Jak Koke - Stranger souls

He ran; he needed to get into the tenement.

He heard his mother again, yelling hysterically. She was

still alive. He could reach her in time. His heart pounded in his chest, throbbing in his ears as he pushed bare feet against the pitted asphalt. Graffiti-stained concrete walls blurred by on his left.

"Shut up, slitch!" came a voice he recognized. It was TB, the leader of 'Hood Watch, the most powerful gang in the projects. "Quite whining and tell me where he is." The man clipped his words, spitting them out like bad food. "Or you'll end up like your do-man here."

Then Ryan was through the opening and inside. His mother knelt on the hard tile floor five meters away, facing away from Ryan. Next to her, on the left, stood a tall ork holding a submachine gun to his mother's head. On her right, face-down on the floor was his father, blood spreading in a dark stain beneath him. He wasn't moving.

Ryan froze. He couldn't help his mother. He turned to run.

Only to be caught by another member of the gang who came up behind him. "Looky, TB. Look what I got me."

"Then I guess we don't need this slitch anymore," said the ork with the machine gun. He pulled the trigger.

Mom's body jerked forward, falling to the floor, lifeless. Blood leaked onto the threadbare carpeting.

"Let's go," TB said. "I want that reward."

They covered Ryan's mouth with duct tape and bound his hands and feet before carrying him outside. Into the hot night. But despite the heat, Ryan felt chill inside. Shivers shook through him, and he couldn't stop shaking. Tears welled in his eyes, and he almost blacked out.

Suddenly, the sky brightened above them. Ryan came crashing to the asphalt as the gang members dropped him. He looked up to see a huge dragon filling the sky. Fire erupted from its mouth, shimmered along its blue and silver scales as it descended.

The gangers ran, scattering like leaves in wind. Ryan watched as the dragon burned or ate each one of them, and he braced himself when the creature approached him. But the dragon did not harm Ryan.

Hello, Ryanthusar, came the dragon's voice in his head. My name is Dunkelzahn, and I have been looking for you. Will you come with me?

Ryan's bonds broke, and the tape tore from his mouth, telekinetically. "Yes," he said, mostly out of fear.

Dunkelzahn scooped the young Ryan up in his talons and flew off into the night sky. Taking Ryan to his lair in Lake Louise.

A few years later, Ryan had asked Dunkelzahn the reason his parents had been killed.

Dunkelzahn had turned to the boy, who stood defiantly next to the dragon's huge size. Both good and evil exist in the world, Ryanthusar. It is something you will have to learn. And it is part of the wonderful complexity of the universe that sentient creatures, for the most part, contain a mix of both. It is a rarity to find anyone totally good, or totally evil. Dunkelzahn paused, leaving the young Ryan puzzled.

"But that doesn't tell me why my parents were murdered," he protested. "What I mean is-"

It is not what we feel that defines us. It is how we act, Dunkelzahn continued. Those who killed your parents succumbed to the evil side of themselves. And they acted upon that. But they were not intrinsically bad people, no one is. They had families and protected many from violent acts by others.

Young Ryan merely blinked. Dunkelzahn spoke like this often, and Ryan found it somewhat alien and very hard to follow.

Remember what I am telling you, Ryanthusar. There is an evil voice inside us all. Listen to yours and come to understand it, for it is a crucial part of you. But always remember, who you are is defined by how much you act upon what the evil voice tells you.

It wasn't until many years later that Ryan learned the specifics of his parents' murders. TB had been paid to capture Ryan and deliver him into the hands of Aztlan priests. He discovered that certain people were naturally adept at manipulating the arcane energies of this world. Those people could be detected and trained.

Dunkelzahn told Ryan that he had the potential to be one of the most powerful living magical beings, and that is why Aztlan sought him out. That was also why Dunkelzahn had been looking for him. To offer to train him. Ryan had been with the dragon ever since.

Now, on the balcony of the Watergate Hotel, overlooking the manastorm where Dunkelzahn died, Ryan was in shock. Could Dunkelzahn truly be gone? How could it be? The thought of it tested the limits of his mind. He could barely comprehend it. Such a powerful creature, such a noble personage. A true hero of this time, and in Ryan's eyes, one worthy of devotion and unquestioning commitment.

Who could have done this? And why?

That wasn't what Ryan was supposed to be wondering, he knew that. Dunkelzahn wouldn't want him to waste time thinking of revenge. Dunkelzahn would have wanted Ryan to complete his mission, nothing more.

Something caught his eye just then, a flash of red light in the sky. He looked up, his jaw dropping as the scene came into being. A dragon streaked across the sky, racing down like an immense eagle toward its prey. Red flames blasted from its nostrils as it descended, the fire trailing behind it in twin tails. It wasn't Dunkelzahn, Ryan knew, but it looked like another Great Western. Lofwyr? Or another?

A long, melodious bellow announced the arrival of a second dragon, off to the left. An Eastern Great, this one, green scales and shorter wings, sinuous as it flew. Like a snake in the air.

The two met just over the manastorm, their speed dizzying, leaving streaks of fire, one red, one green. Another arrived, a feathered serpent this time. And another Western. They flew around the site of Dunkelzahn's death, spiraling past each other as they rocketed into the sky.

Ryan felt magic come from their dance, increasing as more and more dragons arrived to join in. The dance was held in absolute silence at first, made all the more poignant by the fact that the rioting and fighting had stopped across the city, at least as far as Ryan could hear. People were mesmerized by the sight.

After a few minutes, twelve or thirteen dragons, by Ryan's count, were flying in the sky. All species were represented. Nadja stood next to him and watched in silence and awe. Their dance was raw and powerful, magical and intricate. Light and heat radiated from the tapestry of motion they created.

Bellows and cries reached Ryan's ears then. The dancing

dragons had broken their silence. The roars shook Ryan to the bones. There were screams of anguish and outrage. Howls lamenting their fallen kin, taken from his mortal coil against nature. Visceral outcry against such an affront.

Anger and sadness coursed through Ryan at the sight. His knees quavered and gave out.

"You all right?" Nadja helped him to his feet.

Ryan didn't answer. No, he thought. Nothing is all right Nothing will ever be all right.

Tears welled in his eyes as he watched the dragons continue their dance. Such power, even individually, now combined into a truly awesome force. Such wonder and beauty in their dancing flight.

An homage to one of their own, fallen before his time.

It struck Ryan again, and he nearly fell a second time. The significance of this display. Dunkelzahn was truly dead; his own kind knew it. All hope of the dragon's return drained out of Ryan, and it took his will with it.

He found himself wishing he hadn't remembered himself. His past seemed so fragile now, shattered and in ruins with the death of his master. When I didn*t care, he thought, / was stronger. I was my own strength. Now…

Now, who will sweep down and rescue me? Now, where will I find the strength?

The Great Dragon Dance went on for several hours, and by the time it was over, Ryan's head was buried in Nadja's sweet-smelling hair, tears streaming from his eyes. She was his pillar now. With Dunkelzahn gone, she was his only support.