Michael Mathias - The Sword and the Dragon

The congregation of worn, and weary, yet obviously noble born folk, were gathered at the castle’s entry steps. Talon soared by Mikahl, and made a proud, screeching caw. What was that? Mikahl squinted to make sure he was seeing correctly. A bearded dwarf with breasts? He wasn’t sure what the hairy thing beside her was. The only distinguishing feature, besides the hair and short stature he could discern, was a bulbous red hunk of flesh that might have been a nose poking through the tangle.

There was also a big man, who stood out, in his well worn red plated armor. Mikahl immediately recognized him as one of the Red Wolf King of Wildermont’s Elite Guard, but then true recognition struck him. It was King Jarrek himself.

Mikahl had stabled his horse once when he had come to Lakeside Castle for Prince Glendar’s Coming of Age gala. The lady soldier from the forest, where Grrr had sacrificed himself, was wearing a crown. Mikahl felt himself begin to tremble, and was glad he was sitting on a horse, for his legs would have surely betrayed his nervousness.

The General brought the procession to a halt before the gathering. A steward ran out, and took the reins of the horse the General had provided Mikahl. As much as he didn’t want to, he was going to have to dismount.

From somewhere behind the main group, a staff rang out on the stone, in a sharp triplet of resounding thumps. “Crack! Crack! Crack!” Then, an announcer stepped forward, and shouted out his introduction.

“I present Pavreal’s true heir, Mikahl Collum, the Slayer of Demons, and Dark Wizards, the Wielder of Errion Spightre, the Blessed High King, come to unite the realm again.”

The only thing more shocking to Mikahl than the sight of King Jarrek, and the crowned woman, whom he could only assume was Queen Willa the Witch, all bowing to him, was the appearance of the little fluttering blue pixie, who was hovering in midair, just over Queen Willa’s head.

His state of disbelief only intensified, when Talon shrieked fiercely, and swooped down out of the sky towards them. The little blue pixie panicked, and darted into the cleavage of Queen Willa’s gown. A moment later, Talon landed gracefully atop the Choska’s corpse, and a cheer erupted from all around them.

Mikahl smiled, and searched for Hyden Hawk, while brandishing Ironspike in the air for the people that were spilling forth from the castle. He wished that he could find some real joy in the moment. Perhaps if Vaegon, or Loudin, or Lord Gregory were here beside him, he might.

A thick tear welled up in his eye, and rolled down his cheek. He needed to find Hyden, if only to remind himself that everything he cared about, hadn’t been lost while defeating Pael’s evil. The fact that he still hadn’t seen his friend, caused the lump in his throat to swell to the size of a fist.

The memory of Vaegon’s torn body came to him, and threatened to overwhelm him. Luckily, the not so wicked Willa the Witch Queen saw the emotions playing out on his face. With Starkle the Pixie dangling by his wings from her hand, she hooked her arm into Mikahl’s, and led him into the castle, and away from the crowd.

Somewhere, out off of the Seaward coast, the insubstantial spirit of the wizard Pael, found its familiar, Inkling, still bound to Glendar’s submerged body. Starfish, crabs, and dozens of other mollusks, along with a few suckerfish, were cleaning the flesh from Glendar’s bones. Soon, only a skeleton would remain; a skeleton that was cursed to live on, hundreds of leagues down, at the bottom of the ocean.

The pecking order of the three entities, which inhabited Glendar’s skeletal host, was quickly established. Glendar, ever weak-willed, and foolish, was pushed to the side, while Pael and his familiar, wrestled for control of the skeleton’s motor functions. Ironically, Inkling won the battle, and once the sea floor scavengers were shaken off, he started off in the direction that he hoped was north.

He wasn’t concerned that he might be going the wrong way, with all of eternity to walk the ocean floor. He knew that, as long as they moved in the same direction, sooner or later, they would wander up out of the depths, back into the light of day.

He would use all that time to ponder what he would do when he got there. In the meanwhile, Pael feebly plotted on how he could take back control of Glendar’s will from Inkling. Neither of them seemed to notice the strung out parade of other skeletons that were following them through the sea.

Lazing in the afternoon sun, with his feet dangling out over the open air of the marshlands, Hyden sat in the mouth of the Dragon Tooth Spire’s wormhole.

Not three feet away from him, lay the old snapper bone his little brother had used to keep his rope off of the abrasive floor while he lowered out one of the dragon’s eggs.

The dragon was telling him a story, a long and exciting tale, about a great blue drake, and a silver skull, that might be able to help him go into the Nethers to retrieve the ring Gerard had worn when he had escaped the dark wizard, and fled there.

The dragon in the story had breath that was more like liquid lightning than fire, and was so big, that it had been able to snatch the ship of an infamous pirate, named Barnacle Bones, right up out of the water. Hyden was captivated by the dragon’s words. He loved a good story, and Claret was by far the best storyteller he had ever come across. The dragon was even better than Berda, the giantess, though he would never tell Berda that.

In his hand, he toyed with a crystallized, tear-shaped jewel that had fallen from the dragon’s huge eye, when she had spoken of the hopes she had held for all three of her un-hatched babies. The thumb sized crystal had started out like any other tear, but by the time it hit the floor, it had hardened into a diamond-like substance. Claret had told him that he could call her through the jewel, if he ever had need of her, and that it would act as a charm of protection, if he kept it with him throughout his travels.

He told her that he would make a medallion out of it, and wear it always, not as a form of protection, but as reminder of the friendship that the two of them had formed. Claret loved the notion, and had let out a deep affectionate rumble, that was far more potent than, yet strangely similar to, a kitten’s purr.

Hyden told her about his brother and the old crone from the Summer’s Day Festival. She listened on, as he continued to explain the White Goddess of his people, and how she had told him that he would have to eventually go down into the depths of the Nethers, to retrieve the ring his brother had taken there. Claret had told him then, that fortunes and prophecy were not always set in stone, no matter how much we all wanted to believe them. And the ones that do come to pass never do so in the manner expected.

“For instance,” she hissed softly. “I once foretold a prophecy about the sword, called Errion Spightre, and Pavreal’s bloodline. I made it so that sooner or later, the folly of man would set into motion a chain of events that would undo the Pact that I had been forced to swear to. I only had my un-hatched eggs in mind when I did this.”

She paused, and yawned out a soft roiling cloud around her curled tongue.

“Here I am, set free,” she continued. “But what I prophesied hasn’t come to pass. The youngest son of Pavreal’s line, didn’t take up the blade in place of the true king, to save the land from the legions of dark.”

She turned a huge yellow eye on Hyden, and studied him closely.

“I believe that your goddess is correct, Hyden Hawk. That strange ring is on the finger of the wrong man. Only when it is in the right place, will the nature of prophecy be restored, so that what must come to pass can happen. I’m sorry that you are caught up in all of this. Thus, the nature of prophecy is proven to be faulty. For if you retrieve the ring, then what I portended, might come to pass. A greater evil than the demon-wizard Pael might come. And worse, one who I consider to be a friend will be forced to battle that evil. All I ever wanted was to keep my hatchlings from being mastered. Now, only one of them is left.”