A Roomful of Dragons

Asha takes a deep breath as she enters the room.

The heavy oak door has been expertly fitted on its hinges; it glides open with only the softest whisper. Golden sunlight streams from the high windows, catching the dust motes that dance in its radiance. The paneling on the walls still fills the room with the scent of cut wood, all these years later.

She used to love this room, her sanctuary.

She carefully does not look to the center of the room, to the circle traced on the floor or the statuette within it. She knows she has a job to do today.

But not yet.

Instead her gaze travels across the shelves built into the walls. Dragon statues--dozens of them--live on those shelves. She smiles as she surveys them, marveling, as she always does, at the variety of dragonkind. Drakes, wyverns, amphitheres, serpents. Feathers, scales, fins. Regal, haughty, clever. Some are as tall as her waist; some she can hold in her hand. And each one has a story. Each was a gift from Jon.

Jon.

She can’t think about the dragons without thinking about him. But she wants to remember him as he was. She doesn’t want to think about the present, not yet. So she crosses to the alcove where two corners meet, a place of honor, and the dragon within she has named Mercy.

A courting gift, was Mercy. He brought her back from a king’s assignment, tucked in a basket, barely large enough to wrap two hands around. And Asha had been captivated by the shimmering rainbow of colors on each scale, the tiny horns on her head, the peacefully content expression on her sleeping face.

“I didn’t know what to do,” he admitted. “We had to get rid of the mother; she was terrorizing the local farmers’ herds. But we didn’t know there was a dragonet.”

“So is she a gift, or a responsibility?”

“Both, I guess.” He ran one finger lightly down the spinal ridge as the baby yawned. “I know how much you’ve studied them, and I knew if anyone could help her, you can. I just really…” He glanced at her, the powerful sorcerer replaced by a tenderhearted lovestruck fool. “I really don’t want her to die.”

Asha decided at that moment that she would marry him.

And she did her best by the dragonet, who was a playful delight as she grew to spaniel-sized. Asha trained her as she would a spaniel, and the little beauty followed her everywhere. But she kept growing, and became wilder than any spaniel. Asha could train a spaniel. She didn’t know how to train a dragonet. She couldn't teach her how to be a dragon.

The statuette stasis spell, Jon’s own cunning invocation, had seemed the best solution.

They could still awaken her, of course, and take her for an afternoon’s run through the countryside, but afterwards render her small and static to keep her more easily. They both agreed that this was the best for everyone.

More dragons followed.

As king’s sorcerer, Jon rode with the peacekeeper patrol. And the stasis spell became his specialty for capturing dragons with least danger to the patrol. As he refined the spell, the dragon statues became smaller and easier to transport home to his scholarly wife.

She’s awoken all of them at least once, and has made a good-faith effort to know them, to tame them. They all have their quirks, their personalities, and she treasures each one as an act of love from her husband.

Ebony, a rare mountain amphithere, who had been Jon’s wedding present to her.

Marigold, the crimson and gold beauty named after her favorite flower, who warbled like a songbird.

Cloud, whose gossamer wings defy physics by allowing him to fly.

Cadea, who was perfectly reasonable unless treasure was involved, when she turned into a fiercely possessive beast.

Asha stops in front of Bail.

One of the few dragons she has met with the gift of speech, he had shown up at their residence, wings tucked and head bowed respectively, and asked to speak to the noble lady and mighty sorcerer who had garnered a reputation for collecting dragons. And then he asked to join the collection. It would not be a bad life, he reasoned, in which he did not need to hunt and could look forward to learned discourse when awakened. And so Jon had enspelled him, and afterwards Asha had spent many a night sipping sherry by the fire, discussing history and philosophy and dragonkind with a dragon who was at least her equal in intelligence.

She runs her finger down Bail’s neck--not that he can feel it; he had told her once that there is no sensation in stasis--and considers waking him now. She could use a kind face and good advice. But the thought of the compassion that will be in his eyes nearly undoes her. She will need to be strong for her task today.

Finally, steeling herself, she turns to the summoning circle at the center of the room, and at the sinuous statue in the center of it. This dragon bears an uncanny resemblance to the statue she calls Firestorm.

That’s not his real name. She knows he can speak, but he was beyond reason when awakened, a raging beast spitting curses and flames and refusing to interact, and she had no choice but to place him back into stasis.

Firestorm--one of her few failures, and her biggest regret.

And some instinct tells her that this new statue, that looks like Firestorm, that was found with the body of her husband, is related. And maybe, just maybe, if she awakens it, she can learn the truth.

She can learn why the body of her husband lies even now, unblinking and unmoving, with no heartbeat or breath, and yet no decay even after weeks, in the chapel.

She visits him every day, to say a prayer and place a marigold on his bier as a gentle reminder of her presence and love. He is surrounded by marigolds now.

She thought it would become easier. She was wrong. Every day is harder as he lies there, unchanging. And possibly, just possibly, this dragon can tell her why.

No more stalling. She turns away from Firestorm to the center circle. Careful to stay outside the line, she lifts her arm and activates the circle’s protection with the words that Jon has taught her.

Green lightning dances along her fingertips as the circle shimmers into existence. And then, with another deep breath, she breathes the words of the awakening spell.

The green light within the circle expands, glowing brighter to painfully white hot, and the shape within bends and stretches. When it settles, the sinuous form of a female drake stands there in all its fiery glory.

Asha recognizes the look of disorientation, but the dragon comes to herself quickly, turning her head and body and assessing her surroundings. Almost, thinks Asha, as though she expected to be here. She can’t decide if this is a reassuring or a terrifying though. The dragon visibly startles when she sees Firestorm on the shelf, and then rounds on Asha with a roar.

The words she spits are sibilant growls, filled with crackle and hate, like a diatribe from an inferno. She rears up and blasts flame after flame at Asha, but the circle holds and the fire remains contained within.

And then Asha sees the green lightning dancing across the dragon’s front claws.

She stares, suddenly dizzy. Could it be? Bail never said that there were sorcerers among dragonkind.

The dragon hisses words that sizzle with power, and the green lightning explodes outwards, but the magic cannot penetrate the circle’s protection. Asha sinks to the floor as the dragon becomes still, simmering, tail lashing, recognizing her impotence.

“Who are you?” Asha whispers.

The female dragon answers her with a string of sounds that could be a forest ablaze.

“Do you understand me?”

A hiss, then, “Yesss...of course.” The accent is dry, scratching, sibilant, and Asha has to strain to make out the words. “You stole my mate. I understand everything about you.”

“Your mate. Firestorm was your mate?”

“Firestorm…” She turns to the statue on the shelf that looks like her. “A poor name for so noble a creature.” She utters another string of burning syllables, which Asha can only assume is his real name. “Yes. He is my mate.” Green lightning dances again across the dagger-like claws. “You take mine. I take yours.”

It’s all clear suddenly, and the knowledge knocks the breath from Asha. Jon, lying on his bier, neither alive nor dead. In stasis. Like these statues he has created.

“You enspelled my husband?” She wants to be strong. She reminds herself that she is Lady Asha, peer of the realm and wife to the king’s sorcerer. But voice does not obey her command. “But...how? His spell...his spell...was proprietary.”

“I do not need his spell. I just need to turn it against him. You--” She blasts futilely. “You and he collect my kind. You enslave us and put us on a shelf for display. Now you know what that is like.”

“But the king has ordered the deaths! Jon saves dragons! Would you rather your mate be killed by paladins?”

“Justifications. We do not answer to your king. And will you now enslave me?” And she turns into a whirlwind of fury, a tornado of fire, and the green lightning crackling on her claws blasts the circle, seeking to penetrate it.

Asha raises her hand and speaks the restasis word, and the fire and lightning disappear, and in their place is a crimson statue with hate in its gaze.

Asha stares at it for a long time.

~~~~~~~

It’s taken her weeks to get to this point, but she’s finally made it.

As she progressed, she traded her wagon for a cart and dismissed her servants, one by one. Now, only she remains, holding a bag with two statues in it.

Firestorm and Inferno, she calls them in her mind, knowing she cannot pronounce their real names.

She told the king what she was planning to do. After she attempted the awakening spell on Jon, without luck, she told her liege what had caused his condition. The best minds among scholars and sorcerers are working on releasing her husband.

She doesn’t hold out much hope that they can undo the tangled spell mixed of human and draconic magic.

She’s traveled to the most remote parts of the kingdom, speaking the words of awakening one or two at a time, releasing her captives where they will be least likely to run afoul of those who would harm them.

Bail was unexpectedly hard. But he had understood when she said their time together was at an end and she had another task for him. And then she’d awakened Mercy, and told him to teach her how to be a dragon.

That was her last stop, before this.

Now she takes the two drakes from her bag and places them, just far enough apart, facing each other.

She does not intend to run, or hide. She is hopeful that the sight of each other and the realization of what she has done will be enough for them, but she will face their justice.

She does not know if love or revenge will win, this time. She is not certain what she would do, were the situations reversed.

She stands for a long time, the words of awakening hovering in her mouth.

Finally, she lifts her hand and speaks them.

Author's note: This is where the story originally ended. Ambiguous endings allow the reader to become part of the story, to choose the happy ending or the sad ending or another ending entirely in their own mind. And some people prefer the story go on...

I was asked to continue the story and make a definitive ending. So you can stop here, if you'd like, and the characters can do whatever they do in your own mind.

Or, if you'd like to keep going, my version of the story continues in A Castle Full of Dragons....