THE DRAGONS’ VEIL

 Here inside the Dragons’ Breath, Live in peace, long safe from death.

Leave war and wrath beyond the Veil where conflict ever yet will rail.

No silver sword will smote the scales of any beast who herein dwells.

For this, the LAW, is placed on all—

No beast shall kill, nor sword shall fall,

No voice will roar in anger’s thrall,

No fang shall cleave nor sharp claw maul.

In exchange for tooth and nail thought and reason shall prevail.

In exchange for strength and fire to intellect we shall aspire.

The magic of the Breath shall rule—until some Dragon acts the Fool!

Dread the wing’ed vagabond! What Dragon dares to go beyond

Violates that capricious wall to the detriment of all.

Once swift wings disturb the Veil the magic Breath will thin and fail.

Two lands asunder that once were One,

now separate worlds with separate sun

Become again as once they were and scale and feather, skin and fur,

Will fight and wound and rend and slay as intellect does fade away.

Peace and calm will disappear replaced by anger, war, and fear.

Woe to us long safe from death if fails the Veil of Dragon’s Breath!

The Dragons' Veil
A thousand years ago Dragons' created a magic Veil and a bountiful, peaceful sanctuary called Isoladia that protected them from Man and his wars.  There they exchanged fang and claw for intellect and speech; indeed, they've become a most civilized and loquacious species.  Outside the Veil, fighting continues, drought and hunger reign, and the vicious half-men, Borken, threaten to overrun the Kingdoms. 

Now feisty Princess Shaila needs a husband to inherit her father's throne, and she refuses to settle for a staid Isoladian man.  She wants a warrior, but there are none in Isoladia.  She convinces her Dragon, Galvistor, to take her beyond the Veil.  A selfish but seemingly harmless command.  How can she know the violence tainted air will revert Galvistor to a primitive mindset?  How can she know she will end up alone amid such men as she never dreamed were real--hard, strong, bloodied in the aftermath of battle?  How can she know that of all those men, the one she wants most to avoid, the domineering, stone-hearted Captain Sol--totally unsuitable husband material--will be the man she brings home...by accident? 

Worst, how can she know that disturbing the Veil will cause it to fade, and once it is gone, the opposing worlds will collide?  Which will survive?  What changes will be wrought by one young woman's self indulgence?  And how will anyone survive the monsters that the Veil's disappearance awakens?            

“You sound like Daddy.  He has a rigid mindset, but I thought you were more...inquiring.  I misjudged you.” 

        “I am as inquiring as the next Dragon.”  One great claw plucked the cloak from her grasp.

“Hey—”

He held it out of her reach.  “Going beyond the Veil is irrefutably unfeasible—according to Dragon Law, I cannot go through it.  And according to human Law, neither can you.”

She glared at him.  “I knew you were afraid.”

“Not at all,” he insisted.

“You told me neither Laws nor Truths are set in stone.”

He flared his nostrils.  “I never said that...did I?”

“Well, I can paraphrase too: things change and we must change with them.  Adhering to outdated concepts is as useless as wearing tattered underwear—nothing important is contained and all your faults are exposed.”  She reached for the cloak and he lifted it higher.

        “That makes no sense.  Nor,” he said, “would I have made such an analogy.  I know nothing about underwear.”

        “That was my own thought on the subject.  Keep the cloak, if you will.  I’ll do without.”  She hooked her thumbs through her pack straps and turned on her heel. 

        “It will take you more than a month to reach the Veil afoot,” he said.  “Thirty days, plus one.  Seven hundred and forty-four hours!”  She kept walking.  “Forty-four thousand, six hundred and forty minutes.  Two million, six hundred—”

        “So who’s counting?” she said loud enough for him to hear.  “No one who counts, anyway.  I’ve always known that when the chips were down a Dragon wouldn’t come through.  Generous my eye!”  She sniffed, as much in contempt as to hold back tears.  

         Wump, wump, wump—the grass compressed from the rush of air as Galvistor swung overhead and repositioned himself in front of her.  His landing shook the ground.  He settled, yet didn’t, for his wings remained stiff with tenseness, great sheaths of blackness slowly, slowly fanning the air. 

Shaila stopped, enthralled.  She had never seen him angry.

“I cannot let you go,” he grumbled.

        “Then eat me, because that’s the only way you’ll stop me.”

        “Eat you?”  

        “All the way down,” she insisted, stepping toward him.  “Bite me, chew me, and digest every part—better that than a slow death in a long life with a man I don’t want.”

        “How distasteful!  I would never—”

        “Go on, swallow me!”  She walked straight at him, sending him into a cumbersome, backward scuttle.  “Better a momentary belch in your esophagus than some stranger’s life mate.”

        “That was redundant.  And you’re distraught!” Galvistor blurted, still backing up.  His tail was in the way.  It kinked, stopping him as she reached his torso.

        “You have no idea.”  She stopped under his breast, forcing him to curve his neck into a tight arch to look down at her.  “Do you want to know what the worst part is?” she asked.  “Learning the creature you thought to be your best friend isn’t there when you need him.”  She prodded him with a finger.  “Finding that under his glorified coat of scales, beats the heart of a- a- flunky, who only does what my father tells him to do.”

         Pale green smoke trickled from his nostrils and dissipated.  “I am neither glorified nor a flunky, dear girl.  What would you have me do?  Take you into a place where I cannot keep you safe?  You think that is friendship?”

        She flattened her hand against scales as hard and smooth as polished diamonds.  “You are the King of Beasts.  Smart and strong, and you sing wonderfully.  I trust you can keep me safe even in a world of warmongers.”

        He lowered his head.  “This is so important to you?”

        “It is my life, Sir Dragon.  How important is that?”

        He was silent a long moment.  “You are determined in this?”

        “I am.”

        His head rose again and he stared into the distance, contemplating, she was certain, the seething motion of the distant Veil, for his eyes were more keen than any other creature.

        “I feel,” he said, his voice distracted, “that there is a design to this circumstance, a weaving of fate into our time...  Why can I not remember, when I remember all else?”

        Shaila tilted her head, straining to hear what he said.  “Whatever to you mean?”

        His head came down and she stepped back, so that his warm nostrils quivered only feet from her face.

        “A design.  A purpose.  Fate.  Destiny.  Providence.  You, being born as you are, stubborn and energetic—not to mention rebellious—when all around you humans have become, to put it kindly, staid.  I prefer the quiet, I do, yet there is in me some odd and nagging notion that any species too long quiet will become...extinct.”

        Shaila frowned.  “I don’t know that word.”

        “Vanish, dear girl.  Cease to be.  Die out.  Disappear!”

        Shaila swallowed, not certain what he meant, but uneasy, for what he said sounded like a prophecy of doom.  Whose doom, she didn’t want to know.

        “There may come a time,” he added cryptically, “when I cannot keep you safe, when perhaps being safe is not the means by which the future can be gained.”

“Galvistor, I still don’t understand you!”

        “No?  Neither do I.  I have this strange sensing...perhaps it is merely old age making me paranoid.  Or something I ate.  Forget I mentioned it.”  He sighed, a deep rush of warmth that immersed her in a sulfurous odor as he gazed at her with one gleaming eye.  “Your life, you say?  That is most important.  More important, I think, even than Laws wrapped in tattered little undergarments.”

Shaila let out her breath, surprised she had been holding it.  Knowing she had won, she stepped forward and kissed him between his nostrils.

This book is now available.  Purchase this book at Readers Eden (http://www.readerseden.com). 

Read an excerpt from Book II, The Dragons' Vision, on the next page.  It will be published soon.  You have to have both, you see, to finish the story.