Chapter 1
The Borders of Amber were secured; after an entire morning of following her boundaries on lofty thermals, I returned to the Castle. Seen from above, it resembled a five pointed star and pentagram. My keen dragon eye could even discern the fluttering of her pennants that announced King Random, two of the Princes and my father were in residence. I sighed, (which in a forty foot dragon came out as a belch of near flames) and spiraled in to land gently on the rooftops.
Somewhere inside, it rang a special bell activated by a sensor plate that let the guards know that it was me and not some other fierce some creature come to wreak havoc on the realm. There were no others, not in all the Shadows or any of the accumulated wisdom of my uncles and aunts could recount of another dragon.
I hadn’t always been a dragon. Once, I had been a teenage boy. Not a normal one but then, are any teenagers ever considered normal?
I grew up on the run, homeless, with an Irish gargoyle for a caretaker and friend. Part mother, part bodyguard, he saved me from many situations that I couldn’t have dealt with myself. I had a human body once. But it was taken from me. Taken until I offered it up as a sacrifice to save my father and grand uncle’s realms.
I died there. In the castle of Amber. But it seems, not totally. I woke up in this black scaled, diamond hard rad body of a real fire breathing dragon.
“Oh stop admiring yourself,” Ghostwheel sneered. I turned my head around to stare at the glowing manifestation of the intelligent artificial computer mind that my Dad had created when he lived on Earth. My Dad? He was the king, great lord, ruler of the Courts of Chaos. Sort of like the opposite end of Amber. Where she was order and light, Chaos was Entropy and well, Chaos.
I was stuck with Ghost because he, it was the only thing that could hear me. I hated the three way communication but it was all I had.
“Go turn into spare toaster parts,” I told it and sulked. I was hungry, too. I’d seen fat cattle grazing below but because I’d promised the King I wouldn’t take from his subjects, I’d not eaten. Later, I’d have to make a special foray out for a deer or two dozen. It took a lot of fuel to keep the Dragon furnace going.
I smelled human. Whipped my head around and watched Roelle and Marcus trying to sneak up on my blind side.
“Darn it,” she said. “How can you see us?” I blew a sulfur scented snort that lifted her skirts and hair. I eyed her with pleasure and ignored that my air had blown near half of Marcus naked. “Raven!” She shouted. “You did that on purpose!”
Not that I hadn’t seen Roelle naked before but it was always an enjoyable sight. I wasn’t likely to have sex anytime in the near millennium. Neither human nor Dragon. I wasn’t even sure how a dragon had sex.
Wheel buzzed me. It was like an electric shock – less than a Taser but more than an electric fence. Annoying more than painful. I swept my tail around and whacked him. Sent him flying off the roof and out into the blue sky. I hoped he went far enough to land in the sea. Roelle climbed on my shoulders and held my head spikes, lifting my head up so that we could see over the entire realm. Of course, I could see much further than she even with one eye.
Marcus sat near my hind leg and the heat of his body felt odd – almost mystical. He was the main chef’s son and was always underfoot in the Palace. At one time, we’d thought he was going to be a soldier but the war changed that idea. Instead, he studied magic tomes and was learning to be a magister. Not a magician, those were the silly dudes that did card tricks and pulled rabbits out of hats.
He smelled odd. Meaty. Powerful. I took a deep smell and started drooling. He made a disgusted sound and pulled out a bag that smelled of beef and pork. “Here. I brought you the parts of today’s dinner.”
I swallowed the tempting morsel bag and all. Both of them watched me expectantly. The flavors hit my stomach in a burst of heat that spread all the way to my toes. Roelle and Marcus jumped off me and stood back.
I shivered. Shook. Opened and closed my wings. Thumped my barbless tail on the roof regardless of the damage to the ceilings inside. Howled. Screamed at them and fell over. My head rose on its ten foot neck to thump on the stones twice before I subsided. A ripple of magic flowed over me.
I felt Roelle’s hand near my heart. Her touch was exquisite agony. “Raven? Oh gods, Marcus! What did you do? Is he alive?”
“Yeah, Marcus,” I grunted. “What did you do to me? Did you poison me? Do you want Roelle so much you would kill me to take her? Like I’m really a threat to any male out there in this form? Like I could collect girls and put them in with my rock collection?” Two stunned faces stared at me. “What?” I sputtered. “You try to kill me and I’m the villain?”
“Raven, it worked!” Marcus shouted and grabbed my face. By the horns. I blinked and nearly pulled him off his feet.
“What worked?”
“The spell! The magicked beef hearts!”
I shut my mouth when I realized he’d heard me. Stupidly, I said, “you can hear me?”
“Yes, yes, you idiot!” He yelled. “But turn it down. You’re loud enough for the dungeon dwellers to hear you.”
“We have people in the dungeons?” I cocked my one eye on the stairwell to observe a battalion of Black Dragon Guards running onto the roof in full battle gear. Impressive, it took only four minutes for them to kit up and run up five flights. King Random and his general were with them as well as my grandfather, Corwin.
“What the hell’s going on, Marcus? The roof collapsed in over twenty rooms! Several people are hurt! Raven, is he okay?” They ranged around me, hands on their weapons. I was slightly pissed at the show of mistrust. After all, they’d been named for me.
“I fell off my perch,” I said in a whisper. At least for me it was a whisper. Everyone took two steps back as my voice boomed. Hey, it even sounded like me.
“Marcus, what have you done? Where’s Ghost?” The King demanded. His red hair and blue eyes were fairly crackling with intensity.
“Sorry, my Liege,” I said sincerely. “No one was seriously hurt?”
“No. Scrapes and bruises. I fell off the…commode and bruised my –,” he stopped. “Marcus?”
He dipped his knee. “I found an old, really old treatise Melangine brought back from Khafra and found a reference to a spell that made dumb beasts speak with the tongue of man. No offense Raven, so I tried it out.”
“On anything other than Raven?” Random asked.
“Well, no. It was good only for one shot,” he explained. “It needed the blood of a gargoyle and a harpy. I only had enough for one dose.”
“How long does it last?” I butted in.
He shrugged. “Didn’t say. But Raven, it hints at other things.”
I opened my eye wide and then my mouth. “Tell me.” He swallowed. Although I had never hurt him, the size of my cavernous mouth, forked tongue and dagger-like teeth made him nervous.
“It speaks of turning creatures into men.” There was silence and then an excited babble of voices. Of course, I could shout all of them down at once.
“Like what?” I asked over them.
“A shadow realm only hinted of where you can become human again,” Marcus whispered staring everywhere but at me. I swallowed and felt ashamed that I had accused him of trying to kill me so he could have Roelle to himself. “I want you to have every chance of becoming human, Raven,” he continued.
Random laid his hand on Marcus’ shoulder. “Marcus, show me this text. Raven, the stable master has two steer set aside for your breakfast. Murphy has patrol duty so you can relax. Don’t go anywhere.”
My grandfather added his own admonitions and the entire troop left the same way they’d arrived only without the urgency.
With equal parts of hope and dread in my heart, I leaped off the parapet to land neatly in the stable yard where two fat cows were eating hay.
I used to be squeamish about killing them but now, I merely bit off their heads and swallowed the rest daintily. Sated, I spent the rest of the day perched on the headlands of Kolvan.