Chapter 35

"Charity"

I am not dead because it was far too loud to be a Mighty Hena's place of peace. The conversation going on about me was filled with many voices. I did not recognize them at first. One spoke in dragon tongue. It was a very distinct and somewhat mystical language, of which, I knew little. Their tongue was a highly coveted secret amongst their kind. Other creatures were not privy to it. The other two speakers used broken words of a much more familiar sort that cut themselves short only because they preferred to talk in tandem with one another. It must be the hounds given the way the dragon suddenly changed his way of speaking to the tongues of Hena. He must have picked it up somewhere. Dragons excelled in language and absorbed them only after a short time of exposure.

"State my business?" the dragon repeated, insulted. "You are the ones who summoned us!"

The foxes must be present in one form or another to illicit such a reaction. Their mental voices silent to prying ears. The dragon on the other hand, did not know shame or self-control or the volume of his own voice.

"If you did not offer summons, then who did?" he snarled.

The conversation must have been going on for some time. I sympathized with the dragon's annoyance.

"If this is a trick!" he bellowed, building heat.

The foxes said something, but I missed it when the shock of living struck my consciousness. My entire body throbbed. My gums and teeth were tender to the touch of my tongue, making even the breath across my lips sting when it touched my teeth. I kept my mouth closed to protect them. The ground beneath me was flat and painfully hard. We must still be on the altar.

"You mean to tell me a little Shadow Biter is to blame? For all of this?"

I felt the summoning of the name. It was what the dragons called the Mighty Hena. But my legs were stiff and tight. It was difficult to move right away. At least it was not freezing anymore. The cold touch of the otherworld was gone. Surprisingly, it did not feel like the heart of winter either.

"Where is it? It's still here, isn't it?"

I would have chastised the dragon's impatience, but I was afraid even my voice might agitate my teeth. There were many reasons I did not get up quickly.

"Move your tails before I rip them off!"

Things were getting heated now. I did not blow myself up in a toxic cloud just so a noisy temperamental dragon could trigger another apocalypse by tugging on the tails of a couple of foxes.

A heavy presence I did not realize was there suddenly lifted from me. The foxes must have finally come out from where they had been imprisoned or hiding or whatever it was they wanted to call their convenient excuse to do nothing, and were finally back in the real world. Without the weight of their tails, I was able to sit up onto my elbows quite easily. Opening my eyes in bright morning sunlight was a much more difficult task. There was a pause as I winked back to life. The dragon started laughing loudly. Full bodied and amused.

I must be a wretched sight. Lip bunched up on my scorched mouth. Mane singed and slapped around by slobber and flame. Frazzled and brittle while other parts dashed boldly at odd angles from spit and blood and who knew what else. All the while, my pinched gaze scanned the altar, feeling out the shadows taking shape around me. I lay in the middle of the stage. The last place I remembered to be. That was a good sign.

"We came all this way for that?" the dragon went on. "This is what you present to me?"

I was not insulted because I was not sure what to make of myself either. At least it still felt like all of my limbs were attached. The foxes sat near me. One to my left and one to my right. Each in the company of their respective hound. The dragon stood in front of me. His shadow took longer to clear since the rising sun cast it directly into my vision. I was grateful because it was easier to see that way.

"This can't be the Torch Bearer," the dragon rejected.

He stood on two legs with two smaller arms to balance him. His neck was long and tail even longer. The tip of which burned with flame. Smooth soft orange scales sheathed his body. They would thicken and harden to darker hues the older he got. His wings remained partially extended and at the ready should his temper flare and he need to throw a gust of wind or fireball our way. The dragon that stood before me was a freshly turned, but fully grown, Fire Lizard. Young and restless and inexperienced. It made him far more dangerous than an older one. Dragons lived for combat. To prove themselves superior to any and every force, especially those that challenged the status quo.

Turning his eyes, and the conversation, directly to me, he said:

"What does darkness know of flame?"

I sneezed then. Too much dust and ash and ghostly powder still stuck in my nose. The altar was covered in it. Crags filled with otherworldly mortar. To my surprise, flames burst from my mouth when I did so. The dragon was not the only one the foxes were toying with because I had neither the energy nor the Spirit for such flames. Yet my fire fang sprang to life anyway upon their insistence. It intrigued the dragon. His eyes jumped to life just like the flames. He stomped over to me. I clamped my mouth shut, cutting off the blaze just as he leaned over and roughly took my chin in his clawed hand, lifting my head so that we could look at one another. Emeralds flashed back at me, clear and sharp like crystals cut and polished to a shine.

His eyes darted out of mine and searched my face instead. The burns and heat and fire left a pattern only Fire Lizards could read. He probably knew more about the nature of the flames I came in contact with than I did, connecting me in intricate ways to my surroundings. His nostrils flared as he took in the scents, examining them in the special way only creatures endowed with the power of fire could. I did not appreciate the way he bunched my lips together to adjust my head. Then, he did the unthinkable. He pulled up my lips to see my teeth.

And for some reason, I let him.

A word of dragon origin puffed from his throat, light and smoky like his breath. More astounded than annoyed. The dragon then dropped his hand and stepped back a few paces. He spoke in much more weighty dragon tongue as he straightened. It sounded more excited than before. All tension gone. The foxes perked at this, understanding, or at least feeling, much more than I. Which meant it was not in my best interest to remain lying down.

I got up stiffly, but less painfully than expected. It meant I was more drained than injured. Weak from using all of my Spirit and energy rather than physical injury. Although, I was not without a few burns and scratches and blood. The dragon's enthusiasm dropped at my slow and quiet response to whatever it was he was saying. To my credit, the attention I was giving him was more than what should be expected given the fact I was supposed be in pieces scattered across the altar. That was a mystery I would have to solve at a later time.

"Do you not recognize me?" the dragon asked, more disheartened than disappointed or offended as he switched back to the tongues of Hena.

I did not, but there was something about him that kept my hackles down despite the fact that I stood before a highly dangerous species much larger than myself. Whatever it was also gave me the patience to endure his touch on my teeth like I would a pup. Which lead me to remember the only Fire Lizard I treated as such, long before I became Mother. At the time, that Lizard was a Salamander who had yet changed colors to the deep red of a Chameleon. I met this particular reptile during the height of the Bone Taker's power in the early Bone Wars. Back then, the Takers were so powerful they could revive the dead with their dark and twisted ways.

They would go into the deserts of the Bad Lands and steal Fire Lizard eggs and hatchlings for their rituals. Salamanders and Chameleons who were not strong enough to burn through bone. I remembered the way the Takers stuffed those orphans into their burrows with no family, no clutch, no mother or father or sister or brother to save them. Almost all of those creatures perished. One by one, the tips of their tails burnt or blew out. Yet there was one that survived despite all odds. I had plucked him from a sandy burrow and brought him to the mountains where I knew other Fire Lizards to be.

I always wondered what became of him. But there was a chance this dragon recognized me for an entirely different reason and there were few I could think of backed by goodwill. I caused much trouble in my youth because I always had the grasslands to run back to. There was only one way to be sure this dragon was him and not some other that might prefer to roast me where I stood.

"What is my name?" I asked of him to be sure.

The Salamander I knew preferred a summer's smile to a moonlit gaze, so the little Fire Lizard never spoke to me with affection. Only once did I hear any semblance of a name for me upon his lips, but it was in dragon tongue which was not close to the Mighty Hena's. I heard it on the night he traded paws for claws and left me and the pack to join the collection of dragons on the mountain. The oldest and most powerful Fire Lizard Champion had come down to investigate him. The Champion asked who it was that brought him because I had hidden myself in the shadows from afar. I still remember the way the Salamander paused, looked back to make sure I was gone, or so he thought, and spoke the name he had given me.

I suppose it represented his impression of me. Whatever that was. He said it again now in the present with gusto, making the name boom like a crack of lightning. I could not pronounce it. Only a dragon could. But I recognized it and smiled now just as I did back then.

"Ah, my Little Fire Eater," I remembered.

Invoking such a name for the strong and youthful and rebellious dragon in front of me made me old and foolish and happy.

"What flames have you tasted to become such a Champion?"

The dragon flexed his muscles, pumped his wings, bent his arms at the elbows and tightened his pectorals to show off the body he earned fighting dragon after dragon to make his way toward the top of Fire Mountain. Sunlight gleamed off of his smooth orange scales. He was strong of Spirit as one would expect of a survivor of the Bone Wars. For him to reach his mature form so quickly made him Blessed.

I too changed over the years.

"I am Mother now," I told him.

Nothing more came after. Mother of the Grasslands no longer sounded right. His name for me was also of dragon speech which was much too loud for my liking. When spoken, it brought memories of the Bone Wars back to life. A time that should not be invoked now that it was over. I did not want my legacy to be of violence.

"Modir," he repeated, feeling out an in between of Hena and dragon tongues.

Names were important for dragons like they were for Mighty Hena, but in different ways. Dragons liked short names so they could be fused with fire to become battle cries. The new word he used for me came to his liking, so he pounded his chest with a fist and shifted to stand as gloriously as he could.

"And I, Sumar," replied with a burst of flame.

My broken heart swelled to the point I thought it was whole again. Dragons named themselves, so they picked the names of things that were most important to them or made great impact on their lives. And I knew where that name came from.

"Sumar," I acknowledged quietly.

Sumar flexed again, this time, breathing flame and throwing a gust of wind. When he finished presenting himself, he looked around.

"Where is your light?" he asked, bold and abrupt and without formality as if we had never been apart for more than a hunt. "Where is Calin?"

I softened then, happy to hear Father's name as I knew it so intimately back then. Sumar was probably the only one who could say it out loud like that because he had been with us during that time. He was also one of the few who never feared the shadow we Mighty Hena carried on our backs because of his own hot light.

"Caught up to the sun," I answered.

Sumar nodded his head, looking over at the horizon line.

"I thought I saw him ride the sunrise," he reflected, envisioning a sunrise of glorious magnificence no doubt.

Sumar always knew he would outlive us as a dragon so his feelings did not change upon confirming Father's passing into the next life. I saw a glimpse of the Flaming Champion he was to be then. It gleaned off of his scales, parts still sleeping in the shade of his face where the light and shadow liked to play. With this news, Sumar would likely start watching the sunset for the day he would catch my passing. He then turned his head to look at me again. Emerald eyes flashing.

"I must repay the life you spared," he said, because it was unlikely he would get another chance.

This meeting between us was already a miracle and a dragon in debt had no honor at all.

"Ask of us what you will."

Us?

Eyes finally adjusted, I looked around a little more closely. I was where I remembered myself to be, but the altar was not how I left it. Most of the smoke and clouds had cleared. The miasma successfully burnt out of existence. A residual wispy haze still drifted in waves where the now smoldering fires had burned nearly a third of the mountain bare. The explosion had razed the trees at the top of the mountain, revealing a panoramic view down the range, out into the expanse of the grasslands and the valley below. The pillars surrounding the altar finally fell prey to history. Some had toppled over in the concussion and cracked. Others were blown to chunks and pieces. Those that remained standing appeared mauled and battle worn. It opened the altar entirely to the sky so no creature could hide while upon it.

The foxes and their hounds watched our exchange with great interest. Fire Lizards harboring refuge with the pack and Mighty Hena words on dragon tongues were rare, if not impossible, circumstances in the wild. Sumar stood before me, but he was not alone. Four other mature Fire Lizards came with him. They perched at the highest points of the remaining pillars and watched our gathering with the fidgeting and focus of young ones at a naming ceremony. My apathetic silence and squinting eyes deflated Sumar's enthusiasm.

"The foxes say you are the Torch Bearer that lit the mountain," he picked up, now trying to answer his own questions. "To burn the peak of a mountain like a dragon's tail is to summon the Champions of our clans. The larger and brighter the light, the more that see, the more that come. Did you not know this?"

I turned a leery eye at the foxes and they looked away with grins and smirks on their faces.

"The Fire Mountains grow cold" "to spit out such Champions," they giggled.

Sumar and his fellow dragons snarled, spouting bursts of flame, stretching their wings, batting the air, and lashing their tails. I stumbled lightly against the push of a particularly rough puff of air. The dragons immediately settled, afraid to hurt such a fragile, but important Hena. I shook out my coat. No harm done. Dust flew out of my hair. Given the look the hounds gave me, it was not from the earth, but ashes of the ghosts we burned so thoroughly last night that there was nothing to send back to the otherworld.

"Our Jarls cannot come," Sumar hotly defended. "Thieves steal from our clutches and hatchlings. The Jarls stay to protect their peaks."

Given the way Fire Lizards abandoned their clutch as soon as they were hatched so that only the strongest could fight their way up the mountain to eventually reunite in combat at the top, the numbers of missing Lizards was concerning. Given an already low survival rate, the population of the next few generations was likely decimated. Their entire survival as a species now endangered. It was the only reason Fire Lizards would devote so much to their young. It explained why all of these Champions from all over the range had come.

Such words were a rare admittance of vulnerability for their kind. Why would Sumar take such chances and in front of hounds and foxes no less? He would if the Spirit blazing about him knew how to catch and burn and grow with more than oils and tar and timber and air. He must believe an answer lay hidden within the flames he witnessed. That there was an end to the Fire Lizards' plight. That there was hope. I planted that seed in him the day I rescued him from similar circumstances during the Bone Wars. It was only right I be the one to harvest it. He deserved to know.

"Come," I told him. "Breath in the dust of my ashes."

The others glanced around at one another. I kept my eyes on Sumar and for the first time, he held my gaze. Step by lumbering step, he came close again, squatting and bending down to my level. His emerald eyes hardened, nostrils flaring, tail flame enlarging with focus. He reexamined the singes in my fur, felt the heat of my burns, decoded the ashes, and traced the fight upon the altar all the way back to the first flames Ezekiel Doom Seer doused me with. Maybe even recognizing the special blessing from the Fire Ponies if there was any left.

Ultimately, I knew what he would find in all of these things. Ezekiel's soul stealing, his obsession with the color of his coat, the skulls of the legion of ghosts, they all had to come from somewhere. I chewed and tasted and crushed enough bones in my lifetime to know exactly what creatures they came from. My Spirit touched the soul trapped in everyone.

The heat of Sumar's breath flared. He grunted, breath quickening the more he understood. Both arms held me steady. His claws dug into my mane, pulling my hair into a fist. I closed my eyes, remaining still as his wings pounded close to me to stir up more ash. A slide of his tail brought the flaming tip closer so that he could re-illuminate the old light. The great weight of his shadow tensed with the full power of his musculature when he realized where all of his kin disappeared to. What happened to them.

What I did to them.

Sumar released me and stepped back with a heart shattering roar. Fire blew into the sky. Dragon tongue could only be spoken properly through roaring flame. Sumar's outrage spewed like a volcano, showering the stage with plasma and flame and tar splatter. When it hit the ground, the ashes from the holocaust suddenly caught on fire again, burning in a different sort of way. Accelerated by the combustible otherworldly dust, the flames quickly spread. Sumar pounded his wings, manipulating the fire into a spiral that rose up around the altar. It was a Fire Lizard's funeral pyre. A wave of flames spread over the stage and down the sides of the mountain in a tidal flashover. The only thing meant to burn in a funeral pyre was the dead. Without a physical body, the flames had nothing else to burn. The dust was all that was left.

Except for me.

My body and fur and skin caught on fire in the wave and continued to burn afterwards. They were saturated with so much death that the flames caught on me from the flashover. Alarmed by my sudden combustion, the hounds took a defensive position. The foxes jumped at the flash fire and hid behind their hounds although they provided little cover. They watched from a slinking posture with glittering eyes. I looked up at Sumar for we both knew what those flames meant.

I was the one who cut the ties of the living and the dead from this world with my bite during the holocaust. In essence, I was the last one to manipulate their souls this way. By killing the ghosts, I freed their souls, releasing them from their binds. By all accounts, I could be considered the one that ended them. In the dragon's eyes, I was no different than another type of Soul Stealer. But the look Sumar gave me said something much different. It spoke of salvation, not slaughter.

"Modir," Sumar whispered, eyes brimming with tears. "Your soul burns as Drache."

Was that why they did not hurt? Because they were of the Spirit and thus, a purifying type?

The last of the flames on the altar died away, including the ones around my body. Sumar swelled. His tears dried up. His kin were dead, but they were also saved from the curses of the ghosts.

"What is it that you need?" Sumar asked, strong and forceful and without choice.

I had done what the dragons intended to do and they would not leave without repaying me in kind. The debt was too great. The other dragons flew down from the pillars and landed on the stage to stand with us. They too understood the message in the flames. The souls of their kin were finally at rest because of me. I glanced between the Fire Lizards at a loss for words. I had no intention of summoning the Champions of the Fire Lizard clans. My purpose here was fulfilled.

What would I do with a pack of dragons?

"War breaks in the valley," the foxes suddenly chimed in, returning to their usual selves as they sauntered into our gathering to stand on either side of me.

Sumar flexed again, this time, holding back the fight within him. Smoke puffed from his nostrils.

"The ones responsible for the slaughter of your kin," "conspire at the Lost Fortress," the foxes pointedly explained.

Nothing was more enticing to a Fire Lizard than battle, especially one filled with such honorable justification.

"Then what do we wait for?" Sumar boomed, following with dragon speech.

"They meet midday tomorrow," the foxes echoed. "Leave now and you will not only lose your way but warn them of your coming."

I found their sudden interest in foreign affairs suspicious. Their altruistic concern for the Mighty Hena's wellbeing a bit farfetched.

"Where is this fortress?" I asked of them.

"Lost," they giggled.

I folded my ears.

"Across the valley," the foxes vaguely corrected.

Probably right in the heart of enemy territory. But the skulls of Fire Lizards were too thick to distinguish tricks from the generosity of master manipulators.

"Come with us Modir," Sumar suddenly exclaimed, far too accepting of the foxes' words.

He wanted me to be the Torch Bearer of this campaign. The light to guide them to this Lost Fortress since I was the one that called them, no matter how unintentional. It was very hard not to frown. Too easy to say I had not the strength nor the Spirit to fight just yet. I wanted to go back to sleep and rest and let the winter cool my burned body. So, I resisted.

"I will never make it in time," I said, and it was true.

Even if I left now for the closest neighboring peak with the unlikely luck of meeting no resistance and encountering no obstacles, the distance was too great and the location too vague.

"We are the Gate Keepers," the foxes reminded all too easily. "Pass the threshold and we can open the door to wherever you wish."

I doubted it, but such a feat might be possible within their territory. I was only just starting to understand the temporal distortions we creatures were capable of. Especially in places of power which, I was beginning to realize, had souls of their own. I may have fulfilled my mission, but the fight down in the valley would not end so easily. It was a much more physical affair for those on the front lines. The curses were gone, but the nightmare remained.

Who better than a Dream Eater to set it right again?

"I will go," I relented.

The dragons raised a unanimous shout, spitting flame. It was much too loud for this old Mighty Hena.

"Go, now," I snapped with teeth and tongue to make them listen. "The fight continues at sundown."

The vacuum of power left by the portal's collapse would suck in clouds of Smoky Eyes, Dark Crows, Sky Shriekers, and other darkened creatures that either escaped the holocaust, were drawn in by the building power of the ritual, or just wanted to take advantage of the opportunity. The carnage they hoped to feast on would not be what they expected, but the peak would still swarm with enemies and I did not have the energy to stop them. These dragons, however, threatened to burst into spontaneous flame at any moment without purpose. They were more than capable of filling my shadow. I would not have to worry of my safety nearly as much with Fire Lizards and foxes and hounds to spend the time with. Although, I would have to sacrifice my chance at getting any real rest.

I clapped my teeth at the dragons and lunged at Sumar's flaming tail when it swung close to me, unafraid to smoother the flame between my teeth. Sumar spat a booming laugh and more dragon speech before he took off into the air. The other dragons followed. They started circling the altar, lowering into a widening spiral down the mountain before spreading out to search for this fortress and any darkened creature unfortunate enough to cross their path.

Finally, some quiet.

Without the dragons' shadows to shield me, the dawn light became too bright for my tired eyes. The only other shadows aside from myself kept their distance. Like me, the Doom Seers preferred to sleep after a long night of burning their throats bloody. The Blue Fox of the Moon might have felt the same, but he turned his nose up at me in a silent huff. I might have done the same had my den been blown to rubble like the altar. He had no room to complain when delegating his responsibilities onto others. His sister, the Red Fox of the Sun, was perfectly at home bathing in such a glorious sunrise. She watched me shamelessly, sweeping her tails and rolling around in them like a pup in the grass. My eyes, as small as they were, narrowed even further. She was tempting trouble and I had no choice but to take the bait.

"How am I alive?"

The Red Fox of the Sun popped up with a purr and bounded over, circling around like she did in the misty woods.

"Come in with seven tails, leave with eight," she said, brushing me with all nine of her own.

It took a moment to nose through them all. The pesky things. Then again, they apparently saved my life.

"The more you fight, the more you forget," the Blue Fox of the Moon commented almost jealously.

Coming together, the foxes used their psychic influence to change the landscape. They warped it so the altar suddenly became how it was last night immediately after the explosion. The land was dark. The ring of fire raged at a distance from the altar now that the surrounding trees had been blown away. Freshly tossed embers and cinders floated about like snow. The explosion tore a large hole in the cloud of smoke, briefly revealing the night sky once again. The foxes showed me their memory, which was my memory too although I did not recall it. I watched through their eyes how I stood up out of the shadow mist that lingered on the stage from the disassembled portal.

My silver spiritual armor enveloped me. The last and final fang. Seven spears and one shield worth all of them combined thanks to the nine tails of the High Spirit of the fox. Legs shaking like a hatchlings and muscles failing, I watched myself totter in place before quickly collapsing. When my lower jaw hit the altar, my armor, frail and brittle from withstanding the curse explosion, shattered so finely that it turned to smoke and drifted away with the last of the mist, leaving a seemingly small and furry blot in the middle of the stage.

The shared memory ended as the sunlight of the present burned through the foxes' illusion. A very round but feint moon mirrored the sun on the opposite side of the sky. The sun itself was red and hazy because of the smoke. It was quite a sight befitting the blood moon. Only in this place, trailing the power of a lunar event were such visions possible for the Gate Keepers. But this was not what the foxes wanted to know. It was simply more profitable to show me what I wanted so I would be obligated to give them what they wanted. The vixen came up to me, red eyes trying to follow mine like a mime. Far too close for comfort. As soon as I looked away, the blue fox replaced her.

"Your name," they asked. "What does it mean?"

They spoke of the name Sumar bestowed upon me in dragon tongue during the Bone Wars. It seemed there were still some things even these ancient ones did not know. Probably because the first dragons were just as old as they were and did not share their secrets with other High Spirits, especially foxes. Such a technique was worthy only of Champions. I turned away, too tired of words to indulge them.

"What did he call you?" the foxes pressed again, somewhat slighted that I did not return their favor on the first try.

It would do no good to stir a grudge against them. They had both the longest and shortest memory of any creature I knew, forgetting I saved them for the fact I just slighted them. At the same time, I did not know what my name meant either. In my years, I asked various creatures I came across of its meaning since names were so very important to many. The closest translation I ever came up with made no sense to me even though I knew it to be a play on the name I had given Sumar back then. Because of this, I had no problem sharing it with the foxes.

The name likely lost its meaning tremendously when spoken on lesser lips in a common tongue, so it would be a pale translation of what it truly meant. Maybe the foxes were mystical enough to figure it out. Although, I doubted they would share the answer with me. They would probably just giggle and tuck it away as another one of their secrets. Then again, it might just make them think a little harder the next time they tried to take a peek at my soul.

"God Eater," I back handedly answered before setting off for the warmth of the dead charcoal trees.

They seemed to be the only ones content to give me a moment's peace. And for some reason, the foxes let me leave in silence.