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The Flame Tribe has a cozy stone mansion they've claimed as their base in the southern outskirts of the pulverized capital. It may have been the house of some big shot back in the day, with plenty of rooms on multiple floors. Airy ventilation holes in the ceiling, and big toppled pillars to stretch your back on after a day's hike.

Amazingly, you can still glean hints of the rooms’ original selves from their barren, melted shapes and the floor plan. There's what might've been a library. What might've been a children's bedroom. A ghost of a big kitchen, a pantry. A large bath, with the outline of the pool barely visible in the sand. Echoes of past lives, so close but forever out of reach.

By now, all the furniture and clothing has turned to dust, steelware consumed to nothing by rust. Gone are the children and the elders. Not a bone is left of their stay, not even a memory. Ancient cruleans wrote their books on nifty crystal tablets, but too many eons have passed even for those records to endure. On the few fragments I find, inscriptions are worn illegible, barest bumps on smoothed glass, too faint for a blind man's fingers.

Instead of reliefs or murals, only webs of fractures pattern the sun-bleached walls. Piles of fine red sand gather in the corners of the rooms and hallways. Desert gale steadily throws in more sand through the empty, gaping window holes and cracks in the walls. The worst gaps have been patched with the stretched skins of marine monsters, dried hard.

Dragons have no interest in history or keeping it. Not enough to sweep the stairs.

They occupy the house like a street gang, the use of the rooms entirely lost on them. They don't write and they don't read. They can't build, only break. For them, this stately mansion is simply a lair like any other, only above the ground instead of under it. The sole point of interest in having a house in their eyes is that it's cooler than outside during the day, and warmer when it's night.

But it's not like they don't know art. On the wall above the tall entrance is painted a big red symbol to signal everyone the residence is the Flame Tribe’s property. At least, I hope it was paint they used to mark their territory. Otherwise, somebody should see a urologist soon.

We gather for a late night strategy council in a large, long hall that could've been a dining room, or maybe a ball room. I can't picture cruleans dancing, so I reckon it was the former. We have a few braziers lit around to set the mood. Chunky coal in bowls of sculpted rock. You can’t host life-changing events like this without fittingly dramatic lighting, stark contrasts of shadows and blaze. And the desert nights are chilly.

In the back of the hall stands a tall block of dark gray rock that's clearly not part of the original decor, but brought in by the new tenants. Somebody has chiseled the hunk into a rough box shape. No, it's not an altar built to honor the gods; it's the boss's own chair.

Our lord Zandolph sits on top of the monolith and receives us with her trademark scowl.

“So?” she asks me. “What have you learned?”

Once again, I find myself feeling like an apostle preaching the miracle of resurrection to hungry lions.

“Okay.” I slap my palms together and quickly gather my thoughts. “I’ve got both good news and bad news. The good news is, your dad didn’t pass wind even once in the concert. Your family dignity is safe. The bad news is, we’re screwed like never before. They’re selling a full house week to week, while the big bad reaps the royalties.”

The chief narrows her eyes irritably.

“I am not in the mood for your jests tonight. Speak sense!”

“Oh, that’s what I want to tell the world!” I reply with a sigh. “Or god. Or Divines. Or whoever is responsible for the craziness that happen to us. 'Please, I want no more of your bullshit!' But I’m afraid there’s no end to it. You can't quit, you get no refunds. Life as we know it.”

The mistress stretches her neck from side to side, ligaments loudly cracking, her glare burning.

“So you have chosen death.”

I see it wisest to speak sense, quickly.

“Your guest of honor is a black knight.”

“And what is that?” Zandolph grunts, looking none the wiser.

“Yaoldabath’s special forces,” I explain. The room visibly cringes at the mention of that name. “His private army of enhanced humans. I don’t know what’s his angle here, but I reckon it’s not mail order wives, or running a star factory. The core of the Heaven’s Pillar is on the line. I bet my creepshot collection of elf housewives that the chick's up to no good. And we have to do something, fast.”

The villain couldn't drop by in person, so he sent a spy. We all know how much dragons love to kidnap fair maidens, so why not offer them one for free? One weak, harmless mortal, who couldn't hurt a fly. The locals are good at sniffing out dishonesty and magical trickery, but what if the tool is a brainwashed puppet, not conscious of what she's doing? What if the evil is mixed in an act of good?

Without my eyes, nobody would ever know.

I can't tell how the malware Three pumps into the daddy dragon can be used—there are millions of nefarious possibilities—but the end goal is easy enough to guess. If anything happens to the Elder Wyrm, there'll be chaos out there. Nobody will then remember the tower, or what's in its basement. And then it'll be gone. Simple and effective.

But it always comes down to this one problem: how do I convince the others of what I know?

I can read magic, but I can't show what I see to anybody else. Magically conjured evidence couldn't be trusted anyway, since magic can be used to conjure—just about anything, really. There's no false or genuine when it comes to spells.

That's the whole paradox of the Art; magic exists, but it isn't—can never be—real by definition.

Zandolph mulls over my words for a minute under a sulky silence.

“What do you think?” she asks Muirn and the others looming behind me.

The old dragon picks his words with care.

“This human insists the other one has come to gain influence over your lord father, and—I suppose that is what she has done. It is true lord Metathron has grown unusually fond of that mortal in an astonishingly brief span of time. It normally takes a century or two to reach to first name basis…but is that alone a sign of foul play? I couldn’t say. Human magic is like the buzzing of flies in my ears. I know naught of these 'brands' and 'enhanced humans' she speaks of, nor have I ever heard of such things before. And I cannot see any conceivable way how that little human could pose a threat to any of us, never mind to the Epitomic Black, whose might has no compare.”

“And that’s what should scare you,” I interject, borrowing my co-disciple's words. “Not knowing.”

I’m personally very scared right now.

“—The Flame Tribe is scared of nothing!” Odirrim declares from the side with a cocky chuckle.

“Yeah!” Cepheus concurs. “...Except lord Zandolph's backdrop.”

“Except going to bed hungry,” Aguila adds.

“And our island sinking into the sea.”

“Ending up forever alone.”

“The sun spontaneously exploding.”

“The inevitable heat death of the universe.”

“And dark!” little Luriel chips in from the back. “Sometimes. A little.”

If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

Odirrim nods along. “Yes. Those we fear.”

You're scared of dark too? The list got pretty damn long!

Oh no, if you start reacting to everything these people do or say, you'll lose it.

I turn back to the chief.

“Zan, you know how screwy magic can get. You've seen it firsthand. Well, it can get a lot worse. Believe me, now’s not the time to wait and see. The feeling in my gut is telling me our head’s too far through the noose already. Only the big drop's left and then the sudden stop. We need to take the songstress out of the picture—but how do we do that, when your monster dad sits on her like she’s a gold egg? Apparently, Three's staying at the city hall, and whenever she goes out, she’s got guards from the Night Tribe with her. I'm not equipped to wrestle with dragons, this is out of my hands. What to do—it's your call, Zan.”

I throw the metaphorical ball representing the conversation to Zandolph.

If she says no one more time, that's it. I'll give up. I'm too tired to argue.

Technically, I’m just here for the core. Seeing how little these people care about actually guarding the thing, I could go pick it up for safekeeping now and leave. We wouldn't have to wait for Yaoldabath to execute whatever terrible things he's cooking. Let the dragons deal with the meltdown. How damn easy that would be! The temptation is real.

But I know—that wouldn't solve the problem.

I'd only be making more problems. We'd piss off both the evil wizard and the wyrms.

The tower won't work without the reactor. If I take it from here, sooner or later, somebody else will have to tackle the lovely job of returning it across the hordes of enraged lizards to plug it back in. I'd hate to be the protagonist of that story. Here’s to future generations—good luck, and fuck you!

No, the ideal solution is, the ball stays where it is, and the dragons keep protecting it as they always have. To that end, we need to flush out the spy and re-educate the natives on what it means to guard things. Which is not something I can handle by myself. Only an idiot would try.

We help people help themselves.

This has to be the way. Not because rules are rules, but because it's the only way it can work.

“...”

Zandolph hops off her hard seat and goes measuring the sandy floor with her feet, looking grumpier by the minute. She steps a slow circle around me, brow furrowed in thought. Then the little merry-go-round brings her to stand close in front of me, the reluctance clear on her grim visage.

“What do you want?” she finally grunts.

“You mean, beside exit the mortal coil as quickly and painlessly as possible?”

“I mean your plan! This should be my people's problem to settle, I know that. But I also know we can't solve it, not without making things even worse. We need your underhanded tricks! Your strange way of doing wrong to make it right again. We're not natural schemers, like you humans and elves! This sort of sneaky, cowardly way of battle is strange to us! So spit it out already. I don't know what to do.”

Zandolph goes quiet, staring sullenly at the floor.

For a moment, I can’t get a sound out. I’m that surprised.

How fierce an internal battle did the prideful dragon have to go through to admit that?

She said she didn't want to be the boss, but it was a boss moment. I asked for a hand, but I didn't think she'd come this far out to meet me. This Zandolph, voluntarily asking for my plan—gods, that’s past marriage level already!

If the gang got all uppity and told me to mind my own business, I was ready to warp out on the spot. I kind of hoped they'd say that. But now that she's gone and asked me sincerely, I’d be one shitty friend if I didn’t answer her great expectations. If I didn't go all the way, the hard way. Oh damn it all.

So I rub my aching forehead and think.

There's not a whole wealth of options.

“I have an idea,” I tell the gang. “But you’re not going to like it.”

“I’d be shocked if you had a plan I liked,” Zandolph replies. “Tell me.”

“Every black knight has a brand. A control curse. That’s how Yaoldabath ensures their loyalty. If I can get close enough, I may be able to dispel the brand on Three, and she’ll have her own will back. Then, free of magical coercion, it may be that she’ll choose not to do this anymore and releases the spell on your dad. In theory.”

The margin of error is unpleasantly wide.

The plan includes a lot of convenient assumptions. Such as, A) Three has enough self-awareness to comprehend what's going on when the brand is undone, and B) she actually has a healthy human conscience deep down, and C) she'll be more thankful to us than she's afraid of Yaoldabath's revenge, and won't try to complete her mission anyway.

Leaving the success of your plan entirely in the hands of a stranger isn't a good plan, but the alternatives aren't that much better.

If we assassinate Three, it'll be a slap on the muzzle for the Elder Wyrm and the Night Tribe, who have assumed guardianship of her. Zan and her old man might never come to speaking terms again. It'd be civil war for real. We'd have no way to prove our version of the story without Three's willing confession.

Also—under the curse is an innocent person.

It still bothers me, what I did to those knights in Nikéa. I can live with it, telling myself there was no choice, but it really was dirty.

If possible, I'd like Three to live.

Not only because the boobs are big, okay?

“So?” Zandolph urges me to continue. “Seeing as this is your plan, where will it go wrong?”

“Could you not take it for granted it'll go wrong, before we've even done anything?”

“I’m liking this plan too much, and you said I wouldn’t.”

Sometimes, she can be unnecessarily sharp.

I was aiming to gloss over the gritty technical details, but I can't lie to those pretty (menacing) eyes.

“...Well, I’ve actually never successfully dispelled a brand before. Sure, I’ve run a lot of mental simulations, but less practical field tests. I’m not 100% sure I can do it. At least, without killing the person. Many things can go wrong. All I can say for sure is that it’s going to hurt like hell. I also have a feeling your dad will not approve of the process. He might jump into funny conclusions, such that I’m torturing his pet squirrel for shit and giggles.”

Zandolph closes her eyes, now looking like her head hurts too.

I amend my plan,

“You think your pops would let us have a moment with the lady in private, if we explain everything and ask nicely?”

“No,” she answers right away. “My father is—not much of a talker. Mention Yaoldabath in his presence and he will kill both of you immediately.”

“Thought so. The apple sure doesn't fall far from the tree. That means, I need somebody to keep him and any others off my back while I do my thing. And by somebody I mean the Flame Tribe, because we have nobody else. I’m not butting heads with the head of the family any day soon, that’s for sure.”

Zandolph exhales deep. “You were right. I hate this plan.”

Can't say I didn't warn you.

“A moment, if you will,” Muirn steps up and raises a hand to interrupt our exchange. “This conversation has been somewhat difficult to follow, so let me see if I understood everything correctly so far: You are asking us to go against our ages-old leader, the Elder Wyrm, to help you torment and possibly kill this human he has taken under his wing, yes?”

“Yes?”

“Which would make us traitors to our kind, and could bring the Flame Tribe at war with the Night Tribe, and perhaps also all the other tribes on the island, who swear subservience to the eldest?”

“Yes?”

“And all we have is your word that this is necessary to thwart the supposed plans of our enemy? And we are expected to trust you unconditionally and risk our lives for this plan, even though you are not one of us, we know nothing about you, and met you only this morning?”

“Yes?”

“While the suspicion that you are the one working for the enemy, to throw our community into disarray with your deception, has not been removed yet, and only seems more plausible to me the more I hear you speak?”

“...Yes?”

What follows is a silence you could slice with a knife. I can feel the stares of every lizard in the room on my hide.

Suppose this is the part where I must give a rousing speech to ease their worries.

“You know what—that’s a really good point,” I turn around to look at the gang and commend the old baldie. “Muirn, my man—you can tell he’s all the wisdom of the gang. I hope you realize how lucky you are to have somebody seasoned like him to coach you! He’s absolutely right, too. I've got no proof whatsoever of anything I just said. You are indeed only going to have my word for it. It’s all I can give you. The word of a known liar and double-crosser. Now that I think about, I don't think there's a single promise I've made in my whole life that I haven't broken yet. But I'm going to be honest with you here. If I make even one tiny mistake somewhere down the line, this will end in a massive shitstorm that will tear your whole island apart, and probably leave the world three fifths dead, with no chance of recovery. Yeah. That’s the deal. That's what you're signing up for. Tons and tons of trouble and nothing but!”

The dragons trade quiet looks.

Then Odirrim steps forward and smacks his fat fists together with a hearty laugh.

“Haha! What are we waiting for? Let’s go!”