[Mkguild] Healing Wounds in Arabarb (35 of ?)

[C. Matthias]

Healing Wounds in Arabarb
By Charles Matthias



Lindsey screamed as he finally thrust himself out of the dream and 
back into the cold, dark chamber in Fjellvidden. When only his own 
screams echoed back to him, he managed to stop. His breaths were 
ragged but they came. He licked his lips slowly, and was grateful 
that he did not taste blood on them.

After a few minutes of shivering, another gust of warm air passed him 
and he was able to think again. He pulled with both hands at his 
chains, but all he did was irritate his sore wrists further. He had 
no idea of the time nor how long he'd slept. His body was weary and exhausted.

The nightmare kept replaying in his mind and he shuddered at each 
image as it thrust itself before him. But his flesh was not erupting 
in fur, nor had Gmork ever set foot in Metamor. But could he? If 
Gmork destroyed the resistance and grew in power, could he turn his 
friends into monsters and sit on the throne of Metamor like some 
demonic god? Hadn't that been, after a fashion, what Yajakali himself 
had wanted?

Somehow, Lindsey was going to have to kill Gmork. He was more of a 
threat than Calephas ever had been or ever could be. But how could 
Lindsey ever hope to kill him if he was chained in this dark hole 
with no hope of escape?

He had to make his own escape. But how? Lindsey knew that he was 
stuck in the body of a child and was growing more child-like every 
day. Tears came far too quickly and his fears were multiplying with 
each passing day. How much he would rather be in some bright flowery 
field romping with Pharcellus and Andrig, laughing and marveling at 
the shape of clouds, the color of every little wildflower, or even a 
clover with four leaves.

But he had to focus if he didn't want to be a child. Lindsey pressed 
his chin to his knees and tried to gather what he knew. Jessica's 
spell was keeping him a child. The trigger that would have let him 
end that spell had been removed by Gmork. His father Alwfig had told 
him that he was hatched from a dragon's egg and that his dragon-half 
was hidden from him by his real mother afterward. Dragons, like his 
half-brother Pharcellus, all had some magical ability.

Which meant that he, Lindsey, had some magical ability. He'd never 
shown any signs of it, but it had to be there somewhere inside him. 
If he could find that, then perhaps he could remove the spell making 
him a child. The bonds holding him would never survive that change, 
of that he felt certain.

But how did he find that magical core to himself? How did he use his 
dragon nature, a nature he'd never even known existed?

Lindsey took several deep breaths and closed his eyes. Though there 
was nothing to see, the act of closing the eyes suggested to him a 
looking inward. He had to find that which was buried deep if he 
wanted to survive. Only by escape from Calephas could he hope to kill 
Gmork let alone the baron.

What did magic look like? He pondered that as he thrust aside all 
other thoughts and images. He wanted only to see his magic. He 
imagined himself as a man again, but also as a dragon like his 
brother. What would that be like?

When the next gust of warm air came, he imagined that it beat against 
his wings and that he could fly. Something inside him had to open up. 
It had to.

But sleep came first.


The shackles held him firmly against the wall, still a child and 
feeling no different despite the potion that he knew Calephas had 
made him drink. He knew this because the Baron himself stood over top 
of him with a bottle of purple fluid in one hand and a triumphant 
grin on his face. His eyes, blue and pure, were pure with malice.

"At last! At long last," he said with the savor of a man who'd just 
broken in a new prostitute. "This will make me a dragon true!" He 
lowered his eyes ot Lindsey, still a boy and still bereft of all his 
clothes. "I'm not giving to kill you just yet, Lindsey. You helped me 
do this. You helped me become a dragon. For that I will let you watch 
as I exercise my new power!"

"Choke on it you monster!" Lindsey shouted, before Weaker backhanded 
him and he started to cry. The tiger growled at him, green eyes 
burning with a fiendish delight as he struck him again and again with 
the back of his paws.

Calephas chided with a laugh as he unstopped the bottle and lifted it 
to his lips. A thin vapor wafted through the neck and almost sparkled 
in the air. "Now, now, Weaker. No sense giving him black eyes just 
yet. I want him to see this." Calephas tilted the bottle back and 
swallowed each gulp with a larger and thicker gorge. Halfway through 
the bottle, Calephas's clothes began to tear against his swelling 
body, his breeches especially where his new tail was trying to gain 
freedom. By the time he'd finished, an emerald tail swelled between 
his thickening legs, and his verdant hands were tipped with wicked black claws.

Calephas smashed the bottle against the wall and stretched out his 
jaws, a long, forked, red tongue flicking across sharpening teeth as 
his eyes became a coal-black emptiness smoldering with triumph. 
Lindsey pressed against the wall as Calephas's body continue to 
swell, the last of his clothes tearing free. Thick claws ripped 
through his boots which fell apart around heavy, green-scaled paws. 
His chest burst from his shirts and vests to reveal broad yellow 
plating that mottled into the green of his back. His cloak was caught 
on the wings that sprouted from his shoulders and knocked over all of 
his reagents and bottles arrayed across his worktable.

As an array of ten horns began to protrude from the back of his skull 
which rested on a neck already four feet in the length, Calephas 
laughed a booming laugh, pressing his large tail and haunches against 
the all of the door. The room grew very small and both Lindsey and 
Weaker pressed themselves against the walls to keep from being crushed.

Calephas swung his head down and stared at the two of them with his 
dead eyes. "This is intoxicating. I can swallow the boys whole even 
at this size! Can you imagine what I can do to them just with this 
tongue?" So saying he flicked out that tongue and brushed either side 
of the fork across Lindsey's face, coating it in a foul smelling 
mucus. "I don't need fear your precious Duke or that insufferable 
Nasoj anymore! I don't need anyone! All is mine!"

Weaker hissed at that, his tail lashing back and forth where he 
crouched. Calephas swung his large head over to the tiger and then 
grabbed him with one of his growing arms. The tiger gasped and tried 
to wriggle his arms free as his legs kicked at nothing. "And you, 
Weaker, are truly in the presence of a greater predator! Scream like 
the little impala you murdered! Scream!"

Weaker hissed with a vile hate, but could offer nothing more before 
Calephas drove his thumb claw into the tiger's neck and then pushed 
it all the way out the back. Blood poured from the wound, sluicing 
through the cracks between each green scale on the back of his hand. 
With a flick of that finger, Weaker's head popped off and was 
adroitly captured on the new dragon's tongue and swallowed. Lindsey 
watched a bulge slide down Calephas's neck before disappearing into 
his main torso.

"It's getting rather cramped in here," Calephas said with a rumbling 
laugh that made Lindsey's bones quiver like jelly. Still holding 
Weaker's body in one hand, the dragon slammed the side of his still 
growing body against the far wall and ceiling. He did this three 
times before the wall collapsed outward, revealing the town of 
Fjellvidden and all its populace assembled with swords and bows.

Stones rained down around his body, many of them crashing into the 
ground next to Lindsey, spraying him with tiny shards of granite. He 
closed his eyes and did his best to shield his face in his bound 
arms. He could hear the castle groaning all around him and the ground 
shook with Calephas's heavy stride. Lindsey chanced a glance upward 
and saw the mighty green dragon, still swelling in size, heave the 
castle backward as if he were thrusting a heavy weight from his 
shoulders. His long tail, thicker than any three trees Lindsey had 
felled, smashed the debris as towers and battlements collapsed and 
sundered upon one another. All of Fjellvidden castle was cast roaring 
into the river, sending thunderous waves against the docks and 
crushing every vessel berthed there beneath a watery grave.

Calephas roared and a gout of flame shot into the sky, scattering the 
clouds that had assembled like mourners at a Reqiuem. Dozens and 
dozens of arrows bounced off his hide as the townspeople began to 
scream and flee in terror. The dragon lowered his head and laughed, a 
sound that shook the ground like a rumbling mountain preparing to 
erupt in a fiery froth.

Calephas sucked in his breath, and then lowering his neck and body 
across the city, spewed flame that engulfed men, women, and children 
as they tried vainly to find some place to escape his wrath. Their 
screams were cut short as their bodies cooked to cinders and were 
scattered to nothing by the power of his blast. The fires that leaped 
across every building quickly consumed all the wood and thatch, until 
even the stones glowed and began to melt. Within seconds, a 
population of several hundred was reduced to millions of specks of 
ash that coated the distant trees like black snow.

Lindsey cried in agony at the sight, knowing that his mother had been 
there among them, and that his father was now crushed in the ruin of 
the castle. What had happened to the birds? And where was Pharcellus?

His question was answered only a moment later as a huge gray form 
dropped from the sky to grapple Calephas's back. Pharcellus was so 
much smaller than Calephas as from nose to tail tip he could only 
barely stretch from the green dragon's shoulder to his hips. 
Nevertheless, he bravely dug with his claws into the juggernaut's 
back and bit into the flesh beside the long spiked ridge moving down his spine.

Calephas roared and tucked his wings in close, before rolling onto 
his side. Pharcellus's blue eyes widened in horror as he scrambled to 
get off the green dragon's back. Lindsey saw his face and the look of 
horror there before his body disappeared beneath Calephas's broad 
back. The green dragon rolled around and shifted his frame back and 
forth, keeping his wings clear, smashing whatever was left of the 
town. A broad red smear coated and sizzled on the baked stones.

When the dragon stood, all that remained of his older brother was a 
smear of gray and red on the ground and dripping off of Calephas's 
broad back. Lindsey screamed as that massive head swung down. The 
long snout broke into a horrifying grin as the forked tongue pushed 
behind Lindsey and lifted him up, tearing through the chains and 
slicing the boy's wrists in the process.

As his blood drained down his arms and he felt his body going cold, 
the jaws opened and the tongue pulled him within a cavern sultry and 
dark. He slipped ever down and down into darkness, walls of slime and 
muck pressing and pushing him the whole way.




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May He bless you and keep you in His grace and love,

Charles Matthias


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