Mia, the Demon, and the Dragon
Mia, the Demon, and the Dragon
By Matt Krizan
Mia
On the day she saw the dragon again, Mia awoke in a married man's bed. The married man, Aidan, lay naked beside her, snoring softly. His wife, Karina, sat in a chair in a corner, rigid and unmoving, the spell Mia had cast on her keeping her bound and concealed from Aidan's sight. Dried tears streaked Karina's face, and Mia wondered when she'd finally stopped crying. The tears had still been flowing the last time Mia had noticed, Karina unable to look away as Mia and Aidan made love right in front of her.
As Mia dressed, she imagined the conversation between husband and wife when her spells finally wore off. Aidan would undoubtedly say Mia had magicked him too. Maybe he would even be able to convince Karina he was telling the truth. But Mia knew the damage had been done, and she smiled at the thought of the poison pill she'd planted in their marriage.
It wasn't as if she'd spent the past six years plotting revenge on Karina for having cheated on Mia while they were at university--not exactly. The act had neither been forgotten nor forgiven, however. So when Aidan had slid onto the stool next to Mia's in the tavern the previous evening, she eagerly took advantage of the opportunity. Seducing him hadn't been at all difficult, needing just a little mental nudge with a spell Mia wasn't supposed to have learned yet.
"I really did love you, you know." Mia ran a finger along Karina's jawline. She kissed her on the lips--once, gently--then left.
The sun was high in the sky, the time much later than Mia had realized. With a gesture and a few words of magic, her long blonde hair, loose and rumpled by sex and sleep, plaited itself into an intricate braid down her back. Her green blouse and matching ankle-length skirt folded into a green, long-sleeved tunic with dark gray leggings underneath. Master Xander would be cross with her for using magic for such trivial things, but Mia wasn't about to return to the Center for Magic in the same clothes in which she'd left the previous evening. Several passersby stared, having witnessed her brief transformation, but at a glare from Mia, they looked away.
Master Xander was in a meeting of the Mages Council when Mia arrived, so she was able to slip into his laboratory without being subjected to a lecture about punctuality. His absence also allowed her to continue working on the complex spell she had secretly spent the past several days trying--and failing--to master. It was one Xander had demonstrated with casual ease, commenting that it was far beyond Mia's capabilities. Which, of course, made her that much more determined to learn it, and whether that had been Xander's intention in making the remark, Mia couldn't say. The man was brilliant--one of the most capable wizards in the empire--and his methods of instruction were as capricious as his moods. Yet Mia had fought to become his apprentice, determined to learn everything he could teach her and more.
Two hours later, she was no closer to mastering the spell than when she'd started. She was missing something, some subtle inflection in one of the words, perhaps, but she had no idea what it was. While the wards around the laboratory prevented any real magic from happening, Mia should have at least felt the magic flaring within her. Yet there was nothing.
She was so engrossed in her studies that it was several minutes before she registered the commotion coming from the hallway outside the laboratory. She tried to ignore the excited-sounding voices, assuming they would go away, but they continued and only grew louder. She scowled as she stalked to the door and flung it open.
"What in the nine hells are you people doing?" she called after two chattering apprentices.
"They're saying there's a dragon," one called back over his shoulder without stopping.
Mia blinked at their retreating backs, a chill running through her. There hadn't been a dragon this close to the city in twenty years. Not since--
She stopped herself and shook the thought away.
It can't be.
They--whoever "they" were--had to be wrong. Or some of the younger apprentices were playing another one of their inane practical jokes. Yet Mia found herself trailing after them, up several flights of stairs and out onto one of the wide balconies ringing the Center's north tower. A cluster of apprentices crowded against the railing, talking excitedly and pointing. One held a spyglass, staring off in the distance at something Mia couldn't see. She pushed her way through the crowd to him and took the spyglass.
"Hey--" He started to protest, but bit back whatever else he'd been about to say when he saw who it was.
"Where?" said Mia.
He hesitated, then pointed toward the foothills north of the city, at a small figure in the distance flitting about just over the treetops.
As Mia peered through the spyglass, her breath caught in her throat. Midnight blue scales drank in the sunlight as the dragon drifted through the sky on wings unfurled. Its underbelly was golden, and a row of burnished bronze spikes ran the length of its neck and back. Seeing the dragon again, Mia felt like she was six years old.
She had wandered away from her classmates and teachers as she so often did, delving deeper into the forest. When she stumbled upon the dragon drinking from a pool at the base of a waterfall, it looked as surprised to see her as she was to see it. A gout of fire set the trees behind Mia ablaze, cutting her off before she could flee. Wherever she ran, the dragon was there. Jagged teeth tore her dress and hair. It pinned her down and released her, only to pin her down once more. With a claw, it carved into the flesh of her arms and legs and back, not deep enough to cause permanent damage, but enough to draw blood and to make her scream.
It seemed to enjoy hearing her scream.
Mia curled up in a ball, quivering and crying and bleeding, waiting for it to kill her. Maybe it had already eaten. Maybe it just got bored with its little game. Whatever the case may have been, the dragon sniffed at her, its breath hot and rancid on her face. It muttered something in the ancient language of dragons, and then it left.
As Mia watched the dragon through the spyglass, it belched fire at something below the tree line, then dove after its prey. She didn't see whatever the dragon came away with. She wordlessly handed the spyglass back to the young man, then shoved her way past the ever-growing throng of people crowding the balcony, ignoring their protests.
She paused as the stairway swam in her vision and put a hand to the cool stone wall to steady herself. Someone said something to her, but Mia barely heard them. She shook her head and swatted away the hand reaching out to steady her, then made her way back to the laboratory in a daze.
The Demon
I return to consciousness on a patch of charred ground, the villagers having apparently set fire to my body after they'd stabbed me to death. Not a bad idea, really, except it doesn't do any good. This makes--what? Four? Five times I've been burned? At least this time I was dead. Being burned alive isn't much fun.
I'd lingered on the outskirts of the village for too long, I suppose. I'd stayed because of the sheep--or the wolves preying on the sheep, I should say. Three years into this tortured existence of mine, and the idea of eating flesh and raw meat is still tough for me to stomach--figuratively speaking, that is. It's the only thing I can stomach literally, and I've had to learn to pick my spots. People tend to notice when their cows and horses go missing. I thought I could feed on the wolves and no one would care. But when one of the villagers stumbled upon me as I fed, it didn't matter that I'd been feeding on a wolf; they blamed me for the dead sheep all the same. So the men from the village came after me, with their swords and their pitchforks and any other long, pointy objects they could lay their hands on.
There was a time when I fought back, when I really was the monster everyone sees when they look at me. Sometimes, I killed them. Most of the time, they killed me. Now, though, I just let them come. It's better that way. Let them think they've taken care of the monster plaguing their village, so everyone can go on living their lives.
It's funny. As much as the dying hurts, coming back hurts even worse, another not-so-pleasant fact I discovered early on, when I tried taking my own life. I thought I couldn't live this way. I found out I didn't have a choice.
I leave the village in my wake, heading deeper into the forest at the base of the Masa'ai Mountains. With spring having dawned, game should be plentiful, making it easier for me to feed and easier for me to hide. I travel for two days, stopping for brief periods of rest and to drink and clean myself in the streams winding their way down from the snow-capped mountains. I ignore my hunger, something I've gotten good at. The squirrels, rabbits, and other small woodland creatures fleeing my approach are more effort than they're worth to try and catch.
I'm bathing in a stream trickling through a small clearing, washing the dirt from my brown, scaly flesh, when I hear the excited voices of children--a half-dozen, at least--heading my way.
I sigh. As much as I don't want to, I know I should hide. Frightened children bring frightened adults. Frightened adults bring sharp weapons, and I don't feel like dying again so soon. So I conceal myself in the heavy undergrowth on the far side of the clearing, waiting for the children to come and go.
Except they don't.
A girl--seven or eight years old, perhaps--crashes through the brush into the clearing, stopping beside the stream. Her clothes are clean but well-worn, tattered, her long, reddish-brown hair coming loose from the braid down her back. She might have been pretty if it weren't for the pox scars covering one side of her face, her left eye only able to open halfway.
Six other children--four girls and two boys, all around the same age--trail behind her. They form a loose semi-circle around the girl, trapping her with her back to the stream. She barely reacts to the taunts and names they call her. She looks afraid, certainly, but, more than that, she looks tired, as if this is something that happens often. She doesn't fight back when they hurl hunks of grass and dirt at her, merely huddles in on herself until one of the boys pushes her into the stream.
The other children laugh, fling more dirt and names at her for a bit, until finally, having tormented the girl enough for one day, they leave her alone.
She crawls out of the stream, brushes away the dirt, and wrings water from her dress. She sighs heavily, and though sadness and hurt are written on her face, there are no tears.
I should stay hidden, I know, but I don't, and I'm not sure why. Maybe it's the lack of tears that gets to me, seeing that familiar feeling of resigned helplessness on the girl's face.
Her eyes go wide as I slither out from my hiding place.
"It's okay." I hold up my hands in what's meant to be a peaceful gesture. "I won't hurt you, I promise."
She eyes me doubtfully, and I can't really blame her. I know what I look like, with the vaguely human-looking upper half, the scales and the horns and the bat-like wings, the snake-like lower half. If such a creature told me it wouldn't hurt me, I wouldn't believe it either.
"What's your name?" I ask.
She doesn't answer.
I tell her mine, then coil my tail underneath me and settle onto it, my wings draping over my shoulders. She blinks at me, and through the fear and the wariness in her face, curiosity peeks out.
"Those other children," I say. "They do things like that to you a lot." It's not a question. I already know the answer. The way her expression darkens and she looks away only confirms it.
An idea forms. I almost smile, but I catch myself. With my long sharp teeth, my smile is rather gruesome and is only likely to frighten the girl more than she already is.
"Would you like to make them stop?"
Mia
It took her three days to reach the cave where the dragon had taken up residence. She arrived under the cover of darkness and hid beneath the low-hanging branches of a weeping elm tree, approaching from downwind to conceal herself from the dragon's mundane senses. The ward she'd stolen from Master Xander's laboratory would conceal her from the dragon's magical senses, or so she hoped.
It wasn't as if she'd spent the past twenty years plotting revenge on the dragon for having tormented her--not exactly. She had, however, devoted herself to the study of dragon lore, determined to confront and conquer the fear and the nightmares that lingered for years after that first encounter. She devoured any information on dragons she could get her hands on, from story books and her primary school primer on magical creatures to more learned texts while at university and within the Center's extensive library. Much of the information was speculation and was frequently contradictory, but Mia pulled on all of the threads and pieced them together as if she were weaving a giant tapestry.
One thing everyone agreed on was that a dragon's magic was in its blood. Whole texts had been devoted to the study of dragon blood and its uses. One claimed a wizard could use the blood of a dragon to increase his own magic a hundredfold. Another claimed it could grant immortality. Mia wasn't sure what to believe. Many of the texts were hundreds of years old, and it wasn't as if dragons were lining up to let the wizards from the Center experiment with their blood. But the power of dragon blood was tantalizing. If the texts were right, there was no telling how far she could go if she could gain even a fraction of that power. After her initial shock at seeing the dragon again wore off, a plan began to form.
Her other studies were forgotten as she made preparations and watched the dragon from afar. She tracked its comings and goings, combining what she saw with everything she'd learned about dragons and their habits. She took her time. If it had returned for the reason she suspected, the dragon would be around for another three months. After two-and-a-half of those months, she was ready.
The dragon emerged from its cave at midday, as was its custom, stretching its neck and flexing its wings. Mia couldn't help but feel awed at the creature's beauty, so ancient and powerful and deadly. Watching it from a distance through a spyglass was one thing. Seeing it up close was something else entirely. Fear crept in despite the cherya root she'd been chewing on all morning, and she clasped her hands together to keep them from shaking.
The dragon launched itself into the sky, the branches of Mia's tree buffeted by the wind of its passing. She waited until it flew out of sight, waited another five minutes just to be safe, then crept from her hiding place and into the cave. The lingering sense of the dragon's magic washed over her like sunlight on a spring day, and Mia's heart raced, fear eclipsed by her growing excitement.
She didn't have to go far to find what she was looking for, and she congratulated herself on being right about why the dragon had come. The ground around the egg was blackened and charred from the fire the dragon had been breathing on it. A foot tall and the dark green of an avocado, the egg was only a few weeks from hatching.
Mia waved a hand over the egg, reciting a spell to detect the presence of magic, and the protective wards the dragon had lain over the egg flared to life in fiery red light. She didn't know what would happen if she tried to touch the egg, but her hand bursting into flames was probably the best she could expect.
She pulled a knife from her pack, a slim silver blade onto which she'd inscribed a series of intricate runes. As she brought the tip of the knife toward the egg, the wards flared before disappearing with a soft pop. Mia smiled and let out a deep breath. She hadn't been certain that would work.
She gathered the egg, surprised at how light it was. Heat radiated from within the hard, leathery shell. She touched the knife to the egg, testing it, feeling the shell give beneath the blade. She could do it if she wanted, could snuff out the life growing within, and a part of her was tempted to do so. She imagined the dragon returning to find the egg destroyed, its remains scattered about the cave, could hear the dragon's anguished roar.
But Mia wanted more than that. The magic within a newborn dragon's blood would be weaker than that of an adult, but if she could draw on that magic, it should be more than enough to make her the most powerful living witch. Or so she hoped. The dragon's angst upon returning to find its egg stolen was just a side benefit.
She slipped the egg into a large pouch slung over one shoulder, then hurried back to the cave entrance and out into the clearing.
To find the dragon waiting for her.
The Demon
I hide in the bushes as they draw near, the taunts of the other children trailing after the girl as she hurries through the woods toward the stream. She warmed up to me a bit when I told her my idea to get the other children to leave her alone, but she continued to eye me the entire time as if expecting me to try and eat her at any moment. I wasn't sure when she left if she would go through with the plan, wondered if she was just humoring me so she could get away.
Yet here she is, a day later, crashing through the undergrowth into the clearing, the other children not far behind. They surround her again, hurling more insults and more dirt.
"You better leave me alone," she says, as boldly as she can.
"Oh yeah?" says one of the other girls. "Why's that?"
"I'll summon a demon to eat you."
There's a pause, then laughter.
"You're a demon," says one of the boys. "A foul, ugly demon brat."
She yelps, ducking as the boy hurls a rock at her.
"Die, demon, die!"
More rocks come pelting toward her, and she cries out as one of them hits her.
"Stop!" she says, then unleashes a string of magic-like words. They're complete gibberish, but the other children don't know that.
I grab the bushes in which I'm hiding and shake them. The voices of the other children fall silent as they all turn in my direction. As the girl finishes her chant, I push through the bushes into the clearing. Six pairs of eyes go wide; six mouths fall open.
I unfurl my wings, spread my arms wide, and roar. Before I can even start toward them, the children scream and scurry back the way they came. I slither after them, making as much noise as I can--growling and spitting, snapping low-hanging branches and smacking tree trunks with my tail--until the children are well out of sight.
When I return to the clearing, the girl is doubled over laughing, tears streaming down her face.
"Did you...?" she starts, barely able to speak. "Did you see their faces? They were all--" She screws up her face in a mockery of their terrified expressions then dissolves into another fit of laughter.
I watch her, and I smile. I can't help it. The sound of her laughter is music to my ears. When she looks at me, her laughter subsides, but her smile doesn't falter. For the first time in a long time, there's no fear in the face of someone who sees me. I realize I've forgotten what that feels like.
It's rather nice, actually.
Mia
She froze, breath caught in her throat, terror like an icy hand gripping her heart that no amount of cherya root could ever hope to counteract. The dragon eyed her, nostrils flaring as if taking in her scent. The ward Mia carried reacted as the dragon probed her with its own magic.
The dragon's eyes narrowed. It gestured with one claw, and the ward gave out.
"Stop!" Mia pulled the pouch with the egg close, pressed the point of her knife against it. "You can kill me, sure, but not before I can destroy the egg."
The dragon rumbled deep in its chest, its gaze malevolent, and for a moment, Mia thought it would just kill her anyway. The feeling of the dragon's magic dissipated, however.
"What is it you want, little witch?" Its voice was like boulders tumbling down the side of a mountain. "Are you here for a pet? A familiar, perhaps?" It cocked its head to one side. "Or have you come seeking power?"
The dragon lowered its head so it was at Mia's eye level, its maw ten feet away. The foul heat of its rancid breath washed over her, and the six-year-old girl in Mia wanted nothing more than to turn and run. She fought to remain still, gripping the knife tighter as she struggled to keep her hand from trembling.
"Yes, that's it, isn't it?" said the dragon. "Power from the blood of a dragon." Then, much to Mia's surprise, it chuckled. "I'm afraid the blood of a child will avail you very little. Our magic takes several decades to manifest, by which time I doubt you'd be able to maintain control of your not-so-little pet, even if you were still around and able to benefit from the power in its blood."
Mia frowned. None of the texts she'd read said anything about a dragon's magic developing over time. They could be wrong, of course, but then the dragon could just as easily be lying, trying to trick her into giving up the egg. It was the only thing keeping her alive at that point, though, and she wasn't about to let it go. Her mind raced as she tried to think of some way of escaping in one piece and unburned.
"If it's power you seek, my blood would be of much greater use to you. Leave the egg unharmed, and I shall grant you that which is within me to give."
Despite her fear, Mia couldn't help but perk up at the offer. The part of her that craved power wanted to cry out "Yes!" but she managed to reel that part in. To give up the egg meant there would be nothing to stop the dragon from devouring her or incinerating her or torturing her to death in any number of ways.
Seeing the doubt on Mia's face, the dragon said, "I give you my word--I will not kill you. This, I swear." Then its voice rumbled in the ancient language of the dragons. The words were among the few Mia had been able to learn, and if the texts she'd read were correct, they bound the dragon to its word: "By blood and by fire, on the bones of the world and the souls of my ancestors." And yet--
"There are ways of hurting me that don't involve killing me."
The dragon chuckled again. "This is true. Very well. You shall have the magic in my blood. By my hand, you shall not be harmed. Neither by breath nor by body, neither tooth nor claw." Again, it spoke the vow.
Mia turned the dragon's words over in her mind. If there was a trick in there, she couldn't see it. She nodded, then with hands trembling from something other than fear, she sheathed her knife and set the egg on the ground.
The dragon eyed her for a moment, then it, too, nodded. "Very well."
Mia winced as the dragon jabbed a claw into its soft underbelly just over its heart. Blood, thick and dark, pooled up from the wound and over the claw, trickling in a line down the dragon's breast. The dragon spoke in its own language, this time a rhythmic chant, and Mia felt the shift in the air around them as the dragon's magic swelled.
Needing every bit of courage she possessed, Mia managed to not flinch as the dragon pressed its claw to her forehead. It drew a sigil on her skin in its blood, and magic flared like a bolt of lightning through her mind. She gasped, trembling from the power coursing through her, hardly noticing as the dragon tore her tunic, baring her chest. It drew another sigil in blood over her heart. Again, the magic burst within her, and Mia fell to her knees.
Her skin felt ablaze, magic seeping through her very pores. Her heart pounded as if it were trying to break through her ribs. She felt as if she'd come alive, had awakened for the first time. Everything around her--the trees, the grass, the rocks--was brighter, sharper, more defined. She heard the flowers, smelled the snow atop the mountain.
At a gesture from the dragon, the energy flowing through Mia shifted, and white-hot pain lanced through her entire body. She collapsed to the ground, crying out wordlessly, the air in her lungs blasted away. Her leggings tore, and Mia stared in horror as her legs knit together, from thighs to knees to ankles, lengthening, dissolving into a long, sinuous tail. Her skin darkened as if burned from within, hardening into scales. She screamed as pain flared in her forehead and from her shoulder blades, flesh tearing open, horns sprouting, and wings bursting forth.
She didn't know how long the transformation took, how long she endured the pain. Afterward, Mia lay trembling, staring at a pair of clawed hands, dark and gnarled, and it was several moments before she realized they were hers.
"You're not the first to come seeking power, of course," said the dragon. "Most are usually more polite about it, though. Had you but asked...well, I guess we'll never know, will we?"
It ran a claw down Mia's cheek, gently, its blood mingling with her tears. Then it gathered its egg and returned to its cave.
The Demon
Her name is Ysael, the girl finally tells me. She's curious and asks me lots of questions. Where do I come from? What do I eat? Why can't I fly? I answer as honestly as I can, redirecting her away from the things I don't wish to talk about, which is pretty much anything about my past. Mostly I just let her talk. She's a bright child--clever and funny. Friendly, once you get past the shyness brought on by the pox scars. She has few friends, which is a few more than I do. Which is why she keeps coming back and which is why I stay, even though I know I shouldn't.
On our third day together, she brings me a present--a pork loin from her uncle's butcher shop. She tells me not to worry, that her uncle thinks she's taking it home to her mother. I'm not so sure, but I'm grateful and I'm hungry, and I eat the meat all the same when she leaves. The next day she brings a ham. The day after that, bacon. Each day when she leaves, she asks if she'll see me again tomorrow. I can't bring myself to tell her no, so I lie and say she will, each time planning to leave during the night. And yet, the next day comes, and there I am, waiting for her.
Maybe it's the food that gives us away. Maybe it's the stories the other children told after my little prank. Ysael claimed the grown-ups didn't believe them, that they had actually punished the children for what they'd done to her, much to Ysael's delight, but maybe she was wrong.
There are ten of them, and I curse myself for not sensing their approach, curse myself again for having lingered too long once more. The men from Ysael's village burst into the clearing, much as the children had done, only the children weren't armed with axes and crossbows.
"Get away from her," says one of the crossbow wielders, leveling his weapon at me.
Ysael jumps in surprise, backing away from them and toward me. "Daddy? Uncle Aidan?"
"It's okay, sweetheart, we're here." I see her in her father's eyes and the determined set of his mouth, the same reddish-brown hair. "Come to me."
I recognize Ysael's Uncle Aidan, too. There's still a wedding band on the hand gripping the haft of his axe, and I can't decide whether I want to laugh or cry.
"But..." Ysael frowns. She looks from them to me then back again. "Mia's my friend."
I almost smile at that. "It's okay. Go to your father." I start to place a hand on her shoulder but stop as the men all flinch, their weapons held at the ready.
"Will I see you again tomorrow?" She looks up at me hopefully.
"Of course." I lie.
Ysael gives me a hug around the waist, and it's wonderful and it hurts all at the same time. Then she joins her father, who pulls her behind him. He backs away as the others creep forward.
"What are they doing?" says Ysael.
I don't wait for the answer. Not because I'm afraid of them or what they'll do to me, but because I don't want Ysael to have to see it. Angry shouts trail in my wake as the men charge into the brush after me. A crossbow bolt whizzes past my ear. I try to ignore Ysael's cries.
I lead them on until we're well away from the clearing, then I slow and I wait. A half-dozen bolts rip through me--my back, my wings--and I slump to the ground. I close my eyes as Aidan and the other ones with the axes catch up to me.
It doesn't hurt. Not really. The real pain will come later.
Matt Krizan is a former certified public accountant who writes from his home in Royal Oak, Michigan. His short fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in various publications, including Factor Four Magazine, Daily Science Fiction, and Stupefying Stories. Find him online at mattkrizan.com, on Blue Sky as @mattkrizan.bsky.social, and on Twitter as @MattKrizan.