puny, mortal, human is my trump card? Because of my race's 'indomitable spirit,' or 'creative thinking' or 'plucky courage' or some other crap?”
Do not mock your own race.
“Why?” I demanded.
Because the fury of the Earthborn has shaken both stars and their systems. Every ancient remembers such days, and shudders even now.
“And why is that?” I asked, half-angry, half-curious. “We can't even Rise unless we leave Earth.”
And now look at yourself.
The golden wyrm remained patient, in spite of my unrelenting disrespect.
Take two moments, he continued. In the first one, put aside the count of all your defeats and wounds and disappointments. In the next moment, take up count of all of your known enemies, then count the number of victories you have gained over them, then count the number of times they have sought to destroy you or your goals, and failed. Think long and hard, and then decide which is more surprising: your defeats, your number of enemies, the resources your enemies have expended to restrain or defeat you, or the number of times your enemies have failed to stop you from achieving your goals.
I took a breath, and did what the cosmic dragon asked. I thought about where I had come from, disabled, disgraced, to being ordained as a champion, and, despite all of the odds stacked against me, succeeding so far. In light of the vast conspiracy set against me, set against my entire family, I had survived, I had escaped, I had rescued, and I had struck back. Against warlocks, monsters, and my own inner dragon.
There was no reason a disabled teen should have ever gotten this far.
Unless he had always been something more than disabled.
Something far greater than disabled.
You come from a race of beings with victory and eternity set into their hearts. Despite your people's fall, despite the treacheries of star-spanning councils, despite all the bindings that frightened old men of every race have placed upon you, your race thrives, defies and lives. The wrongs you have suffered are tragedies, but your victories are no chance accident. They are the result of you exercising a small fraction of the potential you possess as a child of Earth. Know this: Aegrim feared your race more than all the Icons, more than all of the other Cosmic Wyrms, including myself. You were powerful and terrible long before something else dared to tamper with your genes.
Know that there is also a treasure trove of mysteries within your ancestry, Vinclum continued. The men and women of Earth once rescued, allied with, courted, and betrothed many races among the stars, creating something beautiful and new with every occasion. You are of Earth, and Avalon, and yet there are greater mysteries still in your heritage that I will not deprive you of discovering. Your kind have mingled, risked, protected, and loved among the stars, and the stars are better for it. This is the power of the Earthborn's blood. This is the bloodline that monsters have coveted, and that frightened old ones have desperately tried to dilute.
That was hard to believe, and a lot to take in. And Coach Gold wasn't done with his lecture-slash-pep-talk.
The second bond is the bond of flesh. The Earth-born of old would often invoke a covenant with another being, sharing their distinct strengths and magic. The bodies of both creatures would change in the process. The choice of making this bond was made for you, and without your consent, long before you were born.
“So someone else made a covenant on my behalf?” I asked quietly.
And on behalf of your father, and your father before him. The covenant was made many generations ago. And Aegrim was a being of sufficient power to allow the bond to pass down among the bloodline.
“Wouldn't that make it a bloodline bond? Like with my Avalonian heritage?” I asked.
No. The Avalonian DNA does not change your form like a flesh-bond does. You have gained the ability to add parts of a dragon's form to your own.
“And that is what happened earlier?”
Yes. I will help you learn to control it, as well as the magics you have also gained from the bond.
“And how will you do that?” I asked.
By forming a bond of my own with you. The bond of the soul.
“Wait, what?” I asked. “You can do that?”
The bond of the soul is when two beings unite under the same banner. As the bond of flesh augments their form, the bond of the soul augments their spirit. You will gain power again, and I will help you deal with Aegrim's pain as well offer my own might and magic. The soul and the body are connected, and draw from each other. Both bonds will give you new magic. Both bonds will increase your physical strength.
“So you're saying,” I replied slowly, “that the solution to my inadvertently bonding with a dominating Cosmic Wyrm, is to bond with a second dominating Cosmic Wyrm. Despite all of the power being offered, I can't help but see drawbacks in that idea.”
There are many, Vinclum replied. For though we share many noble goals, what is right for a dragon is sometimes murder for a human. And what is right for a human is sometimes injustice for a dragon. You will battle me as well, even as you battle the remnants of Aegrim's instinct.
“Then that's less of a good idea.”
No. My remnant will be for you even when we disagree. And you will grow stronger from both our agreements and arguments.
There were still plenty of problems with that idea. Plenty of my world's literature taught me that good men should both fear taking power and fear forming pacts with beings that offered them power. Either of those things always brought the downfall of well-meaning heroes. Always.
In short, I realized, my world told good men to never try to be in charge, and to never accept help.
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