I could imagine them laughing, smiling to the sight of their mother’s or father’s goofy face. And now, they are down there, perpetually frozen in their death rictus. Innocent babies, brutally murdered, now hang from the roof of what used to be the garden. Their heads are arranged in concentric circles, with the chins inward and the bare but whole spines threaded one around the other, this arrangement raised towards the roof so the baby heads perpetually stare at the ground. Their hearts still beat, not as a sign of life preserved but as one of slavery by necromantic means. They are arranged in an outer circle, placed slightly above the one of heads, with their veins and arteries interconnected, beating rhythmically, in turns, like the old-fashioned marquee lights that go round and round on arcade top-signs or slot machines.

This, while disgustingly macabre, is far from the worst: their lacrimal ducts still work, and, when they see you —and they do see you, their dead pupils can follow each one of your movements, right and left, up and down— and they fixate their gaze upon you, they start crying disconsolately. As such, under the circle of severed infant heads, you can take a salty, yet warm and slow, shower.

Sixteen children died to bring this sin forth. Six in the inner circle, and another ten in the outer. Sixteen children were slaughtered to fabricate that abomination. They don’t look like each other, so sixteen families must have been forever broken. Some had brown eyes, some had green ones, one had a single, blue eye. I can imagine where the other one has been taken.

I kneeled down, and, lowering my head, I wept with them, I wept for them. It was my fault. I had planted the idea in Scarreladai’s mind, and now sixteen mothers, sixteen families, had been stripped of their children, or outright murdered by, Gadorprims. How could something so big be so adept at snatching babies?

And, over all other questions, I asked myself why. Why would they do this? Dragons, I believe they are not inherently evil. But these two, these two planned this out, they killed infants for pleasure. No, for something worse than pleasure, for mere fashion.

No, for a pun. They killed them for a pun.

In earthly tongues I yelled at the heavens with all my might.

“I hate you! I hate both of you! I hate the green one and the blue winged one, I hate my Lady and my Sir! Babies! Children! Do whatever you will to me, do whatever you conceive to poor Abeline, and I shall consider that the actions of Dragons! But Children, when there was no need? Damned the day we, English speakers, brought the word and concept that inspired this into this world!”

I unsheathed Jillsenbane, and I saw the reflection on my mad scowl on her lustered blade.

“You, Jilly… I don´t need your cooperation. I care not about your motives to choose me. If you are the fragment of a god, if you hate my guts as much as you hate weak dragons, I don’t care anymore. You are being conscripted, Jillsenbane. You will help deliver justice to these children, like it or not. Understood?”

The sword didn’t answer. It didn’t tremble, it didn’t shudder. She owed me that, if she were alive. She owed me a signal of respect.

“You think I am kidding? Or do you not think at all?” I said, exasperated by the situation. I user her as a vantage point to stand easier, her tip slightly sinking into the stone.

I raised her to the face of the blue eyed baby, and I discovered the strength to tear that devil’s manufacture was not in me. The blade shook, not by her own will, but by the movement imprinted by my tremulous hand. They looked so pale, yet they cried and stared, they only ever cried and stared. Mutely, in silence, with the water drops and the heartbeats being the only ambient sounds in the room. That, and my anguished breathing, too, that was rendered all the more grotesque by the situation.

A hero would have plunged the sword into the babies faces. A hero would have burned the damn thing down without stuttering. A hero would not hesitate to relieve the babies form their plight. I am no hero, I am a man with a sword and some magical tricks under my sleeve. That’s why I lowered Jillsenbane. I realized that, as terrible as it sounded, I needed —I need— the babies to be there, suffering. To burn is to forget, to burn is to bury the disgraces never to unearth them. If one glance at them sparks my hatred, if it snuffs my indecision, if their unholy image renews my will to go on in my crusade against my captors, it is imperative to preserve the lurid effigy.

I let Jillsenbane fall and I kneeled again, right under the center of the circles. I pulled my head back, shut my eyes and opened my arms to the sides of my body, palms up. Tears rained upon me, and I basked in them. They mixed with my own, with the spittle on the sides of my lips, with the sweat that rolled down my forehead and chest. This was —still is, will always be— my fault, I had to feel the horrid tepid guilt dripping down my skin.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

“I have failed you, each one of you. Cry, blame me, weep over this sinner until your tears burn his bleached skin,” I pleaded, eyes still closed. “Let me carry your pain, please! I deserve it. I deserve each milliliter of it. Cry your eyes out, your…” I called myself to silence, for, well, you can imagine… what was about to say, even if figuratively, about the pumping masses of muscle that beat on the outer edge.

Enough. It was enough commiserating. I had a duty to storm down the chambers where my captors slept and murder them both. No mercy, no morally justified reason to refrain myself.

I recovered my sword, and stared down at my reflection on the blade’s luster. I frowned, and the reflection returned the gesture. This was not the face I had first walked in here with, but it would be the one that would leave, if only to have the privilege to die under the sun.

I left the shower room, ex garden, and walked straight, as a human being ought to, despite having to crouch now and then to avoid some rock formation —mostly stalactites— or spider web. My back protested, and so did my legs, that had forgot we were more than a dirty monkey that danced and danced and danced for The Scarlet lady.

“Gadorprims the peerless!” I beckoned when I spotted the dark green hue of his skull ahead and down the tunnel. He was distracted with a pebble, but there was no way I would be able to sneak up on him.

“Hah, suck it Scar, I won!” he claimed out loud.

That set me aback, made me look frantically behind and around me, trying to spot any tricks. “What did you win exactly, demon?” I spat, my words full of poison.

“Not long ago we made a bet: which one of her experiments would make you drop your petty charade? And I won, it was the baby thing! Thank you, Francisco. Thanks to your actions today I won three eggs,” he explained, sounding almost excited, still inspecting the shinning pebble between his claws, “huh, this stone is pretty pretty,” he added, nonchalantly.

“Charade? You knew I was feigning the madness these last days?”

“Well, yes: The Wife, as your people call their long term mates, lifted her spell some days ago. Did you take us for morons, son of man? She was fully aware you were finding ways to counteract her illusions, that she had slacked off on them. So, welcoming a little bit of spice in our lives, we struck a pact to leave you off the leash and watch you handle the situation as it is. Francisco, wielder of Jillsenbane, I hereby welcome you to our cozy cave, with no padded beds, no running water, no accommodations for your kind and, well, some accommodations of your kind.” He said, lowering his snout to try and conceal his giggling.

“I have the higher ground, Gadorprims!”

“Pray, explain to me how does that make you fireproof or immune to electrocution.”

I remained silent, grasping Jillsenbane so hard my tendons started to ache. Wondering if jumping him would be the right course of action.

“I am drenched in the tears of your innocent victims, scum!”

“You came here clad in the hardened skins of bovines incapable of crime, calves included. Your belt was made out of young drake scales.” He opened his eyes wide and flicked the pebble upslope, just to see it slide down again “We didn’t lure you in, you and your party came in seeking Scarri’s cute heart on a platter. And out of all of them, you only care for the one that was a future reproductive prospect. Who is the scum?”

I readied myself to run him down. “Because the others ran away.”

“Oh winds, they sure tried. Unfortunately, they weren’t faster than my talons, and I was feeling a little bit peckish. Maybe some of the bones are still around here. You saw that, don’t you remember?”

No. I didn’t. And know I couldn’t do it. I felt my grasp on the handle loosening, my body paralyzed by fear. My articulations ached. How old am I? How many years ago was that?

“How long? How long have I been here? Answer me!” I desperately demanded.

He considered it carefully, raised his gaze at the roof and started mumbling.

“I think about three. Yes, no more than three sounds correct.”

“Three years? I got this battered and ruined in three measly years?”

He dismissed me with a gesture of the paw that you wouldn’t expect from a dragon. “More like decades, but I commend the spirit.”

My knees gave in, and like a potato bag I rolled downslope. I thought that, if there were merciful gods out there, I could hit my head during the fall and die due to a concussion. But even if my plea would have been heard, it would have been moot, because gadorprims rushed to catch me with his fore claws, carefully enough to now cause me nothing more than some bruises.

“There, there. I am feeling generous today.”

I made an effort to look him in one of his amber eyes flooded with hatred. “Don’t you want to see me dead?”

“Yes, but I don’t break The Wife’s toys or disregard her fears without a very good reason. If you want to be granted death, you’ll need to destroy Jillsenbane,” with a lone hand he raised me close to the stalactites, and only then I noticed he had sharpened them

“You know that cannot be done.”

“Do you want to bet? I like bets. More so when my victory is assured. So, what do you say, do you want to bet there is no way to destroy Jillsenbane?”

I considered it, and then noticed his devilish stare.

“I won’t destroy it, but tell me how that is done.”

He pinned me against the floor and licked my face.

“So you can take countermeasures? Sure. Any Jillsenbane but the original is said to die off when it delivers death to the last of dragons. Of course, the wielder has to tell the sword that individual is the last of dragons. So the dragon soul and the fragment of Jillsen merge with each other, giving rise to the collective soul of a new primordial dragon race, to be incarnated after a few millennia and relit the war between our species.” He let me go and began walking away. “Granted, that would be only if there is still a war to be fought. Go, write this down like you always do, and meet us both in the hoard chamber when you feel like it.”

Gadorprims went away, leaving this fifty something years old disgrace lying on the floor, crying like yet another decapitated baby: In silence, and without any prospect of solace on the horizon.