The Dragon Comes (The Serpentine God #1) Page 2

  “Shower?”

  “Then we’ll deal with language.”

  When he mastered how the shower worked, he hummed under the warm water. Clean and refreshed, he cleant his teeth, not unlike home, though the mint was more pleasant than the herbs of the wood.

  He wore a fluffy robe as he joined Dunalin, it was a poor substitute for his own.

  “I’ve nothing that will fit you, I’ll go out and get you some clothes in a minute. You must learn English; it’s not easy, but necessary. It’s a lot to take in all at once, and you will, but language first, it means that you’ll be able to access information and books, and learn about this world as you need to.

  “When I got here, it took months, and I lived like a beggar, as though I was nothing. It took me years to establish a life, to make money, which you’ll need here. I’m glad you’ll not have to go through it on your own. You must be sorry you came through, you’re one of the most impressive of us. I remember seeing you change for the first time we were all astonished. The man you’ve become could have led us, but now you are here. Trapped. There is no way back. I carried my anger for years, and it got me nothing. Now I just exist here, I live as best I can.”

  Petrio took in what he said. After a time, he nodded.

  “What about transformation?”

  “That is another subject. It is near impossible to change here.” Petrio looked stricken.

  “You learn to live with it. When the need is too great, I go out to the country, isolated, I have a place, but it takes time to get there. It was easier years ago, but there are so many people here, the places we can go are limited. I’m sorry.”

  “We accepted whatever our fate was to be when we ascended. Always destined to die in a war we did not understand.”

  Dunalin’s face darkened for a moment. “I will tell you of the things I know, not yet, you need to adjust. It is a challenge, but there are advantages once you can blend in.”

  “Such as?”

  “Women.” Dunalin smiled.

  “Really?”

  “Indeed my friend.”

  “I was promised, when I went through…”

  “They promise many things. Tell me, how were things with the war.” Dunalin pursed his lips.

  “Little news, the priests saw nothing in the portal, and our numbers dwindle still.”

  “I’ve learnt much here. Of history, nature, of people. Our two kinds are essentially the same, and through history people behave in the same ways over and over.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “Nothing, it’s just bitterness, do not worry, there are more important things for us now.”

  Dunalin went out and returned laden down with bags a few hours later. Petrio just looked out of the windows at the view, thinking.

  He dressed in jeans and shirt, all in black.

  “I could not think of you in any other colour.”

  “They are not heavy enough.” He bent his knees, still disconcerted at the two legs he looked down on, not his robes. “I can feel it, the need to change already.”

  He looked at his hands, and grimaced.

  “It’s painful, it’s never been painful.”

  “Only at first, but you cannot change here. Remember your training. When you went to the hills, and spend seven…”

  “Nights at the summit unrobed, and fighting the change.”

  “Yes. You must focus on your breathing. You need a woman.”

  “What?”

  “Sex helps with the need. But first, English, and acclimation.”

  “You’ve said this, English?”

  “It is the language. This is England, the people are English, and the language is called the same.”

  He nodded. They spent some time going over the basics, but Petrio had always been academic, he’d studied the laws and history, with an eye to lead their forces in time.

  Three. An education

  Petrio spent several days learning, he watched the television, a marvel of magic, and learnt to read English. He read aloud to familiarise himself with it, and found it wasn’t as hard as all that. He spent evenings in thought, as his training dictated, his breathing focused.

  Dunalin did not overwhelm him with all there was, he saved the internet for when he mastered the basics.

  “But how does it work?”

  They were sat at the desk in a small office.

  “You ask me too many questions, you can ask it.”

  Dunalin brought up the search engine, and from that moment, he was glued to it. He sought to understand electricity, the internet, radio signals, cars, space travel, gravity, relativity, he marvelled at it all. He studied the stars, where they were and looked for constellations of his home.

  Dunalin bade him to come and eat one evening.

  “I cannot find us.”

  He knew what he meant. “I know, I have found no answers. Ideas come to me about what has happened when I contemplate it for long periods of time, yet I have no firm answers.”

  “What are your ideas?”

  Petrio devoured the food. His hunger was extreme, as his had been for some time if he remembered correctly.

  “I think that maybe where our home is, is not charted yet, and think, the stars would hardly be as we saw them. The portal I cannot explain, nothing in this world can explain what we are, or the magic used.

  “The closest guess is a black hole, but that doesn’t not fit it does it?” Petrio shook his head. “What I really think it is a parallel world, another plane of existence, where the rules are different. Electricity seems like magic, but when you know the science of it, it’s rather disappointing. Where we come from isn’t anywhere you would find on a map.

  “When I think back, when I look at the history of this world, and I look at ours, I cannot help but think we were in a lie.”

  “How?”

  “Our world was being ravaged, by a war no one could see.”

  “That was centuries before, we fought them back…”

  “They came to us and attacked, but how, did they have a portal, did they come down and destroy our cities?”

  “Well, maybe…”

  “No. Our kind did it, we were the ones that destroyed our world.”

  “You’re wrong…we…”

  “A thousand years is a long time. I believe that when our numbers were great, we attacked the cities, we destroyed everything, who knows why, I have suspicions, perhaps for power, and I suppose we took it. I remember speaking with the old priest, he was telling me stories of the past, when the great creatures roamed the air, when the battles were fought.

  “I asked him how they got here, and he did not speak, then after a time, he said magic. What magic? That of the tar he said. On and on I asked him questions. I said we needed to end the war, we must find a way, and he said there was no way, it would all be over for us. I was chosen to go through the next day.

  “He looked at me when he put that cup to my mouth, and there was relief there. I don’t think any of us go to that moon, I don’t think they even know where we go, but they use the power of the remnants of our dead to get rid of us. Petrio, there is no war.”

  Petrio stood, he was confused, angry, devastated. He shook his head. “How would that come to be, how would that happen, if we were so mighty?”

  Dunalin sat back from his plate and smiled. “I remember a story from my childhood. I’m from a village on the basin of He’tain. It had once been the fertile land that fed everyone, but it had become desert, and few crops grew. We abandoned our village, and went on pilgrimage to The Last City. Many died on the way, and only fifty out of the hundred made it. My mother was the storyteller. In our village, it was usual for a woman to be so. She was strong, and lovely.

  “She had a deep voice, and one story always stayed with me. I can hear it now.”

  Once, there was a great and terrible king, he was a serpent and curled around his palace. He was Lord of all, and had destroyed many to get it. But there were still some who
fought against him.

  One such was a priest by the name Yohent, and he was fearless and powerful. As an apprentice priest, he had come across a great cave with a deep well of power. He used the power to fill his bones with magic, and he grew strong and as terrible as the Serpent King.

  The priest fought the serpent creatures when they came to the caves. He vanquished them all and took their power from them, by casting them into the well.

  With each kill he grew more evil and powerful, and was like the king himself by the time he went to the castle.

  The king could see the terrible thing the priest had become, and fearing for his many young, for the seed was sown widely, he sought to strike a bargain.

  Two powerful creatures such as they would bring the world to its knees, but the priest did not want to share power, so he destroyed The Great City, and all those in it, serpent or not. The two became terrible foes and roamed the lands, they brought to bear the end of all things.

  From the ash of what remained came new growth, saplings sprouted from the ashes, and man was born anew. Yet time and again the lands were destroyed, it left the two foes locked in perpetual struggle.

  Years passed thus, and in time, weary and worn, they stopped fighting. The serpent was spent and the priest would win in the end, for there was only the Serpent King left of his kind.

  He begged to make another bargain, a clever one. The half-breeds that were left, both man and serpent, should be spared, cared for but kept separate, and returned to their kind when innocence was to be lost, or threat loomed. The priest killed the king, but honoured his word, for the magic was tricky, and the Serpent King used the last of his power to curse the well.

  From that day, the serpent’s seed, when it became known, was weeded out, and the child taken and then sent to their doom, under the care of the priests for all time. The priest was bound by the task, for it took all his magic and strength to protect the well, and the serpents who were descended from the king. The priest diminished and became a slave to the power he destroyed the world for, bound as caretaker to the creatures he despised.

  “Did you know the tale was banned, my mother was forbade to tell it, as was her mother and hers before that. Our village was outside of the main villages, closer to the basin, so they chose to keep telling it.

  “In my great grandmother’s time, it was still green, there were crops for as far as the eye could see, all was desert by the time I was born. Our world is dying, and I think it comes from the magic itself, it is eating our home, sucking the essence out of it, and that isn’t our doing, but that of the priest and his magic. How many are there in the forest?”

  “A handful is left. Most of that came after me were too weak to change, there has been no others for a while.” A great wealth of sadness rose up in him, there was something he understood in the void, when the tar entered him, endless pain, eons of suffering. The truth of something terrible. He felt the truth of Dunalin’s words, he’d heard the story that was told, but it was shorter and altered, but still the same. It called to him as a child as well.

  As Dunalin had said the words, he could picture the great Serpent King in the palace, he could feel the warm ground up from where he came, he remembered the feel of the sun upon him, and the change that came, the ascension, as they all experienced it. The first flight, the feel of new wing in the sudden catch of the updraft, soaring for hours, the icy air steaming against the heat of their breath.

  Petrio closed his eyes, the experience was ecstasy, the freedom and joy of it. He felt a hand on his shoulder. Dunalin looked at him with the same sadness.

  “You feel the truth, you know it.”

  “Yes.”

  “Whatever magic that kept us there, what lies that were uttered that kept us obedient are gone, here, we are free in some ways and more constrained in others.”

  “Why train us for a war?”

  “Not everyone goes through the portal. The weak remain. Bade to be servants of the priests, unable to change, to live as slaves. It is no easy feat for the priests to use magic, it takes from them every time. Soldiers are trained to obey, they go to their doom out of duty. They separated the strong from the weak and sent us to our end. We were spun an elaborate lie, and over years, it became truth.

  “Enough, there is little we can do about it here, and now there is nothing for us to do, other than make the best of it. We are here, there are women, we have each other. I have been so alone for so long, it is good to have you here.”

  “I am glad to be here with you, brother.”

  Petrio smiled, but his pain caught him.

  “Rest now, you have some English, which we must speak in now, and tomorrow night, we will have women.”

  Dunalin looked easy as he drank his wine. Petrio was unsure of wine, but it seemed to take the edge off. The buzzer went and he stood, suddenly nervous.

  “Do not fear, you’ll be fine.”

  Five women came into the penthouse, and they all stopped and looked at Petrio in a mixture of awe and lust.

  “Ladies, this is my cousin. He is new to England, and to civilized society. He needs to learn about women, do not feel obliged, be warned he is very large.” He grinned.

  Dunalin told him that he had several women, one was never enough for his appetite, and he’d learnt that one woman would tire quickly. Over the years, he learnt several at once was best, as a result he had a small carefully chosen group of women, who were regularly tested, who were more than willing, and were always satisfied.

  Petrio didn’t understand most of what he meant, but nodded along. Taking many women at once didn’t really appeal to him, but he did need to learn. He was afraid that he would hurt them, and when Dunalin told him of the pleasure of a woman, he found the idea appealing.

  Two of the women approached. The first was tall, and very pale, with blond hair, the second was dark skinned, with cropped hair, her eyes were large and sweet. At first, he couldn’t move, and Dunalin laughed. The women took him by the hand and nudged him, he showed them to his room.

  They began to undress him, and he stood there mute, only able to watch them. Their eyes lingered at his crotch and he looked down.

  “Is something wrong?”

  “No, not at all.” They laughed and pushed him down onto the bed. He watched them undress, the naked form of a woman was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen, the only thing that was better was a women in ecstasy.

  Hailey and Amy had never been so well had. They had been astonished at the prowess of Dunalin, and free to have sex with each other, the times they all spent together were loving and satisfying. All other sex was ruined for them.

  But Petrio was a revelation. They spent the dark hours of the night showing him how to pleasure them, what they liked, he was gentle and slow, and firm when needed. He’d taken their instruction with precision, until exhausted they fell asleep.

  He woke with a woman either side of him. He blinked into the morning light. The itch was sated. He sighed in relief. He looked at the two women. He had been so restrained with them, so careful, the woman he needed to bed needed to be strong, tall, able to take him inside and suffer his weight.

  Although fine lovely women, he was terrified of crushing them to death, still, the experience was wonderful. He came six times, and even then, he could have gone on. Maybe one women was not enough.

  The ladies began to leave, and Amy and Hailey, both kissed him goodbye at the door.

  “Well?”

  “Yes, I like women.”

  “Like? From what we could hear my friend, it was more than like.”

  Petrio blushed. “Is your arrangement unusual?”

  “Very.”

  Petrio frowned. “I need a really tall women, one I won’t break.” Dunalin laughed over his coffee. “A women like that would be enough.”

  “A woman like that it is, shall we go out this evening?”

  Every night they went out, for two whole weeks, his frustration was mounting. He spent his days
in study, learning of earth. He found it a strange but captivating and vital place. The energy of it so opposed the slow weighted grind of home.

  He wondered what happened to the others, where they went, his friends and comrades lost in the universe.

  Nights were a tedium of bars and clubs, from the seedy to the elegant.

  Petrio took to wearing a heavy coat, it was better than nothing. The thick wool shielded him from the cold, as he and Dunalin walked down along the river. His eyes marvelled over everything, his home world felt strange and abstract already, like a terrible dream full of lies. He had thought about the last time he saw his mother, she had wept when he was taken, he was told it was an honour, yet all were quiet, people turned from him.

  He wondered if she was still alive.

  The busy roads and streets were almost too much, his eye darted from person to person, he turned to and from the little groups. He struggled to adjust to it.

  He burrowed his hands into his pockets, as the wind got up. He hated the cold in this form, and longed to be free.

  “You okay?”

  Petrio blinked and stilled. His accent was strong, and he spoke slowly. “The need to change is becoming all I can think about again, it is behind my eyes, I can feel it crawl under my skin.”

  “Bounce on your feet, go on.” He pulled a long moue and bounced his feet. Petrio copied him, ignoring the looks of passers-by. “What do you notice?”

  “I feel like I could jump…and fly. I feel light here. I felt it at first”

  “The very planet we stand on is not like ours. The gravity here is different, and everything is off slightly. There was always weight upon us, anchoring us down. Not here. We are stronger than they are, age slowly, we have no anchor.”

  “The robes.”

  “It is why you feel their absence. It is the weight.”

  “You said sex helps, why do I feel it so strongly?”