Chapter Five
“I cannot believe Maurene and Virgil would create havoc. They are sensible and old. I trusted them. This has to be a mistake.”
Alliah stalked away from Rocky and Leo, into a space large enough that she could convert into her dragon form. The harsh sunshine on her scars stung, but she hadn’t been willing to be judged by a feather in order to be healed by Rocky’s ka amulet. Would Leo have agreed to it had he been conscious? Would he have doubted his inner worthiness, however a feather might judge it?
But he had passed the test and was whole again. Meanwhile, with her partly healed burns and the shift she was about to do, she would need to eat five dinners to make up for the energy loss. Fortuitously, the food in this town was extraordinary.
“Should I meet you there?” Rocky asked through the dust that rose as she transformed. She loved the sensation of expanding to her true size, not a diminutive, delicate, two-legged biped. Her tail sprouted and lengthened; her entire being swelled with power and magic. The strength of her limbs delighted her, as did the sharpness of her claws and the vast span of her wings. She felt at home in her dragon body, where she could express the ferocity that so often raged in her soul.
She did love to strike out with a sword, with human arms, and occasionally to do other human things. Such as sex. One did not have sex in dragon form. But even more than sex, she loved to be larger and more dangerous than anything else in Tarakona.
Was a red dragon from Tarakona the largest and most dangerous entity on Earth? It didn’t matter. She was large and dangerous enough to knock sense into her comrades from Torren’s stable—and to prevent the denizens of Magic from punishing them.
Once the dust settled, she peered down at Rocky from a great height. He had to shade his eyes to see her, so she swooped her long neck until her head was on a level with his.
Very carefully, mindful of his tiny eardrums, she said, “You may ride at the base of my neck, friend of dragons. Climb up my wing. Otherwise you will be late.” She turned to Leo, hoping he didn’t remember the last time they’d flown together, only to see that he, too, had adopted his dragon form.
Crystal dragons were the smallest of all dragons, no bigger than a cat. Sunlight glimmered in prismatic rays off his iridescent scales, and he circled through the air with wings almost as fast as a hummingbird. It was as if a rainbow had come to life, and the faster he flew, the harder it was to see him. But as pleased as he seemed to be to exercise his dragon form in the caressing, hot sun of Earth, he would never be able to keep up with her.
“Ride with Rocky,” she instructed him. Not all dragons could utter words in their natural state if they hadn’t had much practice. She doubted many of Leo’s wizards would have allowed him to don his wings, where he could flit away and resist them from the top of a tree.
His ability to resist was…fascinating. She would have to probe him on the details at some later date. And perhaps about other things.
But for now, they had six Tarakonan dragons to scold.
Lucky for them, neither of the men questioned Alliah’s orders. Rocky clambered up her wing, and she could barely feel his weight settle on the armor of her neck. Leo perched obediently in front of him. She pivoted her head to give further instructions. “Hold very tightly to my spine. It will not hurt me. If you slip off, I will—”
“I’ve ridden a dragon before,” Rocky said. “We’ll be all right. Tally ho!”
With a dragonish shrug that caused Rocky to bounce almost off her neck, Alliah launched herself into the air. If he slipped, she would catch him on a wing, perhaps with a claw. His amulet would heal the cuts. She’d practiced it with humans hired by Torren. She could prevent her rider’s death—if she chose to.
She would choose to prevent the death of both of her riders, though Leo would not be inconvenienced if he fell. He’d just fall sadly behind.
She whipped through the sky, enjoying the way that the hot sun transformed into a chill rush of wind. In less than a minute she arrived at the center of Magic and descended with a warning bugle to any who might block her landing.
The town center had a sizeable space without too many impediments, almost as if dragons, or something large, landed here often. She settled into it. That was when she noticed the bustling yet peaceful hamlet was a complete madhouse.
The talkative statue near the library was splashed with pink paint and fabric and was very unhappy about it. Cars had crashed into lampposts, and people ran screaming down the street, all in one direction. Dogs barked. Sirens wailed. Bursts of colored light radiated from an area beyond a tall building two blocks over. Alliah craned her head to her full height, but she couldn’t see what was causing it.
“Oh my stars, another one!” A woman pointed at Alliah and cursed. “Where in tarnation are all these dragons coming from?”
“Where’s Topper?” yelled a man. “She could put a stop to this. We’re going to have to change the town rules at this rate.”
“Still in the Himalayas. Get to safety. I’ll handle this.” A tall man in a wide-brimmed hat marched along the street toward the town square, a furious expression on his face. A six pointed star rested on his chest—a badge of some sort.
“That’s Sheriff Theo,” Rocky said, loudly enough for Alliah to hear. “I’d best go see what laws our friends have broken.”
Above them, bugling and hooting, one of the orange dragons from Torren’s stable, a fellow called Ged, careened past. He held fat sticks that were blasting spangles of exploding sulfuric fire into the Heavens. His course wavered and looped, and suddenly he was flying upside down.
This would not end well for him.
“GED!” Alliah shouted, too loudly. Windows broke, glass crashing. A giant explosion discharged from Ged’s mysterious weapon, creating a plume of red and blue sparks that threatened to shower down on them like hellfire. Rocky slid along her wing to dismount. She tried to hold steady. Every ounce of her longed to jump into the air and…do something…about the dragon overhead before he…
Ged spiraled toward the ground at a frightening rate, hooting all the way. He crashed somewhere on the other side of town. A minor earthquake rumbled across the land.
A crack appeared in the pavement close enough to the library statue that he shrieked with indignation.
The sheriff swiped his hat off his head, rubbed his face, and jammed the hat back into place. He pointed at Alliah’s head, his finger so accusing that she found herself rearing back. Leo buzzed in front of her as if he could protect her from whatever missiles the sheriff could shoot out of his index finger.
“You. Red.” Nothing shot from the man’s finger, just rage from his eyes. “Did you bring these hooligans here? Are you responsible for this?”
Rocky approached the enraged sheriff with the hand of friendship Alliah had learned was the traditional Earth greeting. But the sheriff didn’t take it. He was too busy fondling the hilt of the weapon strapped to his hips and giving her the evil eye. “My dear sheriff, Alliah has recently rescued her companions from servitude in…”
“I don’t care where those hooligans were before. They’re in my town now, AND THEY WILL BEHAVE!” The sheriff, Theo’s, voice intensified to a booming volume Alliah recognized. He was the dragon Katia had mentioned, and he was about to shift.
“WAIT!” she said, booming even louder. “I AM RESPONSIBLE FOR THEM. I WILL HANDLE THEM.”
She’d lost the thrall crystal so she could chase her dreams and allow her friends—to allow all dragons—to do the same. But who dreamed of despoiling a quiet desert town full of people and creatures who only wanted to live in safety?
“When the town council voted that a limited number of dragons from Tarakona could seek sanctuary here, this was not part of the deal.” Sheriff Theo, still human, crossed his arms. His hand ceased to hover over his weapon. That was reassuring. Not that some Earth weapon could injure her armored hide, but in this town it could be enchanted.
And Leo wasn’t protected by armor like she was, so he could be harmed. As could Rocky.
As could Maurene and Virgil.
Right now she hoped Ged was harmed a great deal, and she wasn’t sure what to think about Celine, Yusef, and Danni. Dragon bodies could withstand substantial damage, but the town itself was a different story.
Alliah dipped her head in acknowledgement. “WE WILL REPAY YOU FOR THE DAMAGE,” she swore, hoping that the buttons on that hideous purple cloak of Torren’s were worth a lot in this world. What else had Maurene raided from the office?
“I know witches who can repair… No, you’re right. You’ll repay us,” Theo said. “The town council is convening to discuss what to do about your friends. You’d better hurry.”
“You could repay me another way,” the statue suggested coquettishly.
“Shut it.” Theo directed his attention to the copper figure. “You’ve got twenty more years. Hold your horses, buddy.”
Rocky returned to Alliah, staring up at her head. “Unfortunately I’m on the town council, and must attend the meeting. I’ll speak on your behalf, but it’s up to you and Leo to soothe the savage beasts.”
She’d soothe them, all right. Alliah shot straight up, barely disturbing the flowers in containers around the town square. Leo buzzed into the sky after her, the sound of his wings strangely reassuring. In seconds she located the source of the pink and purple clouds, a half-destroyed warehouse in which several dragons rolled and cavorted amidst more of the weapons Ged had carried.
She dodged a sparkling explosion that changed colors like a will o’ wisp and landed deftly in the deserted street. At least the warehouse wasn’t connected to other buildings like the ones on Main Street. A decent amount of space cushioned it from the nearest business, a dingy looking place called The Stumble In.
“WHAT ARE YOU FOOLS DOING?” Alliah demanded at top volume. Leo, who arrived on her heels, nearly tumbled ass over wings at her vehemence. He alighted on the ground and began transforming into his human body, presumably so he could communicate.
“ALLI!” Maurene, a brown dragon of decent size if somewhat wizened, clutched the barrels of two weapons in either hand. Dragon claws were dexterous thanks to opposable thumbs. “DUCK!”
Virgil, cackling, applied a tiny fire to one of the barrels, and they began to smoke. Alliah didn’t like the ominous hissing, but she wasn’t about to “duck.” She was a red dragon. A warrior. Nothing in that barrel could hurt her.
“STOP THIS AT ONCE!” she ordered. Being a free dragon did not mean one was free to destroy property.
“WE CAN GO WHERE WE WANT! NOBODY CAN TELL US WHAT TO DO!” The other orange dragon, Celine, grinned at her. She appeared to be missing several teeth. A wheelbarrow full of crumbled brown cake perched at her feet. Yusef and Danni were nowhere in sight.
While Alliah was squinting at Celine’s face, Maurene’s weapons blossomed—it was the only way to describe it. Projectiles of colorful fire shot toward Alliah and splashed against her hide, exploding into huge spheres of bright flowers.
Alliah, startled, vaulted into the air, knocking over a perfectly innocent tree.
“Ten points!” Virgil shouted. As a gold dragon, his voice didn’t have the ponderousness of his larger kin. He was the size of a pony, but the resemblance ended there—especially considering he was bouncing all over the roofless warehouse, firing up different tubes and boxes.
A drooping sign over the human-sized entrance to the warehouse read “Sparky’s Fireworks.”
Virgil’s antics coalesced into a mass detonation of munitions as twenty or thirty of these “fireworks” erupted. Some shot into the air, screaming and whistling, while some fountained white-hot fire and sparks.
“MORE TIPPLE!” Maurene declared, charging out of the warehouse amidst the rampage of colors and fire. She stampeded the Stumble In, bashed against the wall, and was knocked onto her tail. The wall of the Stumble In cracked, and patrons came charging out of the front door. Well, a couple patrons emerged, all elderly, one wielding a cane like a sword.
“We told you lizards you weren’t welcome here anymore!” he shouted. “Don’t make me use this.”
“Would you look at the size of that one,” an old woman said, pointing at Alliah. “They’ll tear the place down for sure. Where’s Theo? I thought you called him.”
Shaking her frilled, scaly head, Maurene backed away from the building. A quivering aura surrounded her as if she were trying to shift. It didn’t work. She collapsed in a dizzy heap, blocking the road. A vehicle swerved toward them from the closest intersection and skidded to a halt, tires squealing.
Alliah hovered with some difficulty above the scene, unwilling to land when so many bipeds were running around in a space that wasn’t big enough for them plus dragons.
“CITIZENS, I AM HERE TO COLLECT MY COMRADES. DO NOT BE ALARMED,” she boomed at the Stumble In patrons.
Small, stocky bipeds about knee-high to a human poured out of the doors of the vehicle as if there were a never-ending supply inside.
“There they are!” one said. “You were supposed to watch them.”
“No, you were supposed to watch them.”
“Gomer was supposed to watch them.” Three of the bipeds who were stacked atop each other slid out of what Alliah surmised was the driver’s seat of the horseless carriage.
The top guy jumped down. “Gomer’s with Petey and Sal in the other dimension scaring away wizards.”
These were the gnomes—the guards Rocky had employed? No wonder he didn’t think of them as warriors. Leery of their feces conjuring abilities, she pivoted in the air, facing them. “FRIENDS OF ROCKY, I AM ALLIAH RED. I HAVE RETURNED FROM TARAKONA WITH—”
“With a bunch of delinquents!” yelled a Stumble In patron. “So this is your fault?”
“NO, I JUST GOT HERE,” Alliah protested. Most of the humans winced at her volume, but the gnomes stared up at her belligerently. One of them bore a suspicious magical glow around his raised fist.
“Earth dragons don’t act like savages. You’d best be off before we hurt you,” the patron responded.
Would she be better off in bipedal form or should she remain in a form that would allow her to…escape? Alliah could fight. She could manage a group of soldiers. She could organize forces to defend a portal. She could tackle an emergency with aplomb, assessing the best use for her underlings quickly and efficiently.
But herding daft dragons and soothing outraged humans and gnomes might be outside her scope of abilities.
Leo, beneath her, finished his change to human form. Though dressed in nothing but grey pants and wearing his hair and beard like untrimmed shrubbery, he ambled toward the humans with a friendly nod and a wave of his huge hand. “Hey.”
His crystal tracery, Alliah noticed, wasn’t visible, though in a hectic situation, dragons generally projected their colors whether they wanted to or not. His control was remarkable.
“Who are you?” the man with the cane demanded.
“I don’t remember that one,” one of the gnomes said. They trotted over to cluster around Leo along with the Stumble In patrons. More cars pulled up at the littered curb, humanoids exiting and closing on the scene, while others emerged from nearby shops at the lull in the fireworks and screaming.
“I’m Leo. Alliah brought me to your world this morning.”
“Yesterday,” Alliah corrected, managing to quiet her voice enough that it approached regular levels. Virgil trotted over, stretching his neck to see what was going on over the backs of the crowd.
“You need a haircut, boy,” an old woman said.
Leo nodded, rubbing his fingers into his beard. “I’ve been imprisoned almost my whole life, madam. Alliah risked her life to free me and the others.”
“Still doesn’t mean you can come wreck our town,” the woman responded. “Do you know what we’ll have to pay Ogre Construction to fix that crack in the wall?”
“I am sure some compensation can be arranged.” Leo’s strong voice projected a combination of self-assurance and understanding, a far cry from the snarly, horny, cantankerous beast she’d met in the dungeon. What was going on? “May I ask how my companions came to be in this state? This is not like them.”
“Who are you callin’ a companion, Sparkles?” Virgil yelled, hopping up and down and trying to see. Dragons the size of ponies did not have the best vantage from the ground. “You were usually in that dungeon.”
Leo continued to, somehow, appease the crowd, explaining what life was like for dragons in Tarakona. How they were enslaved. Abused. Constrained and forced to obey the wizards. His deep, unhurried way of speaking was spellbinding and completely convincing. Not that Alliah needed more reason to hate wizards, but Leo’s tale stirred up her like a whirlpool. She wanted to land beside them and bugle out, “YEAH! WHAT HE SAID!” but that would not be her wisest action now that Leo had redirected the crowd’s hostility toward the true villains—the culture of Tarakona and its wizards.
Awwwws and sympathetic murmurs on the dragons’ behalf replaced the resentment over the destruction of property inflicted by Maurene, Virgil, Celine, and Ged—and where were Danni and Yusef, anyway?
Shaking herself out of a Leo-induced hypnosis, Alliah took advantage of the lull to change to her bipedal form. Maurene slumped tiredly in a winged-splayed heap, and Virgil wove around the circumference of the crowd trying to see into the middle. Gold dragons could fly, but primarily at high speeds. They were not fantastic at staying in one place.
Red dragons weren’t fantastic at it, either. As Alliah shifted, the strain of hovering above the small people made itself known in her shoulders and back muscles. Injuries and sprains did not disappear just because one’s body switched. They merely translated themselves to appropriate areas.
The burns were also worse in human form. The desert sun on her arm again heightened the pain as if she were being re-burned. Alliah hastened into the shade of the crowd, slipping between people to the center. The gnomes were shorter than she was, but most of the bipeds were taller. She had no idea if they were humans and wasn’t familiar enough with the scents of this place to differentiate them yet.
Nobody paid her much attention when she ducked under the arm of tall green person to reach Leo’s side. The grey-haired man with the cane, apparently the owner of the Stumble In, was describing how the Tarakonans had entered his establishment and drunk themselves silly, poor things, while the elderly woman clung to Leo’s bare arm like he was her favorite grandson.
Well, the drinking did explain her companions’ behavior. Dragons were not allowed to imbibe alcohol in Tarakona. It spoiled their magic for the duration of the intoxicant’s presence in their veins. Maurene, Virgil, and the others would be woozy, bleary, and stuck in a single form until they sobered up.
The question was, had her friends deliberately sought the alcohol, despite knowing its effect on them, or had they been tricked?
“Whose idea was it that the dragons consume spirits?” Alliah hugged her burned arm close to keep it from brushing anyone in the crowd. “This was ill done of you.”
The bar’s owner turned toward her and hammered his cane on the ground. “What else would they come to my bar for, missy?”
“Socializing? Food?” she suggested with an arched eyebrow. “An illustration on your front window depicts some sort of meat dish.”
Maurene and Virgil wouldn’t have voluntarily contaminated themselves. The brown dragon was snoring vigorously, pressed up against the cracked pale stone wall of the bar, and Virgil was still galloping around the outskirts of the crowd like a carousel horse. She could hear him carping drunkenly. The fireworks had sputtered out aside from the occasional pop and whistle, and the sheriff, Theo, had not appeared to arrest anyone.
“Everyone knows our food is shit,” the bar owner said without any evidence of ego. “You want food, you go to the Kokopelli or Darla’s Place or the Hungry Hippogryph. Hell, I let m’ friends bring their own food. You don’t eat at the Stumble In.”
“My friends would not have known this,” Alliah said, watching the man for signs of guilt. She should have been more attentive to the needs of her dragon family once they arrived on Earth, and now they’d gotten in trouble. “Did you force drinks upon them in order to procure their gold?”
“Nobody forced nothing until we forced ‘em to leave,” the owner responded. “And they owe me over a hundred bucks.”
“More tipple,” Maurene moaned. Then she vomited copiously onto the broken sidewalk.
What goodwill Leo had built up with the crowd began to dissipate. Arms were crossed. Glaring commenced. Alliah dropped a hand to the hilt of her sword as her protective instincts rose like waves splashing on a cliff. She was not Katia, pining to rush headlong into danger, but she did shield those she considered her own.
“As you can see,” she declared, “your alcoholic beverages are not healthy for Tarakonan dragons. I cannot help but wonder if this was intentional.”
Leo slipped an arm around her shoulders, and she stiffened. Dragons touching dragons was common, acceptable, in Tarakona, as they bolstered one another, but that didn’t mean she wanted Leo to tower over her in such a large and patronizing way. As he caressed her bare skin, his long fingers carefully avoided her burn scars with surprising consideration. “What my savior is trying to say is that she’s worried about our friends and would appreciate your help caring for them as they adjust to freedom. It may not be as easy for them as it has been for people who grew up protected by this town and their neighbors.”
Alliah dug her elbow into his ribcage enough for him to feel it. “That is not what I—”
Leo, shocking her into silence, pulled her into his strong arms and muffled her mouth against his chest. “It’s all right, Alliah. We’re safe here. You don’t have to take care of everything by yourself anymore.”
He stroked down her hair like he had permission to do it. “She was our protector,” he bragged. “Always diverting the wizard’s anger away from us, distracting him. She made sure none of the others were seriously hurt, she and Katia.”
How had he known that? Or was he folderolling the crowd to defuse matters?
While she pondered it, Leo whispered into her hair. “Let me do the talking. You can rake me over the coals later.”
Though pressed against Leo’s sweet-smelling skin, Alliah’s forehead crumpled into a frown and her lips pursed as she swallowed a response. The few times she’d let her disapproval show in front of Torren, he’d…not been pleased.
She hadn’t been able to express herself then. It seemed that hadn’t changed. She must muffle her feelings, now as before. She must placate and bow her head in a sweet pretense of amiability.
Freedom had its costs. And it cost her deeply to back down. To agree with Leo. To let him take charge. She didn’t even know this man, and she was placing their future in his hands.
“Fine,” she growled. She thrust herself away from him and shook her long black hair out of her face. With practiced yet unwilling ease, she smoothed her features into blankness.
“What would you like to say to everyone?” Leo asked. The old woman clinging to his free arm stared up at his beard and hair instead of at Alliah, which seemed like an odd thing for her to stare at. Granted, his hair growth was enormous, concealing who knew what kind of face.
She found herself wondering, like his elderly companion, apparently, what lay beneath the dark brown ropes and strands. And now she understood the woman’s fascination.
“Alliah?” Leo prompted. His beard was so thick it barely even wiggled when his jaw moved with speech.
“Alli!” Virgil yelled from the outskirts of the crowd. The pop of a final firecracker from the warehouse punctuated his screech. “Alli, have you seen Yusef and Danni? They were supposed to meet us back here.”
Good Mother Dragon, there was no telling.
“Yes, I am worried about my companions,” she announced to the crowd, giving in. “I accused you rudely. My apologies. Your dollars will be compensated, as will the damage to your establishment. Somehow.” And for whatever Yusef and Danni were destroying. Would it be crops, houses? Surely they wouldn’t dine on the livestock without permission. What if the livestock was some sort of magical sentient creature?
“That’s right, ya will,” the bar owner said smartly. He tapped his cane against the ground, and thunder rumbled through the sky. Suddenly the wall of the bar healed itself, dust puffing out of the disappearing crack. “I’ll bill you at Aiden Silver’s place.”
“Let’s go get you a haircut, kiddo,” the old woman on Leo’s other side announced. “I’m taking you to the Curl Up and Dye.”
The crowd, with the fireworks quiet, the dragons sedated, and the crack in the wall repaired, began to dissipate. Leo cast a last glance over his shoulder at Alliah as his new friend led him down the sidewalk, his widened eyes entreating her to come with him.
She did not do it. She waited until everyone was gone, transformed back into a dragon, and airlifted the ailing Maurene to the house where they were supposed to stay put, led with drunken swoops and gurgles through the air by Virgil and Celine. She fetched Ged next, who was unconscious next to a seeping water tower—add that to her bill—but it turned out there was no need to search for Yusef and Danni.
Once they were all at Aiden Silver’s abode, Danni strode out from behind the a large shed with her hair almost as tousled as Leo’s and a starry-eyed Yusef trailing behind her. From the disarray of their Earth clothing, it was obvious how they had opted to spend the afternoon, though that was a much better choice than drinking themselves into destroying public property.
She had no idea how the gold buttons on the purple cloak would translate to Earth dollars and no idea what types of services they could offer as dragons who’d spent their lives in captivity. Would she have time to work off the debt if she was also guarding the portal to Tarakona? How did one earn a living when one’s life quest provided no salary?
What good was freedom if you were trapped by other things?
“If I played my cards right today,” Danni announced to everyone with a cat-like grin, “I won’t be changing into a dragon or giving any awful wizards my magic for about nine months.”
“Why’s that?” Virgil asked in a crotchety voice. He wasn’t so drunk that he was unconscious or sick like Maurene and Ged, but he was too contaminated to switch back to human form.
“Because I’m pregnant,” Danni said. “We’re going to be parents.”
Alliah sank her head into her hands, much as she’d seen Sheriff Theo do when Ged had caused a minor earthquake, and groaned.