Dustin

He is little, isn’t he? Kriscilla said. Aren’t mortals usually like eight feet tall?

Six, Daegra said. But males should be bigger than females in apes.

So he’s average. Dustin could see the twist in Kriscilla’s lips as she said it. That would explain a few things. He said he was young, but he was just small.

“Oh no,” Dustin babbled, scrabbling backwards on his rump through the ashes, scattering nervous villagers in all directions. “No way. No way.”

Then again, Kriscilla offered, he was one of the greatest lays I ever had. That week.

“Aaagh!” Dustin started clawing at his head, trying to force the seam back open and force the two drakes back out.

Daegra chuckled. Oh lay off the theatrics—you’re scaring the solids.

Besides. We’re not going anywhere. We’ve got so much to catch up on.

“Whatever he is, he ain’t stable. We should get you out of here, sweetness.”

“I need to find Olthon. Can you take me to Olthon?”

“Uh, maybe. You have clothes before this, or did they…burn?”

He changed his hair, Kriscilla noted. I liked it shorter. Less ‘filthy detainee’, more ‘drunken letch.’

“Nooooooo!” Dustin cried, slamming his forehead into the ashes. “Get out, get out get out! Get—”

“Dustin?” Maelys was squatting in front of him, looking at concerned. “Where are my clothes?”

“Aaaag!” Dustin screamed, rolling away from her in horror. It took him a moment to realize she wasn’t in his head, but was crouching a foot away, squinting at him as if he’d lost his mind.

But just to be sure, he scrambled over to her and started patting her arms and shoulders, trying to assure himself he didn’t have three dead women locked inside his head.

Why do I get the feeling she was the brains of the operation? Daegra commented.

“Aaaaaargh!” Dustin started slamming his palm into his face.

The feeling is mutual, Kriscilla agreed.

“The creature’s nuts! Let’s get out of here before he sets the place afire again!” the old man called in the background.

“Wait, I need to go with you!” Maelys cried.

“Leave the girl! She’s one of them!”

The thunder of mules’ hooves threw up clouds of dust as the villagers mounted and fled.

They could have at least left the child some clothes. How rude.

Dustin, too, Kriscilla added. With the death-energy he expended and me in here sharing headspace with him, I’ll bet anything he’s no longer hot enough to set things on fire.

That’s too bad. Nakedness was one of his finer features.

“Aaaaa!” Dustin shrieked. “Withered old eggs! Out! Out!”

“Dustin, why are you hitting yourself?” Maelys asked.

“I’m ridding myself of brain parasites!” Dustin cried, slamming his palm into the side of his head.

“So that’s what was wrong with you.” The Rockfarmer said it so matter-of-factly that Dustin had to stop hitting himself to look. Maelys was giving him an expression that said the world made sense to her now.

Somewhere in the recesses of his mind, the two women chuckled.

Dustin narrowed his eyes. “No, I didn’t have brain parasites then. I have them now.”

“Parasites don’t work that fast,” Maelys said, yawning. “Where’s Olthon?”

“Hopefully dropping lots of crispy pork rinds between here and Etro,” Dustin snapped. “I do not have brain parasites.”

“You just said you did.” Maelys glanced at the sun. “Think Olthon will do that Rockfarmer pact with me again? I really wanna do that again.”

The girl is only part there, Daegra mourned. Poor thing.

“No, she’s always like this,” Dustin snapped. “Maelys. It was a figure of speech. I don’t have parasites.”

“Lots of people have parasites,” Maelys said. “Aneirin’s youngest cousin had them coming out her butt. She liked to eat dirt.”

“Thank you for that,” Dustin said, “but I don’t have—”

She reminds me how much I miss the little ones. I wonder, with the three of us in here, if when we finally gets the cuffs off and we take our natural form if he’ll be able to hatch us a clutch of eggs.

Dustin choked.

Self-fertilized, this time, Kriscilla said. After all, we should have all the parts.

“There is no ‘we’!” Dustin cried.

I guess we’ll finally see if an ice drake and a fire drake combine to make little ice drakes and little fire drakes, Daegra said.

“Oh no,” Dustin babbled, lunging to his feet. “No way. That’s impossible. I’m a man.” He gestured at his crotch to prove it.

Now you are a man, Kriscilla agreed. But is that because you are still a man, or is that because those enchanted cuffs keep you locked into a single form?

Dustin opened his mouth to laugh loudly at the total stupidity of their inane argument, but ended up crying, instead.

Maelys, for her part, gave him a squinty look, then started wandering west, towards the mountains.

“Hey! What do you think you’re doing?” Dustin shouted, more than a little on edge from the twin harpies shrieking at him.

“I’m finding Olthon.”

We’re hardly harpies.

We live a lot longer than harpies, Daegra agreed.

And we’re smarter, Kriscilla said. Don’t forget smarter.

Dustin felt a frayed part of his mind start to snap under the pressure, then, because he had to choose between going on with his life or blissfully dancing over the cliff of sanity, he jogged after Maelys. “Why are you headed west?” he demanded.

“You said he went to Etro. Etro is west.”

“No,” Dustin said, grabbing her by the hand. “I said he went to the Spyre.”

“Then you said Etro,” Maelys said. “And since that other guy thought he saw him headed towards the mountains, too, that’s where we should go.”

“We’re going to the Spyre,” Dustin growled. “Rhydderch Vethyle is going to surgically remove some unwanted pests if I have to light his ass on fire.”

“You can go to the Spyre,” Maelys said. “I’m going to Etro to find Olthon.” She yanked herself from his grip and kept walking towards the mountains they had just left.

Well, it certainly looks like the weasel didn’t take the stubborn part of her soul, Daegra said.

“No, look,” Dustin said, grabbing her again, “I don’t know where he went, but I do know that neither one of us is going near him again until we get an Auld involved. He’s a walking trap, and he’s already got part of your soul.”

Maelys snorted. “Olthon’s not a trap. He’s a Rockfarmer.”

Yes, Kriscilla said, but this is not the natural realm of a Rockfarmer. One must ask why he is here, rather than in his homeland.

“Yeah,” Dustin blurted, “but why is he here, rather than back where you guys came from?”

Maelys squinted at him. “I dunno. The same reason I’m here?”

Oh no, Daegra said, and Dustin could feel her head shake. Not even close.

“Not even close,” Dustin said, triumphant. “Olthon’s being punished. That’s why he can’t shape the stone. You’re…” He hesitated, unsure what to say. As far as he had seen, she had absolutely no idea what she was, and he wasn’t about to make guesses.

“I’m what?” Maelys prompted.

She really doesn’t know, does she? Kriscilla commented, her mental ‘voice’ catching between her teeth. How could that be?

But Daegra’s comment was more dire. When was the last time they sent one? Five, six hundred years ago?

Longer, Kriscilla said. It was in the time of the Ariod War.

Dustin felt himself go cold. They couldn’t possibly mean…

“Well if you’re just going to stand there staring off into space,” Maelys said, “I’m going to go find Olthon.” She started towards the mountains again.

Seeing how intent she was on going back to where they had seen both a soul-stealing Auld and a soul-stealing monster, Dustin shook himself. “There’s no way Olthon went to Etro. Siorus is the biggest city in Bryda. If I wanted to get lost, that’s where I’d go.”

Thus exemplifies why he’s been in chains for a hundred and nine years, Daegra said.

“He’s not trying to get ‘lost,’” Maelys said. She gave him a look like he were utterly stupid for even speaking it. “He’s preparing for our wedding.”

Dustin choked, then pretended it was a cough. When Maelys squinted at him suspiciously, he rammed his fist against his chest and, in between hacking fits, managed, “Bug.”

“You swallowed a bug.” Obviously not believing him. “You don’t think he’ll marry me?”

Careful, Dustin, Kriscilla warned. The hearts of youngsters are more touchy than glass.

When Dustin finally caught his breath, he said, “Yes, I’m sure that’s exactly what he’s doing. After you went to bed, he mentioned getting you a dress. He’s probably headed towards the silk merchant stalls in Siorus as we speak so he can make you a pretty dress.”

Maelys beamed unnaturally. “Etro makes the best silk,” Maelys said. “He’d go there.” Because obviously, Olthon was not going to garb her in inferior silk.

Unable to keep the ridiculous illusion going, Dustin growled, “I am not going to put up with two defeathered harpies in my head for the next two millennia. We go to the Spyre.”

“You go to the Spyre,” Maelys insisted, looking frustrated. “I need to find Olthon.”

“Etro was a guess,” Dustin snapped. “Why in the hells would you think Olthon would go to that dusty, poverty-stricken…”

Dustin hesitated, realizing Olthon probably had fled to the Pass. During his last ‘excursion’ from the Spyre, he had briefly taken a stopover in Etro in order to avoid the Auldhunds looking for him and had spent a few days kicking back in a tavern on the outskirts of the desert, watching the soldiery come and go. Etro had recently changed its badges, flags, and other heraldry, he had noticed during his brief vacation of drinking and carousing. Dustin grinned, despite himself. Now Etro knew how to make a good ale… It had been one of the few times he’d actually made money—lots of money—on chits. Etroeans traded in earth-mined metals, not sparks, and Dustin had been surrounded by piles of the stuff by the end of the night. Unfortunately, the savoring of that experience had been nullified by the fact that the Auldhunds had raided the tavern midway through the night and dragged him away from his winnings and back through the Pass.

Oh my gods, Kriscilla said, he doesn’t even finish his thoughts.

Indeed, Daegra agreed, if I’d seen what it was like in here before he’d brought me that undercooked goat, I certainly would have found the arrangement questionable.

Dustin blinked. “Huh?”

You were going to correlate Etro with Thibault because you noticed the two-flies sigil that Etroean civil servants started to wear on their badges, but you started reminiscing about drinking and gambling, instead.

“No I didn’t,” Dustin said, flushing.

Just tell the child he went to Ganlin Hall, Daegra said. Rees or Wynfor should be strong enough to work the magics to get us into a new body.

“The Ganlins are dead!” Dustin snapped. “The only one left is cursed.”

Wait, Kriscilla said, backpedaling, what do you mean, they’re dead?

“Dead!” Dustin cried. “As in, not living.”

For a long moment, Maelys just stared at him. Then, with the slow enunciation given to a very stupid child, she said, “Dustin. Where is Ol-thon? I need to find Ol-thon.”

Seemingly starting to panic, now, Daegra said, If the Ganlins are dead, what was your plan to get the cuffs off?

“I had no plan!” Dustin cried. “I pretty much considered myself screwed!”

But the harpies weren’t satisfied with that. You said one still lives. Which one?

“Rhydderch Vethyle,” Dustin growled.

“No, Olthon,” Maelys snapped.

Rhydderch is a Ganlin? What tier?

“Top tier,” Dustin said. “Or at least as close to top tier as the Aulds have nowadays.”

How is that possible? I heard he ranked as a seven-four.

“Who are you talking to, Dustin?”

“I have no idea,” Dustin said. “Ask Wynn Ganlin the Second.”

“Who’s that?”

Wynn Ganlin the Second is three hundred years dead.

Yes, Daegra added, but what of his namesake? It is the end times, is it not? Shouldn’t he be coming back to fight?

Remembering the power of Wynn the First—his maker—Dustin stiffened. Oh gods. There was a prophecy about the end of the world and Wynn the First rising from the dead with his Auldbluut to save the Spyre from a dragon of darkness…

Maelys, meanwhile, had turned her back to him and Dustin could see a shimmery gray-white marking between her shoulder-blades that he had at first thought was wet ashes, but now he could see had distinct, ordered lines.

Is Rhydderch an Auldheist? Daegra interrupted. There was a prophecy about the greatest powers of each faction stepping forth to greet the end of the world, the nine marked by the Rune…

Dustin swallowed hard, ignoring the prattle in his head, and took two steps and gingerly touched the sinuous gray lines between her shoulder blades.

An instant later, Maelys’s skin flickered with black scales. When Maelys turned to give him an irritated look, her eyes, normally green, were now a vivid yellow, slitted from top to bottom. Black porcelain fangs slid down her jawline, and her hair was a white-gray. The visage bared its teeth and hissed at him, lunging forward from her body in a rush of darkness.

Dustin yanked his hand away and stumbled back, gasping, and the image faded.

“I hear eating a handful of apple seeds will kill parasites if you crunch them good between your teeth,” Maelys said.

Dustin, whose heart was pounding beyond all control, managed, “I’ll try that.”

Was that… Daegra whispered, what I thought it was?

Dustin couldn’t respond. Maelys was walking west, apparently oblivious of what he had just seen.

“I think so,” Dustin whispered.

There was a long silence as they watched her walk away.

I’d say to kill her, Kriscilla said, but I think if it were possible, she would already be dead.

The last time the world ended, Daegra said softly, the dragons died out. Whose turn is it this time?

Somehow, I don’t think they all died off, Kriscilla managed.

“They were biding their time,” Dustin whispered, watching Maelys walk away. “They were biding their time to take back what was theirs.”

For the first time, neither of his two unwelcome guests had anything to say.