Draka Chapter 54: Headmates (Patreon)

I could no longer ignore the pit where I had first woken up. I felt a lot of anxiety about even going down there, and the dragon absolutely didn’t want to, but I felt that the time was right. The dragon had felt less anxious about the pit since we’d destroyed the valkin’s staff, and I had gotten some practice at not letting her emotions take over. At the very least, I had to try.

I’d had a full day’s sleep and a good meal. I still had to steel myself, but sooner rather than later I found myself standing on the narrow ledge above the pit, which had until just recently held my hoard. I looked down, and felt anxious to the point of some slight nausea, but I didn’t let it overwhelm me. I could fight it.

“Please do not do this,” said the voice in my ear. “Please.”

I sympathised with the dragon. She wasn’t just reluctant. A dragon did not beg, but she did now. There was real fear and pain connected to this pit, just like there had been in the large chamber we’d found inside this mountain. By forcing this I was hurting her, even if I knew that it was for our own good.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered into the darkness. “But we have to do this. We have to face this fear, and find out where the passage goes.” I had some suspicions about where the passage from the pit led to, but I needed to be sure. I had to secure my home.

I wish I could say that I just jumped down there, but it took a few false starts before I managed. I could fight the dragon’s fear, but I couldn’t ignore it completely. I stood there for a while with my wings spread, but in the end it was a little like jumping off a cliff into deep water. The anticipation was far worse than the reality. I leapt and landed on the floor of the pit, and as I looked around I started to wonder why I’d turned it into such a big deal.

The first thing I wanted to do was to get a look at the cut stones placed regularly around the walls of the pit. I got close to one, but other than some vague scratches I couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary with my shadow sight. It was just a carefully shaped block of smooth stone. However, I had planned for that.

I had learned from the books that Herald had given me that reading in the dark didn’t work. Quite simply, with my shadow sight I only saw the book’s pages, and not what was on them. I suspected that it had to do with depth or physical edges or something like that, and ink on paper just didn’t have enough of whatever I needed. Since the pit was obviously made by people, my bet being on the Old Mallineans or their descendants, I’d come prepared.

I was wearing my harnessed satchel, which I’d gotten in the hard way, with a long pole. From it I took out my light-ball. I hadn’t charged it for a while, and it shone weakly until I pushed some magic into it, causing it to flare up with a bright, yellow light. I was so glad that I’d figured that out; the pale blue light that the valkin had used annoyed me. As the light brightened I held the ball closer to one of the stones.

At first I thought that the surface of the stone had cracked into a fine network of lines, but as I looked closer I realised that there was a pattern to it, regularities and angles that you wouldn’t see from anything natural. Soon I realised what it reminded me of: Boot’s heating disc! The lines were not at all the same, but there were definitely similarities. That, I assumed, meant magic, but I couldn’t see any obvious way to activate the thing the way Boot had with his disc.

I knew another way to activate magic things, though. It probably wasn’t a good idea and I had no idea if it would work, but I could always just try to push a little magic into it and see what happened. Might not do anything. Might do something awesome. Just a trickle of magic couldn’t hurt, could it?

It turned out to do something awful. I gave the rock just a hint of magic, and a wave of nausea slammed into me. Fortunately the shock made me lose my focus, and the effect immediately stopped, though my stomach took a moment to recover. So. I knew what that did. Or at least what it did when I tried to activate it.

I wished I could bring Herald to have a look at it, but that would have to be on a whole new list.

Having messed with – and recovered from messing with – the stones, I turned to the opening of the passage. It was lined with an arch of cut stone. At first I wondered if they were just decorative, since there was no way they helped to hold anything up, but when I looked closer at them in the glow of my light-ball I could see that they were each covered with the same spidery lines as the stones circling the pit. Clearly they did something, and I was not going to mess with them. Not right now, at least. I’d have to figure them out some day, but at the moment I’d had more than enough. Besides, the passage waited.

The passage leading from the pit was not quite like the tunnels I’d gotten used to. The surfaces had the same finish, but this was cut on a larger scale, both wider and higher. It descended in a long, wide curve, but instead of a smooth descent it went in steps of short, completely flat sections connected by gentle inclines.

The dragon begged me to stop, but I pressed on. The fear in her voice, and the fear that I felt from her grew with every step, and at one point she went from begging to incoherent whining. It was torture. I couldn't imagine what it was like for her, and my steps faltered. I felt like a monster for continuing as far as I had.

I stopped, turning my head to look the way I'd come, and despite all of my earlier determination I considered going back.

The dragon became silent, but the fear got louder.

"No," she said. "Not up. Please don't take me up there." Suddenly, going on felt infinitely easier than going back, and I found my feet moving again, determined to put more distance between myself and the pit.

The tunnel went on forever, until it ended.

I came to a room. It was big, but not huge. Maybe fifteen yards on a side with the ceiling ten yards high. In the middle of the floor was a square hole, a couple of yards on a side and surrounded by the withered remains of some kind of mechanism. Considering the hole, I assumed that it had been a lift of some kind.

I walked up to the hole and looked down. I wasn’t entirely surprised by what I saw. I’d had a feeling.

There was nothing on the sides of the shaft that would let me climb down. The shaft wasn't that deep before it opened up, though. I could possibly have flown if I was careful, but there was no need to risk it. I was sure of what I was looking at. I remembered what I’d seen before I fled from the tunnels here, in my mountain.

The main chamber had had a large, square hole in the ceiling.The dragon feared that chamber. She feared the pit. And here I was, looking down through a big square hole onto a smooth floor, far below. This was all connected, clear as day – or night, in my case. There was a story there, one terrible enough to make a dragon beg.

But the place was dead. No one had been there for years and years. There was, as far as I could tell, nothing to fear, not anymore, and it raised a lot of questions. What was this place? What had happened here, and how long ago? How long had the dragon waited in that pit?

How could I use this?

First of all I needed to get out. Dragon? I thought, feeling a little silly. I really needed something to call her.

She didn't answer.

We need to leave. I need you to tell me which way is easiest for you.

More silence. I had shamed her into answering once, but after what I had just done to her I couldn't bring myself to treat her harshly. She was my dragon, a part of me. In a way it felt like I'd hurt my own twin sister.

The danger is gone. You can see that, right? Whatever happened to you here, it was long ago. There's no one here, now. No one is going to hurt you.

"You did." It was almost a whisper. I could feel her shame at admitting that. I knew how hard it must have been, and I forced myself to ignore the guilt I felt, so that it wouldn't colour my thoughts.

I did, I admitted. And I wish that it hadn't been necessary. But now I need to know what will be easiest for you. Back up? Or down into the chamber?

She was silent for a long time, before she said, "Down."

Back up was easier for me. I might have been able to press on upwards despite her, but I owed her this. Unfortunately I only knew one sure way out from the chamber, and it was a risk. I knew that there were other exits as well, of course. I'd found my way out before. But I'd rather risk going out the front door, so to speak, than days of boredom and hunger.

One day, you will need to face your fear. You know that, I told her as I prepared to drop through the shaft.

She didn't even deny that she was afraid. I considered that progress, and hoped that I was right. "One day," she said. "Not tonight."

I dropped.

The ceiling of the large chamber – I'd started thinking of it as the throne room. It had that vibe – was high enough that I could spread my wings and land softly. Looking up I felt sure that no one was getting into my cave from here without wings, which was a big relief. I was also pretty sure that I could gather enough speed to get myself back up through the shaft with my wings folded, so I didn’t need to risk banging anything on the stone walls. That would have to wait, though. My dragon was in no state to go back up there, not after what I had just put her through. But something about the experience had her talking. We were having an actual, rare conversation, and I was not going to waste the opportunity.

What happened here? I thought at her as I walked towards the exit. Will you ever tell me what you remember?

"You should know," she said. "But it is not clear. Fear, and pain. That is most of it. That and being unable to flee."

And the ‘big one’? I asked, referring to the dragon whose bones had been used for the valkins' staves. He was here?

"Yes."

Who was he?

“I do not remember clearly. But… our father, I think. Why do you not know these things?”

I considered that for a moment. Then I got sidetracked and wondered how much of my thoughts my dragon could hear.

What am I? I finally asked.

“You are a voice in my head.”

I am a voice in your head, I repeated. You are in control?

“Obviously,” she said.

Then what happened up there? In the pit, and the tunnel?

“I…” she hesitated. “I did not want to go. But you were right. It was necessary to secure the lair, so I fought my fear, and triumphed.”

And when you begged me to stop, and we went on anyway? I asked, trying to load that thought with as much kindness and sympathy as I possibly could.

“That…” She faltered.

You believe that you’re in control?

“It is my body,” she said.

I think that it is mine, I told her honestly. Or at least, that I am in control of it. To me, you are a voice in my head.

“That is ridiculous. We are constantly doing things you do not want.”

Like what? I asked, loading the thought with a challenge.

“You think I do not feel your disgust at matured meat? Your pity and horror when I tear our enemies apart? Your constant pining for companionship? Your horrid desire to… to share the hoard with those humans? If you had your way we would be destitute, starved, and slain!”

What are you talking about? I asked, genuinely confused. I feel none of those things. At least I didn’t think that I did.

“Of course you don’t. Because I will not have it. Some of the things that come from you are bizarre, like your lust for some of the humans, but they are of no consequence. But the intolerable feelings, those I discard. We do not need them.”

I stopped.

“You’re thinking,” she said. There was spite there, and triumph. “You’re wondering if I’m lying to you. As though I would lie to a voice in my head. To myself.”

Was she?

“Here,” she purred. “I will show you.”

I wondered what she meant, and then –

I was in the cold and dark, crawling along on all fours, on hands and feet tipped with vicious claws. It was pitch black, yet I could see, but my field of view was too big, the area with real depth perception too narrow, and I knew why. My face was too long. My eyes sat in the wrong place, too much on the sides of my head instead of the front. I felt my teeth with my tongue, and they were all sharp fangs, curving back to make it impossible for prey to get free. My skin, all over my body, felt weirdly dry, and I felt my scales rattle across each other as I moved. I turned my long neck back to look as I lashed my tail in agitation and flexed my wings and this was all wrong! God, I just wanted my body back. I wanted to run, and swim, and climb! And I wanted to listen to old music and sing with my dad, and talk about pointless shit with my brothers and watch movies with Andrea. It had been months, and I missed them all so much, and I’d never see them again, would I?

I had killed people. I ripped a man’s throat out with my teeth. I tore another man’s head from his body and threw it at his friend.

I fought the urge to vomit, and then it was over. Everything felt normal again. “See?” my dragon said. There was no malice now, no spite. “Useless. It took some time to learn what to discard, but we are better off without such feelings. Don’t you agree?”

Yes, I agreed, slightly stunned at the confusion and building horror I had just felt, and their sudden absence. I had to start walking again just to convince myself that I could.

“Just as we are better off with you pushing me to do things I need, but do not want. Like controlling my hunger and rage, and facing my fear.” She paused. “And letting the Herald acquire soft or interesting things for us. We work well together, do we not?”

Yeah, I thought. Sure.

This was becoming more and more uncomfortable, but I couldn’t stop. Like scratching a bad itch, I kept going past the point that I was hurting myself.

If I am a voice in your head, where did I come from? I asked. How do you explain all this?

It took her a moment to answer. “You have always been there,” she said. “My first clear memory, more than just a mess of images and feelings, is in that pit. Us clawing our way up, and out into the light. You were a confused, broken thing, but I could see your value. My mind was still hazy, so I let you guide me. The gold helped clear things up.”

She paused as we shared a moment of contentment, thinking about the first dozen Dragons we had claimed from a dead man. “I know where you think that you came from,” she continues. “Perhaps you are right. But what harm does it do to me if I have a human ghost riding along in my head?” Some affection entered the voice. “I like you. Perhaps that is unnatural, something you’ve given me, but I am glad for it. You are useful, and amusing. And you are good with the humans. That will serve us well.”

I wasn’t sure what to think, at that point. My dragon was utterly convinced that she was in control. Anything I made her do against her will was just her acting on my suggestions. The whining, the begging, the abject terror as I dragged her down that tunnel… I could only assume that she chose not to acknowledge that it had even happened. She was back to the proud and arrogant creature I’d gotten used to..

I was in control of this body. I went wherever I wanted, whenever I wanted. But inside, she clearly had more influence than I had thought. I couldn’t tell where the line was between us, anymore. I didn’t just feel her emotions; she chose which of my own I was allowed to feel. That should have terrified me. It didn’t.

I could only assume that it was another useless emotion to be discarded.