The darkness was interrupted by a voice.

I have never held that darkness has a menace to it all on its own.  That’s just something we give it because we’re creatures with poor night vision, and for those things that use it to hunt, that’s sometimes their only bonus.  We are capable of handling the dark – too much light is actually more of a problem.

This sudden darkness, though, had brought silence to it.  The screaming had gone away, the illusion broken, and now there was only this voice.  This familiar voice that had brought gloom to my city, and spoken words of doom in a parking lot outside a restaurant that had served more than its fair share of trouble to me in the last few days.

Light flickered with the voice, and I saw the immensity of the Dragon for the first time.

There’s this scene in “The Neverending Story” where Atreyu meets Falcor the Luck-Dragon, and I don’t know why it came immediately to mind because Nellie was not like that at all.  I think it’s because you see this huge head and the comparison to the boy and I felt both this panic and this glee, just like when I saw the movie for the first time, because, wow, Dragon.

If you’re a genre fan like I am, you see them all the time.  I have dragon statues around my house.  In doing research I saw literally thousand of pieces of dragon art.  Heck, I’m guilty of some of my own from when I was bored in my classes.  They’re a metaphor, a representation, something that has layers and layers of meaning besides even the obvious overwrought physical specimen.

You’ve probably never seen a Dragon.

Two in a week was more than enough for me.  I don’t have a dodgy heart (I considered rethinking that phrase in light of Ivan) but I could have expired on the spot.  I did not visit Peredur in his lair – his was the lightest brushing of his presence upon my life, and still I knew he was serious, a serious…something.   I was paralyzed.  I could not breathe, could barely think.

Well, I could think things like, “Big.  Um.  Big.  Very.  Um.  Big.”

Of course, I’ve thought things like that just before getting into fights in middle school, too.

There’s this thing about ancient Dragons in the Monster Manual that talks about their aura of fear.  No, I would not recommend using the Manual for anything regarding monsters – they’re the kind of thing written by guys who stay up all night drinking Mountain Dew instead of going out on the town.   Yeah, guys like me, except very few have shown signs of anything but a faint hope that magic exists.

Somehow they instinctively got this part right, and I failed my saving throw.

My brain finally made sense of what the sound was.  Words.  “That, my dear Lesiye, is how I collected the birds in the first place.”

“There was one you should never have touched,” Artur responded from somewhere to my right.

I had to agree if you wanted to call Doloise a “bird.”  Of course, that was a slippery slope and I’d start calling legs “gams” if I started down it.

Light began to build from around the Dragon’s scales.   I could see why they suggest caves for Dragons, because they create their own luminescence, so additional light would be foolish.  My eyes adjusted to her bronze glow, and I saw all sorts of things – broken and destroyed as if she had set out to crush them under her immense paws.  Unless paws was only for furry things – she had huge claws, kind of like eagles, curved black talons that themselves needed a sanity check to be within fifteen feet of – one of them had a broken tip and I focused on that for safety’s sake.

“You will not find me so easy to digest,” Artur said.  I spun through my recent memories – had I missed a reply?  The aura of the Dragon could maybe have been messing with my mind.

“Devouring and digesting are different,” the Dragon agreed.  “But you are here, in one aspect of my place.”  One dimension, one thin slice of Dragon reality.  I could see that my my view of the multiverse had a ways to go.

I got it then.  Ivan’s heart – it was the firebird!

What was Ivan?

What had I gotten myself into?

My mouth formed words.  “I have no ancient grudge.  I’ve come for Doloise.”  I did not debate whether or not I was a tasty morsel.  That’s the kind of argument you never want to have.

“E!” She was there, suddenly.

“Doloise!”  I was freed from my paralysis with her voice, and instinctively, I hugged her.

Bleepin’ dirty words.  Just as instinctively, I realized that had been the absolute wrong thing to do.

She was still… Doloise.  She still had the saffron curls that made it hard to describe her as blonde or a redhead (as if that was the only descriptor that mattered.  If there were words like that for legs, I’d probably use them.  “She was a tall-waisted thin leg…”  I take it back.  I take it back quickly.)

“Blood and thorns,” she whispered.

My blood dripped over her from all the tiny places she had punctured me.  Luckily, I was wearing my good jacket, and she had only pulled thin strands of wet ruby (there’s a euphemism for you) from my hands, neck, and cheeks.

She turned to Nellie.  “You cannot hold me.”

“Then walk, daughter of Peredur.  I have these as hostages.  Or lunch.”

“I am only concerned with one.”

Wait.  She used “I.”   She had stopped doing that when I had figured out what she was, but it had never sounded natural to her.  This was a confidence I hadn’t expected from her.  Had something happened?

“Ah.  The boy.”  Boy?  I guess it was better than “mortal” and it was a heck of a lot better than “wizard.”  Of course, Nellie was a Dragon and probably no one schooled Dragons in syntax.

“I am Guardian and Guide,” Doloise said, stepping between Nellie and I.

“But you have already hurt him twice.  Ready to make it a third time, fey thing?”

Nikolai bit her then.  A rush and a growl, and the hound was released in a wave of magic.  I could almost see the various pieces as they unfolded like a piece of clockwork.  To hunt the evil.  Nikolai got his fangs near the Dragon’s throat.  To protect the master.  A shield of visible light rushed towards us, as Nikolai disappeared.

“Ah.  One of Viktor’s constructions.  I wondered what had been shielding you,” Nellie said.  There was no blood, but a golden substance that dripped from the shallow incisions.  She shrugged it off.

Artur took that shrug as a chance to draw a wooden sword he’d produced out of seemingly nowhere.  I remember at the time that the idea of it coming out of “his butt” was a hilarious one.  It was surrounded with a hint of flame.

“Run,” he said.

I couldn’t move.  I knew I certainly couldn’t touch Doloise.

“Go,” I told her.

She stared at me, her eyes wild and a golden green.  I realized I had never seen her eyes, but these, these were almost human, and full of all those extremes one might feel in such a situation.  Then, just as I had had a taste of the colour, like a summer’s day but not in a feminine hygiene product way, she was gone.

You’ve seen swordfights in movies.  Depending on the choreographer you either get the really artsy spinning and blow-by-blow rendition, or the brutal hack-and-slash.  This was not a blade that Artur wielded – no one with an iota of sense would wield a sword against a Dragon.  There were probably specific anti-Dragon weapons.  Atomic bombs.  Other Dragons.  Mechagodzilla.

The aura around the sword extended, slashing and slicing as if the sword were more a wand, a direction for some kind of green, vegetable death.  A smell of loam and evergreen, and the little things that lived and died in the roots of trees, and the stickiness of the sap, the slash of branches across unprotected skin, the striving for the sunlight of each leaf.  It was the concentration of a forest.

And it was doomed.  One forest wielded by a tall guy with some trees for legs did not a dragonslayer make.  She had claws – four sets, and wings to use as baffles, and a long tail, teeth, magic, and experience.

I was able to move just as she bit him in half.  Part of me reflected that it was even more disturbing than Cooking Ivan, no matter how inevitable.

“Next!” She spit out leaves and sap, making the word a slush of terror.

I stared into her blue eyes, blue like tropical waters, blue like tears, as she snarled and lunged at me.

She got a mouthful of Doloise instead.

While we walked through the tunnel, it nagged at me that I had spent far too much time outside the real world.  With various scare quotes and philosophical constructions of what determined “the real world” (which we codename “reality”) versus the place I (my physical and determinative self [which was also a matter of scare quotes and philosophical constructions]) seemed to be.  Part of me wondered how easy or difficult it was to create another world, and the limits thereof; if we walked far enough, would we have looped around somewhere?  Was this Nellie’s lair part of the place Ivan opened or had we passed more thresholds?  Did the rules of portals imply a kind of Zelaznyesque reflection of the worlds and soon we would run into another Viktor or even another Nikolai? 

The ideas of “intent” and “will” and even those of “imagination” run into the argument here as well; my DM has created a world with years to add depth and the effects of our journey in it, and for the purposes of my gaming it is as real to my character as this one is to me, even though at the time we play I’m not experiencing the darkness, or the thrushing sound of Artur’s treelegs (like sea legs, only…not), and the hot wind the way I am here.

I am well aware that I use this kind of philosophical meandering to fill up my brain’s idle sessions.  It’s a great way to be too full for fear.  Alas, if you were going to measure the overall emotional effect of meandering versus a single instance of fear, I think the fear generally wins.  We are wired for fear.  We aren’t wired for philosophy.  (Although I might suggest it for a new race in the aforementioned DM’s worldbuilding.  “Fight, flight, or ponder.”  Nevermind, they were all eaten by sabretooth’d tigers.)

I was able to tell that the light ahead of us was some kind of flame from early on in our walk.  I saw the cage around it as we got closer.  Bits of fire stretched out of the bars, and in the center was some kind of intensity that hurt my eyes to look at directly.  The heat was near blistering, and I would not be surprised to find that I had some sunburn or equivalent on my exposed skin as we moved around it. 

“It wants to be let free,” Artur said.  He stood near it to apparently no ill effect.  It didn’t seem to bother Nikolai either, who sniffed near it.

“What is it?” I asked.  I didn’t offer to go near and unlock the cage or anything crazy like that. 

“It’s an… elemental .  It’s offering to not raise the alarm if we let it go.”

“How can you tell?”  I didn’t hear anything, but then again, I wasn’t part tree.  Or wizard.  Or anything but an idiot for getting myself into this situation.  What’s the worst Peredur could do?  Chew me up before he swallowed me whole? 

And there’s the kind of philosophical meandering that brings on fear.

“Besides,” I continued, “won’t it blow things up if it’s let go?”

Artur didn’t answer. 

“This is one of those moral stances we talked about,” I guessed aloud.  “You’re morally opposed to living a long healthy life or something that you’re telling yourself is more against imprisonment or some other kind of important point.”  I sighed.  “You’re the wizard,” I reminded him.

“Yes, I am,” he reminded me in return as he reached over.  Nikolai pushed me against the stone wall as the light became too bright, even as I closed my eyes, even as I put my hands over them, and I felt… protected.

The dog barked as the light receeded.  “I got it.  Good doggy.  If I had a bone or a scooby snack I’d give you one,” I said.  I couldn’t see anything for a moment, but I could see that I couldn’t see anything, which was hard to say, but at the same time, it made me feel better.  If I couldn’t see that I couldn’t see I would have been blind, you see?

Um.  Yeah.  Nevermind.

“Quick,” Artur said.  “It’s moving inwards.  I think it’s looking for something.”

“Yeah, revenge.   The problem is, revenge here is super-sized and I only ordered a small.”  I kept blinking and there were spots, but I could see we were in increasing darkness.

“Looks like you got a bargain.”  Artur started to move, so I kind of aimed myself at the sound of his rootlike feet.  I tripped over Nikolai, who gave me the kind of look you can only get from a dog when you step on them, and he pushed ahead away from the clumsy human.

 We followed the elemental around a large column and into a grotto of fire.  Well, I suppose in someone’s viewpoint it was probably romantic, and if it had been candles and soft music I could see bringing a non-combustible girl I liked there.  It wasn’t though.  It was screaming and fire, fire in cages, fire in bottles, fire in …

I took a deep breath and tried to focus my watery eyes on it.

The intensity of some of the light was similar to the flare we’d just experienced.  This was one of the reasons why wizards don’t get great health insurance plans.  Extended life, some varieties of magical healing, sure, that was all good, but I was going to get skin cancer just from standing in the entrance of this room.

“It’s a firebird,” Artur breathed.

All the other flame in the room seemed to give attendance, some kind of attention to one reddish-rainbow.  Our hovering elemental guy was dancing around the large cage.  How Nellie had managed to trap the kin of a phoenix… well, maybe Doloise was just making some kind of obscure collection for her. 

I tried to find words to describe it.  Fire is fascinating.  This was more than just the brilliance of light, though.  It was the scintillating blend of colour and feathers and a sense of presence on its own.  Words like “beautiful” seemed too obvious.  Words like “brilliant” were too pale. 

“I’ll do it,” Artur said.  He walked across the room and opened the cage.

All the lights went out.

The stairs were getting in the way of my brilliant plan.  Not that I really had a plan, but they at least got in the way of a quick getaway.  Not that we had done more than climb down about three of them, but I couldn’t reconcile the idea of getting back up them with the action movie that played in the back of my head.  Nikolai took them as small jumps, but was not comfortable with them at all.  I was surprised as he was kind of built like a goat.  Artur had shorter legs than me, well, he had had shorter legs but after the second step he got mad and Hulk’d out.  If the Hulk was green because of chlorophyll.

“You know, if I were some kind of sadist, I’d bring these stairs to a physical therapy facility and just laugh and laugh.”

Artur just grunted.  He may have had huge strides, but they still took all of his attention.

“Think of it this way, we probably won’t survive to climb back up.”

“Always an optimist?” he huffed.

“If it keeps me from having to reverse this trip, yeah, sign me on for sunshine and puppies, baby.”

I managed to get Artur to pause long enough to consider this.  Or give me another dirty look, although I couldn’t tell as I was busy with scooting down another “step.”

We continued in silence.  I gave up on maintaining the torch after step seven.  What good were wizards if they couldn’t create fire, anyway?  I stuck it kind of in the belt loop of my pants.  My eyes had mostly adjusted to the dim lighting from above anyway.

After four more steps I decided to count the ones I could guess at.  Who put twenty-something steps like these anywhere?  Jack’s Giant’s castle?  That’s time to install an elevator.  A beanstalk.  Something.  I didn’t know what the mystical equivalent was, but this was ridiculous.

“What was your plan?” I asked in the quiet.

“What do you mean?”

“You want a piece of her hide pretty badly.  Some ancient wrong to right or something.  What were you going to do?”

He sighed.  “You had flushed her out before I was ready.”

“Guess I just needed to get off the pot,” I grinned.

“I suppose that means something funny where you come from,” he grumbled.

“Us juveniles have to laugh at something when it isn’t your shorts or the sex lives of fire-breathing lizards.”

“I had to jump at the opportunity.  I’ll lure her aside by offering your head as a treat, and then bring on what I’ve got.”

“Why my head and not my liver and lights?”

“Yummy, yummy proto-sapience.”

“Ha-ha.”  I missed the edge and rolled down faster than I planned.  It knocked the air out of me for a moment.  “Anyway, what have you got?”

“Hopefully your serpent’s daughter will be so tearful at your demise she’ll throw me a bone or two.  Sorcerously speaking,” he waggled his dark eyebrows.

“Hey, hands off my fairy!” I protested, faintly.  I coughed, sitting back up.

Nikolai shivered, another little whine.  I held in another cough, listening.

Artur changed his stance, one foot to a stair, arms pulled in to his body.  There was tension there, although tree trunks don’t normally have knees.

We didn’t move for a long time.  I finally had to start breathing again.  “Did you hear anything?”

“Yes.”  He didn’t say anything else, just went down a few more steps.  “There’s light down this corridor.”

I kind of hopped down the few last steps.  There was an archway into more darkness with some light at the end of the tunnel.  Needless to say, the obvious metaphor did not thrill me.

“Hey,” I said.  The light flickered – probably a torch, I figured.  “Let’s get this straight.  Are you really going to feed me to the Dragon in more than a `You only have to run faster than the halfling’ kind of way?”  I looked up at the half-Lesiye.  “Because I don’t have a chance if you are.  You might as well put me out of my misery now.”

He looked down at me for a long minute, and I kind of wanted to close my eyes and not see it happen.

“Nah, you’re vaguely amusing.  Whose side do you think I’m on, anyway?”

I tried to smile.  “Come on, let’s show this mythical beast how we do things downtown.”  Yeah, I misquoted “Ghostbusters,” but the mythical beast on my side wasn’t going to kill me outright.  So sue me.

Artur strolled across the blasted earth barefoot, because supernatural creatures don’t need expensive sneakers.  Or common sense, apparently.  I could tell he was looking at something about the wreckage that I wasn’t, or couldn’t.  Maybe it was magical, or maybe he was a part-time private investigator.  Nah, that kind of thing has been done before.

“Thorns,” he said.

“Watch out for your feet,” I replied, helpfully.  I should never, ever, EVER sound like my mother.

“No, these aren’t–,” he broke off and gave me a Look.

I and Nikolai moved a little closer to the stair.   The stairs were huge, definitely not made for your average human stride.   The whole entrance looked like nothing more than a landing strip, if done in early 70’s Dungeons and Dragons.  (That’s a kind of fashion experience, honestly.)

Nikolai sniffed the air and then shook himself.  He didn’t like it.

“Do we have a plan?” Artur asked.

“Did you want to tell me about the thorns?” I shrugged.

“I..”  He shook his head.  “I am just making a guess from what I see.  You do know that torch is horrendous?”  He was changing the subject.

“I didn’t want to shred the shirt.”  I frowned.  It hadn’t quite gone out, but you couldn’t really count it as “lit” either.  I blew on it a few times, making a small flame erupt.

“What is your plan?” he asked again.

“I was hoping to come up with one when we finished hopping down those stairs.  If that didn’t work, I was hoping to wing it.”  I shrugged.  “I figured the Dragon wanted something.  I’d try and negotiate with it and get Doloise out of there.”

“Not a sword amongst us.”

“I have a pen,” I pointed out.  “That’s mightier.  That fight scene in `Grosse Point Blank’ is one of my favourites.”

“Why should we know how Dragons reproduce?  Excuse me,” he rolled his eyes, “How they `make with the squishy’ for all you juveniles out there.”

“Nikolai, he’s trying to hurt your feelings,” I mock-pouted.  Although that was going to be a new punchline of a joke, that spells age in dog years.  Um, if I could make it funny somehow.  “What, you think we should use thorns?”  I looked at the wood shards.  Funny.  I could almost see that, yes, the shards all did kind of look like thorns.  “Are Dragons plucked from bushes?  Dragonberry pie?”

“They’re rare.  Very rare.”  He sighed.

“And delicious with whipped cream.  Look, all I wanted was a bunch of new folks to talk magical theory with, especially from a different cultural perspective, and I got dragged into this whole crazy situation.  `Save Ivan’s heart!  Oh wait, I took it and gave him the power to talk to the dead.  But he only talks to his dead lover and I’m jealous, so I’m going to steal your fairy and get your fairy’s Daddydragonkins on your case. ‘  You know, if I had a chance to sign up for this crazy stuff, I would turn it down!  I feel like Bilbo Baggins – I want my ham and my eggs and a good sleep-in until noon.”

“The reluctant hero?” Artur asked, quietly.

“Not a hero, not a burglar, not even a particular preference for ham and eggs, but that and the song about the dwarves in the five fir trees are what I remember off the top of my head when I think of the book.  No, really not a hero.  I don’t even really believe in Dragons.”

Artur chuckled.  “There is definitely a wisdom in your words.”

“Don’t get me started on your Vasilisa.  If she was so wise, what was she doing hanging out with us for a few cryptic moments?”

Nikolai shivered and let out a faint whimper.

“I want to know why a spell would do that,” I pointed at the dog.

“Because he’s built of the things that Viktor found particularly doggish in nature.  To hunt the evil, to protect the master, to need attention, to run, and to sense.”  Artur was at least willing to answer that.

“Sounds like a dog enough to me.  Do the spells get used up?” Nikolai came over to get scritched behind the ears again, and I obliged.

“There is probably some kind of trigger that activates it as a chain of events.  It’s actually a brilliant use of magic, if more temporary than the figurines Viktor probably had learned.  At least we won’t have to feed him.”

“Figurines?” I asked.

“Mind on the quest,” Artur said, pointing down.  “What’s plan B?”

“`Get her.'”

“That’s it?”

“It’s plan B.  Plan C is, `run in circles, scream and shout.'”

“Hashbrown world, man, hashbrown world.”

“Some of us aspire to be grater than that,” I winked.

“As we balance on the tater-totter of life?” he tried.

“Shouldn’t you be making a vodka reference?  You are Russian, are you not?”

“French fries aren’t from France, you know.”

“You realize, we’re standing on the precipice of a dungeon, about to meet a Dragon with our bare hands, a spell turned into a dog, and bad jokes.”

“Oh, we have more to it.  Ancient grudges, and thus revenge is on our side.”

“So much for the pure heart.”

“What do you say?”

“Excelsior!”

We entered the dungeon.

There were too many sounds at first, and it hit like a wall.  My brain did a fairly good job at trying to separate the earth-shattering kaboom from the screaming of something that wasn’t human, and the other assorted noises of wood cracking and stone shattering and glass and other materials pushed by kinetic force to pieces.  My eyes watched as time compressed.  Artur fell over from the shockwave, Nikolai and I pressed ourselves even deeper into the dirt, trying to avoid splinters and shards as they rocketed towards us. 

Under all of the sound, a name.

My name.

What?

Things continued to split and snap, until the Rice Krispies metaphors were quiet like a bowl that sat there during your shower.  I don’t recommend it – leaves you with soggy cereal and that’s no fun.  (Well, unless it’s Cream of Wheat.  That’s designed to be soggy.)  Nikolai made a whine I could barely hear.

Artur was still down.

“I’d offer you a hand up,” I said, in the silence.

“No, no, I’ve got it.”  He twisted something, just like he was stretching his back or straightening his legs, and there was the change, tree trunks into legs, knees, all of that anatomy stuff.  I turned around – it made me feel uncomfortable, like I was watching someone dress…or undress… or something like that, and it wasn’t a cute girl and I wasn’t invited.

Nikolai made that same noise, and I looked at him.  Nothing had punctured him, but he wasn’t happy.  I couldn’t tell if it was a warning.  How much was the spell, well, spelled to be doglike?  How much of it was just a function of the things the spell did, like hunt? 

Wizards made my head hurt.  Trying to figure out what they could do was as bad as trying to figure out what they couldn’t do, and it seemed to be more of a matter of imagination than limit of power.  I didn’t want to believe it – it seemed to go against some kind of internalized gut-feeling of physics I had.

Speaking of physics, I stood up and looked over the ridge.

There had been some kind of structure there – a yurt?  A sweat lodge?  A 5 star Hilton?  I couldn’t tell anymore, well, except that on the latter there were no carpet remnants and I think there would have had to have been the detritus of a chandelier.  Maybe even a piano, and the piano would have still been burning.  No piano, no chandelier, no leather sofas, so it was probably something a little less grand.  Lots of wood, most of it still smoking, lots of stone, and a stairwell deep into the ground.

“We need a cleric and a thief and a fighter,” I said aloud.

I heard a grunt from Artur.

“You’re the wizard and probably the backup warrior.  Nikolai’s the scout.  I’m the henchman, I think.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about, unless it’s a bad fantasy novel.  Which, if you don’t mind my opining, is most of them.”

“Sturgeon’s Law hits fantasy at more like ninety four percent, I know,” I responded.  “I was making our adventuring group before we go down into the dungeon.”

“Under the lake.  The hidden city.”  He stood up, and he was wearing shorts.  They didn’t quite match his T-shirt, being more of the underclothing variety. 

“Echoes of Ys?  Is Nellie a water dragon after all?”

“You are a strange, strange man, E.”  He laughed and dusted himself off a little.  “Too much fantasy rots your brain.”

“My brain doesn’t have teeth.”  I didn’t add the “steel trap” metaphor.

“Something we can both agree on,” he snorted, walking up to take a look at the wreckage.  “So, did we trip something or is it the welcoming party?”

“I thought I heard my name.”

He paused, absorbing this information, then shrugged.  “Then we’re expected.”

Nikolai stood up and near me, pressing his head into my hand.  I scritched him absently behind the ears.  “Well, ready to go, boy?”  He was shaking. “Let’s see if we can get some nice juicy dragon steaks,” I told him.   I moved after Artur down the ridge and to the standing stones, charred as they were from the blast.

Nikolai sniffed the air and then followed. 

“You first?” I asked, hopefully.

“You’re the one with the invitation,” he pointed out, as I was afraid he would.

“Yeah, yeah,” I muttered.  “It looks dark in there.”  I fished out my phone and switched it to flashlight mode.  “This won’t last for long,” I warned.

“Or you could pick up one of the burning splinters and make a torch,” he pointed out.

“Oh, yeah.”  I knew how to do it in, well, abstract.  Artur was in his 15-year-old form, and barefoot.   I downgraded him from fighter/magic-user to halfling, but I didn’t say it out loud.

I did have some self-preservation instincts, after all.

“My mind is racing over all the terrible possibilities your Vasilisa left us with,” I said, moving quickly back up the hill.

“Terrible possibilities?” Artur asked.  He didn’t have to catch up so much as hold himself back well enough to hear me.  He didn’t quite have a full seven-league stride (not like the Water Prince) but with legs like tree trunks you do manage to eat up a lot of ground.  Only not literally.

“I was thinking about how Dragons reproduce, if they don’t… make with the squishy.”

“Parthenogenesis?” Artur suggested.

“That’s a word you don’t expect to come out of the mouth of a eight foot something tree guy.  Um.”

“What, too high-falutin’ for ya?  Mister `make with the squishy’?”

“If you imagine any word coming out of–yeah.”  I sighed.  “I was actually thinking things like, `It’s too late, she’s already expelled an embryo into Doloise somewhere, probably the esophagus for the pop culture reference.'”

Artur chewed on that for a moment, only not literally.  “Pleasant,” he decided.

“Or maybe a magical technique like that.   Dragons laying eggs in the Realm’s aura,” I shrugged.

“Naul has the talons of an eagle, not the features of a cuckoo,” Artur suggested.

“So eggs are a possibility.  I thought the scales made them pretty reptilian, but I guess Nellie looked kind of cuddly.  What is a Dragon?”

“Not ovoviviparous?” Artur asked, casually.

I broke down the word in my head, pretending I wasn’t talking to him.   Oh, fine, I wasn’t pretending.  “How old are you again?”

“Just because I look about thirteen doesn’t mean I don’t read.”

“I gave you the benefit of fifteen at least,” I retorted.  “You have the sullen kid thing down pat.”

“To the people of my father’s kind I will probably never be anything but,” he admitted.  “I would argue sullen, though.  I’m young enough, mortal enough to be a kid.  I like to think it gives me the excuse to have some of the exuberance of youth.  There’s a lot to be said for the freedom to make mistakes.  I hate to blame things on not knowing any better, but having my enthusiasm run away with me in trying to do the right thing is worth a heck of a lot.”

“Better to ask forgiveness than permission and all that?”  I shrugged, trying not to trip over Nikolai as he sped up past me.  He acted as if this were a great game and he was out taking a run with me. 

“Better than the being victorious or coming home on your shield part, I think,” Artur suggested. 

“How mortal are you?”

He laughed.  “Mortal enough not to kill you for your rudeness.”

“Hey, that’s why I asked you,” I teased.  “Seriously, though, is it every practitioner who likes to hedge the extent of their abilities?”

“If you hear someone say, `I can’t do that,’ it’d better be a moral stance,” he agreed.

“Huh.  I am so glad I’m small potatoes.”

“Not if it’s a hashbrown world.”

“I have never heard it put that way.”

“I eat a lot of fast food.”

“Can you do that?”  My curiosity will get the better of me, I’m sure.

“A lot of my kind have moral stances against all sorts of food, but I’m not that picky.  I digest some things better than others, but who doesn’t?   I try not to eat anything sentient, but I also don’t administer any kind of IQ tests.”

“You’re not hungry, are you?” I was kidding.

“After the smell of burning Ivan?  Nah, that put me off my appetite for another hour or two I think.”  He winked.

“So, no photosynthesis?  If I cut you you won’t bleed sap?” 

Artur looked down at his legs, as if suddenly noting he was part tree.  “Separation of kingdoms is a tough one, but life and magic have a common source.  And if you cut me, I will bleed a sap,” he threatened.

“So did your folks make with the squishy?”

The half-lesiye started laughing.  “Did yours?”

“Are you implying –”

“Hey, what does the spelldog have?” Artur interrupted me.

“Spell dog?  Sorcepup?  Spelluppy?  Spound of Spell?  Nevermind.”  I looked over to where Artur was pointing.  Nikolai was crouched down on the ridge.  Artur was going to have a better look, but it suggested a good time to be quiet and get down.

Good thing, too, because that’s when things started exploding.

It is both true and untrue for me to say that I don’t keep up with the news.  I do not watch television, I think newsprint is dead [thanks, Egon!] (although it is still an important history from which to learn) and I certainly do not go out of my way on the internet to any news or news discussion pages.   I have enough things (even leaving my ex-boyfriends out of it) that raise my blood pressure to undesirable levels.

I talk, and that tells me much.

I listen, and it tells me more.

It was in talking to a healer who was afraid she was dealing with a creature that deals in plagued rashes that I found out about E.

Plagued rashes, in case you were wondering, require blessed creams.  Holy water can sting too much alone.

“I was surprised he let them take him in to the emergency room,” she was saying.  “He was completely in shock.  Kept reaching over for the ice cream in the passenger’s seat.   The car was torn almost in two, and there was this, no really, get this, a Dairy Queen sundae completely untouched next to him.   Big red spoon stuck in just like it was ready to eat.  Since it wasn’t all over the dash we figured it wasn’t the cause.   Anyway, he was cute and I wish he had asked for my number.  There was just something about him.”

I don’t think I remember feeling that way.  Oh, that’s not true.  I remember quite well what he was like.  A little shy, a lot geeky, an infectious smile, and he had what I have mentally dubbed the Preacher’s Gene: he became animated, a completely different person when you interacted with him in a place of his expertise.  (The Pastor’s Gene is really close to it, but it’s someone who becomes really animated when they interact simply person-to-person.  I wonder occasionally how many of those “genes” will not be passed on because of the scarcity of human contacts in the future.)

“What of the other car?” I asked.

“Not a bolt, scrap, or stain,” she said.  “Well, that isn’t entirely true.  There was a black piece of fiberglass that was shaped kind of like this,” she made a semi-circle shape with her fingers, “past the intersection.  I haven’t heard of anything coming from the model group yet, but they’re looking for a chewed-up black SUV.  It’d have to be something huge like that.  I hate it, you know?  Drive an SUV because you’re scared of being hit by SUVs.  Vicious cycle, unsustainable, and all that.”

I have been unsuccessful in spelling my GPS to follow leylines instead of streets, but I persevere.

I also recognize a partial semi-circle shape as a claw.

I sent her off with some herbs and a blessing, and sat staring at the wall for about twenty minutes.

Then I started to swear.  He should have called.  He should have let me know he was in danger, and then that he was just fine.  He should have had me pick him up at the hospital and drive him home.  He should have…

…done nothing of the sort.  We were over.  We didn’t owe each other anything, let alone me acting like his mom.

I picked up the phone to tell him so.

I didn’t know what I would have said if it had picked up.  I wasn’t going to tell him I couldn’t lose him.  He had been a part of my life too long for me to easily shut that down, but words like that were still easily misinterpreted, especially by men.  I let it ring.  And ring.  And ring.

And a cold bolt of jealousy hit me in the base of the spine.  Was he too busy with that Doloise creature to pick up the phone?  He always picked up the phone for me.  It was written in the depths of his psyche, and not even in my handwriting.  I tried again and this time got the “not in the range of service” message.

That wasn’t jealousy.  Oh, alright, the ridiculous thought of him and that exquisite woman was jealousy, but not the cold at the base of my spine. Something had happened to him.

“Sylvie!  Has E called you?  Oh, c’mon.  I’m his ex-girlfriend, heavy on the ex-, and I have no plans on changing that.  I’m just…”

I didn’t want to say it aloud.  There’s “magical thinking” for you.

“I’m a little concerned about him, that’s all.  Like, I had `a bad feeling about this’ kind of concerned.  Yes, I know, you’re younger than Star Wars.  Yeah, come on over.  I’ll start up some dinner.”  I heated the cauldron on my glass-top stove anyway.  Unless I needed flames, the water didn’t care how it was boiled.

“Matana?”  Her cellphone worked erratically at the best of times, so I called to her blood beast instead.  Just one of those magical strumming of the strings things like those that attract spiders in their webs.

The girls arrived at about the same time.  Matana from above, Sylvia from the car she and her roommates had a complex timeshare with, something to do with class schedules and phases of the moons and patterns of dew drops or somesuch esoterica.

“I’m worried about E,” I said.  No prelude, none of the overlong explanations I had been coming up with in my head.  “I think something has happened to him.”

“And rightly so,” Matana snapped.  “I lost track of him at the restaurant.”

Sylvia spun around.  “You were… stalking him?” and there was an accusation in her voice.

I jumped in and repeated it, but with far less shrill concern.  There’s no such thing as a vegetarian vampire.  The spiritual coin and necessary vintage may differ, but Matana’s was a blood craving.  E was safe from her because I had been granted the secret of what blood she needed before agreeing to the exchange.  It’s a secret, no, I’m not telling you.

Matana smiled.  If she were being possessed by her creature she might have flashed fang, but her expression was what the authors of those silly urban fantasies meant when they said that.  “He was interesting.”  She put out a shapely dark hand towards Sylvia.  “I sensed the Mark on him.”

“The Mark?” I think Sylvie and I said it in stereo.

“For the lack of a better term, his aura had been recently impacted by a number of strong magical effects.  You didn’t see?” she asked the last gently.  The one thing you never ask another witch is the extent of their power.  It’s a big etiquette buster.

I think “aura” is a dumb term – it’s more like gravity and you get a lot of space debris in it, but then, it takes me a certain level of concentration/meditation to see them.  I’m more of the type to listen to my gut instincts than ascertain the specifics of “Is this because of a psychological change or a sorcerous one?” from someone who is pinging my subconscious.

I got that term from E, didn’t I?  I think so.

“I don’t think I would have put it that way.  What restaurant?”

“It’s a little more complicated than that.”  When a vampire plays coy, you are welcome, nay, required to bristle, and that gentle hand came out to put distance between us.  “He was visited by a Power that charged him with something.  He may simply be seeking out a way to pay that off.”

Why does my boy get visits from Powers?  Wait, not “my boy.”  Deep breath, Mags.   I only invoked certain Powers when I thought things I was doing would interest them and they might want a piece of it.  It’s what made me mostly a witch, not a full-time priestess.  “What did he get into?  It’s something with big black claws.”  I forced myself to stay calm.

“Like the talons of eagles,” she said.  “He has meddled in the affairs of Dragons.”

“And he’s crunchy and good with ketchup,” Sylvia said, as someone had to.  “You guys are serious, right?  Dragons?”

“There are more things in Heaven and Earth,” I half-quoted from memory.

“So, is he a St. George type, or do we have to rescue him like a princess?” Sylvia demanded.

I don’t know what about that was funny to the vampire, but both of us broke out laughing.

“This is ridiculous,” said Claire.  “I don’t even know if I want it back,” she said.  “I can go get some water out of the bathroom sink if I’m thirsty.”  She was muttering at at this point.  “Which I’m not, because if I drink something I’d have to … I’d have to let it back out at some point.”

“But it’s part of the game,” Sadko said, part-concerned and part-cajolingly.  He pushed her gently with his hand towards where team Koschei was gathering.

“It isn’t worth it.  I hate getting up in front of people.”  Perhaps that was the source of her reluctance, and it was not one that Sadko shared, but it was still one he understood.

“I’ll play you a song,” Sadko suggested with sudden generosity.

Claire had never had anyone play a song for her – it is a special magic of its own.  There are different levels of this, from choosing to play on a jukebox at a restaurant or the “the right song” for a mix, to playing requests, and finally to writing something for someone you love.  The spectrum is an exciting one and full of all the things artists bring to those who sponsor them.

“Trust a dwarf to find a drink – it’s rather prejudicial, don’t you think?”  Nora smiled.

“We are not what we are best at, always.”  Roo considered this thought for a while because it wasn’t exactly what she had intended to say, but it was probably true.  She went back to her thoughts.  “I know of a dwarven ballerina.”

“You speak sooth? That would be quite a sight, if not uncouth.”

Roo had to agree it was, indeed, quite a sight, but then, she had seen it on a TV show, which made it even more unusual.

Kievan was annoyed at the dwarf. “Well, it’s my party.  And my wife’s.  I don’t even know who half of you people are.”  Once you get to “you people” you know someone’s capacity for rationality is impaired.  Those words are landmines seeking explosions.  Yes, I can imagine the singles ad.

“Yes, tell me about your lovely wife?” the dwarf asked.

“Well, she’s beautiful, and clever, if a little, I don’t know.”  He gestured in that fashion men have always done in regards to describing ineffable qualities in their partners.

“I am certain she is that thing.  Could you point her out to me?”

“Oh, she’s over there.” 

Vasilisa had just begun to gather the groups together. “Gentlefolk, if you would excuse me, I hear you have found what it is you have lost, but not yet retrieved it.  Claire, please be a dear and let us know what it is that was taken from you.” 

“A drink.  And if anyone spit in it, that’s just gross.”

“Perish the thought,” the dwarf said, relinquishing the drink. 

“And you, dwarf?”

“This is ridiculous.  One should not have stolen from them the name of their host.  Let alone the other coercions upon this gathering.”

“Is this to say you insult my Hospitality?”  Vasilisa asked.  Something great and terrible drew over her features, and even those in the audience who were blind to such things felt the threat.

“No, no, sir,” for that was the impression the dwarf had had of Vasilisa.  Dwarves are sometimes confused as to human gender as it is, and someone with power, well, no matter how that someone dressed, it should be a man, correct?

Yeah, I know.

“No `Sir.’  Vasilisa.”  She gave her name to the dwarf as the game was up.

“Yes, Vasily…sir.”

I snapped out of it.  “All that for a …shaggy dog story?”

He had the grace to look embarrassed.  “It was more all that for time to summon her.”

I looked around expecting a Muppet Movie-like reveal.  I realized I hadn’t said, “Myth,” aloud.

“Yes?”

I turned around quickly.  I didn’t know what I expected.  There were tales of Vasilisa the Beautiful, of course. Her eyes shined like fireflies, and her smile was sunshine.  Her cheeks were red and white, like the blush of an apple, or maybe blood and milk.  She was dressed in professional chic, except for a little doll pinned just below her shoulder.

Nikolai whined.  He did not want to go near her.

“Ah, little spell.  Do not be afraid.”  She turned and looked at me.  “We’ve heard of you, too, Portal Doctor.  That was good work with the Shadow King.”  Her smile brightened the sunshine.  That was the connection.  “Although you still have much work to be done.  Why is it you have summoned me, oh son of  Lev?”

Artur stood up.  “I seek vengeance against the Naul, for the slaughtering of the birds.  She has revealed herself in full, but while we were given transport to this place, we have only found guardians and no direction.”

“Is that what you’re wanting, E?” she looked straight at me.

“Um.  I don’t know anything about any birds, unless you know, you mean dames,” I started, but her brow hinted of crinkling, so I changed my angle.  “Do you know of Realms?  The community type, not the political or mystical, well, still mystical, but…”  Pretty girls are my kryptonite.

“I have no doubt that while the Dragon Naul might swallow Doloise Mallory, it would leave the beast with indigestion, made as she is of Peredur’s Blood.”

“Figuratively or literally?” I found myself asking.  It seemed completely reasonable that she knew of Doloise.  It’s a huge magic to accomplish, and while I hadn’t really known of the Mallory portion, it kind of fit as a name.  Besides, who knew who else was on the short list of dumb mortals who would face the Shadow King?

“Yes.  Although I need to be more specific.  In opposed to the collective, the singular was brought to life with Peredur’s breath.”

“Won’t Peredur get involved?”  Artur asked.

“Um, he did,” I said.  “He kind of sent me to find her.  Which I was going to do anyway,” I grumbled.

“I’ve the older claim,” Artur said, as if it made a difference.

“Let me change the subject, because I think it might have relevance here,” Vasilisa interrupted. “How do Dragons reproduce?”

I was suddenly uncomfortable.  “They’re Dragons.  I presume they eat people… and make baby dragons the squishy way.”  I was aware of the twinkle in her eye.  “Stop laughing at me,” I grinned.

Artur shrugged.  “That was my guess.”

“So you seek to be a Dragonslayer, Arthur, without Excalibur in your hand, and you know not the nature of the beast you are confronting?  Oh, that is not very wise at all.”

“Where is she?” he demanded.

“She’s here.  This is a matter of heart.”

“So the heart of this place?” I said slowly.

“The sorceror opened the portal at the throne of the mountains, and near was Viktor, the ambiance of a water Prince, and his spells collectively.”

“You mean all I had to do was click my heels together?” I grinned again.

“And find self-confidence,” Vasilisa smiled back at me.

“So we go backwards?” I nodded sagely.

“The only way to go forwards sometimes,” she agreed.

“I just want my fairy back,” I laughed.

“Be wary of what you claim, little power.”

Oh.  Yeah.  I said “my fairy.”  “That’s wisdom, alright.”  I agreed. 

“I won’t borrow trouble, but I will still reap some consequences,” she said.

“Best a la mode,” I offered, still enjoying the repartee. “How much do I owe you?”

“After having to hear that story?  I probably owe you a favour,” she winked at Artur.

“Let’s make it a mutual one.”  I decided not to blush because, well, I’m a guy.  “How about ice cream?” I asked.

“When next we meet, yes, I think that will be well.  And now a word alone, son of Lev.”  She spoke a Word I did not hear, and then took her leave the way wizards do, by disappearing.

“So what next?” I asked Artur.

“To the heart of the matter?” he smiled, but something haunted his gaze.