The Last Dragon Lord

XI

XI

Miri watched as Old Dark yawned and lumbered awake. His eye sweltered beneath his eyepatch, and he looked like he had been in deep sleep. She wondered what sleep was like after a thousand year curse.

If it were her, she’d never want to sleep again. But if you were holed up in a cage all day, what else were you going to do? If she was ever able to update her thesis with her observations, the world would be shocked indeed to know that the great dragon lord spent most of his time sleeping.

“I am going to see about getting you a television again,” she said.

That would be a tough battle. Lucan cursed her out the last time she brought Dark a television. But cruelty was cruelty and she wasn’t going to stand for it.

Dark yawned again, exposing a gum line with missing top teeth. His jaw cracked and he twisted his sinewy neck until it popped. Then he settled his gaze on her and grinned.

“I dreamt about you, Miri Charmwell,” he said.

“I told you to call me Miri. How are you?”

He glanced around the room. “Do you even have to ask the question?” he asked tiredly.

“How do you feel?”

“The curse is strengthening,” Dark said. He paced around the cage like a lion in an enclosure. “It’s terrible, Miri. I can feel it in my broken wings, crushing them more and more every day. It’s a miracle they haven’t fallen off.”

Dark paused and looked her from head to toe. He sniffed.

“You smell positively awful. Been gallivanting in the bogs, have you? Birch smell doesn’t become you.”

How did he know?

Did he really smell the bog’s flora on her? The smell of nature must have been magnified to a dragon, and there wouldn’t have been any hiding it. She was fascinated—what would it be like to know where someone had been just by smelling them?

“Yes,” she said. “I have been at the Ancestral Bogs all day.”

“Did you find the treasure? Was all of my gold still intact?”

“They’re still dragging the water,” Miri said. “When I left they had barely removed all the trees.”

Dark’s eyebrows raised. “What do you mean they removed the trees?”

“We had to hide your tomb,” Miri said.

Dark grimaced, but she couldn’t tell if it was from pain or from the news.

“Where did you hide it?” Dark asked.

Miri shrugged. “Lucan handled it.”

“You mean that foul-mouthed fop has control of my ancestral mausoleum?”

His voice was quiet, but she knew the tone. He was going to burst into anger at any moment. She turned and motioned to the door. Earl entered, pushing the flat screen television, its screen still cracked from when Lucan threw it over.

“Yes,” she said, pretending to be absent-minded, “I’ve been told it’s in a safe place. Earl, use the outlet over there.”

But Dark didn’t respond. He sat down and ran his claws against the bars.

“Your fearless leader has a death wish,” he said.

“Tell me something I don’t know,” Miri said. “Now, what was it you liked to watch? Oh, right—the news channel.”

She pressed a remote control and turned the television to the news. A commercial for Skyscraper Park aired. It showed people jogging through the park’s lush foot paths and panoramas of the flower-encrusted skyscraper complex as Skyscraper Park flashed on the screen in cursive white letters.

“Weather is on later tonight,” Miri said. “For now, I guess the news will have to do, though I don’t know how much of it you’ll understand.”

“I understand it very much, Miri. But tell me: what do you make of Frog?” Dark asked.

Frog was the dragon of the weather. He was a middle-aged river dragon who famously ingratiated himself with one of the news stations to become a weather forecaster. He had a strange way of speaking and Miri sometimes wondered if he was mentally sound.

“Do you know Frog?” she asked.

“No, at least I don’t think so,” Dark said, his face scrunching up in recollection. “I knew a lot of river dragons in my day. What do you make of him, Miri?”

Miri stared at the ceiling as she tried to find the words.

“Eccentric would be the first word that comes to mind.”

“Oh?”

“He’s not the most intelligent dragon in Magic Hope City,” Miri said.

“Then how did he gain such a celebrity status?”

“No idea.”

Miri pulled up a chair and opened her notebook.

“Where were we with our information session? Here we go: the aquifer.”

Dark sighed. “I remember our pact. To tell each other everything. But I don’t feel like talking today. I am in too much pain.”

“What else are you going to do?” Miri asked. “Besides, I only have fifteen minutes. Maybe less.”

The dragon settled on the floor and waved his hands telling her to proceed.

“You always claimed to be protecting the aquifer,” Miri said. “I think I know why but—”

“What do you think you know?”

“My theory is that—”

“Theory? Oh ho, tell me your little theory.”

Miri slammed her pencil against the notebook. “Will you let me talk?”

“The aquifer is personal, Miri. Have you ever seen it?”

She had heard of the great caverns beneath the world where rivers of magic flowed. She’d seen pictures of them; the great stalactite formations, explorers standing on the edge of a roiling pink river. The legends said that this was magic in its purest state. It was so potent that using a simple spell could kill a man. Only a dragon could wield it. Otherwise it had to be filtered. Humans had developed filtering technology, the most significant scientific breakthrough in the last century.

“I’ve seen pictures,” she said.

“Do you not have access?” Dark asked. “From what you’ve told me, everyone in this city uses magic like water.”

“Aquifer access is restricted,” Miri said. “At least here in the city. No one would want to visit it anyway because the magic is too strong. But there are still Keepers who guard access points in the wilderness.”

“Protecting the old way of life!” Dark exclaimed. “Tell me about these Keepers.”

“We were talking about the aquifer, so let’s get back on topic,” Miri said. “You know the qualities of the aquifer more than any dragon that has ever lived. You knew that elves couldn’t use unfiltered magic. The aquifer was a political weakness for you. You feared that if elves ever figured out how to channel magic, it would be the end of your race.”

Dark regarded her statement, stroking his chin.

“Was I close?” Miri asked, her eyes wide with excitement.

“Not at all.”

“What!”

She had explored this idea in her thesis. She’d spent countless hours to discover this! It was a stinging blow.

Miri scratched her head. “I’m confused. What am I missing?”

“When you woke me up in the bogs, what did you encounter?” Dark asked.

Miri screwed her face together, thinking back to that fateful night. The image of thousands of Magic Eaters flowed across her mind—fetid-smelling snails crawling on tentacles that made her want to vomit.

“Surely you’re not talking about Magic Eaters? They’re monsters,” she said.

“Have you ever experienced a monster ‘problem’, Miri?”

“We have them outside the city all the time,” she said.

“I figured as much,” Dark said. “That is what happens when you use magic with total abandon. Don’t you think we dragons wouldn’t love to use it to solve our problems? We might have disposed of you elves a long time ago. But when you use magic, there is always leftover residue. And that residue attracts monsters.”

Miri nodded. “We devoted entire councils to the problem. This city was originally a safe haven from them. But I didn’t think that was your only reason to protect the aquifer. I thought stockpiling gold had more to do with it.”

“Ha! Gold and magic are different.”

“But then why did you hoard? A dragon has no use for gold.”

“But humans and elves do.”

“What, you’re saying that you collected it just so we couldn’t have it?” she asked, flustered.

“You said it, not me.”

“But I don’t understand. How did you trade?”

“Miri, I had villagers visiting me every day from every place on the globe. I didn’t need to trade, and neither did any of my dragons. I distributed the wealth among them so that they could use their reserves to influence the societies on their continents.”

“Like a treasury,” Miri said.

“Indeed.”

She couldn’t believe any of it. All of this was just a theory—one that many historians dismissed. Dragons refused to talk about Dark’s reign for fear of retribution, and so they spread misinformation to make themselves look better.

It was all crap.

Her thesis was already riddled with at least fifty errors. She second-guessed everything she ever knew. She couldn’t find any words to speak, and her mind was racing with all the follow-up questions.

Earl cleared his throat.

“Miss, we ought to get going.”

Miri’s head spun. She glanced at her watch and composed herself.

“You gave me a lot to think about,” she said. “I have to go. I’ll be back tomorrow.”

“I suppose I’ll be here if I don’t tire of this place before then,” Dark said, sighing.

Miri smiled and left him staring after her.