Lung's Choice

by
Susie Hawes

The Moon Path shimmered beneath his claws, a silver highway painted on the darkness of the ocean's surface, undisturbed by the motion of the waves or the weight of the creature that walked along it. As he neared the shore, Lung stopped to listen to the waves. His throat was raw from the dirty air, but his body absorbed the poisons and neutralized them, as was his nature. It had been a long time since Lung last walked the surface of this human-infested planet.

Kneeling down on the shimmering ribbon of light, Lung reached past the Moon Path's edge into darkness and dipped one red talon into the ocean water, dripping it onto his tongue. The smell was rancid; the taste bitter. It made him ill but he swallowed a few drops from the tip of his claw, ingesting the chemicals in the liquid so that his body could neutralize them. Might as well get it over with.

A cramping pain hit his gut. He shook it off with a low growl and completed his trip to the shoreline, intent on finding whatever triggered the Elder Dragons' warding spell to summon him from his lunar bed.

A demon inhabited this world. His elders designed the wards to awaken Lung if such a creature found its way to earth. Lung felt a surge of heat in his stomach. Humans were fools to summon one of the Fallen.

His feet sank into the wet sand at the shoreline. His claws dug deep into the mud, slowing him. At the water's edge he paused, lying down. Bits of trash washed against him but he ignored this to study the world before him. The salty water, kicked up by the wind. sprayed over his scales. Moonlight glinted on them, casting rainbow colored lights on the water's oily surface. Lung glistened in the pale moonlight.

He could hear the roaring of metal on the hill above the beach; the vibrations of something heavy, rolling swiftly past on some unknown road above him. Alert. he cast about for the nature of the beast but could find no evil in it.

It shook the ground. It pushed at the air. a warrior rushing to battle with his shield out before him, barreling his way across the landscape. The birds and the insects paid the creature no mind and soon it was past, screaming off into the distance unseen. A moment later, a hot cloud of fumes drifted down the hill to the beach, drying his throat and coating it with an acid-tasting film. The ocean wind scattered the cloud and cleansing the air. As silence reclaimed the night Lung cast around him for the demon that had awakened him. Was it summoned by a foolish human? Or was it demonseed, birthed in a grave and set loose on the planet to destroy it?

There was a dearth of magic here. The world was older now and seemed to resist it. A different kind energy was dominant here; one he'd come to associate with the scholars and alchemists of mankind. Scowling, Lung shifted his weight uncomfortably. He'd never liked humans. Lung rose and began his search. His long, ropy body dragged through the sand. His short legs were of little help.

His cumbersome bulk slowed him. Lung was a Moon Dragon. a Celestial Beast. His kind ruled the sky eons ago, before the advent of mankind. Wet sand piled up in front of him as he pushed along, impeding him, making him regret he couldn't fly as was his nature. The demon must be sought carefully. If he flew over this land Lung would be traveling too quickly.

This tedious pace would have to do. As he dragged himself along the beach, his beard caked with damp sand, he continued to cast about for the demon.

Man altered the world the way he always did, masking it. They hid the old powers under a blanket of energies foreign to Lung. Shimmering threads permeated the world around him like a collection of spider's webs radiating out from myriad points to clutter the air. Power flowed over and through everything. He couldn't absorb these as he did toxins. but he could tell they flowed like waves. The threads seemed to be carrying something on them the way songs uses music to carry words. This was a language his ears did not know.

Vibrations from the ground alerted him. Lung stepped into the water and used a minor illusion to blend in with his surroundings. Twin beams of light sliced through the night's darkness and a loud, brassy jumble of music and words pierced the veil of ocean sounds. A large metal box tore across the beach, past the hiding dragon. The humans inside it were bare-chested and intoxicated, shouting nonsense above their music. The box emitted a cloud of poisons like that which drifted down onto the beach earlier.

As the dragon scanned their minds, learning a bit of their language, the "jeep" turned up the hill onto Man's "highway". Lung saw the jeep pulled in many of the strange waves of energy and converted it into sound. Lung watched, his eyes flashing in the moonlight. A few of this world’s mysteries solved, and he was glad when they left. The sounds of the ocean were preferable to their riotous presence.

While illusion might work in the darkness Lung no idea how long it would take to find the creature he sought. If he encountered men again illusion might not be enough to disguise him. Humans would panic at the sight of a dragon and Lung might have to harm them to defend himself.

He should change into their form, risking exposure to the demon. His stomach tightened as he thought of the foul thing, and Lung felt a tremble of fear. He swallowed the knot in his throat and growled, then drew a shaking breath.

Lung closed his eyes. Focusing on the primordial energies, he felt out the strength of each. Metal and Wood were scarce and Fire would not be available until sunrise. He hoped to be long gone by then, walking up the Moon Path to his resting place in the heavens.

Water and Earth were plentiful. Lung tapped into the elements. Heat flushed his body and his form dwindled. His scales dipped below the surface of his body like leaves sinking beneath water. Lung felt a tightening sensation and his breathing became ragged as his snout shortened. Salt laced the air, stinging his eyes. The world looked dull through human eyes, bereft of the rich colors of magic; it would take concentration to reclaim them. Lung disliked this stark look. He gave a deep, rumbling growl but it lacked a dragon's strength and the earth did not respond.

His throat felt dry as the long, sinuous neck drew into his shoulders. Lung shook with revulsion as he assumed the shape of a naked old man. His skin felt chilled by the salty winds coming off of the ocean. They teased at his beard and caught his long white hair, throwing it into his eyes. Lung pulled it back and twisted it into a knot at the base of his neck. Damp from the sea spray, Lung’s hair plastered itself to his back and ribs.

He moved more freely through the shallows now, walking up onto the sand. Mercifully his human senses were not as keen as those in his dragon body had been. Curious, he knelt down at the water's edge. The wet sand was gritty beneath his knee, abrading his flesh in a way never felt before. He picked up a sea shell and felt its surface. It was smooth at one end, and pleased him, but the other was pitted and rough. He rose and tossed it aside.

It felt odd to have human feet. The claws were thin, pale things, incapable of inflicting more than the most trivial of wounds. The skin was soft and sensitive. Lung shivered, unused to the sensation of cooling flesh. If a battle were to ensue he would be well advised to shift back to his own form. Twigs, rocks and trash gathered at the water's edge. Thin metal containers jostled against the drift wood. Brightly colored pieces of an unknown material floated in the foamy waters.

Lung picked up a yellow container. The substance of it confused him. Its elements were older than Man. yet they had been altered so drastically that he couldn't identify them. It was drenched with Man energies. Lung broke off a bit of the thin substance. It was slick on his fingertips, different than the sea shell had been; a new sensation. He tasted it. then spat it out.

Old forests; tropical, tall enough to blot out the sun. Tough, but dying anyway, then rotting, buried as the world shifted and changed. Heat and pressure until it liquefied. Sucked out of the earth by men and machines, purified and processed, then poured into a mold and used to hold liquids as alien as itself. Lung's jeweled eyes narrowed in disapproval. This thing would not go easily back into the earth. It would continue, long after its potential had been exhausted.

They poison their nest, these humans. Dropping the cup, he sniffed the night breeze. Above the salty water and the scent of waste Lung sensed something dead; something threaded through with the darkest of Magiks. This thing had awakened him. The old wards still worked.

An earth mage, tapping into the Dark Arts, sought to resurrect himself in the form of a dragon. It was an ancient spell of transformation. Human corpse to dragon's flesh; this was the spell of a geomancer cheating death.

Lung growled and the earth beneath his human feet trembled in response to a dragon's anger and disgust. Death came to all creatures and the shell left behind was fated to return to the soil, replenishing it. This was the natural order of things and to go against it was dangerous. Yet this mage refused to give up his body to the earth. Instead he sought a dragon's immortality.

Foolish! The rotted corpse would corrupt the spell. The thing that emerged from such a grave would be dark and twisted, fit only to house the spirit of a demon. The geomancer's soul would be devoured by this creature, and Nature's cycle of death and rebirth cheated not only of the mage's body, with its nourishing chemicals, but of his mind and spirit as well.

Lung knew the spell; humans feared death and revered his own kind. He'd hunted down and destroyed such corruption before. Yet as he looked around him at this world...

Lung hesitated.

His imperative was merely to answer the summoning. He was not bound to take action. only to respond to the call and assess the danger.

Ocean spray coated his body, chilling him and depressing his spirit. The sky drummed against his skull, making it ache. He did not like this world.

Was the creation of a host body for a demon any filthier than what had already been done to this planet?

Lung remembered the wars of the titans and the dragons, when demons had walked freely. To his shame, his own kind found the demons in their dark void and released them onto this earth, tapping into their power and enslaving them. The demons broke free of control and had unleashed the Dark Magiks. Their evil polluted the earth to its core. Eons passed before the world recovered enough to once again sustain life.

This horror made the Elder Dragons set the wards which summoned him. The poisoning he now observed was only physical damage. While wasteful and destructive, it could be reversed in a relatively short time, by dragons' standards. Yet a demon, housed in a dragon's powerful body and empowered by a dragon's magical nature would do far worse. It would inflict astral and spiritual devastation unrivaled by Man's petty efforts. Perhaps it would destroy this world entirely, reducing it to ash.

The race of Man must be free to forge its own destiny. No demon should interfere with that. nor victimize and entire planet. Frowning, Lung made his choice. As much as he disliked Mankind, he hated the demons more.

Let mankind poison himself into oblivion if he wanted to. The world would survive to heal itself. Lung resumed his search. The moon path faded as Lung walked down the beach. He ignored the distractions of his environment, focusing only on the demonseed's whereabouts.

After several hours he came upon a metal shed. It was flush to the ground and packed into the sandy hill around it. A smell of sulfur, urine and Dark Magiks bled out of it, stinging his eyes. A locked door barred Lung from entering. Angry, he shifted the thin nails on his fingers into harder, crimson talons and clawed at the lock, tearing it open.

Stairs led down into the darkened room. In the center of the sandy floor was a fresh mound. Stacked around the grave was an assortment of clay pots filled with bubbling liquids. Dark energy poured out of them to settle on the sandy grave, drenching it with power. Tiny holes were drilled into the tin roof of the shack. Moonlight filtered in. fueling the spell. By the pale shafts of light Lung saw the grave shift. Whatever grew within took strength and nourishment from the evil spell.

Lung scowled and kicked over the pots in anger, cutting off the demonseed’s energies and spilling the rancid brew. The liquid steamed as it soaked into the grave, alerting the demonseed within its womb. The creature writhed, sensing him, and lashed out with its mind. A bolt of power tore out of the grave to stab at the dragon. Images of pain warred with the rot of madness to assail him. Illusion warped the earth he stood on. His feet sank into a pool of steaming blood while acids ate away at his flesh.

Lung thrashed in agony. Luminous blood trickled from his nose. Fear coated his tongue with a bitter taste. He howled, and the shack trembled. The acid burn subsided and he moaned then staggered to his feet. Blinking tears of pain from his eyes, Lung used his power to reach deep within the earth, far past the demon to the bedrock beneath. He would spoil the birth so the humans who planted this seed would believe they failed. Let them think the Earth Herself rejected this unnatural birthing. They would not plant another demon here.

His eyes found the crack in the earth's crust and Lung prodded it with his mind. Just a slight touch, but it was enough. The bedrock bucked and split. As the breach began to widen, the demon fetus screamed in rage and tried to climb out of its grave.

Lung focused the energy from his pain and rage, sparking the transformation magic. He felt the welcome heat as Elemental Power took hold of him. His flesh stung, and Lung heard the bones in his body crack as wings erupted from his back and barbs coursed down his spine. His muscles stretched and his scales floated to the surface. As the earth shook Lung burst out of the small shack, knocking it aside. Armored scales coated his body, and his tail whipped up a spray of sand. Hissing, he raised his talons. They flashed like crimson swords in the moonlight.

He allowed himself the pleasure of driving them deep into the heart of the grave. The demon shrieked in pain and magic poured out of its warped body to stain the sand like blood. Lung, smiling at last, unfurled his wings and flew up from the beach.

The earth buckled, crushing the last of the demon. Consuming it. The beach continued to thrash, tearing itself apart. The ocean rushed in to drown it. The black ribbon
of highway collapsed as the hill slid down to crash into the ocean. Lung spiraled upward, away from the devastation. Several miles of land were destroyed as the fault shifted.

Lung flew back the way he'd come. The Moon Path was almost gone, only a thin trickle of silver on the water's dark surface. He followed night's edge along the beach until he found it renewed. As he walked the path to his resting place, mankind was just beginning to use the airwaves to discuss this latest earthquake.

End