Cassandra Pendragon
"They'll be fine. Give it a minute or two." I couldn't help but roll my eyes as I watched a spiritual creature of legend act like a worried mother hen. She had coiled herself around the two girls in the middle of a deserted courtyard on top of the mountain and was nuzzling them constantly. That she wasn't trying to hatch them straight up was about the only saving grace. At least I didn't have to worry whether or not being eaten alive had effected the young dragoness in any way. She hadn't mentioned her own plight, not once, and there gwasn't even a shadow of pain or despair left in her glowing gaze.
"I know, but I can't help it," she admitted. In contrast to real dragons she had a soothing, youthful voice capable of speech. Her tail twitched nervously and brought down another plum tree that had probably stood for hundreds of years, before it had encountered its doom in the form of a glittering, overprotective, thirty metres long snake. When the dust had settled and the smell of crushed fruits had been carried away I coughed theatrically.
"How old are you," I wondered. "You can see they're simply recovering their energy. In Lin's case you can even feel it. I can't imagine she's never been hurt before." Her eyes darted towards me for the fraction of a second, but she quickly lowered her head again and buried her snout in Lin's blue tresses.
"Never because of me," she admitted quietly.
"You think it's your fault," I snorted and finally pushed away from the wall I had been leaning against. With a few, quick steps I reached the still breathing heap of human filth I had kept alive and stomped on a hand, poking out from underneath. I was rewarded with a muffled, dull groan. "How did you figure? That's some twisted logic, even for me. What did you do?" She busied herself making sure her precious friends were still breathing for the umpteenth time and persistently avoided my gaze. When she finally replied her words sounded strained:
"It wasn't Lin, who was wounded in our last fight. It was me. When she killed her opponent, his spiritual companion also died, but not before he had almost vanquished me. His essence was still poisoning us, before you burned it. If I hadn't been that weak, she would never have succumbed here. Little Mei and her would never have suffered." I inhaled deeply, before I lowered myself to my knees right in front of her antlered head.
"About that," I began hesitantly. "Chances are that's on me. You're a spirit, a dream made real, and those… things, they were your opposite, right? A few days ago I destroyed their realm. From what I've seen binding with a spirit is common around here. I guess the last remnants of their realm clawed their way somewhere safe, before their home went up in flames. The monsters who assaulted you… they didn't look like much, but they were old. Much older than you. No way in all hells would they have agreed to being bound by the likes of them," I jerked my head towards my prisoners, "if they had had a choice. I don't think the outcome would have been any different, if you hadn't been hurt." The smell in the air turned acidic as a wave of fear surged through her.
"You… you destroyed their realm," she breathed, her coils trembling with suppressed tension, her taloned hands reaching for the two girls. The dragoness was ready to bolt at any second.
I nodded slowly. A cold gust of wind whispered along the black tiled roofs around us and made my ebony tresses dance. "Yueji Long… Rose Dragon," I mumbled absentmindedly as I watched her rally her courage once more to protect her companions against a much stronger creature, even though it hadn't been half an hour since she had been knocking on death's door. "A beautiful name. Are you afraid?"
"I've been scared out of my wits, ever since I met you," she growled. Lin and Mei had long since vanished behind a twitching wall of sapphire and ruby. "But it's the first time I feel like I should be. What do you want from us?"
"Nothing… well, not anymore. Some information would be nice. I assume those mutts I caught stumbled across me by accident. I don't think they were after me in the first place. They mistook me for a spirit, but their actual target must've been you. I was simply close by. Why? There are easier ways to gain power than killing a spirit. And what's the connection between your home and the Immortal Lands? How come a spirit, and a dragon at that, befriended a human?" She met my gaze for the first time, still timid, but also curious.
"That's it?"
"That's it. I might think of a few more questions in due time and I also have to take a closer look at the mountain we're on, but nothing more. I promise." Watching her scaled face go through a myriad of different expression in the blink of an eye, when she felt the power behind my words, was quite fun, but the poor creature had already been through enough. "I honestly mean you no harm." She didn't relax, but the tremors along her serpentine body subsided. The wind changed and carried distant, reassuring murmurs I just couldn't understand properly into our courtyard. I still recognised the voices, though. The two men, who had brought me into the sect, Mei's father and grandfather, were standing guard outside with a handful of their disciples and the two masters were doing their best to calm their frightened charges down. Not that I blamed them for being scared. It had been over in a flash, but I had still shaken their understanding of the world.
"If I tell you, will you leave," the snake asked. I snorted and rose back up.
"Do you want me to? In all honesty, I expected you to ask for something else entirely."
"What do you mean," she immediately replied, but still couldn't prevent her gaze from darting towards the bulge in her coils, which I knew was hiding Mei. I shrugged.
"Just a hunch. Mei's been trying very hard not to show it, but she's hurting… Viyara, the dragoness I was with earlier, she saw it. Considering what just happened… she hasn't chosen a companion, yet, has she?" Her gemlike eyes flickered to mine and she held my gaze for a long while before she quietly said:
"It's more than that. Her companion has been abducted from this very courtyard. Chances are she's already dead. They haven't gone through the ritual, yet, but they've been together ever since Mei was born. Just like Mei is Lin's niece, her dragoness is mine. Baihe Long. That's her name."
"Lilies… dragon of lilies," I nodded along. Then I buried my head in my hands and allowed my thoughts to wander. Sects… conjuring creatures from the realms of nightmares and dreams. Enemies by blood, probably also by choice, and I had forced the survivors of the former to flee to this world. Was there another war coming? Was this the prelude to one final assault, driven by desperation? I couldn't know, but I had a feeling it was more than just coincidence that had led me here, precisely when a few nightmares and their vessels had decided to attack… or maybe abduct? Probably not. If it hadn't been for me, they'd have killed Yueji on the spot and I didn't even want to imagine what would have happened to the girls afterwards.
"You know I can get her back, if she's still alive," I continued. "But yet… it doesn't seem like you want me to. What do you stand to lose? I don't get it."
"I don't know, who you are," she rumbled. "There are worse fates than death and I'm still scared." Terrified. She had to be terrified to her very bones, otherwise her words wouldn't have made much sense. Then again, she probably was.
"I can't take away your fear," I admitted, "but I can promise you, if your family, your loved ones suffer because you couldn't overcome your dread, you'll regret it for the rest of a very long life." I turned away with a sigh and headed towards a clear, shallow pond, surrounded by light blue roses. With a soft splash my feet broke the surface and for a few seconds I relished in the contrast between the cold water, playing around my toes, and the heat of the bright mountain sun on my shoulders.
"I know, but I might also live to regret trusting you even more," she mumbled absentmindedly, as if talking to herself. Hesitantly, but clearly she continued: "about one hundred years ago four… rifts opened... or maybe they were torn open? I don't know. Whatever the reason, the barrier between realms was pierced. The gate in this mountain and the one in the capital lead to my home world. The other two… they lead someplace else. Someplace dark." Four? I had expected two. Actually, I had expected one, but that naive notion had died the moment I had seen the monsters. Maybe the growing root had weakened the veil between the realms and the other three were simply a result of the fault lines cracking?
"Humans," she added more confidently, "are amazing. Capable of beauty and ugliness, cowardice and bravery… the Immortal Lands are divided. The imperial family rules with compassion and wisdom, but there are always those that seek by force what they can't attain for themselves. Light and darkness… dreams and nightmares, or, as we're called here, demonic and divine beasts. For a good century we've fought, but it's always been just a very few of us. My people are curious and some of us decided to stay here, bound to a human powerful enough to provided us with the energy we need. Our cousins… they've only come when they stood something to gain and only the weakest nightmares were ever interested in living here." She paused and gradually uncoiled herself until two disheveled tufts of pink and blue hair appeared amongst her glittering scales.
"It was easy for us to keep them at bay and the Empire flourished. Like you said, the ones who nearly killed me were old and powerful, but it wasn't the first time we've met creatures on that scale. During the last battle against the Qin family something changed. A ruler of darkness suddenly appeared and took the place of the patriarch's companion. Mei's grandmother died that day and Lin and I almost followed her. We thought it was a fluke, a last ditch effort that almost succeeded, but nothing that could be repeated. Until three days ago." She swallowed dryly.
"We were in seclusion, trying to heal our bodies. When we heard the commotion… neither did they break our enchantments, nor were they seen. One of the elders told us later, that they found Mei all alone and bleeding. A parchment had been nailed to her stomach. Your race took our home, we're coming for yours, it read." Lovely. Apparently I hadn't been far off. It also explained why she had almost fainted, when I had told her I had been the one to destroy the realm of nightmares. Her suffering… their suffering was basically my fault, but I could hardly apologise. I'd have done the same thing again in a heartbeat.
I squatted down to scoop up a handful of water. Goosebumps erupted on my neck when the chillingly cold liquid splashed over my face. It tasted surprisingly sweet, almost as if a drop of honey had been mixed in. "Why didn't they kill the girl," I asked after a while.
"Even though they haven't formed a permanent bond, yet, Baihe still needs Mei to stay in this realm. If they had killed her, she would have been forced to return."
"They're after powerful spirits, then. I can't imagine you were going to simply watch, while there's still a chance to get her back. Haven't you tried…" her threatening snarl made me shut up.
"This realm… this world is huge," she hissed. "Where would you have us look? Don't you think I'd have…" a spark of silver ignited in my eyes and silenced her immediately. My wings whispered into existence when I touched my bracelet to conjure a gown of light and shadows. Damn it!
"Half an hour," I declared as my gaze travelled to the horizon beyond the mountains. "They haven't formed a bond, yet, but they're still connected, aren't they? If she's still alive, I'll bring her back." A dry, silky rustle reached me when Yueji raised her head, her eyes wide. I had vanished from the spot and reappeared near her. While she had explained their predicament, she had relaxed further and two pale faces were now peeking through her glittering coils. With a flick of my wrist a streak of light grazed the tip of Mei's ear and drew a single drop of blood. It glowed crimson under the sun for the fraction of a second, before it was swallowed by a surge of silver. I had her scent now.
"You can't…" I was never going to find out what I wouldn't be able to do. Find her? Return with her? I didn't expect either to pose much of a problem. Appearing somewhere without disturbing any protective magic to clobber down who ever stood in my way and escape with a young, spiritual dragon? Yeah, I could do that, too. Maybe I'd even find someone to nail a message to.
The muscles in my legs tightened and I shot into the sky like a thought. The world became a blur, but I didn't even cause a light breeze, shrouded as I was in ethereal swaths of my own magic. Once high above the peaks, high above the clouds, I looked around and allowed my senses to spread. In the frozen, crystal clear air my gaze could travel for miles and miles, far beyond the grey white mountain range and towards the verdant plains and bustling cities in the South. To the East an ocean glittered blue and deep until it touched the curve of the world, while the snow covered giants of stone seemed to continue on endlessly to the North. Large, black clouds suffocated the valleys there and lightning danced around the peaks. The muted rumble of mighty thunderclaps reached me faintly from the distance, but to the West the sun still shone onto a dark and dense forest, which gave way to a misty, murky swamp, just on the edge of the horizon.
An innocent, almost imperceptible taste tickled my throat when I turned my head, my eyes glued to ominous, pulsating clouds, that hung above the bog like a shroud. I breathed in deeply, willing the wind to carry more than just a tantalising hint of Mei's scent with it. Rot, I smelled, and death. Decomposing corpses swam on the poisoned, unmoving waters and broken bones filled their black, hateful depths. Beasts, exuding dark and venomous mana, prowled the shadows, but they never strayed beyond an invisible line I couldn't taste, but feel all the more clearly.
Four rocky, broken mountains surrounded a deep valley of eternal twilight, hidden from the sun forever. Humans I smelled there. Humans and their magic. Pain and blood had painted their caves and altars in ugly, alien colours and the desperate whispers of their victims filled the miasma with a sickening choir of abandoned dreams. Flickering, deformed sparks moved in the darkness, similar to a mutated ant hive, and their magic constantly strengthened the unnatural forces, that held the area in a vicelike grip. The very soil they treaded on, the very air they breathed had been mutilated beyond redemption, like a deadly cancer that had disfigured the lands. And there, on a lonely, black hill, soaked with shattered hopes of all those who had found their end there, I finally felt something familiar, like a fresh, sweet breeze.
The dragoness was still alive, bound and hurt and desperate, but her heart was still beating and her defiance remained unbroken. They had chained her to an altar, the shimmering obsidian carved with glowing runes, while an alien hymn, filled with anger and hatred, surged around her like a torrent fed by dozens of praying acolytes. Two nightmares stood vigilantly on either side of her gagged snout, while their essence gradually transformed into long, hooked needles under the constant urging. Judging from the dragoness' festering scars, it wasn't the first time, either.