The Last Dragon Lord

VI

VI

Frog ripped off his lapel microphone and walked out of his news studio. The studio was on the roof of the Frog Tower, his home in the middle of downtown. The sky over the roof had been magicked to look like a studio ceiling. Lights and cameras floated suspended in the air, shining down on him. A faint pink wall surrounded the studio, and every now and again he saw the city through the glowing membrane. But he preferred the simulated bog just outside the studio, a spell he’d learned from Lord Dark the First to recreate a natural space from a memory. It had still water, mud, and even lily pads and cat ‘o’nine tails just like the only real home he’d ever known. Even the sour, mushroomy perlite smell was the same. He positioned the bog in front of his desk in the studio so he could see it as he read his reports. It calmed him.

Around the studio, several people lay on the floor, rubbing their faces. They were covered in saliva. They had tried to stop him in the middle of his broadcast.

Again, for the second time in a week, he’d decided to muse about the past. About both Lords Dark and Lady Dark, and the way things used to be. The election had turned nastier and he saw it as his civic responsibility to shine a balancing light on the past since older dragons were too afraid to speak of it. Or they were cowards and wanted to forget it.

But he wouldn’t forget.

The moment he launched into his diatribe, the crew had tried to cut him off. But he wouldn’t be censored. He was too strong.

He had processed himself into Abstraction because he wanted to speak his mind. He owned an entire building. It had offices and shops and garden atriums. And magic. Lots and lots of magic. And thousands of people inside whose salaries he paid, and who, in their own strange way, paid tribute to him, something that was still new to him compared to the cows and sheep from his childhood, and rivers and rivers of blood.

He had influence. Not as much as other ancients, but enough. A few elves had taken pity on him and given him his own television channel, recognizing that his awkward personality came across as charming and lovable on television. He’d been successful as a newscaster, and he wasn’t going to appease his benefactors by not speaking his mind. A dragon had a right to free speech just like humans and elves, and if he had to prove it the hard way....

A crew member with large headphones picked himself off the ground.

“That was a whopping blow, Frog,” he said. “We were trying to save you from yourself.”

“I don’t need savin’,” Frog said. “I was put on this planet to speak my mind and prosper, and I’ve’ll do that, Edmond.”

Edmond wiped a glop of saliva off his cheek. Then he pointed to a woman in a business suit standing on the edge of the roof. She had graying hair and her face was heavily done with makeup. Her arms were folded and she waited for Frog with an air that told him that an argument was coming.

“Who gave you the authority to go off script?” Martina asked.

Frog croaked as he stepped in front of the woman. He towered over her and scowled.

“I ain’t under contract.”

“Your job is to forecast the weather,” she said. “The phones are going crazy. You’re generating news coverage you don’t need.”

“There’ve three candidates in this election we don’t need,” Frog said.

Martina was the CEO for the channel. Frog was in charge, but she ran the operations. They had never gotten along, and every waking day seemed to be some assault on his freedom, to which he would respond with threats to sit on her, or claw her eyes out, or destroy the whole damned building until it was a heap of rubble on Balm Street. God knows he could have done it with his size. So she stayed out of his way and he got what he wanted.

“You’re part of a syndicate,” Martina said. “What you do here has effects on our other networks, Frog.”

“Then my ripple must pond.”

“What?”

“It means ya don’t understand my simple bog ways,” Frog said. “And it means, as a manner of speaking, to shut the hell up.”

“You think you can just start talking about ancients and Old Dark without any consequences?” Martina asked.

“Yes. I’m a guardian in this dear city, and I’ve’ll do whatever I want.”

“You’re not a god!” Martina cried, sticking a finger in his face.

Frog chomped at her finger and she pulled it back. He didn’t intend to bite her, but it was convincing enough.

“If ya want an apology, write one up yourself and deliver it on the evenin’ news,” Frog said. “I ain’t apologizin’ and if ya think ya can make me you’ve’ll got a dragon brick what’s gonna be flyin’ at you from the other end of me. What I said was a thousand and seven percent true to how I was feelin’.”

“That’s your problem,” Martina said. Frog pushed past her, and she followed him, raising her voice. “You’re unlike any dragon I’ve ever met. I work with dragons all the time, and they have filters. They’re distinguished. They might be arrogant and they might be strong-headed, but they understand the unwritten rules of this society.”

“And what are those?” Frog asked. He stopped and closed his eyes.

“This is a new world,” Martina said. “And whether you like it or not, we’ve moved on from your silly little stories of the past.”

“So what I’m hearin’ is that I ought to just convert myself to an elven man and live in a deluded reality. I have dignity.”

“Oh?” Martina asked. “Speaking everything that crosses your mind is not dignity! It’s idiocy! And it’s making my life difficult!”

Frog whipped around and roared in her face.

“What’ve’er you know about a difficult life, you elven bastardette?”

Martina fell backward as Frog stomped toward her. Her hair was a tangled mess in front of her face and she put her hands up in surrender. Crew members gathered in front of her.

“Hey, Frog,” Edmond said, “Take five and calm down.”

With a webbed claw, Frog pushed the men aside, knocking them into the pond nearby. He put his face in front of Martina’s and growled.

“Try growin’ up a river dragon with a speech impediment. See your own flesh and blood murdered to peat in front of your eyes when you’ve’is just five hundred and two years old. See if you can handle it when you’re a laughingstock of the dragon race. Then you can talk to me about hardship.”

He raised his claws to strike. “Unless you want two thousand pounds of hardship right this moment.”

“Your temper is insufferable,” Martina said.

“You’ven’t seen insufferable.”

Frog rolled himself into a ball and bounced on the ground, shaking it. The world spun underfoot and round and round as he bounced into the air again and aimed himself for the studio. Everyone screamed as he propelled himself into the air, crashing into lights and cameras. Sparks flew. Metal clanged to the floor. Everything bounced off his skin and didn’t hurt him. Frog yelled as he bounced on the ground again in a double bump. The ground shook like a quake.

“This is half the insufferable you’ll get if all of you don’t get out of my sight!!” he roared.

He landed on all fours and then pounded the ground as hard as he could, knocking everyone off their feet. He screamed at the top of his lungs and threw his desk at Martina. The woman rolled out of the way as the desk broke and sent splinters everywhere.

“You’ve’ll try to censor me, but you can’t,” he yelled. “I quit!”

The words hit Martina as if they were the desk.

“You can’t quit,” she shouted. “You’re under contract.”

“And what’ll ya do?” Frog asked. “I won’t show up in your elven courts. Woe on the man what tries to make me submit to you. We dragons have our own laws.”

Martina stood and smoothed out her dress. “After all I’ve done for you—”

“And it’s enough. Get out.”

“We’ll destroy this place.”

“I’ll gladly destroy it myself before you do,” Frog said.

“And destroy yourself?” Martina asked.

“There’re plenty of Abstractions I can switch to if needed. I don’t need you or this stupid arrangement!”

Frog spread his small wings and lifted himself into the air. Then he landed on the ground with another boom.

“Cancel my network and pay me what I’m owed,” he said. “Find another poor dragon to read your goddamned weather reports.”

Martina ran into a covered stairwell, and the rest of the crew ran with her.

Frog closed his eyes and imagined himself drifting downward, sliding into the skyscraper himself. Before he knew it he was everywhere at once; in the gardens, in the cafeteria, in the offices filled with a thousand clustered cubicles where elves worked diligently. The whole building revolved in front of his mind’s eye like a giant flywheel, with everywhere visible all at once.

He spoke, and heard his voice amplified a thousand times in the building’s intercom system.

“This is Frog. I’m in a destructive mood today, so unless you live in the condo sector, get the hell out if you know what’s good for you.”

An alarm sounded, and everyone in the building began to file out as if it were a normal fire drill. Frog watched as they left, chattering amongst themselves.

“Frog’s at it again, huh?”

“Boy did we pick the wrong place to work.”

“Has the dragon ever heard of meditation? Good God.”

Frog seethed as the evacuation proceeded. When it was over—when quiet stillness swept across his skyscraper—he exhaled and returned his consciousness to the roof.

His legs were weak and he stumbled toward the bog. The gentle waters seemed to call him as he waded into them. He thought about his father, the old days, and how they really were gone for good.

He crawled upon a lily pad and wept.