“I SAID STEP INTO THE TEMPLE.” The menace in Madrid’s voice could not be mistaken. Shikoba reached to grasp her weapon, but it was not there. She was naked without the staff, her best defense against magic. Her hand shook as she lowered it to her side. Slowly, she walked across the sand and onto the golden pathway.
Sarcee? What should I do?
Let’s see what the emperor wants. But be cautious, Shikoba. We do not know what game he is playing. I can feel the barrier. It is nearby. He has brought us where we needed to be.
We must take it down. Can you scout around for it while I entertain the emperor?
I will search out the source. Be extremely careful, Shikoba.
***
“So, Shikoba. Are you ready to take your place of honour in my grand design for Gaia?” Madrid stood beside the platform watching her approach, his eagle-sharp eyes pinned on her moccasins.
The golden walkway ended, and Shikoba stepped up onto the raised granite surface into the circle of stone. This close, she could see details that were not clear when she stood on the beach. Runes were carved into the floor in concentric rings, spiraling down to focus on the central platform. Once inside the temple, the world beyond it disappeared, as though a curtain had been drawn around the building.
“This day has been foretold, you know. Since the day your mother put that crystal around your neck, you were destined to serve me. You will take your place in the plan by serving the needs of the many. You will heal the Naganese.” Emperor Madrid stepped up beside Shikoba and tapped her chains with the finger of his left hand. They shimmered and crumbled to dust at his touch. Surprise stiffened her spine, a gut reaction to Madrid’s powerful display of magic. She relaxed her stance and smoothed her face before turning to face Madrid.
“Heal the Naganese?” Shikoba’s narrowed eyes betrayed nothing. “There is no one here to heal. They have been extinct for over five hundred years, maybe a thousand. They are all dust and the city empty.”
Madrid laughed softly. “You are mistaken, my dear. They are very much alive. I was there, when the legend of old happened, when the siege occurred to rescue your great-great-great-grandmother. Yes, they were dying. They were defeated and desperate for salvation, for a way to vanquish their enemies. The tribes of Shadra, their sworn enemy, had a knife to their throats. So when I offered them a way to survive, a way to one day return and vanquish their enemies, they were only too glad to accept my offering.”
“You are rambling. You are not five hundred years old. What delusion is this?” Shikoba growled, stepping away from Madrid.
“Shikoba, Shikoba,” he tsked, “I feared you would require proof. You always were one for whom seeing was believing. You give me no choice. I must give you the proof you need, though it pains me to do so.”
Madrid waved his hand and a shimmering glow rose from the surface of the grey slab. The shimmer grew in size and then faded away. Aisha’s body lay atop the flat surface, her chest rising and falling as though in a deep asleep. “Your mother is going to demonstrate the power of the naga.” Madrid walked over to the pedestal, pulling a sharp knife from the belt at his waist. He climbed the steps and paused beside Aisha. Then with a swift stroke, he slid the sharpened blade across her throat. The cut was deep and bright red blood spurted as the wound gushed, pulsing with the weakening beats of her heart.
Shikoba screamed and rushed at the emperor, tossing the mask to the floor so that she could free both hands to attack. As she reached the top step, she collided with an invisible shield. She struck it so hard that she fell back down the steps.
Madrid turned to her. “Watch,” Madrid commanded. He whistled low, then increased the volume. The lake trembled and shook, its surface rocking as though a heavy wind tossed the seas. The surface exploded and the naga shot out of the water. Long and slender, the naga resembled a dragon without wings. It was covered in scales similar to Obsidian’s. It landed with a thud, its massive head pulling its body out onto the shore. Shikoba watched in horror as coil after coil tumbled in the sand then straightened out, sliding down the golden path to the temple. It ignored Shikoba. The naga was focused on the woman bleeding out on the altar.
“You see, Shikoba, the people of the naga had no more chance to save themselves, as does your mother. But the naga can save them.” The naga slithered up into the temple and encircled the platform, ringing it several times before its massive head raised up beside Shikoba’s mother.
The naga opened its mouth. Razor-sharp teeth gleamed in a jaw that was large enough to swallow Aisha, stone and all. The great head rose up. Shikoba screamed as it flashed down on Aisha’s body. She flinched, expecting to see the torn body of her mother as it was devoured by the naga, but instead, the naga breathed on the body then licked the wound on Aisha’s neck. It reared back and breathed again along the length of her body. Aisha’s knees drew up and she bent forward, curling into a ball. The naga breathed once again, and an opaque barrier swirled and hardened over Aisha. The crust clarified into crystal. The naga’s breath raked over the surface one last time. When it raised its head, a glow pulsed at the core of Aisha’s body. The serpent sank back from the platform and slithered back to the dark waters, sliding into their still depths.
Shikoba took a tentative step forward, her steps quickening as she drew closer to the crystal. She climbed the steps and paused beside the slab. Curled under the shell was the body of her mother. Her wound was gone. But she was no longer as she had been. Her face and neck were still as Shikoba remembered, but that was where the resemblance ended. Her body was unidentifiable. A light glowed from her core, as though she had swallowed a torch. Shikoba’s hands shook.
“What have you done to her?” she whispered, horrified.
“Why, I have preserved her life. She lives, does she not?” Madrid cocked his head to the side, studying Shikoba’s reaction.
“You call that life? First you slit her throat then you…you…” Shikoba didn’t know what she was witnessing. She couldn’t comprehend the changes. Tears welled. Her mother was gone. “What is she? She is no longer human. You have turned her into a monster!” Shikoba spun on the spot, stalking toward the emperor as anger surged through her veins. The lust for revenge sang in her blood.
Madrid tensed, readying himself to defend against her attack. “No, I have turned her into a purer form of you. You have the ability to complete her transformation.”
“You have done what?” It was not the response she had expected. Surprise halted her advance. “What lies are these?”
“It is the truth. She has been transformed, yes. But she is still there. You see it takes one with magic to be mentally bonded to a dragon. You are familiar with this type of bond, of course. But the triad merger is a frail thing, dependent on three separate entities remaining whole and undamaged. The bonding is only as strong as the weakest member, the weakest mind.” He stepped up beside Shikoba and gazed down into its interior of the crystal shell.
“But it takes a greater bond to truly become one with the dragon. A life bond. The Dragonmergers of old knew this. The Dragonmergers of Gaia, I mean, not of Jintessa. The Djinn,” Madrid snarled, his face darkening with anger, “know nothing of true merging.”
Shikoba stared at the emperor. A thought flashed through her mind. Is the emperor sane? “There are no dragons on Gaia. There are no dragons in Shadra.”
“Ah, but there are.” Madrid walked around the platform and over to the edge of the temple, staring out at the dead city. “What if I told you,” he said in a soft voice, “that there is a whole city of them out there just waiting to wake? What if I told you that it is your destiny to do this, to call them forth from their slumber?”
Shikoba stared at the madman. “What does this have to do with my mother?”
“She has begun the process. Her DNA is being rearranged. It is being rewritten by the DNA in the saliva of the naga. She is being remade in the likeness of a dragon. The sea drake and their winged cousins from Jintessa are closer than you ever believed. When the Great Purge occurred, the last of the dragons were killed off. But they did not go extinct. The naga carry the gene for flight, and the human element gives them the intelligence needed. But it can’t be just any human. It must be one gifted with magic. Only the gifted offspring of the naga can fly.” He turned back from the city, his gaze pinning her to the spot. “But not all hatchlings survive. In fact, most perish, because they are still missing a basic part of the creation process. That is the magic of spirit. And that is where you come in, my dear.” Shikoba stepped back from the shell at the intensity of the emperor’s gaze. “I told you that you have an important role to play. You agreed to save your mother.”
“What is it you wish me to do? I don’t understand.”
“You are to call on the spirits of your ancestors. They will return to this realm and enter the eggs of the gifted offspring. They will merge with the eggs that are viable and save their lives.” He pointed at her moccasined feet. “With those.”
Shikoba stared at her feet. The emperor wants me to dance for him? A bubble of hysterical laughter clogged her throat. She clapped a hand over her mouth to hold the sound in. A part of her brain told her it was shock setting in. Sarcee, have you heard all of this? Sarcee?
The emperor smiled in a wicked fashion. The pure evil in his expression made the laughter die away. “Are you searching for your Djinn friend? I am afraid he has run into an ancient foe. Perhaps he wins his battle, perhaps he doesn’t.” Madrid shrugged. “The barrier was never meant to be a permanent solution. Your little Djinn guide will be of no further assistance to you.”
Sarcee! she screamed, but he did not respond. Alarm shot through her veins once again. She shivered at the weak stirring in the bond, but it was too faint to tell if it was Sarcee or Obsidian. She was on her own. Truly alone. She had never felt more isolated in her life. Shikoba’s eyes returned to her mother, or what was left of her mother. She was slowly being absorbed by the naga essence. If the emperor was telling her the truth, she could save some form of her mother. Her eyes lifted to the dark city. And maybe some of the Naganese. What would be the harm in resurrecting a few dragons?
She turned back to the emperor. Her heart beat painfully in her chest. It was all she could do not to break down in front of him. She drew in a steadying breath. “I will dance for the ancestors, but I cannot guarantee anything will happen. I am not the owner of these moccasins. They belonged to my mother, and you have slain her.”
Madrid laughed. “Can you take them off?”
Shikoba’s eyes widened with surprise. How had the emperor known that?
“No,” she said softly.
“I thought not. They never belonged to your mother. She made them for you, as her heir, as the one who would become the tribal queen on her death. They are bonded to you.”
Shikoba gazed at her feet, lifting one and shaking it. The moccasin did not budge at all. Shikoba raised her head, meeting the emperor’s eyes.
“Free Sarcee.”
“No. Please me with your dance, and I will free your bond mate.” Madrid walked over to where the mask lay on the cold stone floor. “Do not think to fake your efforts. I will be able to see everything with this.” He slipped the mask over his face and joined her by her side. “Begin,” he commanded.
Shikoba walked over to the first rune etched into the floor. “So it begins,” she said. “Ancestors.” She crouched in the first position of the spirit dance. She closed her eyes and reached out with her mind and her magic, searching for the connection to the netherworld, to the prayers of her people, to the elements of spirit that formed the bridge to the souls of the dead.
“Thank you, Great Spirit, for the gift of the elements from which all magic is formed. Shelter and protect us now, as we aid your people.” A surge of warmth tingled her toes. The sensation spread along the soles of her feet and then climbed her legs. She was enveloped in a tingling soft touch, as ethereal as the light of fireflies. The warmth reached her heart and her pain, her anger and her fear sloughed away. Calm spread to tips of her hair. Light speared from her irises, shining in her face like beacons of firelight. The glow was other worldly. Shikoba no longer saw the emperor. She saw only the love of her ancestors. Her feet moved of their own accord, gliding from rune to rune in the ritual dance, guided by the spirits who had joined her at last.