SINGED
Chapter 13

They crawled from the murky depths of the sea at twilight.

“Where is the mistress?” their leader hissed, as others gibbered and drooled in the shallows.

Further out in the undulating serf I could see more eyes protruding froglike from the glassy surfaces of the water.

“She’s gone,” I shouted above the resounding roar of the waves. “Go and do not return.”

“We will not,” the leader snarled, eyes glowing. “Where is she? What have you done with her?”

“She is gone,” I repeated.

The horde chattered and gnashed their needle-like teeth.

“Then give us her treasure and we will go,” the leader said.

I did not recognize them at first. None of my borrowed memories included images of these vile little beasts. They were the storm tripe referred to in old sea chanties, I realized finally.

Rising out of the corrupted water after her curse filled storms, they were the only offspring of the Storm Hag. Each tripe was a deformed caricature of the Hag. They appeared to be melting, their eyes and vicious mouths slowly sliding down, head sinking into a collapsing torso.

“No,” I said absently, regarding them, repulsed and yet amused.

They snarled and wailed as one, frustration and fear warring with in them, causing them to dance in place where they stood. My calm confidence held them at bay for the moment, but their fury was growing.

“Give it to us!” they shrieked.

They would rush me any moment, their rage overwhelming reason. Slowly they danced forward, grasping at me. Had I turned and run, they would have rushed upon me. Instead I leaned forward, and they broke like a wave upon the beach, retreating into the shallows, hissing like briny foam dissolving on the sand.

I turned to go,and this evicted a hideous cry from the fiends, but they remain dancing in the waters, jerking about as if by invisible marionette strings. I continued to walk, I could hear them splashing about harmlessly behind me but again my calm unhinged their resolve. They wined piteously.

“Why do you want it?” I asked turning. “It would do nothing for you. It is just gold and jewels nothing more.”

“It is ours!” they shrieked.

I honestly couldn’t have answered better myself. Why did I want it? As I mentioned, I had no intention of spending it. I would sit upon it, like a brood hen. My human tendencies made me aware how useless this instinct of draconic greed might be, but then I would remember how the gold glittered. I liken it to the compulsions of a drunken sailor for his grog. It intoxicated me. I just wanted it.

For a moment I was one of the gibbering tripe, mindless frustrated; tugged about on marionettes strings. I could not disentangle myself; a slave to my greed.

I don’t like to admit this even to myself. I don’t know why I am telling you. Who are you anyway? I see you watching me. You are the bold one, aren’t you? Invading a dragon’s dreams!

Yet you smile, and I replace myself smiling too because it is absurd. It is obviously the other way around. You aren’t spying on me while I sleep. I have dreamed you up. You are an inkling in a dragon’s mind. You smile but you do not nod. No, I nod. Am nodding. Off. I am just reminiscing after all, how embarrassing. Well since you don’t exist I won’t trouble myself too much.

For a flicker of a flame I sympathized with the conflicted horde wailing in the water.

“You should go,” I urged almost kindly. “The treasure only imprisons you. You don’t need it. Go back to the deeps and be at peace, be free.”

I almost felt as if I was urging them from a prison, only to close the door behind them, sealing myself in their place. They did not agree. Their conflicted emotions finally overwhelmed any sense of reason, and they swarmed forward, almost taking me by surprise.

I struck back purely by reflex, not even aware of what I had done. The first tripe exploded like grime filled soap bubbles, they were filled only with corrupt seawater, turned black with bile. Their stinking remains fell into the sand, staining the white beach. As the next wave fell upon me, I looked with wonder to replace I fought not with a blade, but with claws, which sprung from each finger, each long as a garden sickle.

They were beyond any reason and, shrieking, the tripe crashed into me like waves of dark water onto the beach until none remained, and the beach was soggy and stinking.

I sighed. This had not been my intent, but perhaps, this was best. Their suffering was over, while mine had just begun.

My claws melted away like sea foam as I watched. For some reason it occurred to me that I had never gazed upon my own face. The ocean waves were too dark and agitated to oblige me.

Turning, I noticed Sal and Cayn. They had been watching, hidden in the tree line and now cautiously approached. I was not displeased that they had remained out of sight. They would only have been in the way and maybe would’ve been killed.

We had taken on different roles as we settled into our life on the island. I was the alpha, the protector. They maintained the place we lived. It was like the relationship I had noticed often in human families. I was the parent and Cayn and Sal were my children. They gathered fruit and roots in the jungle, maintained the fire, gathered shellfish in the shallows. I asked for nothing, accepted what I was offered, claimed the mane cat’s portion of the night watches, and, when necessary, slaughtered Storm tripe.

“Think there are more?” Sal asked, scanning the water.

“I don’t know,” I replied. “Maybe.”

“Maybe we should sleep in the cave for a while,” Cayn muttered. He was kneeling near the blackened sands wrinkling his nose in disgust.

“If you prefer,” I murmured absently.

I was still captivated by the possibility of my own face. True to my kind, I was now obsessed. I realized I would need to relieve my curiosity or I would think of nothing else. I would swing pendulous back to my human nature once I looked upon my image, I was sure.

“Let’s go to the lagoon,” I said. “I want something there. If more tripe come, they will not replace us there.”

“We do need more freshwater,” Sal said, tugging on his beard.

“What about the treasure?”Cayn asked.

“It is hidden in the cave,” I replied. “No one will replace it.”

“Very well,” he said hesitantly.

“You are more like a dragon that I am,” I replied,smiling. “Perhaps I will learn from you in time. If you prefer to keep watch on the cave, do so from a distance so as not to give away the hiding place. If anyone approaches come replace us. Do not confront them alone.”

“Yes,” Cayn agreed with relief. “It will be as you say.”

Sal and I set out for the lagoon in the darkening gloom. Night and day did not concern me; in fact, I think I mentioned my nocturnal tendencies. I was invigorated by the altercation and the thought of confronting myself face-to-face upon the still reflective surface of the lagoon. Sal was accustomed to my mercurial moods. He quickly gathered up hollowed out gourds we used to carry water and a torch for unlike me he would soon be blinded by the night.

We tramped through the deepening dark. Sal had found a more direct route to the lagoon. It was the best source of freshwater on the island. We made good time despite the lateness of the evening. Twilight tended to linger on for several candles because there were no mountains for the sun to hide behind prematurely. It was not until the final glowing embers of the dying day sank into the somber sea that night claimed us.

“We are almost there,” Sal said pointing. “Didn’t need to light the torch. I’ll save it for the way back.”

“We will spend the night here, I think,” I replied.

We climbed down the rocky banks, amid the glow of the luminous anemones. Now that I was here, I paused. What did I expect to see? For some reason my heart was beating faster as I slowly stepped onto the outcropping and lowered my eyes to regard my reflection.

Yet it was not my reflection that gazed back at me. I gasped, losing my balance and falling on my knees.

“Miranda,” I whispered.

She opened her eyes regarding me sadly and shook her head, dark locks swaying on the surface of the water.

“Alas no, I am Lenoir,” she said, “freed in death from the dark spirit that possessed me but there is no time. The spirit remains. I am not strong enough to drag it into the Lands Beyond without Miranda, and Miranda lives. Why do you not seek her? She lives! If you do not replace her the spirit will, and it will use her to return!”

“But she has become the hawk for good,” I stammered.

“It can be undone,” she whispered. “Miranda can return.”

“I don’t understand,” I said. “What do you mean?”

“She saved me,” Lenoir said, “from a fate worse than death. A fate I deserved for my greed and selfishness. I am Lenoir and the Storm Hag.

When Alister told me about the enchanted jewel I thought to take it for myself, but it was cursed. The spirit within it possessed me when I touched it, turning me into something darker and more depraved than before. Miranda saved me, but the spirit is still here.”

The water began to cloud.

Lenoir gasped.

“It’s coming!”

I looked towards Sal who was hastily igniting the torch

“Run!” I shouted.

“Stay away from water this night. It is tainted,” Lenoir called. “The thing needs a body to stay here. It will try to possess whomever it can.”

I staggered to my feet and snarled. I wanted to stay and fight, but Sal was too fragile and too loyal. We ran. Behind us the waters of the lagoon were boiling violently. We fled through the forest away from the unknown towards the unknown. We paused to let Sal catch his breath after a quarter candle. I stared back through the trees at nothing, grinding my teeth. I wanted to go back. What would happen to Lenoir? Was she not the Hag? Somehow, she had been freed in death and they were now separate beings again. Would she face the Hag alone or flee finally into the afterlife? My mind churned like the troubled lagoon.

Miranda had been wrong. The transformation into a hawk could still be undone, that is unless Lenoir was disillusioned or lying. Yet another thought caused cold water to trickle down my spine. What if the image was not Lenoir but the Hag again stealing her identity? Was she still puppeteering me from the great beyond? Then everything she claimed was a lie and she would dash my hopes of Miranda returning like a ship on the rocks. The damage had been done though. My hope had been rekindled.

Mind racing, I realized even if it was my worst fear, even if it was the Hag, there must be some truth, or maybe. If she was searching for the Miranda-Hawk, the hawk that was more than a hawk.

Why had I just accepted that the transformation was permanent? I was a dragon for Dawn’s sake. We were famous for our willfulness. We made our realities happen. I turned to look at Sal. He was watching me intently, and I wondered what he saw. I still could not see my reflection. I could read his thoughts or most of them, but my own image would not emerge. I sighed.

The night had overtaken and surrounded us while I pondered, and we stood in a flickering halo cast by Sal’s torch. Outside the ring of light, it was pitch black. The torch did more to hinder my sight than help it. Without it, my dragon eyes would have continued to view the world in a twilight hue throughout the night.

“I will fight with you,” Sal said, “though I don’t know what we face. Cayn and I only saw the creature floating above the sea from a distance, but if it can rattle you, I know she must be fearsome.”

“It is,” I replied softly, aware that the night might have ears. “We must deal with it. It cannot be ignored.”

“Should we get Cayn?” Sal asked, matching my muted tones and staring futilely out into the black.

“Yes,” I said, shaking myself out of my reverie and standing.“Sal, I think we should put out the torch.”

He nodded and complied, plunging us into the darkness.

“Should’ve thought of that myself,” he whispered.

Now that the torch was not limiting my sight, the mangrove trees spread out before me like a silent army and I saw the stars were being eaten one by one by an impending storm cloud that filled the sky. We would be doused and drenched before we reached Cayn.

“Avoid water,” I murmured wryly.

Cayn was nowhere to be found. We searched the tree line near the cave, leaves shivered through torrents of rain. Had he been taken? Undoubtedly the hordes of hag spawn would sense their mistress and redouble their efforts to replace her. Perhaps they had returned, or the Hag herself, but there was no sign of anyone.

“The cave?” Sal asked.

For some reason I paused, apprehensive. Some sixth serpent sense caused a thrill of fear ripple through me, the likes of which I had not felt since before my hatching, from the time before I was fully aware. It crawled like a nightmare out of the dawn of my awakening, from the dream time within the crystalline crucible of my egg.

It was a consciousness that had brushed against me as I rested with my siblings, like a shark swimming silently by as I slumbered, a night terror when I had truly been helpless. It made me feel small and fragile like a human child, standing in the rain, in the dark. For long moments I could not move at all, even breath. Sal could sense my distress and joined me in stasis, eyes wide, waiting for me to move.

“Yes,” I managed finally.

He nodded in the gloom, aware perhaps, I could still see his gestures, though he could not see mine.

Jagged gashes of lightning split the night asunder and we were unveiled in that moment to whatever lay hidden. Almost immediately though the darkness returned to cover us, and we scurried along the tree line toward the cave before the next flash. Thunder shook our very bones as we scrambled onto the ledge of rock at the base of the promontory, its surface slick and treacherous.

What was in the cave? My fear of the unknown drove me forward like a whip lashing at my heels. There was a faint glow pulsing for a moment from within as we approached, then was gone. Again, I experienced the thrill. Wisps of fog were creeping wraith-like out of the orifice like smoke from a sleeping dragon. It smelled faintly of cold, damp, dark places beneath the earth. I could feel a chill wash over us as the mist wrapped around our ankles like tentacles.

Cautiously we peered into the chamber. The vault that held the mounds of silver and gold had been opened and humanoid creatures were busy gathering the treasure into bags and casts. They were ugly goblin looking wretches with green mottled skin; feral yellow eyes and teeth.

They hissed and quarreled with each other as they worked, but they were industrious nonetheless. They had already extracted more than half of the shining wealth, carrying it in a quibbling procession down into the tunnel that the water drake hatchlings had evacuated by.

It was from the tunnel that the fog came and with it my mysterious trepidation. Also, a lurid green glow pulsed periodically from below casting back gangly shadows of the toiling troglodytes; legs grown long like some twisted spider kin.

“Where do you go with my gold?” I said, stepping forward into the cave. I heard Sal gasp as I did so. I had caught him off-guard, yet he came forward all the same.

The gremlins, or whatever they were, but wait, I know them now. They were nethergrim, of course, principal scourge of mankind if my plagiarized ponderings were to be trusted. Anyway, the nethergrim shrieked in alarm, dropping bags and chests in their haste, which scattered my treasure hither and yon.

Out came cruel curved blades. They were braver than the Storm tripe and recovered quickly from their initial surprise, advancing upon us until I laughed. This caused the briefest affronted pause and into that tiny void I spoke.

“You are brave to steal from a dragon and then advance upon him when he catches you in the act, though quite foolish too, don’t you think?”

“You no dragon,” sneered the biggest. I realized he was the leader and I turned to face him, disregarding the others.

“Oh, yes I am,” I said, laughing. “Shall I show you?”

I was unsure, suddenly, if I could change just by willing it. It had not even occurred to me to try up until this point. My awareness fluctuated from dreamlike rumination to stark clarity and time was fleeting. I was in no hurry but abruptly I was faced with the crucial possibility that I had run out of time.

As we argued, the remaining horde that had been processed down the length of the tunnel had congregated. Sal and I were outnumbered fifty to one, and some of the nethergrim, like their leader, were quite robust; a hulking head and shoulders above me. If I could not prove my draconic lineage now I might not have another chance.

It was both harder and easier than I could have imagined. I simply had no control yet. It was completely instinctual. I held out my hand, willing the claws I had produced to fend off the tripe, but my digits remained stubbornly human. Yet as I glared at them and smirking nethergrim began to loom, I heard myself growl. It was utterly inhuman, deep and grating, causing dust to fall from the cave ceiling.

My vision shifted into vivid resolution so that I witnessed in minute detail, the expressions of the horde, as their grotesque jaws dropped open, yellow eyes widening in disbelief, and I knew my eyes were no longer human either. Then vision returned to what I had grown use to and when I spoke it was my normal human voice that responded.

“Now that that’s settled I suggest you return my gold and apologize,” I said. “I may yet have a use for you.”

I had expected compliance, but I was still startled as they crumbled as one, prostrate with hands touching the stone of the cave floor.

“You are Dragon,” the leader groveled. “Master of serpents, your will is my will.”

“No,” I said, blinking. “Yes, well…yes. Very well.”

I glanced at Sal who shrugged.

“Once you have returned my treasure I will replace a way for you to make it up to me,” I continued, regaining my composure, “and you can begin by telling me who sent you.”

The grim leader looked up and met my gaze. For a moment I thought I saw defiance warring with his guise of humility but when he spoke his tone gave no sign of this subtle rebellion.

“You did,” he murmured, letting his eyes drop so I could not see them.“You summoned us.”