Old Dark (The Last Dragon Lord Book 1) (21 page)

“Dragons gave up their shares of the aquifer in exchange for a stake in our society. We used inordinate amounts of magic to embed them into our culture. The plan was to use the gains that the dragons gave us to find a long-term solution to the crisis. Instead, politicians just punted the problem down the road. I don’t need to tell you any more, because you’re living the reality of Abstraction. But whether you like it or not, that’s not why I’m here.

“The traditional elven elders didn’t like Abstraction. With hundreds of years of history as their guide, they lectured society on why making deals with dragons was a bad idea. I don’t agree, but I understand where they were coming from. No one listened to them, though, because the benefits to our society were too great. But I’ll tell you something: I don’t know what the elders were thinking when they gathered and forced the majority of elven culture to exodus ranches. And I don’t want to think about the vitriol, the violence, and the mass suicides...”

A groan came from the crowd.
 

“All I know is that two-thirds of elven society killed itself. And Governor Grimoire took office twelve years ago and promised to find solutions. He hasn’t. We deserve someone in office who is committed to the survival of our culture. I built a billion-dollar business by creating real solutions to the magic problem. You see, we have to be responsible. What we have now is deficit casting. The government just uses more magic every year. Few, if any, of its programs have conserved magic. If we keep this up, we’ve got a very bad future ahead of us.”

He held up the paper.
 

“So back to my plan,” he said. “When I met with the governor, I told him, ‘I’m sick of your policies, and I’m going to be your worst nightmare.’”

The crowd erupted into applause.
 

“I told him I’m sick of the world’s resources—our resources—being wasted. And if the government won’t do anything about it, I will. I am going to expose every single instance of wasteful casting by my uncle’s government. And when I win, I’m cleaning out the Hall of Governance. They’re all gone. Gone!”

More applause.
 

“Ennius Grimoire was capable, but he’s been bought by dragons. Sorry to be so harsh, but it’s true. I’m my own man. I’ve got almost a billion dollars of my own money, so you can’t buy me.”

The crowd jumped to its feet.
 

“I’ve got nothing to lose, so they can’t bribe me,” he said. “They can’t turn me against you. I’m on your side, no matter what.”

The crowd cheered and he waved.
 

He jogged down and met the people in the audience.

XXX

Dark watched a replay of Lucan’s speech on the television. He studied Lucan in high definition; before, the man had been only a speck, just a shape of an elven man to be smashed.
 

He still had a hard time understanding him. But now that he could communicate with Miri, his ear picked up the new speed at which people in the future spoke, and how they enunciated words differently and ran them together. At first he had thought they were speaking a different language. Now he knew that it was the same language, just evolved.
 

It unsettled him. But so did his raw scales. His broken wing. His eye socket that pulsed and throbbed.
 

Dark lay on his stomach with a piece of raw steak in his mouth, tearing at it as he watched the screen.
 

He licked his bottom gum. Miri had ordered a salve for him to help with his sore mouth. She had rubbed the clear salve on his gums, and it made them numb so that he couldn’t feel the pain.
 

He wanted to spread his wings, but the cage held him. His broken wing hung at his chest, tightly wrapped in mountains of gauze.
 

Lucan finished his speech and the crowd clapped. Dark had never seen so many people in a single structure before. That crowd could fill an acre. For them to spill into the space around a man like Lucan meant he wielded tremendous power. All bargaining had to be done through him. Yet he was like a little boy traipsing around in a grown man’s body. Dark mentally scoffed at his feminine-like shamble across the platform, his strange layers of clothes that hugged his body like formalwear.
 

“Gripping good speech,” Earl said.
 

Miri, who was sitting in a chair next to Dark’s cage, nodded. She stood and stretched. “It was good, but long.”

Dark wished for his second eye. From where she was sitting, he could have watched her facial expressions.
 

This woman.
 

She was well-versed in the ways of dragons, more than any elven citizen should have been.
 

It disgusted him.
 

He had wanted to rip her apart with his claws for the way that she had spoken to him. Boldness came too easily to elves and they needed to be shown the importance of respect. This woman was no different.
 

Yet, she knew more than he had expected. She knew enough to help him, enough that he was willing to tolerate her.
 

“Tell me,” he said. “Who is he?”

“His name is Lucan Grimoire,” Miri said. “He’s a businessman.”

“Like a merchant?”

“Yes, but a really really rich merchant.”

“What does he sell?”

Miri gestured to the river of metal shafts and belts that stretched across the room as far as Dark could see. “He sells magic.”

Magic!
 

He knew there was a reason he hated the man. Every drop of his blood boiled at the idea of a merchant sitting at the aquifer and selling vials of the forbidden magic—his birthright, the one thing he had failed to protect as the dragon lord.
 

Was this man to blame for it all?

“Is that so? A seller of magic, eh? Tell me, Miri Charmwell, where does he get his magic?”

“My name is Miri,” she said defensively. “Call me Miri, not by my full name, please. It’s awkward and unwieldy.”

Ah, a nerve! He grinned and said, “I thought we made a promise to share information.”

Miri’s posture stiffened as she searched for a rebuttal. Then she gave up, and in the middle of a sigh, she said, “He recycles it.”

“I don’t understand. Who is his supplier from the aquifer? Knowing your vagrant ways, he must have someone who specializes in pillaging from it, does he not?”

“Yes, but I don’t know the answer to that,” she said.
 

“Then answer this,” Dark said. “When will he return? I wish to speak with him.”

Miri shrugged. “Earl?”

Earl shook his head. “Beats me, Miss. I’ve learned not to structure my calendar around him—except when I’m driving him around, of course.”

Now here was a useless man. A big, strong bodyguard to be sure. A man like him was loyal, and he likely had a few skills that Dark didn’t know about, but he was no better than a dog that followed its owner around. But for a few sentences he had spoken here and there, Dark would have taken him for a mute.
 

“You are his bodyguard,” Dark said.
 

“I’m his driver.”

“His entourage.”

“In a manner of speaking. I take him where he needs to go.”

“You have horses, do you not?”

Earl took out a black piece of metal from his pocket. The front of it was covered in glass. An image of a large metal object with wheels scrolled across the screen. It looked like a wagon, but there were people inside, and it moved at a high speed among wagons of the same kind.
 

“It’s a car,” Earl said.
 

“The modern equivalent of a wagon,” Miri interrupted. “It’s an advancement in technology. It’s how we get around.”

Dark regarded the “cars.” A remarkable piece of technology, to be sure. Protection from the elements. Intelligent, except for the fact that the hunks of metal appeared uncomfortable and it was impossible to tell who was in them. A benefit of a wagon was that you knew who was coming from a mile away.
 

On the other side of the room, the door opened.
 

Lucan strolled into the room with sunglasses on.
 

Dark glanced between the Lucan in front of him and the Lucan on the screen. How could a man be in two places at once?

Lucan took off his sunglasses and started yelling.

XXXI

Lucan took one look around the factory, and the only thing he could do was curse.
 

The dragon’s muzzle lay on the floor along with buckets of half-eaten meat. Dark, Miri, and Earl were talking, and it sounded like the dragon understood what they were saying.
 

“What the hell is this?” Lucan asked, ripping off his sunglasses.
 

“Lucan,” Miri said, taken aback, “I’m glad you’re here. We were just—”

Lucan stomped across the factory floor and tore past Miri. He slid his grimoire out of his pocket, activated the wheel, and selected a paralysis rune. A bright blast slammed into Dark, making him rigid. The dragon tried to yell, but his mouth was held open in mid-roar.
 

“What are you doing?” Miri cried. She grabbed his arm, but he smacked it away.
 

“Gus! Orion!” he screamed. “Quit lagging and get in here!”

His fingers were numb, a side effect of the spell. He couldn’t feel them, but he didn’t need them right now.
 

The two men entered the room. Lucan scowled and pointed at them. “Get the goddamned muzzle on. Now.”

Both men lowered their eyes and entered the cage.
 

As the men screwed on the muzzle, Lucan wheeled around and aimed his finger at Miri. “Why the
hell
did you make them take it off?”

Miri, who had grown increasingly flustered throughout the whole exchange, was beet red now.
 

“Why the
hell
are you yelling at me?”

“Earl!” Lucan shouted.
 

“Sir,” Earl said. He stood next to Miri and tried not to show his fear.
 

“I told you to keep a lid on her.”

“No harm in it, sir.”

“Harm? Didn’t I tell you not to talk to the dragon?”

“How about you talk to me?” Miri said. “I’m right here, and I can speak for myself.”

“Professor Charmwell,” Lucan said. “I have a thousand problems right now. I’m running a campaign. I’m trying to carry out the biggest cover-up in the history of the world because I have the most hated dragon lord
ever
in my factory. I don’t need this right now!”

“What are you talking about?” Miri asked. “You promised me I could do research.”

“Yes, research! Not make friends with him. Do you realize who he is?”

“How am I supposed to do anything with a muzzle on his mouth?”

Lucan lowered his voice.

“There’s a reason they called him Dark the Wicked, Miri.”

“There’s no point lowering your voice. He can still hear you.”

“And apparently he can understand me, too, thanks to you.”

“I don’t understand what the problem is!”

He wanted to shake her. Typical professor. All she cared about was her work. She couldn’t have been thinking straight.

Or maybe
he
wasn’t thinking straight. It didn’t matter. He couldn’t stop the outpour of anger. He kicked over a chair and yelled.
 

“Keep talking to him and he’ll figure a way out of here,” Lucan said. “Do you want to explain that to Dean Rosehill?”

Miri approached him, her face inches from his.
 

“First, I am in front of the greatest dragon lord in history. He’s the most enigmatic figure that has ever lived, and you’re not going to dictate what I can and can’t do, seeing as you hired me in the first place. Second, he might be able to tell us where magical deposits are, which would help your campaign. Third, how dare you keep him in here without feeding him? You’ve been treating him like an animal, and the one who belongs in a cage is you.”

“You wrote a thesis on him,” Lucan said. “You know how he treated people like us. He’s not elven, Miri.”

“He’s not a wild animal, either.”

“Yes, he is. He’s a bloodthirsty viper—”

“You’re quoting inaccurate history books.”

“No, I’m not—”

“Those exact words were used in the Reign of Fenroot documentary.”

“So?”

“You haven’t talked to him, so you can’t make any judgments.”

Lucan puffed. “Earl, settle this for me. Is he a teddy bear or a son of a bitch?”

The question surprised Earl; he raised his eyebrows.
 

“Well, I don’t know if those choices are a fair estimation of his personality, but I’d say he’s probably closer to the latter, sir.”

Lucan folded his arms and smirked at Miri. “I win.”

“You believe in human and elven rights,” Miri said. “Why doesn’t that extend to dragons?”

“Because if dragons believed in human rights, then our ancestors wouldn’t have been prey. Call it pragmatism.”

He snapped his fingers and the lights went out. The television glowed in the dark, illuminating everyone’s face. “You’re in my factory, you’re on my retainer, you play by my rules.”

“Which are?”

“Old Dark stays in the dark,” Lucan said. “Until I figure out what I’m going to do with him.”

Dark mumbled something, but the muzzle made it unintelligible.
 

Both men exited the cage and latched it shut. The paralysis spell wore off and Dark crashed to the ground, groaning.
 

“Since he’s eating now, that muzzle only comes off two times a day for meals,” Lucan said. “You want permission to do anything else, you ask
me
.”

“What are you going to do in the meantime?” Miri asked.
 

Lucan turned his back and sighed. “I don’t know.”

A while passed before Miri said anything. “You’re scared, aren’t you?”

Lucan laughed.

Finding Old Dark had been scary. Finding a way to transport the dragon and cover up his tracks in the process had been challenging.