A Night of Dragon Wings

NEMES



They had left their wyverns below the mountain. This was holy ground; they would not profane it with beasts that drooled acid. They walked. It seemed like they walked for hours. The trail coiled up the stony mountainside; they must have climbed a league high. All around them rolled the desert, lifeless and golden, nothing but endless sand and rock.

The sun dipped below the horizon, a shimmering drop of blood, then vanished. Only their torches now lit the night, and still they climbed: a golden queen, fifty men in steel, and a prisoner robed in black. Step after step. Mile after mile. And still the mountain loomed.

They had chained his arms. The rusty iron chafed his skin, and Nemes bit down hard against the pain. He could endure some pain, some humiliation. For a hundred years, the weredragons had shamed his family, forcing them to clean plate, floor, and chamber pot. What was one more night of chains for a lifetime of glory?

I will fetch you your key, Solina, he thought and gritted his teeth. I am no weakling, no craven like Leras. I will fetch the key, and I will stand by your side as you release the nephilim, as you crush the weredragons, as you rule the world. I will be no servant then, but a lord of your court.

The night and trail stretched on.

It must have been midnight when they reached the mountaintop. Clouds covered the sky. A hot wind blew and their torches crackled. There above them loomed the tower, a coiling shard of obsidian like a rotten nerve. The torchlight flickered against it, and Nemes bared his teeth and hissed.

The night was hot, but an iciness flowed from this tower; it invaded his cloak, cut his skin, and froze his very bones. He felt his talisman burn against his chest; the iron serpent cried out for its lord. This tower itself, Nemes realized, was like a serpent of stone, rising from the earth to scream at the sky. His breath came fast. His blood pounded in his ears.

"Yes," Nemes whispered. "Yes, my lord! I come to serve you here. I come to seek your treasure. I am Nemes! I am your dark blade to thrust."

His head spun. For years in the Weredragon Court, he would study the books of Lord Legion. He would twist the animals of the forest to please his lord. He would suck and chew their innards to taste Legion's truth. He would study the Old Words and learn the dark magic: to cloak himself in shadow, to move in silence, to see where others were blind. And all the while, the stars of Requiem burned him, the cursed Draco Constellation that had doomed him to servitude. Yet here… here no stars shone. Here the power of Legion reigned.

Nemes fell and kissed the ground. Tears filled his eyes.

"I serve you, Fallen Lord!" he cried. "For years I sought you, Lord Legion, and now I kiss your holy earth. You will rise!"

Somewhere behind him, Solina spoke in disgust. "Stand him up. Toss him in. I'm tired of his whining."

Hands grabbed Nemes's shoulders and tugged him to his feet. They yanked his arms up, unlocked his chains, and shoved him forward. Nemes stumbled, looked over his shoulder, and hissed at the men. His wrists blazed with pain as the blood flowed back into them.

"You will show this place respect!" Nemes said. He snarled at the soldiers; fifty of them stood behind him, clad in steel, faces hidden behind their falcon visors. "You walk on holy ground, and I am the servant of Lord Legion. One day you will bow before me—and before him—or your bones will be his feast."

For an instant the guards hesitated. Nemes hissed again, savoring the taste of power, the scent of their fear. Then Solina marched toward him. Her eyes flashed, and her scarred lips twisted in a snarl. She grabbed a sabre from a guard and thrust it into his hands.

"Fetch me the key and you can hiss like a snake," she said. "For now you are still a worm. Go! Enter the darkness."

He stared into her eyes; he guessed that few men dared to. For a moment the two stared in silence, neither one blinking—a desert queen and a dark priest, for a moment locked in silent struggle.

Finally he snorted and tossed the sword down. It clattered against the ground.

"I need no blade," he said. "Return me my staff; it is more powerful than any shard of steel."

Still Solina dared not break the stare. Silent, she walked toward a soldier, grabbed the staff from him, and tossed it at Nemes. He caught it in one hand. Only then did he looked away, bowing theatrically.

"I shall see you again, my queen, with the key in my hand and the power of Lord Legion at our doorstep."

The guards made to drag him into the tower, but Nemes glared at them, a glare of all his simmering pain, rage, and lust. It held them back. Nemes straightened his back, smoothed his robes, and raised his head. He walked toward the tower. The doorway loomed before him.

Heart thrashing, he stepped inside.

He walked through darkness. The sounds of wind and men faded behind him, leaving only silence. Shadows parted before him, wisps like serpents of smoke. Nemes found himself in a round, stone chamber.

An obsidian table stood here, piled high with platters of raw, bloody ribs. The bones looked human and flesh still clung to them. An obese, naked man sat at the table, his back to Nemes. As the man feasted, grunting and huffing, blood and gobbets of flesh flew.

Nemes gripped his staff tight, lips curling in disgust, and a grunt fled his lips. The feasting man froze, squealed, and spun toward him.

Nemes gritted his teeth, struggling not to faint.

This was no man, he saw, but some creature of pale, fleshy rolls, his eyes mere slits. The creature's mouth opened, revealing sharp teeth and chunks of half-chewed flesh. Blood smeared his cheeks. He gave a shrill cry that Nemes thought could shatter glass.

"The key!" Nemes demanded. He gripped his staff, hand shaking. "Where is the key?"

The creature stared at him, blood dripping from his mouth. Slowly he raised a pudgy, clawed hand and pointed to the shadows, where Nemes could just make out a second doorway. With that, the creature returned to his meal. When Nemes looked at the table, he grunted in disgust. The bones were human; a severed head rotted among them.

Nemes stared, sucked in his breath, and found that his mouth was watering. He craved a taste. He craved to crack the bones in his mouth, suck the marrow, and feast. But there would be time for that later. Once he freed the nephilim, the earth itself would be his table, and the flesh of the world would lie rotting before him, ripe for the feeding.

Nemes turned away. He stepped through the second doorway and onto a staircase. The stairs wound upward, a corkscrew of bloodied bricks, and brought him into a second chamber.

A pile of raw, writhing flesh lay curled up here, draped in sagging gray skin. Nemes raised his staff, stepped forward, and frowned down at the wriggling mass.

The creature leaped up. Teeth shone and eyes blazed.

Nemes leaped back, swiping his staff. The wood cracked against bone. The creature fell into the corner, scampered up, and howled with two bloated heads. It looked like a furless, muscular dog, but its two heads were humanoid—the wrinkled heads of waterlogged corpses. Black drool like ink filled its mouths. The creature raced toward him again, claws clattering against the floor.

Nemes snarled and swung his staff. It hit one of the dog's heads. The second head latched onto Nemes's shoulder, and teeth drove into him, stinging like a thousand fires.

He screamed. He drove his staff into the biting head. The creature squealed but would not release him. The second head bit his left arm, and blood spilled to the floor.

No. No! I have not flown through fire and rain and sand to die here.

He looked around the chamber. Would there be room enough? Would the tower collapse around him? The teeth drove deeper and he screamed again. He had no choice.

Nemes summoned his magic, the ancient magic of Requiem that blessed even him, the kingdom's lost son. He shifted into a dragon.

Gray scales rose across him, hard and smooth as bones. The canine creature howled and fell to the floor. Wings sprouted from Nemes's back and slammed against the walls. He ballooned like a leech sucking blood. Horns grew from his head and hit the ceiling. A tail flailed beneath him. He filled the chamber, barely able to move. The two-headed dog whimpered below him; it now seemed no larger than a rat.

Nemes spewed his fire.

The white flames crashed against the dog, and the creature screamed, a scream like children dying, like demons burning. It writhed. Its skin melted. Its blood boiled. Nemes kept blowing his fire, and the creature blazed, but still it squirmed and screamed and begged. Soon nothing remained of it but bones, but it would not die.

Nemes snarled. He let his flames die. He slammed down his claws and crushed the burnt, bony remains. He felt them moving under his foot, and he ground them down. Bones snapped and finally the creature's screams died to a whimper… then went silent.

When he shifted back into human form, Nemes groaned. His shoulder and arm were a bloody mess. He doffed his cloak, examined the wounds, and felt faint. As his heart thrashed, the blood pulsed and spurted. Head spinning, Nemes rummaged through his cloak's pockets, produced his old leather pouch, and pulled out string and needle. He had used these tools often: sewing little creations from the animals he caught in the forests, mismatching heads and bodies and legs, creating new animals that were stronger and more beautiful. Today he sewed himself, fingers coated with blood. When his wounds were sewn shut, they reminded him of his creatures, of the snakes with the heads of squirrels and the ravens with bat wings. He tore off strips of his cloak, bandaged the stitched wounds, and licked the blood off his fingers.

He looked around the room, seeking the key. Nothing but blood and burnt remains were here, staining the brick walls and floor. A doorway led back to another staircase; the stairs wound up into shadows. Nemes left the room and kept climbing.

When he entered the third floor, he felt the blood leave his face. Disgust rose in him. The stench of rot filled his nostrils and roiled his belly.

Rusted blades rose from the room's floors, walls, and ceilings like iron brambles; old blood coated them. Among this rusted maze, a woman's corpse sat in a chair, swarming with worms. Nemes had once dug up a week-old corpse; this woman reminded him of that maggoty old flesh. Her head hung low, the flesh so rotted, the skull peeked through. Her eyes were gone; larvae squirmed in the sockets. Jagged growths sprouted from her like horns, mimicking the spikes that rose from the floor; they were colored a sickly green and sprinkled with white splotches.

The woman was dead, but her belly was slashed open, revealing a fetus that squirmed and sucked for air. The coiled, red creature raised his eyes, stared at Nemes, and let out a wail. Sharp teeth lined his mouth, and his eyes burned red. The fetus tugged dangling veins inside the womb, and his dead, rotten mother rose to her feet. The fetus grabbed and tugged other veins; his dead host began to shuffle forward.

Nemes wanted to shift into a dragon, to burn the aberration down. Yet he could not; the blades thrust out from every direction, filling the room with rusted metal. If he shifted, they would pierce him like an iron maiden. He hissed and raised his staff. The fetus screamed, eyes blazing, and moved his dead mother forward like a puppeteer. The fetus tugged a vein, and his mother swung a clawed hand.

Nemes parried with his staff. The corpse's claws scratched grooves into the wood. The fetus shrieked and drove his host forward. The rusted horns that grew across the mother, diseased tumors like blades, thrust toward Nemes. He leaped aside, dodging the mother's growths, only to scratch his thigh against a blade that rose from the floor.

A throaty, bubbling chuckle rose from the fetus. The little beast licked his lips in delight. He tugged the veins mightily, and the mother lurched toward Nemes, claws swinging and horns thrusting.

Nemes sidestepped, sliced his cloak on another blade, and swung his staff. The wood cracked against the mother's head. The corpse's neck ripped and centipedes fled from it. The head dangled. The fetus howled in rage. The babe drove the corpse forward, and a rusted growth—one that sprouted from the mother's chest—drove into Nemes's shoulder.

Nemes grunted, wound blazing, and kicked. His foot hit the fetus inside the sliced womb. The creature screamed, bit at his boot, and Nemes screamed too; the small teeth pierced his skin. He swung his staff again, hitting the mother's dangling head. The blow tore the rotted head off, and the mother crashed down. The rusty blades that rose from the floor pierced her chest. Blood gushed. The fetus screeched.

"You killed her!" cried the parasite inside the fallen body. His voice was shrill, demonic, a voice like wind through canyons and demons in the deep. "You killed my mother!"

Nemes could barely move. He stood panting, wounds blazing and blood dripping. Around him spread the brambles of blades. The fetus rose from the womb, dripping mucus. His umbilical cord ripped. The red, writhing creature leaped up, flew through the air, and grabbed onto Nemes's torso.

"You will be my new host!" the fetus screamed. He began slashing at Nemes's stomach, ripping his cloak and tearing his skin. "I will enter you. Let me in. You will be my mother!"

Nemes screamed. He grabbed the slimy parasite. He tried to rip it off, but the beast was too slippery, too squirming. The fetus began to bite at him. With bloody fingers, Nemes held the snapping head back. Such strength filled the creature; he was strong as a grown man.

"I will live inside you!" the aborted fetus screamed.

Nemes stumbled toward a wall bristly with blades. He pitched forward toward the spikes. A blade impaled the fetus and blood poured.

"Mother!" the babe cried. "Mother, it hurts, it stabs us! Why does he kill us?"

Nemes stumbled backward, clutching at his wounds. The fetus remained upon the wall, skewered on the blade. The creature writhed. He wept. Suddenly he seemed to Nemes not a demon spawn, but a human child, scared and hurt and dying.

"Mother," the babe whispered… and then his head slumped. He hung still like a slab on a meat hook.

Nemes limped toward a door in the back. His head swam and he trembled with blood loss. He trudged upstairs, holding the wall and smearing blood across it. He entered the fourth floor of the tower.

A choked gasp fled his lips.

No horror—not the obese diner, not the twisted dog, not the fetus in his host—could prepare Nemes for this.

Tears filled his eyes.

"No," he whispered and fell to his knees. "Please, no."

Lying on the floor before him, gasping and bleeding and pale, was his father.

The old man opened his mouth. His teeth were gone. His lips were dry. He tried to speak, sputtered, and whispered.

"S-son." He lifted a skeletal hand. Sweat covered his brow. "Son, please… please save me."

Nemes crawled toward his father and touched his forehead. It was blazing hot. His father was feverish, so frail his skin draped across his bones. His eyes were sunken, and a dry cough rattled in his chest. He wore only canvas breeches and he trembled.

"Father!" Nemes said. He doffed his cloak and wrapped it around the old man. "I'm here. Your son is here."

His father tried to smile, then coughed and grimaced. Blood stained his lips; more speckled his chest. He touched Nemes's cheek with shaking, twisted fingers.

"My son. You must take the key. You must take it from me. You—"

Coughing seized him, and he spat more blood.

No, Nemes thought. His fists clenched. No! This cannot be. Cannot!

"I saw you die!" Nemes said, tears burning in his eyes. "You died in the courts of Requiem. You died with a broom in your hands. The cruel king and princes did not even know; they did not care. I buried you! I buried you myself." He raised his head and howled at the ceiling. "What cruel mockery is this? How dare you show me this illusion!"

Tears burned down Nemes's cheeks. His father wiped them away, smiling thinly. His hair had once been dark and thick; now it was white and wispy, nearly all gone from his scalp.

"I live again," the old man said. "I died; it is true. He brought me back to life. Lord Legion. The prophet of the Fallen. He breathed new life into my lungs, and filled my heart with blood to pump, and placed me here. For you, Nemes. For you. To give you the key so you may free him."

Nemes shook as he held his father. The man felt so frail in his arms, his bones so brittle, likely to snap in an embrace.

"I will take you out of here, Father," he said. "I promise. Once we give the queen the key, she will reward us. We will be powerful, no longer servants. You will never serve again, I promise you." He let out a sob. "You will live in a palace of gold, and King Elethor will serve you, a slave in irons."

Nemes snarled, imagining it. With the gold Solina gave him, he would build a great hall, a palace larger than the fallen court of Requiem. He would build a throne for his father and force cruel Elethor to kneel before it, to clean the floors, to beg for mercy from the whips. He would build a dungeon for Lyana, chain her underground, and invade her body whenever he pleased. He would hurt her—like she had hurt him—and make her beg. The key would give him that.

"Where is it, Father?" he whispered. "Where is the key?"

The old man struggled to speak. Only a hoarse gasp left his throat. His body trembled and his veins pulsed. Nemes could feel the man's heart fluttering like a trapped bird. His father's skeletal hand rose, then pointed down at his belly. He tried to speak again, but only coughed and trembled.

"What is it, Father?" Nemes whispered.

His father pulled open the cloak, revealing his pale torso. He grabbed Nemes's hand, pulled it down, and placed it against his stomach.

Nemes sucked in his breath. His eyes stung.

"Please, Nemes," his father whispered. "Take it out. Cut it from me. Take the key."

Beneath his father's skin, hard inside his belly, Nemes felt the outline of the key.

"No," Nemes whispered. Tears blurred his eyes. "I cannot."

"You must." His father clutched his wrist. "Lord Legion will bless you. Cut the key out. Let me die again. My death will free me from this prison; I will die in your arms, knowing that you will rise to glory." Tears streamed down his wrinkled cheeks. "My son—the first of our family to rise to greatness."

Nemes clenched his jaw. His breath shook. No. No! He could not. How could he? To kill his father? The vile court of Requiem had killed his father! The man lived again; how could Nemes kill him for his vainglory?

He howled to the ceiling. His roar shook the tower.

"No! I cannot. I will not!" He shook his fists. "Do not ask me this! Please, Lord Legion. I beg you. I serve you. Anything but this! Do not ask me to prove my loyalty this way."

A low, rumbling laugh rose from the floor, bubbling up from the depths like tar. The walls trembled and dust rained. The tower itself was laughing, Nemes realized; it was a living thing, a demon of stone and dark magic and blood.

"Please," Nemes whispered.

A rumble shook the floor. The bricks creaked. A screech ran through the walls, rising as a voice, a shriek, a cry of endless darkness and wonder.

"You will prove your loyalty, Nemes of Requiem!" rose the cry of the tower, a sound like steam from a kettle. The walls pulsed. Blood dripped between the bricks. "You will slice him open. You will dissect him. Why do you think, Nemes, that you spent years in the forest, spent years cutting open your animals? For this! For this day. To free me. To free Lord Legion and his Fallen Horde. Slice him! Dissect him! Cut the key from his innards and raise it in glory!"

Nemes's breath shook. His hands trembled. His eyes burned with tears. He reached to his belt and drew the Iron Claw, the blade he'd used in the forest so many times.

"Forgive me, Father…"

He sobbed as he drove the blade down.

His father screamed.

Nemes wept as he worked.

When his father lay dead, Nemes stood and raised the bloody key and screamed.

"I passed the test!" His tears mingled with his blood. "I have the key! I am Nemes, a servant of Legion! The nephilim will swarm again, and the weredragons will die. They will beg and weep and I will crush them for their sins!"

He left the chamber, laughing and weeping, key held high. As he descended the stairs, he uttered the Old Words, and the shadows of his lord cloaked him. The smoky serpents writhed around him, a new cloak, a mantle of his glory. Soon the nephilim themselves would flow around him.

He passed the chamber where the mother lay dead, her babe impaled. He passed the chamber where the dog lay crushed and burnt. He entered the ground floor where the obese diner hissed and glared and smacked his lips. Nemes approached the demon, thrust his Iron Claw forward, and sliced the creature open from collarbone to navel. He laughed as bloody snakes fled the beast, leaving its sagging skin like creatures hatching from an egg. Now it was Nemes who feasted at this table. Now it was Nemes who ruled this tower and its secrets.

He stepped outside into the night, laughed, and raised the key. Lighting crashed into it, lighting the desert. Nemes saw Solina, her men, the endless leagues of sand and rock. Wind shrieked, blowing back his hair.

"The key, Nemes!" Solina shouted in the storm. She reached out for it. "Hand me the key and the trophies of Tiranor will be yours."

He stood in the tower doorway, laughing, the wind roaring. The shadows swirled and laughed around him.

"The key!" he said. "You want the key."

And why should he share it? Why should he, Nemes, give this desert queen her prize?

I can free the nephilim myself! This power can be mine, not hers. Why should I still serve? For years I knelt! For years I groveled. Now Nemes can rule; with the nephilim, no power could oppose me.

"The key, Nemes!" Solina demanded.

He laughed and snarled. "Why should I give it to you? Will you beg me, Solina? Will you kneel and—"

She leaped toward him.

Her blade flashed.

Nemes tried to pull back. She was so fast. She was a streak of gold and steel.

He screamed.

When her blade severed his arm, blood sprayed in a mist. His arm tumbled. His hand still clutched the key when it hit the ground.

"You will die for this!" Nemes screamed, clutching the stump.

Solina knelt by his severed arm. She wrenched the key free from his fingers.

"Chain him up!" she shouted to her men. "Drag him in irons to Irys. He will see the glory of the nephilim before we hang him to die upon the walls."

The guards stepped toward him, chains in their hands. Nemes hissed and turned to flee. He fell. His blood spurted. Hands grabbed him, yanked him up, and Nemes screamed before his eyes rolled back and darkness spread across him.

My glory… my power… I promised it to him.

"I'm sorry, Father," he whispered. "I'm sorry…"

Demons laughed, and dark claws grabbed him, and his soul sank into a long black night.