Day 23

First testing of chaos on a living creature with no spark of intelligence.

Subject: Ordinary field mouse

Dosage: One drop

Results: Immediate reaction seems to be pain. Hair along the spine was lost, replaced with patchy scales. Subject ceased movement at 2 minutes after exposure. Autopsy reveals that neck extention severed spinal chord. Change too rapid for body to adapt.

Conclusion: Seek larger test subjects. Same dosage should have smaller effects.

Slegi Yeslu, Fellowstell Professor of Creation

—

I was looking up at the stars.

No. I was looking down. The stars were not set against the infinite black of the abyss beyond, but lodged in the lapis-lazuli sky. I saw and felt all of it at once, smoother than glass as I glided across. But there it was, a tiny crack, a hair’s width across, breaking tiny waves into tinier ripples. Some of my infinite self wiggled in and I was-

“Pargrym, you moron! Wake the hell up!” A positively enormous slap rocked my head. I blinked through tears to see Kelk.

Something was wrong with the world. The sky was too dark. Night, already? No, my nose was full of the same smoke blocking off the sky. Flashes of light came through the dark trees and I heard popping and crackling as the forest burned. I could barely see the dragon’s lower body through the haze, shambling in a straight path perpendicular to us. A miserable sound, so low it was more felt than heard, was permeating the entire forest. Was that the dragon? Something was wrong with me, too. Agony shot through my ribs, and when I touched my side, I found it wet.

“Unicorn horns purge poisons. You were in bad shape until Shiro stabbed you.” Kelk tugged the bandages around my ribs a little tighter. “The oker ran like a puma with his tail on fire.”

“He had the right idea. Let’s book it.” I moved to flee, but Kelk was like an anchor.

“It’s heading north. There are villages in that direction. Our people and yours.” Kelk was signing slowly, making sure I took everything in.

“It’ll run out of steam before it makes it there. Forget that it’s angry and wander off.” I wasn’t sure if I was convincing myself or him.

“And if it doesn’t?”

“Then the villages get destroyed, like they always do, and another will be built on their bones like they were built atop the bones of the last. What do you want us to do, Kelk? Can I turn an avalanche from its path? Can you slay a mountain?” I signed with my own blood slathering my fingers, my body weak with fatigue and pain. What more could the world possibly want of me, after I had done all that? I had earned survival, not throwing myself into the manticore’s jaws again!

“I thought your cowardice was an act. See you later, kuth’ka.” That was all Kelk said before vaulting atop Shiro and following behind the dragon.

Kuth'ka. Literally, vulture, “corpse bird”. In context, opportunist. Vicious when it benefitted you… me, and cowardly otherwise. I couldn’t run with that sitting heavy in my mind. I had braved danger over and over these past few days. Not just for myself! I could have escaped to Ki’pokiki’s village and had refused in order to protect the people I had befriended. If I died here, I would never know how they were doing. He called me a mere opportunist!? I had nearly died for my principles!

No, not for my principles. For my friends. People who I had decided were more important than strangers. I had bemoaned that all my options had me stepping over the bodies of innocents. Had I become so willing to let them die for my convenience so quickly? No, it wasn’t a change. I remembered the young mercenary I saw executed for his mistakes long before I even went on this ill-fated trip. I hadn’t made any motion to stop it. Why risk my neck? I had allied myself with killers of all stripes now for my own goals. Kelk now was the only one actually following what I supposedly believed in. Whining about how the world was wouldn’t change it. I stepped off the cold white path of bones and into the haze around me.

Finding Kelk wasn’t too difficult. I couldn’t see more than a dozen feet in front of me, but the dragon’s footsteps and miserable groaning led me better than sight could. It felt like the end of the world out here, and my lungs burned with every breath. Every part of my body told me to retreat, to leave this burning land and go back to the fortress, but I had made a decision. Somebody braver than I was leading the way, riding the only speck of green in this burned forest.

“Kelk! I couldn’t-” The moment I spoke I broke down coughing. The hole in my side screamed. “Just… tell me your plan.”

“Shiro. Let him ride.” Kelk tapped his mount’s side.

Shiro looked at him like he had grown a second head, then at me like I was a particularly damp pile of dung about to soak into his fur. He seemed to calculate whether his personal rules or his loyalty to Kelk were more important, then finally huffed and slowed to let me crawl aboard. I struggled halfway before Kelk grabbed my wrist and dragged me aboard to lay across Shiro’s back.

“How did you even manage to get laid? You must have at some point, or he would just let you ride.” Kelk asked with the merest hint of a smirk on his lips.

“Can we save the banter until after we get out of this?” I gasped. Thankfully, Shiro’s smooth gait didn’t jostle me like a horse would. I would lose my guts if I got bounced around right now.

Kelk didn’t say anything. He just studied the dragon. We could only see its legs, swinging through the smoke like tree trunks. The smoke whirled and tangled in eddies around their moving mass. And it was fast, faster than anything that big should have been capable of. With each step there was a pause as the beast’s unbearable weight shifted, then hills collapsed when it pushed off to take another hundred-foot stride. Shiro was clearly pushing himself to catch up. A decision needed to be made soon.

“We can’t kill it, but we can lure it away from people. We need to get back into the swamp.” Kelk had his bow at the ready, forcing him to speak out loud. “I need you to help me find a weak point. We need to become his number one priority.” 

A weak point? Yes, the dragon’s stony body would reflect anything we could throw at it. I looked at what I could see of that shadowed mass and filled out the lines of its body from memory. Globules of blood were still pouring down from above, wiggling in their slimy patterns. The wound was still open. That was what hurt him in the first place. It would work again. I made a quick mental calculation to determine just where I was when I pulled the sword from his neck and painted the clouds with a false flame just where that dripping chasm should be.

“The Golden Sword was right there! He’s still bleeding!” I pointed and Kelk nodded.

He bent back and I saw his muscles bulge. It looked like he was channeling his entire body into his bow, and when he released the string it flew off with a thud like a hammer on meat. My ears perked up, and I heard it sail up, up, then whistle back down. I shook my head and motioned to the left. He loosed another arrow into the grey void above and I heard it snap apart on stone. I adjusted the position of the flame just the smallest amount and a third arrow flew and vanished.

A solid thud reached my ears, but it was immediately drowned by a metallic screech of rage and pain. Shiro was already turning as the monster stumbled to a stop. Its momentum carried it forward as it struggled to turn, and when I looked back it was hunched so low I could see its head. Just for an instant, I saw those tiny eyes peering out of their bleak caves. For the first time, the dragon was truly seeing me. In the last instant before it faded back out of sight, I saw its mouth stretch wide, and the smoke behind us glowed like a sunset.

“OH FUCK NO! SHIRO TO THE SIDE, THE SIDE!” I screamed and Shiro against all odds obeyed, taking a sharp left down the side of the hill. A mere instant later, a spark of light blasted overhead, exactly where we were a moment ago. An instant later, the horizon exploded. A light like the sun spread, burning straight through my closed eyelids. Shiro screeched and skidded to a stop, and an instant later the shockwave hit us. Our mount rocked and I held onto Kelk for dear life. An avalanche of dust and ash poured over us, painting everything an ugly brown-grey.

Me, Kelk, Shiro, we all coughed in agony and tried to recover our vision. The smoke had been blown away, and for the first time I saw clearly what Ki’margarhara’s wrath looked like. An entire section of the hills was simply gone, like it had been scooped away with a gigantic spoon. Around the crater lay trees, bent and snapped and scattered and burned. The shockwave had put them out, but out a little further, the forest was alight again.

“This is the real Ki’margarhara… we were so naive…” Kelk turned to me, paler than a Fomorian. “The Primordial Earthen Wyrm, the One Who Swallows the River, the Roar That Shakes the Stars! The greatest heroes couldn’t beat him and I was arrogant enough to think I would be the one!?”

“Kelk, you absolutely cannot panic on me! I need somebody to remain calm so I don’t panic!” I grabbed his shoulders and shook him. Attempted to shake him. Even in his terror, he was sturdy. And so I dug in my claws until I got a gasp.

“Kelk, your plan will work! We’ll lure it into the woods and lose it! But if we don’t make it to the woods, we’re dead!” I looked back to see Ki’margarhara standing at its highest, scanning the world from his distant skull. Slowly, he turned to see us and his mouth opened again, unleashing a crackling roar like a volcanic eruption. He knew we were alive. Kelk set his mouth in a grimace and tapped Shiro’s flanks. We were off again. Ki’margarhara roared again and gave chase, starting slow but quickly picking up pace into a horrifying gallop. But at least he wasn’t firing off his breath weapon. There must have been a limit to it. Ammunition, how many rocks he had eaten beforehand? Or simply timing? 

I wished I had been able to look it up beforehand. I would have to observe and make sure. I kept an eye on the dragon until we reached the first trees. Shiro veered off to the side again and soon I heard trees crashing down. Ki’margarhara shoved through and then continued on, passing us. Shiro dodged the logs that rolled down the hill with perfect grace, leaving us safe for the moment. The dragon didn’t even look to the sides, focused on the path we were taking when it could see us. Within moments, all that was left to show the mountain king’s path were the trees left scattered in its wake.

“Will that be enough?” I wondered, more for myself than Kelk.

“At that pace, he should just keep going until he ends up in the lake. Even he would be stopped by that cliff.” Kelk didn’t look entirely sure, but I took it.

“I can’t even hear him anymore. He might already be there.” My ears finally relaxed, drooping to touch my shoulders. “I think I’m still bleeding, so could you-”

My ears perked up again. A distant rumble traveled more through my bones than my head. Another fireball? Kelk and Shiro readied themselves as well, clearly feeling the ground shake. It was another minute before I heard anything more, rapid footsteps, far too small for the dragon. Marg!?

The ogre burst from the trees. With a massive leap, he cleared right over us and landed to crouch behind Shiro. It was almost comical to see something so big trying to hide behind me, but I knew if he was so panicked, there was only one thing that could be on his tail. The ground shook with the dragon’s approaching footsteps.

“Dammit Marg.” I mumbled.