legends would be true as well? Five will enter, one will leave. Funny how only that number of us arrived. I'll bet if more had showed up at the appointed time, Jorid would have been fighting for the privilege to enter.
Ultin walked to a position in the massive cave where he could look directly up into the Dragon's bright blue glowing eyes. "Oh mighty Steel Dragon, who has it within his might the power to destroy the world, I come to thee to ask for thine aid against the likes of him," he said, pointing his finger at me. "I have come to you in the name of my people, the nation of Illushitan, who wish to rid the world of evil and bring to it peace instead, and in doing so, I can show my people that I am worthy to regain my throne and lead them against the total destruction of evil!"
"So that's why. . ," I began to say, cutting myself off in mid-sentence. Ultin was in the process of drawing his cutlass from its sheath, his eyes boring into mine. He had been looking at me and acting funny ever since we'd stopped in a tavern in a city a month's ride from the cave, and I told my story to him. I still wonder why he waited until then to attack me. Perhaps, with my death, he wished to impress the Dragon with actions instead of words. In a near instant I pulled my bladed spin-disk from my belt, and before Ultin could react for any type of defense his head was separated from its body, and both body and head thudded upon the rocky ground. Ultin's dark-blue eyes still moved and blinked and his mouth worked to spit wordless curses. A moment later my disk returned to me as the life finally drained from Ultin's eyes and his face froze mid-curse.
The Dragon raised one of its massive brows and regarded me with an amused expression, its steel lips sliding back to reveal an impressively large set of blue-steel teeth. It snorted black smoke from its steel nostrils as it turned to regard the headless, lifeless corpse of the ex-king Ultin, (whose story I now believe to be true), and from within the deep recesses of its towering body came a deep steel-striking-earthquake rumble, as at last the Dragon spoke, in a blaring voice.
"One less hassle for the contest," it roared, causing me and Jesse to fall to the shaking ground and cover our ears in fear of going permanently deaf. Blood somehow remained standing and unaffected, another mystery added to its network of them. I had no idea what the Dragon meant, but I guessed that perhaps it made reference to how it would go about making its decision for the granting of the wish. But what sort of contest?
When the ground had ceased to shake and our hearing had cleared a bit, Jesse was next to speak to the Steel Dragon.
"Great Steel Dragon," he spoke in a surprisingly melodic tenor voice. "If it is true what the legends say, I need not voice my wish from you in front of others, for you should, since you are the Steel Dragon, already know it, as deeply imbedded as it is in my heart." He lowered his fur-hooded head, and closed his eyes in silent reverence. I guessed that his change in speech was the way he and his people believed was the proper way to speak to beings of the Dragon's stature, basing part of my assumption from the solemn way his eyes were focused upon the Dragon's powerful maw before averting his gaze.
Then came the unexpected. The quiet creature we'd dubbed "Blood" walked from where it stood near a large boulder, and looked up at the Steel Dragon with its eye slits glowing an eerie, vibrant red. I got the strange feeling that it was trying to pierce the Dragon's soul, if the Dragon had one. How I came to think this was strangely not mysterious, yet I couldn't say exactly what it was. Whatever it was, it certainly had a noticeable effect upon me. It made me dizzy, and have some wildly exotic thoughts I wouldn't normally have, but I'll spare you that.
Blood took a small piece of wood from under a hidden flap in his cloak, and held it exposed in his black-gloved hand as the wood grew into a thick, smooth-polished staff. From his black slits came twin beams of bright, blinding white light, focused on the center of the Dragon's forehead. The Steel Dragon's wail was mighty, and agonized. For the next few minutes my ringing ears could hear nothing but my breathing.
The Dragon snorted, and Jesse and I were encased in a transparent shell capable of surviving the Dragon's flames. I could see from the way the flames flowed around me that the transparency was globe-shaped. With the flames pouring over me I felt that surely I should be dead, or that I should have at least died from shock. I guess my nerves and will were stronger than I had previously given myself credit for.
The flames died and the smoke cleared. The stone cavern walls had cooled but still oozed, and my eyes adjusted from the brightness of the flames. Blood stood in the midst of the ruin as if nothing had happened -- its robes unscorched, apparently untouched by the Steel Dragon's wrathful fire.
But no matter what powers Blood may have had, and obviously did possess, it was still powerless against being crushed by the weight of the Steel Dragon's foot. For all that Blood might have been and might have known, it was apparent that it didn't know the fundamental myth known throughout the world. Against the Steel Dragon and its power, no creature had any sort of chance at all to win in any type of fight, ever. The Steel Dragon was the ultimate bad-ass motherfucker. Period.
As Blood was being crushed under the Steel Dragon's heel it exploded, with metal fragments striking my translucent shield and clattering against the still-cooling walls. All that was left of it was flattened metal and a pile of blood-red cloth. A few minutes later the domes disappeared, the Dragon roared, and the cavern with the cooled molten rock disappeared around me.
I stood in a small, black-walled room that smelled like stale piss, with a single luminous yellow globe hanging without any visible support above me. And was that, no. . . Thorin? Nah. . . Was it really Thorin standing before me? I knew it couldn't be, that such a thing wasn't possible, but --
His sword was drawn, his steel chainmail freshly polished and unstained, as it had been when I'd first met him, so long, long ago. His black eyes flashed with hatred and he began to run toward me, intending to strike me down where I stood. He wore the very same black overcoat that I'd taken from his dismembered corpse when we had last met. Surely he wasn't real. . . But I had no time to think of that. I drew my own sword.
We met with Thorin having the advantage of his running weight against me, and his inertia knocked me flat to the ground. I raised my blade just in time to defend another of his powerful sword strokes, and counter-thrust in a way that made it possible for me to regain my footing.
Thorin fought me at his best, as good as he had ever fought before, which meant that I would most likely meet my death by his sword at long last. But it had been years since we'd last met. . . Thorin was a man who was the swordmasters' swordmaster -- and the first time I killed him was truly by luck, and luck alone. Thorin had slipped on a loose stone in the Scrublands near the Youngforest, in what I thought had been our final battle, and I had naturally taken advantage of his situation. I cut off his sword arm, grasped his black hair in my hands and slit his skinny throat. But I knew I would have no such luck again, even if I were the luckiest man in the entire world.
"How is it that you live!" I screamed at him as we battled. "How?"
"Apparently the gods love me more than I ever thought possible!" he said in an evil, unnaturally distorted harsh voice. "Ha! Can you believe it? Ha! I live only so that you can die!" He smiled, a sadistic grin stretched upon his thin, cunning features. His thick black goatee and longish hair was as oily and musk-wafting as it ever was.
"Do you know the hell my afterlife was?" he said with a nasty sword thrust. "Do you know the twisted agonies I have been put through, for the sake of my actions while I was alive? Do you have even the most remote idea? Do you? It was my own idea I had of hell while I was alive, a hell I created for myself! I have this one chance to live again, and to perhaps rectify the foul deeds of my past, but to gain this chance you must die!"
He came at me more invigorated than ever. He was a man possessed by hatred, and fear of what he would go back to if he didn't succeed. But I was, naturally, just as determined not to die myself. I parried a blow that came from above. I pushed his sword up, and kick
ed him to a far corner of the wall, where his features were even more shadowed than they were at the room's center. I threw my bladed spin-disk at him, and while he blocked it, he didn't notice the small dagger I grabbed from my left boot until it had driven to the hilt through his oily forehead to penetrate his wet brains. He staggered and dropped his sword, and I grabbed my disk as it flew in the air above my head, returning it to its belt sheath. Impale me if I'm not the lucky bastard! Or maybe I just don't give myself enough credit. Hee!
Thorin still lived. He was staggering and on unsure feet, but he was still able to bend and retrieve his sword. He came at me swaying, and surely he was dying, but he was still determined to send me to my own afterworld. He swung clumsily, and as I dodged his blow I split open his forearm. Hot blood spurted into my face, blinding my eyes.
When I had wiped the thick fluid from my eyes and face as best I could, I stood upon an endless, pale blue floor crisscrossed in a yellow grid, with a small black cube floating above me in a soft-white sky. The place smelled vaguely like fresh-cut roses. Strangely, I was not tired in the least bit from my encounter with Thorin.
Standing across from me