Michael Mathias - Kings, Queens, Heroes, and Fools

For a long time after the freed half of Shokin had returned from Pael, it had tried to pull itself together. It was no easy task, but Gerard mastered them. His changes weren’t just physical. The dragon’s yolk was transforming his mind as well as evolving his body. Now he was more creature than man, part dragon, part demon, and part human. His skin turned scaly, and at his elbows and knees, dagger-like spikes formed. His chest and stomach turned into steely plates, and a row of triangular fin-like platelets ran down the back of his head to the tip of his tail. His fingers had turned into claws, and his heels and toes grew into sharp spikes. He had grown taller as well, twice the height of a normal man, with thick thighs, and a long torso. His head was still relatively humanoid in shape, which made his visage all the more alien. His brows were thick platelets and his nose was elongated with open nostrils. His teeth had turned into finger-long fangs and his hair hung in thick ropey strands. His eyes, though, his eyes hadn’t changed. They’d grown larger to fit the sockets that they were in now, but they were still the eyes of Gerard Skyler, son of Harrap, brother of Hyden.

Those eyes were sometimes fierce and determined like they had been on the hawkling nesting cliffs; like they were at the moment. Sometimes his eyes were full of love and longing. Those were the times when Shaella visited him through her Spectral Orb. Sometimes they were sad and empty as he wandered alone in the Nethers where there was no sun, no light at all, save for the tiny glimmer of his ring.

His attention turned to a shadowy form that was coming closer to investigate the light of his ring. He was surprised to see that it wasn’t a lesser demon this time. It was an Oragod, a hulking greater demon that was so malignant it could sap the will-to-live out of anything that stayed too close for long.

“Kill it!” part of Shokin hissed gleefully into Gerard’s brain.

“Yes! Yes, so we can feed,” the other part of the demon added.

Gerard was still alive and he needed to consume flesh to sustain his growth and existence, but Shokin was demon kind. It fed on fear and hate. This Oragod, if they could kill it, would satiate their gnawing hunger for a good long while.

The Oragod lumbered closer. Its skin reflected a grayish hue when it caught the light of the ring. It was a four-legged beast that moved low to the ground. It had two wicked looking horns sticking up from its head, and it was easily three times Gerard’s size. This would be no easy kill, especially since Gerard had to do it quickly or risk the demon enslaving his will.

Gerard felt his molten pulse quicken.

“Wait till it gets closer,” Shokin whispered.

“Yes, then blind it with a flare of the ring’s light,” Shokin’s other voice added.

Gerard felt the urges of the dragon’s fire burning in his veins as well. The plethora of instincts that came over him was like a tidal wave of predatory acid that ate down into his very bones.

The thing was closer now. Glossy saliva dripped from its disfigured ram-like head and sizzled where it hit the floor. Its body was wolfish, but it moved with serpentine grace. Neither hair nor scale covered its thick pocked skin. Its teeth and talons were as big and sharp as swords, and evil magic radiated from it like a stench. Gerard sensed it all in his blood, and a pulse of desire pounded through him.

With a tentative sniff at the air, the Oragod came into the light. It looked curiously at the slick rock sitting so out of place on the smooth expanse of floor. It couldn’t smell evil, nor could it smell the brimstone that all demons emitted. Cautiously, it reached out its fore claw and, with the tip of one of its talons, touched the source of the magical light that had drawn it there.

With a guttural, primal roar, Gerard leapt up and spewed a streaking blast of dragon fire into the beast’s eyes. It shrieked and writhed, blinded by the flame’s scorching heat as much as by the sudden brightness. The instinct of the dragon’s predatory bloodlust burning in him took over Gerard. He didn’t have to think. That was a good thing, because the two halves of Shokin were cackling with gleeful malice all through his mind.

Gerard leapt to the back of the writhing thing and didn’t even bother to dodge the sharp claw that raked harmlessly across his steely chest plate. The bigger creature arched its back and howled, twisting in vain as Gerard drove his toe claws and fore claws into its flesh for traction. He crawled right over onto its back, and an orb of purple static swelled out around them both. It felt like lava on Gerard’s skin, but he drove the Oragod’s magic from his mind. With unbelievable speed, Gerard crawled up its back, clinging to it with his claws like a squirrel clings to a tree. He made his way over its shoulder. Another blast of fire across its face made the thing scream and howl out in rage. The radiant protective spell it had cast flickered away. It thrashed and bucked and shivered every which way it could, but it couldn’t throw Gerard off.

Gerard tore into its flesh with a ravaging hunger and within moments found the thick pulsing arteries there. Like a wolf trying to tear a troublesome piece of meat from its kill, Gerard reared back with straining muscles. The thick jugular pulsing through his teeth ripped, then tore, gushing out and bathing him in warm sticky blood.

For long days, that might have been weeks, he feasted on the devil’s flesh. It filled him with more than sustenance though. The devil’s evil boiled inside him. Its essence tingled through both his body and his mind. By the time the feast was done, Gerard understood much, much more than he had before. Shokin’s power, the Oragod’s power, and even the power of the dragon’s fire inside him were his to command, not the other way around. The more demons and devils he consumed, the stronger he would grow.

Shaella called out to Gerard from the world above. In her bedchamber, the depths of the Spectral Orb swirled with pastel shades of powdery blue and lime. The head-sized crystal sitting atop the ornate wooden staff she’d had crafted for it was the centerpiece of the room. The staff stood with its silver heel socketed in a hole in the center of the floor. Shaella sang the chant her father had taught her as she paced slowly around it.

Inert, it looked more like a fancy post lantern than a powerful prismatic artifact. Activated, its power radiated through the room with tingling heat and dazzling refractions. The cloudy swirls inside the crystal sphere turned purple as Shaella’s chanting melody was joined by the chilling chorus of the sphere’s magical voice. Then, all at once, the image of Gerard came into view inside the orb.

Shaella felt no disgust when she gazed upon the sight before her. She sought out Gerard’s familiar eyes and locked onto them. He was still in there, and she loved him so much that, as long as she could see him, nothing else mattered. It was hard this day, though, not to let her gaze stray to his harsh toothy maw. A long, ragged piece of dark meat dangled from where it was caught in his fangs and drew the eye. Its presence was a strong reminder of the changes Gerard had been through. Not the physical changes mind you, but the primal ones, the ones Shaella tried not to think about.

“I’ve missed you my love,” she said. She was wearing a white gown and nothing else. She sat down on the edge of her bed and lay out sideways in a seductive pose that pronounced the heavy shape of her breasts.

In his mind’s eye, Gerard could see her, and the longing lust he felt for her forced Shokin’s pesky voices from his brain completely.

“Shaella,” he rasped. “Are you well?”

“Yes, my love,” she whispered, letting a finger trail down her belly. “Much has happened since we last spoke.”