The wizard cackled drunkenly to himself as he passed beneath the lintel to his personal tower, and never noticed the small, lithe figure sitting above the doorframe, still as a gargoyle. In fact, the only sign that the figure was not just another gargoyle glowed faintly in the almond-shaped brown eyes that watched the wizard enter the stairwell.
I don’t pity whatever stupid creature that blood-mage caught this time, she muttered to herself, swinging down from the lintel with practiced ease to land softly and gracefully on the flagstoned floor below. I really don’t. Any creature stupid enough to get itself caught deserves what that mage is giving it.
She slipped up the stairs after the blood-mage, blending with the shadows easily and making no sound as her soft-booted feet traversed the age-worn stairs. The mage’s laughter preceded her up the flight of stairs, but he was so caught up in his own self that he wouldn’t have heard the figure behind him had she been raging and shrieking at the top of her powerful lungs. She allowed herself a small chuckle. These idiotic, self-centered mages were easier to rob than anything, especially after they had gotten themselves roaring drunk. Sure, they had strong personal defenses and all that sweet magic she could only dream of having, but she didn’t have to kill them to rob them blind. She chuckled again. Her own personal motto was, after all, If you can’t beat ’em, steal from ’em.
She paused at the top of the stairs, on the landing to a narrow hallway, and watched as the wizard entered the last room on the end. She smiled slightly. Idiotic wizard. You’re just as stupid as whatever creature you’ve got in your dungeons now. As silent as a breeze, she crept down the hall, checking each door as she went, searching for possible treasures that wouldn’t be too much of a burden on the way out. None of the rooms seemed furnished with anything other than large finery, and she couldn’t very well try to sell full-size statues of the blood-mage on the black market or anything. That would be too obvious. Instead, she continued down the hall to the mage’s room.
She heard his heavy snoring, and supposed he had fallen asleep immediately. She peered in, and her guess was confirmed. The wizard had sprawled face-down on the large bed, still in his clothes, drooling and snorting like there was no tomorrow. His wine goblet lay on the floor next to the bed, a small wine-stain near it. The small figure allowed herself a smile of satisfaction. No, he would not be waking up any time soon. She set to work.
The first thing she relieved the wizard of was the heavy talisman around his neck, the one all blood-mages wore. I may not pity the creature downstairs, she thought, but I wouldn’t want the same happening to me were I caught. The talisman felt slimy and foul to her fingertips, and she quickly wrapped it in a square of curtain fabric she deftly sliced from the drapes. She dropped it in the small knapsack she wore, but not before the thought crossed her mind that the feel of this talisman was slightly familiar. Almost as if.... No, she thought, shaking her head, it can’t be. Dragon’s are too intelligent to be caught. I’ve been robbing too many blood-mages lately. Their talismans all feel the same by now.
She moved to the bureau, where a heavy box sat in the open on the top of the chest. She pointedly ignored it, and slid open the bottom drawer of the bureau instead. She knew better than to open the box on the top of the dresser. These wizards were so predictable. Booby-trap the box, so any thieves who come will be caught in some nasty spell or other. No thanks. The small pouch of jewels in the bottom drawer quickly joined the talisman in the thief’s knapsack.
The wizard snorted loudly, once, and mumbled, “But I don’ wanna go to practice magic, Momma.” The thief tried not to snicker too loudly as she snitched a few fine robes from the wizard’s closet and left the room again, snatching his fine goblet on the way out.
Now, she considered, as she padded down the stairs again, where else would this flaming idiot keep his wealth? She paused at the foot of the stairs, examining each hallway, before deciding to head for the kitchens. These idiots all stock their cupboards with nice dishes. This guy’s going to be easy pickings.
In the kitchen, she rifled through the cabinets quickly, taking any number of golden plates, jeweled goblets, crystal wine glasses, and silver flatware. She even snagged an intricate tea service with the stamp of a foreign crafter on it, and added all this to her pack. When she had filled it almost to bursting, she headed for the door.
She paused, glancing over her shoulder as the wink of something golden flashed through a half-open door in one wall. Intrigued as to what the mage could be keeping in his dungeons, she slunk forward.
The door creaked on rusted hinges as she pushed it open. A steep flight of stairs led down into a dank, damp dungeon, smelling of rotting wood and slime. The golden glow flickered lightly, and she guessed it was torchlight reflecting off of something metallic. Perfect.
The stairs were slick with slime, the footing treacherous, but she managed with all the grace and fluidity of a practiced thief. She only slipped once, but caught her balance despite the lack of walls to either side and continued at a fairly slow pace. Her feet sank into tepid water and muck when she reached the floor, and she grimaced at the wizard’s taste in dungeon accommodations. No doubt this was a deterrent for whatever servants he might have during the day. A few feet away from the stairs, though, the ground level raised a bit and became flagstones again. Ahh, that’s better.
She shook the muck from her boots and walked slowly through the dungeons, passing the cells and cages where a few man-sized animals—deer, wolves, horses, catamounts, and even a manticore and a small chimera—whined and whimpered for freedom. She ignored them, though not as much as she did the wretched humans in the next set of cells, clothed in little more than rags, reduced to skin and bones, and covered with bloody welts and blisters. She cringed at the sight of a small child, cowering in his cell, seeing in the fearful brown eyes her own brother, years ago, as he.... No! she hissed to herself. Don’t think about that! Don’t care! It won’t get you anywhere! Even so, she quickly pulled out one of her lockpicks from the bracer on her left wrist and unlocked the cell, pointing quietly to the stairs. The child gave her a wordless look of thanks and sprinted off toward his freedom. Luckily for the thief, the other humans were too weak and dazed to care.
The golden glow flickered ahead, and eager to escape this scene of human brutality, she walked forward at a faster pace. The flagstones beneath her feet began to waver with a fear-spell, but she was used to such deterrents and easily ignored it. No mere blood-mage stood a chance of scaring her off with such a paltry spell.
She entered the large chamber at the end of the hall, her eyes widening at the sight of mounds of gold, twinkling brilliantly in the ambient torchlight. She immediately snatched a few pouches of gold and tied them around her waist, and threw a few other small, fine pieces into her knapsack. Again, as she was about to leave, her attention was caught by another doorway in one wall, this door lit only by the feeblest of glows, and she cautiously walked toward it.
It was almost too dark to see, even for her, in the next room. The glow was cast by a wanly flickering light on one wall, illuminating a peg from which hung a necklace. She cocked her head to one side. Why would a blood-mage keep a single necklace in a large, dark room, especially in his dungeons? Wondering at what power the large pendant on the necklace must hold, she paced forward.
She leaned close to the pendant, examining the twisted cords of copper that made up the bulk of it, frowning intensely when it looked familiar. A tiny head and a pair of wings were twisted into the intricate knot, and she gasped and backed up a pace when she realized what it was. Fearful, she glanced down at her own pendant, hanging from a thin chain around her neck, twisted similarly. Hers, however, was white-gold, and knotted into a different pattern. Why did the wizard have a dragon-pendant in his possession?
A faint rumble and the scrape and clank of something heavy sliding on the floor brought her whirling around, her dagger in her hand in a flash. She held it forward menacingly, searching the darkness for the cause of the sound. Had she been caught?
She stifled a cry as she saw him, the massive bulk in the deep shadows on the other side of the room. The wan light barely reflected off his dull scales, his translucent wing membranes and the strong, curving horns on his head. His eyes were closed, and the thief could hear the weary, rasping breath as his sides heaved. He slept fitfully, she was sure of it, and after another look, she saw why—his body was covered with scratches and welts where the blood-mage had done his work. Fury raged through the thief at the thought that the blood-mage would dare use a dragon, followed by contempt that a dragon—a copper, no less—would get himself caught.
Then all other emotions fled her as she stared helplessly at the strong bulk of the male, and she sagged against the wall beneath the pendant, enraptured by the male’s good looks. Despite his wounds, he was a handsome specimen of dragonflesh, with a well-proportioned, well-muscled body, powerful, unbroken horns, and a skin color that, despite the dull cast to it, was richer than any copper the thief had seen before. She caught herself almost drooling, and slapped herself. Get a hold of it, girl. He’s an idiot for getting himself caught. Remember that.
She weakly pushed away from the wall, moving to the male dragon’s side and pulling her magicked lockpick from her hair. While she herself could work a spell to release the dragon, she didn’t want to leave traces of her aura behind for the blood-mage to track her with. A smart thief never left a signature.
It took her a few moments to find the lock links on the heavy chains binding both the dragon and the dragon’s strength and magics to the ground. With practiced fingers, she worked the dragon-shaped hairpin between two of the larger links, closing her eyes and seeing the ethereal lock in her mind. She worked the lockpick around, and though to human eyes it would seem she was trying to break the center of the chains with a hairpin, a mage would know she was working in another plane of magic. The hairpin became a key in her mind, the knot of chains a large lock, and it took all the skill she had ever acquired to work the lockpick through the tumblers of the lock.
Suddenly, the chains parted in her hands, the links brittle and breaking beneath her touch. A normal human wouldn’t have been able to budge those heavy chains even an inch, but the thief was no normal human. In no time, she had the chains on the floor, and was trying to revive the dragon.
He woke with a warm snort, weakly lifting his head and opening one golden eye to peer warily at the thief. She noted the curious look in his eye, but he was far too weak to manage even a simple mental contact, let alone form words in any language. She placed a hand on his snout to ensure his silence, and ran to get the pendant on the wall—surely it was his. Returning with it in her hands, she motioned silently for him to lift his head. He barely managed to get it a few handlengths off of the floor, but that was enough. She pressed the pendant to the soft skin of his neck, and almost immediately it became an amber-colored gemstone hanging around the dragon’s neck.
She leaned close to his ear and whispered, “Change.”
He stared at her, noting the pendant around her own neck, and she thought she saw him smile slightly. Then she backed off as he struggled to stand. His wings drooped, his tail sagged, and his head hung dejectedly, though she thought that if he stood up straight, his head would brush the ceiling. His shoulders trembled as he summoned the magic within him, the magic released by the pendant, and a weak glow bathed the dragon’s long body. It flared slightly as it caught hold of the power in the pendant, then contracted to a feeble glimmer that faded around the almost-nude man kneeling on his hands and knees on the cold floor.
The man had barely managed to conjure the threadbare length of cloth wrapped around his hips, and even now gasped with exertion as he tried to find the strength to stand. His copper hair, short and tousled, save for the thin ponytail drooping over one shoulder, covered his head in a tangled mop. His golden eyes stared at the floor, his strong features twisted into a painful expression. The thief had a difficult time pulling her eyes away from the powerful muscles that formed the man’s arms, chest, and legs, and she helped him stagger to his feet. He was at least six feet, a whole foot and a half taller than she, but he sagged beneath the weariness and pain he felt and almost appeared closer to the thief’s own five feet.
“Why...?” he rasped, his tenor strong despite his appearance.
“Don’t ask,” she hissed. “Keep quiet. Follow me.” She motioned him toward the door that led out and he followed, rather quietly for a dragon who’d been used for blood-magic for who knows how long. At least now the thief knew why the wizard’s talisman had felt of dragons.
She led him through the gold-filled room, grateful that he did not try to stop and take something. She didn’t need him burdening himself down when she wanted to escape quickly now. She could feel in her bones that it was almost morning, and they needed to hurry before the blood-mage’s demonic servants began roaming.
They hurried through the ranks of human cells, and he glanced into one or two with a sad expression. Why would a dragon be sad about the loss of humans? the thief demanded of herself. What have humans done for us? The man looked into the animals’ cells with a similar, if softer, expression, and then they were trudging through the slime and muck toward the stairs. The man kept his footing well, though she could feel a fever begin to burn in his tall, powerful body. Hold it together until we get out of here, waterfly, she hissed in her mind, or I’m leaving you behind.
He managed the stairs, and then they were rushing through the kitchen and the back ways that the thief had used to get in. She pushed him through the door mere moments before she heard the wizard’s day-alarms going off. One of the demonic servants had seen them. She cursed roundly and led him, sprinting as fast as his legs could go, to the clearing in the wizard’s front yard. She felt ever more grateful she had taken the wizard’s talisman; he would be reduced to his own meager power should he catch up with them.
In the center of the yard, she had the man stop. He moved in a daze now, shaking with fever chills and the pain of the bitter wind stinging his wounds. She grimaced at the tracks of the wizard’s progress crossing the man’s chest and arms, then moved a few paces away from the man.
She crouched low on the grass, her fingers splayed on the dirt before her. She closed her eyes and bowed her head, asking the Lord and Lady for the power she needed. The magic flowed through her pendant and into her body, and she felt the transformation taking place. Her muscles rippled and expanded, her bones reshaped themselves, shortening or lengthening as needed. Wings and a tail formed where none had been visible before, and her neck grew in length until it was sinuous enough for her to turn her head and look down the long length of her growing body. Her nose and mouth stretched into a draconic snout, and scales and spikes formed as her clothes vanished in the early morning light. Her own magic drew her weapons into herself for the time being, for ease of travel, and created a riding pad for the man. Graceful horns sprouted on her head, and the world grew sharper to her senses as her draconic self took over.
The man below her barely looked up as she gathered him into her arms, settling him against the pad on her back. Binding him down with magic, she took off into the air with a sweep of her wide, white-gold wings, as the wizard rushed out of the keep below, cursing and shouting and waving his arms like the idiot he was.
The thief dunked her head beneath the icy water of the stream and whipped her head back out, stung wide awake by the chill, clean water. She scrubbed sand in her hair to get the foul smell of the blood-mage’s keep out of it, then dunked again.
She heard a groan and stumbling footsteps from the direction of her tiny camp, and lifted her head quickly. Cold water streamed from her hair, down her face and neck and into the material of her vest and halter top. She didn’t notice. Instead, she rose swiftly and hurried back toward the camp, in time to catch the man she’d rescued trying to move around. Imperiously, wordlessly, she grabbed his arm and hauled him back to her bedroll, shoving him down onto the blankets. “And don’t get up again,” she ordered, crouching next to him. “If you don’t listen to me, I won’t be held responsible for what I do to you, got it?”
He nodded weakly, propping himself up on his elbows.
“If I have to incapacitate you myself, I will do so,” she continued, taking a seat. “I’ve done it before, and I’m not afraid to do it again.”
He nodded again, then held out a hand toward her. “Tey,” he rasped, coughing.
“Huh?”
He placed his hand against his wounded chest. “Tey,” he repeated. “Tey Cios.”
“Oh.” She eyed his hand warily, then took it. “Avra Keilenn.”
He nodded. “Lovely...lovely name.”
She pushed him back down. “Get some rest. You’re really sick, and I don’t know how long you were in that keep, but it did a serious number on you.”
He winced. “Three months. Three months without sunlight, without fresh air, without my human form.” He sighed weakly and closed his eyes.
“Get some rest,” Avra repeated, touching Tey’s forehead to check his temperature. She’d have to put together a poultice later, for the wounds, and a brew for the weakness. She didn’t understand why she was taking care of him. After all, he had been idiotic enough to get himself caught by a blood-mage. “Don’t wear yourself out,” she added.
“Yes, Lady Avra,” Tey whispered.
“I’m no lady,” she protested, but he didn’t hear her. He’d fallen fast asleep.
She sat there for she knew not how long, admiring the curve of his jaw, the waves of his hair and the shape of his shoulders. Why did she feel so odd around him? What was it about him that made her feel different than any other man? Her mind drifted back to another dragon she’d met and liked, and tried to banish the memories. She rose and paced away from Tey Cios’ bedside, and stalked around the small fire she’d built.
Jarron Kavaran had been another thief, a young silver with a terrific knack for hiding himself in plain sight. Avra remembered clearly the day she’d met him, running from city guards after stealing a noblewoman’s prized necklace of diamonds. She’d been fifteen at the time, newly on her own, and had herself stolen something of importance to someone high up in the social ladder. She and Jarron had collided in the streets, glanced at each other, realized that both were dragons, and—silently consenting—teamed up. With his illusion-casting and her magic, they managed to evade the guards. Their relationship built quickly, and Avra had let herself trust and love him. As with everyone else she had believed in, though, Jarron wasn’t with her long. In a tavern about a year after he’d joined Avra, Jarron picked a fight with a skinny man. Avra noticed the dragon-claw necklace around the man’s neck, but couldn’t stop Jarron in time. The fight had gone outside, where Jarron had foolishly transformed. The dragonslayer made quick work of Jarron, adding yet another claw to the trophy band across his chest. Avra had fled, pursued by the dragonslayer for several months, before she finally lost him in the mountains surrounding Dragonhome.
Jarron had been an idiot for picking fights with strangers. This Tey Cios had been an idiot for getting himself caught by a blood-mage. Would Avra never be free of handsome idiots?
She was feeling tired from the flight, and could also feel the magic holding her to her human body failing. How long had it been since she’d hunted?
Rather than hunt for now—the blood-mage’s people could still be searching the skies for her—she decided she’d join Tey in sleep. To preserve her magical energies, she let the transformation take her, shifting her back easily to her dragon-form. Curling up around Tey and the fire, she drifted off in slumber. The wizard would never find them in this high, secluded clearing in the mountains. |