Darkness of Dragons

  Darkstalker snorted. “They couldn’t think big,” he said. “Not like you and me, Qibli. They couldn’t imagine all the wonderful things we could do with our magic. They would have been content with small, meaningless lives — clearly that’s what they chose; look how they vanished from history after I was gone. They didn’t want to take the hard steps to get to the best futures.”

  He leaned toward Qibli. “But you can imagine it. You know what you would do with unlimited power — you’ve thought about it enough. Your big secret dream: to be an animus.” He scratched a talonful of pebbles into his claws and they started to bounce and bubble like boiling water. One by one they turned into gemstones: tiny opals and emeralds and amethysts and tiger eyes leaping and dancing together. Qibli couldn’t pull his eyes away from them.

  “So what if you could be?” Darkstalker asked in a low rumble. “What if I made you an animus, too?”

  Qibli’s talons felt as if they were drifting away from him, suddenly as unreal as the rest of this situation. “You would never do that,” he said. Even Turtle, my actual friend, refused to do that for me.

  “I would, actually.” Darkstalker plucked a ruby from the spinning galaxy of gemstones and scrutinized it. “Because I can see that if I do, it leads to the best future — for you, for me, for Moon, for all of Pyrrhia.”

  For you? Qibli wondered. Wouldn’t I use my magic against you, in these hypothetical futures?

  “No, this is a trick,” he said out loud. “You’re trying to trick me into taking off my protective spell, and then you’ll enchant me.”

  “That would be a reasonable worry,” said Darkstalker, “except that I am about ten times as strong as you and right now I could literally rip that earring off your ear anytime I wanted to.”

  That was quite true, Qibli realized uncomfortably. He felt smaller than the dead mouse.

  “So I don’t need to orchestrate an elaborate trick.” Darkstalker twitched his wings, set the ruby in its own constellation, and nudged an agate over to orbit it. “But you’re right, there is a condition to this offer. I’ll give you unlimited animus magic, in exchange for a tiny spell that says you can never do me any harm. That seems quite fair to me, though. My hope, of course, is that you won’t want to do me any harm once we are allies.”

  Never do him any harm, Qibli thought. There would be ways around that. This might be a trick, but I can turn it back on him once I have that magic. I could outsmart him if I was an animus.

  If I say yes … I could stop Darkstalker and get all the magic I’ve ever wanted.

  “Let me tell you about the best future,” Darkstalker said dreamily. “You’ll adore it. Everyone loves us. We share the continent and rule all the tribes with benevolent wisdom — you and Moon, me and Clearsight, once I get her right. Our dragonets play together in the palaces of Pyrrhia. There’s no more war. There’s no more sickness, thanks to us. No more sadness or worry, no more hunger, no more starving dragonets scrabbling for food in back alleys. No more terrible parents, because we can fix them. You could make your mother a dragon who loves you. I could have healed the scars on my father’s soul. I know that’s what I should have done, to make him a father that Whiteout and I could love.” He bowed his head for a moment.

  Qibli didn’t want to give him ideas, but he had to ask. “But you could do all that by yourself. So why would you share your power with me when you could simply kill me right now?”

  “Because I don’t just want power, Qibli,” Darkstalker said a little impatiently. “That’s what so many dragons get wrong about me. Even Clearsight thought that way, toward the end.” He selected a pair of perfect diamonds from his treasure cloud and set them spinning on their own axis with the ruby. “I also want to make the world a better place. I want to have real friends I care about. I want my happily ever after.”

  “You think I could be your real friend?” Qibli asked.

  “You’re funny and not boring,” said Darkstalker. “You can keep up with my conversation, unlike pretty much all my subjects except Moon. You have ideas that I haven’t already had myself, which is fascinating and rare. I like to be surprised — I mean, unless the surprise involves betrayal and involuntary comas, of course. Yes, I think we’d get along really well.”

  Qibli wondered about that. Was Darkstalker right? Were there really futures where they were friends, even co-rulers?

  “And you’d be a good influence on me!” Darkstalker said charmingly. “I can see that, too. You steer me through some pretty rough times and save a lot of dragons from my mistakes. We all end up on much better paths if we’re friends. I mean, consider my alternatives. If you’re not my friend, Moon won’t be either, and then who do I have? This lizard?”

  He snapped his claws and with a startling popping sound, Vulture suddenly materialized in the air beside him.

  Qibli’s grandfather let out a yell of surprise. “Where am I?” he shouted. “What did you do?” He craned his neck to look up at the speck of sky far above them. His talons pressed against the sheer rock walls, and Qibli knew the SandWing claustrophobia was snaring him, too.

  And yet, even though he could see Vulture’s fear, Qibli’s heart still tried to make a run for it. He felt it galloping wildly around his chest like a terrified chinchilla. He couldn’t stop himself from crouching, trying to make himself smaller until perhaps he’d be invisible, and then Vulture wouldn’t be able to hurt him. He wouldn’t be able to worm inside Qibli’s ears and make him doubt everything that was real.

  “Enchant this dragon to obey my every command,” Darkstalker said offhandedly. He tapped Vulture on the forehead. “Stop talking and stay where you are.”

  Vulture’s eyes bulged as he tried to snap something furious and failed. His talons touched down on a small bump of stone and he teetered there, unable to fly away.

  “I can’t believe you’re so terrified of this salamander,” Darkstalker said to Qibli with a chuckle. “He’s so easy to manipulate, even without magic. Thin scales, loves treasure, lies about everything until he doesn’t even know what’s true, not that he cares. He’s a dragon made of paper who has never been happy one day in his life.”

  Qibli took in a lungful of air, trying to see his grandfather that way. It was hard, with those black eyes attempting to spear him in the gut.

  “If you accept my gift,” Darkstalker said, “you never have to worry about him or anyone else like him ever again. Watch.” He tapped Vulture’s head again. “Enchant this dragon to have the mind of a new-hatched dragonet. You may speak.”

  Vulture’s head slowly lolled sideways and a goofy grin spread across his face. “Urple,” he chirruped at Qibli.

  It was one of the most horrifying things Qibli had ever seen.

  Perhaps reading Qibli’s expression, Darkstalker hastily reached over and tapped Vulture again. “Go back to the way you were before the last spell,” he said. “Now I enchant this dragon to feel guilt for all the terrible things he’s done.”

  Vulture’s face collapsed into grief. “I’m a monster,” he whispered. “All those deaths … the cruelty to my family … how can I ever make up for it all?”

  “See how easy it is?” Darkstalker said to Qibli. “Let’s see — now be a grandfather who loves Qibli more than anything else in the world,” he ordered Vulture.

  “Qibli!” Vulture cried, reaching his talons toward his grandson. “Dearest of dragons! Have I ever told you how proud I am of you? An Outclaw! Advisor to Queen Thorn! I missed our games so much when you went away with her. But you’ve grown into such a fine young dragon.”

  “Stop it, stop it,” Qibli said, covering his ears. “It’s not real. It’s not real.”

  “Of course it is!” Vulture cried exuberantly.

  “Shush,” Darkstalker said to him, and Vulture instantly fell silent. “But of course it’s real,” he said to Qibli. “We just made it real. He really feels that way with all his heart right now.”

  “Because you put a spell on him,” Qibli said. “
That’s not what real means.”

  Darkstalker looked skeptical. “If magic can improve a dragon,” he said, “I don’t see what the problem is. We could turn your grandfather into the kindest dragon in the Scorpion Den. Wouldn’t it be fun to watch him give away his entire treasure to orphans and homeless dragons?”

  Yes, whispered a small but unavoidable part of Qibli’s soul.

  “Wouldn’t that be the best way to deal with this dragon who has haunted your nightmares your entire life?” Darkstalker asked. “Wouldn’t it be better than killing him, or whatever the ‘real’ alternatives are?”

  Yes, Qibli’s heart whispered again.

  “So … why didn’t you do that?” Qibli asked Darkstalker.

  “What do you mean?” Darkstalker asked.

  “To the IceWings,” Qibli said. “When you first came out of the mountain and you saw visions of them threatening your tribe. Why didn’t you enchant them all to want peace with you instead? Or cast a spell to make all IceWings and NightWings forget their ancient hatred and forgive everything that’s happened? Why didn’t you use your magic to avoid war, instead of trying to kill them all?”

  Darkstalker’s eyes narrowed. His jaw worked silently for a long moment, as though he was grinding his teeth.

  “See?” he finally managed to force out. “Smart. Like I said. Always thinking.” He turned his head away and thought for another moment.

  “Because I haven’t forgiven them,” he admitted finally. “For what happened to my mother.” He took a deep breath. “All right. I see your point. I thought I was protecting the tribe … but it was about revenge, too. I can see that.” He spoke as if each word was a tooth being yanked out of his mouth.

  “Maybe you need to put a kindness spell on yourself,” Qibli suggested.

  “This is what I mean,” Darkstalker said slowly. “How you can keep me on the better paths. You’ll suggest peace spells instead of plagues. You’ll help me see these things I don’t recognize about myself.” He paused, and Qibli could tell that Darkstalker wasn’t entirely convinced that that was what he wanted.

  Is that what I want? To be Darkstalker’s conscience? To spend my life telling him the things he doesn’t want to hear?

  But … I’d have animus magic.

  (And Moon would love me. In this future, he sees me with Moon. She must forgive me for this choice. Maybe it’s what she would want — me with magic and a chance to influence a better, kinder Darkstalker.)

  (Are the IceWings safe in this future? Where’s Winter? Are we still friends? Is Turtle safe? What happens to Anemone? Does she have to hide for the rest of her life?)

  No, I could fix all of that. I could keep them all safe.

  I’d have ANIMUS MAGIC. I could do everything I’ve ever wanted to do.

  “So what do you think?” Darkstalker asked. “Are you ready to become an animus dragon?” He drew a circle in the air around the floating gemstones, and they all whirled into one another until they became a crown, glowing with gems from all over the world. Darkstalker nudged the crown to set it floating gently toward Qibli.

  Who would say no to their secret dream come true?

  Why would I ever say no?

  Say yes to the magic.

  Say yes to the bright future.

  Say yes.

  Qibli looked up into Darkstalker’s eyes and said, “No.”

  “Oh, that’s not the right answer,” Darkstalker said, fanning out his wings. The gemstone crown vanished abruptly. “That answer leads to bad, bad, bad futures, Qibli.”

  “No for a lot of reasons,” Qibli said. “Starting with this one: I like you, but I can’t trust you. I don’t know what you’d put in the spell on me, but if there’s a chance it could turn me evil, I don’t want to risk it. I don’t want to turn into a dragon who plays with other dragons like toys.” He nodded at the mute figure of his grandfather, perched awkwardly beside Darkstalker.

  “Bad futures,” Darkstalker continued, his brows lowering, “because if you don’t accept my offer, I have to kill you. Surely you understand that.”

  Qibli felt full of holes, all the way through his bones. Was he really going to die without seeing Moon again? Without knowing for sure that all his friends were safe?

  Darkstalker shook his head. “You’re too much trouble if you’re not my friend. When I take the NightWing army out again, I can’t have you coming up with more clever tricks to stop me. I don’t like those futures. I also don’t like the futures where I do kill you, because Moon never forgives me. And then I have no friends, Qibli. Enchanted friends, who aren’t the same. No one to keep me good. Where do you think that leads?”

  “The fact that you can’t be good on your own,” said Qibli. “That’s part of the problem. You shouldn’t need a dragon on your shoulder telling you that killing all the IceWings is wrong, or that taking over your father’s mind was an awful thing to do.”

  “He deserved it!” Darkstalker hissed.

  “You don’t really want that dragon on your shoulder either.” Qibli shook his head. “You wouldn’t even have listened to Clearsight if she tried to be that dragon.”

  “I can do it myself,” Darkstalker said, abruptly shifting course. “See, here I go. Hey, overlords of dragon morality, I hereby acknowledge that killing Qibli would be something only an evil dragon would do. And since I’m not evil, I am not going to do that. I am going to take the high road, rip off his earring, and enchant him to be my best friend instead.”

  “No, wait,” Qibli said, taking a step back into the crawl space. His bag bumped hard against his chest, ricocheting off his pounding heart. “Let’s talk about, um, moral gray areas.”

  Darkstalker froze and cocked his head. “What is that?”

  “The last vestiges of your soul trying to cough up a reason to let me go?” Qibli suggested.

  “No, that … whirring sound.” Darkstalker shook his head like there were mosquitoes in his ears.

  Qibli went quiet, listening, and for the first time felt the vibrations coming from his bag. Puzzled, he tugged it open and pulled out the old telescope-hourglass contraption he’d found in the Night Palace. To his surprise, the hourglass was spinning frantically on its axis, and it sped up as he turned the end of the telescope toward Darkstalker and Vulture.

  “Where did you get that?” Darkstalker asked in a hushed voice.

  “I found it in a room in your palace,” Qibli said. “What is it? Why is it spinning like that?”

  Darkstalker edged forward on his outcropping and stretched his neck down toward it. Qibli held the telescope up to his eye and centered it on Darkstalker’s bewildered face.

  “I made that,” Darkstalker said. “For Fathom. Such a long time ago … I mean, it doesn’t feel that long to me, but I know it was.” He squinted at the hourglass, which was still spinning. “It’s a soul reader.”

  “A soul reader,” Qibli echoed.

  “I made it to reassure Fathom that we were fine. That we could use our magic safely, without going evil.” His expression was curiously affectionate, as if he’d just remembered a version of Fathom he genuinely liked. “It shows how much of your soul is still good.”

  The hourglass slowed, tipped one way, then the other, and finally stopped. The telescope was pointed at Darkstalker. Inside the hourglass, the bottom half was almost entirely full of white sand. In the bell of the top half, only a few grains of black sand were left.

  Darkstalker stared at it, disbelief slowly crawling across his face.

  “Well, that makes no sense,” he said. “Did you do something to it? Did Turtle put a new spell on it?”

  “No,” Qibli said, touching the hourglass. It swayed slightly under his claws, the sand shifting but staying where it was. “I didn’t even know it was animus-touched. What does this mean?”

  Darkstalker snatched the object out of Qibli’s talons and flipped it over a few times, as if looking for signs of tampering, before turning it back toward himself and squinting at the hourglass agai
n.

  “It must be broken,” he muttered. “Starting over.” He shook it vigorously for a moment and then held it out in his talons. “When this soul reader is pointed at a dragon, I enchant it to measure the good and evil in that dragon’s soul and reveal it in the drifts of sand. Black sand to mark the amount of good, white sand to show the amount of evil or damage to that dragon’s soul.”

  Oh, Qibli thought. Interesting. The black sand indicates goodness — makes sense for a NightWing. He wasn’t surprised, now that he understood it, by the balance of sand in Darkstalker’s hourglass.

  Darkstalker pointed the telescope at Vulture and peered through it. The hourglass obligingly began to spin, sending whirlwinds of sand dancing inside it. At last it stopped and settled into equilibrium. In the top half: a tiny sprinkling of black sand, about the same as Darkstalker’s. In the bottom half, a correspondingly large pile of glittering white sand.

  “Now that’s logical,” Darkstalker muttered. “He’s obviously terrible. So it’s working now.” He frowned down at the soul reader, inhaled deeply and pointed the end of the telescope at himself.

  Shrum shrum shrum. The hourglass tumbled busily.

  It slowed to a stop. As before, the mountain of white sand in the bottom was large, almost large enough to overflow the bulb. And in the top half shone those last few tiny grains of black sand.

  “But that’s impossible!” Darkstalker exploded. He threw the soul reader away from him violently, and Qibli lunged to catch it before it shattered on the stone floor.

  “I protected my soul!” Darkstalker cried. Veins were starting to throb in his neck, writhing like livid snakes under his scales. “First with my scroll, and now with my wristband! I shouldn’t have lost any of it!”

  “And yet it looks like you’ve lost almost all of it,” Qibli pointed out.

  He was shocked to see how much this upset Darkstalker. The ancient NightWing seemed to swell to twice his normal enormous size. His wings were flared and twitching wrathfully.

  “No!” Darkstalker slammed his tail into the crevasse wall, unleashing a scamper of loud pebbles. “I’m not like other animus dragons. I’m smarter than they are. My soul is safe from my magic! That can’t be what it looks like!”