SINGED

“Cayn must have done it,” I snarled.

Sal and I stood on the edge of the water. We were in the tunnel from which the waterdrakes had fled and into which the nethergrim had carried my stolen loot. The pool lapped gently, refreshed by a subterranean exit out into the sea. We could even make out dim shifting tendrils of light that found their way into us somehow from out beyond the promontory that thrust out into the green briny depths.

Out in the center of the pool, some ten horns from shore, was a shining halo of light filled with misty vapors that swirled and churned mysteriously.

The portal hung suspended by nothing, like a bubble upon the water’s surface. There was a series of rocky projections that rose to act as steppingstones that led from the shore to the portal.

The waterway wrapped around a projection of rock. The shifting portal was hidden behind the projection at the far end of the chamber, which we had overlooked when we took possession of the cave. Either that or it had suddenly appeared. It is hard to be sure with mysterious shining portals that float like a bubble on the water. I have no precedent of such an occurrence upon which to refer. In any event it was here now and seemed determined to remain.

“Why would he need be involved?” Sal asked.

He did not want to rush to judgment, but I could see the footprints in the sandy residue leading to the portal. They were Cayn’s. I knew them precisely. Don’t try to steal even a shaving from a golden coin in my horde. I will see the deficit.

“I’m sorry Sal,” I replied more calmly now. “They are his footprints. He entered the portal and he has not returned.”

Now it was Sal’s turn to rage. He did not snarl or even speak at first, but his coloring reddened even under his bronzed skin and when he did speak with restraint, his voice still quivered angrily.

“Young fool,” he murmured. “Still under Alister’s sway after all, I warrant. Alister’s hooks sink deep. He is behind this, I am sure. I will never forgive him for betraying the Captain.”

“Nor I,” I said, but I was pleased with Sal. Very pleased.

“We can still help Miranda,” I continued, “or maybe we can. Cayn and Alister must wait, but I will not forget or forgive them. Now that the nethergrim are properly aligned, they can help. We will leave a contingent to guard the portal and take the others to confront the thing in the lagoon, and then hopefully we will find Miranda.”

The nethergrim were creeping about in the dark outside the cavern, restless and hungry for blood, as usual.

“What is your name?” I demanded of the leader.

“Cannot Dragonlord read mind?” he replied.

I could not tell if he was bowing because he stood in a perpetual crouch. I chose to ignore his tone because he asked a good question, and I was curious myself.

The nethergrim mindis as different from the human mind as night is from day. I was glad I had not hatched near a nethergrim warren instead of Lindor. So much blood and death. I would have been a monster for sure if I’d grown aware through nethergrim thoughts. Dragons, after all are capable of such. I had been humanized though and was horrified. It was a bucket of cold water. I shuddered until I acclimatized.

“Gribnor,” I growled, and the leader was truly bowing now, hiding his eyes.

“Leave a few of your weakest warriors to guard the portal,” I continued. “Bring the rest and come with me. You like fighting strong opponents, correct? I have a treat for you. A test of your strength indeed. If you succeed I will be very pleased.”

Gribnor grunted and several tiny grim scampered into the cave.

“Good,” Gribnor said. “Lead us Dragonlord and we will follow.”

I took my little motley into the glistening greenery, not sure where we were headed suddenly, but trying to look otherwise. Deciding on a circuitous route towards the lagoon, finally, we paralleled the shoreline for a time. Thunder rolled, and the night grew even darker.

Perhaps it had become aware of us. Perhaps that is why the storm picked up, howling with rage and battering the boughs of the trees about us so the branches crashed to the ground around us.

“We are coming for you,” I murmured.

Miranda would be nesting somewhere safe to weather the storm. She would not be easy to find in the dark. We would confront the thing before dawn and defeat it. I was sure of it, although I did not know quite how yet. Then we would search for Miranda. If we could find her I knew I could destroy the enchantment. Why I had undergone this change I could not say. So much of what I do is influenced by primal instincts that move beneath the surface of my consciousness like sea titans swimming deep within the deep, surfacing only briefly to send a spout of misty breath like a geyser into the air, then vanishing for whole clutches of candles into the shadowy depths.

My human construct of the world would falter at times like this, lost and confused, and in that moment of hesitation, my dragon self would surge forward gleefully usurping control.

In that moment I knew things, experienced a limited form of prescience. I could see the future, affect it, bend it to my will. My horrified human-self cried out to beware. It was madness, a hallucination. It said I did not see the future, only what I wanted to see. My dragon laughed. Was there a difference? I will it to be so. It is so. It did not matter how my will was satisfied, only that it was. I would bend the whole world to my will, beginning with the wretched thing in the lagoon.

It is just like when I plunged into the sea after the water drake. I am hunting, forgetting all self-awareness. I am existing in an eternal present, as I run through the pattering rain, lightning revealing the whole world in black-and-white. Vivid, distinct. No gray.

The world is laid bare. The nethergrim are singing as we run. Echoes of their strange melodies fall in the dark between lightning bolts. Alien and unknown to human ears except the lowest notes which sound like insects, like crickets performing their last requiem before death silences them forever.

In the distance, I see a lurid glow bleeding through the glassy tree trunks. It is coming from the lagoon. The glow is undulating like flowers in the night, reflecting off every leaf and bow so that all the midnight jungle is engulfed in a great dark dance, moving and shifting. In the dark, there are a thousand waltzing pairs; one partner is flame and the other is shadow. The dancing flames glitter in nethergrim eyes and on their teeth. I know they caress mine as well. They baptize us with shadow and flame.

Something is rising above the lagoon and the glow, so it is cloaked in darkness. It looms like one of the thunderheads billowing in the black sky, revealed only as an outline when the lightning comes. The glow begins to ascend the shadow, creeping in columns, they are veins of fire, vines of flame. Now the night is bleeding, dripping with it. It is filling the space, the very air with the ambient stain.

We are running towards it, panting with hunger, not exhaustion. I snarl,and the sound is not human. I am changing. Nethergrim shriek, excited by bloodlust. Even Sal cries out, a mania taking him, his eyes are wide and terrible. We are only a thousand horns away, separated from the glow by a skirt of mangrove trees. Between the gnarled trunks, there is a seething surging mass of bodies, contorting and gyrating, straining to expand, and above, the great shadow is reaching twisted limbs like tentacles toward the dark heavens as if to tear them down from their celestial moorings.

A low moaning sound can be heard, rising and falling between the crack of thunder and the rushing whisper of the rain. It is a crying multitude, a mewling of many. It is the storm tripe. They have finally found their mistress. I look up at the shadow giant with a hint of human apprehension. This is not expected.

I was sinking back into my human limitations, until the dragon seized me.

“There is no time for weakness!” it roars.

I realize I am shouting the words and nethergrim scream in response, energized and frothing, saliva dripping from their grotesque mauls.

The formless mass of waving limbs reorients, leaning towards us so that the outermost appendages grope blindly through the veil of mangroves. The moaning has taken on a low menacing edge. I can see claws and teeth, wild milky eyes popping up like mushrooms. The colossal shade towering above us is reaching toward us, as if it might fall upon us; an avalanche of curses. There is a humming in the air, as hexes, like swarms of biting flies descend in a torrent.

The turbid tide of storm tripe rush to meet us amid the black hail of curses. We crash against each other, slashing, gnashing. Wails of the wounded rise sorrowfully above the din.

The wind moans, the rains wet the earth like tears and washes away the dark blood of the things that fight and die in each other’s arms.

I fight like a madman, but I am not a man at all. Somehow, I keep the sense to stay near to Sal. He fights beside me, screaming as loud and vicious as the rest. He is transformed, but he is still frail. Only my presence allows him to survive. I block the hazy curses that blur the air and cause waves of sickness and disorientation when they strike me.

I resist. The hexes only heighten my rage and cement my resolve. The multitudes of storm tripe die as before. Bursting like bags of stagnant seawater. The smell of their bile fills the air. They are tougher than they seem though. It is my draconic strength that makes them seem so weak. I watch as Sal struggles with a single tripe. He has acquired an ancient saber, strangely unblemished by its incarceration with the Hag’s treasure. It is enchanted. I feel it’s nature, diamond hard and able to cut some things that could not otherwise be cut. Yet he strikes the tripe a clutch of cuts before it bursts.

Nethergrim fall one by one until only the strongest nine remain. Yet they are giants, wading through the waves of tripe, their tough hides are callused and calcified so that they appear to be made of stony walls of the cavernous warrens in which they were spawned. They are invincible like myself, or nearly so.

They bleed from countless minuscule scratches, but they seem only to delight in the bloodshed, even their own. Together we push forward, tripe dying by the hundreds as we proceed, until I can see through the trees where the once shining pool bubbled. It is a foul-smelling fen now, the once clean water opaque with a green poisonous sheen, buzzing gnats teaming about the shore which is littered with dead and dying storm tripe.

Storm tripe flounder blindly in the ankle-deep water, clinging to the feet of the shadow giant. The giant, I can now see, is a ghost. Its body is vaguely translucent. The red glow, hidden by the slime, still shines futilely up through the giant’s feet amid the clinging tripe so that they appear covered in blood.

They are grasping and climbing on the its legs.Swarming up the great dark limbs, they give the giant torso more solidity as they stretch across its girth, plastering themselves together like hideous hilarious mud pies. They are covering the giant completely as they climb. They are being absorbed, sacrificing their individual forms and becoming a single coat of black bile.

Another grim is slain, and another. I am hard-pressed to keep Sal safe, but we cannot turn back without exposing our flanks as we retreat, and that’s not an option anyway. Dragons do not retreat.

We press on. The storm tripe scream and cry, tearing futilely at me. Their only hope is to overwhelm me, drag me down. Then they could burrow into my eyes. I do not give them a chance. As we push into the line of trees I can see that the tripe had molded onto the legs and torso. The giant’s mouth is open in a silent howl. A swarm of biting curses shower down upon us in a black rain.

The world slows, becomes abstract. I am more aware of how beautiful it is, all of it; the vivid contrast between the poisonous green bile and the muddy brine; the crimson eyes of the sea tripe and the yellow teeth of the nethergrim. Glittering rain caresses my face. I can taste it on my tongue. I am amazed that so near the sea it tastes so fresh.

I am thundering down through the black waves of tripe. They wave their limbs. They are cast aside. I’m soaring over them for,of course, I have wings. I roar and plunge headfirst just like I had with the water drake, right into my foe. I’m cutting through shadows with claws. I’m tearing shadow with my teeth.

It is rending like a veil, falling away in tattered wisps like a misty tapestry. The thing wails soundlessly, undone, unwound. The tripe wail in sorrowful chorus and melt into formless sludge at my feet. I have won. I have triumphed. The world slows, time becomes sequential again.

As the water cleared, Lenoir lay on the surface of water as she had before, but she was fading. Her dark locks, which looked just like Miranda’s, were melting, smudging away like a somber watercolor. Her features were dissolving slowly, mixing with the remains of sea tripe.

“It was you all along,” I said.

“All along,” she agreed.

Her voice was barely a whisper, like foam dissolving on the beach; a mockery

of my words, dripping with bitterness. Curses were implied with every word. While her outline continued to soften as it faded, her eyes became more and more intense, glowing darkly.

“Why?” I pleaded.

I found myself again on my knees, staring into the water where my reflection should have been. At first, she only stared back defiantly. I was about to turn away from her virulent gaze when she spoke.

“Love,” she whispered her words were a cold knife.

I shook my head.

“I pity you,” I said. “You don’t know what love is, but I do, thanks to your sister. I know.”

“You know nothing,” she hissed.

Her rage had revitalized her for the moment, image reforming. Her eyes were blazing with her hatred.

“Miranda had everything! Her magic was a gift. She never fought to receive it. She did not appreciate it for what I had endured to obtain even a fraction of her power. In the end, she just threw it away without a fight, such disdain, such arrogance!”

“She tried to save you,” I murmured. “She gave everything up to save you. You are the one that threw it all away.”

She hissed, long and menacing.

“She even threw away your love like it meant nothing, was nothing, and you are too blind even now to see it. And I have another secret to reveal one last bitter truth before I slip into oblivion. Did you think that Miranda was my sister? She was only another of my creations just another sea tripe. I did not turn her into a sea hawk. She was a sea hawk in the beginning. I took her and gave her my image and poured into her that which I could not endure, my compassion and love, and I used it to gain her access to Lindor, to gain access to the secret power, cloaked within the veil of fragile human compassion. She failed to find it, yet she gained something that I could not understand, and I hated her for it. But now here at the end, don’t you see? She is not enchanted temporarily she is finally returned to her true form. Miranda never was. She was always an illusion, always a corruption of me.”

I shook my head, but her curses had found a chink in my dragon scale armor.

“No,” I murmured.

The word was brittle in my mouth. I could not keep my pain from seeping into it. Hurt, confusion, defeat. All my weakness was revealed with its utterance. Close by, I could hear nethergrim shifting uneasily. They had stood by waiting. These few who had survived, Gribnor included, knew only slaughter, respected only strength. With a single word, I had undermined my authority, perhaps unforgivably. I had to act immediately. Pushing my insecurity away, denying my doubts, I did the only thing I could to regain their trust. I laughed.

Sneering I reached down and splashed the fragile image, all that was left of the Hag. She shrieked, her form fading as I shrugged off her final futile curse. Her wail seemed to echo up out of a deep dark well, and then she was gone. Yet I could still hear her final thoughts and bitter laughter echoed in my mind.I left without looking back. Sal followed and after a moment the nethergrim.

She was really gone this time. She had been barely more than a ghost, a shadow. I had torn through her illusion like a spider web. Her web of lies, of curses. Her final barb still stung me though. Miranda had thrown everything away including me and now I doubted her very existence. I tried to push the thought away, but it lingered, brooding.

I caught Gribnor’s furtive glance. He still doubted me. Always had. I was toying with fire, keeping him around but I am a dragon. I like fire.

“You did well,” I said, turning my baleful gaze upon him. “You sacrificed many of your warriors at my request. What would you ask of me in return?”

“More blood,” he croaked, teeth gleaming in the moonlight which was now peeking out through the clouds the storm having broken. Only patches of cloud remained outlined against the greater moon.

“You will have it,” I said.

I kept him on the defensive during the return to the cave, interrogating him about his clan. How many warriors did he have? Where was his warren? How had he arrived at the island? What did he know of the glowing portal in the cave? Why did he claim that I had summoned him?

He answered obediently though bluntly and sometimes his responses were cunning and vague. His clan numbered in the thousands. He claimed not to know where in relation to Lindor but in the mountains. They dwelled in caves filled with shining portals. The biggest revelation was how nethergrim regard dragons. Theirs was a shamanic belief, their perception like so many tribal cultures. There were many dragons, but they were all Dragon. As if we were all incarnations of the same great spirit, the same being.

Nethergrim worshiped Dragon. They revered his strength. It did not matter to them that we often fought against each other. This only proved Dragon’s strength. Nethergrim clans that followed different dragons fought if their dragons fought. If one dragon killed another, the nethergrim that survived immediately turned to serve the survivor without hesitation, if they were accepted. So, when Gribnor had said I had summoned them, he meant Dragon had summoned them. But that meant another dragon had summoned them, was plotting against me.

I thought of the fear that assaulted me just before the nethergrim appeared, the fear from before my hatching. Another dragon was involved in the theft of my horde. It made sense. Who else would dare? But what had happened to Cayn then? Perhaps I judged him too quickly or perhaps not.

“Did Dragon send a human to summon you here?” I asked.

Gribnor hesitated and then nodded warily. I described Cayn and he nodded again.

We were climbing up to the cave as we spoke. I noticed there were no guards at the mouth and frowned.

“Your warriors are not good at following orders,” I said angrily. He was calmly looking into the cave.

“They never disobey again,” he said.

I considered the cave where he stared. The nethergrim who had stayed behind were strewn about the shadowy recesses of the cave in pools of blood. My horde, every gold earring and silver ingot of it, was gone.