A Fiction Story About A Boy And His Warrior Father
Magic Honey
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The first thing you need is magic honey. You can buy it online. It comes in a jar or an aerosol spray bottle. The spray bottle has better results, but the beeswax in the jars makes for a more stable formula. I recommend the spray bottle.
Spray your whole body with magic honey until you smell like a bee and you look like a giant honeycomb. Then go outside and sit down on top of a rock where there’s sun on your back. Let the magic honey do its work.
You should see what happens next. But if not, then go home. You have no business here.
It was all happening too fast for me to comprehend.
My legs had become jelly-like and weak, and my mouth is dry as sand. I could feel everything—everything—in slow motion.
I watched in wonderment. A woman appeared, floating above me, her arms outstretched, fingers curled around something. She seemed to be glowing from within, her eyes burning bright red. Her hair fell across the sky, and when she moved that way I saw the shape of a dragon beneath the strands.
Her mouth opened wide in silent song, but nothing came out. Her words were lost in the wind. Instead, she made the air ripple with the power she held, and her voice filled my mind.
“There are others coming.”
She spoke in a language so old and pure the word “language” itself is inadequate to describe it. I understood it at once. My own mother tongue, my first language: she was speaking the words of my people.
The world changed, and I knew I wasn’t alone any longer. In her presence, I felt the weight of their sorrows. They called themselves Dragonslayers; they had fought demons before. And even though they were now far away, their memories still burned in my head, and this gave me hope. I felt as if I should cry tears of joy, but my throat was dry as sand.
“You will fight them,” she said. “You must.”
But how could I fight? I was just one man. What chance did I have against an army of monsters? And even if I could defeat such a force, would anything else follow?
“Do what you think is right,” she told me. Then she turned her attention toward the approaching horde of creatures. There were thousands upon thousands of them, swarming over the ground like ants on some enormous anthill.
Each one of these creatures had eight limbs, each limb ending in sharp claws, and every single claw glowed like an ember. Their bodies were covered in scales as thick as glass, and those scales gleamed like steel in the firelight.
Some of them had wings that flapped with such ferocity they almost seemed to move in slow motion, while others simply hovered above the land, their eyes blazing red.
All of them bore weapons—blades and spears and axes and hammers and swords. All of them had faces as ugly as mine, except for the horns that sprouted from their foreheads. Those horned heads turned my way and I thought I saw recognition in their gaze, as if they recognized me, too. As if we knew each other.
“You will die,” said the woman, her lips twisting into a sneer.
And suddenly it all became clear.
“We’ve been tricked!” I yelled at her. “They’re not here to kill the demons! They’re here to kill us!”
For the first time ever, I felt myself smile.
“Yes,” she replied calmly. “But we are also the only things that can stop them.”
A great wave of emotion washed over me, and I wanted to scream, but the words wouldn’t come.
“We have no choice. We must fight,” she said. “Or there will be nothing left to save.”
I looked up at her. She was beautiful in her own way, and she carried herself with dignity and authority. If only she’d smiled, or laughed once… but instead she just watched me with her glowing eyes, waiting for me to make my decision.
“I will fight,” I said quietly.
Her eyes grew brighter.
“Good man,” she said.
Then she was gone. She didn’t say goodbye, because there wasn’t time for that, and she certainly didn’t offer me advice about fighting demons. She just vanished into thin air without so much a bit of good luck.
Instead, my thoughts turned to what had happened to her and her friends. What did it take for someone like her to become a Dragon? I had no idea how they did it, but I knew she had been born that way, and she hadn’t asked to be a hero. She was just one woman among many who were fighting the same battle as me—fighting to survive the night and protect the people they loved.
At that moment, I realized that I didn’t want to be a hero. I wanted to be myself.
So I made a vow then: I promised I would do whatever was necessary to save the lives of my friends and family. Even if that meant sacrificing everything I owned. Even if it meant dying horribly. But I would do it because that is what heroes do. That’s what my people always did.
***
My father used to tell me stories, as long as I could remember, of the battles of his youth. He fought the orcs in Kavol’s Reach, where he lost his arm. His sword got stuck in an orc’s spine, and he had to pull it out with his teeth, just as he’d done when I was little.
He fought dragons in the mountains and giants at Mount Grief. He defeated evil sorcerers in the Great Plains, saved the life of the King of Tark, and drove off the Dark Lord from the Drava after his son, Prince Rys, died. He fought for the king; he fought for his family.
He was a brave warrior who fought on the front lines of every war. It never bothered him that I hated the military, although I had tried to get him to teach me to box. Instead, he would read the newspaper aloud every morning, telling me about new wars being waged across the planet.
Sometimes, if I was lucky, he would bring home souvenirs. The last time he came back from one of those battles, he brought a piece of the demon’s hide. He showed me how he could burn it into his skin, and I wondered if that was how he got burned badly in his leg, too, but we never talked about it.
“You are like your father,” my mother told me, and she held my hand tightly as we stood on a hill overlooking the Drava. A group of soldiers was training, preparing for a battle I knew I couldn’t win alone. I knew they weren’t ready either, but they needed to know their roles before they got killed trying to save me.
“Don’t you want to go?” my mother asked.
I shook my head.
She smiled at me, tears in her eyes. “I’m sorry,” she said. “But there’s nothing we can do now.”
I nodded.
“You should leave this place and travel the world,” she said. “There are many places where monsters aren’t a threat. You should see them someday.”
I shrugged.
“If I die, then I’ll be reborn,” I said. “Maybe next time, I won’t be so stupid.”
She sighed, looking away from me, toward the distant horizon. In the distance, the clouds began to darken, and the breeze changed, picking up strength as if the weather had heard our conversation.
“We don’t know that,” she said softly. “Perhaps next time will be different.”
The sky turned black, and the rain began to fall. The thunder rumbled, shaking the ground as flashes of lightning lit up the whole of Drava, showing me the enemy army gathering behind me. They formed ranks like giant monsters, and the lightning flashed again, revealing the dragon who flew high above us with his fire in his claws.
“What a waste of time,” he snarled.
I felt my legs begin to tremble, and my fingers grew cold. “This isn’t over yet,” I whispered. Then I ran down the hill and straight into the line of fire, not caring whether or not I lived or died.
***
Kovas watched the news footage and listened to the radio reports as if he were watching something terrible on YouTube instead of seeing it happen firsthand. There was nothing to watch, and he couldn’t hear anything because all his radios went dead, but he couldn’t stop listening.
He couldn’t believe what he was hearing about himself: Kovas the murderer; Kovas the coward; Kovas the killer who shot unarmed civilians.
All of these labels, and none of it is true!
How could anyone listen to the words coming out of the mouths of the witnesses, some of whom admitted they were drunk on the night of the riots, and still think it wasn’t his fault?
It seemed everyone had an excuse for why it was all Kovas’ fault—and he didn’t have any excuses for himself.
“That’s not fair!” he shouted angrily at no one in particular.
He walked around the living room of his apartment, thinking things through. It was all very simple; he just needed to prove his innocence and everything would work itself out. It would be easy to prove his innocence.
First, he needed to make a list of the eyewitnesses and interview them individually. Each one would claim they saw something different, which would mean that only one of them was lying. That wouldn’t prove anything unless he could figure out who lied.
But Kovas knew exactly who the liar was—he just couldn’t prove it. But if he could, then he could prove his innocence without ever having to talk to the other witnesses, and he could go home to his wife and son.
The problem, as always, was proving that he hadn’t done it, which was impossible if his own people were spreading the lies. If he couldn’t prove he didn’t do it, then the whole world might believe him guilty.
He took a deep breath. Maybe there were ways to find out who really told the lies.
The first thing was first, though. He needed proof. His mind worked furiously, trying to come up with some way to gather evidence. He thought for a moment, and then he came up with a plan.
Next time, I’ll catch them, he thought.
And then he grinned at his brilliant idea and began writing it down on a piece of paper.
***
I waited on the edge of the rooftop, hoping my father wouldn’t return until after I had made my plans. The city was burning in flames, and the streets filled with bloodied corpses, and the smell of death surrounded me. There were fires everywhere, and there was nowhere left for the rioters to run except toward me.
I had been running since the night the riots began, fleeing from place to place in case they caught up to me and destroyed me. When I finally reached the roof, I knew there was no escaping; the whole city was going to be burned if I didn’t stop this madness right here, now.
“Who do you serve?” a voice asked from nearby, and I knew I was too late.
My body trembled, and I felt myself losing control again as my father’s hand touched the hilt of his sword. “Tell me who you serve,” he said.
“I serve no one,” I replied evenly.
His eyes narrowed as he drew closer to me, the sun beating down on him and making his face glisten. “You’ve betrayed your masters!” he shouted.
“No, not like you think,” I replied calmly. “I only served the humans.”
The dragon snorted. “The humans have betrayed you,” he growled.
“Not the ones in New York, and not the humans who live here,” I answered.
My father glared at me and then lowered his sword. He turned back toward the fire. “Do whatever you must, Dragon Killer.” And with that, he disappeared in a ball of flame, leaving me alone on the rooftop, staring at the burning building below.
***
In the morning, I went back to his apartment and found Kovas gone. The police were searching the house for a man they believed committed crimes against humanity on the night of the riots, so I didn’t want to stay there.
I also didn’t know how much trouble I’d get in for being seen entering the place before Kovas came home. So I decided to take a stroll, and see if I could find Kovas somewhere else.
I walked across town, passing by many buildings that were already burning. In some places, like Times Square, there were still plenty of people milling about the street, watching the chaos. But in other parts of town, the rioters had been able to burn everything they could lay their hands on, and the streets were deserted except for rubble and ash-covered bodies.
Some of those who survived the riots were wandering around, crying, or calling out for help, but most simply vanished into thin air once the riots were over. It was almost as if they’d never existed in the first place.
Eventually, I came to what was left of the old Brooklyn Bridge, and the waterfront. Most of the buildings along the waterfront had been set ablaze, and it seemed as if there were several fires burning on each side of the river. As I walked past the bridge, I noticed there was someone waiting for me at the far end.
“Hello,” she said softly.
A shiver ran down my spine and made my tail curl tightly under me as I recognized her voice. For a moment, I wondered if Kovas had brought another woman back to the apartment, and I didn’t know. Then I remembered how Kovas had left him, and I realized that he had probably just come back here himself.
“What do you want?” I asked. My voice was flat and cold.
The dragon’s head swiveled around slowly, and she stared directly at me. She was dressed in a long green skirt and a white blouse, and she carried a basket of food on her arm. Her hair hung loosely around her shoulders, and her skin was dark brown, almost black, like a coffee mug.
“Are you the one who murdered my master?” she asked.
“Killed your master?” I repeated numbly, looking at the ruins of the city surrounding us. “Why would I do something like that?”
Her brow furrowed slightly. “Your master killed mine, and we’ve come to take vengeance.”
“No,” I said firmly. “That can’t be.” Kovas loved me above all things.
She laughed a harsh and grating noise. “It’s true! I was there, and I saw the whole thing.” She paused, frowning, and then continued, “Well, I didn’t see it happen; Kovas told me about it after he rescued me. He said that Kovas saved me. He told me that Kovas saved me from you. And then I heard you say ‘I serve no one,’ and I knew you had to be the one.”
I tried to speak, but no words came out. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I thought Kovas was trying to protect me, and now it looked like he’d betrayed me instead. Had he planned this entire thing? If so, why did Kovas leave him alone when he was hurt? Was I really that stupid? Kovas is a great warrior, I thought numbly. Maybe he even wanted to kill him.
But I couldn’t accept that Kovas could ever kill another living creature, especially without knowing it was happening.
I stood silent while I considered my options. Should I try to run? But where should I go? And if I stayed, what did I hope to accomplish, other than becoming a meal for a dragon?
After a few moments, I took a step forward. I stopped right in front of her and stared deeply into her eyes, and she stared back. Her face was beautiful, with large almond eyes and full lips. She appeared older than me, maybe in her twenties or so, but I couldn’t tell for sure because her features were very unusual.
The skin of her cheeks was dark and smooth, and she had a high forehead and narrow nose. But her chin was strong and firm, and there was nothing feminine about her. No hint of femininity. This wasn’t a woman Kovas had fallen in love with.
Then her eyes flicked away from me and she turned toward the river behind us. There was no question about where she was going, and she moved as quickly as any human would have.
Without thinking, I stepped up beside her. “You won’t get far,” I called.
There was no reply. Instead, she reached up and grabbed a small wooden crate off the dock at the edge of the water, then jumped down onto the rocks that jutted out of the river. I followed her, leaping down and landing easily on the ground. Then we began to move quickly along the shoreline, heading west into the river.
“Don’t worry,” I told myself. “If she catches me, I’ll just kill her.”
I kept watching the water as I walked alongside the dragon’s back. It was deep blue, almost too blue to look at. In some places, it was darker than others, but not many. That was strange—usually, the ocean is blue or gray, and the rivers are murky and muddy. Why was this river so clear? What was wrong with it?
The dragon slowed suddenly, and we both stopped. We stood on the rocks by the riverbank, gazing out over the water. The sky ahead of us was completely white now, and I felt the sun beating down on me, making my scales burn.
As far as I could see, the sea of clouds stretched out forever, curving away until it met the horizon. They weren’t as tall as the mountains in Colorado, but they were still taller than anything else I’d seen before, except maybe those strange structures atop the hill. The clouds were thick and white, with a faint red haze at their base that reminded me of blood.
I tried to estimate how many miles there must be between me and the nearest cloud but gave up when I got lost in the math. After all, I didn’t know which direction was south or north, let alone what latitude I was in.
Instead, I watched the sky overhead, fascinated by its color, and the way the sunlight made it shimmer and glow. Above the white layer of clouds were more clouds, but these ones were dark gray with white edges around them.
These seemed brighter than the clouds below, and they moved slowly, rippling and undulating against one another. I thought perhaps there might be a rainstorm coming since this area of the ocean was always drier than the land. But it was too warm for rainstorms yet, and I didn’t think there would be any storms here today, even if there was an approaching storm elsewhere.
The End