Rise of the Darkness

Truths and Dragons

Jacob

Arthur and I are the only ones at our bus stop today. Being Friday, the others probably got rides home or had to stay for one thing or another. Normally it takes ten minutes to walk home but sometimes we take a roundabout route, adding an additional twenty or so minutes. I followed Arthur down the long way.

"Tell me about your experience with Ms. Knarlow," Arthur finally said after a few minutes.

"She was fixing my schedule for me; you know the screwup I made. Anyway, when she finished she asked me how I was different, then said I do not see, though I do not know what she meant by that. She transformed into a golem. A golem! A monster, and said I was powerful, but a threat if trained by the wrong people. I ran when she told me to come with her. What really happened and why do you know more than me?"

"I will answer the second question later. First, Ms. Knarlow is indeed a golem, though properly called a Kewmoni. Do you remember Mom's book, Da Cru-pilo Dogantig? The stories from it are real."

Whoa whoa whoa, that stuff exists? Mom started writing that book, a collection of short fantasy stories, for us when Arthur turned ten, and presented it to us when I turned ten. It is a fun book and well written, and we developed a love of fantasy, magic, and monsters as a result. Of course, we treated it as fiction; what else could it be? How can it be anything else?

In the book Kewmonis are one of the magical creatures, the Laku, that can disguise itself as a human. As their magic develops they can choose one other form to transform into, and their mud bodies also take to that shape. Their magical abilities are weak, but they can do simple spells including moving a door. It makes as much sense as golems being real can ever make sense.

"How is this possible?" I asked. "It shouldn't."

"Is today's incident not proof enough? It happened. Kewmonis are real. Laku are real. Magic exists. Just as the book says, the dinosaur killing asteroid caused an upwelling of the Earth's raw magic, and the result is the Laku." He moved closer and lowered his voice. "You and I, and Mom and Dad and the rest of our family are Laku. The rest of us are Aacatous, shapeshifters, and Dad and myself are seers as well. When we get home, I will prove this to you, and probably so will Mom."

"The rest of us? What am I?" How can I be anything but human? I know Da Cru-pilo Dogantig says Laku do not always know that they have magic when they are young, but if we are not normal than why hide it from me? How am I not human?

"What is the most powerful creature in Da Cru-pilo Dogantig?"

"What does it matter? Tell me what I am." My voice raised to louder than it should.

"Be patient, and not so loud. We shouldn't really be discussing this out in the open. Now, answer the question."

"A dragon."

"Which one?"

"Spirit."

"Currently, but not always. The conjuring dragons of old were once the strongest."

Conjurers. Ms. Knarlow called me a conjurer. Conjurers all died out ten thousand years ago. I stopped in my tracks. "Whoa, how can I be something that is extinct? Are you sure you aren't making this all up?"

"Seers can see through illusions. When our gift is active, we see the true nature of things. What we see in you matches the description of the Dogantigis Sopbaki. Ms. Knarlow is a seer too. She recognized what you are. The smallest yet most powerful dragon. Until we get home I cannot prove this to you."

"Why?" I started walking again.

"Mankind is not ready for the discovery of magic, or so I've been told."