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Sinking fangs into Farath's chest, the mage started to leach away his power. The dragon bellowed deeply, but the sound pitched higher as he steadily shrank. From the size of a grand Parthenon he dwindled to a young mammoth, muscle mass giving way to scale and bone on an increasingly starved frame. Addler transformed. A human laugh morphed into a humongous dragon roar. Behind him his slim tail of albino burst into a hulking one, thicker than the trunk of a sequoia. Silk and linen slashed away. Slender human arms and legs stuttered into bulky forelegs and hindlegs covered in pitch purple scales. From the mage's tawny face a beastly muzzle projected forward, splitting at the lips with gooey webs of plum plasma. Plum scales plagued his face; black skin blighted his lips. Fingernails elongated into sharp black talons. A pair of joints adjacent his shoulders sprouted into fully mature wings, stretching their leathery membranes each to the span of an entire home. The newly-born mage-dragon grew into a gargantuan, four-story tall behemoth. “Huroooaaaoaaaaarrrrrwwg!” A hood like a cobra’s, and like his old plum cloak’s, flared open wickedly on the sides of his head.

When he rose, colossal dragon horns scraped the domed roof of the Lexeum library. He looked down on the withered, bulimic husk that was the storm dragon, who was now croaking from being crushed by one of his elephantine forepaws. “I am a dragon. I am a god. You are nothing to me, Farath. Say it.” When the Storm did not speak, the mage-dragon pressed on. “All thanks to your powers you’ve so kindly shared with me since I resurrected you. For that I am grateful.” Addler lifted Farath with two digits. The storm dragon croaked, drove his claws desperately into the scales of an asphyxiating talon. “So I’ll pardon your silence. If you give me your power to become formless. Amorphous. It’s something you must willingly relinquish.”

Wheezing, Farath spat on the talon. “That’s all you’ll have from me . . . you fucking adder.” I almost forgave you for losing the Fire. But you fanged me in the back there, too, didn't you?

I’ll kill you, Farath thought. He studied the dragon Addler. A despicably unnatural mixture of the human Addler, Kaffuron, Rendalli, Winfaf, the Fire and Farath himself. The mage-dragon was godlike and dwarfed four-story bookshelves, and comparatively Farath was a cockroach.

An idea came to Farath. It made his brow pull down and his lip pull up, but no other thing idea came to him. So he melted.

The mage-dragon spat his tongue, moaning hard. Blows of arousal rippled his scaly hide, as though it were a coat of chainmail struck by a gavel. Could he have underestimated his own strength; accidentally absorbed the little dragon? “No matter.” I am not so formless as a Storm cloud. I am transformed, a powerful dragon, and they should all see me that way.

But Farath was not absorbed. He had simply taken a detour, channeling himself in his amorphous form through the mage's system. Passing the mage’s heart, he felt something like a magnetic force trying to pry him of his individuality. He was glad when he had escaped.

He dripped from the tip of the gigantic tail like a raindrop from a gutter. He reformed into a dragon. He fled out a large, arced access into the Lexeum hallways far from Addler.

Addler's bliss ended. Realizing the Storm had escaped, his head-head flared open and he roared a fearsome roar. With an inflexible flex of his wings, the dome roof of the library exploded. Tiles barraged the avenue. One chopped a grocery wagon in two. Pedestrians cried, and scattered. Head high above the city, he bullied the library walls with his plated torso, bulldozing them down. A castle's-worth of crumbling sand avalanched to the avenue.

Yellow-gold trickling over his feet, Addler stepped on the street. Looking round, he saw the entire city. Quickly his care for the little Storm evaporated. For, when he set his eyes on the frightened humans he knew for the first time the primal hunger of a dragon for Man.

Shadow swallowing an apartment complex, he gazed down and saw a mother clinging to her child behind a toppled wheelbarrow of groceries. With a flick of his talon he launched the barrow away, and it splintered across the street with a great many cracking sounds. He lifted the mother clutching her child; dangling from a talon and thumb, she screamed. He made a V-shape with his jaws then dropped her inside and gulped.

The tiny snack was unsatisfying (Fruitful as a grape, he thought sourly). But rather than discourage him, it spurred his hunger for Man. So he perked his head up and searched the city for more to eat. Beyond bell-towers and spires, he saw hundreds of civilians amassed at the congregational courtyard to say praise for Lyzandre. Addler wet his lips.

Heavy gales swept rooftops clean, and sand sprayed from the interstices of buildings as the dragon’s colossal shadow flapped overhead. Addler was still halfway ‘cross the city when the congregation worshiping not Lyzandre but Farath tore apart with terrible screams. The director of the sermon tossed his idol of Farath down next to the one of Lyzandre and cried: “Forget it! Forget it all about him! Oh a new god, a true god, is come oh.”

Forepaws wider than mosque arches thumped the courtyard. The aftershock struck down men and women; and, hundreds of yards back, the harlequin windows of a spired temple rattled perilously. The giant dragon’s godly shadow tore over the courtyard and the temple’s towering entrance. Like little clothed ants, people fled across the lightless lawn: shoving, piling, climbing atop each other to escape.

The enormous dragon inhaled. Mingling his magic with his breath weapons and Storm powers, his breath vacuumed hundreds of bodies into his maw. They shot through the sky like flying carpets, fodder food to his infinite gullet. The final victim was the sermon director; his fingernails ripped tally marks across a wood podium till the vortex peeled his body off.

The tons of pounds of human prey pushed his stomach five meters down. It became a giant purple, wriggling watermelon. The gargantuan dragon belched monstrously. His 90% opaque belly burbled up a storm, digesting flesh and bone and processing clothing. Deep lines collected behind his dimples before he ground out another, thunderous belch. Bits of marrow and entire skeletons showered from his maw, buffeting the holy grounds. After his throat quit rattling, the courtyard looked like the ground below a graveyard.

His stomach constricted. The lithe, plated curve became only a couple meters below his ribs at the apex. Feeling the absorbed meals begin to kick in, the godly dragon grew again. His muscles warbled, groaned, thickened, tightened. With a delighted huff he stroked his wings, splaying them over the rooftops of buildings on either side of the courtyard. His senses sharpening, his power multiplying, his voice deepening, a ferocious roar accompanied the climax of growth, and he stood six stories tall: enough to cross the quarter-mile gap between him and the temple in but five paces.

His rich, barreling voice slammed over the city. “God! God! Look how I’ve grown while you hid, little Farath. Soon I’ll be stronger than all Lexic. You’ll not catch up.”

And he boomed laughter. And he flapped his mighty storm dragon wings stronger than Farath’s: and a tempest woke up and whirled and whipped, shattering temple windows and pulling trees from their roots and imploding houses. Walls of sandstone collapsed, great mounds washing over the yew flooring of quaking homes. And his absorbed prey, in their fear, wished Lyzandre would save them after his speech in Loreburn.

Loreburn. Probing the minds of his prey further, Addler learned Loreburn was about half an hour a flight from Paris Hub. Just half of his grin was greater than most mature dragons. He beat his wings and rose, his mind on absorbing Lyzandre Lord of All Magic.

* * *

Sulky, Farath traipsed down a hall. He’d been shrunken so small, some horses could mistaken him for their young. His vacant eyes carried heavy bags. “Not a dragon or god . . . just a man with what is mine . . .”

So he said to himself. So he aimlessly walked the halls, plotting to kill the man. The poser-dragon. And when he’d walk by, Lexic officials would bow. They feared he might be concealing his true form.

Beneath the lumbering judders of the mage-dragon’s movement across the city, Farath distinguished the sound of shouting people and dragons. Proud but not dumb, he ducked into a carriage-length aperture, lowering his opacity to camouflage his semi solid form; it made him look ghostly not sandy, but did the trick. The mob passed.

He smelled the alchemy of the lower council on them. Memories flashed. He blinked. When the voices faded, he followed.

Four humans and four dragons of the lower council had been assigned to investigate the cause of the interruption of Winfaf’s mirror summons. Yxelles the Yellow-Tailed padded and sniffed around the carpet of glittering shards in the mirror room: the room’s right wall was a gaping maw of morning light, obviously wrecked by whatever was worth a block purple alert. The Wood-Skinned Mage Lagos wandered the ruined library: he lifted up a cloak-of-plum and inspected the fabric. Sini Dragon of Poison backtracked: he spotted gooey pawprints heading into an aperture: he peered inside: the prints ended before reaching the ringed door at the end or turning around. Why?

Behind him appeared a silver blob, then shifted, like the clouds of a Storm shift, into the dragon Farath. The little dragon wasn’t higher than Sini’s rump. Yet, coiling back on his hinds, he compressed his muscles like a large, dominant creature.

Licking his lips, he said, “You’ll make for a nice meal,” and then he clamped his hungry chops into Sini’s tail.

Sini yelped, battering against both walls, charging down the ringed door and galloping into a study filled with bookshelves and a fire-conjuring place. The Storm’s jaws wouldn’t give. Sini dashed uncontrollably and he whapped down a coffee table and a desk, and paperwork combusted into the air. Bang! Poom! Pow! “Block purple!” the poison dragon cried. “Block purple on my tail aaayrck fack!”

Dropping into a roll, Sini flogged his tail over himself. Farath catapulted through a row of brick-thick tomes, the back of a bookshelf splintering. He crashed onto a scattering of books on an old rug, dust rising up with a groan. His amorphous structure had absorbed a quarter of the impact: still, pain throbbed and ached especially at the back of his skull. Snarling weakly, Farath bit into the old rug to anesthetize some of the hurt. The bridge of his snout was a rug too: scrunched up in the center of a scowl. Sini pranced crazily about the room. And “I got ‘em!” and “Yo!” and “This way” he cried, while always on the verge of tripping himself.

The silver pony-sized dragon picked to his feet, unsteady. He limped toward the hyperactive dragon, revenge on his mind. Sini turned and saw him. The magnitude of “dumbstruck” on his face tripped Farath up: he paused with his hungry maw half-open, eyes widened. A moment went by, their eyes locked. Then Sini he went “Om!” right into Farath’s shoulder. The backward fangs hitching deeply, distributing paralysis poison to the Storm’s bloodstream.

The small dragon’s high-pitch cry filled the room. His muscles tightened and body brightened, so if you squinted real hard you could see through it; little veins of purple trickled through transparent arteries, head to tail.

Overwhelming . . .

Infecting his bloodstream with . . .

Such tremendous strength.

The pupils of Farath’s citrine eyes slitted. His throat made an electric motoring sound: as the sound grew louder, Farath grew larger. Sini’s eyes opened to large what the fuck ovals. The building reverb of the growing dragon—the dragon growing bigger from his poison—multiplied with the dragon’s size. Farath could feel the poison dragon’s fear: feel the arsenal of neurotoxins bending to his will, swearing fealty to him. Sini jerked backward, but his fangs wouldn’t loosen. He tried again. And again. Backpedaling, he circled the disheveled study, failing to free himself; and the smaller dragon happily staggered forward, becoming four inches taller every step. Soon his eyes rose above Sini’s, shaped like half-moons and full of venomous thanks. Sini gulped and went white as milk.

Snapping, crackling and popping came from the Storm’s spine and tendons and ligaments, the silver shoulder growing huge as the poison dragon was lifted up. Farath devoured his size, devoured his power, siphoning and siphoning steadily . . . His muscles tensed, milking the poison dragon’s fangs dry. A purple glow framed Farath as his growth persisted. His enlarging wings spread and hammered the walls on either side, the middle of the roof crumbling down. And Farath he rose and he rose till the little room was a cramped box, and his whole head was more large than Sini.

A powerful throb of muscles released Sini’s fangs. The black-and-purple pony dragon whimpered and he hit the floor on his jaw, shivering. He felt wilted. Weak. But behind him the Storm dragon, now a story-and-a-half, teemed with the acquired strength and vigor. Stacks of purple miasma rose from his flaring nostrils.

Sini sprang up like a hare. He made a cute grr at the hulking menace—while his heels made for the doorway. The Storm padded over him, amusedly eyeing the poison whelp in his huge, huge shadow.

Or was Sini still poisonous? He sucked in breath. He loosed a terrible stream of poisonous breath—terrible in that he actually didn’t. Not even a spark of flames came. Farath responded with a quick gout of brilliant fire from his jaws, grinning. And then Sini felt truly helpless, and wished someone would come to help.

Footsteps rumbled the halls. Glancing backward, Sini saw the other seven of the lower council hurrying through the aperture, Lagos in front and Hale the Bearded Brown second. Sini turned and squeaked: “Y’all came! Thank goodness!” But he felt the terrible grin of the Storm behind him, and dark clouds enshrouded his joy.

It wasn’t until the fallen door grumbled under their feet Lagos and Hale saw the great dragon’s beastly head, lower jaw slackened hungrily. The two of them paled at the skin and scale and tried to push back the five of the council entering, shouting “Size-stealer!” and “Get back!” But the other five of the council did not yet see the enormous dragon and called their truth a bluff. “Cowards!” “Cravens!” “Let us through!” they answered. And they pushed and pushed Lagos and Hales inside to their doubling dread, and then every last one of them tumbled into the room. The last of them trumped Farath’s size, not by much.

Filling the room to its capacity, the lower council except for Lagos and Hale circled the giant dragon and prepared to strike. “Light!” “Shadow!” “Earth!” “Water!” they said. And so they conjured them into their palms, or into their breaths. Lagos and Hales begged no; but Farath rumbled, and instigated much: “Go ahead—strike me!” And he was no masochist, but he meant it. And so the attackers attacked with seamless unity. Big bright bangs and blasts went up: kerboosh! kazam! katzanger!

Rip-roaring ecstasy. Fresh potent energy pounding, pumping into his hide . . . delicious power proliferating his flesh, blood, scales and bones. His maw ripped open with a deepening roar of arousal, and he grew rapidly. As he willed the elements to bend to him his already tremendous growth accelerated. Unable to contain the gargantuan, the study’s roof fissured open. Huge slates and stones were regurgitated into the room, but did not interrupt the fight due to a magical half-sphere that flashed into existence and protected the council. And Farath his vocal chords plunged deeply in tone, just as did the grumble of his muscles compacting with a great efficiency. His increasingly tiny hide began to whine and peel and with the new energy sprout new scales to assist his shrinking hide. Two feet taller he swelled, then four feet, then six, then eight. And by and by his attackers shrank to half their previous size.

But the attackers, full of faith and resigned to keep fighting, they eyed their new tiny selves transparently. Then they struck again. A buffet of flavors, spices, seasonings, aromas, delicacies filled Farath. The power he felt immediately swell his gut this much, then that much, then THAT much.

Licking his lips, he inhaled deep. He rose up then stomped on his forepaws, exhaling a smokescreen of sleep poison. At once everyone fell down, even Sini, whose response to “What would you do for some poison?” was once “Anything you want.”

While they slept Farath sauntered round the room, leisurely devouring them whole one by one. First to go was Yxelles the Yellow-Tailed, tasting of honey and cotton candy and dropping his belly over thirty inches with her seven-foot self. At once the venom wore off and she awoke, warbling, wobbling, gurgling out choked screams such as arrrbuwgrl, wbrrglburrrlg! Forks of light discoed out of the semi solid predator as she fought, but did naught of good save make it so you could see her shadow puppet of a silhouette panicking inside his translucent belly. Next to go were Praxus, Lagos, Channdrya and Horace, who swelled his gut but a finger-and-thumb’s measurement. Granted, the humans tasted interestingly dark and earthy with their elemental energies. And afterward Farath ate Hale, Tyreeth and Sini. And for all of them Farath he nulled their sleep poisons, so they’d wake up screaming off their heads to no avail. Great grasps of a genetically-enhanced gullet brought them roughly, wetly, to their end.

No doubt they’d’ve all bulged his gut to the carpet, had it been able to keep up with his furious growth and digestion process. Then finally he finished absorbing the thousands of pounds of prey. He pulled back his thick black lips as if for a yawn he’d been holding off on for a minute, then loosed a monstrous belch.

Unable to resist his stomach enzymes, the members of the council melted into mass: became one with the Storm: added to the Storm’s reservoir of power. Now he stood over forty-five feet tall. He was bigger than he’d been before that snake, Addler, stole it all. He closed his eyes and tuned into his arsenal of new abilities.

Manipulation of light, shadow, earth, water. Breath weapons. Poisons.

His senses were sharper. Now he could smell the musty city streets and the morning dew and the bookish, sandy smell of the study all at once. And he could smell the salty fear of the Lexic men hidden around the corner of the aperture, too afraid to show themselves. Every smell was so keen, he could taste them when he drew breath, too.

Though Addler was now smothering every sound in the city with his voice (some malarkey about surpassing Lyzandre), Farath could still pick up the human scared out of their minds saying, “Who do we worship now?” and something else: “Does Lyzandre know? Do we send for a messenger to Loreburn?”

What was Loreburn? Farath probed the imprisoned minds of those he’d absorbed, and discovered this: Lyzandre. On twenty-five of the eight-and-thirtieth cycle, scheduled to speak to the people of Loreburn. Will not be with the upper council.

Why not? Farath dug for the answer. But his head ached whenever he came too close. It wasn’t the council resisting him . . . more like a barrier. A spell. Not knowing posed for him a risk. But it’s a risk I have to take. To see Lyzandre. To obtain the power of the fifty-two year hegemon. To crush the snake man. The poser-dragon.

Suddenly Farath felt Paris Hub go THWURNK, like a ball on string and paddle. He recovered, looked north and saw Addler soaring off in a direction the imprisoned minds told him led to Loreburn. Baring his fangs, he dove into the sky not far below the clouds, decimating the inside of the tiny study. The Lexeum bid him farewell with a bang-da-da-bang-did and a hundred jettisons of golden sand from the sides of walls. Time was slipping away.

* * *

Lord of Magic and All the Lands Past the Irreverent Divide, Lyzandre, wearing his six-foot-two half-dragon shape, sat in a lanky chair-of-black with his arms rested on the chair’s and his buckled boots-of-black on a level cushion and his robes-of-black writhing like necromancer fires. Six horns black as pitch pitched back from the back of his human head. A slender tail-of-black scythed thrice at the tip went under one of the chair’s arms and idly swished at his side.

A dome-roofed stadium of mahogany vinyl seats housed thousands, both human and dragon, who’d attended to see the Lord speak of the state of the Land, and of famine, and of magical alternatives to food. (Which, the latter of, he’d publicly scorned in the past.)

One by one, members of the audience whose questions had been previously approved got their green light and magical vocal projections switched on, and asked.

And this was Lyzandre: always elusive, yet always illustrating outcomes to the solutions which were positive and loved and adored. And so opinions of him were positive; and everyone loved and adored him for speaking to them so plainly, as he would to guests in a living room. And those who did not love or adore him would eventually not have living rooms. For, the living rooms would just be rooms. For, the bodies in them would not be living.

When he finished the audience made a great arackadackle of applause, and praised him and all days to come. He smiled thinly. He poured a libation to the Lands then raised it. The glass gleamed. And then suddenly there was a thrashing that made all the people hold to their seats, and look around and gape; and off both sides of Lyzandre’s glass wine thrashed, spilling on his robe and down his sleeve, and whenever it touched the robe, sizzling. The shapeshifter only grinned, and he had dragon’s teeth.

“That would be the new ‘gods,’ ” he said. For, Lexic knew the mage-dragon and the Storm, and whatever intel was Lexic’s was Lyzandre’s.

A great scraping came from the roof. Hundreds of flights up, a great cookie cutout of metal peeled back like a shaving of wood. And down came the godly dragon Addler, basked in an astral halo of light. So he came down and, clapping his gargantuan wings closed, hit the expansive gravel floor with a great clattering. And he took up half the stadium, and was so huge, his head projected past Lyzandre and had to bow to meet his gaze. But the Lord he acted as though nothing was new and, finished dotting himself with a kerchief, poured himself another glass of Scarla Tor. He looked up at Addler, sipped curtly then said:

“Hello little one.”

The crowd awed, looked at one another, writhed anxiously. Addler’s head-hood retracted awkwardly, and he looked like a snake who’d tasted enough of his own venom to be dazed. He blinked blankly, pressured to retort, but did not know how. Act now or die, he thought to himself.

Then the crowd erupted in a screaming fanfare. Jagged white peaks flashed apart, and the rumble that came from thousands of pounds of neck lurching at once was leviathan. For an instant the giant dragon’s maw engulfed the world above Lyzandre: a flash of humidity: an infinite flesh tarpaulin.

And like that the Lord assumed his true shape: and a great stramash was caused: and the Lord now a colossal black dragon pounced the other out of his pounce, and it was a voracious rejoinder; he devoured him whole before he hit the floor. And when he did, and was already in his half-dragon shape on a knee. The landing spread spiderwebs of meteoric cracks across the expansive gravel floor. Lyzandre rose wearing but breeches, a veil of necromancer fire round him cooling. His stomach was distended as though he did eat a large buck or goat but certainly not a six-story dragon. But he did. Then Lyzandre he set his hands on it and, pushing deeply into it with his fingers, let out of his mouth a deep, mountainous, stomach-purging belch. Bones, bones, bones, bones, a skull that could house a hundred men: an entire dragon skeleton cannonaded out of the half-dragon’s maw, which mind you only got eight inches in diameter. The whole stadium reverberated and rum-da-dur-rum-da-dur-rumm-ed for an extraordinary nine seconds.

Then Loreburn went still. One could walk all day round the goliath dragon carcass Lyzandre belched up, and still get only a few dozen laps in. New meteoric cracks layered over the oldies covering the expansive gravel floor. The audience was in such awe. And then Lord Lyzandre began to walk, and they watched and revered his gait as they’d a god’s: a god pecking the corners of his lips with a kerchief, reaching a lanky black chair, seating himself then settling himself as though All were According to Plan. Then, flourishing his hand in the calm of reclining, he said to them:

“Every dozen or so years, some megalomaniac does that. Do you all remember the time Polygamus he tried to assassinate me? Eh? Well, you may’ve been young; it was twenty-two years ago, come to think. And before that it was Yggradel tried to do the same. All of them, the same, treacherous and disorderly. But every time, I’ve overcome them; and every time I will still do so until the end of time.”

Thus, the Lord Lyzandre. And a moment passed with not much: just people letting his words marinate. And then a roar of applause went up, and some literal roars went up, too. Celebrating the triumph of Order, everyone felt spiritually patriotic.

At this point Farath, who’d been watching from the open roof, felt the Lord’s gaze pierce his Soul. He shook his head to recoup. Instinct screamed inside Farath: Fly! Fly and begone! You may live for a thousand more years yet. But, feeling drawn to the shapeshifter, he leaned more and more off the ledge. He dived.

Down came the godly dragon Farath, basked in a halo of light. On landing, his wings writhed like a cloak in a fantastic turbulence before cooling off. The mage-dragon’s gargantuan skeleton went CRAAA-ku-kucklkucklkuckl, the CRAAA when he hit the floor and the rest while its manifold bones bounced around the Storm and the Lord. There was this space of uncertain scrutiny: the Lord delicately tipping his glass to his lips without any shift of body language. The spectators seemed perplexedly sorry to see a second elephant enter the room, seeing that in it elephants did not last long.

Farath at first was ready to eat the bastard then and there. Then Lyzandre’s eyes glinted. The Storm was luckless and looking into them: and he fell into a jarring, dreamy stupor. He shook his head to recoup. He backed up then bounded.

Jaws flashed.

A palm went up. Farath froze in midair. The palm went down. Farath was smote to the floor. A delayed hiss came from his weakly twitching body. Coming to him, Lyzandre put a palm on his muzzle and spoke:

“Farath, Farath . . . so you’re the one the conspirators say those manuscripts in Scrome say of. ‘The Storm will end and the reign be no more.’ Something of ‘reign’ and ‘rain’—double entendres they say—but I pay no mind to idiots.

“Farath! Little thing. You’re the one they say can become amorphous eh? Something of ley-lines and double-helixes—something Addler says. Hm. He says I cannot take from you your amorphous power through physical consumption. You must give it willingly eh? Well we will work on bending your will these next few days. But first, let me take from you all this attention-attracting size you don’t deserve.”

The palm opened up and stole the light. Farath blacked out.

* * *

He woke in an empty prison without bars or doors. Just walls. How big was it? How big was he? He felt smaller, but still the powers of light, shadow, water and earth coursed were his, sworn and loyal.

Seems he was a lil’ delicate on ya, wasn’t he?

Angered by the voice, Farath gnashed his teeth at nothing. His eyes were glowing with rage, and the fans on his head erect. “Delicate am I? Show yourself and we’ll see who shatters.”

It’s the dragon you absorbed, Sini, the voice said. Besides, I didn’t say you were. I said he was a—

Which means he had to be careful not to crush me, is what it meant. The thought left a sour aftertaste. Sini, why mock me? Leave me be or I’ll banish you. And for a while Sini was silent. The Storm paced the prison nonstop. Elements rose and evaporated from him in his moderated wrath. He stopped and stood darkly, a Storm building up to a cloudburst. Then he began to blitz the walls with his plated chest and cursed: “Put a palm to me! Put me”—his voice cracking—“the fucking nerve—delicate!” And falling apart, he howled in distress into the prison. It resounded like a harsh bell, the echo overlapping, building, doing everything but refusing to shut up. Weakly he butted his head into the wall. “Is Lyzandre so . . . so . . .”

Unstoppable? Sini offered.

It was what he’d been thinking, indeed. But just Sini saying it pissed him off. Dammit. If I’d fought him half a century ago . . . maybe . . . But now . . .

But now what?

What do you mean what?

Well, give ‘er a think, Farath. Back in the Effort both of you were like hella strong, right? If he struck you first you’da been toast, but the same thing for him if you struck first. I mean if Addler ate that guy, he’d be the new Lord by now, right? He just didn’t end up the predator. You should try for that.

For . . .

For pouncing too fast to get pounced back.

Farath thought on that. Like Kaffuron. He won that match with sheer reflex. Likewise, Lyzandre won the one with Addler with what? Sheer reflex. So what if Lyzandre’s power was fifty-two years’ worth of stockpiling? It meant squat if you had it robbed under your snout; if you fell prey.

He nodded, tuning out the rambling Sini for now. He studied the prison, spotted a ventilation grille above his head. He nodded again. He sprang up. He splattered into a mess of paint then drained through the metal shafts. Ounce by ounce, he reformed as a blob in an air duct that he began to slink through, a silver slug. As he went, he left an effluvial trail.

Catching Lyzandre’s pumpkin spice scent, he bubbled out of a ventilation grille. Emerging thirty feet above a long hall, he began to crawl across the ceiling but came to a startled stop, noticing that his movements made light waver round a group of Lexic guards below. Farath knew suddenly from Sini’s voice in the back of his head, Whatever intel is Lexic’s is Lyzandre’s. So if they sighted him he’d be seen by the Lord, whereafter he may as well dig himself a happy place beneath the rubble of the shattered Monument of Memorial Hill, because then at least another power-hungry mage might resurrect him. So, tapping into his powers, he influenced the lighting of the room and fixed it a certain way for a period. Then he warbled hastily into the next room, unseen.

Dropping from the ceiling, he reformed into a dragon before a flight of steps. He scaled them, and at the top there was a roofless garden below many stories of balconies and a fat white moon. Two circlets of water surrounded the garden, joining to form two islet of trees; and on the very outskirts past the circlets, were hedges of berry bushes, and around them were balustrades segregating the garden from a frame of tile flooring and Lexic guards patrolling the perimeters by lamp- and torchlight. The night air was pure. But Farath’s nose was fixed on Lyzandre’s pumpkin spice scent, leading him toward a threshold just across the garden. To a human shout, then a couple more, his easy gait became a brisk gallop. The guards began to chant spells. But Farath was already gone: and in his wake, tendrils of h20 burst from the circlet and stuffed their mouths and strangled them from the inside out; and embraces of earth sprayed up and clayed entire bodies to death.

Dying sounds falling behind him, Farath slowed into a royal keep of luxurious red carpet. He stopped halfway up a set of steps, sniffing Lexic ahead. He lost form then softly slimed to the ceiling. He snuck past, smelling his way to a great door. He slipped inside. At the end of a long hall lay a satin curtain. His amorphous form split into like a guillotined hydra then shivered the curtains, snaking around the cleft of them. The night made a bedchamber black and blue, save for a streak of Luna illuminating the chamber bed itself. There lay the Lord motionless. Sheets tailored from the second side of the moon nobody ever saw came to his lap, his arms sprawled everywhere. Like his robe the sheets writhed, necromancer fires. But he was not wearing his robe now; just an ebon nightshirt.

The silver goo’s split form fused back together above the chamber bed. Farath was so close to devouring the most powerful creature in All the Lands Past the Irreverent Divide, drops of gooey drool dripped to the bed canopy.

He swooped down onto the canopy. Slowly, he dribbled down the edges, gravitating into the top of the interior. But as he worked his way down the backboards, doubt wiggled into his ear, infesting: Remember Addler, Farath? How HE feigned sleep? Shut up, Farath thought. But as he worked his way onto the mattress, the voice of doubt persisted. If you leave now you might live another thousand years yet, Farath. Shut up, Farath thought. But as he worked his way up the pillow and toward the Lord’s locks of fair ebon hair, the voice of doubt persisted. You’re dead meat Farath. Dead, dead, fucking dead Farath so dead . . . SHUT UP!

Lyzandre woke. He kicked off his shadowy sheets and screamed, fingers slashing at the gelatinous goop enveloping his head and upper body. Imagine a hungry, stretchy jellyfish: its transparent hood elongating over its prey with every voracious paroxysm, gluttonously gobbling, ballooning. The shrieking half-dragon began to make the amorphous goop gurgle and grow, absorbing one season’s-worth of the Lord’s accumulated power every second. Reforming, the goop became a dragon: a dragon copying every power Lyzandre had ever stolen into his double-helixes, groaning wonderfully. Cloudbursts of forked energy zapped his belly walls, only feeding him, so his body blimped bigger every time. Losing his tongue and panting heavily, he groaned: “Feed me . . . feed me all of it, half-dragon man! Don’t stop there!” He leached Lyzandre’s power so quickly, when the Lord transformed into his true form it was not so true: a ten-foot, nine-foot, shriveling version of the colossal dragon we saw before. Farath’s translucent belly bloated so much, it pushed his head into the canopy; and scraping sounds came from his horns. Every what-would-have-been-a-throb-of-growth for Lyzandre became a blinding flash of blueblack aura, and Farath went ruut—ruuut—ruuuuuut! becoming bigger and stronger and his groans deeper and bassier, smothering the burbling sounds of his tightening belly. Digestive juices gurgled away at the howling, sporadically shapeshifting (dragon half-breed raven dragonagain losingformlosingformlosingformlosingform) Lord of Magic. He got his wish; he became amorphous, but only because he was melting and losing form. Sticky appendages of condensed goop entangled the liquefying Lord, squeezing him, sucking him dry of size, energy—everything—as he struggled, gasped and shrieked like some purgatorized banshee. Until the tentacles poured into his open mouth, silenced him and devoured him hungrily from the inside.

Farath got off the bed. At once changes happened to him. Three black scythes appeared on his tail. And a veil of black fire burst around his body. And he became huge, as tall as two stacked elephants. And Lyzandre’s scaly coat of black slagged off of his body and added to his own; ebon scales changed into silver ones, resplendent and polished. A third set of horns developed, budding below his second set. When this was done, the Storm reared his mighty head and let a bestial roar judder all the walls and pillars of the royal keep. The power! This new, amazing shape!

Then the great dragon appeared troubled. His black lips involuntarily pulled back into a quivering C, and then he let up a loud “Bwaaaalurrracp!” His stomach grew smaller. “Gwluururuoorrk!” His stomach grew smaller. “HROOAAAAAAWWWWUWWUR-R-R-R-R-R-R-RRUROORRRALCHHH!” His stomach flattened perfectly.

As the last of Lyzandre’s physical form melted away, Farath felt something shackle his mind. He lowered his head, grunting sickly. A fair voice rang: Farath . . . a wonderful host . . . your powers and your ability to lose form, all mine now, mine, mine! The laugh of a wild male wood nymph needled through his mind.

The fever of rage that came over Farath was a true Storm’s. I’ve had enough of you. You fink mages, faux dragons, false gods. The veil of black round him whipped into a dark tempest. It caught lamps, chairs, bedsheets, portraits from the walls. “I am host to no one. Begone forever, half-dragon man.”

And he bent his will and exorcised the half-dragon. And a roar heaved out of his chest, deepened by transformation. And suddenly subtle traits of the Lord appeared on him, influencing his teeth, tail, horns, scales, and silver hue. That was the last of Lyzandre. The tyranny of the Order of Lexic was no more.

Roused by the tremors, humans (who believed they were Lexic but were no longer, because as I just explained, Lexic was no more) rushed for the bedchambers. Gaunt hands ripped the curtains open. Pouring into the room, the humans saw satin drapes flapping out of a double casement window. Below the fat white moon, the storm dragon’s silhouette hung suspended in the night sky, wings spread. Then time continued. He flapped and roared, leaving the sight of mortal men. That’s when they looked down on the floor and saw the skeleton of dragon Lyzandre the Storm did not realize he had belched up. The men still did not believe the tyranny of the Order of Lexic was no more, but their faith would fade in time.

* * *

A twenty-foot tall Farath soared the starless sky. Starless because stormy clouds swallowed up all the shine, save the moon’s. His silver scales were breathtakingly terrific in the moon’s seraphic light. All his scales shone with concealed mastery. Though the accrediting dark fires and the tempest were gone from him, take one look at him, and you’d shiver and know he was the most powerful creature in All the Lands Past the Irreverent Divide. It was as clear as the sound of an ear ringing.

So he flew—delighting in the quality of the air with his enhanced senses—until he felt a mental tug.

It was Addler. Forgive me, O Farath. It was the power drove me. I forgot myself and betrayed my best friend, a dragon very important to me. The tears he imagined, Farath was forced to imagine too. They were so pitifully salty, the dragon reeled. Do you remember how good you felt to be given a second chance at life?

Farath replied, “I remember asking why I’d been returned to a world and a body so bleak. Now begone forever, snake.” And he bent his will and exorcised the snake. Then the snake was no more.

So he flew—contemplating what he would do now—until he felt a mental tug.

It was everyone else. Damn you, dragon! Damn you and damn your spawn for five generations! Free us!

Farath replied, “I’ll free you—from your misery.” And he bent his will and exorcised everyone. They were no more.

So he flew—coming close to knowing what he would do now—until he felt a mental tug.

It was Sini. Good thing I hid, or I’d be gone too. Well Farath, I hope I make a good case cuz you prolly think I’m like all the rest of ‘em. You think you know what you’re gonna do next but I’ve looked into it, and you don’t really. But I know some things that can help you, and I can help you even more if you set me free. And he imagined the things he referred to, and was quite convincing.

Farath replied, “I could take everything you’ve shown me and use it without you. But you helped me before, and I’m better than Addler.” This time he did not bend his will. “As for your body, we’ll see about that. I’m enjoying the electrical feel of your venoms in my teeth and talons too much for that yet.”

It was decided.

So Farath turned his nose toward the constellation The Prancing Whelp, and his body hitched that way too. He would become more powerful than Lyzandre ever was. He would go where Lyzandre had never gone before. So he flew. Flew for the Mountains to the East. Flew for the lands on the Other Side of the Irreverent Divide.