Page 51 of Here Be Dragons

We returned everything to the wardrobe and closed the door. I suddenly wondered if it was the wardrobe itself that kept everything in pristine condition.

Then Desmon walked to the heavy door inscribed with illegible runes, mumbled something, and pressed his hand to an indentation on the side. His hand disappeared completely into it for a moment, then when he retrieved it, the door slid open.

For some reason, I’d expected the stone to scrape against the ground and make some god-awful racket, but it was completely silent. As it opened up, I tried to see what was beyond the door, but it opened into another cave, and all I could see was more rocks and darkness. Oh well, at least it was light in here. I shuddered at the thought of being stuck here in the dark.

I considered just being lazy and lying in the nest until Desmon got back, but then decided I’d done enough lounging around for today. I climbed out of the enormous nest, glad Desmon had thoughtfully set up several ornate stools and chairs of diminishing height at the edge so I could use them as steps to get down to the cave floor.

Earlier, as I’d walked through the cave, several items had called to me so strongly that I’d felt their pull even though I hadn’t been touching them. I’d avoided touching anything magical, which was difficult; this cave was chock full of magical items. I decided this was the perfect place to practice my magical talent.

Not wanting any images of gory battles, I studiously avoided the weapon racks. I also steered clear of the chambers full of magical tomes and spell-casting paraphernalia. I wanted to start off with something neutral, bland, harmless.

My eyes landed on a shelf of phallic-shaped oddities that reminded me of the display at the museum of supposed fertility talismans.Fertility talismans? Yeah, right.

I bet a good portion of those were nothing more than antique dildos. And at a museum, too! They had all been behind glass, so I hadn’t had been able to touch them. Here was my chance!

I approached a particularly veiny one that was carved from stone and touched it. It showed me a vision of itself being lovingly carved and gifted by an older woman to a young lady with pointy ears in a strange ritual. Okay, maybe that one was a talisman of some kind.

I tried several more. Some of them gave me nothing. Then suddenly, a feeling of overwhelming need surged over me, and I heard the moans of a woman and slick, wet sounds.

Bingo! Dildo located!

I looked at the “talisman” I was touching. It was carved out of dark, shiny stone and had an impressive size with an exaggerated flared head and thick, twisting veins running along its length. Yup. Totally a sex toy. Tee hee, I wondered if Desmon knew. I found several more after that, including one that skipped visions completely and simply begged me to put it to use.

When Desmon got back, I was totally going to let him know he had a very extensive collection of ancient dildos and dongs.

I went from shelf to shelf, getting a feel for the rest of Desmon’s treasure trove. He had collected all types of things in his day,from valuable gems to otherwise unassuming pieces that were rich with history.

I was heading back to the nest when something called to me. I scanned the chambers and eventually noticed something hidden under a plain cream-colored sheet. Something about that felt wrong, but I couldn’t quite place it.

Then it hit me. Nothing else in the cave was hidden. Every piece of treasure was proudly on display, even the dangerous items that were locked away in cases.

The cave suddenly didn’t feel nearly as safe and protected as it had been just a moment ago.

“Get it together,” I said to myself out loud. “It’s probably nothing.”

I tried to ignore it, but whatever was under that sheet kept calling to me. I couldn’t quite figure out what it was trying to tell me, or if it even knew I existed. Some items appeared to have awareness, but others didn’t.

I bet it was nothing. Just a particularly shouty item. Some of them had nothing to say, they just babbled away loudly for no good reason. I remembered the artifact my professor had given me to analyze, that had prattled on non-stop about how much it hated feet. It had been a pair of stockings.

This must be something stupid like that. It wasn’t anything ominous. That was all in my head.

Besides, Desmon had said during our quick tour that everything dangerous was locked up and rendered powerless in here. Nothing in here could do any harm.

I reached over and whipped the sheet off quickly, like I was removing a bandaid. No gaping wounds greeted me. Just two chests.

One was wood and metal, though the wooden parts looked severely charred, like they had been turned into carbon through extreme heat. The other was much smaller, metal, and sitting on a pedestal.

My hand shook as I reached out to touch the larger one. Suddenly, my world was filled with the intense heat of dragon fire, the acrid stench of smoke and burning flesh, the cries of children, and the screams of mothers as they searched for them. The image of a town burning to the ground seared into my head. Sickeningly, there was also an occasional flash of red and orange scales.

I stumbled back, reeling. I gasped for a breath of untainted air, horrified and nauseated by the destruction as I realized I’d just watched Desmon burn an entire village to the ground. But it was like a trainwreck from which I couldn’t look away, and I found myself reaching for the chest again.

The chest wasn’t locked, and I quickly flipped up the lid, though I don’t know how I managed it without throwing up. Inside was a jumble of items—a candlestick, a flask, a few scraps of fabric. Some of them had burn marks, others were pristine.

I picked up a drinking horn. I got the pleas of a man begging Desmon to spare his family, insisting that they were innocent, it had all been the fault of just the men of the village. I dropped it and, masochist that I was, reached for another item: the top portion of a staff. This one didn’t give me an image but words in a foreign tongue that I magically understood: I was listening to a meeting of the townsfolk as they planned a trip to the mountains to “slay the beast.”

God! Was that why he’d done it? Retaliation, because they had tried to kill him? And did that make it okay? My arm inadvertently brushed against the outside of the chest again, and I was bombarded once more by sounds and images of suffering.

There was still the smaller chest on the pedestal. I stared at it, afraid to touch it. Did I even want to know what terrible secrets it held?

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