Mist Dragon, page 11
part #5 of Dragon Misfits Series
He followed Lorren back into the throne room, and he took a seat at the table, waiting for the others to file in and sit. The Dragon Guard took positions around the inside of the room this time.
“I don’t know that they’re going to be able to do anything,” Jason whispered to Henry.
“Probably not, but I think it makes Olar and Cherise feel better,” Henry said.
Jason leaned over to Sarah, frowning. “I don’t like this. Lorren might—”
Lorren leaned forward, glaring at him. “Lorren might what?” When Jason didn’t answer, he shook his head, staring across the table, seemingly ignoring everyone else. “You asked about Therin, and I will tell you what happened.” Lorren leaned forward. “I found him wandering. Alone. Covered in furs much like Henry now wears,” he said, nodding to Henry. “Yes, I know you.” He sneered at Henry. “I know what you are.”
“Were,” Henry said.
“And much like Therin, that wasn’t always the case.”
Henry frowned, his jaw clenching. He squeezed the dragon pearl a moment.
“At first, I didn’t know whether I could trust him, but I believed him a wanderer. He told me about trying to find dragons. I questioned him, tormenting him, wanting him to break. I believed he was a Dragon Soul.”
“Do you do that to everybody who comes to you?” Jason asked.
“Only if I don’t trust them,” Lorren said. He looked over at Henry before turning his attention back to Jason. “In all that time, he didn’t break. I began to believe him. I believed that he merely looked for understanding of the dragons. He wouldn’t be the first person I’d found. He had a connection to them. I was able to determine that quite early. How was I supposed to have known that he was a Dragon Soul?”
“You would’ve known,” Henry said.
“As they knew with you?” Lorren asked, glancing at Cherise and Olar before turning her attention to Henry.
“I have made no attempt to hide who and what I am,” Henry said.
“Only, you haven’t been as honest as you could be, either,” he said to Henry. “Do you think I have no contacts within Lorach? I have to know where they’re moving the dragons somehow.” He paused, letting his words settle a moment. “Did they know how you used to work with the dragons? Training them, I seem to believe you called it. They understand what happened and how you acquired those lovely scars on your back?”
Henry leaned forward, tension within him.
“I imagine you haven’t told them about how you were once well known for your torment of the dragons.”
“I never tormented the dragons,” Henry said.
“You were a Dragon Soul. That is all you do.”
Jason could see the rage boiling within Henry, and knew that if he didn’t do or say anything, there would be no opportunity to calm this down. “We are talking about Therin,” Jason said.
“Yes. Therin. Indeed. He came to me, and he wanted to understand the dragons. He traveled with me for the better part of three years.”
Jason glanced over at Henry for confirmation of what Lorren said, frowning at him. “Three years?”
“I don’t know. It could have been a while ago. Therin had disappeared from the city for a while, and rumors spread about it, though… I don’t know,” Henry said.
“How long ago was this?”
“Nearly ten years ago,” Lorren said. “He came with me, and he learned from me. We traveled extensively, seeing much of the lands beyond the borders of Lorach. He gained my trust, slowly at first, but the longer we were together, the easier it became to trust him. He fought alongside me. He killed alongside me,” Lorren said, looking at Henry.
Jason couldn’t imagine how Therin could have been buried so deeply within what Lorren was doing that he would have been able to kill other Dragon Souls. Of course, this was Therin. Therin had been willing to do whatever it took, to betray whoever he had to, to do what he thought that he needed to do.
“What else?”
“We traveled. We saw. We began to learn.”
“Began to?”
“I had already learned quite a bit at that time, and I shared what I knew with Therin.”
“About dragon eggs.”
“Yes.”
“About how they could take on the traits of their environment,” Jason said.
“I found eggs as we traveled,” Lorren said. “Finding eggs in the wild is rare. Females are difficult to find, which is why I went hunting Dragon Souls. If I could trap some of their females, we could learn from the eggs.”
“What do you mean that you trapped them?”
“Exactly what I said. A trap is a trap,” Lorren said. “And I brought them with me. My dragons were more than willing to mate.”
Jason sat back, aghast at what he was hearing. “You held the dragons for mating purposes?”
“Is it so different than what the Dragon Souls have done? You look at me as if I’m some sort of monster, and yet, all I do is what must be done to conquer them and free them.”
“It doesn’t sound as if you want to free the dragons. It sounds to me as if you want to control them.”
“There is a cost to freedom,” Lorren said.
Jason didn’t know what to say. There might be a cost of freedom, but was that the cost that he wanted to pay? He couldn’t help but feel as if what Lorren was telling him, what this man was willing to do, was beyond what Jason was willing to do.
He thought of what he’d seen in Dragon Haven, the way the dragons had been freed, the way that they were revered, protected, and how the people of Dragon Haven celebrated them. Was that not what the dragons should be?
“I see the way you look at me. It’s certainly better than other lands where the dragons were slaughtered for their bones,” Lorren said, glancing back at the Dragon Guard. Jason’s gaze drifted to their dragon bone swords, the slender blades stronger than steel. “In those lands, they were stripped of their flesh, their blood boiled off, leaving nothing but their bones.”
“Why?” Sarah asked, leaning forward.
Jason looked at her, then glanced at her parents. They’d been silent.
“Because the bones carry power. Some can access that power, and they draw upon it, using that energy to rule. I would see the dragons freed. I would see them unleashed upon the world. And if they can’t be freed, then…”
Jason squeezed the iron dragon glove, tensing it in frustration. “Then you would destroy them?”
“If necessary.”
“There are other ways,” Jason said softly.
“I have been doing this far longer than you, Jason Dreshen,” he sneered.
“Tell us about the eggs,” Henry said.
Lorren grinned at him. “Are you trying to protect him? From what I was able to see, he doesn’t need any protection. He is quite capable.”
“The eggs,” Henry said, glaring at Lorren.
“Yes, well, the eggs have presented a bit of a challenge. When we finally managed to acquire some eggs, I decided it was time for us to determine whether or not we could uncover the truth of whether the dragons truly did take on the traits of their environment.”
“How?” Jason said.
“Perhaps nothing quite as profound as what I suspect Therin did. He used his power in a way that was more demanding than anything I ever had done.”
“Demanding?” Jason asked.
“He placed the eggs into much more challenging locations. I thought they needed to have something more similar to the nest where the dragons would have raised them. How would I have ever known they could tolerate such extremes?”
“You sound as if you respect him,” Sarah said.
He turned toward her, looking past Sarah and smirking at her parents. “I respect his curiosity. How could I not when he went looking for knowledge and information, searching for a way to push the boundaries of what we know?”
“He tormented the dragons,” Jason said.
“He tormented nothing. He took the eggs. How is that torment?”
Without what Therin had done, Jason wouldn’t have had the ice dragon, the iron dragon, or the forest dragon. None of those dragons would’ve existed.
Only, what would they have been instead?
He didn’t know.
By taking on the traits of their environment, they became something else. They became the misfits, but they also had been essential in bringing Therin down. Good had come out of their existence.
If Jason were able to use the power of the dragons, if he was going to stop Lorach altogether, even more good would come from it. How could he feel any other way?
“That’s how you formed your mist dragon,” Jason said.
“That’s how I formed one of them,” Lorren said.
“One?”
“There are three mist dragons.” How would you get the same misfit from a different set of circumstances? There was something to what he said that felt off.
The words settled in the room, leaving Jason uncomfortable. Three of those dragons. And he’d struggled with one. “What other misfits do you have?”
“I don’t refer to them as misfits, though perhaps that is what they are to you,” Lorren said, leaning toward Jason.
“I don’t use it as a term of derision,” Jason said. “I am as much of a misfit as they are.”
Lorren grinned at him. “Do you really believe that?”
“Yes.”
Lorren chuckled. “Perhaps you are. There are three mist dragons, and there are five smoke dragons. There are seven earth dragons. Or there were.”
Jason blinked, staring at him. So many .
The rumbling in the forest he’d detected with William made sense. That had to have been an earth dragon. Or more than one. “Where are they?”
“They are with me. Safe.”
Henry grunted, and Lorren looked at him.
Henry shrugged. “I don’t think they are safe with you.”
“You can think what you want,” Lorren said.
“If you know how to create these dragons, then share it with us,” Cherise said. She held Lorren with an icy gaze, as if she were summoning the power of the ice dragon.
“The last time I shared it, it was abused.”
“If you can keep creating these dragons, we can use that to overthrow Lorach,” Olar said.
“That is all you think about?” he asked them before turning to Jason. “They are unique, but Lorach would turn them into something else. Weapons.”
Was that so different than how Jason had used the misfits?
He watched Lorren, more troubled than he had been before.
Stopping Lorach was on Jason’s mind, but it was more than that. The misfits. And they wouldn’t even be misfits. They would just be dragons, only a different sort of dragon.
“Not all of them are as potent as what you saw in the forest. The smoke dragons are weaker. It was a mistake. I didn’t know they were going to be unwilling—and unable—to be of much assistance. The earth dragons are bound to the ground, unable to fly. That, too, was a mistake. The only ones I’ve been able to create that have been of any use to me are the mist dragons.”
“You came here for the others,” Jason said.
“I wanted to know what Therin did.”
Jason frowned, looking from Sarah and Henry to Lorren.
Were he honest with himself, it was what he wanted as well.
The misfits with him were lonely. The ice dragon longed for another like him, as did the iron dragon. Jason suspected the forest dragon did, too. How could they not?
“I came to study these dragons and work with you, Jason Dreshen. Think about what we can learn from each other. Envision what sorts of dragons we can create, how many of the different types, and the benefits they can provide to our world.”
“You came to ask if I would allow you to study these dragons,” Jason said.
“At first. Then you described them.” He looked around the others. “And I’ve seen that you are responsible for Lorach moving again. Unfortunately, my plans have changed. I might have come to ask,” Lorren said, sitting back in his chair. “But now, I will not.”
Jason started to understand the threat. “You aren’t going to command me. Others who have tried have found it doesn’t go so well for them.”
Lorren chuckled. “I do like the confidence, and given what I saw from you out in the forest, I think some of it is warranted.”
“I’m just trying to help the dragons,” Jason said. “And if what I can tell of you is correct, then we want the same thing.” Jason hoped he understood what Lorren was after, though he started to question whether or not he could. This was a man who had a very different experience than Jason when it came to the dragons. One that had involved fighting with not only Lorach, and the Dragon Souls, but also with people from dragon Haven, and a willingness to attack those who had wanted nothing more than to provide protection for the dragons.
It was protection it seemed to Jason that he wasn’t entirely open to.
“What if there is no help for the dragons?”
“I can show you. I can show you what we can do to save the dragons. I can show you—”
A burst of energy began to build.
“This is not necessary,” Jason said.
Lorren frowned at him. “What exactly do you think is happening here?”
“You. What you intend to do is not necessary. I’ve heard you killed the dragons. We don’t have to do that. I’ve discovered a way of saving them.”
“Saving Dragon Soul dragons?” Lorren shook his head. “Perhaps I was wrong about you. Perhaps you won’t be of any help.”
“Help with what?” Jason said.
Lorren shook his head. “It’s because of you I had to return. And it’s because of you that Lorach finally has knowledge I’ve attempted to keep from them.” He smiled tightly. “But I know what to do about such things. I know how to handle people like you. And I know how to ensure that Lorach does not gain the power of these dragons.” He took a deep breath. “Because I will hold onto that power. You contained one dragon. And you contained him because I chose to allow it. What if I were to bring all three of them at you? What if they were to suddenly appear here?”
As he said it, the mist began to swirl.
10
J ason began to call upon the ice dragon. As he focused on the energy coming from the dragons, he could feel the mist as it swirled around others in the room. Even with his connection to the ice dragon, he didn’t know if he would be strong enough to stop him if Lorren decided to attack.
The question he had now was why .
What did Lorren need to prove? He’d demonstrated a connection to the mist dragon, and to other misfits. What more could he want to accomplish?
“What are you doing?” Jason asked.
The mist began to force the Dragon Guards back, and Lorren squeezed them until they were pushed back against the walls. The mist came deeper into the room, swirling around Cherise and Olar. Finally it wrapped around Henry, holding him. Henry clutched a dragon pearl in his hand. It glowed, but it didn’t do anything.
“I thought we could work together,” Lorren said. “Unfortunately, I think Dragon Haven”—he spat the name—“has corrupted you like it corrupts so much. Now I will have those dragons.”
Power reached Sarah, and Jason lunged toward her, wrapping her in a barrier of ice along with fire coming from the iron dragon.
She looked over at him. “Can you do anything?”
“I’ve been trying,” he said.
“How can he do this?”
“I have no idea,” Jason said.
He held that barrier out, continuing to squeeze, pushing it away from him, but there was too much power here. He could feel it squeezing upon him, mist continuing to swirl, threatening to overwhelm him.
He added the energy of the forest dragon, calling to her, focusing on his breathing as he did. He shifted everything.
This time, he shifted it so it brought them into the north, into the cold in the mountains. If Lorren was going to bring them to mist, then he was going to counter it by creating cold so bitter, the mist was nullified. Jason formed that cold, created that storm, and it swirled through the room, the wind picking up. Sarah braced herself. Cold started biting, the ice tearing at everything.
Jason surged with dragon power.
He let energy explode into the room and then called upon enough cold to freeze the mist. He barely had to summon the energy of the ice dragon when he did. It crackled, and then he waited for the ice dragon to control it.
The mist somehow held.
Lorren grinned at him. “An impressive trick, but one I taught Therin.”
Jason could feel the touch of the forest dragon. There was the illusion that Therin knew, and there was that which the forest dragon granted to Jason. “You don’t know this trick.”
He solidified reality.
There is a difference between creating an illusion and altering reality through the power of illusion. With his connection to the forest dragon, Jason could do both. The storm raged, now much more real than it had felt before. The wind picked up, the ice now something real, tearing through here. Somewhere nearby, someone cried out.
Jason ignored it, holding onto the storm, the wind, and the power.
He called upon the energy of the ice dragon, letting it fill him, and he called upon the strength of the forest dragon. He squeezed them together, binding them in a way that allowed him to create a connection. Within that power, he held it and created something the mist dragon wouldn’t be able to overwhelm.
Jason solidified the air around him. Everything froze. Even those who were with him were frozen. The only one who wasn’t was Lorren.
Jason took a step toward him. “What are you doing?” he asked, standing in front of Lorren. “Why do this?”
“Since you drew Lorach out, now I will finish it. To do so, I need those dragons,” he said.
“Not like this,” Jason said.
He maintained his hold. He could feel the mist dragons attempting to influence him though he ignored them, pushing outward. He could keep reality shifted, but he’d used everything within him to do so.
“If you wanted to understand the dragons I’m working with, then you could have asked. What you’re doing is something different altogether.”
