Tesser: A Dragon Among Us (A Reemergence Novel) (37 page)

Garamos would've closed his eyes to concentrate, but they were already sealed shut against the dirt. There was no need for eyes to see the presence of light miles below the kiss of the sun.
What is that sensation?

"It is me, brother," a friendly voice whispered faintly inside Garamos' mind. It was almost drowned out by the pulse of the Earth all around.

I know that voice.
"Kaula? I can barely hear your voice. Where have you been? Are you okay?

"You must go to Tesser in America now. With haste. I can say no more."

"Kaula? Sister?"
 

Garamos was suddenly at a loss for emotion, something he was unfamiliar with. Garamos was, of all the dragons, the prepared one. To have a variable like this thrown in the air was unsettling in the extreme.
 
She must be where he is. She must be in grave danger. It is time to find my sister. My brother will answer for it if her disappearance is linked to his return.

Garamos tilted his gargantuan head upwards and with a great cough, erupted flame from his throat at the ceiling of the tunnel he had been carving. The flame liquefied the earth and stone instantly, and began to etch away an open column that would lead to the surface. As the molten stone fell all around him, Garamos reached up and began to rip away even more burning earth. The surface couldn't come fast enough.

*****

Kiarohn, the smallest of all the dragons, flew high in the air above the Pacific Ocean. Kiarohn was slender, built more like a winged serpent than the dragons of western myth and legend. The whole length of that body was covered in fine white and blue scales. Some cultures had memories of Kiarohn, and they named those memories the great Coatl. Blue eyes surveyed all the ocean below. Two pairs of great gossamer wings, three times as wide as Kiarohn’s body was long, flapped powerfully. They should've moved the dragon's body far faster through the air, but no matter the speed of the wing's beat, the dragon moved along lazily. But Kiarohn's wings were meant less to keep a body aloft and more to move the air about.

Kiarohn was the father and the mother of the wind.

"Kiarohn." Kaula's voice whispered to him high in the nighttime sky. The voice came from the pure ether of the magic she was made of.

Kiarohn's mouth formed a mischievous grin. The dragon expected the sister to return soon. "Hello, sister. It is a pleasure to hear your voice once more."

"Tesser will need you soon. Find him."

"He won't be particularly hard to find now. Is it important?"

"Yes. Leave now. The world must wait."

"So be it," Kiarohn said into the sky. He wheeled about in the air and started to head east, towards America. This sudden change of plans might result in terrible storms in the southern Pacific, but such was the way of the world. It wouldn't take long for him to find Tesser, and hopefully, he could return to his stirring of the world's winds quickly.
 

*****

A naked, blonde woman relaxed in the white sand of a sunny beach on the eastern coast of South Africa. She was tall, impossibly tall, well over six feet, yet still beautiful and dainty. Several men gawked at her from the nearby resort bar. She would've been an impressive sight even if she hadn't simply appeared out of the rough Atlantic surf, striding languidly. After building up some courage by downing several drinks, one tall man walked over.
 

"Hey, miss. Saying hi, testing the waters is all. A man can't be too cautious now that all the weird things are coming back. You might be a mermaid," he joked. He had no idea how accurate his statement actually was.

The blonde leaned her head back, exposing full sun-soaked breasts that dripped with delicate drops of seawater. She looked to him with bright eyes that danced between blue and green. The man thought of the ocean, almost as if he had no other comparison to make.

"A wise man tests all waters before jumping in. I won't be here long. You should go enjoy another drink with your friends. I'm not a very friendly lady. I think you'll find these waters unwelcoming." Her voice was husky and her intonation off. It was almost as if she didn’t interact much with men. Or women.

"I see, well, before I leave you, may I at least get your name? So as to save some pride?" The man asked, defeated.

"My family calls me Fyelrath. Now go. Thank you."

The man walked away from the odd woman, shrugging at his friends. It was a valiant effort.

"You should be nicer to the humans," a small crab said to Fyelrath from a few feet away.

Now what is this? A speaking crab? What has Tesser been up to all this time he's been gone?
"I keep my own counsel, crustacean. And how is it you've learned to speak? All my time in the ocean and you're the first crab with a burning desire for conversation in English?"

"I use what I can to speak now. My sister, it is I, Kaula."

By the tides, it is.
Fyelrath sat up, luring out a bunch of open-mouthed stares from the bar junkies behind her. "Kaula, you've returned. How delightful."

"I cannot speak for long. You need to head to Tesser. He will need your help soon. Very soon."

"I will find out where he is," Fyelrath said to the tiny crab. The crustacean stopped for a moment, clicked its claws twice, and then shimmied sideways towards the white foam of the ocean's edge. Kaula's magic was gone. Fyelrath got to her feet and walked abruptly towards the men still staring at the bar. Her nakedness stood out even more robustly.

"I'm looking for a dragon. I know he's been on your news. Where is he?"

The same man who approached her mere minutes ago replied. The liquor he'd downed was hitting him hard now. "A dragon eh? Tesser, America's flying cunt. Crocodile with wings that one is. He was in Washington on the news a week ago. But I hear he's back in Boston. Starting a new tea party."

Why would he be so disrespectful?
"Tesser is a dragon. A noble creature tasked with incredible responsibility. Were it not for him, you'd be nothing. More respect would be advisable."

"He's had nothing to say about my life, mermaid. Back into the ocean with you. Go find your Tesser."

"And so I shall," Fyelrath said with a whimsical smile. She turned and ran hard and fast toward the surf, and at the last moment she let free and shifted into the form she loved most. Fyelrath became a blue-green dragon, more like a sea serpent than the flying creatures Tesser and Kiarohn were. Her long body and shorter legs coiled powerfully and launched off of the white African sands and high in the air before she dove into the water, thirty feet offshore. Her long back slithered side to side in the waves as she swam out deep into the ocean, eventually slipping under the surface.

The men at the bar hesitated for a few seconds, and then one in all downed their drinks, and headed inland. The need to be on the beach had been drained away.

*****

Zeud, the red dragon, sat atop a cliff that overlooked the Aegean. She was wandering today, far from the area of the world that her family had decided was hers
. I hate Asia. I hate the word, I hate all the damn islands, and there's far too much water for my taste. Why couldn't Fyelrath be assigned Asia? I wanted Europe. Far more rocks, and, cities. I would so love to set fire to one of their ancient forests as well. Perhaps the one that the seven stones are in. I wonder if they would burn under my breath now?

Through her dinner-plate-sized nostril, Zeud snorted out a javelin of flame into the crystal blue waters of the Mediterranean. Steam erupted upwards where it hit. Zeud smiled.
It thrills me to be this visible now. Ever since Tesser returned and went public, he's given us permission again to be revealed to his progeny. It has saddened me to watch their growth from the shadows without his tutelage. But now…

At the edge of her vision on the sea's horizon, she saw the white shape of a cruise ship come into view. There was no way they could see her from that distance, but she could see them clearly. Dragon eyesight was some of the world's finest. Zeud stretched her wings wide, allowing the cool sea breeze to buffet her wings fully and nearly give her loft. It made no sense according to man's science that a dragon could achieve flight. They were too heavy, their wings too small to gain enough lift.

But man's science didn't account for the magic inherent in the dragons. That made Zeud smile.
They think they know everything, but my brother has shown them different.

"That he has," a soft voice whispered on the breeze. "Our existence requires you to find Tesser. You must move quickly."

Zeud leapt from her perch on the stones and soared over the water. She crossed the ocean impossibly fast, delighted at the sound of her sister's voice. She flew up to and over the cruise ship. "Kaula, my dear, I'm already headed. You’ve been gone so long. I miss you."

"I miss you as well.
 
I wish I could speak more. I will see you soon."

Zeud's heart soared as she flapped her wings. She set free a rapid-fire burst of flames from her mouth. They exploded like comets against the sea's surface. She smiled like she hadn’t smiled in a long time.

*****

Ambryn was in dragon form below the city of Paris. The ancient catacombs below the city served as a quiet lair for him, and he appreciated the food above. He also felt better when he was able to chase down the teeming masses of rats under the city. Bringing balance to life was his duty, and when he rested under the city, it was satisfying to burn away legions of the little rodents.

Ambryn's pitch-black body was reduced in size to move through the tunnels. He was not much larger than a good-sized horse at the moment, albeit one with a long tail, neck, and bat-like wings. Ambryn slinked along in a tunnel almost a hundred yards below the streets above, hunting a particularly voracious army of rats.

Come here, little ones. There are a few too many of you. We just need to restore the balance for a bit. Don't make me cough up a virulent plague that will wipe you all out, because I will…

"Hunting rats now, Ambryn?" A hollow voice carrying on the wind in the ancient tunnels said to him.

Ambryn stopped his stalking and chuckled. "Kaula? Gone for a time and now returned. What say you?" Ambryn abandoned his hunt, sitting and listening for the faint voice of his sister.

"I have great need for you. Find Tesser. He will lead you to where I need you."

"As you wish, my sister. Might I ask what I'm required for?"

The air suddenly became stale in the tunnel, matching Kaula's thoughts on his answer. "Grave tasks, brother."

The dragon of death looked around at the piles of rat feces and exhaled in a frustrated way. Ambryn spat out a small glob of pestilent saliva on the dirty floor. The rats would test the flavor of his spit and die, and that made Ambryn happy. What his sister might need of the dragon of death did not make him happy.

Chapter Forty-Five

Tesser

Tesser sat at Mr. Doyle's dining room table. It was just after their dinner and all gathered were drinking tea or coffee. He wore a tee shirt that had arrived in the mail a few days prior. A gift. It had a logo for the role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons on it. Tesser found it amusing. The government had been forced to bring in a team of special postal workers to sift through all the mail being sent to Mr. Doyle's home.
 

Currently, there were over a thousand letters and packages arriving each day from all around the world. Shirts, gifts, endorsement deals, inquiries to learn magic, scientific studies, and marriage proposals were the most common. A few letters containing potentially dangerous substances had come too, but they'd done no harm.

Mr. Doyle, Abe, and Alexis sat around the table. The dining room window was open so Ellen outside could hear. She had somehow managed to relocate her face to a lower portion of her tree trunk and was actively watching and listening on their conversation. Alexis was staring at Tesser, still fighting the idea that he was actually the dragon he was, trying to find an errant scale or claw that might reveal Tesser's true nature. Tesser looked over to her and she blushed.

"Sorry. I'm just still struggling to get accustomed to all of what's happened. It doesn't seem possible. I don't mean to stare," Alexis said.

I know.
"It's okay, Alexis. If you have questions, go ahead and ask."

Having been given permission, Alexis started to speak, but Mr. Doyle cut her off. "Tesser, I'd say that your performance was brilliant, though there are still a good many people out there who don't understand yet. You'll need to do many more public showings of proper behavior to convince everyone."

Tesser shook his head. "I don't want to make that a priority, Mr. Doyle. We need to find Matty, and we need to find Legion. If we don’t stop the Veil-Born it won't matter if people like me or not."

Abe chuckled. "Tesser, as you made it out to be, this fucking guy lives in a hundred bodies or more all at once. Like a hive mind. How the fuck are we going to find him and kill him?"