BECMI Chapter 282 – A Winter Steadfast
“Being snookered by an arse like Gulguz doesn’t speak well of her common sense, either, Elder,” I noted to the Great One sitting back in draco-human form, watching something unpleasant getting sodded out from his brain.
He sighed heavily, the smoke coming out of his nose turning white with oily little black things floating and popping in it, but only his third moon-lit eye stayed open. “I sense neither greed nor malice in your words, and a noteworthy lack of fear.”
“Yeah, you’d think a legendary dragon hoard or eight would be enough to stir up some real avarice, but seriously, we’ll have all this gold used up within six months if we’re serious about using it… and we’re generally pretty serious,” Sama replied lazily.
The Great One huffed. “Some great magical device?” he reasoned. “I am aware of the costs of some projects…”
“Hundreds of little projects spread across the nation, more like, Elder,” Sama said, finally bringing her head down and blinking her eyes. “Okay, recollection of some of that stuff nicely fogged.”
“How long did it take you to find that brew?” I had to ask. The tumbler the Great One had drank from slid across to my hand and I lifted it to my nose.
It ignited in black flames and crimson roses at a whiff, and I hastily put it down again as it burned clean, forming black stems drooping blood-red roses that fell away into less than dust. The elder’s third eye watched it all silently.
“Eh, twenty years? I still can’t listen to Unchained Melody, can barely recall it at all, but at least the memory of it doesn’t pop up at random times to interrupt my day like it used to.” Sama made a gesture over her shoulder. “Times like these, it really wants to come back, however.”
I almost started whistling the song, then decided against it, magnanimous soul that I was. I had the feeling she’d sat through the whole thing from Briggs, as Aelryinth had American Pie, just to analyze the whole effect… and puke his guts out afterward, but Can’t Sing was not something you took lightly, nopers.
Also why I really, REALLY, didn’t want to hear him Not Sing. Second-hand memory reflections were quite bad enough, eidetic memory and all that I had, tyvm.
“So you still intend to claim Pearl’s hoard, even with I, the Great One, sitting right here?” the Lord of All Dragons asked with deceptive calm.
“Um, Elder. The sight of her hoard is going to trigger the same reaction that Briggs’ Not Singing would if you heard it again. You’re as sensitive to metal and the power of a hoard as humans are to hearing. Any of you or your dragons coming near anything from that hoard is probably going to make you want to vomit.”
His taloned fingers trembled, just a little bit.
“So not only are you going to take it, you have arranged events to make me want to remove it all the more quickly.” That actually sounded somewhat… admiring?
“An extensive redesign of the ornamentation of the caves here would probably be a good idea, too,” Sama advised helpfully. “There’s a reason we aren’t looking at the stuff, and dragons are known for their incredible eyesight and attention to detail. The color variations alone…”
His hand shot up, held out to her. “Give me another one,” he said stiffly.
I flicked the tumbler to her hand, she poured a shot in it, slid it over so fast it looked like it bounced off her hand, and he caught and downed it.
Galaxies lived and died as they burned up out of his nose with renewed vigor.
“You have my leave to remove any and all portions of her hoard, leave nothing behind,” he finally said, only a little painfully, a little relieved. “Lady Edge, when it is gone, Send a message to me and I will… send a force to engage in active rearrangement of the visual, audial, and other sensory harmonics of Pearl’s lair.”
Meaning he was gonna send dragons in to trash the place so thoroughly nothing reminded him of it. The new Pearl could take the time to redecorate and embellish it to her own standards, presumably.
“I will do so, Elder,” I promised him gravely. “And just so you know, most of the precious metal and raw gemstones will be consumed in magical processes, so you needn’t worry about them finding their way into other hoards, although I presume melting them down and recasting them would also cleanse them adequately.”
“That is oddly reassuring, Lady Edge,” he replied to that. “I am afraid, however, that your mate’s reputation among dragons will rapidly exceed your own, Lady Sama.”
Sama just blinked once. “You know, Elder, I’m perfectly fine with that. It’s not exactly the type of thing I want to be known for, but Fuzzy, he’s probably deliriously happy he had dragons listening to him, of all things. He won’t mind at all.”
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Being a Source, he probably wouldn’t. Singing so badly he drove away great wyrms? Basically tainted the very memory of Pearl’s lair and hoard so badly they never wanted to come back?
What if he walked into a dragon’s lair and started to Sing like that? They’d get chased out of their own caves and never want to, dare to go back and claim their hoard! They’d never be able to sleep on their own gold!
Yeah, Briggs wouldn’t mind having that reputation at all. Dragons would go out of their way not to piss him off.
“Any other reason you stopped in here, Elder?” Sama asked sociably, unimpressed and acting like it. “We’re just waiting for my Fuzzy to finish up, as it were.”
“Truthfully, I did not expect to see any of Pearl’s slayers here. Did you kill all of her entourage yourselves, too?”
“They were muttering things about vengeance and disasters and end of days and doom and all that rot. Yeah, we wiped them on general principle after they started attacking us. Loyal to the end, they were,” Sama answered without batting an eye.
“And removed all of their bodies?” He was mildly impressed.
“Eh, worth near as much as their hoards, once they are broken down,” Sama confessed. “They eat humans, we turn them to spell components. It’s a virtuous cycle, you know?”
He almost corrected her to a ‘vicious’ cycle, and then just let it slide. Clearly Sama was satisfied with the way things worked, and wasn’t at all of the mindset that dragons should be the apex predators.
They were just one more lifeform trying to claim the top spot.
“I will note to the other Rulers that Gulguz is not to be trusted in the slightest, and to be very wary of Immortals who want dragons to go attack mortal realms. Pearl had a thirst for destruction of mortals that was impossible to slake, and so was lured into something unwise,” the Great One sighed, his exhalations once again looking more like black smoke now. “I trust this is not something you will be repeating if not directly challenged?” he asked of her.
“Restrained viciousness and willingness to fight is a valuable asset. Unrestrained and untempered, not so much,” Sama agreed wisely, giving him a smile of all eight canines showing. “It’s like she thought she was the only one who could take the gloves off and not hold back in the slightest once roused.
“Ah, never mind. No, we were perfectly happy to let Charred-Eye sit in his cave and be a Dragon King if he didn’t bug us. I presume Pearl thought that was very arrogant of us, and humiliating to a Dragon King. Gulguz stepped in with sweet words, and this is where we are now. Pearl didn’t think we’d hit back, and we did.”
“She is young enough to not have any idea of the power of human nations with access to greater technology and the highest tiers of magic,” the Great One sighed. “She was wise enough not to test the likes of Delpha, but she was never exposed to Sythia, Arcanpur, Maganoa, or Darkmoor.”
“A dragon who is not a student of history. Ah, my apologies, does not care about non-dragon history as irrelevant.” I could only shake my head. “It is annoying truth that the history of the world has only barely been shaped by dragons, and even less by the draconic Immortals. The death of Pearl will literally do nothing to the events that are unfolding now. It is a minor footnote to the game Immortals are playing.”
All three of his eyes fixed on me piercingly, but again, I was unfazed. “You have power, and are aware of things most mortals are not,” he conceded to me carefully. Both of us, really. “Are you attempting to play games with Immortals now?”
“More like survive them, Elder,” Sama refuted dryly. “They like to picture it all as just tests and a crucible for making new Immortals, and you can’t have all that without proper blood, pageantry, drama, and glorious deeds, complete with disasters natural and man-made to really add the interesting parts to and raise the death tolls. It’s not like we’re fixing up to go and beat down Immortals willy-nilly for being arsehats for their glorious Spheres, right?” she added in a disparaging voice.
My expressions remained absolutely impassive. She said it, not me!
“My concerns are for dragons, not mortals or Immortals,” the Great One replied dispassionately. “If you have no greater agenda that imperils my followers, there is no need for my involvement.”
Sama looked at me, I shook my head, and she shrugged. “I kill dragons who get in my way, or who think to prey on my people, Elder. I don’t go hunting them for bloodsport or revenge. If they come for me or mine, they get exactly what they were intending to dish out, as unexpected and unappreciated as that might be.
“If they want to live by the rule of fang and claw, they can die by sword and arrow, just like any who choose that path.”
I think he would have sighed if he could. “A rule many dragons prefer to forget they are susceptible to,” he noted with all the gravity of an elder who had seen it many times. “I believe I shall depart. Thank you for the libations. They did indeed work as well as could be hoped.”
Sama set down the half-full bottle and slid it across to him. He caught it without expression. “Take some the next time before you go to sleep, or you’re going to have some nasty callbacks rising up.”
His eyes looked at both of us and the bottle at the same time, he did indeed sigh again, and rose to his feet… without touching the ground. We both stood as well, Sama on her seat. “Lady Sama, Lady Edge,” he said politely.
There was one edge of the Sound Bubble that reached out to touch the wall of ethereal reality there. He existed precisely through it and didn’t hear anything else of what was going on.
“Interplanar infamous anti-musician! Fuzzy is going to be insufferable once he’s all done!” Sama smiled as we both sat down. The cards flipped up to her hands, and she began to shuffle as if they were liquid or alive or something. It was fun just watching them swirl nonchalantly around her hands. I hadn’t put in any practice time to be able to do the same. I made a note to do so.
Stage wizardry could be fun wizardry, too!
“You’re missing the grander picture.” She eyebrowed me to ‘do go on, dear’. “If he can link with that Nightingale… it could sing what he’s actually thinking he’s singing, or something to that accord. You and I both know he’s a musician and he loves music in all its forms. Imagine a world where we could actually hear him sing?”
Sama thought about that, and then smiled. “I’m actually going to have to practice a duet, aren’t I?”