James Maxey - Dragonforge

Finally, Pet's breath returned in a painful rush. "What's happened to you?" he asked, his voice on the verge of tears. "You're one of the good guys. You don't torture women."

Shandrazel snorted. "You self-righteous fool. I'm doing what I should have done the moment we captured this woman. She knows where Blasphet is. Blasphet is only a danger because humans treat him like a god. Why haven't your kind stepped up to the responsibility of stopping him?"

Pet swallowed, fighting back his fear. He'd barely heard Shandrazel's words as his attention remained focused on the white teeth flashing only inches from his face. Was Shandrazel somehow blaming humans for Blasphet?

"Blasphet was trying to wipe out humanity in the Free City!" Pet protested. "It's insane to think I'm helping him."

"We hadn't accused you of helping him," said Androkom. "Though, if you were, it would explain many things. Isn't it odd that the Sisters of the Serpent knew to find Shandrazel in the bath while you were there?"

"What?" Pet felt as if he'd gone crazy. "The sisters were attacking at random! And they attacked me! Shandrazel, don't let the actions of a few misguided girls turn you into a monster like your father."

Shandrazel swooped Pet up in his fore-talons, his claws biting into Pet's biceps. He lifted Pet with no more effort than a man would expend picking up a kitten. He shouted, "I am nothing like my father!"

Pain blanked Pet's mind and fear locked every muscle. He wanted to beg for mercy but couldn't find the words and couldn't have spoken them if he had.

Behind Shandrazel, Androkom craned his neck down to the face of the captured sister, who lay crumpled on the map where Shandrazel had discarded her.

"I fear Pet's distraction has cost us," Androkom said. "This human has stopped breathing."

Despite being trapped in Shandrazel's grasp, Pet felt himself stirred to rage at Androkom's words. Suddenly, his mind unlocked, and words gushed out of him. "Are you happy?" he shouted at the sun-dragon. "You've killed a helpless girl! Do you feel strong now? Do you feel like you're the king your father wanted you to be?"

"Silence! My father will be remembered as a tyrant! I will be remembered as the king who brought an end to kings!"

Shandrazel punctuated this sentence by spinning Pet around and slamming him face-first into the bedrock of the dungeon.

Shandrazel growled again, his anger building, "History will proclaim me Shandrazel the just!"

Again the bull-dragon slammed Pet into the stone. Pet heard snapping noises echoing through his skull. With an odd sense of detachment, he realized that his front teeth were loose against his tongue. He pushed them out of his mouth and felt them slide down his chin amid the drool and blood.

Shandrazel dropped him. Pet rolled to his back, staring dumbly at the towering reptile above him. His limp right arm fell against the broken fingers of the dead woman. He coughed as the blood in his mouth hit the back of his throat. Shandrazel gazed down at him with a look that was half rage, half fear.

"Shandrazel… the wise," the sun-dragon said, his voice growing calmer. He swallowed hard as he stared at Pet. Pet could see himself reflected in the sun-dragon's eyes. His once sharp and shapely nose was now flattened against his face. He was bleeding freely from a gash over his right eyebrow. Slowly, his vision faded. Shandrazel's voice sounded dreamy as he said, "Most of all, I shall be remembered as Shandrazel… the merciful."

Pet closed his eyes. He was vaguely aware of the sounds of chainmail jangling; the guards from the hall had finally arrived.

Androkom's calm, authoritative voice said, "Cart the corpse away. This cell has a new occupant."

Distantly, an earth-dragon voice barked out a reply, but Pet could no longer understand the words. His ears filled with a sound like rumbling surf. He felt as if those waves were lifting him, leaving him adrift, tugging him ever further away from the shore of awareness. He floated into darkness, utterly alone.

Chapter Seventeen:

Attractive Soulless Monsters

The Scholar's Gate was a thick oak door hung on iron hinges. The door was tall enough that a sun-dragon could enter, and so heavy that Graxen feared he wouldn't have the strength to open it. Beyond the Scholar's Gate was the Grand Library, the domain of the high biologian, a research collection surpassing the contents of all other libraries in the kingdom. Only the high biologian and a few chosen attendants could freely enter the Grand Library. A student needed the high biologian's consent to pass through the gate, and this consent was rarely granted.

Fortunately, Graxen wasn't a student any more. He was Shandrazel's messenger, and as such had permission to travel anywhere in the kingdom. What's more, by tradition, copies of the keys to all libraries were given to the king, and as messenger Graxen had access to them. The ceremonial key was a work of art, a rod of iron over a foot long with a head shaped like a dragon's skull, the teeth plated with silver. Silver letters were scrolled along the black shaft, spelling out a quote from the Ballad of Belpantheron. The string of syllables was interpreted by some scholars as reading, "My lord is wise according to the wisdom of an angel, to know all things that are in the earth." The words were meant to remind kings that the battle between dragons and angels wasn't won by brute force. Dragons had once fought only with tooth and claw, while angels fought with swords and spears. Victory came, according to the poem, when dragons stole the knowledge of angels, and learned to forge metals and create their own weapons and armor.

Graxen wasn't certain the key would actually work, or if it was merely for decoration. To his relief, the key slipped into the lock easily. The lock clicked open. The massive door then swung away from Graxen with only the slightest push, its balance a testament to the engineering prowess of the biologians.

As he stepped within, Graxen froze at the magnificent vision before him. The Grand Library was nearly a hundred yards across, a vast open tower filled with all the knowledge of the dragon races. The roof high overhead was a giant dome intricately crafted of steel and glass, allowing the pink rays of sunset to spill into the chamber. Iron staircases twisted in elaborate intertwining helixes giving access to rings of walkways lined with tall bookcases. Looking up at the tomes that lined the room, it seemed impossible that the world was old enough that so much could have been written down. All the books he had dusted in the College of Spires might possibly have filled this central chamber, but dozens of hallways opened from each floor leading to more book-filled rooms. Graxen felt a sense of vertigo as he tried to take in the sheer scope of the information before him. Certainly, the knowledge he desired would be somewhere in this library.

Besides the books, the library featured an impressive collection of fossils and sculptures that showed the ancestry of the dragons. An enormous skeleton of a tyrannosaurus rex dominated the center of the room, its huge jaws dwarfing even those of sun-dragons. High above, sculpted recreations of pteranodons hung from chains, seemingly frozen in mid-flight among the stacks. He'd long heard the argument that the winged dragons were descendents of pteranodons, but it was a claim he found dubious. While the torsos and wing limbs held an undeniable similarity, he found their stubby hindlegs almost comic, and had always felt the primitive beasts must have been horribly clumsy in the air with no tail to serve as a rudder. Of course, bats flew gracefully without significant tails, so he knew intellectually it wasn't barrier to flight. Still, when he was in the air, his tail was as important to the fine tuning of his maneuvers as his wings. On a gut level, it didn't make sense that these ancient reptiles led in a direct path to him.