Whistlestop (13 page)

“
A white dragon? Is there
such a thing?”

Two bright streaks of light shot
through the sky and landed next to the bed of embers. Two women now
stood there wearing gleaming silver armor. They had large wings and
carried long swords. “What is the meaning of this?” Archimedes
roared. All the dragons prepared to blast the strangers with fire
for attempting to steal their chick.

“
Be calm dragons,” one of
the women said. The dragons immediately prostrated themselves
again. “My name is Angelina Divine Promise and this is my sister,
Sadie. We have come to tell you about the Blessed White Dragon who
has chosen to be with you.”

“
Chosen to be with us?”
Archimedes asked. “The Emperor of the Universe gave us this
egg.”

“
It is true the emperor did
give you an egg, but it was the chick’s decision to be delivered to
you,” Sadie replied. The chick walked over and stood next to Sadie.
Even just born, it was as tall as her. She petted the chick’s head
and it cooed. “This dragon is a gift from God to help you defeat
the Emperor and return to Evermore.”

“
How do we know you aren’t
here to steal it?” a voice said.

“
They look like dragon
thieves to me too,” answered another.

“
Quiet!” Archimedes
screamed, again filling the night sky with fire. The other dragons
cringed, but the baby began to laugh. It walked over to Archimedes
and rubbed its head against his. “Welcome home, my darling.” He
turned to the women and asked, “What do we do now?”

“
We will leave you now to
your new son, Archimedes,” Angelina noted. “This chick will grow
quickly and will teach you many new skills. Learn from
him.”

“
Did he pick a name for
himself too?” Archimedes asked.

“
That is the father’s
responsibility,” Angelina replied.

“
In honor of this
incomparable gift, we will name him Emmanuel,” Archimedes said
proudly.

The two women bowed deeply. “We are
honored by your choice, brave dragon,” they said together. The two
shot up into the night sky and disappeared.

Arthur, the Foreboding of Asterpast,
sat cross-legged on the floor in the inner sanctum of the Temple of
Solitude in the center of the elven town of Marblehead. His
daughter and granddaughter sat on either side of him with their
knees lightly touching his. In the center of their group, a small
pile of gemstones glowed faintly. Their eyes were open as they
stared at the stones, but they seemed to be in trances, completely
oblivious to their surroundings and each other. The room was small
and circular, with a diameter of only twelve feet. The walls were
paneled in dark wood that was intricately carved with images of the
other forty-four realms of reality. A single door separated them
from a long staircase that led up to the larger temple thirty feet
above them. Two elven soldiers stood guard outside the room with
the blades of their battle lances shining in the dim
light.

Earlier that morning at breakfast,
Arthur had explained the connection between the seers and the
realms of the universe. While all spirits reside in all of the
realms to a greater or lesser extent, a seer had less connection to
their own reality and more to the others. They were also more
connected to the past and future than to the present. That made
them great historians and foretellers of the future, but put them
at great risk as they might not see danger nearby in their own
realm. That was why they were naturally drawn for protection to
warriors like the elves of Whistlestop and the Knights of
Winterpast. He also told Lynn and Lilian that they needed to
explore their gift, as seers fell into many categories. He knew
that Lynn was strong, but not powerful enough to replace him as
Foreboding. Lilian was different though. He had sensed incredible
power in her mind, far beyond even his own. She was still a child
though and could not bear the mantle of his role, and thus, his
time to step aside had not yet arrived. After they had eaten, he
led them through the friendly streets where they greeted many of
the residents on their way into the center of Marblehead. The city
center was a large park, surrounded by a wide boulevard lined with
stone buildings, including the Mayoral Palace and the Temple of
Solitude, where they now sat.

In Arthur’s mind, the image of the
glowing stones resolved itself into the interior of a large glass
and marble room with a swimming pool in the middle. The pool was
filled with women in scant bathing suits laughing and splashing
each other with water. A dozen servants stood near the edge of the
pool holding fresh towels or trays of drinks. On the far side of
the pool, the Emperor of the Universe sat on a golden throne
wearing swim trunks and sipping a drink. Several chairs were
aligned on either side of his, and more women sat there making
small talk with each other. A doorway opened and a man wearing a
long white hooded robe entered and began to walk around the pool
toward the emperor, who looked disappointed at the new arrival. He
asked one of the nearby women to vacate her seat for the new guest,
which she did reluctantly. It was not often one of the emperor’s
concubines was able to sit by his side. Arlene felt her time to be
his favorite had finally arrived. The others sneered and made
gestures at her as she moved to another seat.

Linger Bartholomew Breakneck pulled
off his hood and bowed graciously toward the emperor. “Your
gracious Majesty, it is again my joy to be in your
presence.”

“
Cut the bullshit, Linger,”
Karl replied. “What is it? Can’t you see I am enjoying
myself?”

Linger frowned angrily and motioned
with his arm behind him. Everyone else in the room appeared to be
frozen in time. Water that had been splashed stood frozen in place
as though captured by a high-speed camera. The temperature in the
room dived and a thin layer of ice formed on the top of the water
in the pool. “You should watch your tone with me, Karl!”

The emperor was sweating profusely and
shivering from the cold simultaneously. “I meant no offense,
Linger,” he slurred as his lips trembled. “It must be the drink.
Forgive me?”

He smiled and sat down on the vacant
chair. The temperature began to rise and the ice disappeared from
the pool, but the occupants remained frozen. “I apologize too,
Karl. I always forget human frailty.” He put his hand on the
emperor’s knee and said, “After all, we are in this together,
right?”

Extreme heat and cold shot through
Karl’s knee and body from the contact. He tried to nod and smile at
Linger, but was trying desperately to break the connection. When
Linger finally removed his hand, an oddly shaped tattoo was burned
into his leg. “Was that really necessary?” he gasped while rubbing
the spot.

Linger smiled and stood, walked over
to the nearest woman and pulled the drink from her hand. He
swallowed it in one gulp and took the drink from the next and sat
back down next to Karl. “Probably not, my dear Karl, but it does
help to cement our special friendship. Frankly, I was surprised
that you let that young knight call you by your given name. I
thought only you and I had that familiarity?”

“
My lord, I apologize again
if I hurt you,” Karl cooed. “You asked me to get close to him and
bring him under our control. That was the only reason, I can assure
you.”

“
Yes, I suppose that is
true, however, I am beginning to think that was a foolish decision.
I have even begun to teach him folding, and that may be our biggest
blunder of all.”

“
I thought we agreed that
we had to earn his trust, Linger. What better way than to treat him
as our equal and trusted friend?”

Linger stood and stretched, and then
looked around the room. “This is a fine group of concubines you
have here, Karl.”

“
Would my lord care to
avail himself of them?”

Linger laughed and then waved his
hand, causing time to resume and the women to continue chatting and
frolicking in the water as though nothing untoward had happened. He
sat and leaned toward the emperor’s ear, whispering, “No, I think
not. You know that flesh beings like you and they are not my cup of
tea.”

“
What should we do with the
knight, Linger? We can kill him in his cell if that pleases
you?”

Linger turned his head and stared
angrily at Karl. His eyes seemed to glow bright red for a fraction
of a second, and then returned to their normal luminescent
turquoise color. “Not yet!” he barked. “We have opened a dangerous
door with Jeremy Davis Iron-Heart II, old friend. We failed to
adequately examine his heritage, and I fear all may be lost if we
don’t move carefully.”

“
I’m sorry, Linger, but you
seem to have the best of me.”

Linger sighed, looked both ways to
make certain no one was listening and replied, “We all know his
father’s family. They have been Knights of Winterpast for
generations. His mother is another story. I still can’t believe I
was so stupid not to realize it.”

“
Realize what?” Karl
asked.

The image faded and Arthur sat panting
for air and drenched in sweat facing the glowing stones. Lynn and
Lilian were still in trances.

In Lilian’s mind, she saw a white
dragon sitting in the middle of a large group of other brightly
colored dragons inside a huge cavern. The adults looked at the
child with eyes brimming with love and tenderness, which made her
smile. All of the tales she had heard growing up showed dragons to
be vicious and violent. Now she saw them as a family, not unlike
her own.

“
I am so happy that you
picked our family!” Beatitude said. Several others cheered and took
to the air to express their joy. Still in a trance and smiling
broadly, Lilian watched the vision progress.

“
The angels told us to
learn from you, my Son,” Archimedes said. “What lesson shall you
teach us today?”

“
Father, we shall learn
from one another,” the child said. “Please tell me what happened to
our planet. Why did the emperor steal our home from us?”

Tears slipped down Archimedes’ cheeks.
“That is one question I wish I could answer. We hold no grudge
against the humans. We have lived on Evermore since the beginning
of time and no humans have ever lived there. We don’t know why, my
Son?”

Lilian’s mind moved through space and
time until she was looking down on a vast jungle, punctuated with
small groups of rocky hills. In a small clearing, a group of
dragons sat around a large bed of embers where ten black and silver
eggs sat. The dragons were totally focused on the new chicks about
to be born. One of the eggs began to crack, and the dragons raised
their heads in anticipation. The air temperature suddenly dropped
and a snow flurry moved across the clearing. The dragons looked up
at the odd black clouds that had suddenly formed over their heads.
A hundred large green scaled monsters stormed into the clearing,
surrounding the dragons. One large male dragon turned to attack the
intruders. As it raised its head to incinerate them, one of the
monsters swung its battle ax and sliced off the dragon’s head. The
rest formed a tight circle around the bed of embers.

The monsters had the dragons
surrounded. A man in a long white hooded robe walked out of the
jungle. He waved his arms and the dragons froze. Linger Bartholomew
Breakneck laughed out loud. On his orders, small teams of demons
stood by each dragon and then folded, until the clearing was empty.
The last demons picked up the eggs and disappeared. More folds in
space and time opened and massive machines and thousands of workers
appeared. While Linger watched, the housing and equipment pools for
the mines were put in place. Within days, starships full of gold
and gemstones were on their way to Axis and the emperor’s treasure
chambers. Lilian blinked and the vision was gone. She turned to her
grandfather and saw him looking down at his lap and breathing
heavily. Her mother continued to gaze at the stones without
blinking.

The world was on fire. Lynn was
watching a huge fire pour down the streets of New York City. The
flames were so intense that the facades of buildings were melting
or crumbling down onto the streets. Out to the horizon, there was
nothing but flames and burned rubble. As she watched, the view
changed to London, Paris, Rome, Chicago, and Los Angeles. It was
the same in each place. It was as though human life had been
exterminated by an angry god. There were no skeletons amid the
flames, only the debris of human existence.

Now she seemed to be standing on a
dirt field in the middle of a huge prison compound. The barracks
were rough wooden structures, laid out in a grid that stretched to
the horizon in all directions. The midday sun beat down and flies
swarmed everywhere, but she wondered where the people were. She
heard a sound and spun around to see ten rows of prisoners walking
toward her from a block away. Outside of their lines, green demons
marched alongside them every twenty feet. They carried large steel
axes on their shoulders. Lynn stood as though frozen as the group
started to pass her on both sides. They acted as though she was not
there, reminding her that this was a vision, or more likely a
nightmare. After a minute or so, the lines of humans stopped and
turned to face behind her, so she turned to see what was happening.
She was stunned to see Brad Lincoln, Jerry’s boss, standing on a
small platform. He was wearing a spotless white uniform with rank
insignia on the epaulets. Embroidered patches on each arm showed
crossed axes. The ranks of people held their heads down and were
panting for air in the stifling heat. “Good afternoon, slaves,” he
shouted.