“Something’s changed,” the dragon mused, shifting his weight atop the accumulated wealth of a dead nation.

“My lord Tyranus?” a nearby human spoke, its tiny voice barely reaching Billy’s ears.

Billy was the dragon’s name, and it was how it thought of itself, after all these years. Born in a lab, the first thing to cross Billy’s eyes had been humans, and for the first three years of his life, he’d thought he was one.

The researchers had been astonished by Billy’s intelligence, and had amused themselves by affording the baby dragon a classic education--which, in retrospect, may not have been the best idea.

“My lord Tyranus?” the man said again as Billy twirled a twenty-seven pound gold bar between two claws. The trick was to slow down on the upswing so that the bar’s momentum could carry it around the claw.

The only problem was, having been raised by humans, Billy was considered to be a pansy by other dragons, despite having grown bigger and stronger than any wild dragon under the tender care of the Harvard Biology Department. A couple hundred years after the fall of man, he’d even found his family… and they had dismissed him offhand for not following dragon etiquette.

Why should he have to ritualistically posture and fight, stretching his neck as high as possible to compare heights? It made no sense. Dragons were naturally more intelligent than humans, but an education was something to disdain, especially if it came from humans.

Perhaps if his brethren had studied the planet’s history before they declared themselves the masters of the world, they would have been ready when Billy sent some expendables to their lairs with backpack nukes. Needless to say, there were no other dragons left on the American continent.

Now that Billy was entering his adulthood, though, he was beginning to experience a longing for companionship. Perhaps he could go through one of the Gates and court a female of his species.

As Billy sighed, a gout of flaming liquid dribbled between his massive fangs and spattered on the ground, evaporating into the air as it combusted. He didn’t really know what a red dragon courtship entailed, but if the behavior of the others who settled Earth’s land was any indication, it would probably involve him wrestling his mistress to the ground and taking her by force.

While such an animalistic method held appeal, Billy had always wanted to try cowgirl.

“My lord Tyranus?”

“What!?” Billy roared, whipping his head around to address the man standing at the edge of Billy’s bed of gold and gems. His voice rang from the sheets of hanging brass and silver, creating a melodious undertone to his question.

The force of Billy’s breath rocked the man back on his heels. A small amount of burning liquid squirted out of the dragon’s mouth before he was able to shut the flap in his throat, and it trickled down the pile of gold like a merrily-burning stream down a mountain, ending its journey at the man’s feet.

“I’m sorry, my lord, but you said something had changed?” Billy’s chamberlain, a large man by the name of Thomas, asked.

Billy blinked slowly, unwilling to admit he’d become lost in thought. He rewound his short term memory, and found the moment Thomas spoke of. “Yes,” Billy said. “I felt a disturbance in the force.”

The human didn’t get the joke, but to be fair, it was somewhere around six hundred years before his time. Hell, it had been ancient when Billy had been born.

Thomas gazed up at him, blind devotion written across his face. “What was it, my lord?”

“I felt one of the threads of the world snap,” Billy said, using imagery to describe leylines to the ignorant savage. “There will be recoil of some kind, you can be sure of it.”

Billy closed his eyes, breathed in deeply, and strummed the leyline below him like a guitar string. The resulting echo was off-putting and discordant.

“Something has stirred,” Billy said, feeling the land through the magical current. “There was something evil underground. A presence that had been there for so long I had grown numb to it… is gone.”

Billy’s mind raced, ruling out possibilities. It couldn’t be another dragon; they had all been accounted for. Humans didn’t have enough magical ‘weight’ to register on the leylines. Elves had settled a nearby site of power, but they hadn’t yet intruded on the forest, where the presence had been.

It could have been an elf, Billy reasoned. How would an elf have survived for six hundred years hiding from the humans in a cave? The obvious answer was magic. A powerful magical practitioner moving for the first time in centuries could create such a disturbance.

It was times like this that Billy wished the internet was still around. He could probably get a clearer picture with Google Maps.

“What shall we do?” Thomas asked.

Billy shook his head. “It is no threat to me,” he said, glancing at his chamberlain. “But it would best be dealt with quickly, that it does not impact my people too harshly, don’t you think?”

Thomas nodded. “Your concern honors, uplifts and obligates us, my lord,” he said, saluting.

“Prepare the stage,” Billy said, idly squishing the gold bar between his claws. “I wish to address my people.”

The next morning, with the rising sun glittering off his scales, Billy stood poised on a concrete platform. A statue had once rested here, but in no living memory but Billy’s had there ever been anything but the stage.

Billy stood at the center of row after row of bright crimson, black, and white banners, all of which drew the eye to his magnificence. A milling crowd massed below him, desperately pushing to get closer and perhaps receive the blessing of their living god.

“My beloved people,” Billy said, his rumbling voice amplified magically so that it reached every corner of the city. “A hundred years ago, your great-grandparents chose to follow me and separate from the ignoble ways of the empire that dominated the Mississippi--faith which you, my most treasured possession, have upheld. I am eternally grateful for your trust, and the honor you have given me over the years,” Billy said, his voice stirring the crowd.

“I bore witness to a weak, broken people, cut off from your roots, starving and poor. Watched you grow into the proud warriors you are today.” Billy shifted his wings as he reared back, overlooking his domain. “Your ancestors fought. The empire tore at them, tried to make them animals. Every day, they would struggle, and burn, and hunger for the one chance that could see them free. Every day, they witnessed the evil that had corrupted the empire,” Billy said, scanning the crowd. “The evil that turned it against us, but more importantly, against itself.

“The Mississippi Empire follows a doctrine no man can ascribe to,” Billy continued, enjoying the transfixed stares. “They think to enslave the world and supersede your proud race beneath another.”

The assembled humans murmured darkly.

“Yes,” Billy said, grinning inwardly. “I speak of elves. The ruling class of the Mississippi Empire seeks to abandon their heritage, favoring that of the elves. The emperor himself is tainted by their blood, and hopes to win immortality for himself.

“Let me reiterate.” Billy held up a claw. “The very same man who treated your great-grandfathers like dogs, who attacked and killed many of your grandparents, and who you and your parents are locked in a fierce war against, is the Emperor of Mississippi. And while he schemes and brings woe to generation after generation of our people, the elves slowly tighten their stranglehold over his country, marginalizing humans further and further, luring women away from their husbands for trysts with elven men.”

At this, loud boos and disgruntled yelling washed across the crowd. Billy allowed the anger to grow, waiting until it had sufficient force before he directed it.

His wings snapped out with a crack of thunder. “Do not blame them,” Billy’s voice boomed. “These women do not do it for sport, or some perverse attraction to the inhuman creatures. They simply see no future for their pure-blooded children, and so they do what they must. The roots of the problem run deep, spreading through the lifeblood of the Mississippi and taking hold like a cancer.

“If we are to survive as a nation, and as a people, we must defend ourselves from the encroaching threat. And we are a nation, truly,” Billy said, stretching his neck to peer out over the crowd. “Your great-grandparents gave you freedom, your grandparents gave you land, your parents gave you thriving cities. And it is this generation that will see it all come to fruition.

“As a nation, we have the mettle--and the metal--to defend ourselves as we have never done before,” Billy declared. “We must set the needs of the nation in the forefront to ensure a strong country for your children, and their children in turn. We will not dally in the games the empire tries to play with its currency, and we will keep our workforce strong and pure. We must work to keep ourselves free from the grasp of the Empire that seeks to enslave us. And once you have built the foundations of your own great empire,” Billy said, “your children will live a life of happiness and security, with my blessing.”

A smattering of applause rose from the crowd.

“But we cannot do this in the shadow of the empire, my people. We must purge the corruption that threatens humanity from the face of the earth. We will give the arts and literature of our people to theirs, and stop the spread of malignant ideologies, excising it from their consciousness like the cancerous growth it is.” Billy spread his wings and released a gout of flame into the air, sending a wave of palpable heat over the cheering masses.

“We must be vigilant,” Billy said. “For this taint encroaches from more than just our north and east. I have felt stirrings from the west as well. An ancient beast that lay dormant for hundreds of years has begun to move, and will seek to spread its corrupting influence through our land. Guard yourselves, and guard your neighbors, for the most priceless possession that this country has is its people, and it is with solidarity that we will drive back the forces that seek to see us undone!”

With a final flare of flame, Billy brought the speech to an end among chants of “Tyranus, Tyranus!” The poor fools didn’t even know the meaning of the word he’d chosen as his name. Billy supposed that was only to be expected when he himself was the author of all books on history and literature. All truths save his own had been washed away over generations of controlled education.

The exception to this were people long-lived enough to see what he had turned his nation into--namely elves, especially the ones who’d been around in the beginning. Billy wanted to erase those few hundreds’ knowledge more than their selves, since elves made such excellent snacks.

“There is a spy among us,” Billy said with total confidence, despite being personally unaware of one. When wasn’t there a spy? His declaration cut through the chanting while he extended his senses through the crowd. Sensing the hearts of three of the humans beginning to hammer, Billy corrected himself. “There are spies among us.

“Not to worry, I’ve marked them, my people,” Billy said, stepping down from the pedestal, the crowd flowing around him like water as he walked. Hands reached out to touch him, seeking the blessing of their god. It didn’t particularly bother Billy, as oil was good for his scales.

The three nervous humans began backing away, trying to escape.

“Link arms,” Billy commanded. “Join hands with those around you.”

At his word, the crowd went from a liquid to a solid, trapping the three spies inside the wall of flesh. In the stillness of the crowd, their struggle to flee was made glaringly obvious. Billy’s worshippers grabbed these men of their own accord.

Pleased at not having to track them down himself, Billy sat on his haunches in the center of the crowd. “Bring them to me,” he said.

A wave of hands lifted the three men into the air, kicking and screaming, and deposited them in front of Billy.

“Hold them down.”

Dozens of willing hands pinned the men to the ground.

“Do you know,” Billy said, lightly breathing on a claw, “what the empire does to spies who have failed their mission? Especially ones who’ve given away state secrets?”

The men stared up at him with wide, terrified eyes. “We’d never tell you anything, monster,” the youngest-looking said.

“Ah, but you already have. You’ve told me that the empire is experiencing a famine,” Billy said, craning his neck to look down at the emaciated man before him. He blew a controlled jet of flame over his claw and then sliced through the man’s homespun shirt, burning away the wool as the spy whimpered. The smoking shirt fell away, revealing ribs that stood out from the skin, and red rashes across his body.

“Hold his head,” Billy commanded, and hands secured the boy’s head in place. Billy switched to a different claw and pressed up on the boy’s lips, studying his gums, then his eyes, tongue, and heartbeat. The little one’s heart trembled beneath his touch.

“It’s okay,” Billy said, smiling. “I’m a doctor."

“But, unfortunately,” he continued, “I never took the Hippocratic Oath.” Billy switched to his hot claw and began carving the symbol of his supporters on the spy’s inner thigh. He hummed to himself, ignoring the boy’s tortured screams as he worked, and wondered how long it would take the young one’s libido to get him killed. Probably a woman down on her luck in a cheap brothel would turn him in to the state. Billy wished he could see how it would all turn out, but his part in the play was done.

He set a claw lightly against the spy’s forehead. “Forget,” he said, and the spy’s eyes rolled back in his head.

“Let this one go,” Billy said cheerfully. “He’s served his purpose.” As the spy was carried away, Billy locked eyes with a more grizzled specimen, a bearded man decorated with scars from a life of hardship.

“Next,” Billy said jovially, reheating his claw until it glowed a cherry red. As they dragged the man closer, Billy sharpened his claw, dragging his others across the super-heated one, shaping it while it was relatively soft.

Billy repeated his inspection on the older man, and came to the same conclusion: The empire was starving. He ran his gaze over the scars of whip-lashes, and the thick calluses on the man’s hands. “As a human male of some age, you’ve probably got a much more developed sense of stability,” Billy said. “How would you like your own land to the east?”

Billy’s read on the man was that as a former slave or convict, he would gladly accept independence from his nation--but the man shook his head, tears in his eyes. “I can’t,” the grizzled spy said. “They have my wife n’ kids.”

“Ah.” Billy reached down and pricked the man’s shoulder with his claw, letting his blood form a small pool on the cobblestones. He dipped his claw in the red puddle and scratched out a circle of symbols on the stone.

With a flash of light, three small humans sat huddled in the center of the circle, two girls and an infant in the eldest girl’s grasp.

“Well, now I have your kids,” Billy said. “So what’ll it be?”

The man’s expression was tortured. “I--” he began.

“Hold,” Billy said, raising the girls’ hair away from their ears. “I see.” He turned his gaze back to the spy. “You must be considered quite successful back home, having a half-blood for a wife.

“Unfortunately, I must rescind my offer, and replace it with a new one,” Billy said. “A job offer. One for you, and one for your… spawn. Don’t worry,” Billy said, savoring the man’s anguish, “it’s not as stressful as spying.

“Consider your girls lucky. They are young enough to be taught their proper place. I think you men can take care of that,” Billy said, addressing the crowd, who chuckled, crowding around the unconscious girls.

“No!” the spy shouted. “Leave them be, I’ll tell you everything!”

“You’ll tell me everything!” Billy boomed, his voice ringing from the mountains. “Or they will die. What happens to them while they live is no more than a consequence of their birth. And I hope you were listening to me, as well,” Billy said to the crowd. “I’ve given my word that they will live, so treat them… gently.”

Cheers rang through the crowd as they dragged the sobbing spy away. There was only one job for a man who’d been tainted by the touch of an elf; he’d live out the rest of his life in hard labor. The same was true for women born with the taint of elven blood, although their duty required less heavy lifting.

“Next,” Billy said, crooking a claw.

The third spy immediately began to grovel. “My lord, I care nothing for Mississippi. I swear I’ll tell you everything--” the man said, before Billy rammed a claw through his lungs.

“I hate it when they think they can manipulate me,” Billy said, before tossing the corpse into his mouth and swallowing it whole.