kaolin fire presents :: writing :: fiction

"ByTheDragonsTail.0"

words

"The future's dark. I can tell that from just your skin."

Kith glared at the Teller, his tall dark robes and shining crystals. "The present's dark enough. Tell me something else, or tell me to better spend on sommat to sup."

The Teller shrugged, and offered, "I mean you're to die, Kithshar."

"That's my lot, sure. Tell me how."

The Teller took Kith's hands in his own, and peered deep into his eyes; Kith flinched at the touch. Suddenly he was numb, though he was sure his hair stood on end. The Teller's voice came deeper, and Kith knew it to be ritual. "I share light with you, a beacon in the darkness. Do you hear it?"

Dark, cold, numb, Kith could hardly believe there was a room surrounding him; there was just a hint of brimstone, a hint but stronger than the jasmine suffusing the room moments before.

"Do you hear it?" The voice compelled.

Kith fought to shake his head, and the fight released a tone. Golden, it was, a beacon--yes.

"Yes." He could hear the smile in the Teller's voice. "The dragon's tail." The Teller paused. "You'll seek it, and die; or be reborn."

Kith found his voice. "A quest? That's not my destiny! I'd have no such thoughts but for you, whatever thoughts they be."

"You came here, and asked. That is all it takes to send you on your path--your choice alone. As strange as it may seem, a ray's path is always straight. Take it or leave, I'll not argue my fee."

"Better to sup indeed than this kind of madness!" Kith turned about and strode towards the door when the ground shuddered. He tossed a glance back at the Teller who in his gaze denied any complicity with the earth. Kith growled but threw the coin in an arc toward the Teller. It disappeared into the Teller's cuffs as if it never was.

Kith shut the door behind himself and took several slow, deep breaths. Street traffic seemed normal; either the ground's movement was a trick of the Teller, or everyone else assigned it to the usual grumbles of the volcano. Why would he assume anything different?

But dragons. Surely not dragons--it was not the time of year.

The climb was torturous, and the air sharp and cold when he finally crested the Earth's Mouth. The castle lay well below him, guards facing outwards over the city, not interested in a lone man skulking away from their demesne. There would be no dragons, he was sure; but Kith would face his death, whatever it be, whatever a dragon's tail could mean.

There would be no dragons, but there was an odd darkness seeping from the rim--an almost liquid smoke obscuring the depths. Kith carved the alchemic symbol of light before him, then dipped his hand into the smoke. It was warm but insubstantial. He cupped the darkness in his hand but it faded when he tried to lift it out.

The ground shook again, stronger, and Kith barely kept his footing. Crouching to fours, he tucked his head down as flint fairies burst up through the smoke. A scream, a roar, cacophony--the antithesis of a golden tone--billowed the smoke upwards, and a flash too fast for him to discern blew through that billow spreading it further still. A dragon? A dragon could make that roar?

Kith leaned in, trying to see into the miasma, and at the same time struggling to peer into the sky after whatever had shot out.

A second burst freed his feet from the earth and he was enveloped in darkness; brimstone filled his mouth and nostrils. He coughed and spun, and a third burst passed him--pain seared along his right arm from its passing.

He screamed and the brimstone ripped his throat as it left him; his lungs fought for clean air but none was to be had. All he had to do was grab a dragon's tail. All he had to do.

So he grabbed with his good hand--but there was nothing there. Three dragons gone out of dozens if they were all leaving, but how long could he fall?

Then some moment of prescience, a flash of gold or copper, a trick of the light, and he grabbed again--pain seared his palm but he held, though connecting nearly took his arm off. His arm was numb, or in too much pain, but he forced it to hold as if it were some limb wholly not his own. Clamping his teeth at the pain, he grasped with his other hand. He could barely force that hand to clasp with the burns to his arm, but the tail's jerking helped clench it tight; the tail shook and shuddered but he was caught as well as if the dragon's scales were barbed.

Kith held on for life and wondered at rebirth. Would he somehow heal just for having touched the dragon? Or was there a more complete rebirth still to come?

The dragon fought to shake him off and fought for flight and fought for something else Kith could not tell. It flew low, and his boots skipped off the volcano's side, but still the dragon's scales held his hands. The dragon banked up, then left, and Kith swiveled along wounds that just dug deeper, and deeper still.

It entered a dive, then, more fearsome than he'd prior believed possible. Its cry shredded the air and it bellowed sulfurous flames that melted the stone bulwarks below them, digging a grave for them both. Its feet clawed at the air as if fending off invisible attackers and Kith had the moment to wonder what was going on, what was driving the dragons to such madness--and then he was flying through the air again and the dragon had passed on.

Another cry, a scream, rent the night, and Kith realized it was his; then a sudden impact, and the shrieking silence of deafness; people rushed about--rushing to, rushing away; he'd fallen in the city, and there were fires all around. He'd broken a building with his fall, but he was alive.

He had ridden a dragon.

Kith forced his eyes to take in his palms. They were gashed unto the bone, and he was missing at least one finger--but in his flesh was the essence of his rebirth. A dragon scale--a live dragon scale, shimmering with all the colors of the sun. That would be enough to buy into a burrough and be done with the mine. Truly, though he could never work again--he would never need to. He was a new man, whatever apocalypse befell the world.







Thekanon Murnist Tellama Spetril Trinis Zillamir Kithshar