45. Sam The Duel #5
I gasped for air, surfacing with as much relief as she had.
The lawn reappeared around me. Now I saw that in the time I’d wasted, Draken’s creature had arrived.
It had burst from the lily pond, diving upward into the air as if emerging from the depths of the sea.
The skin of its torso and face was a greenish white, and the matted beard and hair were dark as seaweed.
Below the waist, it was an emerald serpent, the thick coils propelling it out of the pond and across the stones with shocking speed.
It was a veritable Neptune, and though it carried no trident, it didn’t need one. The muscular tail was weapon enough.
The Drago surged across the lawn toward us, and I had no more time to lose.
How had I effected my disguise in the Lyceum?
How had I altered the people’s perceptions, bending their minds to see what I wanted them to see?
The transformation had occurred by casting my thought of Samantha upon the people around me.
So. All I had to do was cast my thoughts upon Draken. Would that be enough?
I looked across the lawn to where Draken stood, feet planted firmly apart, eyes gleaming with vicious anticipation.
In fact, I considered, letting the thought unspool, feeling Clem’s conviction joined to mine, he required no transformation; he was truly a serpent already.
Cold and deadly, devouring lives whole. Draken, the Embalmer, was the genuine Drago, the creature of insatiable appetite that could annihilate entire populations.
And he’d been preying upon us for years.
It was the human exterior that hid his true nature: the serpent within.
Just as I had shed my disguise to show my true self, I would now show his.
The Drago that had sprung from the pond reached us, smelling of ocean and decay, and it circled us once before wrapping its coils around Clementine.
Its movements were precise. As the creature wrapped itself around her, it pushed me aside.
It held Clem loosely in its serpent’s tail and brought its face close to hers.
Then, slowly and experimentally, still watching her face, it began to squeeze.
Clementine was pulled away from me by the coils, and I felt her hand leaving mine without resistance.
It seemed to me that the whole of the Cisneros Society was pressing its weight upon us, crushing slowly, enjoying the extinction of each breath.
I closed my eyes for a moment. I drew upon the strength that Clem had promised me, the strength of what had brought us out of the spirit realm: I had carried her and she had carried me.
This was where the power of enchantment resided: in the joining of wills.
Not in the power of a steel vestment laden with bones. Draken was merely a conjurer.
So let him conjure.
A scream came from across the lawn, and I opened my eyes. It came from Principa. Draken lay on the ground. “He cannot stop,” Principa screamed. “He cannot stop.” The other enchanters stood frozen, staring at Draken uncomprehendingly.
With steady steps, I closed the short distance between us until I was standing over Draken.
He was, in ghoulish imitation of his monster, transforming into a serpent.
It had begun with his feet, and now I could see the scales overtaking his legs.
He didn’t writhe or otherwise fight himself.
No, the battle was in his mind. He was using the Cisneros Steel, and he could not stop himself.
His eyes were wide with ferocious concentration, with the effort of resisting his own enchantment.
His chest rose and fell in rapid breaths.
He was, ineluctably, at my suggestion, transforming himself. “Do you cede?” I asked.
Clementine had disappeared into the folds of the serpent. I couldn’t even see her. But I was still attached to her by the rope, and I could feel her within: a pillar of strength, sending me the force of her will.
I looked back down at Draken. Now it took little effort; between us, Clementine and I had merely brought to the surface what was already there. The scales had overtaken his chest, and they began climbing up his neck. “Do you cede?” I asked again.
His face had turned a horrid, mottled red, and his eyes were glassy.
I heard, distantly, the incongruous sound of carriage wheels clattering—too fast, much too fast—across the dirt roads that led to the Manse.
Now the scales overtook his jaw and began to close his mouth.
He would not cede. The scales had sealed his lips, and now they shuttered his face, stealing quickly over his eyes and enveloping his head.
Draken lay before me, a massive brown serpent, with flecks of yellow along his motionless underbelly. His cold eyes stared.
The clattering coaches were accompanied by shouts, and I looked over my shoulder to see Wister, Roy, and a dozen others alighting from the carriages, running toward us across the lawn.
The Drago, shorn of its connection to Karl Draken, had loosened its coils, and now with the arrival of the Sor Juana Alliance it hurtled back toward the pond, diving into the water lilies and disappearing into the depths.
Clementine stood where I’d left her, eyes still closed.
Now she opened them. She didn’t have to look around her to know what we had accomplished. She smiled at me across the lawn.