Taelryx

Entombed, crippled, and powerless in the dark, Taelryx kept its eye fixed on that tiny flame. As it became accustomed to this new situation, it could see that it was just a candle. Rather small, the mottled wax did not take the shape of a stick, just a formless pile. Barely enough fuel to keep the fire burning. Taelryx wondered who lit it, and why.

Taelryx struggled to breathe. Stagnant air surrounded it, and rubble pressed down on its broken shell of a body all the while as its cracked and broken ribs labored to fill punctured lungs. The mist man had done its task with glee and no lack of malice. For an ageless beast of unfathomable experience, now it laid low, unable to even lick its wounds.

“You see now the peril, don’t you Taelryx? All you knew, gone.” Mist began to obscure the candle’s flame, a slow, sinuous winding that bunched first at the base and slowly slid seeking tendrils around and up. “Your kind once had unfathomable power. The demons took it away from you - you especially. Have you ever thought about why that is?”

Taelryx refused to answer, its eye fixed on that tiny, almost imperceptible flame. The dragon felt uncharacteristically possessive. :Cling to the flame.: it thought. :Nothing else matters.: Having seen what that mist had done to that massive tower and its own body, Taelryx whimpered.

Mist surged around the candle like waves upon the shore. Taelryx’s heart fluttered with fear. Eldritch purple pulsed at the flame’s edges where the mist caught and blazed away. With each wave, the flame withered, then repulsed the mist with a flash of purple. Each flash revealed two purple orbs slowly orbiting each other above the flame, burning with their own power, yet hidden except for the flashes.

“Everything is ephemeral. Nothing is eternal, Taelryx. But you still aren’t ready, are you?” The orbs ceased circling above the candle, and the dragon felt an unearthly gaze upon its ruined mass. “You cling to this vision of hope and it sickens me. Sickens all the world. Perhaps it sickens you too?”

Mist spiraled tighter, and the flashes grew frantic, illuminating the orbs with sickening purple light. Deep purple flames vanished into the darkness as the orbs’ power increased. Below, the wax diminished, a fraction of what it had been moments before. The flame dwindled to a thin prick, barely even there at all, enveloped and embattled by constricting darkness.

“What does it take to make you see? Must I blind your other eye too?” At once, Taelryx felt its right eye compress. It tried to blink, shutting its eye to the flame. Hope dwindled. :No, hold the flame.: Pain grew, and through Taelryx’s crushed jaw came a hollow groan. Its sight distorted, and the dragon knew. Straining against natural instinct bound by millions of years of experience, it opened its eye and fixed on the flame, that small, impossible mote of heat and light fighting its last fight.

With a squelching pop, everything vanished. Tears mixed with blood dribbled down the right side of Taelryx’s face. The world squeezed and compressed into remaining sensations. It could hear the sizzle of flame, and feel imperceptible heat. One small candle yet burned in its world, and Taelryx could just make out its scent of blood, and life, and magic.

“Father of flames and fire indeed, Taelryx? I’m so disappointed in you.” Unmistakable, undisguised disgust from an unknown, unseen tormentor. Why couldn’t the dragon recognize it? “Witness your hope’s end.”

Taelryx heard a snik, and the scent vanished. The dragon twisted its head, listening with rising panic for the low rustle and pop of burning flame it could no longer hear. :Hold the flame!: it thought urgently.

“So this is what ultimate failure is like,” came the voice of the mist-man. “Thank you for sharing this with me,” it whispered, mocking as it faded to nothing.

Taelryx shut its sightless eyes, more out of habit than actual need now, and focused. It envisioned where the flame had been. Its right talon was closest, though mangled under a mountain of rock. It rolled right, shattering what remained of its arm to raise its left one. What more could pain do to it now? More focus. The candle was there. Positioning its arm just so, its curved talon closing on the last perceived location of the candle.

The dragon had guessed well, as its foreclaw exploded forth with flame that consumed Taelryx’s arm and hungered for more.

***

Miranda

With each step, the stickiness grew less and she left the tendrils behind her. Miranda continued to hold her hands up, the glow from each hand warm like a campfire and as bright in the darkness. She felt awkward and imagined how ridiculous she looked. The schoolgirls back home would certainly have teased her, or been frightened just as easily by how unnatural she had become.

She stopped for a moment, and looked from hand to hand. Her small fingers radiated light through her new skin, a subcutaneous shimmer that emanated from her flesh the same way air warped above an asphalt road on a hot summer day. Miranda knew her life as she’d known it was gone. Her hands had never done this before. No one she’d ever met had glowy hands. The only time she’d seen magic like this was in movies she’d watched with daddy, and those had never made sense to her. Just as this didn’t now.

On impulse, she clapped her hands together. The light pulsed and seemed to stick together when she pulled her hands apart, before fading away. Again she clapped, harder. The light remained longer that time. Miranda pushed her hands together hard and the glow intensified, a unity between the two forces. When she pulled them apart, an orange sphere remained floating before her. She giggled.

Delighted by this new creation, she poked it with a finger. She knew it to be both very hot and simultaneously painless even as it yielded like an impenetrable liquid, a small water balloon. She moved it above her head and it illuminated the walls around her much better than her hands had.

“How does this work?” she wondered. Taking a step in the direction she’d been traveling, the orb remained in position above her, maintained in perfect alignment as if by an invisible tether. “Yes!” she exclaimed. A few more steps, and it hovered above her in direct synchronicity with her movement.

:It’s quite amazing how quickly you’re discovering your powers, Miranda. You’re such an intuitive little girl.: An ancient voice filled her mind, alike and yet different in some way to the one she’d heard before.

“Thanks, I think? Who are you anyway?” she replied.

:Brave too.: The voice felt like sound, very real. Chameleon-like its tone subtly shifted, feeling at times like the dragon, a bit like her father, and something...else.

“‘Brave Too’ is an odd name. Kinda stupid actually. Wasn’t it Taelryx?”

:I…: it hesitated. :Yes, Miranda. Your memory is very good. How do you feel?: it asked.

Miranda hadn’t really thought about it. Too busy escaping, mutating, and escaping again. She kept walking, her feet breaking away small gooey tendrils that had found her once more. “Alone,” she offered.

: Oh love, you’re not alone, you have me now.: Miranda quickened her pace. Her light illuminated a tunnel curving gently to her left, its sloped walls marbled through with what appeared to be veins that throbbed weakly every few moments. Alive. :Your father wanted me to protect you,: it offered.

Miranda bristled. From behind her, wisps of black mist curled across the ground towards her, replacing the goo. “Daddy left me alone, that’s why I’m alone, I don’t want any of this!”

:Your determination is strong, child. Do you know why he abandoned you?: She stopped and turned around. Two purple orbs hung suspended in the darkness behind her, just outside the ring of light. Mist continued to flicker into view and melt away.

:He despised you. You reminded him every day of the love of his life. You could not replace her, but you were all he had.: Memories came unbidden, all the times she’d seen daddy staring off into space, or crying when he didn’t know she watched. She remembered his love though. Could it be true?

“Stop. Stop it!” she yelled. No. Or yes. She didn’t know anymore. It started to make sense in her mind. She stalked away from the orbs, trying to ignore the creepy feeling she got leaving them in her wake. In her peripheral vision, she saw the tendrils again as she walked, lapping at her feet.

:When you slept, he prayed every day that your mother would come back. Hoped you would go away and she would be in your place. Every day he woke, and when he checked you were still there, and his hope remained dashed.:

“I don’t believe you, why are you doing this, Taelryx?” Her pace quickened, yet still the mist swirled at her feet, flicking up her legs and burning away.

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:You need to understand the truth.: She shook her head, doubting. :It drives you, that need. I know you doubt him. You need to know it’s justified.: She didn’t know that word.

“What do you mean, ‘justified?’” A chuckle echoed in her head, and around her. Even the mist vibrated.

:What is your very last memory of him? The last, last thing you saw?: Mist gripped around her torso now, and she batted it away. Her clothing sizzled.

“I was sick. I don’t know. He went to get medicine.”

:Tell me.:

“We were sleeping. I felt him get up. My head hurt.”

:He knew you were sick, but he left you there?:

“Yes.” Miranda didn’t like where this was going.

:Where did he go? What do you remember?:

“I don’t know.” Her heart quickened its beat. A truth danced in her head she hadn’t seen before.

:You were delirious. You had a bad fever, like always?:

“Yes.” In the back of her mind, something nagged at her. How did Taelryx know about the fevers?

:Think very, very carefully. Was anything odd that night?: Other than falling into this nightmare? She thought. Then she remembered. Moonlight had shimmered, moving around the room. Unnatural. She’d believed it to be a fever dream...but then…

“Daddy saw it too.” Mist constricted around her chest and she found it hard to breathe. Her pace picked up. She coughed, trying to fan the choking mist away with her hands as she began to run.

:Now you know the truth.:

Miranda entered a large room with a huge pink mass floating in the center. It reminded her of a cloud. She fell to her knees, exhausted, denying the revelation in her mind. It was all true! Why, why, why did she have to be right? The mist was entering her mouth, ears, and nose, seeping even into her eyes. She cried uncontrollably, devastated. The hovering orange light winked away, quenched.

Daddy had seen it. The thing that had come for her. He’d walked away, knowing his wish had been fulfilled. No regret, no remorse, closing the door behind him, leaving only the nightlight to illuminate the terror that descended upon her.

Miranda had been sick, unable to defend herself. The thing had grabbed her, and her fever had intensified, growing uncontrollable and worse as they had vanished into the mirrored orb that grew around them. “Daddy, why did you leave me?” she whispered.

:The bargain had been fulfilled, Miranda. The price had been paid. You. For your mother. It’s dreadful what a person will do for love.: Her skin crawled, black tendrils cutting into her flesh, wrapping around her arms and legs, pulling her to the ground. Why did everything in this world cause unbearable pain? She’d known nothing but pain since coming here. Must that be the cost? Whose pain was it, really?

Hope left her then, drowned in the sorrow of neglectful futility. She laid on the floor, smothered in a blanket of inky black mist, thick and cloying. Miranda’s breath grew weak. She no longer cared, giving in to the merciful relief of death.

Her sight dimmed, then went black. Mist had obscured her sight too. It was not darkness. Pupils dilated, hunting for anything, and there she saw it. Deep in that pink cloud above her. A blood red pinprick, the only thing she could see now. Could she?

Reaching with her left hand, outstretched above her, she sent everything she could with her thought, body, and soul. The light responded, arcing a bolt of crackling red. For the briefest moment, she remembered a plasma ball daddy had showed her at the mall, how when she’d touched her finger upon it the lightning had come to her. This had taken even less effort.

:Miranda, take my hand!: the light spoke to her. THIS was Taelryx, not that other voice. She grasped the light with both hands and it pulled her under herself. Energy, so much unstoppable energy poured into her flame, growing. Fire sheathed the crackling bolt, racing up to the pink cloud and around her body.

Cosmic starlight deluged Miranda from within and without, ripping the black mist away. A runaway chain reaction occurred, feeding back between Miranda and the cloud she recognized as Taelryx. The confluence of symbiotic bond grew organically, bursting mutually from within them both, mixing and recombining.

As their connections merged one to the other, Miranda became aware of millions of stars and felt them too, pulling them to her. She re-lived one of Taelryx’s memories, all the stars in the sky, shimmering and dancing. It had been this. Her. His future. Her future. But in his past. She reveled in his dragon-form, and knew she’d share that too, somehow.

Fire-soul and dragon merged, a synergy born of fate. The event ended, leaving Miranda asleep in the darkness, the violence of a million suns having reforged her once more, contained as it only could be, in the forge of an ancient dragon’s corpse.

***

Ukrit

Ukrit slid down and bounced off the eyebrow and onto the wide platform of the lizard’s nose. What by de gods was dat? Gathering himself, he stood using his spear for support. From his vantage it was a long way down. He couldn’t see an easy way back up either. One of the lizard’s eyes had gone black, it’s crystalline structure webbed with orange cracks.. The other was sapphire blue, glittering only in the daylight, but not from internal life. Both were half-lidded.

“If ya not ticklish, what do ya be?” He asked.

:Dying,: came the reply to his mind. Even as the thought registered, a low rumble began. Gray smoke trickled from the lizard’s nose, curling up from its jaw far below as well. Its right eye bulged grotesquely before shattering outwards in a mixture of gemstone and putrescence. Cauterizing flame erupted forth, and Ukrit sought refuge between the eyes, under a pair of scales.

A beam of light shot forth from the right eye like a beacon, brighter than the sun, and his shelter did not stop his flesh from burning. Ukrit felt a thrumming vibration beneath him, and the scales keened, chipping and flaking from the intense frequencies oscillating through the lizard’s body. Flesh split and tore, gaping rents billowing smoke and steaming blood.

“Boy ya not lyin’ about dyin’.” With less warning than it began, the violence ended. Ukrit realized he’d been holding his breath, and exhaled. “Dat’s it den, I tink. Peace be wit’ ya.”

:Some beings find peace in death. Dragons rarely do.:

“Dragons?” From the black smoke billowing from the cratered right eye emerged a vaguely man-shaped being, more mist than smoke, with two subtle flaming purple orbs for eyes.

:This one struggled for a while, but in the end could not avoid me. Perhaps death was release.:

“Who be ya?” Ukrit asked, pointing his spear uselessly at this new being.

:No one of consequence. What is it you seek, Ukrit? Do you know?:

The Tai shook his head. “Dis ting fell from da sky. De elda’s sent me to make a report. Don’ come any closa!” Mist had furled around his feet, and he took a step back. The mist-man’s casual use of his name went completely unnoticed.

:Your elders are old because they’ve gained wisdom. They know that coming here could kill them. Why die when someone more foolish can come instead? They see it for what it is, so I ask you again, Ukrit. What do you seek?:

Ukrit stood in silence, wary of this creature. “Sometin’ new unda da sky. Something’ to report. Dis be pretty new, I tink.”

: Oh, it’s far older than your small mind can possibly comprehend, my friend.: It nodded back the way it had come. :But down there, perhaps you’ll find something new.: Even as it spoke, the mist blew away with the breeze. :Do be careful,: came a final admonition as the orbs winked out.

Ukrit surveyed the space just occupied by the creature, unsure whether to proceed. His left arm, shoulder and back throbbed from the burns he’d received, and his ankles stung where the mist had wrapped about. Already fighting exhaustion and dehydration from his trip, he acknowledged the precariousness of his situation.

“Pe’haps dere be some relief in da shade,” he told himself, trying to build courage to go into the dragon’s eye. “Some shade, and a quick look, me tinkin’.” The Tai struggled for a moment to crawl up the eyelid, but once he did, he saw a smooth passageway leading down into the dragon. Using his spear to support his weakened side, he descended.

The walls blasted by heat seemed polished like opaque glass, solid and unyielding. Ukrit never thought how strange that this had just been a living creature mere moments ago, locked now into a rigid form. He shuffled along, limping step after step. The immense eye-room narrowed to a smaller tunnel curving off downward to his right, and this too, he followed. Focused on the task at hand, practicality overruled wonder or amazement.

No stench assaulted him down here, and the shade did actually provide relief. In fact he found the air somewhat chilling, and shivered slightly. Without a torch or form of light, his eyes shifted to night vision, such as he relied on when hunting during his scouting trips. The tunnel opened into a much wider room, dwarfing what he’d seen in the dragon’s eye. At first he thought the room empty. Even with night vision, he now had traveled so far even residual daylight did not assist him.

Something blue twinkled near the center of the room, on the floor, drawing his attention. As he approached, he could make out the form, perhaps that of a child. “Young rakka,” he whispered. It became more obvious the closer he came that her skin had the most subtle glow, as well that it was a she, for she wore no clothes. Her irises peeked out, gemmed blue against white. Her lips moved slowly but he could make out no voice, no noise, no speech..

“No, not rakka, Tel-Drakka!” he exclaimed, seeing the faintly scaled brow ridges and two small nubs on her bald forehead. The child’s skin ran pink-ish orange, even in the near darkness, mottled shades shot through with orange lightning veins. He fell to his knees in reverence. De tales were true!

Ukrit looked around, unconsciously tapping his left fingers to his thumb, and scratching his right tusk. “Dis not good, dis not good,” he whispered nervously. He ripped his pants below the knees, tearing off the leggings, then tore strips from the thong that bounded his spear. He quickly crafted a small sling to carry her across his massive chest. Her sightless gaze unnerved him as he picked her limp form up and bound her. He shook the whole time.

“Sorry, Tel-Drakka, dere be no udda way,” he said, lamenting his inadequacy for this task, and the infirmity crippling his actions.

“:Forgiven, tai-rasha,:” came her weak voice, so quiet he barely heard it, though it echoed in his head like this mist-man’s voice had, mind to mind. It humbled him.

Back up the passageway he went, the Tai’s ascent slower than his descent had been. Fatigue bore down on him, and carrying the child’s slight body sapped his energy further. It felt as if the Tel-Drakka pulled his very life force from him as he climbed, and devoured his strength. He rounded the final curve and saw light before him. The sky. And a figure. With a gesture, his legs gave out and his spear was yanked from his hands, flying to the form framed by the light.

He pulled the sling from his neck and laid the child on the ground. Looking up, a woman taller and more slender than he approached.. Her once-intricate dress swept dirt with its singed skirt. Tear-trail scars marred her beautiful face, and a broken blue gem sat partially housed in a necklace at the base of her throat. She glanced once at the bundle, then back to him.

“Thank you for finding my daughter,” she said, voice husky with sadness, but not for him. While he still knelt looking up, dispassion stabbed downward with the spear. Remorseless fate. He reached up to where the spear penetrated the left side of his throat near the clavicle. Just the butt-end protruded as the rest exited his lower rib cage and pinned him firmly to the floor. Life poured from his body, and as the shadowy silhouette forgot him in favor of that small bundle, Ukrit forced a small chuckle.

I am da first ta die hea’, came his last thought.