EPIC: Fourteen Books of Fantasy (379 page)

“I am a warrior,” he said to the gnome.

“Then why are you here?”

I was confused by the question. Khavi seemed to be as well, looking to me for support. I shrugged helplessly.

“I am here because Ren is here. She is my patrol leader and my duty compels me to follow her orders.”

“It is a strange gnome that speaks of duty with such reverence.”

I wrinkled up my snout in confusion. Why would gnomes be so lackadaisical about their duties? Was that a trick of theirs to disguise their wicked nature, or could they not control themselves to obey legitimate authority?

“Uh,” said Khavi, “is it?”

“In my experience. The gnomes who come here speak of fondness for their friends and desire to protect them from harm, or academic interest, or perhaps greed. But very rarely duty.”

I glared at Khavi. “Khavi is a strange one,” I said, “but he means well.”

“Does he now.” The gnome pursed his wrinkled old lips.

“He does.” I took in a shallow breath, trying to keep my nerves under control, willing the gnome to grant us passage. I had never met anyone who could not see before. Kobolds would never tolerate such weakness, nor permit someone to suffer through such an uncomfortable life. They would be killed, mercifully and quickly, and nothing more would be thought of them.

Despite his clear disadvantage, though, this strange gnome seemed to have found quite a niche for himself. In a way I was almost jealous. Would I give my eyes to live in this place?

“So, what do you think?” I asked. “Can we see him?”

“I think that it’s rare that kobolds try to reach Tyermumtican’s lair.”

I hissed, drawing in my breath, feeling my heart leap into my chest. Laughless
knew
. The gnome knew I wasn’t one of his kind.

“Surprised?” said Laughless, his blind eyes blinking. “You shouldn’t be. I have stood guard for Tyermumtican as long as I’ve been alive. I’ve seen many tricks from many races. Humans come to skin him for his hide. Gnomes to pilfer his hoard. Kobolds to tap into his magical energy. Your scent gave you away the moment you entered this cave. I will not take you to him, liar. You are no different from the rest of your kind.”

“That’s a shame,” I said, and ever so slowly inched towards the Feyeater at my belt, gently closing my digits around the finely crafted hilt. “We don’t want to harm him. Everything else I told you was true. I’ve told you why we’ve come. To seek knowledge.”

“As all your kind have come. Knowledge, though, is power, and power can be used for good and for ill. I’ll not see my master’s power in the grip of those who are unworthy of its greatness.”

With as much care as I could muster, I gently began withdrawing the blade, scraping my feet on the stone to disguise the sound. “The decision is final, then?”

Laughless seemed resolute. “It is.”

Silently drawing back my weapon, I aligned it to his heart. “I’m sorry to have wasted your time.”

The gnome smiled, a genuinely pleasant action. “As am I. Thank you for your understanding.”

My will began to falter. What if this one was like No-Kill, different from what we had been told of his kind? Perhaps I could win him over in time?

No. His mind was made up. I could not persuade him.

I thrust the blade forward, the matte steel of my magically enhanced weapon gleaming as it leapt for the heart of the gnome who had denied me what was mine. I noticed that the weapon, though, did not elongate as it had when Khavi had killed No-Kill; it remained short and black, a normal dagger.

Laughless caught it between his fingertips like an insect, stopping the weapon dead.

I stared in shock, hardly able to process what I saw. The weapon’s edge was razor sharp, his fingers should have been mincemeat even without the enchantment.

“You think your feybane steel can kill me, wyrmling?” said the gnome, his thin voice suddenly carrying a weight I had not heard before. “You think your guile can match that of a true dragon?”

Dread filled every scale on my body, a fear so intense and deeply entrenched that my rational mind retreated, leaving me weak and helpless. The Feyeater fell from my grasp, clattering on the stone, but the sound didn’t register in my head. All I could do was stare, terrified and gibbering, as his body expanded and grew taller than any gnome could be. His jaw elongated, hands became clawed like mine, and green-brown wings sprouted from his back.

I knew I should have thrown myself forward on my face to grovel before the power of our masters, but instead all I could do was wet myself in terror; my only action before one of Tyermumtican’s claws slammed into my chest, pushing me down against the stone floor, his agile and strong fingers holding me down. His enormous snout hovered above me.

“Please,” I gasped, trying to breathe with his grip wrapped tightly around my chest, “kill me quickly.”

“That usually is my preference. Any further requests?” said Tyermumtican, his breath washing over me, reeking of bitter acid.

“Let Khavi go.” I laboured to speak; it seemed that every time I inhaled, Tyermumtican’s claws would squeeze tighter, consuming my breathing room. “Coming here was my idea. It was I who had questions for you. Please do not eat him.”

Tyermumtican peered at me, eyes green and sharp, and for a moment he seemed to consider my request. Thin lines of saliva ran down his fangs, each incisor longer than my sword. I whimpered, praying to any gods who may still live that Khavi would not have to suffer for my foolishness.

“Granted,” said Tyermumtican, “I am feeling charitable this day, although my charity began when I controlled my laughter at being told you were a gnome named the
draconic
word for nothing.” He chuckled, a booming noise that echoed in the cave. “Tell me, though, in exchange, what knowledge did you seek? What magical power did you think could be yours?”

“No magic,” I managed. “I only wanted to know who I was.”

That answer seemed to surprise him, enough for him to not immediately crush me. I wondered how kobolds would taste to a dragon and what kind of death he would give me. Would he toss me in the air and let me fall into his mouth? Would he tear me to pieces with his claws? Perhaps he would tenderise me with his breath, using it to melt my body, making it softer and easier to digest. Visions of my final moments swam in my mind as I lay completely at the mercy of the dragon I had been careless enough to try to murder.

“How do you not know who you are?” said Tyermumtican, his iron grip on my body relaxing ever so slightly. “Your kind are meticulous with their—”

I heard the loud clang of steel on something hard. “Ouch,” said Tyermumtican, his tone flat. “Excuse me.” He reached around behind him and grabbed Khavi, squirming and snarling in Tyermumtican’s hand, my friend’s two-handed blade bent almost in half.

Tyermumtican tossed Khavi high in the air, almost to the ceiling, his maw opening as Khavi descended. I shrieked for the dragon to stop, to spare my friend, but Tyermumtican’s claw caught Khavi before he hit the stone. His teeth clamped around the bent blade, then closed, breaking the weapon in half.

Crunch, crunch, crunch. I knew then that this was how we would die—tossed in the air by a predator toying with its prey.

“Delicious,” said Tyermumtican, chewing thoughtfully on the metal like Khavi or I would chew on glowbug flesh “Deep kobold iron, infused with carbon to make steel. Finely crafted, too. Few impurities. No magical essence to speak of, but very flavourful.”

“You…eat swords?” I dared to ask.

“A dragon can eat almost anything,” said Tyermumtican, swallowing his meal and licking his jaws, “including gems and metals and flesh, but I have a particular taste for kobold iron. It is mined so deep in the earth it develops a tender quality. The very flesh of Drathari, the juiciest cuts of our planet’s meat. When your kind come to me for information, I trade their metals for my knowledge.”

“I am glad that it pleases you,” I said, trying to keep the terror from my voice.

“It does, in a quaint kind of way. Usually I am not required to pluck gifts from my hide. Usually visitors are not so foolish.”

I twisted my head to Khavi. “Why did you attack him?” I hissed.

“You attacked him first, you—”

The dragon squeezed the air from his lungs.

“Quiet, angry one. You are mindless and suited only for battle; you have taxed my patience enough. It will do you well to remain silent unless spoken to.”

Tyermumtican relaxed his grip on my body. I didn’t get up though, preferring to lay in a puddle of my own piss rather than raise my head before a dragon.

“Speak,” Tyermumtican commanded. “You seem to have a brain. Tell me why you do not know who you are.”

I struggled to get words past my lips, and it took me a moment to find my tongue. “My egg was laid in the city, like so many others. But it was dead, I was stillborn, dead before hatching. I—my egg and I were thrown into the furnaces, all record of my parentage destroyed. But the flames didn’t burn me. Instead, my egg was brought back to life. Now no records exist of who I was. Who I am. Hence, my name is nothing.” I stared up at Tyermumtican, at those eyes that caught the dim light of his lair. “I want to be something. I want to know who I am before I die.”

“You have gold scales,” said Tyermumtican, one of his claws extending to me, touching my cheek. Despite the considerable size difference between he and I, the dragon’s grace was such that hovering the impossibly sharp tip of his claw over my scales seemed an easy feat. “I suspect that your lineage springs not from your home city.”

“My egg wasn’t laid in Atikala?”

Tyermumtican shook his head. “No, you misunderstand. It was. Your kind are not accepting of golden scales; your existence would have only been permitted had you been laid there as one of them. As an outsider you would have been killed. No, your mother was Atikalan at least, and your father…” he trailed off, seeming to stare off into nothing.

I waited.
 

And I continued to wait.

“Tyermumtican?”

My voice shook him from his trance. “Ren, the answer is clear to me now.”

I inhaled, my bruised ribs and the stink of piss forgotten. “Tell me,” I implored. “Please. Mighty Tyermumtican, powerful copper wyrm, please. Please tell me who I am.”

“I said only that I know, not that I would tell you.” He looked at me, and the fear in my heart dissipated, the dragon’s aura of terror leaving me. In his complex eyes, I saw an edge of sadness. “Regretfully, I cannot tell you who you are.”

“But I need to know!”

Tyermumtican exhaled through his nose, the air forcing me to squint. “I said I knew who your father and mother were, but those factors together do not dictate who you are.”

I scrunched up my face, propping myself onto my elbows. “I don’t understand.”

“You are of Atikala, yes? That place forms part of your identity. But it is not
you
. You are separate from it…able to walk a different path if you choose. This one,” Tyermumtican indicated to the suffocating Khavi with his nose, “chooses not to. However, his choice is not your choice. You are different than he is. Khavi embraces his home, using it to form his identity. Too stupid to know any better. But you, you are different. You can forge your own destiny; your path is whatever you wish it to be.”

“I understand,” I said. “I do. But I’ve waited so long to know the truth. Whoever my father and mother are, I do not care. I just have to know.”

Tyermumtican released Khavi. He gasped for breath, his face a dark, breath-starved brown.

“Sometimes, wyrmling, we ask questions that we do not wish to know the answer to, and sometimes ignorance is preferable to the truth.”

Chapter XI

I
SPENT
THE
REST
OF
that day trying everything I could think of to convince Tyermumtican to tell me what he knew of my parentage, but the dragon gave me nothing. Over and over I begged, pleaded, demanded, and even once threatened. That seemed to amuse him; he let me finish, eyes bright with curiousity, then turned his aura of fear on me once again. Once again I lost control of my body. Khavi laughed at my cowardice until Tyermumtican turned it on him too, with similar results. Our craven begging and crying amused the mighty worm greatly, but he released us after a few moments.

I was truly desperate to have threatened such a powerful creature, but I had come too far to fail. To have the knowledge I’d sought for all my life so close but so completely out of my grasp was maddening.

When finally I gave up, slumping on the stones and grumbling to myself about the unfair nature of our dealings and various mutterings about the fecal matter of deceased deities, Tyermumtican took that as an opportunity to change the topic of our conversation, a moment he had seemingly been waiting for. Waiting with the patience of dragons.

“So tell me, Ren, of the disaster that befell your city.”

I looked up at the mighty dragon. “You want to know of Atikala’s doom?”

“I had many ties to the city. Unusual for a dragon of my colour, but I prefer to see past an individual’s shape and colour, to see the soul dwelling within. I had those within Atikala whom I considered friends. I would like to know if they still live.”

I swallowed nervously. “I am afraid, mighty Tyermumtican, that to the best of my knowledge, none live save us.”

I had not expected the copper dragon to take this news with anything other than glee, but his features fell as I told him. He was hurt but accepting of the facts. Ready to move beyond the past to more practical matters. “That is as I feared. I had hoped you could shed some light on this, but you have only two eyes and the caverns of the underworld are vast. I shall conduct investigations of my own. Thank you, however.”

The very thought of such a mighty creature thanking me was so completely alien that I shook my head. “You are a dragon,” I said, “you cannot be thankful to one such as I.”

The dragon’s eyes narrowed. “That is Ren of Atikala talking,” he said, “not Ren, sorceress and warrior, shaper of her own destiny.”

I held up my claws, so similar in structure to his, but one hundredth the size. “I am not mighty.”