Talons and Threads: Stories from Fractured Everest, page 1
Talons and Threads
Stories from Fractured Everest
D.H. Dunn
Copyright © 2020 by D.H. Dunn
All rights reserved.
Editing by Joshua Essoe and Mia Kleve
Cover Artwork by Marta Dec
Original Under Everest cover by Holly Heisey
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Created with Vellum
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Afterword: Talons and Threads
Introduction: Cracks and Crevasses
Cracks and Crevasses
Introduction: Venom and Vines
Venom and Vines
Introduction: Under Everest: The Alternate Opening
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Introduction: Shopkeep
Shopkeep
Introduction: The Hole in Things that Matter
The Hole in Things that Matter
Introduction: Dragons of the Interstate
Dragons of the Interstate
Final Thoughts
The Fifth Interdictor: Chapter One
Chapter One
I am the Thread, and I am a dragon.
But I am more than just one of the Fourteen, the great dragons that once ruled this world and are now imprisoned within it. I am the being who doomed three races to centuries of war and bloodshed in just one arrogant moment, one terrible day.
The clouds do not judge me as I pass through them, the long, green stretches of grassy fields beneath me offer no commentary as I speed above. Over countless rivers and mountains I have flown, with little rest for three days, chasing with desperation the distant notes of a song.
That lilting melody, sung by a Manad Vhan woman leagues away, whispered a promise in my ear that I feared to believe, yet clung to all the same. A release from a portion of my guilt, and the completion of my life’s only dream.
The Fifteenth dragon had at long last been found.
Just as I, he was a dragon unlike any other. Yet it was not his abilities or views that separated him from others of his kind. His difference was purer, more fundamental.
The Fifteenth was my creation, and he was real.
Since finally being released from my long imprisonment and learning of his existence, my mind has been consumed with thoughts of him. I have kept my ears to winds of the world, waiting to hear the song that would tell me of his discovery.
Waiting for today.
I worried over a thousand maybes in the long ages, while I was imprisoned like the rest of my kind in magical vaults. Over months and years, questions chipped away at my confidence, time ever sharpening the bits of their axes.
What if my machine had never been activated, as Orami had promised to do? Or worse yet, it may have been discovered and destroyed. I feared for my fellow dragons in their magical cells, both friends like the Weight and enemies like Terminus. Outside, beyond the crimson energies that protected me and the stone mountain that hid my presence, the world went on for centuries without us.
In time, bitterness began to work its way into my heart. I am ashamed to say I allowed myself to fall sway to it, moment by moment. Imperceptibly the hatred that had plagued so many I had encountered made its advance upon me, one broken nightmare at a time.
Doubt was the seed’s water, guilt the sun that warmed it. It grew slowly, but steadily, from within me, each of my heart’s questions gave it sustenance.
Ages ago I had entered the arcane Vault willingly, but what if Orami had deceived me? What if the Machine had long since been destroyed, Orami reuniting with Feram and laughing at the foolish ease by which I had handed all of Dragonkind over to them.
Much as Feram had come to hate me, I began to descend into the waters of anger.
When the seal of the vault was finally broken, it was not by Orami, though he had promised none but he could release me. Was that another mistake, or another lie?
My release had not come from a Manad Vhan at all, but a young Rakhum woman named Tanira. She held within her the location of my machine, and with this she fashioned a bargain with me, asking me to attack those I was more than ready to attack on my own.
As I should have seen, it all ended in disaster. Three dragons dead, three unique voices forever ripped from our chorus. Two were darker influences, a pair of dragons that had long thought me an enemy. Yet I mourned the loss of Terminus and the Voice all the same, precious stores of our history and legacy, forever silenced.
For my friend the Weight, I could not simply mourn. His death is a wound that lies upon my heart still, a pain on my soul that I could not imagine ever lessening in its intensity.
Then, three days ago, I finally heard the song.
I had taught it to Upala, an unusual Manad Vhan woman who had been instrumental in pulling me back from the brink of murder, saving me from a final plunge into an abyss of anger and rage inside which I would likely perish.
Not only had Upala’s parents been killed by a dragon, but I had also nearly killed her and her friends, yet when the opportunity for peace came she was the first to put out her hand.
She offered me what she knew of the machine, and told me the information that had changed my perspective on everything. My machine, my arcane device on Sirapothi had been used. Though there was no clue as to who had activated it, it had been successful.
There was a Fifteenth dragon. A real dragon, not a construct like myself and my brethren. One capable of passing through portals, of defying the wishes of any who call themselves Gods and decide what world is for whom.
Three days ago, the song had entered my mind, and I have scarcely slept a moment since. My wings ache from the exertion, every bone from my snout to my tail cries for rest, but I have pushed myself on and on.
Farther and farther to the west I have flown, leaving behind the snow-capped mountains that surrounded the vaults and the Rakhum settlements of Nalam Wast and Rogek Shad. Over warmer climes, great forest and jungles, rivers, and vast lakes.
With each exertion, I grew closer to her and closer to the answer.
Now, on the shores of a lake so vast it could be considered a sea, I see my destination. A clearing on top of a hillside, a grass-thatched overlook standing over a small village like a sentinel. The sun’s descent had just begun to touch the cold waters on the horizon, long shadows beginning to cover the small dwellings and farms like a blanket.
As I banked toward the clearing, the thin, golden grasses blowing like waves, I saw the tall man first.
I know him like I know few others, this Drew Adley. I shared my thoughts with him through a connection created by Manad Vhan sorcery, allowing an intermixing of minds unlike any I had ever experienced before.
Though a man from another world, Adley no longer looked the part as I pulled in closer. Gone was the jacket made of a strange brown material, the odd footwear and other relics of his past life. Adley now looked every inch the Manad Vhan he had seemingly transformed into, clad in garish loose-fitting clothes, reds and bright blues that would have made Orami envious.
Upala stood next to him, her hand in his, her tall form looking like she had been carved upon the rocks that formed the crest of the small hill. She wore clothing similar to Adley’s, right down to the colors, yet they seemed more natural on her to me, more appropriate. Her long, dark hair blew as the grasses, pointing away from the lake and back toward her distant home.
Behind the pair stood a yeti, yet this one appeared different than any I have seen before. Taller and less muscular than the few of their kind I have met, with the crystals growing out of its forearms instead of the shoulders.
A female. My understanding was female yeti rarely ventured outside the confines of their structures, but I had been away for a long time. Perhaps things had changed. I considered scanning her mind, then thought the better of it. Yeti thoughts were complex and hard to process.
Less complicated was the mind of the Rakhum man who completed their group. He gave the appearance of a man in the middle of life, the setting sun gleaming off the top of his head where his hair had left him. Dressed in dark browns and grays, he stood with his legs wide as he gaped up at me, a mixture of wonder and horror on his face.
A quick push into his mind showed him to be Harsaremi, a Rakhum and resident of the tiny village I could see nestled close to the lake, a far-off cluster of small buildings, looking like dice thrown on a table.
Harsaremi was afraid, but not of me. That was interesting. There was a loss somewhere, something recent. His memories were intertwined, I could separate them if I desired, but I had more pressing concerns.
I allowed the wind currents pushing against my wings to bring me into a landing upon the emerald clearing. As my feet touched the warm grasses of the hill, I felt the relief run through my tired wings, even as my heart began to beat faster.
Harsaremi moved back from my approach, recoiling as if my closer proximity increased his fear of me. The yeti moved as well, but it was a smooth motion, the action of one who had seen many unusual things, her gaze one of curiosity.
Adley and Upala stood unmoving, each looking up at me with different expressions. The man viewed me with a wry grin, a knowing look that spoke to our shared experience. Upala’s face was a mixture of feelings. I could see her wonder even with her worries clouding beneath the surface. She was a student of history, which is what I was to her.
Yet fear ran through the waters of those emotions, reminding me of how the action of the Fifteenth had shaped her younger years, ripping her parents from her in a violent act of savagery. Orphaned by a dragon, the very dragon I hoped they were here to give me news of.
“Upala, Adley. I greet you,” I said, feeling the cool push of the grass underneath my claws. It was pleasing, I do not get to experience grass as often as I’d like. “I did not expect to find you so far afield from where we last spoke. You are nearly half the distance to the City of Sands.”
“That is the plan, Thread.” Adley laughed, highlighting the novelty of the comfort I sensed in him. He seemed lighter somehow than the burdened stranger whose mind I had joined with months ago.
“We are traveling there. Slowly, but surely.” Upala offered me an explanation and a slight smile, and in that small gesture I saw the strength that Adley was now drawing from. The romances I had witnessed between bipeds seemed to be a source of healing and security. Dragons did not form these exclusionary relationships, but perhaps it was as the Weight used to tell me.
Differences are not weaknesses to be scorned, Thread, but lessons to learn from.
My curiosity directed me to the large, furred creature behind them. A member of a species I was familiar with, yet this one intrigued me.
“Yeti,” I addressed the creature, bowing my head to show the respect I felt for her and her kind. “What is your title?”
“The Wounded, great Dragon,” the yeti said. She held her arms open for me to see, showing only a stump where her left hand would be.
Wounded indeed.
Her voice was as deep and mountainous as any yeti, only the difference in her form belied her gender. Yet there was a lack of experience in her tone, fewer hints of the ancient knowledge and wisdom I had come to expect. She was young among her kind.
“I accompany Upala the Renewed as part of my rocha.” The yeti nodded to her left, indicating Upala. “Though I am untrained in combat, in service for her aid against Sinar, the yeti pledged my lore assist her in her quest.”
“Our quest.” Adley laughed, seeming to find humor in the Wounded’s word choice. “Upala and I are going to the City of Sands, to see her people. Our people.”
The choice of destination was interesting to me. I had thought of my former home many times since being freed from the vault, but had not ventured there. I was curious what might be driving Upala and Adley to travel so far, but I did not have time for curiosity this day.
My heart could wait no longer.
“Upala, you sang the song. Is the Fifteenth here? What have you learned?”
“Don’t you know?” The surprise was clear on Adley’s face. “I thought you could read minds?”
From another, I might have accepted that as a challenge, but I knew this man. He was curious and tactical, he wanted to understand me and my capabilities. He also had little filter at times.
“I can,” I said, lowering my neck to bring myself closer to him. Behind Adley, Upala seemed a bit embarrassed by her companion’s question. “But just as not all rocks are the same, neither are all minds. I find hers to be … quite heavy, to carry the analogy.”
“Drew, if you please.” Some redness came to the woman’s cheeks, a condition I have come to recognize as embarrassment. She was humbled by my assessment. “I did call you, my friend.”
I winced a bit, unable to control my reaction at her affectation. Noting the reaction, Upala stepped back, concern growing on her face. “Did I offend?”
“The last Manad Vhan to call me friend came to feel otherwise, but that is a long story. Please, what have you found?”
My heart beat with anticipation, dancing inside my chest like the gold and crimson diamonds of light that dappled across the water of the lake. This woman and I had an agreement, there was only one reason she would call me. But I needed to hear her say the words.
“He has been seen here,” she said, the wind picking up her dark hair again, running across her face. “The Fifteenth Fear.”
Even though I knew it was what she would say, the thrill ran through me like electricity, shooting from the tip of my tail down to the end of my claws.
The Fifteenth Fear, the Manad Vhan’s term for the dragon, the offspring that had seemingly hatched from the machine. This one sighting, this one statement confirmed so much.
Somehow, Orami had indeed completed the machine. Somewhere in the long centuries after I buried myself in the vault, he found a way to bring my essence to Sirapothi and power the device.
And it had worked! A living, breathing, real Dragon now flew the skies of Aroha Darad, in direct defiance to Sessgrenimath. It had come through the portal, that gateway barred to all Dragonkind, and had come here to me.
My child, my offspring. Returned.
Yet, I could see the darkness in Upala’s eyes as she brought me this news. She and her brother Kater had named this creature a Fear for a reason, as it had seemingly renewed the enmity between dragons and Manad Vhan, slaying Upala’s parents.
Why it had done so was a question I have been pondering since I learned of its existence, in the brave moments when I dared believe my hopes to be true.
Perhaps it had just been confused, disoriented with none of its own kind to guide it. Long have I thought about how frightened it must have been, alone in a large and terrifying world.
It had attacked Upala and Kater when they were just children--young, scared children, possibly with faulty memories of the event. Their Manad Vhan parents might have attacked it first, seeing the long enemy of their race flying toward them.
It might even have been looking for help, only to be forced to defend itself. My heart had torn at the thought, a child itself, forced to murder without even knowing why it was hated.
“What have you seen?”
“I will tell you what they saw!” The Rakhum who had been standing behind Upala and Adley now pushed his way past them, the anger plain on his face. I could scan his mind, but his words would come quickly enough. With sadness, I already knew what they would be.
“One of you!” Harsaremi pointed a shaking finger at me, rage and loss pouring out of him like a river. “Pulling a child out of our village. Every night since the last moon – a damn dragon of old. Why?”
He stepped closer, shaking his fist at me. “Where is my son?”
The echo those words represented cut into me like a sword, the memory thousands of years old, but their edge was still just as sharp.
The images in his memories were easy to access, unlike the deep and intricate thoughts of Upala, these were close to the surface. Dozens of moments, of screams and darkness, of hands pointed to the sky where a dark shape swooped by in the moonlight.
Numerous incidents across the past month, but all essentially the same. The shadowed form would descend in the night into the village, only to depart clutching small, writhing forms. A single cry would pierce the sky, a sound written upon my bones since long before this man had lived.
The cry of a Dragon.
“It comes every night.” Harsaremi glared up at me, his eyes wild with pain and rage. “They come and steal our children, ripping the roofs right off our homes. These people say you can help, but I cannot trust the words of your kind.”
