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[Threequel of Dragonbound]
Sunlight.
Ragguthas surfaced, standing below the roof of the altar. He reached out and seized a pawful of sunshine in his claws. He reeled back his arm, opened up his paw and found the sun gone. It’s not tangible like the leylines are, he reminded the dragon side of himself. Yes, it’s been generations . . .
Well . . . now that he thought of it, we’ve never been here before, have we?
The ruins were ugly and barren, but he looked past them. He saw to the mountains, and he saw to the valley far far north. And to the heavens he roared:
“BOOOOOOOOOORN!”
* * *
And at that the Door-mage toppled onto a pile of half-crumbled slates. He groaned as he got up, dusting off his chalked-up robe.
Light winked from the corner of Ragguthas’ eye. The dragonkin turned and called across the ashen sweep to the Door-mage. “ ‘Lo, Door-man!”
A serious eye assessed the dragonkin—two serious eyes, in fact. He looked like a distant elvish cousin of the former Cayvrij student. A foot taller, two ears pointier, and—holy fucking Enox is that Raggustund’s tail?
See, the Door-mage wouldn’t have been suspicious of Telasthas in the first place if he hadn’t been assigned to research Nordra Vere for his class with Sage Vic, “Secret Magics 101.” It turns out, men HAD written of Raggustund and had even taken photograms of him.
So the Door-mage knew the tale of Archmagistar Bishop banishing the dragon and knew the entire city had long ago been stripped of all things “secret.” Except for the dragon.
He believed the dragon had merely brainwashed Telasthas, but this! Possessing Telasthas’ body to escape Nordra Vere? It was a peril the Magistars must be made aware of immediately!
He bolted through the ruins. He cut through alleyways. He weaved through blocky aisles and leaped over mounds of rubble and off of jagged walls-left-standing that looked like lower jaws. Studying Nordra Vere’s three hundred year-old maps had paid off.
Ragguthas took to the rooftops, a bloodhound on the man’s tracks. He pursued briskly, overhead and alongside and on all fours.
The Door-mage glanced up at him fearfully, giving great gasping breaths. He speared a left-turn, careening down an alleyway. Another left, and he confronted a dead end. He halted, briefly. Then he took a step back, hightailing it to the end. But before he had a head-on collision, left foot windowsill—right foot building-side—left hand roof ledge. He pulled himself up, grunted and rolled across the roof.
Right into a silk robe.
When he lifted his head up, his face morphed with horror. Behind the robe the tail of Raggustund swished amiably.
The Door-mage bounced backward, scuttling away on all fours with elbows behind him. Then he screamed. He had driven himself right off the roof’s side, and he was falling, waist then thighs then ankles . . .
Ragguthas cuffed him by the boots, swung himself in a half-crescent then flung the Door-mage a street-span across the roof. The man rolled, lip trailing flecks of blood as he skipped over the stone, and the dragonkin landed behind him with a dull thud. A bare footpaw pressed on the man’s stomach, and he moaned weakly.
You could see Ragguthas’ lips peel open to reveal half-dragon’s teeth. A shy growl came from behind his robes, just above the waist, and he gazed down on the man admiringly.
“ ‘Lo, Door-man.” Seeing a guttering ball of flame flash into life in his prey’s hand, he smiled. “If I were a man, maybe that’d work. But I’m a mix now, and your fire will only warm me.”
The man lowered his hand to the roof, the flame smoking out.
“You know, you’ve got the same scent as the Archmagistar who locked Raggustund away, Door-man. A distant relative, perhaps?” He snatched the man up by the throat, void eyes watching the wheezing man claw for his.
Because he was kin to Archmagistar Bishop. That was why Sage Vic had assigned him research on Nordra Vere. Door-man’s fingers kept snatching up nothing, but only inches from the bastard’s throat . . .
And Ragguthas raised him high, like a prize he was proud of, and wanted the world to see . . .
And a crackling snap, and the lower jaw of the ‘kin dislocated and dropped to his waist. A disturbing grin, the maw as wide as a young hatchling’s, now . . .
. . . And when they seized him, he made muffled screams, flopping half-chomped from the waist-up. He managed to hook his nails into the backs of the ‘kin’s ears and drew bloody lines down to the nape of the his neck. Ragguthas’ growl was guttural. He bit harder amid the pain. Then with two fingers he pushed Door-man’s head through his lips with a loud slurp. There came a gulp. A defined man-bulge struggled down a neck which had stretched unnaturally long. The ‘kin’s tail pumped every time he jerked his neck, rings of muscle carrying their cargo. The man-bulge passed below the robe’s collar, passed below the ‘kin’s protesting ribs. The buttons of the top of the robe burst away, slapping a ridiculous dome gut over his waist-belt.
Ragguthas laughed elfishly. He belched up a boot, its color warped by digestive juices that stank of curry. He came to a roofside and sat on the roofside and rubbed his meal away. For half an hour, he hummed an old folk tune. After repeating it ten times, he let up a spicy burp. A spray of bones littered the alley below. A decayed skull plopped into his lap.
“Mmm.” The ‘kin patted his gut, watching the sunset. “Revenge is de-hrrrrrruuuUUUUAAARrRRRRrrrRrRRPPP!
“ ‘Licious.”
* * *
When the sky was tangerine, he sat on a cliff to the west. The cliff overlooked the pit of the ruins and distanced itself even farther than the ruins from the city. He had in one paw his tail, and with the claws of the other he was grooming it.
“Shall we stay as one now, Telas? And where shall we go from here?””
“Nay, Raggu. As much as I love you, I like to have the privacy of my own body sometimes. As for the going question, I was thinking, why don’t we hang round the ruins till tomorrow?”
The suggestion made Raggu anxious, and he rebelled. “Grand Libraries! Mountains, cities, magic out there! What can we gain by staying here any longer, hum?”
Telas wheeled out a platform with the projector screen on it. He pressed play and showed Raggu the memories of he and the Door-mage’s meeting with the Magistars. The great light of the pictograms flashed over Raggu’s face, reel by reel, and by the end of it he understood.
* * *
At noontime the next day, the dragonkin lurked around site of the altar. Magistars Hawk, Taranyul and Fremley would be by, but he didn’t know when. He lay on a rooftop shadowed by a tall tower, occasionally peering over the side of the roof and then reeling away, as if afraid to blow his cover. Our guests were never appointed a time of visit. His frown was a rainbow shape. While he waited, he fingered at the gristle stuck in his beastly incisors. Maybe the Magistars’ll have some meat on their bones. Hehe.
He got bored and explored the premises, playing through dilapidated buildings, streets and alleys. It helped him adjust to his elfish body.
Suddenly his ears twitched; and quick as the western wind he dove into a breach at the bottom of an old tavern. He stepped into a musty cellar. Streaks of sun from the breach X-rayed the room, revealing how dusty the air was. Raggu gave the bare room a brief look around, wondering what had startled him, his heart still fluttering. Then he climbed an empty clay shelf and peered out from the breach.
To the right. Coming this way, across the street, with their finespun silk robes and their elegantly-flowing hair. Ragguthas ducked, suddenly afraid. “They’re gonna kill me. They’re gonna kill us.” The human face briefly transforming to have a dragon’s snout, “But of course, Telasthas. We were alerted by the presence of their pooooooooower aaaaaaaaaaah yes,” back to the human face, “yes, Raggustund, yes, big guy; you’re on the right track now. Think of the payoff if we parlay for the Magistars and not the risk.” He leaned farther out of the breach and saw Fremley disappear past the side of the unit, his view obstructed. Three distinct sets of footsteps faded out.
Fingers digging into a small recess above the breach, the dragonkin swung himself into the city then started for the catacombs.
If you’d a bloodhound’s nose for magic like him, you’d’ve known precisely where the Magistars had gone too.
Every which way Magistar Hawk’s head turned, his eyes gleamed. He seemed to be assessing which passage was best to take; and when he decided the left one was pretty promising, he pointed to it. “I’ll bet you the boy set his project up somewhere there’s-a-way, but wouldn’t you think it?” The other two shrugged. They frankly didn’t give a shit, because either of the three looked equally unpromising. Earlier they had confided in one another privately, and resigned to being here a while.
Ragguthas was always a few tiptoes behind them. Whenever their footsteps seemed far off, he snuck another passage or another vault closer. If he heard their feet go the wrong way he’d wait; they’d have to turn around, and he didn’t want them to catch him. By and by the Magistars found the stairs to the chamber and went.
And Ragguthas giggled into his paw. “The rats took the cheese.”
“I see such a lot of empty space. Quite unnecessary considering, it seems to me, this place is a graveyard. You expect to see some coffins, not a storage unit,” Taranyul said.
Fremley touched the walls as he went by them, checking for hidden passages and/or secret treasure-hoards. Everyone else was in the center of the room with either a preoccupied gaze (Hawk) or with their foot tapping (Taranyul) when he joined them. He cursed. “That fucker Nelson and his ex-student friend! I should have expected this trip to be a waste. Whether they’re pranking us, forgot to show, or relocated to whoever the fuck knows . . . I’m fucking up to here with those little twats!” Flapping his hands like the wings of a hen. He then began to gesticulate at the neck, preparing to make his infamous angry rooster call until Hawk thankfully interfered:
“Patience, Fremley. You’ve got to have some faith in the boys. How about we backtrack? Try one of the ones we missed?”
“We tried them all!” Fremley threw his fucking smoking cap to the floor. “Orissius’ll hear about this. Oh I’ll, I’ll have that fucker expelled before he can count how many nuts he’s got in his scrotum. Which”—he stormed for the stairs—“has got to be one fucking hell of a number—the nerve to waste my fucking time!”
Taranyul and Hawk looked at each other, trying to decide whether that was a fucking insult.
Against the wall right next to the stairs going down, Ragguthas had sunk to the floor, his face red in silent throbs of laughter. “Oh-ho-ho my. What a meal he’ll be. Wow.” He cooled off then stood. Ears twitching, he heard coming up the stairs the rushed tet-tet-tet of an infuriated Magistar’s sandals.
A single pair. Perfect.
His claws swiped at the vault’s candles from afar, and the blue flames blinked into smoke. The 'kin melted into the shadows, poised to strike.
The man kept cursing until he stepped into the vault. In it he hushed. Halted. Said some criticism about the magic used to “light the damn flames” in a growly murmur. He brought a travel-spellbook out of his robe pocket, squinted his bright grey eyes then flipped around until his finger landed on a particular word on a particular page. Everflame. He did some hocus-pocus with his fingertips over the book then angrily began to spell-speak.
The man’s grey eyes grew to drachmas. A shadow split from side “A” to side “B” of the room in a motion no less than nifty.
“You there! Dammit all. One of Nelson’s twats, I expect. Come out of the dark and face me with dignity.”
No sooner than “dignity” being said, a feral elf on all fours prowled from around a coffin display. A barbarian man with his robes in tatters and chest exposed, as Fremley saw him. The feral elf hissed through its flashing white fangs and then pounced at!
Fremley’s instinctive cry of the spell “Magilut an,” roughly translating to “arcane use against,” made so little sense it fizzled in his hand as a sparkly blue explosion. Globs of electricity scattered across the room then rebounded towards the dragonkin—all in a sandgrain of a millisecond. White lightning flashed.
Then it was gone, and Ragguthas was crouching, his paw pinning the man’s throat to the floor. What remained of his robe were shreds of rags. He had taken the juice of the spell and sponged it up, absorbing it as body mass, now as Fremley would have said the size of a “fucking cow.”
A girly shriek came from the Magistar. Those humanoid lips split open, revealing a snake-like maw. Before he could make his infamous frightened rooster call his skull was behind half-dragon fangs.
The faintest slimy sound, Magister Hawk could have swore he just heard! Yes, it was just like the sound the mucus of a dragon’s egg made when it spilled out of an egg freshly cracked. And it was followed by a shrill bitchy cry.
The Magistar progressed from a casual stroll to a full-blown dash for the stairs. Taranyul shouted after him.
On his paws and knees, the dragonkin lay glugging down a silk robe, two sandaled feet thrashing about at the end. This entire human worming his way down the stuffed-sock of a neck: he pressed so compactly against the throat, the neck had turned red as if suntanned. Gurgling noises came as each gulp ticked away at the sandaled feet. Then the teeth snapped together. If you watched closely enough, you’d’ve seen the jaws of a dragon—not a human—meet, before the ‘kin licked human lips. A forceful gulp funneled his prey into his noisy gut.
Standing up, Ragguthas clapped both sides and shook it. He heard it churn and churr and shook it some more. He heard feet hurrying up the steps then rolled his fingers into his gut, smoothing away the wrinkles. Then he belched, belched long and loud. What was a dome-sized gut shrank away in a handful of seconds, leaving behind a little pudge, and that’s it. Fremley’s bones weren’t even eructed. They melted away into the elfish figure like cream pudding.
“Excuse me for the rush, Magistar. But two others after you scheduled an appointment.”
Handsome as it was, he frowned at his naked body. Interviewing Magistars Hawk and Taranyul, he’d need to look presentable. Ragguthas slid open a coffin, double-checking the stairs before looting the robe of the preserved man inside, pink and slender and with a vanilla collar and hems. He threw it on, buttoned it then had a change of heart and unbuttoned it. They’d pop off anyway, so he may as well let his happy trail show.
The dragonkin threw the robe open and stood straight to his full nine feet. Two pairs of footsteps were hurrying up the stairs, and he heard them and smacked his gut. “BRRRRAAAAAAAAAARRRRrrrRRRrrRRRRP,” candlesticks diving off of the shelves. The Magistars were thrown down the stairs, first Hawk’s back mowing into Taranyul, then the two of them tumbling down together in a whirling mess of limbs.
Ragguthas chuckled, the taste of mage on his tongue. He took a step, stumbled upon Fremley’s spellbook then picked it up, figuring the Magistars would arrive late. A skim reader and friend of the Index, he found himself some intriguing spells within a few fingerings of the pages. Insect Repellant, though he wasn’t trying to exterminate the Magistars, Bottle Opening, Bovine Placating, Brasswork Enchanting, flipping to page three twenty-three, aaaaaaaah . . . Abruptly he shut the book, tucked it away then skipped off, singing a merry song.
When the Magistars reached the vault, “That’s a strange thing, wouldn’t you say?” Hawk asked, pointing to the shreds of robe.
“Unless our Fremley dyed his robe emerald-and-gold then got mauled by a bear, I cannot say they’re his.” Taranyul saw a paw-print amid the dust of a coffin lid then slid the lid off a slice to peer inside. “However, I do not think even Fremley would be so vulgar as to replace his own with a dead man’s. Moreover, Fremley has hands.”
“What do ya mean by that?”
The echo of bare feet slapping on floor Taranyul followed calmly down a passageway. “This way. Be wary. It seems we deal with not a man, but a beast.”
So the two of them tread softly through the catacombs no longer candlelit. Hawk had conjured a torch, flourishing it now and then to scan the walls with orange flames. Suddenly the plaque of a particular coffin caught his eye. Taranyul went on, up some steps, but Hawk read with popping eyes the engraved inscription on bronze:
A fairy’s laugh came from behind. Hawk exclaimed in surprise, his torch rolling to the side of a coffin the guttering out. There the dragonkin stood towering over him, smiling and tail-swaying with the giddiness of a child.
He had read the Archmagister’s plaque too. “That Bishop was a good man. Did you know him, man?”
Something of the way the giant tailed man said “man” gave him chills. It wasn’t said with respect to the casual lingo of a youngster, but in the air of one who is not himself a man. “I never met him, no. He died well before my time, though old I might appear.” Hawk scrambled backward to position a foot next to the torch, without ever taking his eyes off the ‘kin. Before he could reach for it, the ‘kin spoke and startled him straight.
“That man locked me away for the sake of dead men.” The words were warped between the voice of man and dragon, and with quick flickers the ‘kin’s face took on features of each. Suddenly he loomed higher: half-scaled, half-horned, half-grown wing ligaments jutting out of his back. His horns screeched against the ceiling as he lurched toward the Magistar, beastly lower jaw agape. Hawk screamed. The no-longer-recognizable-as-a-‘kin dragonstrocity roared, fanning his wings out to threaten Hawk. The wings mushroomed to a size that outspanned the vault, crumpled beneath the puny space. Quakes flashed, and curtains of earth spilled from the gouges scraped into the ceiling by wing and horn, spilled like slashed sandbags. “I remember now . . . and I know the truth.”
Sunlight.
Ragguthas surfaced, standing below the roof of the altar. He reached out and seized a pawful of sunshine in his claws. He reeled back his arm, opened up his paw and found the sun gone. It’s not tangible like the leylines are, he reminded the dragon side of himself. Yes, it’s been generations . . .
Well . . . now that he thought of it, we’ve never been here before, have we?
The ruins were ugly and barren, but he looked past them. He saw to the mountains, and he saw to the valley far far north. And to the heavens he roared:
“BOOOOOOOOOORN!”
* * *
And at that the Door-mage toppled onto a pile of half-crumbled slates. He groaned as he got up, dusting off his chalked-up robe.
Light winked from the corner of Ragguthas’ eye. The dragonkin turned and called across the ashen sweep to the Door-mage. “ ‘Lo, Door-man!”
A serious eye assessed the dragonkin—two serious eyes, in fact. He looked like a distant elvish cousin of the former Cayvrij student. A foot taller, two ears pointier, and—holy fucking Enox is that Raggustund’s tail?
See, the Door-mage wouldn’t have been suspicious of Telasthas in the first place if he hadn’t been assigned to research Nordra Vere for his class with Sage Vic, “Secret Magics 101.” It turns out, men HAD written of Raggustund and had even taken photograms of him.
So the Door-mage knew the tale of Archmagistar Bishop banishing the dragon and knew the entire city had long ago been stripped of all things “secret.” Except for the dragon.
He believed the dragon had merely brainwashed Telasthas, but this! Possessing Telasthas’ body to escape Nordra Vere? It was a peril the Magistars must be made aware of immediately!
He bolted through the ruins. He cut through alleyways. He weaved through blocky aisles and leaped over mounds of rubble and off of jagged walls-left-standing that looked like lower jaws. Studying Nordra Vere’s three hundred year-old maps had paid off.
Ragguthas took to the rooftops, a bloodhound on the man’s tracks. He pursued briskly, overhead and alongside and on all fours.
The Door-mage glanced up at him fearfully, giving great gasping breaths. He speared a left-turn, careening down an alleyway. Another left, and he confronted a dead end. He halted, briefly. Then he took a step back, hightailing it to the end. But before he had a head-on collision, left foot windowsill—right foot building-side—left hand roof ledge. He pulled himself up, grunted and rolled across the roof.
Right into a silk robe.
When he lifted his head up, his face morphed with horror. Behind the robe the tail of Raggustund swished amiably.
The Door-mage bounced backward, scuttling away on all fours with elbows behind him. Then he screamed. He had driven himself right off the roof’s side, and he was falling, waist then thighs then ankles . . .
Ragguthas cuffed him by the boots, swung himself in a half-crescent then flung the Door-mage a street-span across the roof. The man rolled, lip trailing flecks of blood as he skipped over the stone, and the dragonkin landed behind him with a dull thud. A bare footpaw pressed on the man’s stomach, and he moaned weakly.
You could see Ragguthas’ lips peel open to reveal half-dragon’s teeth. A shy growl came from behind his robes, just above the waist, and he gazed down on the man admiringly.
“ ‘Lo, Door-man.” Seeing a guttering ball of flame flash into life in his prey’s hand, he smiled. “If I were a man, maybe that’d work. But I’m a mix now, and your fire will only warm me.”
The man lowered his hand to the roof, the flame smoking out.
“You know, you’ve got the same scent as the Archmagistar who locked Raggustund away, Door-man. A distant relative, perhaps?” He snatched the man up by the throat, void eyes watching the wheezing man claw for his.
Because he was kin to Archmagistar Bishop. That was why Sage Vic had assigned him research on Nordra Vere. Door-man’s fingers kept snatching up nothing, but only inches from the bastard’s throat . . .
And Ragguthas raised him high, like a prize he was proud of, and wanted the world to see . . .
And a crackling snap, and the lower jaw of the ‘kin dislocated and dropped to his waist. A disturbing grin, the maw as wide as a young hatchling’s, now . . .
. . . And when they seized him, he made muffled screams, flopping half-chomped from the waist-up. He managed to hook his nails into the backs of the ‘kin’s ears and drew bloody lines down to the nape of the his neck. Ragguthas’ growl was guttural. He bit harder amid the pain. Then with two fingers he pushed Door-man’s head through his lips with a loud slurp. There came a gulp. A defined man-bulge struggled down a neck which had stretched unnaturally long. The ‘kin’s tail pumped every time he jerked his neck, rings of muscle carrying their cargo. The man-bulge passed below the robe’s collar, passed below the ‘kin’s protesting ribs. The buttons of the top of the robe burst away, slapping a ridiculous dome gut over his waist-belt.
Ragguthas laughed elfishly. He belched up a boot, its color warped by digestive juices that stank of curry. He came to a roofside and sat on the roofside and rubbed his meal away. For half an hour, he hummed an old folk tune. After repeating it ten times, he let up a spicy burp. A spray of bones littered the alley below. A decayed skull plopped into his lap.
“Mmm.” The ‘kin patted his gut, watching the sunset. “Revenge is de-hrrrrrruuuUUUUAAARrRRRRrrrRrRRPPP!
“ ‘Licious.”
* * *
When the sky was tangerine, he sat on a cliff to the west. The cliff overlooked the pit of the ruins and distanced itself even farther than the ruins from the city. He had in one paw his tail, and with the claws of the other he was grooming it.
“Shall we stay as one now, Telas? And where shall we go from here?””
“Nay, Raggu. As much as I love you, I like to have the privacy of my own body sometimes. As for the going question, I was thinking, why don’t we hang round the ruins till tomorrow?”
The suggestion made Raggu anxious, and he rebelled. “Grand Libraries! Mountains, cities, magic out there! What can we gain by staying here any longer, hum?”
Telas wheeled out a platform with the projector screen on it. He pressed play and showed Raggu the memories of he and the Door-mage’s meeting with the Magistars. The great light of the pictograms flashed over Raggu’s face, reel by reel, and by the end of it he understood.
* * *
At noontime the next day, the dragonkin lurked around site of the altar. Magistars Hawk, Taranyul and Fremley would be by, but he didn’t know when. He lay on a rooftop shadowed by a tall tower, occasionally peering over the side of the roof and then reeling away, as if afraid to blow his cover. Our guests were never appointed a time of visit. His frown was a rainbow shape. While he waited, he fingered at the gristle stuck in his beastly incisors. Maybe the Magistars’ll have some meat on their bones. Hehe.
He got bored and explored the premises, playing through dilapidated buildings, streets and alleys. It helped him adjust to his elfish body.
Suddenly his ears twitched; and quick as the western wind he dove into a breach at the bottom of an old tavern. He stepped into a musty cellar. Streaks of sun from the breach X-rayed the room, revealing how dusty the air was. Raggu gave the bare room a brief look around, wondering what had startled him, his heart still fluttering. Then he climbed an empty clay shelf and peered out from the breach.
To the right. Coming this way, across the street, with their finespun silk robes and their elegantly-flowing hair. Ragguthas ducked, suddenly afraid. “They’re gonna kill me. They’re gonna kill us.” The human face briefly transforming to have a dragon’s snout, “But of course, Telasthas. We were alerted by the presence of their pooooooooower aaaaaaaaaaah yes,” back to the human face, “yes, Raggustund, yes, big guy; you’re on the right track now. Think of the payoff if we parlay for the Magistars and not the risk.” He leaned farther out of the breach and saw Fremley disappear past the side of the unit, his view obstructed. Three distinct sets of footsteps faded out.
Fingers digging into a small recess above the breach, the dragonkin swung himself into the city then started for the catacombs.
If you’d a bloodhound’s nose for magic like him, you’d’ve known precisely where the Magistars had gone too.
Every which way Magistar Hawk’s head turned, his eyes gleamed. He seemed to be assessing which passage was best to take; and when he decided the left one was pretty promising, he pointed to it. “I’ll bet you the boy set his project up somewhere there’s-a-way, but wouldn’t you think it?” The other two shrugged. They frankly didn’t give a shit, because either of the three looked equally unpromising. Earlier they had confided in one another privately, and resigned to being here a while.
Ragguthas was always a few tiptoes behind them. Whenever their footsteps seemed far off, he snuck another passage or another vault closer. If he heard their feet go the wrong way he’d wait; they’d have to turn around, and he didn’t want them to catch him. By and by the Magistars found the stairs to the chamber and went.
And Ragguthas giggled into his paw. “The rats took the cheese.”
“I see such a lot of empty space. Quite unnecessary considering, it seems to me, this place is a graveyard. You expect to see some coffins, not a storage unit,” Taranyul said.
Fremley touched the walls as he went by them, checking for hidden passages and/or secret treasure-hoards. Everyone else was in the center of the room with either a preoccupied gaze (Hawk) or with their foot tapping (Taranyul) when he joined them. He cursed. “That fucker Nelson and his ex-student friend! I should have expected this trip to be a waste. Whether they’re pranking us, forgot to show, or relocated to whoever the fuck knows . . . I’m fucking up to here with those little twats!” Flapping his hands like the wings of a hen. He then began to gesticulate at the neck, preparing to make his infamous angry rooster call until Hawk thankfully interfered:
“Patience, Fremley. You’ve got to have some faith in the boys. How about we backtrack? Try one of the ones we missed?”
“We tried them all!” Fremley threw his fucking smoking cap to the floor. “Orissius’ll hear about this. Oh I’ll, I’ll have that fucker expelled before he can count how many nuts he’s got in his scrotum. Which”—he stormed for the stairs—“has got to be one fucking hell of a number—the nerve to waste my fucking time!”
Taranyul and Hawk looked at each other, trying to decide whether that was a fucking insult.
Against the wall right next to the stairs going down, Ragguthas had sunk to the floor, his face red in silent throbs of laughter. “Oh-ho-ho my. What a meal he’ll be. Wow.” He cooled off then stood. Ears twitching, he heard coming up the stairs the rushed tet-tet-tet of an infuriated Magistar’s sandals.
A single pair. Perfect.
His claws swiped at the vault’s candles from afar, and the blue flames blinked into smoke. The 'kin melted into the shadows, poised to strike.
The man kept cursing until he stepped into the vault. In it he hushed. Halted. Said some criticism about the magic used to “light the damn flames” in a growly murmur. He brought a travel-spellbook out of his robe pocket, squinted his bright grey eyes then flipped around until his finger landed on a particular word on a particular page. Everflame. He did some hocus-pocus with his fingertips over the book then angrily began to spell-speak.
The man’s grey eyes grew to drachmas. A shadow split from side “A” to side “B” of the room in a motion no less than nifty.
“You there! Dammit all. One of Nelson’s twats, I expect. Come out of the dark and face me with dignity.”
No sooner than “dignity” being said, a feral elf on all fours prowled from around a coffin display. A barbarian man with his robes in tatters and chest exposed, as Fremley saw him. The feral elf hissed through its flashing white fangs and then pounced at!
Fremley’s instinctive cry of the spell “Magilut an,” roughly translating to “arcane use against,” made so little sense it fizzled in his hand as a sparkly blue explosion. Globs of electricity scattered across the room then rebounded towards the dragonkin—all in a sandgrain of a millisecond. White lightning flashed.
Then it was gone, and Ragguthas was crouching, his paw pinning the man’s throat to the floor. What remained of his robe were shreds of rags. He had taken the juice of the spell and sponged it up, absorbing it as body mass, now as Fremley would have said the size of a “fucking cow.”
A girly shriek came from the Magistar. Those humanoid lips split open, revealing a snake-like maw. Before he could make his infamous frightened rooster call his skull was behind half-dragon fangs.
The faintest slimy sound, Magister Hawk could have swore he just heard! Yes, it was just like the sound the mucus of a dragon’s egg made when it spilled out of an egg freshly cracked. And it was followed by a shrill bitchy cry.
The Magistar progressed from a casual stroll to a full-blown dash for the stairs. Taranyul shouted after him.
On his paws and knees, the dragonkin lay glugging down a silk robe, two sandaled feet thrashing about at the end. This entire human worming his way down the stuffed-sock of a neck: he pressed so compactly against the throat, the neck had turned red as if suntanned. Gurgling noises came as each gulp ticked away at the sandaled feet. Then the teeth snapped together. If you watched closely enough, you’d’ve seen the jaws of a dragon—not a human—meet, before the ‘kin licked human lips. A forceful gulp funneled his prey into his noisy gut.
Standing up, Ragguthas clapped both sides and shook it. He heard it churn and churr and shook it some more. He heard feet hurrying up the steps then rolled his fingers into his gut, smoothing away the wrinkles. Then he belched, belched long and loud. What was a dome-sized gut shrank away in a handful of seconds, leaving behind a little pudge, and that’s it. Fremley’s bones weren’t even eructed. They melted away into the elfish figure like cream pudding.
“Excuse me for the rush, Magistar. But two others after you scheduled an appointment.”
Handsome as it was, he frowned at his naked body. Interviewing Magistars Hawk and Taranyul, he’d need to look presentable. Ragguthas slid open a coffin, double-checking the stairs before looting the robe of the preserved man inside, pink and slender and with a vanilla collar and hems. He threw it on, buttoned it then had a change of heart and unbuttoned it. They’d pop off anyway, so he may as well let his happy trail show.
The dragonkin threw the robe open and stood straight to his full nine feet. Two pairs of footsteps were hurrying up the stairs, and he heard them and smacked his gut. “BRRRRAAAAAAAAAARRRRrrrRRRrrRRRRP,” candlesticks diving off of the shelves. The Magistars were thrown down the stairs, first Hawk’s back mowing into Taranyul, then the two of them tumbling down together in a whirling mess of limbs.
Ragguthas chuckled, the taste of mage on his tongue. He took a step, stumbled upon Fremley’s spellbook then picked it up, figuring the Magistars would arrive late. A skim reader and friend of the Index, he found himself some intriguing spells within a few fingerings of the pages. Insect Repellant, though he wasn’t trying to exterminate the Magistars, Bottle Opening, Bovine Placating, Brasswork Enchanting, flipping to page three twenty-three, aaaaaaaah . . . Abruptly he shut the book, tucked it away then skipped off, singing a merry song.
When the Magistars reached the vault, “That’s a strange thing, wouldn’t you say?” Hawk asked, pointing to the shreds of robe.
“Unless our Fremley dyed his robe emerald-and-gold then got mauled by a bear, I cannot say they’re his.” Taranyul saw a paw-print amid the dust of a coffin lid then slid the lid off a slice to peer inside. “However, I do not think even Fremley would be so vulgar as to replace his own with a dead man’s. Moreover, Fremley has hands.”
“What do ya mean by that?”
The echo of bare feet slapping on floor Taranyul followed calmly down a passageway. “This way. Be wary. It seems we deal with not a man, but a beast.”
So the two of them tread softly through the catacombs no longer candlelit. Hawk had conjured a torch, flourishing it now and then to scan the walls with orange flames. Suddenly the plaque of a particular coffin caught his eye. Taranyul went on, up some steps, but Hawk read with popping eyes the engraved inscription on bronze:
It was This Man who laid at the bottom
of this rest for mages the wyrm unnamed;
This Man who used the power of the wyrm
to keep the bones at rest alive;
and in return, for that serpent’s kindness,
they now keep it, too, alive.
Let the flow of mana live on,
for life and for the life after ours.
For This Man here laid the wyrm unnamed.
Now let him lay here, and rest.
- BISHOP -
Ex-Archaeologist, Archmagistar of Cayvrij AcademyA fairy’s laugh came from behind. Hawk exclaimed in surprise, his torch rolling to the side of a coffin the guttering out. There the dragonkin stood towering over him, smiling and tail-swaying with the giddiness of a child.
He had read the Archmagister’s plaque too. “That Bishop was a good man. Did you know him, man?”
Something of the way the giant tailed man said “man” gave him chills. It wasn’t said with respect to the casual lingo of a youngster, but in the air of one who is not himself a man. “I never met him, no. He died well before my time, though old I might appear.” Hawk scrambled backward to position a foot next to the torch, without ever taking his eyes off the ‘kin. Before he could reach for it, the ‘kin spoke and startled him straight.
“That man locked me away for the sake of dead men.” The words were warped between the voice of man and dragon, and with quick flickers the ‘kin’s face took on features of each. Suddenly he loomed higher: half-scaled, half-horned, half-grown wing ligaments jutting out of his back. His horns screeched against the ceiling as he lurched toward the Magistar, beastly lower jaw agape. Hawk screamed. The no-longer-recognizable-as-a-‘kin dragonstrocity roared, fanning his wings out to threaten Hawk. The wings mushroomed to a size that outspanned the vault, crumpled beneath the puny space. Quakes flashed, and curtains of earth spilled from the gouges scraped into the ceiling by wing and horn, spilled like slashed sandbags. “I remember now . . . and I know the truth.”
Category Story / Vore
Species Dragon (Other)
Size 120 x 120px
File Size 49.2 kB
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