James Maxey: Dragonforge

Pet placed an arm around her shoulders and pulled her near as a band of earth-dragons carried the coffin that held Vendevorex's remains to the Burning Grounds. It was a gesture of tenderness that surprised her. She would have preferred to watch the cremation alone, but, as he gently rubbed her shoulder with his strong hand, she found herself welcoming the consoling touch. Perhaps he was capable of compassion and empathy after all.

"I can only imagine the grief you feel," he whispered.

"I feel numb, mostly," she whispered back. "Everything in my life turned upside-down so fast."

"I know," he said. "Hopefully things will turn again, for the better. Shandrazel genuinely wants to improve the lives of humans. You and I are well positioned to be granted considerable power in his new world order."

Jandra stiffened. "I'd rather not be discussing politics now," she said.

"I understand. Sorry." He gave her shoulder a reassuring squeeze.

The earth-dragons walked up the wooden ramp toward the top of the piled logs.

"I don't want power," she said. "I just want Vendevorex back. I miss him. I wish I hadn't been so mean to him in the weeks before his death."

"I don't think you were mean," said Pet. "Just confused. He gave you good reason to be angry."

"I know," she said. "But I've barely slept since he's been gone. I just keep running the words I should have said over and over in my head. I keep imagining the things he still had left to tell me."

The earth-dragons lowered the coffin onto the pine logs. The new high biologian, Androkom, climbed onto the platform to deliver his eulogy. Androkom was a young sky-dragon, still in his twenties, the youngest dragon ever to hold the post of high biologian. He looked weary. Since the fall of the Free City, multiple funerals had been held each night, and all required his presence.

Pet took Jandra's hand as the earth-dragons pried open the lid of the coffin. Many days had passed since Vendevorex had fallen. He'd been placed in the coffin as his body began to decay, but it was customary for a dragon to be cremated with his body exposed to the open sky.

"You know," Pet whispered, leaning closer, "perhaps you shouldn't sleep alone tonight. You could stay with me."

Jandra rolled her eyes. "Are you trying to seduce me at a funeral? Have you no self control at all?"

"I assure you, my self control is legendary," he said, with the hint of a grin. "I was merely trying to comfort you. The fact that you interpreted this as seduction perhaps reveals something about your unspoken desires?"

She would have slapped him, but it wasn't the appropriate setting. At least one human at this ceremony should possess a sense of decorum.

She looked back to the platform. Androkom was staring down into the coffin, looking confused. The earth-dragon pall-bearers were all shrugging, looking equally bewildered.

Jandra ran to the platform, up the rough-hewn logs that served as a makeshift ramp.

"Jandra," Androkom said, looking spooked as she approached. "I'm sure there's some logical explanation-"

"What?" she asked, drawing near the coffin. She looked down into the long wooden box, expecting to find the worst.

Save for a few blood-encrusted feather-scales, their sky-blue hue shining amid the shadows, the coffin was empty.

Pet chased Jandra as she bounded up the stairs to the tower. She proved remarkably swift for someone wearing a long black dress more appropriate for mourning than running.

"Jandra, wait!" he called out as she scrambled up the steps. Jandra had grown up in the palace and knew all its shadows. Pet worried that if he lost sight of her he wouldn't find her again.

"Leave me alone!" she shouted as she reached the top of the stairs.

Pet followed her into a star-shaped room. The room was large, built on a scale to accommodate a sun-dragon. The chamber was empty save for a bed, a wardrobe, and a few other pieces of furniture sitting within one of the arms of the star. The human-sized furniture in the midst of the giant open space looked lonely. Jandra ran toward the bed, falling to her knees as she reached it. As the foot of the bed sat a heavy oak chest sealed with an iron lock. Jandra grabbed the lock with shaking hands.

"What's so urgent?" Pet asked as he drew closer. "If Ven was alive enough to get out of his coffin a week ago, he's probably still alive now."

"He was dead!" she snapped as the lock clicked open. "We both saw him die!"

"He was magic. He could cure the sick with his touch. He survived a gutting by Zanzeroth! Why is it so hard to believe he came back to life?"

Jandra threw the lid of the chest open. She dug her hands into the carefully folded garments inside, tossing them wildly around the room. The light from the lantern by the bed glinted on something silver. Jandra lifted it from the chest-a skull cap. Pet had seen it before. It was the head gear Vendevorex had always worn.

"Pet," she said, "it's too complicated to explain right now, but Vendevorex and I don't control magic. Vendevorex didn't believe in magic."

"He could set things on fire with his mind," Pet said. "He could turn invisible! You turn invisible! How can you say it's not magic?"

"Vendevorex trained me my whole life and I never figured out how to do half the stuff he did," Jandra said. "I can't explain our powers to you in five minutes, or even five hours. Ven used to say that 'magic' would be acts that violated physical laws. We don't have supernatural powers. What we have is possession of an advanced technology that looks like magic to those who don't understand it. Vendevorex controlled that technology with this." She held up the skull cap. It was beaten and bent in the aftermath of Vendevorex's violent end. "If the skull cap had been gone, I might have believed he was still alive. Since it isn't, someone stole his body."

"Why would anyone do that?" Pet asked.

"Maybe they thought he was supernatural and there's some power to be derived from possessing his bones. It was probably humans. They believe the dumbest things."

"Hmm," said Pet. "Might I remind you that you're human?"

"Am I?" Jandra asked, sagging back against her bed, the skull cap resting in her lap. She looked very small in the oversized room. She normally projected a defiant strength that Pet found irresistible. Now, the tragic events of recent weeks had finally caught up with her. She looked like a lost little girl, with no hope of ever finding her way home. Pet wanted to take her hand, but knew she would only see it as another attempt at seduction. Which it could lead to, he supposed. All women succumbed to his charms eventually. She sounded on the verge of tears as she said, "Why am I only comfortable around dragons? Why does every human I meet make my skin crawl?"

"Do I make your skin crawl?"' he asked.

"You especially," she said.

These weren't words Pet was used to hearing from young women. "You know, I'm the reason humans won their little uprising in the Free City. They rallied around me. Now I'm going to be standing up for all of humanity in this conference Shandrazel is holding."

"What is your point?" Jandra asked.

"Just that you are proving to be especially difficult to impress."

Jandra sighed. "If you want to impress me, figure out who took Ven. Or help me find the real Bitterwood."

"That crazy old man? What do you want with him?"

"Things happened so fast the last time I saw him," she said. As she spoke, the look of vulnerability faded from her features. Pet noticed that when there was something she wanted to do, she always summoned the strength to do it. "One second, I was trying to help Bitterwood find his lost family. The next, he was shouting at me to go away. I never got the chance to tell him something that he needs to know."

"Which is?"