Magic is Thicker than Blood

Gargantuan jaws crushed the direwolf’s skull. Goethmal’s chest rumbled in satisfaction as she swallowed, savoring the crunch of bone. The wolves were not half as tasty as the elk beneath her claws, but they dared to steal from her. With a dexterous tongue she slurped the last of the pack down her gusset. Goethmal roared her dominance relishing the way the entire forest quivered beneath her might.

The humans of the meadows would not even know to thank her. Flames streaked out from between bloody teeth, illuminating the carnage of what had been a pack of twenty strong. They thought they were mighty. They thought they ruled the night.

Mammoth pines two hundred feet tall ringed the true monarch of this land. Their height could not cap her wings when she lifted them to the sky. With her wings, she beat storms.

She was ancient, she was magnificent, she was Queen.

Not even the oaks with their vast trunks half a millennia old could match the girth of her legs. They could only pray she would not bring them down. Like all Dragons, Goethmal’s pride stretched beyond the vast reaches of her wings, cloaking entire villages in shadow as she flew.

A wail and sudden thrashing noise brought her eyes up from her meal. Who dared disturb her? Had they not heard the death screams of the wolves? Tasted iron in the air? Goethmal raised her snout to the understory and sniffed. Above the stench of blood and death, a sweet, milky smell met her nostrils. Honeyed yet…foul. She snorted, sparks rising like fireflies into needle laden branches.

Intrigued, Goethmal rose. Burnt skeletons crumbled to ash beneath her claws. She snaked delicately through the trees towards the racket. Whatever it was, the stupid creature would soon realize its error.

This was the last of the ancient forests, where magic still lingered. Goethmal’s presence kept it so. She did not tolerate trespassers, especially ones that smelled two-legged.

Goethmal prowled into a mossy clearing where the damp trees parted, and found the source–a struggling, whimpering, bundle of fabric tied to an oak. She snorted. Humans were always doing stupid things such as this. Lucky for this one, she’d just eaten the wolves.

You do not belong here, little snack.

Unspoken yet heard, her voice reverberated like a gong in the minds of the living, dulling the ambient sound of the wood. Receiving no answer, she stretched her neck forward to inspect. She did not want to crush the thing and have to lick up the mess.

The thrashing ceased, and a fuzzy black head thrust from the fabric. Deep black eyes and puckered lips twisted in shock. Up close, the toddler reminded her far too much of an owl pellet, little more than a loosely tied sack of bone. And it reeked of feces.

Goethmal’s lips curled, she no longer considered eating it. What are you doing in my forest?

The child’s eyes swelled with terror and Goethmal approved. The toddler struggled harder and finally toppled out of its ropey bundle, sprawling across muddy ground. Dark as a winter pool it was. Without a parent, this thing had little hope.

Eating it would be a mercy… but Goethmal noticed a strange miasma coating the air around the child. Impressions and memories existing in the unknown, accessible only to a dragon. Intrigued, Goethmal brought her colossal head down to look closer. What mystery came from this pitiful scrap?

Dragons are creatures of might and magic. Nothing was unknown to her in this land. Goethmal lowered her snout within inches of the child, trying to sniff out its secrets. Humans always coveted Dragons out of fear or greed or reverence. Fate has never cared for such things. A human would be the last creature any Dragon would suspect of mystical inclinations…

Who are you, little snack?

The child stretched out a hand and touched her nose.

The surge of power sent the child tumbling to its behind. Goethmal reared in fury, her magic rushing out without her consent. Oh, the insolence! This child had the gall to steal from her! Burning breath erupted from her mouth, engulfing the clearing. It should’ve melted the small human, bones and all; but the magic had already rooted, and with her breath it exploded. Their spirits blasted from their bodies.

The great mystery is a no-place, a void where humans never venture. It is the birthplace of Dragons, where mystery, will, and fate dance in tantalizing harmonies. Golden droplets, azure threads, and crimson mists swirled in the nothing. Petrified faces of ancient beings frozen in cackles and screams swam around them fading in and out of sight. The child's spirit was overcome. It panicked, flitting helplessly to nothing from nothing. Goethmal herded it into the vast coils of her tail, anchoring it to her.

Collections of indistinct voices of the no-place rang through the real forest as the barriers wore thin. Creatures scattered. The trees bowed as spirits danced, and the earth trembled with fright. Surrounded by laughter of the no-ones, endless spirits from all time. It was not the first time Goethmal had seen glimpses of the strings that tied the universe, but they’d never captured her like this.

Goethmal’s rage filled no-place, quelled abruptly by erupting visions. The sounds coalesced into one many toned speech that both whispered, and thundered.

Magic shall nourish her. Magic shall teach her. Magic shall save her.

The toddler’s spirit shot up like a sapling, dark fuzz falling like rain down its back, as broad and encompassing as the night sky. The child bore a bloody smile. Her growth accelerated unimpeded, a cancer in the void. Goethmal tightened her tail around her, alarmed as the prophecy unfolded before her eyes.

Dark wings spread from the child’s spirit as it ballooned to new heights, while her own shrunk. Goethmal clung to the child, lest they both be swept away. The currents of mystery crashed around them. The strings of fate knotted around her scales like wire. Goethmal bellowed in agony, willing the golden droplets to hold them down. The child nearly broke from her grasp reaching toward the abyss of no return.

Fire billowed from her mouth into the sky, severing their connection to the no-place. Goethmal snagged the dark winged spirit in her jaws and breathed the writhing soul back into its being. Caging the child’s spirit in life once more.

Goethmal knew the currents of time, and conceded to them. Let us see what you do with my magic, she thought, and named the spirit in the flesh.

She who becomes.

~.~

As a child of magic, Aikal wanted for nothing. Goethmal took her high into the mountains where the air was clear and thin. If you can draw breath on this mountain, the air of the forest will be a feast. Goethmal taught.

Aikal had no mothers milk, instead she drank from the great mystery. With the dragon's blessing, she grew and remembered nothing of life before. When her teeth came in, Goethmal weaned her from the magic and brought meat. Charred, yet tender on the inside. Like any child, first she wailed, then she devoured. Goethmal approved.

Goethmal’s cave was hollowed by dragon fire. A glassy obsidian, dotted with green glowworms who lived only by the warmth and grace the Dragon brought to the desolate peak. The three alps were treacherous, snow covered half the year, slate gray the rest, a long glacier snaked through the valley, pointing toward the forest where Goethmal said a greater danger lay.

Humans seek the end of Dragons. Your kind must control, and what they cannot wield they destroy.

“I will not be like my kind mother.” Aikal declared, sliding from Goethmal’s back to the end of her smooth tail, squealing with laughter, before clambering up the Dragon’s golden scales to go all over again.

You are their legacy as much as mine. Body and spirit must align.

Aikal vowed to walk the path of the Dragon. She loved Goethmal. She was a human child who roared, hoping for flames, and sank her teeth into rabbits wishing for fangs.

The mountain taught Aikal to hunt. The boulders and rock falls became her playground, and the snow lions her rivals. Aikal did not fear them, she was magic wearing flesh. She dressed in her mothers discarded scales, an armor harder than iron, and warmer than fleece.

She bore the pride of a Dragon too. The night she limped back to the cave with her first rabbit, armor dusted with snow and fire burning in her eyes, Goethmal gifted her with a fang. When she touched the tooth, the cave grew hot enough to scar human flesh, but Aikal basked in the glow. Longer than her forearm, Aikal turned tooth into a spear, tied to an oak staff by her own hair; which had always been unbreakable. A mark of the magic that sustained her.

When Goethmal took to the skies, Aikal remained behind, though it ate at her insides. She burned the desire to become a star, as Goethmal did when she flew so high that her form became one with the heavens.

One night she finally worked up the courage to ask, “Why haven’t I wings mother?”

Goethmal’s dark laughter echoed in the walls of the mountain itself. Because only your spirit can fly, my child.

Contained in this answer was more than words, but memories of her own face and winged shadows. Aikal gleaned more from these impressions than her mothers actual words, for she had long ago learned that Dragon’s do not speak as humans do. It wasn’t enough. She wanted to fly.

Time crawls for a human child as it does for Dragons, for Dragons are ageless and children timeless. The years of exploration were measured by the growing strength in Aikal’s legs and the boundless growth of her hair. It lengthened from a cover of fuzz into a mane, then a cape. It kept her warm in the cold dark that lingered long in the mountains. Aikal became a hunter, swift and omnipotent as the alpine winter. Her time spent in the cave under Goethmals eye shortened, even as Goethmals naps became longer and deeper.

A day came that was unlike any Aikal had yet seen. For the first time in nearly twenty years, a man climbed the mountain. It was summer. Lichen, black brown, and sea green covered the mountain face. Curious, Aikal followed him watching him toil until a shower of stones gave her away.

“Who are you?” he eyed her golden scales. Nearly as black as Aikal, he bore a powerful blade as long as his body. He was taller, and broader, but he gasped for breath in the mountain air. Aikal knew the tongue of man, yet she had little practice.

Words jumbled on her lips. “I am, am, Aikal.”

His brow knit, drinking in her features. “No,” he breathed, “It cannot be.”

Aikal did not understand so she kept silent, wary of the way he analyzed her. Goethmal had warned her of the perils of her kind.

“My sister…” A beam broke his features, dazzling, brighter than the raging white sun. “My sister lives! It is I, Torkin! Bless the gods the dragon did not take you.”

Aikal did not want to believe him. Brother? Shock rooted her in place. She’d never known another human. Much less family.

His words ran together like a rushing river and she struggled to keep up. “Somehow you survived, little sister! Oh the scales on your back! Is it dead? My sister is the dragon slayer! Oh If I had known I would’ve come for you years ago!”

He stepped toward her arms outstretched, but Aikal stepped back, afraid of what she saw in the depths of his eyes.

“So why do you come now?” she asked.

“The village has decided we will no longer sacrifice our own to the Dragon.” His chest swelled briefly with pride. “I came to slay it. My sister, I’m sorry...” He hung his head. “I wasn’t born, but if I was! I wouldn’t have let mother give you away. Let me do the right thing now and bring you home.”

Aikal’s hands gripped her spear. Bring her home? Goethmal was her home. These mountains were home. This killer that wore her face continued, oblivious to her unease.

“The whole village will celebrate our return! The dragon is dead and my sister lives.” His smile could split boulders.

She stared into his face and felt no sense of recognition. “You are wrong. Both Dragons live.”

He seemed not to understand. His smile slipped away and squared his shoulders. He extended a hand.

“Then we must kill it together.”

A moment that stretched over a lifetime hung between them. His hand was so like hers. His fingers reminded her of spider legs. Shared blood could not make them any less estranged.

“You should go back to the village.”

An ugly look crossed his face. “The dragon will die, sister. You cannot choose a dragon over your own.”

“My own chose the Dragon over me.” Aikal raised her spear to his chest. “Go.”

“You are stupid to think it won’t eat you someday.” Torkin hissed. All signs of kinship evaporated. “It has tricked you.”

“Dragons have no need for lies.” Aikal declared. “Go back to the humans, or I’ll toss your corpse over the mountain.”

The truth was in his snarl. He drew his sword and siblings clashed. The force of his blade was immense, but Aikal had magic in her bones. The mountain had given her strength, the lions made her fierce, and the wind taught her how to rage. She slipped beneath his blows, waiting for her moment to strike. Torkin was strong, but exhausted from his climb, and soon his weapon worked against him. Her spear skewered his heart, his sword clattered to the ground. His body fell into the chasm between the peaks as did a piece of her soul, breaking apart and leaving nothing but smears.

Goethmal was waiting for her in their cave when she returned.

“He came to kill you, mother. He said he was my brother.”

Yet, you killed him all the same. You delivered your own judgment as Dragons do. This affirmation mended her conflicting feelings, but could not banish his dying face from her mind.

The next time a human came up the mountain path, it was Autumn.

The woman crested the top of the crag as the sun dipped towards the horizon. Aikal sat on the far side of the stony shelf on a flat rock, her spear laid out before her. The woman eyed Aikal with wary surprise. Her long cape buffeted in the northern winds promising snow. She was pale, her hair the color of the winter sun.

“Who are you? What are you doing up here?” she asked, when her breath returned.

“Waiting for you.” Aikal did not move from her seat.

“You know why I’m here?” the woman asked, sinking to the ground in relief. Aikal was stunned by this weakness.

“You come to slay my mother.”

“Your mother?” Her brilliant blue eyes entranced Aikal. “And who might that be?”

Aikal shifted uneasily but didn’t answer. She’d learned her brother's lesson, and avoided the woman’s scrutiny.

“I’m sorry, where are my manners? We haven’t been introduced.” The woman's lips curled slowly up at the corners. “I am Anna. I did not know anyone lived on this mountain, much less a mother and daughter. I’ve come for my husband's bones.”

“You will find bones everywhere on the Mountain.” Aikal said. “How are you to know which are his?”

Her eyes flashed hot. “They will be black like his skin once was, burnt by the breath of a Dragon!”

“Dragon’s cook their prey. I’ve seen many blackened bones.” Aikal said.

“Will you take me to its lair then?” Anna pressed, her tone softening. “You must know where it is. Or your mother?”

Aikal shook her head. “You should go back to the village.”

“Does your mother know you are here? It will be dark soon.” Anna frowned. “You look familiar to me, though I know we haven’t met. I have come for my own child, I must protect him as my husband could not.”

“Go back down the mountain.” Aikal repeated.

Anna’s eyes finally rested on Aikal’s spear. “That looks like a dragon’s tooth.”

Aikal finally met her gaze, but she could not find the words.

“I hope you killed it!” Anna snarled. “But if you didn’t, if you weren’t brave enough, I understand.” She knelt before Aikal. “They are fearsome things, and I don’t believe they can be killed by human hands. If it were possible, my husband would’ve done it. So I have come, to put the dragon to sleep forever. I’ve heard they can be seduced by the right words, the right magic. I can end the terror for us all!”

“You will fail.” Aikal said. “The magic of Dragons is unyielding.” As am I.

Tears welled over Anna’s cheeks. She grasped Aikal’s hand. A strange sensation rolled over her. As if she were about to fall asleep, her head swam and her body softened. It lasted only a few seconds, before her magic roared in fury and Aikal saw her plan. Anna reeled from the heat surging from Aikal, fires burning beneath her skin.

“I did not trust my brother,” Aikal’s voice shook. Anna’s face fell slack. “I trust you even less. You come for my mother with the tongue of a snake.”

“Please!” Anna backed away.

Aikal sneered at the feeble weapon. “Let me cut it out.”

Anna was faster than Torkin. She tried again and again to draw Aikal under her spell, but Aikal was now more Dragon than human. Blood soaked her spear, her hands. No victory and no regret. She left the body for the wolves.

Moonlight cast long silver shadows in the cave when Aikal returned.

“Mother,” she pleaded, falling to her knees. “They will not stop. They will find you. We must leave, or we must kill them all.” The truth was obvious to her. She saw them coming like the autumn rains, steady and unceasing. Perhaps too many for Aikal to stop.

Goethmal’s rumble brought her back from the brink. Not all death can bring life, Aikal. Dragons are only found when we want to be found. Run the mountain paths, and let your spirit be free of the men who would bind you in fear.

For a time, Aikal did as Goethmal suggested. No man sought the path up the mountain for nearly twenty more years.

~.~

Wynn woke to a blast of cold soaking him to the skin, disgruntling the hogs sleeping next to him. “You dirty little shit!” Grandmother shrieked, hurling the bucket at his head. He was too slow to duck. “Your father was never this lazy. Get up!”

Head throbbing, ears ringing, Wynn crawled from the sty to his grandmother's feet.

“I told the commander you’d be on watch tonight.” she hissed. “Instead you’d thought you’d piss off to sleep with the pigs. Disgrace. You’ve done nothing but bring disgrace. Get there and apologize!”

Wynn ran from the barn, feet squelching in his shoes. Grandmother's sharp words licking at his heels.

Wynn had always lived in the shadow of the Dragon’s mountain and his grandmother's whip. He survived the days by escaping into the pig pins after chores were complete, if they could even be completed.

He bowed apologies to the Captain of the Guard, who looked his soaking form up and down with disdain before ordering him to the top of the tower. When Wynn hesitated, he laughed in his face. “Afraid of the cold, boy? Maybe it will give you some discipline.”

Wynn went without a word, shivering into the late hours of early morning. Casting fitful gazes over the silverwhite mountain. He, like all the villagers, spent much time waiting for the Dragon to reappear and burn the village to the ground. Armoran was half the size it had been a century ago. The Dragon was the reason no one ventured into the forest. Unlike the others, Wynn wanted a glimpse of the Dragon. As a child, he bragged that he would slay it, and avenge his fathers death. Secretly, though, it had nothing to do with his father. How great could he have been, if he was anything like his Grandmother claimed? He’d never killed the Dragon. It had been seen in the skies, months afterward. If Wynn killed a dragon… Let his grandmother try to whip him then!

By the time the next watch came to relieve him, his fingers, nose and toes were all various shades of blue. He just wanted to go back to Lucy and Davis. They’d keep him warm.

“Ah the dragonslayer! You’d probably like a dragon right about now, eh?” His replacement hurled insults after Wynn as he limped down the tower, through the dark, dusty streets towards home.

Grandmother was waiting for him when he crept into their darkened two room house.

“I hope you learned your lesson.” Her sunken eyes were haunted in the light of a single candle. Her whip rested across her lap. “But I doubt it.

Her hands tightened around the hateful coils and she stood, her wrinkles settling into familiar fury.

Wynn fell to his knees. “Wait! Please grandmother. Let me make it right!”

“Right!” She howled and Wynn cowered. “I’ve tried so hard to raise you, even after your mother went chasing after the charred bones of a stupid man.” She shook her head in disgust.

“I’ll kill the Dragon.” He could do it, he knew. He knew.

“You fool!” Her whip sliced his palms. Wynn cried and clutched them to his chest. “You’d bring its wrath down on the village?”

Her whip cracked on his left shoulder.

“Then I’ll steal the dragon's gold!”

This time, Grandmother hesitated, glowering at him like he was a maggot on her shoe. He rushed out the rest of his plea before she could hit him again.

“I’ll sneak in when it sleeps, make out with the gold and we’ll–you, you’ll be rich!”

He stumbled over the last of his words, almost making a mistake that surely would have him whipped again. His grandmother pondered his suggestion. Then she leered at him.

“You’re no dragonslayer. But you are a sneak thief.” She spat. “Of course… you might still get eaten.” She seemed to enjoy the prospect more now. As if the Dragon catching him stealing was less likely to result in her house being burned. Wynn kept his mouth clamped shut as she deliberated.

Without warning her whip came down on his right shoulder. Wynn curled inward, face hitting the dirt as clutched his shoulder.

“IF you get caught,” she hissed, “you’d better not tell that Dragon where you come from! Or I’ll skin you from beyond the grave.”

She left him bleeding on the floor. He hardly cared. This was his chance.

There was no way the Captain of the Guard would help, so before the sun rose, he snuck in and stole a sword from the armory. He chose a claymore, partly out of spite, and partly because Wynn figured the bigger sword the better.

As the sun rose, he made his way through the forest to the mountain path. Amongst the sentinel pines he scavenged for truffles and iron caps. Swallowing some and saving some for the long climb up the mountain. The sun was past its peak by the time the tree’s gave way to stone and before long the path was consumed by rockfalls and boulder fields, and it became a matter of finding the safest route to the top.

He crested the top of a steep shelf as the sky became streaked with reds and purples. Steep cliffs rose all around and deep shadows stretched across the ground as the first of the stars blinked into view.

Across from him loomed a massive cave entrance, edges studded with golden scales, as if they’d been scrapped off when the beast wedged inside. The size of the hole made him pause. Whatever was inside, was far larger than he’d thought.

Then, from deep within came the earth shaking hum of a sleeping Dragon.

Wynn exhaled in relief. His whole plan hinged on the Dragon’s slumber. He drew his sword, and walked into the cave. The cavern was deep, and conical. Obsidian walls dotted with yellow and green glowworms beckoned him into the void. Sweat ran down his back. It had been chilly on the mountain, but inside it was sweltering.

The ceiling was much higher than the entrance suggested, soaring upwards towards the peak of the mountain. The cavern floor was littered with bones. His parents' bones rested in this graveyard. He stepped around them, his footfalls silenced by a thick carpet of ash.

His eyes adjusted and he stopped in his tracks. The gold lights weren’t worms. They were reflections of the Dragon’s glittering gold scales.

Wynns heart thudded in his chest, so loud he was certain the dragon would wake. The beast was gargantuan; it seemed impossible it breathed at all. The Dragon could swallow two horses whole without needing to take a bite. Had it not been curled just so, it would not even fit in the cave, its iridescent wings folded along its flanks, easily larger than the sails of a warship.

Wynn took steadying breaths as he approached. No wonder his parents had failed. He no longer believed he stood any chance should the Dragon wake. It would eat him for breakfast, or more likely roast him to a crisp. Fifty paces away, the Dragon's hot exhales gusted like a southern wind. There was no gold but the Dragon in the cave, so even if he wanted to honor his Grandmother's wish… He swallowed. Wynn would leave with the Dragon’s head. Though he didn’t quite know how he would get it down the mountain.

Wynn shook his head once, twice. Close enough to touch, he pushed down the urge to rest his hand on the glimmering scales. The air itself seemed to hum between the Dragon’s shuddering breaths. Silently, Wynn raised his sword. For a few heartbeats, he hesitated. It seemed cruel to kill something so majestic. But… it had killed his parents. Wynn would have his revenge. He would be free of his grandmother.

Wynn drove the blade down with all his might.

“No!” came a shriek, but it was too late.

Wynn’s sword plunged through the Dragon’s closed eye and into its skull. A keen wail split the cave. The head thrashed in a death throe, knocking Wynn from his feet. The Dragon’s undamaged eye fixed on the dark figure running towards them from the entrance.

The voice that rang out did not penetrate the air but blasted through Wynn’s skull like a hurricane.

Aikal! Aikal! She who becomes!

The Dragon shrank. Scales scattered from its hide. Its wings dissolved into ash.

The woman screamed and fell to her knees. The Dragon’s last breath was a gale ripped from its lungs. Wynn ducked and covered his head with his hands, scales sliced through the flesh in his arms and back. They flew through the air like daggers.

“Run!” he cried in warning. He hadn’t meant for this! The scales pierced her flesh one after another, turning red with her blood, swiftly burying her beneath their assault. The woman wailed louder and suddenly it was a roar. Wynn thought the whole mountain would come down upon them. He clenched his eyes shut and prepared for death.

It took a few moments to realize in the silence, that he had in fact, survived. The air had grown heavy, heat unabated.

Wynn dared to raise his head. There was no sign of the woman, only a sleek red serpent with sharp extended wings, and slick black eyes that bored into his. A new voice filled his mind.

You have taken my family, and I have taken yours. We are bound by blood.

Wynn felt frozen to the floor. He managed one question. “Blood?”

Did you not recognize me, nephew? The cave shook with the Dragon’s cruel laughter. It was not Goethmal who killed your father. I slew him to protect her, as I killed she who came to avenge him!

Wynn, stared aghast. “Sonora?” He breathed a name he’d heard only once.

That child is dead. Like you, I barely knew the mother who bore me. I knew only Goethmal and the magic that kept me living.

“You’re the one they left in the forest.” Wynn scrambled to his feet, blood running rivulets down his arms. Grandmother's daughter. The Dragon seemed to read his thoughts.

Yes, for Goethmal. You are faced with a choice nephew, and I tell you this. If you return you will never be free.

“Free.” Wynn murmured, turning the idea on his tongue. He had slain a dragon, and yet, a Dragon faced him, smaller and more terrifying than the elder.

Goethmal knew her fate. Aikal raised her mighty head to its full height, nearly as tall as the cavern itself. The mysteries of the world are known to Dragons. Aikal trained her snout at him. You can take my place, or return a dragonslayer. Beware, your fame will be as fickle as the family who bore you. Magic binds thicker than blood.

In the end, Wynn couldn’t believe how little he had to consider.

“Where will we go?” He ventured.

Aikal snorted. Smoke trickled from her nostrils. There is nowhere a Dragon cannot go. She swept her head down to his, inches away, her fangs, as long as his forearm leering white and jagged, and she spoke a name that rumbled as much in his chest as in hers.

Orakal.