Mt. Tai’s courtyard garden was the envy of the dragonrealm. The soil was fine and loamy and so soft your feet sank into it, as into a wool carpet. But you could scarcely see it under all that greenery. It wasn’t all green, of course—there were sky blues, molten reds, sunny yellows, deep-cave blacks, great herbs big and small planted so close they twined and sagged all over each other. If you took a stroll through here, then peered out at the rest of the realm, you could scarcely believe they shared a world! This garden of Mt. Tai seemed painted of brighter, more various colors. It made those lesser peaks look monochrome by contrast.

This was by design. For this wasn’t just Godking Scraggletooth’s personal leisure garden.

It was also the vault that held his ill-gotten gains.

Once upon a time, before Salas mauled the realm, every peak in the dragonrealm with color. But after him nearly every peak was burned down; and the flowers that survived were the mean, tough types.

So it was with plants, so it was with dragons. The meanest, toughest dragons seized hold of Mt. Tai. Then they went about pillaging the broken realm and setting up a new social order. The survivors were too weak to resist.

So it came to be that the few pretty plants left were gathered up and planted here. As were much of the rest of the dragonrealm’s splendor and power.

For the second time that week, Spiketail crashlanded into this lovely garden. He was as ugly as Scraggletooth recalled—the idiot hadn’t the courtesy to wear a mask to spare the rest of them his face, like Scraggletooth had asked. Spiketail somehow managed to look even more disheveled than the last time. His jaw was trembling so hard his first few tries at a word came out in loud squawking blubbers. At last he choked out a word.

“EMERGENCY!” he wailed. “IT’S — IT’S HORRIBLE! SIR!”

Scraggletooth’s harem yelped and skittered. Scraggletooth simply sighed. He held up a finger, finished eating the last of the grapes out of sweet Redfang’s mouth, gulped, and licked his lips. Spiketail bounced about all the while, looking like he was about to explode.

“SIR!”

Scraggletooth kept his finger up. He took a long sip of wine.

“If this is not truly dire,” he said slowly, making sure to enunciate every syllable. “I shall pick up this poleaxe—” He gestured to his trusty weapon lying against a pillar, huge even for a dragon—“and I shall gut you with it, tear out your entrails, and hang you with them.”

Spiketail audibly gulped.

“Well?” drawled Scraggletooth. “Go on, then? What is it?”

“The strike force—Jez’s strike force—all dead! Dorian yet lives!”

“Oh. Is that all?” Scraggletooth reached for his poleaxe.

“And—and the revolution!” screeched Spiketail. “It’s swelled to over two hundred!”

Scraggletooth froze.

“And—and they’re taken Lockjaw Fortress! They’re marching on us as we speak, my king! What do we do?!”

Scraggletooth was forced to admit this was rather dire. Disappointing, since he’d really been looking forward to gutting the unsightly fellow.

“Hmm,” he said. “I see. Thank you.” He waved a hand. “You may go.”

Spiketail stared at him. “Sir… I don’t mean to be presumptuous, but I sense you are not treating this with the seriousness it deserves. The revolution is marching here—they’ll arrive in a mere day!”

“On the contrary, I am treating this with exactly the seriousness it deserves,” said Scraggletooth. “Redfang—another grape, if you would? Thank you, my dear.”

“Sir!—”

“It shall be taken care of. Now shoo.”

For a breath, Spiketail just gaped. Then he swallowed, saluted, and pitter-pattered his way into the sky.

“My king?” said one of his harem. A cute little creature whose name he couldn’t quite recall. “We’ll be fine, won’t we? Could those rebels p-possibly breach the walls?”

At that he had to laugh. He remembered her now. Moontail—the youngling he’d spotted bathing! He’d made a special trip down to the common lands just to abduct her. Pretty she might be, but there wasn’t much between the ears. Her acting was terrible. Beneath that thin veneer of fear he could tell she was hopeful. Hopeful that she might one day be freed.

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He had to laugh at that.

“Oh, me. No, no, I fear this little resistance will be dashed against Mt. Tai’s walls easily enough.”

“But—but aren’t there two hundred of them? And that one fellow, he slew Jez’s Godking, didn’t he?”

Scraggletooth tsk’d, flicking her nose. You could forgive a lot of the pretty ones. If Spiketail had asked something so silly his head would be on a stick.

“True,” he said patiently. “And that is all very impressive, I’m sure. But you forget who you’re talking to, my dear.” He sighed. “Every has, it seems. Do you know how I came to be king?”

Moontail judged it wise to stay silent on that one.

“You have my permission to speak the truth,” he said gently. “Just this once, mind you.”

“You betrayed your brother,” sneered Moontail. There a defiance in her eyes, flickering like the last embers in a dead hearth. “You stole the throne.”

“That’s what everyone says. It’s very flashy, I grant you, and he was very popular with the little folk, so of course that is the narrative of history. But no-one recalls what came before I shoved Dusk here” — he patted his poleaxe — “through dear brother’s overly muscled back. For three moons we held Mt. Tai against Jez’s forces. Three moons! How? Because it was I that was his general. It was I that handled the preparations, and the strategizing, and the execution down to the littlest detail, while he sat here slurping up all the credit as he lounged on his fat arse. We could only hold for that long because of my meticulous preparation. In the end, Jez judged it such a nuisance to finish me he offered me the realm.”

He paused. “Besides—do you know just how hard it is to get up here? The mountain is a Fortress unto itself. Ancient magics have welled here since before there were dragons in the dragon realm. It makes flying up the mountain impossible. The gravity is simply too strong, and the qi in the air itself is so dense it seems to weigh on you, and it gets worse the higher you fly. The only reason we can fly normally is due to the Fortress’s astonishingly qi-intensive arrays. Even Jez’s Empyreans and Godkings had to take the long route up. Climbing. Don’t you recall marching those thousands of li the first time I brought you here? I wouldn’t do that to you for no reason; I’m no savage. Ah—I suppose you wouldn’t. You were likely unconscious.”

“But… aren’t there hundreds of rebels? They’ll get here eventually, won’t they?” said Moontail. The girl was desperate.

“After braving hours of cannon fire that can end Gods and Empyreans in a blast, perhaps. And setting off the thousand nasty traps en route. By then they’re bedraggled and worn—and they haven’t even gone up the walls, nor the moat, which is the real challenge…and then they’ll have to face fresh, well-armored Empyreans and a Godking.”

Moontail drooped. “Then why was Spiketail so scared?”

“Spiketail is very stupid, dear,” said Scraggletooth. “But I hate to see you so worried. If it’ll give you peace of mind, I suppose I can petition our friend Jez for some insurance. One can never be too prepared, after all.”

Yawning, he stretched his massive, serpentine body and got to his many, many feet. Scraggletooth was dragon of the classical Eastern lineage, as all rulers of the dragonrealm were since the days of yore.

“Excuse me, my dears! Business calls…”

***

“I wish to speak with Jez,” said Scraggletooth. He had to wait a few breaths before the scrying glass mounted on the chamber wall resolved.

“What is it?” said Jez. The man’s voice was nearing a snarl. Scraggletooth couldn’t really tell where he was, but there was a great deal of fire and explosions in the background. He’d noticed his employer had gotten a lot snippier of late. Rather disappointing. Scraggletooth had taken him to be a reasonable man.

“I would like to inform you that the dragon realm is about to fall. And with it, your Infinity Heart,” said Scraggletooth calmly. Not strictly true, but if you wanted something you really had to exaggerate the direness of the need.

“What?”

“Your strike force has utterly failed. The realm is in full revolt. Courtesy dictates I make this call. Presently I’m preparing my escape.”

“You are a top ranked Godking. In a Fortress that is nigh-impregnable.” Jez narrowed his eyes, and there was genuine fury in them. Fury! “How is this possible?”

Scraggletooth shrugged. “The Fortress is not what it was, my friend. Nothing in the dragonrealm is, after Salas…”

“I am not your friend.” Jez’s voice was dangerously soft. “I am your master.”

There was a long, awkward pause. Scraggletooth supposed the courteous thing to do was to indulge him. He really had flown far off-course since they’d first met. It was sad to witness. “Of course, Master. How silly of me. I sincerely apologize.”

“Better.” Jez gave an odd little laugh. “It is so tiring, Scraggletooth. Oh so tiring, trying to save this realm from itself. While my allies, my underlings, are all raging incompetents!”

Scraggletooth scratched at his cheek. “Eh. So… what should I do?”

Jez sighed. “What do you need?”

“Presently the Fortress is powered by a stash of Peak-grade Spirit Stones,” said Scraggletooth. “Fine for those lesser cannons, and our shield arrays, and our qi traps! But I fear this isn’t enough to power those most powerful weapons—firepower than can threaten even Godkings. For that… I shall need to make use of the Body.” Jez’s face spasmed. Clearly he didn’t like the idea at all. But it was a question of which he liked less—losing his Infinity Heart, or losing that strange relic which had fallen from the sky.

“…Fine,” he gritted out. “But you must ensure that it does not fall into enemy hands. Dorian cannot be allowed to get hold of it, whatever the cost. Do you understand?”

His words were slightly muffled by an explosion.

“Of course.”

“I don’t think you do.” Jez leaned in so that his face took up the whole mirror. His stared, and there was a faint gleam of madness in his eyes. “Earlier you mentioned an ‘escape.’ If you fail here there will be no such thing. There will be no corner of the Multiverse where you can hide from me. I will find you, and you will not be so smug then.”

Jez was not the intimidating type. He wasn’t built for it; he didn’t know how to contort his face to make those deep threatening grooves. Yet Scraggletooth was still struck by an unexpected pang of fear. For Jez was not trying to be intimidating. He was baring his heart and expressing something intensely true. It wasn’t a threat. It was a promise.

“Rest at ease, my f—Master Jez,” said Scraggletooth. “Mt. Tai shall not fall. With the Body at hand… why, it’s practically impossible!”