The Dragon's Eyes (48 page)

He sighed. “I have no idea. I blame you, though.”

I hoped to prevent one of their infamous arguments by
being positive. “We can manage another world on our own. I mean, we just took
care of Skrev, and I can’t imagine a world worse than---”

The room filled with a bright flash, and then it
became colder than anything I had ever felt before. There really wasn’t any
relief as far as the brightness went, because when the flash faded, we were
left in a bright white blizzard. The only thing worse than the instant snow
blindness, was the nearly instant frostbite.

Right before my eyes, I could see the desolation of
the world as it reached out to Dylan and tore the healing magic from him. I
didn’t even have to shift my eyes to see the world drawing magic without
waiting for it to be given freely. The world was more damaged than not. I
believe at one point, Dylan screamed, but I couldn’t hear anything over the
wind.

My fire tried to flair inside me, but it was just too
cold, too fast. Dylan was passed out on the ground before the world had even
finished with him, yet I could do nothing. My mind was scrambled and I couldn’t
feel anything. I managed not to crush Sammy as I collapsed, but could only try
to cover him between Dylan and myself before passing out. The last thing I
heard was him crying.

Dylan

Waking was a long and painstaking task. Before I could even open my
eyes, I was suffocating from the overwhelming heat radiating from someone lying
next to me. As sluggish as I felt, I rolled away from the heat. Sammy called
out just as the bed disappeared from below me.

I hit the hard wooden floor with a grunt, and
apparently it woke my energy, for it roared up from inside, so powerful and
potent that it would have burned me if I didn’t immediately let it out. Just
like the last two times I woke on Duran, I released the energy. There was so
much excess that even as I exhaled it, it seeped from my skin. It actually felt
natural this time.

“Next time I agree to go on a mission with you, hit
me,” Mordon’s groggy voice said from the bed.

“Why do you run so damn hot?”

“I’m part dragon, get over it. Where are we?” he
asked.

I finally opened my eyes and saw that we were in a
small hunting cabin. The walls were made of logs and half of one wall consisted
of a fireplace, which was currently crackling with fire. Wild wind could be heard
even over the roaring fire. Sammy leaned over the bed to check on me and Mordon
gently pulled him back away from the edge. There were no windows to assess
where we were.

“I don’t recognize anything. The gravity is just a
little lighter than Duran’s, and a little heavier on the oxygen.”

“I can smell the ice and hear the wind, so there must
still be a blizzard out there. I hear no trees or leaves, so we’re in a cabin
out in the open.”

“The last thing I remember is the world taking my
energy and Sammy crying. Before you start, I’m fine. This world was crumbling
and saw my energy for what it was. You can’t blame it for saving itself.”

“At the expense of you, I can. You could have died,
and there was nothing I could do. The entire reason for me being here is to
keep you alive, and I couldn’t do anything because it was too cold.”

He was nearly growling. Anyone else would have
thought it was his dragon, but I could see in his eyes how angry he was that he
couldn’t protect me. “We both passed out, so who dragged us in here out of the
cold?”

“I did.” The girl appeared like she had on Dios;
completely corporeal and healthy. “As I told your uncle, you Guardians have to
be watched over constantly,” she said.

“You’re looking better,” I said.

She smiled. “So are you. You have healed five worlds,
and your uncle healed two more with your magic. The healing that you have done
is spreading. The boundaries between the void and the universe are becoming
stronger. Therefore, I am getting stronger.”

“What are you?” Mordon asked.

“I am just a person, but with a powerful ability. I
can cross between the universe and the void, I can open doors to it, and I can
draw power from it. Like with Iadnah energy, the void is completely different
from anything else in the universe. Since I was little, I got what I wanted,
but I was disconnected with the world around me. I have very little grasp of
time, but I can see into the future, I can be in the future.”

“That sounds like it can get very confusing,” I said.

“It is. At any given time, I have no idea how old I
am. Sometimes I feel the pull to go somewhere, to help someone, and I have to
act on instinct. I know things I have not yet learned. I forget who I am
sometimes and I get lost.”

“Well, you just saved us. We’ve already healed this
world, which I think set the record. Where should we go now?” I asked.

“I suggest we go back to Duran so you can recover,”
Mordon said.

I was shaking my head before he could finish talking.
“I’m good to go.” I got off the floor and sat on the bed. “There are only three
more worlds to heal. We can go to each one, heal it really quickly, and take a
nap in between.”

“You need more recovery time than that.”

“What I need is to get everything done with so I can
be with Divina.”

Mordon paused to listen to Rojan. He really needed to
learn how to do that without being obvious about it. “Besides, we can’t go to
Enep with its god trying to kill us,” he said.

“Regivus will relent when his world is the only one
still suffering,” the girl said.

“Where are we?” I asked.

“We’re on Mulo, a cold world, like Enep.”

“You mean the whole world is like this? Why is it
cold?” Mordon asked, appalled. I had to agree with him.

“That is the way this world was created. Each god has
a preference.”

“What’s up with the Guardian of Enep?” I asked. She
frowned at me. “He looks about Sammy’s age,” I explained.

“The people of Enep were created too aggressive and
with too much power, so they killed off the world. It became a cold world.
Regivus made them live with their mistakes for a hundred generations as
punishment. For a hundred generation, no one can die. They grow old and
regenerate into children. They can also never have offspring during this
punishment. They are forced to live with their memories for a hundred
generations.”

“Wow. That sounds miserable.”

“The war that destroyed everything lasted two hundred
days, so the punishment was originally two hundred generations, but Samorde
volunteered to take some of the punishment on his own shoulders. He was forced
to make it in his life looking like a child, growing so slowing that he would
only be mature when the punishment ended.”

“What about the world? They’ve been punished, but did
the god fix the damage to his world?”

“No. It will be repaired when the punishment is over.
Since the people were designed to live as the world was created, their life
expectancy is only about forty years. As part of the punishment, Regivus
prevents any genetic adaptation to their strenuous environment.”

“Well, as least their sentence isn’t as long,” Mordon
said.

“How long do they have left?”

“About two generations,” she said.

So all of these people are suffering a punishment
that is based around time, and there is damage being done to time.

“I have to go now. I will return to my own world, now
that it has been healed by your uncle.”

“What is your world?” Mordon asked.

“Kahún.” She disappeared.

*          *          *

“We should go heal Earth now,” I said. Sammy stuck
his tongue out. “What? Earth is your home,” I said.

He got a serious look of concentration on his face,
as if he was searching for the appropriate words. I was expecting a single word
out of him that I was supposed to decipher. “Earth is boring. I want to
explore,” he said. We both stared at him in shock until he covered his face
with his hands.

I picked him up and hugged him. “You’re afraid of
being weird, too, aren’t you, honey. We’re all weird in one way or another.
Your dad is the Guardian of Dios, so you and your mom will probably live there
with him. The king of the entire world is a void and you two will probably get
along great. Don’t be ashamed of your abilities.”

“You are,” he argued.

“You can talk much better than you act like you can.
Are you able to pronounce ‘Mordon’ or ‘Dylan’?” I asked him.

He shook his head, then leaned over until he could
see Mordon upside down. “Mama!” he yelled.

I shrugged. “Only those who speak English even know
what that word means.”

Mordon gave me a sour glare and I thought it was best
to drop the subject. Funny how Sammy could do no wrong but I was fair game to
get chewed out.

“Did you want to explore this world before we leave
for Earth?”

“Don’t even start. I’m not going out in that cold for
anything. You healed the world, now I don’t want to ever see it again.”

“That is not a nice thing to say,” said a stranger.

The man who appeared could have been Divina’s twin
brother, but he wasn’t a god. He had the same vivid blue eyes, his short hair
was the same raven black, his skin was just as perfect, and like her, he was
light on the muscles and had more of an elegant form.

“Guardian of Mulo?” Mordon asked.

While he wasn’t a god, he was still very powerful.

“Correct. My name is Azyle.”

“I’m Dylan, this is Samhail, and Mordon. Nice to meet
you. Unless you or your god wants to kill us, and then it’s not nice.”

He laughed. “Roshne will not destroy you after you
risked your life to heal his world. He is if nothing else, a fair and kind god.
He also adores his sister and wants her to be happy. And according to her, you
make her happy.”

“I try.”

“I actually have a message for you. More of the gods
are on your side than not, but they are still worried about your magic. Azenoth
brought up a good point; even if you are unwilling to attack them, you are
becoming more and more powerful and could lose control. Roshne wants to help
you learn to control your abilities.”

“Why would Tiamat not do that? I am her Guardian.”
Besides that, Divina was territorial and would probably take someone other than
Edward or herself training me as a threat.

“Tiamat is the youngest and has a tendency to be…”

“Absolutely perfect. She is perfect. She’s devious
and manipulative, but she’s perfect in every way. I will gladly accept any help
I can get from anyone, including Tiamat. Does Roshne want to meet with me now
or can I go to Earth?”

“I believe he is arguing with Avoli now, trying to
get a head start on the others. You should probably get an appointment book, in
case Tiamat ever decides to share you.”

I patted Mordon’s arm. “I’ll leave my
dragon/advisor/secretary in charge of that.”

“Is it not an agent that tells you when and where to
go?” he asked.

I laughed. “Yeah, but secretary sounds better.”

*          *          *

I could feel us landing on Earth. It wasn’t that I
felt the ground under my feet; I could feel the unique magic that Earth had.
When the flash cleared, we were standing in front of my old campus apartment,
where I first met Edward. Luckily, it was late at night, so there was no one
around to see us.

Sammy pouted.

“We need to find a place where we wouldn’t be
interrupted, because I don’t want to get arrested for being weird in public,” I
said.

“You can be arrested for being weird on Earth?”

“Absolutely, and meditating in the middle of the
street is very weird. I know where we can go, if it’s still there.” I took us
to the old skate park not far from the apartments, because they used to lock it
up at night. Luckily, they still did.

Mordon didn’t let a little lock stop him. He yanked
it off as easily as if it were made of wet paper. The park had construction
work still half completed. I had been gone for years and it was still under
construction. The only difference was that the streetlights had burned out.

The sliver of a moon provided nearly no light, which
Mordon had to complain about, of course. He said that a single moon was odd and
asked how our oceans functioned. I explained to him that we had less ocean
surface than Duran, then proceeded to inform him of hurricanes and tsunamis.

“A storm in the open waters?! You have to tell Tiamat
to add another moon!”

I rolled my eyes. “You can’t just add another moon to
Earth. That would cause panic and then someone, probably Russia, will send
missiles at it. Or bombs or something.”

“Bombs? At the moon?”

“I don’t know about astronomy any more than
astrology. I know psychology, ancient scripts, and paleontology. I’ll stick to
the ground and leave the space stuff to the Doctor, thank you. Last I checked,
the Earth was flat and the land was made up of a supercontinent called
Pangaea.” I may have been a bit more stubborn than usual on purpose. When
Mordon stopped to gape at me, I felt better. I loved stumping my friend with my
foreign culture; it kept him on his toes and off of mine. Astronomy really was
not my favorite science, but I respected it as a form of Earth science.

Honestly, I didn’t want to know that the sun was
growing and would eventually burn the Earth. Duran was my home, but Earth was
my world. My life began on Earth. It was a fascinating and beautiful world,
like its goddess.

“No, Dada!” Sammy demanded out of nowhere.

It was a little too dark to see his expression;
however, his eyes, were glowing. “What’s wrong? We’re not arguing.”

“Dark. He comes in the dark.” I couldn’t see his
face, but I could hear his sniffles. “No hiding in the dark.”

“The demon could attack any minute,” Mordon agreed.
“Get on with your magic thing and let’s get out of here.”

I was about to get to work when Mordon and Sammy went
stiff. The air suddenly became dry and cold and started to crackle with energy.
“He’s back,” Sammy said, wiggling around in my arms. The air around us was
building pressure.

I felt the moment the pressure snapped, but I
couldn’t tell where it was coming from. Mordon’s eyes were shifted and he was
looking around. I was about to put up an energy shield when Mordon pushed me
away.

As his hand touched me, his fire burned into me and
everything became dull and shapeless except for Mordon and the air around him.
Mordon himself pulsed with white, orange, and dark blue light. I had no idea
what it was, but I could sense that it was a part of his soul. It must have
meant a good thing, because Mordon was a good person.

The space around him was torn with a gaping tear,
inside of which was burning white light that felt like the most evil thing I
could imagine. When tendrils of light extended towards us, I rolled over to
cover Sammy.

From inside the crack, a clawed hand reached out,
wrapped around Mordon’s stomach, and pulled him into the light. The crack
closed and my eyes returned to normal. Mordon was gone and Sammy started crying.

“Dada, the monster got Mama,” he cried weakly.