The Princess's Dragon (11 page)

I will teach you how to protect your mind and fight a telepathic battle just in case you ever encounter one of their enforcers, or a human wizard.”

“A human wizard?”

Tolmac sighed. “Yes; sadly, despite their relative weakness, the humans somehow manage to harness magic and use it, as well as direct it toward enslaving and controlling magical creatures. The majority of their spells use compulsory commands that untrained dragons find difficult to ignore. Even I have struggled against wizards who possess a powerful will. Obviously, I always win in the end, but every battle counts; one mistake during telepathic combat means enslavement. But you probably won’t encounter many wizards as long as you stay away from human settlements. Most wizards seek easier targets for their spells than full-grown dragons. The Circle is a different matter entirely.

I must see you trained to withstand them mentally as well as physically before you ever encounter one of them.”

“How have you remained free for so long?”

“Yes, let’s go back to that, shall we? When I migrated here so long ago, I sought a suitable territory and instead found the Kin enclave. They saw me coming and the old females practically drooled in anticipation. I am of Cindara’s bloodline and the Circle couldn’t wait to capture me and begin breeding enforcers that could spread their sickness to other worlds.”

“Cindara?”

Tolmac sighed heavily. “I will never finish this tale if you keep asking questions. Cindara is, well, if we worshipped gods the way humans do, you

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would call her our Goddess, but in actuality she is the second dragon the Creator ever made and she controls the passages between worlds. Those directly descended from her can form portals to other worlds and migrate.

There, two questions answered; now may I continue?”

“Do go on …”

“Thank you so much for your permission. Anyway, I fought off their enforcers, I shrugged off their mental compulsions, and I destroyed a good portion of their enclave before moving on to seek a suitable territory. They didn’t appreciate my answer to their invitation to join them and spent the next hundred or so rotas sending warriors to kill me. After they lost too many male dragons, they started sending females to tempt me, hoping I would impregnate one and send her back heavy with chicks of my bloodline.”

“I see, that explains a lot. What did you do to the females? Did you … kill them too?”

“No, but I wasn’t kind or gentle with them. You should know, little one, that I am still not entirely convinced that the Circle didn’t send you. After so many others failed they may have felt that an innocent and naïve young female could win past my guard.”

“Ah! How could you even think that? I would never participate in something so dishonest and evil!”

“Perhaps not knowingly. I do not think you are capable of such a thing, but there are many ways to create a situation to their advantage, and the Circle spends their entire life dreaming up new manipulations.”

“So you think they sent me here without me realizing it? That I am a puppet for them?”

“I told you they were strong empaths; they could just as easily implant orders for you to appear at my lair, with no memory of how you got there or why you’d come.”

Sondra felt rejection and sadness tighten her throat. She was starting to like Tolmac and enjoyed his company—and he still didn’t trust her. Worse, she knew he had good reason, as she wasn’t being completely honest with him.

“How do I prove that I am not a part of them?” She tried to keep the hurt from her thoughts, but Tolmac sensed it anyway.

“Do not fear, little one, I know you are not like them. If they sent you to me then they will find that not only will they never have me, but they have lost you as well. I will protect you from them.” Tolmac didn’t like the feeling of pain 62

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issuing from Sondra’s spirit, and he didn’t understand why it bothered him. The emotions of other dragons never affected him before. He realized that he just vowed to protect something other than himself or his territory. Taking on such a responsibility provided its own form of enslavement, but for some reason the thought didn’t alarm him. Instead he looked over at the smaller dragon beside him, her aura dark with hurt feelings, and felt a fierce desire to stand between her and any threat she faced. He struggled to find something else to say to soothe the wound he himself caused. An idea occurred to him. Knowing her endless curiosity, satisfying it should snap her out of her sadness.

“Would you like to see my hoard?” Did he just say that? It sounded so …

juvenile.

It did the trick, however. Sondra’s head snapped up and she responded with alacrity, her aura brightening with excitement. “You have a hoard! Really?

What’s in it? Gems, gold, magical weapons?” Tolmac sighed, secretly pleased at her enthusiasm and unnaturally nervous about showing her his life’s collection of things precious to him. “You shall have to wait and see. Let us hunt and then we will return to my lair.”

“All right, let’s go!” Sondra rushed out, anxious to view a real dragon’s hoard for herself.

They arrived back at the lair before sundeath, Tolmac determined to teach her to fly at the very next opportunity. His muscles ached from assisting her over the mountains. She was a small dragon, but even for him, practically carrying another adult dragon over mountains wasn’t a simple matter. They filed into his lair, wending through a maze of tunnels.

Sondra vaguely recognized the same tunnels she travelled previously and even spotted melted rock where Tolmac flamed her as she ran away. She glanced back at him as they passed one spot where black glass gleamed darkly in the rock face.

“I missed on purpose, you know.” He defended himself, feeling strangely ashamed of his behavior at their first meeting. She didn’t answer, just mentally smirked at him and turned away to continue through the tunnels. He struggled to keep his mind on the task at hand and his tongue between his teeth as she sashayed ahead of him, her sinuous tale gliding back and forth in the red glow cast by molten rock bubbling in the mountainous cauldron below.

They reached the main cavern. A huge pit opened to the lower levels of the volcano and Sondra saw the molten lava that boiled in the belly of the

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mountain beneath her, the heat and light of it chasing away the shadows and the chill of the mountainous air. She carefully skirted the pit, amazed that the heat didn’t bother her—it actually felt nice warming her scales.

Tolmac ignored the gaping hole in the center of the cavern and continued down a side tunnel. Sondra followed him to another rocky chamber and nearly bit her tongue in shock. Here, amidst steam vents clouding the air, the walls glittered with enough rough gems to purchase a hundred kingdoms. Lying beneath the vaulted ceiling, whose gem-encrusted surface glittered like a starry night, was a huge pile of gold coins spilled across the floor. Interspersed among the gilt bounty, cut gems glittered, and strands of pearls dangled from their golden grip. Lethal weapons wore sheaths of gold, and pieces of armor shared space with bolts of silken cloth that spilled from ironbound chests.

Sondra noted that many of the items didn’t look like anything she had ever seen in her entire life. Over in the corner lay a suit of armor made entirely of a luminous green stone, delicately and skillfully carved. Helms in a style unknown to the southern lands dotted the treasure trove, runes and decorative carving and gilding suggesting their purpose was solely ceremonial. An entire armory of weapons lined up against the far wall, many whose use and design were completely unknown to her.

Tolmac watched her as she surveyed his treasure. He noted the awe and wonder swirling through her aura. He hoped she saw the treasure as he did, rather than as an object of greed. He collected each piece of treasure and every coin from the many lands he traveled. He earned every priceless gem, magical or simply beautiful, from long journeys and deadly quests. Some he pried from the clutches of other dragons that he bested in combat or in riddles. Many of the weapons he took from the legendary warriors he defeated when they challenged him in hopes of further distinguishing themselves. A dying warrior, honored by his mere presence, gifted him the jade armor. Every gem, every sword, every shield or helm; they all held meaning and represented the life Tolmac led.

Suddenly he wanted Sondra to feel the same awe and wonder for him as she did for his treasure. He wanted her to understand that this hoard represented a part of him—a story of his life—and whenever he sifted through it, he returned again to the memories of past glories. He couldn’t tell her this; he needed for her to understand it on her own. He couldn’t say why it became important to him; he lacked experience with such a strange desire. Lust he 64

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understood; he accepted his lust for the little storm dragon; but this proved completely outside of his knowledge, something he couldn’t find a memento of in his collection of gleaming memories.

Sondra studied the jade armor; she softly caressed the jeweled hilt of a massive broadsword wrested from the grip of a Calgorian knight on a world much like this one. The touch of her slender claw on the metal resonated, and Tolmac felt as if that claw caressed his body in the same fashion. He stifled a groan as she continued to handle and examine his things, peering into his private life as innocently as she did everything, unaware of the effect it had on him. He waited in agony, steeling himself for her final reaction. After what seemed like hours she turned to him, her eyes blazing brighter then the soft gleam of gold surrounding her.

“This is you, isn’t it?”

Tolmac nearly collapsed with relief. She understood. Sondra didn’t wait for his reply; too overwhelmed to notice his reaction, she continued.

“I can see it! These coins; they are from places that don’t even exist here.

These weapons and that armor were never made on this world. Everything here is as complex, powerful, and epic as you are. This is your life, laid out before me! Tolmac,” Sondra turned to him, her heart pounding, “I am honored that you showed this too me. I—I don’t know what to say …”

“You’ve already said what I hoped to hear. Come, little one. It has been a long cycle and my wings are sore from carrying you. We shall rest because tomorrow I am going to teach you to fly whether you decide you are ready or not.” Tolmac turned away, shaken by whatever alien emotion afflicted him, and proceeded into the main cavern.

Sondra took one last look at the golden hoard behind her, startled by the stab of lust she experienced glancing over the many tokens of Tolmac’s long and storied life. She felt more startled that the lust wasn’t for the wealth before her but for the dragon it represented. She followed him into the main cavern and they settled in to rest.

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CHAPTER 8

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Sondra twisted her wings just slightly, feeling the lift of the aether current buoying her higher into the air. Tolmac glided beside her, watching her carefully and occasionally barking out orders on how to move her wings or turn her body. Sondra had decided, once she fi gured out how to stay aloft, that fl ying felt wonderful. Unlike birds, the heavy armored forms of dragons couldn’t glide on ordinary air currents. Fortunately, dragons are magical creatures and Sondra discovered that the strange tingling she couldn’t place was the feeling of aether: magical energy that dragons, other magical creatures, and wizards possess a particular connection with. Th e much

denser force of aether lifted the dragons when mere wind currents would send them plummeting like stones.

Tolmac spent the morning painstakingly instructing Sondra on the fine art of flight. She discovered that getting into the air in the first place proved the most difficult part. The strenuous flapping left her shoulders and back aching, and the strain of air and aether pushing against her wing membranes felt unnatural, leaving her feeling slightly queasy.

Then she reached a horizontal current and learned to glide. Gliding above the world, Sondra finally discovered the true magic of flight. Suddenly, she no longer strained or struggled to remain airborne; instead, she floated with minimal effort, and this allowed her to truly experience the world around her.

She gloried in the rush of wind that broke over her body as she sliced her way through the sky, the lift of aether and the tingle of its energy along her membranes, the sight of the world spreading out far below; mountains, rivers.

and forests shrunken like images on a map. With a barely perceptible twitch 65

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in one wing she reshaped the aether and felt her entire body turn, following a new path. Tolmac coasted beside her, his own flight graceful and effortless. She communicated her excitement to him and he merely nodded in response. Of course she loved it; flight meant more than breathing to a dragon.

Sondra grew overconfident as they glided above the Easterly Ocean. After hours of soaring smoothly, she now felt comfortable enough to experiment with the aether currents, and she incautiously folded one wing tip, eager to attempt a more advanced aerial maneuver that Tolmac performed earlier without any perceivable effort. She overcompensated, pulled her wing in too far, and lost the lift of current, her entire right side plunging toward the chilly ocean waves below. Snapping her wing out didn’t stop her fall, and she spiraled out of control, plummeting toward the water with terrifying speed. She felt the sting of Tolmac’s claw grasping for her tail as she fell, but he didn’t catch her fast enough, and she slammed into the water, knocked unconscious from the impact.

Tolmac dived in after her slowly sinking form, aware that drowning may be the least of Sondra’s concerns. Already, dark, sinuous shadows were moving through the water toward the helpless dragon. Tolmac braced himself as the suffocating liquid closed around him, his eyes flaring as he searched the murky water and spotted Sondra below him. He folded his wings and used them to propel forward, his movements choppy and awkward beneath the water.