Endangered Ch. 09

He had to stoop for perhaps four metres, passing intricately carved filigree, some of which looked to be painted. He touched it in passing, feeling the cool, ridged stone under his fingertips. The candle only provided soft, weak illumination of what lay beyond, but he still sank slowly to his knees in wonder.

The flickering light licked the domed walls and ceiling, revealing an immense, incredibly detailed mural covering every surface. He didn't notice that his knees weren't protesting the hard stone, cushioned as they were by several layers of woven reed mat. His eyes raced around the beautiful, flowing scenes which traversed the inside of the igloo-like structure.

Rugged, snow covered peaks, rich woodlands full of wildlife and game. A stream which wound around this section of the room on a journey of transformation. Trickle to rush to torrent to majestic foothill meandering. It ended as a great river surrounded by lush farmland, flowing gently into a white-capped turquoise sea. That wasn't even close to half of it. It was all so masterfully created and lifelike. He shuffled trancelike to the sloping wall, reaching to touch the velveted antler of a proud buck. The goblins had worked their magic with stone there too, the scene was really a painted, shallow sculpture.

Stephan stepped quietly to the side of the entrance, still a little hunched over near the sloping walls. He found the little button disguised as the gleaming, dark eye of a raccoon gorging himself on berries.

At the peak of the dome, a field of stars and the crescent moon twinkled into existence, shedding soft light across the scene. Tiny light globes, inlaid into the rock itself.

Chris turned and looked back, seeing that in the mural, they had entered through a yawning cave mouth. On the other side of the entrance to the plump raccoon, a small village of huts prospered. Little green-grey figures went about their business, mothers chasing children, men with picks over their shoulders looking like they were headed toward the cave for a day's work.

Tears rose unbidden in his eyes as the rest of the peculiar room finally drew his attention. An open fireplace was skillfully set in the wall to look like a campfire in an icy tundra scene. Two little wooden cubby holes disguised as log-ends could house a few necessities. The huge, rounded futon-style mattress in the centre of the space underneath the twinkling night sky, spoke to him of comfortable, lazy days spent resting. There was even a huge mound of fluffy bedding piled up against the far wall. The strange little room radiated safety and tranquillity to his dragon. Finally, he understood its purpose, a stunning nesting chamber for his two pregnant mates.

"Beautiful, isn't it," Stephan affirmed. "I couldn't believe my eyes when they showed me. Apparently one of their wives was bragging to someone back home in Europe about her husband who worked for 'that dragon' and how he brought home filled crystals every night. Word got to their queen somehow and she got a hold of the trio and ordered them to make you a gift befitting a dragon."

"It's..."

"I know what you mean. Goblin magic, their artwork and engineering surpass even the dwarves in some instances. They've even thought to put a hidden compartment in the floor under the bed, for your hoard apparently."

"They've thought of everything!" Chris laughed, wiping a little moisture from his eyes.

"Indeed they have. The other raccoon's eye turns the sun on for a bit more light and the fireplace piggybacks into the exhaust system. We've done a tricky bit of enchanting, so it shouldn't get sooty. You're used to hauling heavy things down here, so wood shouldn't be a problem if you want to light it," the older man smiled proudly. "Oh, and they sent back to the homeland for that mithril lace with specific instructions. It will try to strangle anyone who forces entry or has dishonourable intentions apparently. Wouldn't want to test it personally, wickedly strong stuff."

"This is fantastic," Chris shook his head in wonder. "Where are the beautiful little bastards? I'm not sure if I should keep it a surprise or run screaming to Petra and Claire right now."

"Up to you. Personally, I would go for the surprise reveal, let them experience the same wonder you just did. The boys are probably waiting outside to see what you think of it."

Chris swept his eyes around the room a final time before ducking back into low corridor. Sure enough, the three goblin brothers were waiting but what disturbed Chris was that they'd all taken a knee and bowed their heads in obvious reverence.

"Our Queen, Glea, sends her best wishes to you and your mates," Yurt spoke in his strong accent. Most surprising was that a whole sentence from the mohawked little man didn't contain a single curse word.

"Come here you little punks!" Chris held his arms wide and charged, sweeping them into a hug as they scrambled up to get away. He squeezed them into a wriggling, yelping ball of goblin until the curses started flowing again. "Thank you so much. I don't know what I can do to repay your kindness."

"Oi! Fuck'n' letting us down would be a start ya oversized skink," Belthelas wheezed.

"E's broken me damn ribs, he has," Gruff chorused.

"I mean it guys, it's perfect," Chris relented, releasing the goblins but ruffling Yurt's spiky hair affectionately. "If there's ever something I can do for you in return, I'll do my best to help. Also, please thank your queen for my mates and I."

"Yeah, well, every dragon needs a good grotto," Belthelas scuffed the floor with his boot and continued. "Figured you was too much a berk to know that so we'd fix it ourselves, seeing as ya been letting us nick off home with them crystals."

"Well, thank you. It's amazing craftsmanship."

"S'only magic."

"Well, it means a lot to me," Chris looked back at the carved entrance, conveying so much more meaning now that he knew the interior and its purpose. "Why don't you show me the rest of what you've been up, then I'll have to organize some sort of bonus for you miscreants."

"Right you are, Chief," they chorused back at him.

***

The dragon and his brood went out for dinner and drinks that evening to celebrate his recovery. His mates looked stunning, dressed and made up for a night of fun. Chris whispered his appreciation to each of them throughout the night when he got a chance.

Michelle was there, orbiting the edge of their little solar system as always. Kat and Pamela lurked a little further out, eyes open for trouble. Michelle had a sternness to the set of her face which told him she was worrying about something work related. He wondered if it had something to do with the private conversation she'd hinted at but so far avoided. He resolved to ask her tomorrow and went back to watching approvingly as Hailey was gradually integrated into their group.

They were back at The Cauldron, it was a quiet weeknight and Rufus had given them his booth again. The vampire made an embarrassing show of proclaiming them the saviours of the entire establishment to the hushed onlookers. Afterwards, some of the patrons came and introduced themselves, thanking all of them for acting so bravely during the crisis. Chris felt like a fake, accepting praise for something he thought was at least partially his own fault.

The music this evening was much more relaxed, featuring a lot of slower classics from the sixties and seventies. The dancefloor beckoned and Claire invited him to join her. Neither of them really knew how you were supposed to move to such music so they ended up simply swaying in a close embrace for a few songs. As he returned his mate to their group, Reyla made a surprise entry.

It was clear who in the room was a Being as heads turned and nodded subdued acknowledgement to the stunning, dark skinned woman who glided through them. She made it look effortless, so poised, haughty, and graceful. She wore an almost skin-tight grey gown with practiced ease, long legs peeking from deep slits as she floated in on tall white heels.

Chris hadn't seen her human guise before. Her skin was slightly browner, eyes less slanted and cheekbones less pronounced. Her long, sensitive ears were shrunk down to size and her figure was fuller. She still had that slightly alien grace about her and her white hair and grey eyes were striking and unnervingly, the same shade as her dress and shoes. Perhaps she could pass as a human, but she would never look normal.

She made a beeline toward their party, two bodyguards of her own tagging along behind.

"Good evening, Lady Narlakis," Chris smiled at her politely.

"Yes, I'm sure it is," the elf swept her eyes over his slightly nervous brood as they stood to greet her, wondering how on earth or below, one male could... Even for a dragon it was getting excessive. Of course, it all made sense now, but her theory still shocked her to the core. "Please Chris, call me Reyla. Could I trouble you for a dance?"

Chris didn't know what to say, eyeing the beautiful elf suspiciously. His eyes were automatically drawn to her narrow waist and rounded hips. He wanted to say yes, but knew she was up to something.

"Of course, you can," Susan saved her son from appearing rude, appearing at his side and nudging him forward.

"Sorry," Chris offered Reyla his hand and led her apprehensively toward the few other couples who were up and dancing. "I was just a little surprised to see you. Do you ah... come here often?"

"Every now and then," she replied vaguely.

There was an awkward pause when they finally faced each other. Chris felt his hands hovering, unsure where on her body to place them. Over the elf's shoulder, he could see Lillian laughing with Rufus about his discomfort. Reyla seemed to have no such hesitation, reaching up to wrap her arms around his neck, pulling their bodies close. His hands fell to her shapely hips as she boldly twined her fingers into his blond hair and began a gentle swaying of her lithe body.

Chris relaxed, letting himself listen and move to the music with her. Her piercing grey eyes never left him, spearing deep into his soul. She was mumbling something under her breath, her lips moving ever so slightly. Too late, he felt the magic she'd been gathering so stealthily snap out and grip them both in an iron-hard blackness.

"Tell me you know!" her voice echoed strangely in the darkness, all sounds of the club, of music absent. She tasted hot, like a runaway temper with a glowing interior of fear and uncertainty.

"What? Reyla what's going on?" He tried letting go of her, but his body was unresponsive, still moving gently to a rhythm he could no longer hear. He could sense her blocking him somehow, engaging him mind-to-mind in a way that left him nigh powerless against her. His body moved to the tug of her will, but his awareness was trapped and isolated, alone in a dark, silent place. It made him want to scream in anger.

"Tell me it's all been some prank. Please, dragon, tell me you know something. You have a plan?"

"I... Let me go! I don't know what you're talking about. This is wrong, get out of my head!"

"I can't, it's too important. Show me the memories of your encounter with that strange presence."

Chris felt his mind move to follow her command, traveling back to that afternoon nap that had added another mystery to his life. His anger rose. She was inside him. He struggled mightily, battering blindly at the darkness surrounding him and roaring his impotent rage.

"Don't struggle, it will only delay what must be done," she spoke. "I do not relish this task, but I must experience what you felt, and we must do it quietly. I have felt the whisperings of the Eye of Ivinos passing over my city for days now. House Lefayd is watching us. I must know if my hunch is correct."

"House Lefayd?" The name sounded familiar somehow, in a bad way.

"Yes, the same house implicated in your parent's deaths. Now, shut up and show me those memories. I am not trying to harm you but it's important! If the Eye is here, this is the only way I can guarantee our privacy."

"If I do, will you explain yourself and let me go?" he asked angrily.

"Yes."

"Fine, but I am furious you would do this to me, Reyla. I could take you any number of places in the blink of an eye for a private conversation, but you decide to use this dark magic on me for what, convenience?"

"For safety," she hissed in his head. "You know nothing of the dangers you face or how I have sacrificed to shield you, you ungrateful little whelp. My own sister calls me a dragon-collared bitch behind my back and my standing amongst my fellow rulers is nigh ruined by your undermining, intentional or not!"

That shut him up. How much of it was true, he didn't know, but Reyla had done right by him so far. Perhaps he should trust her now, if she thought it was so vital. He allowed the memories to come to him and relaxed, focusing on reliving them rather than fighting her influence.

He remembered the presence's probing touches as he first slipped into the Ether. He'd been exhausted that day after multiple feats of magic. It had felt so good to slip into the refreshing stream of Ether, become surrounded and supported, nourished. Then it had come, softly at first, just a shiver up his spine. He hadn't known anything was truly wrong until that mighty thing grasped him, encircled him, and read him like a book. It was nothing like what Reyla did to him now, this was a twisted sharing of thoughts. That had been an exposition of everything he was, down to the atomic level, a knowing that left his sense of self tattered and strewn about like the toys in a toddler's room.

It was horrible to re-live, even in memory. To feel so helpless and insignificant in the face of such power, to know your life, your dreams meant nothing to a creature such as that.

Reyla recoiled, panting hard, sweat beading on her brow and upper lip. A shiver of dread ran up her spine as she recovered, it was a wonder the young dragon's mind hadn't melted into a gibbering mess. She released her spell and watched him slowly regain his awareness and control of his body. He stiffened, eyes narrowing. His handsome lips began to pull apart, about to protest.

"Stay silent," she warned in his head, still connected by her fingers twined against his scalp and his hands on her hips. "It is as I feared, you've been touched by one of the Old Gods, a Devine or one of their masters, a benevolent one I dearly hope. Worse, you cannot tell me why they are toying with us once again."

"The Old... What?" he thought back tersely.

"I will explain, just keep up the pretence of dancing," she thought, running her hands gently through his hair and smiling warmly up at him. "To think, I hold one such as you in my arms right now. I don't know if I should be terrified or jubilant. Terrified, I think."

"Reyla, explain. Please!" he begged.

"I have been puzzling your remarkably strong magic and unusual powers for some time now, Chris. At first I was jaded, thinking your abilities an oddity, a balancing of the universe. If dragons were so rare, it seemed right that a powerful new male might emerge and begin to set the scales straight. Then you apparently stumbled into a nest of treachery by accident and we were forced to concede this Revelation. Too much coincidence!"

"Yes, but what does that have to do with some ancient gods? Why have I heard so little of them before?"

"I'm getting to that. You grew beyond a simple dragon with your full transformation, though I didn't see it then. Still, my feeling of unease only increased. It was then, I think, that my white elf cousins began taking a true interest in you. I began researching your abilities quietly, especially your seemingly undrainable well of magic. Did you know that there was an unexplained magical spike recorded around the approximate time of your conception? There are also obscure references to individuals who might have shared your powers throughout the ages but nothing concrete, at least that I have access to. When the agents of House Lefayd began showing up in my territory I knew I was onto something with my subtle investigation. I've even begun receiving all sorts of invitations to share knowledge about your unusual circumstances. Nothing more came of it and things were beginning to settle down these last months. I admit, I got distracted trying to keep my territory from falling apart. Then you knocked up my vampire."

"She's not yours," Chris growled back.

"Yes, yes, keep her," Reyla brushed his protest aside. "This afternoon I was sitting in my library, thinking over your account of the memories you just gave me when the answer came to me. That presence could have been a Devine. Our legends say that long ago, this planet was a battleground, fought over as part of some endless war against dark forces. They began modifying the existing inhabitants with magic, importing new ones from other worlds to fight."

"I've heard a little of the story, Lillian tried to scare Annabel with it once. What are they though? Are they truly gods?"

"No one knows. There are no accounts of ever seeing one of those old gods and no one from that time is still living. Still, their powers were so incomprehensible to us that we worshiped them, chose sides and fought for them. When you said your entity had seemed so powerful that you were almost nothing to it, a fly or an irksome gnat, it clicked. So, I decided I had to relive the experience through your eyes to make sure. Your description did not do it justice. I know of no Being on this earth who could have done that to you, not I or anyone else. Therefore, I fear something has stirred those incredibly powerful entities to take interest in our world again, in you."

"This doesn't make any sense. I'll admit that whatever it was that invaded my mind may as well have been a god but what are they?" Chris asked silently but paused, a frown creasing his brow. "Oh no, it did show me images of my conception, some sort of ritual... it didn't make much sense at the time."

"You see!" Reyla's excited thoughts spilled into him. "It's exactly as I pieced it together. The problem is that nobody truly knows anything about them, if they ever did. They came to us and war followed them across the void. We called their enemy demons, but that word has been so bastardised by human culture that we cannot trust the description. We do know that after years of bloodshed, our side, led by the elves, constructed a huge barrier to cut off the world from the rifts that allowed the warring gods to travel as they pleased. We were left here to live with the primitive humans of the time and the abandoned servants of the dark gods. Thousands of years later, we are the languishing remnants."

"That's it?!"

"I have done well to make that connection," her haughty tone came through clearly enough in mind to mind contact. "I think it is our best explanation to your vast power and ability to breed with a vampire. You must have a seed of their creative magic inside you... and you've been planting it in any fertile soil you can find."

"That's crazy, there has to be more information. You can't just drop that on me and leave it at that!"

"So little lore survived from those early years, almost forgotten legend is all I have to go on. I'm sorry, dragon. I don't think Lefayd has made the same connection to you yet, but we need to prepare for when they do. They are already moving to insert their influence into your life. Now that you have made a child with Lillian, there is little I can do to stop them. It's too much of an oddity to block them from investigating a vampire pregnancy. If they suspect the source of your power as I do, they would stop at nothing to have you for their own. I laugh to think how they must regret agreeing to sign you over to work with the humans. It must have seemed like such a humiliating punishment at the time but now it prevents them from manipulating the Synod to give you over to them."