Chapter 12

The following new characters appear in this chapter:

Muadhnait Graham

Doctor, OB/GYN, an older woman of indeterminate age, but surely more than 70 years old. She was about 5’-6’’ tall and thin with short gray hair. Her eyes were as black as coal.

Gerald

Employee, Dragon offspring, 5’-11’’ tall, 185 pounds, 28 years old, black hair, dark eyes

By the time we were finished, I was famished. All of the flying, and the repairs had taken a lot of work and Magic. The four of us flew back toward Stone Mountain when there were no longer things to repair or clean up. We hadn’t seen any other Dragons in the sky, or elsewhere, except those that were dead. We landed on top of Stone Mountain.

“Are you as hungry as we are?” Barchanaus, the Light Blue Dragon, asked once we had all folded our wings and settled down.

“Yes,” I answered, and Ken just nodded. “We will head home from here, and I will make us a big meal,” I added.

“You will never be able to eat enough as a Human to replace what you have burned as a Dragon,” Kildarcsh, the Red Dragon, told us.

“Come with us to the Dragon-lands,” Barchanaus asked. “Feast like a Dragon there,” he added.

“Dragon-lands?” I asked.

“Yes, many of us have our Lairs there. There are no Humans there to mess up and change nature. Humans always want to change nature to suit themselves,” he told us.

“Is that where the other Dragons have gone?” I asked.

“Yes, most have returned to their Lairs. Many of them to lick their wounds or use Magic to try to heal themselves,” the Red Dragon told us.

“Can it be that large?” I asked.

“Yes, it’s as large as this Reality, but different. It would appear to be a younger Reality than this one. Just as the Demon-lands appear to be an older Reality than this one. The Fourth Reality is where the Spirits of Magic reside, and they send Magic to all of the other Realities. Originally, we all resided in the Reality that is now the Demon-lands. That was before the other Realities were open to us,” the Light Blue Dragon told us. This HAD NOT been covered in the Books, and I wondered WHY?

“All right, we will go with you for a short time. We will need to return to care for our Familiars,” I told them after looking at Ken to judge his reaction to this. He was smiling and nodded.

“Gather close, and we will give you the transfer spell,” the two older Dragons told us. As we moved closer to them, a ward appeared around Ken and me. The Jewel in the Emblem also spoke to me.

“Be careful of these males. We know the spell, and will see if they give you the correct one,” the Queens of the Past in the Jewel told me.

The two older Dragons had felt the ward form around Ken and me. They were quite shocked by this, and even more so when the Jewel flashed red rays from the sun at them.

The spell that they gave us turned out to be a fairly simple one in the Dragon language, and we all cast it together. I was wondering where we would appear, as there had been no destination in the spell.

With a flash of Magic, we disappeared from the Stone Mountain in our Reality, and appeared on a much different Stone Mountain in the Dragon-lands. This Stone Mountain was only about three hundred feet above the surrounding terrain, but we still had an excellent view of the surrounding area. The trees were a bit sparser than in our Reality, but the plains were covered with herds of animals.

We could see small herds of shaggy American bison, herds of several types of African antelope, goats of various kinds, and even some cattle. In the trees, we could see American white tail deer. They all seemed to graze and move at their own pace. We also heard the screams of cougars and the roar of tigers.

“How did all of these different kinds of animals wind up here together?” I asked.

“We brought their ancestors here a long time ago,” the Light Blue Dragon told us.

“Pick whatever looks tasty and go get one. I can recommend the white tail deer. Be aware though, that they can be hard to catch because they remain in the trees a lot. Some of the antelope are just as tasty,” the Red Dragon told us.

Both of the older Dragons took off then and flew out over the herds. A reduced shot of Magic from their front claws stunned the animal they were after before they swooped in and picked it up with the claws of their back feet, and they carried off their meals to consume them. Shortly, they settled on a couple of large rock outcroppings in the nearby area that didn’t exist near the Stone Mountain in our Reality. As we watched, they breathed Dragon Fire on their meals before biting into the now charred meat. They definitely lacked table manners.

“Shall we?” Ken asked after a short time.

“We’re here, we may as well. I’m definitely hungry. I’m eating for three after all,” I reminded him. We took off in different directions. Catching a deer size animal wasn’t as simple as it appeared to be. They were very wary of the shadows that we cast from the air. The trick was to approach them from a direction opposite to the sun, so that your shadow was behind you. I caught a nice antelope of about 120 pounds before flying back to the younger Stone Mountain here.

After landing, a quick swipe of my Dragon claws killed the animal before I carefully roasted it on both sides with a bit of Dragon Fire. This burned off the hair and the hot body was easily opened with a Dragon claw to remove the intestines and their hot contents. Dragons have large mouths so they can bite into their oversize meals. Ken had landed while I was busy, and he copied what he had seen me doing. I had been coached by the Queens in the Jewel. The antelope was very tasty, but I was careful of the bones.

Once finished, I looked around, but the two older Dragons were nowhere in sight.

“How do we get back?” Ken asked as he finished also.

“I know the return spell,” Mandara told me. It had been quiet the entire time we had been here. It cast the spell before I could alert Ken. We appeared on Stone Mountain in our own Reality an instant later. Ken definitely looked confused until I explained what had happened. I would need to have a talk with Mandara about waiting for me to explain to Ken what was about to happen.

It was late afternoon when we returned, and we flew home to see how our Familiars were doing and to get some rest. I still had my appointment with the OB/GYN doctor tomorrow.

At their emergency meeting that night, the members of the Atlanta City Council were a very unhappy group. The Chiefs of the Police and the Fire Department were there as well as representatives of the Fulton County government, and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.

“Just how bad is it?” the Council President asked to open the meeting.

“Not as bad as it was initially,” the Police Chief answered for himself, and the Fire Chief.

“Explain that,” he was immediately asked.

“Initially, our people counted something well over 100 Dragons in flight over the city. That number isn’t firm though. They moved too fast and changed directions too often for it to be more than a poor estimate.

“We have confirmed that there were 35 crashes. There wasn’t the amount of fire or the explosives of the previous Dragon incursion used. However, a Dragon, or more importantly, a pair of Dragons crashing into the ground from 500 to a 1,000 feet creates a lot of destruction where they hit.

“There were impacts on a number of the taller buildings usually by a pair of out of control Dragons. Damage from this was quite extensive. However, most, or at least much, of the damage was repaired once the surviving Dragons had departed. The initial repairs were made by three Dragons ... two Red ones and a Light Blue one. They were later joined by a second Light Blue Dragon. That one seemed to be more powerful than the others and repaired the most seriously damaged buildings with the help of one of the Red Dragons. They also removed the remains of the dead Dragons, but left most of the repairs of the ground damage to the owners of the various buildings,” the Fire Chief and the Police Chief told the City Council.

“My people have already put the damaged areas ‘off limits’ in all of the affected buildings. The building inspectors and the structural engineers will need to certify the status of each area as habitable before they can be used again,” the Fire Chief added.

“What effect was there on the Dragons by the equipment set up by those the city paid to stop them?” the Council President demanded in an upset voice, as they hadn’t been stopped.

“As far as we have been able to determine, they had NO effect on the Dragons at all. It didn’t appear that any of their equipment worked to stop, or prevent the Dragons from flying where they wanted, or doing what they wanted. There was Dragon Fire used by many of them, but very little in the way of explosives,” the Council was told again by the two Chiefs.

“What do you mean, none of them worked?” a livid Council President demanded in an outraged voice. “WE paid them good money to keep the city safe from Dragons,” she continued.

“Still, none of their equipment appeared to have any effect at all on the Dragons,” both Chiefs insisted.

“I want the District Attorney’s office to investigate all of those charlatans that the city gave contracts to, to keep the city safe. They failed in their responsibility. The DA’s office may need to contact the Ley Line Wizards for assistance,” the Council President demanded, in a much calmer voice, and with the backing of most of the members of the Council.

We were up early on Tuesday as we had gone to bed early last night. I had my doctor’s appointment at 10:00 that morning. Our Familiars couldn’t understand why we were so tired but ate so little on returning home. We had watched the news after eating but before going to bed. On seeing it, they understood what had happened that day ... at least partially. We would need to explain things to them in more detail, but later.

Ken would be going with me this morning, but I hadn’t intended to take our Familiars with us until Alva complained.

“I want to go too. Maybe this doctor can tell me why you are pregnant, and I’m not,” she said in an upset voice.

“All right, you two can go, but you have to behave,” I agreed after several seconds of thought. We went in my car as I hadn’t been to her office in a long time, and that had been when I was a teen. I did remember to take the paperwork they had sent to me with us. Her office was located in another town and about 15 miles from where I live. We arrived early in case there was more paperwork to be filled out.

The door to her office in the medical building read:

Doctor Muadhnait Graham

OB/GYN

I was surprised by her first name, as I had never known it before. It was definitely Irish but very old and not used presently.

On entering, we could see that the reception room was large enough to seat eight to ten people, but it was presently empty. The young receptionist sat behind a desk on the left side of the room. There was a door to the right of the desk that apparently led to the back of the office.

“Good morning Miss Kavanagh,” the receptionist said as we entered. “Did you bring the paperwork that we mailed you?” she asked. I handed her the paperwork, while our Familiars each jumped up on a chair and lay down. Ken sat next to them.

“Is the gentleman your husband?” the receptionist asked.

“Yes, he is. We were married some time ago,” I told her.

“And your new last name?” she asked.

“Sweeney,” I told her. She made a notation on the first sheet of paper.

“Have a seat. The doctor will see you shortly,” I was told.

As it approached 10:00 o’clock, the door to the back of the office opened, and a woman resembling the receptionist, but older, stood there. She appeared to be 40 or so, while the receptionist was in her early 20s.

“Miss Kavanagh,” she said, and both Ken and I rose from our chairs. Our Familiars jumped down to the floor.

“Are both of you Witches?” the woman, a nurse, asked on seeing our Familiars.

“No, I’m a Witch. My husband, Ken, is a Wizard,” I told her.

“Your husband will need to wait out here with your Familiars. The doctor will see you alone. The others will join you later,” she told us. I followed her through the door and down a short hallway to a station where she took my vital signs and weight before drawing blood. Following that, she led me to one of the two visible examination rooms.

“Remove all of your clothes and put on a gown with the opening to the back. We will need a urine sample as soon as you can produce one,” she told me, pointing to a folded gown on the table. “The doctor will see you shortly,” she finished before closing the door.

By the time I had removed my clothes and donned the gown, I was ready. There was a sign on the wall that read, ‘ring for nurse’ with a button below it. The nurse arrived shortly after I pressed the button.

“Ready to give us a specimen?” she asked on entering.

“Yes.”

“Right this way. There are cups inside. When you are finished, just put it in the pass box in the wall with a lid on it,” she told me, leading me to another door that was to a restroom.

Back in the examination room, Doctor Graham arrived shortly after I had returned. She appeared to be much as I remembered her. She was an older woman of indeterminate age, but surely more than 70 years old. She was about 5’-6’’ tall and thin with short gray hair. He eyes were as black as coal. She didn’t appear to have any trouble walking, and wasn’t stoop shouldered as some older people are, as she stood very erect. As soon as she spoke, I knew that her disposition hadn’t changed since I had first met her.

“So Madailein Kavanagh, you have filled out very nicely from the thin teen who was here before. You certainly won’t have any trouble feeding twins with those breasts,” she told me after looking at me for a number of seconds.

“You have read the forms that I filled out then?” I asked.

“Read the forms?” she asked, as if puzzled. “I never read the forms. They are for my youngest daughter and my granddaughter. They fulfill the state’s requirements for records on each patient, but I have no need to read them,” she finished with a smile.

“No, I read you with my mind when I entered the room. You certainly don’t resemble your mother or your grandmother now,” she told me. I stared at her in shock.

“No, the Ley Lines made changes to me after I was attacked by a Demon,” I said, quickly recovering. She only smiled again. It did strange things to her face.

“You knew my grandmother?” I asked following that.

“Oh yes, she was more than a great Witch. She was a wise and intelligent woman. She could read the future. That’s why she only had one child. She could see that she would only have sons and never a daughter. It was something she greatly regretted. She could also see what would happen if she had more sons. She followed the lines of the future for each one and knew the trouble that each would cause. So, she had no more children. She did see that her son’s wife would produce a daughter, and she made provisions for you, and for a few others,” she told me.

“But how could you know my grandmother? She would have been well over a hundred by now,” I wondered.

“She certainly would have been. I knew your great grandmother also, but that was in a different location than here,” she told me.

“How old are you to have known both of them?” I asked in amazement.

“Dragons are always inquisitive,” she said with a chuckle before turning serious.

“I was born in Drumcliffe, which is now a part of County Sligo, in 975 AD. I was a midwife at first, but eventually became a doctor after going to school many years ago. I knew more about delivering babies than those teaching at the medical school. I’ve never delivered a baby for a Dragon, however,” she finished.

“You know that I’m a Dragon!” I asked in surprise, as it wasn’t in the paperwork.

“Oh yes, your grandmother told me that she turned down the chance to be a Dragon. She said the time wasn’t right for that yet. She was sure that you would try, but she could never see if you would succeed. That was hidden from her senses. It was the one thing that she regretted the most,” the doctor told me before adding, “enough of this, get up on the table.” Her examination was very thorough but didn’t take an excessive amount of time.

“Get dressed and come to the office. I’ll have your husband and Familiars there,” she told me when she had finished.

“Your husband is a Dragon also,” the doctor said when I entered her office a few minutes later.

“Yes, he is. I wouldn’t be having children who will be Dragons otherwise,” I replied.

“Have you had much trouble with morning sickness, Madailein?” the doctor asked once we were all seated in her office.

“Yes, initially,” I told her, before going on to explain about spending time in my Dragon form, and that it had cured the morning sickness as well as the problem with my breasts.

“That’s curious, but apparently it worked for you. When I initially checked you, I could tell that you are just over five weeks pregnant and in very good health. According to the report my daughter has prepared, your tests don’t reveal anything unusual other than the fact that you have some strange antibodies in your blood. They could be related to you being a Dragon, and could be responsible for the lessening of the morning sickness,” she told us after glancing at the report on her desk.

“For now, just keep doing what you have been, and I’ll see you again in four weeks. Normally, I would recommend things for you to eat and to take to prepare your body for delivering the twins. In your case, I’ll wait on that to see how things develop. I’m sure that treating a Dragon will be a bit unusual,” she told us.

“One other thing,” she said following that, “don’t overtax your body. It may not be good for the babies that you are carrying.”

“Why is she pregnant, and I’m not?” Alva demanded before we all stood to leave the office. The doctor looked at her sitting on the chair with Al for several seconds before saying anything.

“It’s not your time yet. You must be patient. Your kittens will be born shortly after Madailein delivers her daughters,” the doctor told her, much to our shock.

Three days after my doctor’s appointment, the offspring of several of the now dead old Dragons began to arrive outside of my wards. Though they all could have passed through my property wards, they stopped outside of them. The wards, of course, alerted us to their presence, and Ken and I went out to see what they wanted.

This first group was composed of six young men who ranged in age from their mid to late twenties. They all stood very calmly in the driveway entrance waiting for us to appear.

“Good morning,” I said on reaching them, but was still behind the Nesting ward. “What are you here for?” followed that. Five of them looked at the sixth one who was perhaps a year or more older than they were.

“We, the six of us, have lost our Dragon masters in the fight earlier this week. We ... we don’t know what to do, or who we can turn to. We have never been alone like this before. There was always our parent Dragon to guide us and tell us what to do, what to learn, or where to go. We have no directions now as our masters left us no instructions before dying,” their leader said in a voice full of despair.

On examining them more closely, it was obvious that they were indeed lost. Their clothes were dirty, and some were torn. Their faces and hands were also dirty, and there were scratches and scars visible. They did not present the tidy appearance of other offspring that we were familiar with.

“Have you been in a fight?” I asked.

“Yes, the offspring of several other Dragons tried to force us to join their master. We did not choose to do that, but we still need someone to direct our lives,” their leader explained in a hopeful voice.

“What do you expect me to do? I have little authority over the remaining Dragons. In any case, they have gone off to their Lairs in the Third Reality,” I reminded them.

“But you are the Queen. Could you not, at least, give us a direction to move in? Something to ... to direct our lives. We have had no instructions for nearly a week now as our masters were off meeting with the other Dragons and the Clan Leaders. Even our Clan Leaders will not talk to us. They have been busy with their own offspring and those of the still living Clan members,” the young man explained in a voice crying for help. Ken had been smiling on hearing all of this, and now spoke to me.

“Have you considered who will help us with our security business? How many employees will we need, and where will they work from?” he asked.

“Isn’t it a bit early to start worrying about that?” I asked.

“The Blacksmiths have a saying, ‘Strike while the iron is hot’. Here we have some prospective employees. They will need to be tested on what spells they know or can learn, but they are looking for a direction to move in and are available now. It’s not too early to start looking at locations, equipment, and qualified employees,” he told me with a smile.

The Queens of the Past in the Jewel also spoke to me then.

“It is not good for young Dragons to have no one to oversee them. They will too easily find something to do that can create a lot of trouble and require strong measures to correct,” the Queens counseled. I smiled at the six of them before saying anything.

“Kennith is correct. We will be starting a security business shortly. It will be called ‘Dragon Security’. For that, we will require people who can cast Dragon Wards. We will also require a place to set up the business and the necessary equipment to staff the business.

“The location will need to be large enough so that we will not need to move when our business has achieved the size that we envision. We will also require office furniture, computers, telephones, and other office equipment and supplies. Initially, we will only require enough for perhaps a dozen employees, but with options to purchase more of each item later.

“We will also want the building to be outside of the city. Perhaps something off of I-85 would be best. That would give us access to all of Atlanta without being inside of the city. Eventually, we will be able to transfer directly to our major customers’ locations, so where the building is won’t be as important. Until then, it will be necessary to also have transportation available. Do any of you have cars and driver’s licenses?” I asked. Four of them did, and I was sure the other two could easily obtain both.

“Do any of you have jobs presently?” I asked following that. Five of them indicated that they did, and the sixth one had been interviewed for a job a few days before the Dragon fight.

“All of you return to your jobs for now. In your spare time, check on the things that I have mentioned. Divide the items among yourselves. Report back here in 8 days, and be prepared to report on what you have learned,” I instructed them.

“Oh yes,” I added having nearly forgotten. “Do each of you have a place to stay and money for food, and gas or transportation?” I asked them. There was a short-murmured conversation then before they answered.

“Yes, we all have a place to stay, plus food and money for transportation,” the older one told me.

“What is your name?” I asked.

“I am called Gerald, Mistress,” he answered.

“All right, Gerald, take charge of the others for now. When all of you return, I expect you to have a resume with the following information on it: your name, address, whether you can drive a car and if you have one and what type. Indicate if you are presently employed and where. Also include any other talents you may have and how much Magic you know. This will enable us to see what spells you will need to learn for the security business. You will be working directly for my husband, Kennith Sweeney. I will also be there to oversee the training and help in the operation of the business. However, I will shortly have two daughters to look after,” I told them before dismissing them, and they all disappeared.

Eight days later, they arrived with four additional young men who were about the same age as the initial ones. They all had the resumes that I had requested, and the original six made reports on what they had learned about the things I had requested them to check on.

I chose to admit them to my property to interview them, and for Ken to question them about their experience with security spells. It turned out that most of them were very knowledgeable about the use of Magic in general, but would need to learn a number of spells for the security business. Of course, they could all cast Dragon spells. It turned out that the four new men all had jobs and two were even married. They all had transportation. All of this had been done while Ken and I were in our Dragon forms at the 25-foot-level. The Queens in the Jewel had checked each of them while I interviewed them and had approved all of them.

During the time they had been gone, Ken had finished Book 3 and had started on Book 4. We had also visited the Nest in Stone Mountain and had returned with more of the large gold nuggets and some of the large pearls. They would be the chief source of revenue to start our security business with until money started coming in from our clients.

Wednesday of the following week, four more offspring arrived outside the property wards. They were not respectful of them and barged through them only to have the Nesting ward stop them short. They were very upset about that.

Both Al and Mandara alerted us to their arrival.

“More near Dragons have arrived,” Al told us, as the alert from the Nesting ward sounded.

“These are not like the others,” Mandara warned me.

“Then we will go out in our Dragon forms and determine what their intentions are, and what we will do about them,” I told Ken after informing him of what Mandara had said. I cast a reinforced silence spell around the kitchen table where out Familiars were already hiding before we transported out to see what the problem was.

Appearing just inside of the Nesting ward in our twenty-five-foot-tall size, we were a bit of a shock to the four want-to-be Dragons.

“Why are you here?” I demanded after we appeared. They immediately became belligerent.

“We are here to replace those other sorry excuses for Dragon’s children. We will take charge of your business and run it according to our terms and principles,” their leader told us. Again, they were young men of about 24 to 28 years old.

“We are not interested in any more employees at this time,” I told them, before adding, “You most certainly will not be the ones running our business.”

“You will allow us to take it over, or we will sabotage your business by canceling your spells and wards and chasing away your customers. We will be the ones in charge of the business, and the ones making the profit not you,” their leader told us in a demanding voice.

Ken and I were shocked by the audacity of this pronouncement. The Queens in the Jewel were even more upset than we were.

“Who do they think they are that they dare to dictate to US?” the Queens demanded in my mind.

“Mandara, WE command you to eliminate all of them immediately,” they ordered following that.

“WAIT!” I injected. “This can be settled in a reasonable manner,” I told both the Queens and Mandara.

“How?” both parties demanded.

“Like this for a start,” I told them, and fixing what I wanted to say in my mind, I opened my Dragon mouth.

“Kum Deud#?!sa Paus#?e Hsau!?le,” roared from my mouth in the Dragon language. Trees and shrubs up and down the road and on my property quaked and bent as branches and leaves were blown off by the acoustic waves set up by me announcing my name and title. The four want-to-be Dragons had passed out at the sound of my roar. Fortunately, there aren’t many houses in the vicinity of my property, so nothing of importance was destroyed.

“Now let us consider what to do with these troublemakers like rational beings,” I told everyone concerned in an even voice.

“It is better to deal with them now, rather than later when they have caused trouble,” I continued.

“True, where there are four, there could be more of them. Still, how dare these mere hatchlings come here and make demands on US and try to tell US what We will do?” the voice of the Queens in the Jewel demanded in indignation.

“Let me awaken them one at a time and question them to see what we can learn about them and any others who may have the same or similar ideas,” I suggested, and the Queens agreed. We had been speaking out loud so Ken could follow the conversation. I had needed to explain what had gone before that.