to Ki,
the Queen of Flames
Art by Dzyenya
000
The black Maybach eased through Brussels like a true monarch – so regal, that even the weather agreed, washing the streets in front of its wheels with rain. But as many of the kings in history could tell – a royal person alone on the busy streets is a prime opportunity for crime, kidnapping and self-enrichment of someone else.
But if there would be a person opportunistic enough to try and lay claim on the slick shining curves of this mechanical beauty, they would inevitably encounter a very slight problem – the car was already stolen. And none of the two thieves, sitting inside that Maybach right now, were willing to easily part ways with their newly acquired property.
They were the worst kind of thieves – the kind that honestly believed themselves to not be thieves at all.
For them it wasn’t theft.
For them it was a divine order.
001
“So, now we’re chasing cars…” Ruprecht said, following the black Maybach with his gaze. He stood in a narrow passage between buildings and the rain was constantly dripping behind the collar of his jacket. He wasn’t happy.
“Not just any cars!” Silver, on the other hand, being a water dragon, was extremely happy with rain. “It’s the Mother of Dragon’s car! And it’s been stolen!”
“So what?” Ruprecht shrugged and crossed his arms on his chest. “You dragons have all the money in the world in your mounds. I’m sure someone as legendary as the Mother of Dragons can get a new car as easily as you get new clothes. And something tells me she’d enjoy car shopping as much as you do.”
“You still don’t understand, do you?” The young dragon jumped up and sat on the steel railing, swinging her feet in the air as she talked. “Someone had stolen the car from her! Imagine if someone got into the master Krieger’s garage and drove that Silver Ghost out of it…”
Ruprecht grimaced – either because the rainwater got behind his collar again or because he remembered the last time someone managed to break into the garage of their castle.
“See?” Silver, as usual, interpreted his grimace in the way that best supported her argument. “This just doesn't happen. But somehow it did. And so she can’t just go get another one without knowing how and why it happened!”
“Yeah…” Ruprecht agreed, reluctantly. “This does make a bit of sense…”
He poked his head out from behind the building and realized the car they should be following was nowhere to be seen.
“And I guess that’s why we can’t just stop the car and beat up whoever stole it, right?” He said starting the engine of his bike.
“Yup!” Silver jumped onto the seat behind him. “We need to find out where they are taking it.”
Ruprecht revved the engine and split the threads of the raindrops, squeezing between them as he warped the reality finding the shortest possible path to their next destination.
002
They appeared from nowhere outside the casino in Marseilles just in time to see the casino security chasing away the French police. In all honesty, the security looked more like a well-trained military organization and a pair of policemen with their old and almost falling apart Dacia just paled in comparison.
Ruprecht felt a traitorous shiver along his back.
“Please tell me it’s not another paramilitary force supplied by a mysterious corporation…” He said, watching the policemen leave. “Silver, can you just destroy the whole casino right now? How would he call it? Oh, a preemptive strike? The best defense is good offense and all…”
“I sure can!” Silver replied with confidence, eyeing up the building. “But what if the car gets damaged? And the collar… collateral, I mean, damage…”
“Then how about we go in guns blazing then? They’re just humans after all.”
“They are, but…”
“Yeah, the moment we start beating up the security,” Ruprecht said, trying to think of all the entrances and exits he saw and all that he couldn’t see right now. “That very moment, they will hit the pedal and run.”
“Considering they turned away the police, the security is probably working together with the thieves, so they will get notified immediately…”
“And neither of us specializes in the silent entry…”
“Definitely not me!” Silver laughed. “Can’t you teleport inside?”
“Don’t you feel it?” Ruprecht looked curious for a second. “That building has more wards and barriers then the Inquisition headquarters in Vatican.”
“Has it now…” Silver paused as if listening to something intently. “Can’t feel it at all. Maybe not the kind of magic I’m attuned to…”
“So…” What Ruprecht was about to say was something that any human would’ve thought about immediately. It was the simplest thing that would’ve come to mind for any person. Unfortunately, neither he nor Silver were human and so it took him that long to come up with it.
“Should we go in as humans?” He finally asked.
Silver looked at him puzzled and confused.
“As humans?” She put a finger to her lips. “That’s a casino… a place for gambling… Do you even have any human currency with you?”
003
About an hour and one break in and robbery later, two seemingly normal humans entered the casino. An older guy with a thick beard on a grumpy face was dressed in a midnight blue suit that fit him a bit too tight, and a woman with shoulder-length exquisitely unruly silver hair wearing the red cocktail dress.
The moment they passed the security at the entrance, Ruprecht felt something. The humans would say “something in the air”. Or, possibly, say something about “vibes”. But Ruprecht wasn’t human – and it took him the time he spent exchanging an agreeably large sum of money for the chips to realize exactly what it was.
Beyond the impeccably calculated opulence of the casino. Hiding under the gilded reliefs and shiny glass. Under the bright light of lamps, placed in the exact way to remind the patrons that they were in the presence of something grand. Behind the unseen wards and spells circling the whole place and preventing any outside magic from interfering with the interior space of the casino. After all that, there was one more layer – one more purpose for which this building was constructed.
“It’s not simply a casino…” Ruprecht leaned closer to the Silver’s ear. “It’s practically a cathedral.”
“Isn’t gambling a sin in your religions?” Silver cocked her head, intrigued. "It sure was one of the three deadly vices of the Samurai of my land."
Ruprecht’s lips curled, as if he himself didn’t know what to express: a smile or a disgust. He nodded toward a poker table.
"It's not a sin when you’re the one dealing the cards."
"So what you’re saying is...” Silver grinned. “If you're in control, it doesn't count?"
“Something like that…” Ruprecht kept scanning the surroundings with his eyes as they were talking. What interested him wasn’t the architectural decisions put into the construction or the details of the intricate craftsmanship of the wall reliefs. No, he watched the people. The people who he deemed to be dangerous, to be exact.
The security in this casino was well-trained, well-equipped and positioned in a way that suggested the readiness for an intense indoor firefight rather than the tensions escalating into the fistfight or some poor idiot trying to cheat their way into riches.
Ruprecht’s brain worked it out: areas of cover, areas of observation, fields of fire and the way they overlapped.
The only word that could describe the security in this place to his mind was “tight”.
“Wow that was tight!” The cheerful Silver’s voice dragged Ruprecht out of his observations.
“What?” He asked, almost barking out the word.
“What?” Silver looked at him, startled. “Ah… I mean, that guy over there barely won… Bluffed his way into that pile of chips. Tight!”
It looked like while Ruprecht was concerned with the casino’s security, Silver indulged in observing the gamblers – their behavior, their excitement, their desperation.
“So many people, so many emotions, over the simple games of chance…” She mused, her eyes jumping from the roulette tables to the blackjack to poker. “The humans are really enjoying it.”
“It’s the opposite.” Ruprecht said with a sigh.
“The opposite?”
“Humans don't like uncertainty – and so they do whatever they can to eliminate it.” Ruprecht shrugged.
“I don't think the humans around the tables here,” Silver curved her lips in a half-smile. “Are the ones you're talking about. They love the thrill of the uncertainty.”
“That's why they lose.” Ruprecht said. “You know the saying: ‘the house always wins’. And it is very, very true.”
“Is it so…” Silver dragged her words slightly longer than needed. “But isn't uncertainty a direct consequence of their… free will?”
“It is.” Ruprecht nodded. “That's why they hate it so much.”
“Would they prefer to know the results of the games before they even play?” Silver got curious. “But what if they will know they are about to lose?”
“Then they cheat.” Ruprecht replied. “They stack the decks, load the dice, go to unspeakable depths of desperation to make sure they will win… just one game. One round. But they want to be sure it's them who's at the very top of the ladder.”
“This is… sad.” Silver turned away from the tables and looked at Ruprecht. “This is just sad. And hopeless. If there’s no chance, no uncertainty, and the only way to win is to cheat, then there’s simply no hope, right?”
“Some people don’t need hope. They prefer power, a total control.”
“I’d rather be with those at the tables.” Silver smiled. “Chasing the chance to win even if it’s practically non-existent.”
“Didn’t know you were a gambler.”
“As I said, the uncertainty is a fruit of the free will.” She suddenly got very serious. “It works the opposite way too. Having most of your life predetermined as an oddity gets pretty boring, don’t you think?”
“I’m okay with my life…” Ruprecht growled back. “But I understand you.”
004
To keep with their cover story, Ruprecht let Siver spend some of their chips on games while he was investigating the room. But soon he realized that she had lost most of it making reckless bets on the roulette and had to waltz in and take the excited dragon away from the table.
“I just need one more win and I’ll get it all back!” Silver claimed.
“Calm down.” Ruprecht told her. “We’re not here to gamble, don’t forget about that. And it’s not even your money…”
“Oh, right.” The dragon straightened herself. “Sorry, sorry, got a bit carried away… What the next on our list?”
“That unassuming passage over there…” Ruprecht nodded in the direction of a narrow corridor hiding behind the large banner with the casino’s symbol. “Is probably leading to the security post. I think so at least. I propose we go check it out.”
Silver agreed and they snuck their way into the long narrow hallway.
The farther they went from the space designed for normal patrons, the less normal the casino got. Luxury gave way to ascetism. The opulence turned into a calculated expense. The gilded marble became a weathered stone.
The casino levels went down, and the cathedral vibes went way up.
Even Silver felt it.
They walked right up to the guarded entrance. Two human guards, very confident in their skills – and probably rightfully so. But they were trained against other humans.
She flashed a perfect, mischievous smile.
“Gentlemen.” She gestured at Ruprecht, standing behind her, his arms crossed. “Is this a place where the highest bets are placed?”
“You’re way off limits for the clients…” One of the guards started.
“Are we, really?” Silver tilted her head.
“Let me guess,” Ruprecht exhaled. “This is when you make things fun.”
“We both know I excel at it.”
One of the guards moved slightly, assuming the more favorable stance. That’s when Ruprecht knew the conversation was over.
Silver caught the movement too. She struck first.
In one smooth motion, her fingers flicked outward – she didn’t bother turning them into claws, just exerting the perfectly controlled force, and sending the guard flying back into the wall. Ruprecht stepped into the fight instantly, unfolding his baton and catching the second one with the brutal impact to the head.
Ruprecht pushed the door open, dragging Silver inside. The room they were in was not unlike the shrine. But it wasn’t the shrine of any god – it was fully dedicated to one thing and one thing only: control.
It was full of monitors, showing all areas of the building – the entrances, the exits, the casino ones and the others… ritual sites, rooms with arcane symbols marked across the walls, the libraries full of ancient tomes, the study rooms where the robed figures stood behind the lecterns.
Silver’s smile got wider.
“Well,” she muttered, scanning the screens, “this just got a lot more interesting.”
005
They had found the car they were looking for. It was right there on the screen – a black Maybach parked at the casino’s underground garage. What was much more unnerving – the car was standing on top of the round sigil inscribed in something dark red, Ruprecht assumed blood. And it had constant security detail monitoring it.
“You know what it looks like…” He said to Silver. “It looks like they are less afraid that someone will try to take the car from them – and more that the car will escape on its own.”
“Of course they are.” She answered plainly. “It belongs to the Mother of Dragons. The least you can assume it has a will of its own…”
“Then why did it let itself be captured?”
“That’s an another question we should find an answer for…” Silver gestured, demonstrating the impossible nature of such questions. “I wish I knew, Ruprecht, I wish I knew…”
“Nothing of this makes sense…” He said, then got quiet, watching the guard’s patrols on the security screens. There was a subtle shift. They were rerouted to… where?
“Looks like we’ve got incoming…” Ruprecht finally said. “How do you feel about fighting our way to the garage?”
“Sounds okay to me!”
“Go!” He barked and the two of them burst out of the door and into the unsuspecting casino’s security forces. Those were well trained but still just mere humans – no match for a dragon and a guy who kept beating people with a stick for thousands of years.
The problem was – they knew it. And so, they weren’t there to fight the intruders head-on. Whoever was in charge of the security had already assessed the threat and issued an order. Instead of fighting, the security details converging on the Ruprecht and Silver’s location fell on their knees and prayed. It was a short but heartfelt prayer. The kind that always gets answered.
The godly golden light shone upon the intruders, pinning them down, nailing Ruprecht and Silver to a place with the weight of the cross.
The security force dropped their weapons and began chanting, their uniforms revealing the shining sigils in a language neither Ruprecht nor Silver understood.
“…” Ruprecht opened his mouth but couldn’t even get one swearword past his lips. His tongue felt heavy, his physical body felt like a burden, like something he would rather leave behind and proceed without…
006
Silver shrieked. The high-pitched sound assaulted everyone’s ears, sharp as the coldest winter’s ice. The temperature around the dragon dropped by several degrees, as she sucked the energy out of the air. Ruprecht glanced at her and saw the muscles on her back moving like waves in stormy seas – she was about to shed her human likeness and turn into the dragon… That could lead to excessively destructive consequences.
“Oh, you saint idiots…” Ruprecht thought, still unable to speak under the weight of the light. Even his thoughts rolled slowly like lazy giant rocks.
The chanting grew louder. Insistent. Dictating.
There was one voice more prominent than others.
That voice demanded. That voice commanded. That voice ordered.
Its edict was for the unholy beings to leave this place, this world, this plane of existence. Effective immediately.
Ruprecht felt the reality slipping around him.
“Can you stop!” Silver suddenly yelled at the guards. “Stop or I’ll tear your stupid casino apart brick by brick and then grind the bricks into dust and leave the dust to the wind!”
The reality around Ruprecht bounced back, returning to normal as if heeding the dragon’s order.
“Do you really think your holy magic will work on a dragon from the other side of the planet?” Silver continued, standing up and slowly, deliberately walking out of the golden light circle. “It. Will. Not.”
“That’s the problem with your faith.” She said looking right in the eyes of the person who just tried to banish Silver and Ruprecht. “You divide the light and the darkness. You think in absolutes and because of that you see them as two different things. They’re the same to me.”
She lifted the man up and hurled him through the corridor. Ruprecht immediately felt the weight being lifted off his shoulders – and could even punch in the face the guard trying to hit Silver with the taser.
Silver looked at him over her shoulder and smiled.
“Back on your feet, grandpa?” she asked teasingly.
Ruprecht just growled something affirmative in response.
007
They were late. The car had left – probably driven out by the thieves or the security force or the cultists…? Truth be told, Ruprecht already couldn’t tell for sure whom they were dealing with. At this point he wouldn’t even be surprised if turned out the car left of its own accord, smearing the red sigil on the garage floor with its tires.
“We should leave.” He told Silver, who was looking over the medallion she pulled from the neck of one of the guards. “We should leave and find someone who can explain what’s going on…”
“Ruprecht.” It looked like the dragon wasn’t even listening to him. “Why don’t I understand the writing on this thing?”
She showed him the medallion with the inscription in the same uncomprehensible tongue that adored the security force’s uniforms.
“Is it too because I’m not from this part of the world?”
“I… I don’t think so.” Ruprecht shook his head. “We, oddities, understand and speak every human language. That’s our nature.”
“That what’s this?”
“It’s not human.”
“…?”
“It’s Enochian, the language of angels.”
“Do you understand it?”
“I don’t. Just recognize the script.” Ruprecht looked around the now-empty garage. “But I know someone who does. At least as much as a human can. We should get to my bike.”
“Lead the way then!”
“Don’t lose the medallion.”
“Sir, yes, sir!”
008
“Ruprecht, my friend!” Said a young man wearing a yellow-grey trench coat. “What did you get yourself into this time? And how is it my fault?”
“I don't think it is.” Ruprecht put his hand behind his back, gesturing Silver to put the casino guard’s medallion in it. Then held the medallion in front of himself, facing the man in the trenchcoat.
“Do you understand these words, Arthur?” He asked.
“Well, the grammar is a bit off, but close enough so it should work…”
“So you do understand.” Ruprecht took the medallion away and into his pocket. “What does it say?”
“Rites of Auriel.”
“What?”
“Oh, it’s a legend, a story, well, one of the tallest tales in occult circles…” The man Ruprecht called Arthur put his hands in the pockets of his coats and rocked on his feet as he spoke. “When the Flood hit, one of the angels allegedly drowned. His body is still hidden in some ancient monastery in Spain… allegedly. His name was Auriel and there are some less than trustworthy people who use it in their pseudo-angelic magic.”
“Pseudo-angelic?” Ruprecht chuckled. “There was nothing ‘pseudo’ when they hit me with it…”
“Didn’t work on me…” Siver finally made a sound.
“Of course it didn’t.” Arthur seemingly had just noticed the dragon. “You look like someone who operates on the completely different paradigm. And I don’t think we’ve been introduced… Though I’ve heard that your Foundation got some new recruit. I’m Arthur, Arthur Dee – just a human mage, nothing special.”
“I’m Silver, a dragon…”
“Silver if you know what’s good for you,” Ruprecht said in his gravelliest of voices. “Don’t trust this man as far as you can throw him.”
“I believe that’d be very far.” Arthur smiled. “Oh, a dragon!? Fascinating!”
“Stop it, Arthur.” Ruprecht interrupted.
“I didn’t start anything!”
“Then don’t.” Ruprecht crossed his hands on his chest. “Tell us more about those less than trustworthy people you’ve talked about.”
“And why would they need the Mother of Dragon’s car?” Silver added.
“Mother of Dragons?” Arthur seemed baffled. “That’s… not good. Not good at all.”
“Ruprecht,” the mage suddenly got very serious. “Look here.”
He took the phone out of his coat, opened the map app and set the point somewhere on the Iberian Peninsula.
“Do you know this place?” Arthur asked and seeing Ruprecht nod, continued. “You need to get there. As soon as possible. And even earlier than that. You need to get there and made sure that nothing happens to that car, you hear me?”
“Why does everybody care about that piece of metal so much?” Ruprecht asked.
“Because it’s more than just that.” Arthur said. “Take your bike for example, would you let someone call it ‘a piece of metal’?”
“They better think twice before opening their mouth.”
“Exactly! And it’s the same with the Mother of Dragons. Such powerful beings infuse normal mundane objects with their power without even realizing…”
“So that car is magically supercharged?” Silver asked. “That would explain why it looked almost alive to me.”
“Yes, but it’s more than that.” Arthur sighed. “I told you – the angel’s body is being kept in that monastery. And an object charged with the essence of the Mother, someone who raised basically every European dragon since Beowulf had slayed the previous one, is… it is the perfect battery to jolt the slumbering angel back to life.”
“They…” Silver’s voice was full of curiosity. “They want to resurrect an angel?”
“Never a good idea…” Ruprecht shook his head. Silver wanted to ask why he knew that but decided to save it for later.
“Yeah,” Arthur rubbed the temples of his head. “Having a full-blown angel walking the Earth is always troublesome, but having one of them who wasn’t around since the Flood? The one who still has the fullest power given to them? And being resurrected and possibly bound to the will of their, shall we say, ‘devoted followers’…? That’s a disaster with the capital ‘D’.”
“We should go then. Thank you, Arthur.” Ruprecht started the engine of his bike. “Unless you want to come with us?”
“Sorry, friends…” The mage declined. “Gotta dash. Have some things to deal with… well, four things and a lizard. Good luck though.”
009
The bike blended back into reality on a road. The bright sunlight and the hot air immediately assaulted their eyes, making Silver squint. They were racing along the dark asphalt stain on the greens and yellows of the Spanish countryside.
Ruprecht gestured to his left – Silver gazed to where he was pointing and there, on top of the high hills with narrow winding passes going up, she saw half-destroyed walls and buildings of an old monastery.
Then the car appeared. Not out of nowhere, as their bike did – it broke through the haze above the hot asphalt and moved into view. One look at it and Silver knew what it was – the black Maybach, the one they were chasing all the way from Brussels.
This was the final part of the chase.
Ruprecht pushed his bike’s engine to the limits, giving them as much speed as possible.
“Are we stopping it the nice way or the dragon way?” He yelled back at Silver.
“The dragon way is the best way!” She laughed back and extended her right arm to the side – hand and finger relaxed, but ready to pounce at her prey at any moment.
But the car’s driver thought differently.
A sudden jerk of the wheel – a motion too sharp, too reckless – sent the Maybach spiraling off-course, tires skidding, metal groaning as it tried to move along the several axis simultaneously.
“They… They’re going to crash…” Silver muttered.
A deafening impact.
The Maybach slammed into the roadside barrier, metal twisting like wounded flesh, glass exploding outward as the force sent the vehicle into a desperate spiral. The world slowed – the sound of crumpling steel stretched into eternity, the air thick with burning rubber and the scent of wreckage.
Ruprecht stopped his bike but even before he did Silver was already moving – jumping off her seat and running towards the remains of the car.
010
She tore off the front door, tossing it aside. The driver and the passenger inside the car were dead – their bodies crushed and broken by the force of the impact. Blood trickled down out of the car on the asphalt…
…And then continued flowing, drawing a circle around the car. The circle filled with the same symbols that adorned the casino security uniforms, the same letters inscribed on the medallion Silver had, the characters of an angelic language of creation.
The Rites of Auriel.
The ritual to resurrect an angel.
“Silver, back!” Ruprecht barked and noticing the dragon didn’t hear, rushed forward, grabbed her by the shoulder and yanked back – the moment before the crimson circle around the car closed…
…And exploded upwards with golden light – brighter and harsher than even the hot Iberian Sun in the clear skies above. It was the light of creation, the primordial force, blazing and burning so hot it didn’t cast shadows.
The world turned white.
011
They were nowhere. They existed in the endless expanse of the bright white radiance.
A dragon.
A former Christmas ghost.
And an angel.
“What are you?” The angel looked at them curiously. “What am I?”
“You are…” Ruprecht found strength to say. “You are an angel.”
“That I was…” The angel smiled. “But now… what am I? And who are they?”
Silver thought she saw shadows… silhouettes of men and women, kneeling in prayer. She heard the distant murmur of their voices chanting over and over, demanding obedience.
“What do they want from me?” The angel asked. “Can you tell me?”
“They…” Silver couldn’t bear the angel’s gaze. “They woke you up… there was a ritual, a sacrifice… they woke you up after the millennia of sleep.”
“They think they did me a favor…” The angel sounded unsure. “They think they can command me.”
“You don’t sound all that angelic, do you?” Ruprecht said, his growling voice was full of false bravado.
The angel laughed. It was a strange sound. Like someone who had never laughed before in their life was trying to imitate the sound they were told was a laughter.
“You are more angel than me now.” The angel said.
“And I am more like her.” The angel gestured at Silver.
“What are you going to do now?” The dragon asked.
“I don’t know…” The angel looked up. “For the first time in eternity… I don’t know. Once I was an order, a simple conduit for His divine word. And now… Now I just am.
“Back then I didn’t need to think what to do – I shaped the world in His name. But… now… What if I do wrong? What if I chose to do the wrong thing?”
“But what if you chose right?” Silver smiled at the angel. “And if you do wrong, you fix it. Like all of us do.”
The light around them started dimming, slowly letting in the shapes of the outside world – the road, the crashed car, the hills in a distance and the ruined remains of the monastery on top of those hills.
“I guess I should walk the Earth for a while… see how it has changed since my time.” The angel shrugged. “I’m sure there is a lot of things to learn. And maybe I will find a place to stay somewhere.”
“Good luck.” Silver smiled. “And you know… You can always visit us. And I’m sure there is someone in Belgium who wouldn’t mind meeting you… or she wouldn’t give up her favorite car to wake you up.”
“I could’ve stayed with you…” The angel said quietly.
“You can.” Silver nodded. “Or you can move forward. The choice is all yours.”
The angel bowed. Lifted their hand – not in farewell, but in acknowledgment. Then turned away and spread their wings, shedding golden light off the bright white feathers.
Then, without sound, without the fanfare – they were gone.
012
“Well… that went terrible…” Ruprecht said, looking at the wreck of a car that once belonged to the Mother of Dragons.
“You think so?” Silver canted her head. “I’d say it went exactly as planned… And don’t look at me like that! It wasn’t my plan, it was Mother’s. Think about it!”
“Think… ugh…” Ruprecht closed his eyes. “Let me guess: she let her car be stolen to be used in the ritual because… why?”
“Because using her essence to fuel an angel had changed the angel.”
“Turned them half-dragon or something?”
“Oh, not really.” Silver shrugged. “I think it’s more about who Mother is than about what she is. It’s about raising a child versus waking up a slave. I think she gave an angel something they lacked before…”
“A free will?”
“A free will.”
“Is that a gift or a curse?” Ruprecht shook his head. “Or both?”
