Tuesday's Short - Gulvane & the Dragon
This week’s short story takes us from the fantasy world of Tallameera and what happens when a world's deities take an active interest in their world to a tale of elves, dragons, bloodlines, and dragon pacts. Welcome to
Gulvane & the Dragon.
Preparing for a new era in his life, the wizard Gulvane walks the corridors of his mind, remembering the eras locked behind three doors. Forester, Fighter, Assassin. Behind each door lie the memories and skills of who and what he used to be, inaccessible, unless he chose to return to the professions he had left. Uncertain of where his life will lead him, or of what he will become, Gulvane wakes to find a dragon standing over his bed. Now, what would a creature such as that want with an elf like himself?Gulvane & the Dragon
Gulvane walked the corridors of his mind, going deep into himself to remember who he was, and explore who he might become. The years of an elf were long, many more times longer than the span of an average mortal, and Gulvane was reaching another century, his third as a wizard, his seventh as an elf. In that time, he’d lived a lifetime in each of four different occupations.
Walking down the timber-lined hallway, Gulvane traced a hand along the walls, stopping at each of the three doors that kept the memories and skills that had made up his past. The first door was an oaken gold and adorned by a simple spray of leaves and flowers. A small grey-furred creature peered out from beneath the blossoms, its vivid green eyes touched with blue and gold. Gulvane laid a finger on its forehead and let the bittersweet feeling it invoked touch him briefly. The second door was a glowing bronze, and adorned with a pair of crossed swords. The third door was the color of night, created from a single plank of ebon-wood. A crossbow adorned its center, painted in a shade barely lighter than the surface that bore it.
Forester, fighter… assassin. Was it any wonder he’d become a wizard?
He walked past the gleaming darkness of the third door and stared at the heavy columns slowly forming in the blank space of wall beyond. Soon. His heart was restless, and soon he would embark on another era of his life.
Gulvane sighed. He had enjoyed his time as a wizard. It had been peaceful compared to what he had been before. The trouble was that he had no idea what he wanted to become next… and he was getting old, his body standing towards the end of middle age. He stood contemplating the slowly growing pillars before retracing his steps, touching each door as he passed.
Assassin, fighter, forester, he could return to any one of them by opening the door and stepping into the mind of who he had been. His fingers lingered on the bright-eyed creature peering from the flowers, before Gulvane shook his head and walked on, focusing his thoughts outwards and slowly returning to consciousness.
He woke to find a dragon standing over his bed.
“You are most entertaining,” it said, “and I have always wanted an elf of my own.”
“You look like a man,” Gulvane replied, “yet I know you are dragon. How is it I know that?”
“You are wizard,” the dragon said, leaning forward, quick as lightning, and pinning Gulvane to the mattress by holding the blankets tight across his shoulders.
He bent in closer, until their foreheads almost touched, and then the dragon inhaled, moving his nose a hair’s breadth above Gulvane’s skin and taking in the elf’s scent. It was frighteningly intimate and predatory at the same time.
“And you are so much more,” the dragon said, on the softest of breaths. “What is it I can smell? Blood and darkness, stealth and the silver shine of an adamantine dagger, the silence of a whisper bow. Deeper, and these mingle with the stench of death and battle, the mirrored arcs of twin blades, the lightning of a great sword—where did you store that, I wonder—and rage, such rage, fading to coldness.”
The dragon moved, stooping over him and inhaling the scent of Gulvane’s neck, his mouth close enough to the wizard’s throat that Gulvane’s heart sped its rhythm.
“But you were warm once, a gentle man, fierce only in the protection of the forest and its creatures, shunning civilization and a wedding that would have seen you close to ruling. What made you run, I wonder?” He leant closer, touching foreheads with the wizard and capturing Gulvane’s eyes with his own.
“No,” Gulvane whispered, and the dragon paused.
“No?”
For a moment, Gulvane hoped the beast would show mercy, but, instead, he felt the mattress dip beneath its weight and it pinned him so that he was entirely paralyzed. Its human lips curved into a smile, and it bared its teeth.
“No one says no to a dragon.”
“Please.”
“And we are not known for our mercy,” the creature said, touching foreheads again.
Gulvane tried to divert it from the path to his past, but the beast was older, far older than he’d imagined. The sense of the life it had lived left him paralyzed, partly in terror, partly in awe. It wanted an elven wizard for a pet?
In his mind, the dragon found the three doors and halted.
“Forester, fighter, assassin.” It cocked its head and studied where the fourth door was almost fully formed. “My timing is impeccable,” it said, its satisfaction a tangible thing that sent a wave of happiness through Gulvane’s head.
“But this is what I came here to find,” it added, and turned as Gulvane realized what it meant.
The elf dived around the dragon’s human bulk, and pressed himself against the door. The dragon gave him a look that might have been consternation, if it hadn’t contained so much amusement.
“Step aside, Gulvane,” the dragon said. “I will not harm you.”
Gulvane wanted to say that he was hurting already. The dragon raised an eyebrow.
“I did not say there would be no pain, only that you would not be harmed by it,” the beast explained, seizing him gently, but firmly by the shoulders and lifting him aside.
Keeping one hand on Gulvane to hold him away, it placed the other on the door, its palm covering the furry face hidden in the carefully painted branch. For a long moment, Gulvane felt nothing, and then the door cracked open just a little and the dragon reached inside.
The memory he drew out played before Gulvane’s eyes with a clarity he’d hoped to forget.
He had returned from a long sojourn in the forest, bringing with him the rarest of flowers for propagating by the druids, and study by the wizards. His heart had been full of joy because he had time to court his bride-to-be. He’d loved her since his youth, adoring her from afar until she deigned to notice him and gained her parents approval of the pledge.
She was not expecting him for two nights more, so he had sent the honey possum, the cutest and closest of his animal companions, to let her know he would be calling. She had not sent it back with a request that he wait until the next day, and he had bathed and dressed with a lightness of heart that vanished as soon as he stepped through the door to her private chambers.
His bride knelt before an open portal of swirling darkness, her silver-gold hair held back from her face in an intricate knot, her warm brown eyes brimming with tears, and an ebon dagger held tightly in one fist. In front of her, on a small, hand-carved altar of rarest silver wood, she had laid out the possum.
It was stretched on its back, not moving, its bright green eyes wide with fear. Gulvane remembered moving then, but not fast enough. His bride had raised the knife with one hand, and pinned the creature with the other… and then she had cut it open from throat to belly.
It had been quick and clean, but the smell of blood had marred the night air, and the swirling dark portal had come alive as his companion died. Laughter had crept out of the night beyond the portal, and two dark hands had reached through lifting the creature from the altar, and taking it into another realm.
Gulvane had not thought, as swirling tattoos of red and blue had grown on his fiancé’s face, had not thought as he drew his sword and took the noblewoman’s head from her shoulders, before thrusting the blade into the portal beyond her tumbling body. Something solid met the blade, and the thing on the other side had screamed.
With a vicious snap, the portal had ripped closed, shearing the blade, until only a four-inch stump remained attached to the hilt. Gulvane had dropped it and fled. After 210 years of living amongst his own people, he had run blindly away, not daring their justice, not able to face the other creatures who had run at his side. The honey possum had been beloved by them all.
Somewhere in the forest dark, his bond with them had snapped, and all the skills he had honed in his life had been crammed behind the golden door. The honey possum, hidden in its nest of flowers and leaves had taken much longer to appear. Gulvane had been remade, but he had not known it, until a caravan guard found him collapsed at the side of the road.
“Father.” Gulvane mouthed the first word he had spoken to a human, crashing back to wakefulness as the dragon pulled the oak door closed, and reached over to secure the bronze-wood door, as well.
“Not exactly,” the dragon said, stepping off the bed and leaving Gulvane free to move.
Like lightning, Gulvane flicked the covers back, and cast the most powerful spell that came to mind.
“Don’t,” the dragon said, raising an arm to shield his face, and pushing out and down with the open palm of his other hand.
It almost worked. Gulvane saw the dragon’s form shiver, caught a glimpse of the creature beyond—steel gray, long-limbed with a powerful body and well-muscled tail. Wings flared, built for speed and maneuverability. Gray eyes looked affronted, then partially amused.
Gulvane took all this in, before the spell bounced back, slamming him against the bed head with such force that it cracked and became partially embedded in the wall. The dragon’s form rippled just once more, and then solidified back into the human form he’d chosen—a red-haired man, with a salt-and-pepper beard, built like a warrior, heavier in form than his dragon self.
Before Gulvane could gather his breath, the dragon reached into his head and flicked open the golden-oak door releasing the feeling that had engulfed the elf as he had fled into the night. The wizard shook as though struck by a fist, and the dragon slammed the door shut, reaching for the bronze-wood door.
With the snick of a gleaming adamantine claw, the dragon flicked that door open, as well, and pulled the memory of change from it, overwhelming him again.
This time, Gulvane knelt before a woman dressed head to toe in black.
“Kill me if you must,” he said, “but my spirit will pursue you through an eternity of hells.”
The assassin had lifted a miniature crossbow of mist-night and shot him.
“We’ll let the gods decide,” she said, and watched as he collapsed. “When you find me, your training will begin.”
The poison spread rapidly. Gulvane had been a caravan guard and warrior-for-hire for a scant 78 years, outliving so many of his brethren that he’d had to move regions lest he be called a curse. That era ended as his vision faded. The last thing he saw was the mist-night crossbow arcing towards him. ‘Find me,’ she’d said.
The dragon dragged the bronze-wood door closed. Gulvane reached for another spell. Was not surprised when the dragon took and crushed it.
“You are thatGulvane,” it said. “I expected nothing less. Did you know no price was ever laid on your head? That her family was forced to pay the blood price for your disappearance?”
Whatever Gulvane had been expecting, it had not been that.
The dragon caught his astonishment, could not hide a victorious smirk.
“The tattoos remained on her face, the altar was covered in the possum’s blood. When her spirit refused to respond, the wizards were called. They reconstructed events so they could be seen. Her mother collapsed. Her father had to be prevented from taking his own life, such was his shame. The Council helped them recover, but the household is yet to regain its place amongst the nobility. Your name was cleared, but you could not be found. How did you learn to run so far and so fast?”
Gulvane was lost for words. All those years of rage… when he could have returned home. All those years of cold solitude where he had taken the lives he’d been paid for, and wound himself in a shroud of aloofness to hide the loneliness of his heart. The last three centuries living alone in a tower, when he could have had wives, a family, alliances… a tree bearing his name.
He thought he’d outgrown that grief, wept all the tears required, was surprised to find dampness streaking his cheeks as he stared into the dragon’s eyes. Gulvane swallowed, tempering the emotion, tamping it behind the walls of business.
“You had something you wanted to discuss?”
The dragon rocked back onto its heels, mild surprise driving it to temporary silence. Gulvane pushed himself upright and disentangled himself from the sheets. Swinging his legs over the side of the bed, he summoned an over-robe, and pulled it on. Wizard or not, he felt his night shirt left him at a disadvantage.
He watched the dragon regain its composure.
“I wanted an elf of my own,” the dragon said, raising a hand to silence Gulvane when he would have interrupted. “I didn’t want just any elf. I wanted a wizard who could fight, but one who understood stealth, and who didn’t need magic to avoid detection. And I wanted an elven wizard who had a heart.”
“You stalkedme.”
“You attracted my attention.”
“When?”
“The day you took the honey possum from the tree.”
“I… what?”
“You do recall it, don’t you?”
“I recall the day,” Gulvane admitted, “but I don’t recall you.”
“Back then, all I wanted was a honey possum to call my own.”
“I couldn’t save the others,” Gulvane said. “The storm called me out, and I went as quickly as I could, but I couldn’t reach the tree in time. Jambil was all that survived.”
“I know. I watched you swimming. Not many would have braved that current.”
“I didn’t know the lightning had struck so deep.”
“Your Jambil was outside the nest.”
“He must have sensed it coming. He always seemed to know…” Gulvane let the words go unsaid. How could Jambil have been caught and sacrificed? He thought back to the time he had sent the possum ahead, but recalled nothing in its attitude or gestures to indicate it knew it was going to its doom.
“She didn’t know she was going to take him, then,” the dragon said. “Not even a seer would have seen it. And he was pre-occupied at the time.”
Gulvane had known that. Jambil had been unsettled for weeks, but the forester hadn’t been able to work out why. He might have puzzled over it further, but the import of the dragon’s words struck a chord.
“You were watching me, even then?”
“You had taken my honey possum,” the dragon said. “Won its heart so it would not leave you. What else was I to do? It had to find a mate, eventually.”
“You tried to lure him away?” Gulvane was aghast. Jambil had never told him of thatencounter.
“He refused me, so I swore him to secrecy. Have you ever been tail-flicked by a possum?”
Gulvane had, more than once, and the memory brought a chuckle from his throat. A tail-flick to a possum was like a raised finger in some human cultures—extremely rude. The remembrance was less painful than he’d anticipated, but he changed the subject, anyway.
“Did you ever find one?”
“One what?”
“A possum of your own.”
The dragon looked away, pausing in silence until Gulvane thought he had struck a nerve. He was about to apologize when the dragon returned his gaze and replied.
“I raised Jambil’s family.”
If Gulvane had not already been seated, he would have collapsed onto the edge of the mattress.
“I am sorry,” the dragon added.
Gulvane waved it away, raising a hand and bowing his head until he had his emotions back under control. Jambil had made a family? Well, that explained a lot. Honey possums were notorious for keeping secrets. Gulvane wanted to weep, this time for not getting to know creatures he’d never met. Jambil’s children. Again, he changed the subject.
“I cannot be what you want me to be,” he said, feeling inexplicably weary.
The dragon leant against the wall near Gulvane’s bed and tilted his head to one side.
“Why not?” he asked.
Gulvane stared at him.
“Why not, what?”
“Why can’t you be what I need?”
“Because elves can only unlock one era of existence at a time. We lose the skills we learn in each, having to train for a new trade each time we undergo the change. We lose most of the memories, too.”
“Like those of Jambil?” the dragon asked, in a sly tone.
“Yes!” Gulvane snapped. “Like those of… What have you done?”
“I left the door ajar,” the dragon replied, and Gulvane felt panic flutter through his chest.
The dragon watched him, like a mountain cat stalking a rabbit.
“Do you hurt?” it asked.
“I…” Gulvane paused, giving himself a quick once over. “No,” he said.
This time he felt the dragon give the door a definite nudge, felt his earliest memories creep into the corridor and spread slowly through his mind, finding a place where they might fit. He watched as they met, and tangled with the current era of wizardry, sometimes with a minor clash, and sometimes like old friends. He glanced up at the dragon.
“Is it working?” the dragon asked, and Gulvane gave a nervous swallow, as he nodded his head.
They remained in companionable silence, the dragon watching Gulvane; Gulvane watching the dragon.
“Will it take long?” Gulvane wanted to know.
The dragon shrugged.
“It will take as long as it takes,” he said. “Are you ready to remember what it was like to be a guardian of merchandise?”
“And lives,” Gulvane told him. “Don’t forget the lives. It was how the assassins found me, remember?”
The dragon favored him with a long careful stare, and Gulvane felt suspicion stir.
“Tell me you didn’t send the assassins after me,” he said.
The dragon didn’t say a word, just nudged the bronze-colored door wider, until Gulvane remembered the utter exhaustion that had claimed him at the forest’s edge. With that memory came the knowledge that he had fallen almost a mile from the nearest trader’s camp. What was a guard doing so far from his client? It was too far for a simple toilet stop.
The dragon cleared its throat. It almost sounded embarrassed.
“Jambil’s mate was worried. She insisted I make sure you were all right. I made sure the guard kept walking until he found you.”
“But… such a long way?”
“He kept hearing noises, seeing shadows that might be bandits… and the camp was always close by when he looked back.”
“You obfuscated his mind.” Gulvane couldn’t keep the accusatory tone from his voice.
“He found you, didn’t he?” The dragon was unrepentant.
“And you left him to carry me back on his own.”
“He was strong enough.”
“He was an old man!”
“But not as feeble as he let you believe.”
Gulvane had always suspected it, but he made the excuse, anyway.
“He was nearing retirement.”
“And he needed a legacy,” the dragon said. “You gave him that.”
Gulvane had given him that, indeed. That thought comforted him when he remembered laying a farewell kiss on the old man’s brow. His father had died in his sleep on the road. Gulvane had come to wake him for his shift, and found him cold beneath his blankets. He would have been sadder if the man had not worn a faint smile, his face turned in the direction Gulvane had been standing watch.
They had taken the time to bury him, before the caravan moved on. Gulvane had used every fight, in the weeks after, to vent his grief. He had saved more lives than he’d ended, and thwarted attacks both bold and underhanded. He had thwarted enough of the latter for his prowess to be noted and a more specialized line of work to open.
“I knew you would meet the assassins eventually,” the dragon said, “and by that time, I foresaw a need.”
“You didsend them after me!” Gulvane felt anger and let it bleed into resignation; it had been a long night and he no longer had the energy to care. The truth of it was the dragon could end him any time it chose. The first prickle of curiosity touched his mind “Did you also pay them to end my life?”
“No.” The dragon looked at its boots, shifting its feet as though the question caused him discomfort. “I merely asked that, should they find you worthy, I would pay them well to train you in their art.”
Gulvane watched as the dragon raised its head, met his gaze.
“At least I know she did not miss,” he said.
“No. I was furious. She said she did not train to another’s whim. Your skills impressed her, but only strength of heart can overcome every effect that poison has. I contemplated killing her for her impudence.”
“Yet you did not.”
“She was the best of her time, and you have turned out well enough.”
“Was?”
“She was human, Gulvane. They do not live as long as we.”
Gulvane frowned at the response. It was too rehearsed by far.
“You have a way of avoiding the truth,” he said.
“Even legends make mistakes,” the dragon admitted. “I ghosted her when she accepted a contract on my life.”
“The laws of her guild would not have let her refuse.”
“She could have retired.”
“It’s not that easy,” Gulvane said, and wondered why it was important that the dragon should understand.
“You managed.”
“I took a somewhat unusual path—the kind that opens only once, if it opens at all.” He remembered bloody nights, and weeks spent in the ecstasy of walking on the edge of life and death. He remembered striking a bargain with a wizard who thought he’d come to kill him, and earning the right to inherit. “My mistress had no such path, although she dared much wrath to object.”
“She did?” The dragon asked, eyebrows raised. “She never mentioned it.”
“When you say ‘ghosted’,” Gulvane said, a terrible thought crossing his mind. “do you mean—”
“I ended her life, and forced her service in unlife. It seemed only fair. My opponents had to rethink their strategy, and you had time to learn.”
Now, they came to the crux of the dragon’s visit. Gulvane leaned forward, staring intently at the dragon’s face.
“And?”
This time the dragon’s gaze captured Gulvane and held him, until its eyes were all that he could see. Bronze pools, full of banked heat and fire, they seemed to encompass worlds.
“You have had time enough.”
“And you have time no more.” Gulvane broke the spell, shuddering at the power he’d seen inside the dragon’s skin.
“Impudent elf. I don’t know why I persisted when I saw what you would become.”
“Because you need me, and I have exceeded all the hopes you had for me.”
The dragon managed another sly smile.
“Perhaps I only needed a pet.”
“I am no honey possum.”
“You come close.” The dragon smirked.
“And is some dragon forester coming to take me out of my tree?”
“This time I have beaten the forester to the nest.” The dragon raised its head. “Although I fear he is on his way.”
Fantastic, Gulvane thought. I’ve caught the attention of two dragons.
Four, the dragon’s voice spoke in his mind. “But I am the only one who has shown care for you. The others would make you a spectacle.”
“To cause you discomfort.”
“To weaken me.”
“How?”
“It would be an embarrassment.”
“But you have weathered those before.”
The dragon sighed. “You are too impudent by far.
Gulvane leant back, raised an eyebrow in amusement. It was dangerous to bait the beast, when he was so contested, but he wanted to know at least something of the creature’s plans. The dragon blinked.
“It would weaken me.”
That simple admission shook Gulvane to the core.
“You have invested that much?”
“Look within, and you will see the first bond threads have already formed.”
“I should have seen them long ago.”
“I kept them hidden.”
Gulvane was aghast.
“You had no right.”
“I saved your life.”
That made Gulvane pause. The beast was right. Even the small interference of bringing his adopted father to his rescue was enough to create a debt. When he looked within, Gulvane found the bond threads shining bright and strong. There was just one problem.
“I am not yet what you want,” he said.
The dragon smiled a terrible smile.
“Don’t—” Gulvane’s protest was too late.
The dragon stepped sideways in his mind, kicking the bronze-wood door wide, even as his fist hammered down on the ebony surface of the door beside it. The mist-night bow slipped free of the magic keeping it in place as the portal shattered, and memories, dark as night, flooded out engulfing the corridors of his mind in bloody wreaths of sorrow and secret victory.
This time the pain was like a physical blow. So many memories, so much coldness, so much—too much—emotion dammed up and masked behind the professional solitude his mistress had made him learn. The poison had required strength of heart to endure and then defeat, but the trade had encased that heart in an icy shield denying emotion.
The sun shivered at the horizon’s edge, lending the world a grey light until it could shine in full. Gulvane felt its promise in the coolness of the pre-dawn breeze, heard it in the growing chorus of bird and animal cries, saw it in the silvered edges of his chamber’s curtains.
The dragon still stood, propped against the wall. Its brow was furrowed with concern. Relief softened its features when it saw Gulvane open his eyes.
“My rival comes,” the dragon said. “I trust you are whole, now—all your lifetimes blended as one.”
In his mind, Gulvane took note of the shattered assassin’s door, the way the fighter’s door hung half off its hinges, the fact the forester’s door was wedged by the softly mounded earth of memory. A fourth doorway stood, forever open, a square framework of granite and stone. The rooms beyond each were empty, yet he could see relics of his past in each one. He would use them, later, he knew, to recall exactly what he needed, until he had explored his mind enough to know where his secrets were kept. In the meantime, he reached down and picked up the crossbow, feeling it become a weight in his hands even as it disappeared from inside his head.
The undoing had been remarkably easy, given how hard he’d studied to work out how to hide it there.
The dragon watched. When Gulvane looked up from the weapon, it spoke.
“Will you treat with me?” it asked. “Call me master for another lifetime?”
Gulvane knew a fifth door was already forming, a great archway leading to an even larger cavern. He was ready for change, curious to see what events would give him the memories to fill a space that size. There was only one thing more he had to ask. One debt he had to pay.
“My mistress.” Gulvane made it a statement.
“I will show mercy.”
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Gulvane & the Dragon is available as a stand-alone short story at the following links: https://www.amazon.com/Gulvane-Dragon-Tales-Tzamesch-Simpson-ebook/dp/B00D18OLJO/.
You can also find Kristine Kathryn Rusch's latest free short story over on her blog: kriswrites.com. Why don't you go and check it out?
Preparing for a new era in his life, the wizard Gulvane walks the corridors of his mind, remembering the eras locked behind three doors. Forester, Fighter, Assassin. Behind each door lie the memories and skills of who and what he used to be, inaccessible, unless he chose to return to the professions he had left. Uncertain of where his life will lead him, or of what he will become, Gulvane wakes to find a dragon standing over his bed. Now, what would a creature such as that want with an elf like himself?Gulvane & the Dragon
Gulvane walked the corridors of his mind, going deep into himself to remember who he was, and explore who he might become. The years of an elf were long, many more times longer than the span of an average mortal, and Gulvane was reaching another century, his third as a wizard, his seventh as an elf. In that time, he’d lived a lifetime in each of four different occupations.Walking down the timber-lined hallway, Gulvane traced a hand along the walls, stopping at each of the three doors that kept the memories and skills that had made up his past. The first door was an oaken gold and adorned by a simple spray of leaves and flowers. A small grey-furred creature peered out from beneath the blossoms, its vivid green eyes touched with blue and gold. Gulvane laid a finger on its forehead and let the bittersweet feeling it invoked touch him briefly. The second door was a glowing bronze, and adorned with a pair of crossed swords. The third door was the color of night, created from a single plank of ebon-wood. A crossbow adorned its center, painted in a shade barely lighter than the surface that bore it.
Forester, fighter… assassin. Was it any wonder he’d become a wizard?
He walked past the gleaming darkness of the third door and stared at the heavy columns slowly forming in the blank space of wall beyond. Soon. His heart was restless, and soon he would embark on another era of his life.
Gulvane sighed. He had enjoyed his time as a wizard. It had been peaceful compared to what he had been before. The trouble was that he had no idea what he wanted to become next… and he was getting old, his body standing towards the end of middle age. He stood contemplating the slowly growing pillars before retracing his steps, touching each door as he passed.
Assassin, fighter, forester, he could return to any one of them by opening the door and stepping into the mind of who he had been. His fingers lingered on the bright-eyed creature peering from the flowers, before Gulvane shook his head and walked on, focusing his thoughts outwards and slowly returning to consciousness.
He woke to find a dragon standing over his bed.
“You are most entertaining,” it said, “and I have always wanted an elf of my own.”
“You look like a man,” Gulvane replied, “yet I know you are dragon. How is it I know that?”
“You are wizard,” the dragon said, leaning forward, quick as lightning, and pinning Gulvane to the mattress by holding the blankets tight across his shoulders.
He bent in closer, until their foreheads almost touched, and then the dragon inhaled, moving his nose a hair’s breadth above Gulvane’s skin and taking in the elf’s scent. It was frighteningly intimate and predatory at the same time.
“And you are so much more,” the dragon said, on the softest of breaths. “What is it I can smell? Blood and darkness, stealth and the silver shine of an adamantine dagger, the silence of a whisper bow. Deeper, and these mingle with the stench of death and battle, the mirrored arcs of twin blades, the lightning of a great sword—where did you store that, I wonder—and rage, such rage, fading to coldness.”
The dragon moved, stooping over him and inhaling the scent of Gulvane’s neck, his mouth close enough to the wizard’s throat that Gulvane’s heart sped its rhythm.
“But you were warm once, a gentle man, fierce only in the protection of the forest and its creatures, shunning civilization and a wedding that would have seen you close to ruling. What made you run, I wonder?” He leant closer, touching foreheads with the wizard and capturing Gulvane’s eyes with his own.
“No,” Gulvane whispered, and the dragon paused.
“No?”
For a moment, Gulvane hoped the beast would show mercy, but, instead, he felt the mattress dip beneath its weight and it pinned him so that he was entirely paralyzed. Its human lips curved into a smile, and it bared its teeth.
“No one says no to a dragon.”
“Please.”
“And we are not known for our mercy,” the creature said, touching foreheads again.
Gulvane tried to divert it from the path to his past, but the beast was older, far older than he’d imagined. The sense of the life it had lived left him paralyzed, partly in terror, partly in awe. It wanted an elven wizard for a pet?
In his mind, the dragon found the three doors and halted.
“Forester, fighter, assassin.” It cocked its head and studied where the fourth door was almost fully formed. “My timing is impeccable,” it said, its satisfaction a tangible thing that sent a wave of happiness through Gulvane’s head.
“But this is what I came here to find,” it added, and turned as Gulvane realized what it meant.
The elf dived around the dragon’s human bulk, and pressed himself against the door. The dragon gave him a look that might have been consternation, if it hadn’t contained so much amusement.
“Step aside, Gulvane,” the dragon said. “I will not harm you.”
Gulvane wanted to say that he was hurting already. The dragon raised an eyebrow.
“I did not say there would be no pain, only that you would not be harmed by it,” the beast explained, seizing him gently, but firmly by the shoulders and lifting him aside.
Keeping one hand on Gulvane to hold him away, it placed the other on the door, its palm covering the furry face hidden in the carefully painted branch. For a long moment, Gulvane felt nothing, and then the door cracked open just a little and the dragon reached inside.
The memory he drew out played before Gulvane’s eyes with a clarity he’d hoped to forget.
He had returned from a long sojourn in the forest, bringing with him the rarest of flowers for propagating by the druids, and study by the wizards. His heart had been full of joy because he had time to court his bride-to-be. He’d loved her since his youth, adoring her from afar until she deigned to notice him and gained her parents approval of the pledge.
She was not expecting him for two nights more, so he had sent the honey possum, the cutest and closest of his animal companions, to let her know he would be calling. She had not sent it back with a request that he wait until the next day, and he had bathed and dressed with a lightness of heart that vanished as soon as he stepped through the door to her private chambers.
His bride knelt before an open portal of swirling darkness, her silver-gold hair held back from her face in an intricate knot, her warm brown eyes brimming with tears, and an ebon dagger held tightly in one fist. In front of her, on a small, hand-carved altar of rarest silver wood, she had laid out the possum.
It was stretched on its back, not moving, its bright green eyes wide with fear. Gulvane remembered moving then, but not fast enough. His bride had raised the knife with one hand, and pinned the creature with the other… and then she had cut it open from throat to belly.
It had been quick and clean, but the smell of blood had marred the night air, and the swirling dark portal had come alive as his companion died. Laughter had crept out of the night beyond the portal, and two dark hands had reached through lifting the creature from the altar, and taking it into another realm.
Gulvane had not thought, as swirling tattoos of red and blue had grown on his fiancé’s face, had not thought as he drew his sword and took the noblewoman’s head from her shoulders, before thrusting the blade into the portal beyond her tumbling body. Something solid met the blade, and the thing on the other side had screamed.
With a vicious snap, the portal had ripped closed, shearing the blade, until only a four-inch stump remained attached to the hilt. Gulvane had dropped it and fled. After 210 years of living amongst his own people, he had run blindly away, not daring their justice, not able to face the other creatures who had run at his side. The honey possum had been beloved by them all.
Somewhere in the forest dark, his bond with them had snapped, and all the skills he had honed in his life had been crammed behind the golden door. The honey possum, hidden in its nest of flowers and leaves had taken much longer to appear. Gulvane had been remade, but he had not known it, until a caravan guard found him collapsed at the side of the road.
“Father.” Gulvane mouthed the first word he had spoken to a human, crashing back to wakefulness as the dragon pulled the oak door closed, and reached over to secure the bronze-wood door, as well.
“Not exactly,” the dragon said, stepping off the bed and leaving Gulvane free to move.
Like lightning, Gulvane flicked the covers back, and cast the most powerful spell that came to mind.
“Don’t,” the dragon said, raising an arm to shield his face, and pushing out and down with the open palm of his other hand.
It almost worked. Gulvane saw the dragon’s form shiver, caught a glimpse of the creature beyond—steel gray, long-limbed with a powerful body and well-muscled tail. Wings flared, built for speed and maneuverability. Gray eyes looked affronted, then partially amused.
Gulvane took all this in, before the spell bounced back, slamming him against the bed head with such force that it cracked and became partially embedded in the wall. The dragon’s form rippled just once more, and then solidified back into the human form he’d chosen—a red-haired man, with a salt-and-pepper beard, built like a warrior, heavier in form than his dragon self.
Before Gulvane could gather his breath, the dragon reached into his head and flicked open the golden-oak door releasing the feeling that had engulfed the elf as he had fled into the night. The wizard shook as though struck by a fist, and the dragon slammed the door shut, reaching for the bronze-wood door.
With the snick of a gleaming adamantine claw, the dragon flicked that door open, as well, and pulled the memory of change from it, overwhelming him again.
This time, Gulvane knelt before a woman dressed head to toe in black.
“Kill me if you must,” he said, “but my spirit will pursue you through an eternity of hells.”
The assassin had lifted a miniature crossbow of mist-night and shot him.
“We’ll let the gods decide,” she said, and watched as he collapsed. “When you find me, your training will begin.”
The poison spread rapidly. Gulvane had been a caravan guard and warrior-for-hire for a scant 78 years, outliving so many of his brethren that he’d had to move regions lest he be called a curse. That era ended as his vision faded. The last thing he saw was the mist-night crossbow arcing towards him. ‘Find me,’ she’d said.
The dragon dragged the bronze-wood door closed. Gulvane reached for another spell. Was not surprised when the dragon took and crushed it.
“You are thatGulvane,” it said. “I expected nothing less. Did you know no price was ever laid on your head? That her family was forced to pay the blood price for your disappearance?”
Whatever Gulvane had been expecting, it had not been that.
The dragon caught his astonishment, could not hide a victorious smirk.
“The tattoos remained on her face, the altar was covered in the possum’s blood. When her spirit refused to respond, the wizards were called. They reconstructed events so they could be seen. Her mother collapsed. Her father had to be prevented from taking his own life, such was his shame. The Council helped them recover, but the household is yet to regain its place amongst the nobility. Your name was cleared, but you could not be found. How did you learn to run so far and so fast?”
Gulvane was lost for words. All those years of rage… when he could have returned home. All those years of cold solitude where he had taken the lives he’d been paid for, and wound himself in a shroud of aloofness to hide the loneliness of his heart. The last three centuries living alone in a tower, when he could have had wives, a family, alliances… a tree bearing his name.
He thought he’d outgrown that grief, wept all the tears required, was surprised to find dampness streaking his cheeks as he stared into the dragon’s eyes. Gulvane swallowed, tempering the emotion, tamping it behind the walls of business.
“You had something you wanted to discuss?”
The dragon rocked back onto its heels, mild surprise driving it to temporary silence. Gulvane pushed himself upright and disentangled himself from the sheets. Swinging his legs over the side of the bed, he summoned an over-robe, and pulled it on. Wizard or not, he felt his night shirt left him at a disadvantage.
He watched the dragon regain its composure.
“I wanted an elf of my own,” the dragon said, raising a hand to silence Gulvane when he would have interrupted. “I didn’t want just any elf. I wanted a wizard who could fight, but one who understood stealth, and who didn’t need magic to avoid detection. And I wanted an elven wizard who had a heart.”
“You stalkedme.”
“You attracted my attention.”
“When?”
“The day you took the honey possum from the tree.”
“I… what?”
“You do recall it, don’t you?”
“I recall the day,” Gulvane admitted, “but I don’t recall you.”
“Back then, all I wanted was a honey possum to call my own.”
“I couldn’t save the others,” Gulvane said. “The storm called me out, and I went as quickly as I could, but I couldn’t reach the tree in time. Jambil was all that survived.”
“I know. I watched you swimming. Not many would have braved that current.”
“I didn’t know the lightning had struck so deep.”
“Your Jambil was outside the nest.”
“He must have sensed it coming. He always seemed to know…” Gulvane let the words go unsaid. How could Jambil have been caught and sacrificed? He thought back to the time he had sent the possum ahead, but recalled nothing in its attitude or gestures to indicate it knew it was going to its doom.
“She didn’t know she was going to take him, then,” the dragon said. “Not even a seer would have seen it. And he was pre-occupied at the time.”
Gulvane had known that. Jambil had been unsettled for weeks, but the forester hadn’t been able to work out why. He might have puzzled over it further, but the import of the dragon’s words struck a chord.
“You were watching me, even then?”
“You had taken my honey possum,” the dragon said. “Won its heart so it would not leave you. What else was I to do? It had to find a mate, eventually.”
“You tried to lure him away?” Gulvane was aghast. Jambil had never told him of thatencounter.
“He refused me, so I swore him to secrecy. Have you ever been tail-flicked by a possum?”
Gulvane had, more than once, and the memory brought a chuckle from his throat. A tail-flick to a possum was like a raised finger in some human cultures—extremely rude. The remembrance was less painful than he’d anticipated, but he changed the subject, anyway.
“Did you ever find one?”
“One what?”
“A possum of your own.”
The dragon looked away, pausing in silence until Gulvane thought he had struck a nerve. He was about to apologize when the dragon returned his gaze and replied.
“I raised Jambil’s family.”
If Gulvane had not already been seated, he would have collapsed onto the edge of the mattress.
“I am sorry,” the dragon added.
Gulvane waved it away, raising a hand and bowing his head until he had his emotions back under control. Jambil had made a family? Well, that explained a lot. Honey possums were notorious for keeping secrets. Gulvane wanted to weep, this time for not getting to know creatures he’d never met. Jambil’s children. Again, he changed the subject.
“I cannot be what you want me to be,” he said, feeling inexplicably weary.
The dragon leant against the wall near Gulvane’s bed and tilted his head to one side.
“Why not?” he asked.
Gulvane stared at him.
“Why not, what?”
“Why can’t you be what I need?”
“Because elves can only unlock one era of existence at a time. We lose the skills we learn in each, having to train for a new trade each time we undergo the change. We lose most of the memories, too.”
“Like those of Jambil?” the dragon asked, in a sly tone.
“Yes!” Gulvane snapped. “Like those of… What have you done?”
“I left the door ajar,” the dragon replied, and Gulvane felt panic flutter through his chest.
The dragon watched him, like a mountain cat stalking a rabbit.
“Do you hurt?” it asked.
“I…” Gulvane paused, giving himself a quick once over. “No,” he said.
This time he felt the dragon give the door a definite nudge, felt his earliest memories creep into the corridor and spread slowly through his mind, finding a place where they might fit. He watched as they met, and tangled with the current era of wizardry, sometimes with a minor clash, and sometimes like old friends. He glanced up at the dragon.
“Is it working?” the dragon asked, and Gulvane gave a nervous swallow, as he nodded his head.
They remained in companionable silence, the dragon watching Gulvane; Gulvane watching the dragon.
“Will it take long?” Gulvane wanted to know.
The dragon shrugged.
“It will take as long as it takes,” he said. “Are you ready to remember what it was like to be a guardian of merchandise?”
“And lives,” Gulvane told him. “Don’t forget the lives. It was how the assassins found me, remember?”
The dragon favored him with a long careful stare, and Gulvane felt suspicion stir.
“Tell me you didn’t send the assassins after me,” he said.
The dragon didn’t say a word, just nudged the bronze-colored door wider, until Gulvane remembered the utter exhaustion that had claimed him at the forest’s edge. With that memory came the knowledge that he had fallen almost a mile from the nearest trader’s camp. What was a guard doing so far from his client? It was too far for a simple toilet stop.
The dragon cleared its throat. It almost sounded embarrassed.
“Jambil’s mate was worried. She insisted I make sure you were all right. I made sure the guard kept walking until he found you.”
“But… such a long way?”
“He kept hearing noises, seeing shadows that might be bandits… and the camp was always close by when he looked back.”
“You obfuscated his mind.” Gulvane couldn’t keep the accusatory tone from his voice.
“He found you, didn’t he?” The dragon was unrepentant.
“And you left him to carry me back on his own.”
“He was strong enough.”
“He was an old man!”
“But not as feeble as he let you believe.”
Gulvane had always suspected it, but he made the excuse, anyway.
“He was nearing retirement.”
“And he needed a legacy,” the dragon said. “You gave him that.”
Gulvane had given him that, indeed. That thought comforted him when he remembered laying a farewell kiss on the old man’s brow. His father had died in his sleep on the road. Gulvane had come to wake him for his shift, and found him cold beneath his blankets. He would have been sadder if the man had not worn a faint smile, his face turned in the direction Gulvane had been standing watch.
They had taken the time to bury him, before the caravan moved on. Gulvane had used every fight, in the weeks after, to vent his grief. He had saved more lives than he’d ended, and thwarted attacks both bold and underhanded. He had thwarted enough of the latter for his prowess to be noted and a more specialized line of work to open.
“I knew you would meet the assassins eventually,” the dragon said, “and by that time, I foresaw a need.”
“You didsend them after me!” Gulvane felt anger and let it bleed into resignation; it had been a long night and he no longer had the energy to care. The truth of it was the dragon could end him any time it chose. The first prickle of curiosity touched his mind “Did you also pay them to end my life?”
“No.” The dragon looked at its boots, shifting its feet as though the question caused him discomfort. “I merely asked that, should they find you worthy, I would pay them well to train you in their art.”
Gulvane watched as the dragon raised its head, met his gaze.
“At least I know she did not miss,” he said.
“No. I was furious. She said she did not train to another’s whim. Your skills impressed her, but only strength of heart can overcome every effect that poison has. I contemplated killing her for her impudence.”
“Yet you did not.”
“She was the best of her time, and you have turned out well enough.”
“Was?”
“She was human, Gulvane. They do not live as long as we.”
Gulvane frowned at the response. It was too rehearsed by far.
“You have a way of avoiding the truth,” he said.
“Even legends make mistakes,” the dragon admitted. “I ghosted her when she accepted a contract on my life.”
“The laws of her guild would not have let her refuse.”
“She could have retired.”
“It’s not that easy,” Gulvane said, and wondered why it was important that the dragon should understand.
“You managed.”
“I took a somewhat unusual path—the kind that opens only once, if it opens at all.” He remembered bloody nights, and weeks spent in the ecstasy of walking on the edge of life and death. He remembered striking a bargain with a wizard who thought he’d come to kill him, and earning the right to inherit. “My mistress had no such path, although she dared much wrath to object.”
“She did?” The dragon asked, eyebrows raised. “She never mentioned it.”
“When you say ‘ghosted’,” Gulvane said, a terrible thought crossing his mind. “do you mean—”
“I ended her life, and forced her service in unlife. It seemed only fair. My opponents had to rethink their strategy, and you had time to learn.”
Now, they came to the crux of the dragon’s visit. Gulvane leaned forward, staring intently at the dragon’s face.
“And?”
This time the dragon’s gaze captured Gulvane and held him, until its eyes were all that he could see. Bronze pools, full of banked heat and fire, they seemed to encompass worlds.
“You have had time enough.”
“And you have time no more.” Gulvane broke the spell, shuddering at the power he’d seen inside the dragon’s skin.
“Impudent elf. I don’t know why I persisted when I saw what you would become.”
“Because you need me, and I have exceeded all the hopes you had for me.”
The dragon managed another sly smile.
“Perhaps I only needed a pet.”
“I am no honey possum.”
“You come close.” The dragon smirked.
“And is some dragon forester coming to take me out of my tree?”
“This time I have beaten the forester to the nest.” The dragon raised its head. “Although I fear he is on his way.”
Fantastic, Gulvane thought. I’ve caught the attention of two dragons.
Four, the dragon’s voice spoke in his mind. “But I am the only one who has shown care for you. The others would make you a spectacle.”
“To cause you discomfort.”
“To weaken me.”
“How?”
“It would be an embarrassment.”
“But you have weathered those before.”
The dragon sighed. “You are too impudent by far.
Gulvane leant back, raised an eyebrow in amusement. It was dangerous to bait the beast, when he was so contested, but he wanted to know at least something of the creature’s plans. The dragon blinked.
“It would weaken me.”
That simple admission shook Gulvane to the core.
“You have invested that much?”
“Look within, and you will see the first bond threads have already formed.”
“I should have seen them long ago.”
“I kept them hidden.”
Gulvane was aghast.
“You had no right.”
“I saved your life.”
That made Gulvane pause. The beast was right. Even the small interference of bringing his adopted father to his rescue was enough to create a debt. When he looked within, Gulvane found the bond threads shining bright and strong. There was just one problem.
“I am not yet what you want,” he said.
The dragon smiled a terrible smile.
“Don’t—” Gulvane’s protest was too late.
The dragon stepped sideways in his mind, kicking the bronze-wood door wide, even as his fist hammered down on the ebony surface of the door beside it. The mist-night bow slipped free of the magic keeping it in place as the portal shattered, and memories, dark as night, flooded out engulfing the corridors of his mind in bloody wreaths of sorrow and secret victory.
This time the pain was like a physical blow. So many memories, so much coldness, so much—too much—emotion dammed up and masked behind the professional solitude his mistress had made him learn. The poison had required strength of heart to endure and then defeat, but the trade had encased that heart in an icy shield denying emotion.
The sun shivered at the horizon’s edge, lending the world a grey light until it could shine in full. Gulvane felt its promise in the coolness of the pre-dawn breeze, heard it in the growing chorus of bird and animal cries, saw it in the silvered edges of his chamber’s curtains.
The dragon still stood, propped against the wall. Its brow was furrowed with concern. Relief softened its features when it saw Gulvane open his eyes.
“My rival comes,” the dragon said. “I trust you are whole, now—all your lifetimes blended as one.”
In his mind, Gulvane took note of the shattered assassin’s door, the way the fighter’s door hung half off its hinges, the fact the forester’s door was wedged by the softly mounded earth of memory. A fourth doorway stood, forever open, a square framework of granite and stone. The rooms beyond each were empty, yet he could see relics of his past in each one. He would use them, later, he knew, to recall exactly what he needed, until he had explored his mind enough to know where his secrets were kept. In the meantime, he reached down and picked up the crossbow, feeling it become a weight in his hands even as it disappeared from inside his head.
The undoing had been remarkably easy, given how hard he’d studied to work out how to hide it there.
The dragon watched. When Gulvane looked up from the weapon, it spoke.
“Will you treat with me?” it asked. “Call me master for another lifetime?”
Gulvane knew a fifth door was already forming, a great archway leading to an even larger cavern. He was ready for change, curious to see what events would give him the memories to fill a space that size. There was only one thing more he had to ask. One debt he had to pay.
“My mistress.” Gulvane made it a statement.
“I will show mercy.”
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Gulvane & the Dragon is available as a stand-alone short story at the following links: https://www.amazon.com/Gulvane-Dragon-Tales-Tzamesch-Simpson-ebook/dp/B00D18OLJO/.
You can also find Kristine Kathryn Rusch's latest free short story over on her blog: kriswrites.com. Why don't you go and check it out?
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