Bryan Davis - Eye of the Oracle

As she turned to face the source of heat, a bright glow blinded her eyes. The dazzling river of magma flowed a mere dozen paces away. She backed up against the cliff and clutched her chest. “We’re at the bottom of the chasm!”

Elam stepped closer to the river, raising his hands to block the heat, but as he approached the edge, he lowered them again. “It’s not really that hot.” He inched his finger toward the surface. “In fact, I think it’s ”

“Aaaaiiieee!”

The cry echoed throughout the chasm. A small, girlish body fell from the ledge, her ratty dress flapping around her legs as she dropped. Sapphira tried to scream, “Paili!” but the word barely squeaked through her cramping throat.

Paili’s body splashed into the magma river and disappeared from sight in the slow-moving stream. At the top of the cliff, Morgan brushed her hands together, and she and Mardon walked away from the ledge.

Makaidos blinked at the dim light. “What a bad dream!” he said out loud. He tried to turn on his eyebeams, but they didn’t seem to work. “Hmmm. Apparently I need more time in the sun.” He yawned and smacked his lips. “Or maybe in a regeneracy dome.”

As his mind cleared, he stretched his wings, but they felt strange. His foreleg touched something at his side, most likely his mate, but the sensation was different, softer somehow, more tactile. Turning his head slowly, he brought the form next to him into view.

He gasped. A human! A female human! He jerked his wing away and rolled to his haunches, but they weren’t haunches, they were feet and legs! Human ones! And his wing was a human arm, clothed in a soft sleeve.

He patted his body all over, feeling his human chest, waist, and legs. What was going on? Had he awakened from a bad dream only to fall into a nightmare? Using his newly found finger and thumb, he pinched the soft flesh on his cheek. Pain. Real pain. Surely he was wide awake, but how could he possibly be human?

Keeping his hand in front of his face, he examined his new fingers. A gold ring with a mounted red jewel was fastened around his index finger. As the gem pulsed between two shades of red, he stared at it in wonder. “My rubellite is mounted in a ring, and it blinks!”

Gazing all around, he studied the strange landscape, a ruined city with broken monuments and fountains and debris scattered everywhere.

Suddenly a stream of memories flooded his mind Goliath’s mocking voice, Devin’s flashing sword, Roxil’s cry as she slowly passed away at his side.

Makaidos gulped. “Roxil!” He jumped to the woman and shook her body. “Roxil!” he shouted, his voice trembling. “Wake up!”

Roxil groaned. “It is too early to rise, Father, even for a warrior.”

He shook her again. “Roxil! You must wake up. This is an emergency!”

Roxil blinked and gazed at Makaidos, then jerked away and shouted, “Who are you, human? Speak now, or I will torch you where you stand!”

“Roxil! Look at yourself! Look at your hands and arms!”

“Hands and arms?” Roxil lifted her hand toward her face. “What!?” she screamed. “What happened to me?”

“I have no idea. I am confused, too.” Makaidos lowered himself to his knees and gazed into her eyes. “You know who I am, don’t you?”

Her eyes locked onto his and widened as she whispered, “Father?”

He took his daughter’s hands and pulled her to her feet. His thumb rubbed over a rubellite ring that matched his own. “Somehow we were transformed into humans.” He released her and patted his body again. “We have human chests, human arms, human legs. It’s amazing!”

Her body wavered back and forth, and Makaidos steadied her. “Amazing was not the first word that came to my mind.”

“Do you remember what happened in the cave?” he asked.

She squinted at him, and, as her eyes widened again, they flashed. “Swords,” she said softly, “and humans thrusting them into us.”

“Yes! I recognized Sir Devin. He and someone else wielded swords, and I think. .” He grasped her hand more tightly. “I think they killed us.”

“Killed us? But we are alive.” She pulled her hand away and wiggled her fingers. “We are as ugly as sin itself, but we are alive.”

Makaidos stooped and picked up a broken brick. “It seems that we have been transported to a new environment, a shattered world of some kind.” He rose and cast the brick into an empty fountain. “I expected to find a better place to rest when I died.”

Roxil scanned the toppled buildings and debris-strewn roads. “This city seems familiar to me.”

“It seems familiar to me, as well.” Makaidos brushed dirt from his hand and extended the other toward Roxil. “Shall we look around?”

“Do I have any choice?” she asked, slipping her hand into his.

He smiled and pulled gently. “No, you do not.”

As the sky brightened, they strolled along the road. Makaidos pointed at a rise in the ground in front of them. “This place in particular seems oddly familiar.” He waved his finger to one side of the rise. “If I reconstruct that broken fountain in my mind and raise those two toppled idols, it starts to look like ”

Roxil pulled away and ran to the slope. “Shinar!” She beat her arms against her sides. “Ohhh!” she groaned. “If only I could fly! I could see everything so much better!”

“And Nimrod’s tower is gone,” Makaidos noted, “so there is no place to climb to get a good view.” He joined Roxil and spun in a slow circle, his arms spread out. “This is absolutely amazing!”

Roxil grabbed his sleeve. “How can you possibly be happy about this? We are human now! We are disgusting, hateful, lust-filled, wine-guzzling bipeds!”

Makaidos rubbed the material on his sleeve. “How about that? God gave me a fine-looking human garment!” He stepped back and gazed at Roxil from head to toe, admiring her long cream-colored dress. “And look at you! What a lovely outfit!”

Roxil set her fists on her hips. “Father! You are impossible! We have degenerated into the worst of all the species, and just like the vainest of the lot, you are already obsessing over clothing!”

“I am not obsessing. I am marveling.” Makaidos laid a hand on her back and leaned close. “Listen to me. Obviously we have entered into some sort of afterlife. God has given us a new opportunity. Maybe we can make the human condition a better one, perhaps build a city that reflects the opposite of the corruption that Nimrod foisted upon the world.”

Roxil folded her arms over her chest. “What can we possibly do with this city? It is in ruins.”

“The symbolism is perfect.” Makaidos clasped his hands together. “As we rebuild the corrupted city, we reshape the human culture.”

“But how can just two people create a culture?”

“If this is a place where dragons go when they die, perhaps new ones will join us, and other dragons are likely here already. Some perished in the great flood and others died in battles with the Watchers before the flood.”

“How many?”

“Fifteen or so. We did not procreate quickly back then, so our numbers were few.”

Roxil spread out her arms. “Then where are they?”

Makaidos shrugged his shoulders. “The logical approach would be to look for them.”

“Logical, yes, but we are humans now. Logic never seemed to be a primary behavioral motivation for them whenever I was watching.”

“True enough for many of them.” He nudged her ribs. “But I also observed some dragons who ignored logic on many occasions.”

She looped her arm around his elbow. “If that means, ‘I told you so,’ then I guess I deserve it.”

“It was a gentle rebuke, my love.” He caressed her cheek with his hand, letting his knuckles linger. “This enhanced sense of touch is quite pleasant, is it not?”