Unruly Summon Chapter 7: Night (Patreon)

"Grysuurm. Hydaxx schuurm."

I opened my eyes, trying to figure out what had woken me, only to find myself standing up. That was an unusual position to be in at the point of waking. Had I been sleepwalking?

... If I had, I'd not only made it out of my room but also out of the castle, and quite possibly the city. It was hard to be certain, given the dark mist that made it hard to even see my hand in front of my face, but I could be reasonably sure of that; the city hadn't been built on ash. Therefore, the fact that my exposed toes were sinking slightly into a layer of ash placed me some distance from any part of this world I'd seen thus far.

I'd gone back to my room after my meal, kicked Mary and Christine out, and gone to bed. They assured me they'd both eat before resting, and that another guard would be hanging around outside if I needed anything. I hadn't really been in much of a mood to debate things, my jet-lag finally having caught up with me, and I'd fallen straight to sleep. That guard obviously hadn't been up to much if I'd sleepwalked past him. Was it a kidnapping? Had my stew been drugged?

"Hydaxx lorc. Sa greel grysuurm."

"Uh... What?" I answered. Didn't my divine gift let me understand any of the world's languages? Then did that imply I hadn't merely left the city, but the entire planet? Normally a far-fetched theory, but it had already happened once...

The mystery speaker was loud, slow and deep—an almost guttural rumbling—but I could see nothing through the fog. I wandered towards it—on the basis that standing around wouldn't help and it was as good a direction as any—with hands outstretched to avoid bumping into anything.

A dark shape loomed out of the mists.

"Klazzacorl," rumbled the shape, and then it roared. The ashen floor danced, particles rising up as far as my waist, and the mists were blasted away, clearing in a giant circle around the roarer, and revealing it in all its glory.

It was a dragon, standing on its hind legs, wings outstretched, towering over me like a mountain.

And it was staring straight at me.

There was no sound in the world except for that roar. There was nothing to see except the monstrous beast. It was everything. I was nothing, and...

"Thomas!" came a yell, and then I woke up. Again.

"What?" I asked, staring at the wooden ceiling of my bedroom.

"Are you okay? You screamed," said a voice I didn't recognise, and it took me a few moments to work out it must have been my night-guard, who'd rushed into the room, apparently in response to me screaming. I managed to pull myself up, so I was at least sitting upright, still clutching my blanket for modesty. Perhaps that was unnecessary; my room and the corridor were dark, with the only light being the small amount coming in through the arrowslits. The moon must have been bright outside, because the small slits still let in enough light to vaguely make out the guard, even if I did need to blink a few times to get my strangely blurred sight to clear up.

"Tom! What happened?" came a second, far more familiar voice, Mary rushing into the room not in her maid's uniform, but in a lacy white nightie, albeit still with her collar fastened around her neck.

"I'm sorry, everyone. I had a nightmare. I think."

"You think?" asked the dubious guard.

"It was rather... uh... real. Sorry to disturb you."

"I'd probably be having nightmares too, if I knew I was going to have to go fight demons," said Mary, in a way that suggested she was trying to be reassuring. Alas, it was rather counterproductive; demons had been the last thing on my mind after that dream, but now she'd brought them back to the forefront.

"I'm fine. Go back to bed, Mary. Actually, how'd you even get here so fast?"

"My room is next door, in case you want me for anything during the night," she said, shrugging as if the answer was obvious.

"Oh. And is Christine's the other side?"

"Nope. Dunno where she went."

"Her room is in the east wing of the castle, in the barracks of the royal knights," answered the night-guard. "Are you sure you're okay?"

"Yes. I had a nightmare. That was all."

"Then good night, and I wish you better dreams."

"Me too..." I fervently agreed as both visitors left the room, Mary giving me one last worried glance over her shoulder.

I flopped back to horizontal, but there was no way sleep would feature in my immediate future; after that nightmare, my heart was still hammering in my chest, and there was probably more adrenaline in my blood than, well, blood.

Still, perhaps I could make use of my time. Given that I didn't entirely trust these people, I needed some contingencies. If everything was above board, I didn't have anything to worry about until I faced the demons, when every bit of extra power would be useful. If it wasn't, then it would be advisable to ensure I learnt a few tricks that my handlers didn't know about. An escape attempt where they knew my exact abilities would be far less likely to succeed.

Christine considering me unready to learn body strengthening wasn't a problem. It was an opportunity.

In her panic the first time I'd tried it, she'd unthinkingly given me a bunch of clues. I now knew that it wasn't enough to make my muscles stronger. I needed to strengthen my bones, too. The tendons that linked muscle to bone. In fact, pretty much everything. She'd told me the technique improved her perception, as well as her speed. The technique was called body strengthening, not muscle strengthening.

... In retrospect, that was pretty obvious. I'd been rather foolhardy the first time around.

It also helped that I now knew healing magic, so if I screwed up again, I could unscrew myself. Assuming I was conscious. Probably best to ensure I refrained from rupturing my heart, a bit of advice that would apply equally strongly if I didn't know healing magic. It was a general all-round good suggestion, really.

Once more, I pictured mana circulating through my body, pervading not just my muscles but every single cell. Not simply making muscles contract harder, but improving every aspect of my biology. It was a rather nebulous image—I hardly knew what every cell in my body was supposed to be up to, let alone going even deeper like picturing every protein within along with their roles—but the healing magic mishap had already proven that the biological images I could conjure up were more than sufficient for my purposes. Perhaps there was some legendary level of magic that would need that knowledge, but Christine had told me body strengthening wasn't an advanced technique.

With the image in place, I very carefully raised an arm.

On the bright side, it didn't catch fire or snap off. On the downside, despite trying to move slowly, I lifted it with such force that I catapulted the blanket into the air. I froze, half expecting the guard to rush back in, but thankfully it hadn't made much noise. There was no reason to suspect I was up to anything suspicious. For all he knew, if he heard me at all, I could have just been rolling over.

So, a success of a sort; I'd managed to strengthen myself. The problem was that it completely destroyed my coordination. If I'd tried this standing up, there was no way I'd remain upright. I couldn't walk, let alone run or fight.

As the blanket drifted back down, I attempted a few more small movements, happy—albeit surprised—to find I suddenly seemed able to move like normal. And then the blanket landed, and the normal weight of it clued me in to reality; the moment I'd lost concentration, the effect had ended. Not only did I need to relearn how to control my enhanced body, but I needed to do so while concentrating on maintaining the body strengthening.

Christine was right; I wasn't ready. This was going to take more than one night.

I made a few more attempts, this time with my arms above the blanket, wondering how stupid I looked waving my limbs about in such an obviously uncoordinated way. Which raised an interesting question; was anyone spying on me? Was that night guard defending me, preventing me from escaping, keeping an eye on me, or a combination of the three? My attempts to learn an ability my handlers weren't aware of could have been doomed from the start.

There was no point in letting one variety of paranoia prevent me from taking precautions against another, though, so I continued with my efforts until the adrenaline wore off and sleep once again seemed like a possibility. By the end, I could sustain it fairly easily, and make fine-grained movements once more. I still wouldn't trust myself to walk, though, let alone maintain my concentration in a combat situation. Still, it wasn't bad for an hour's work.

And then sleep was once more driven away by the way rolling over trying to get comfortable was rewarded with a cold, damp sensation against my face. That was not a sensation the pillow had heretofore given. "Lux," I chanted, hoping to shed some light on the situation.

The room had been dark. The light from the arrowslits had been sufficient to make out my visitors, but they had been standing directly opposite. My bed was in shadow. The light from outside hadn't been enough to see the bloodstains.

"The hell?" I muttered, fairly sure they hadn't been there when I went to sleep. Had I messed up my body strengthening? Inspecting myself, as far as was possible without a mirror, didn't reveal any obvious sources of blood. Then again, if it was on the pillow, presumably it came from my head?

A few careful pokes discovered crusted blood trailing from my eyes and nose, running down the side of my face. But I'd been doing my training on my back. It wouldn't have run in that direction. I hadn't been on my side since waking up.

Had it happened earlier? That would explain why the blood was clotted already, and why my sight was blurry. It was likely the guard had missed it due to the poor lighting; while any light from the windows was in his face, I had my back to it. To him, I'd probably been nothing more than a silhouette.

But that would place it in my dream. Dreams were not supposed to make your eyes bleed. Not even if they became nightmares.

"Parvus Sanatio," I chanted, because eyes generally weren't supposed to bleed, dreams or not, and so healing seemed advisable. But that didn't solve the fundamental issue. When the guard had woken me, I'd immediately written the nightmare off as 'just' a dream. Apparently it wasn't. That was rather disturbing. Was it an attack? A message? Some other divine gift kicking in and showing me a prophecy? Had a dragon actually been involved? From what Christine had said about their history, weren't dragons even worse enemies than demons? But from her words, I'd assumed none were currently active.

The dragon had spoken. Not much, but there had been words. I couldn't comprehend them at the time, and now I couldn't even remember them, but they'd certainly been there. If I had to pick some adjectives for its countenance, 'friendly' wouldn't be among them. What sort of message hurt the receiver? Given the roar at the end, perhaps it would be best characterised as a threat.

Just one more thing I was going to need to ask about tomorrow.