and she wondered how long it would take her to destroy it. The sun hung low in the western sky above Alexandria and the spring breeze grew colder through her long, unfettered hair.
“You’re certain this is what you wish to do?” asked Priya.
Asha exhaled slowly and looked at her friend. “Yes.”
The little nun smiled and adjusted the red cloth tied across her eyes, and leaned on her tall staff with its jangling brass rings set into the top. “I admit that this will undoubtedly make the world a better place. These Osirian people are dangerous. Their weapons are unholy. Their acts, unforgivable.”
“I’m glad we still agree. Sometimes I think your compassion goes too far.” Asha looked back toward the doors of the temple, which were guarded by half a dozen men in green robes, each wearing two or three belts laden with knives and other, stranger weapons. As she studied them, she noticed a middle-aged gentleman and a very young woman crossing the street to approach the temple steps.
There was nothing remarkable about the man, but the girl had skin the color of snow and hair the color of blood. She wore a rustling dress of black silk with a black scarf tied over the top of her head, and her eyes were hidden by a pair of glasses with blue lenses.
“I’m not concerned for these Sons of Osiris,” Priya was saying. “And I don’t care about their godless temple. What I do care about is you. You’ve never done anything like this before. This is different from fighting a lone man or stopping a crime. This is violence on a much larger scale. You could lose control. You could lose yourself. I could lose you.”
Asha looked back at the nun. “I won’t let that happen. I promise.”
“I’m going to hold you to that promise,” Priya said. “Jagdish and I will be terribly sad and lonely if you become a monster.” The sleepy mongoose poked his whiskers out from behind the curtain of Priya’s flowing black hair as he clung to her shoulder. He squeaked, and then huddled back down against the nun’s neck. “And it doesn’t need to be now. We’ve only just arrived. We can wait and see what there is to be seen of this place and what goes on here. Learn more. Think more. Perhaps even find another way, if another way exists.”
“No. No waiting. We crossed an empire to find this place, to stop these men. I don’t want to know more about them. I don’t want to understand them,” Asha said, her gaze shifting back to the pale girl in the black dress on the temple steps. “They murder the innocent, and they enslave the souls of the dead. I don’t want to wait and let them hurt one more person while I stand by, doing nothing.”
The nun touched her shoulder. “It’s all right. I understand.”
“You shouldn’t be here when I do it. It won’t be safe,” Asha said. “I’ll take you back to the hotel.”
“No, I want to be here,” Priya said. “In case you need me.”
“I won’t.”
“Still.” The nun smiled and headed across the street, her staff jingling softly with each step, her long unbound hair festooned with white lotus blossoms fluttering in the cool Aegyptian breeze.
Asha watched her companion move gracefully through the foot traffic and the beasts of burden and the mechanical wagons spewing steam, and the nun reached the shadows of a sheltered alleyway without incident. The evening surge of merchants and porters, mercenaries and priests, mothers and children flowed around her, full of zebras and camels and huge spotted deer called sivatheras.
But the traffic slowly thinned as the sun went down, and the noise faded bit by bit. Asha turned back to the Temple of Osiris and she tried to look at it dispassionately, wondering how heavy and thick the stone walls of the lower fortress might be, and how strong the wooden beams of the upper pagoda might be.
How much power will it take to destroy something like this?
How much strength?
How much of the dragon?
There was no way to know, and no way to guess. But it had to be done.
All of it then.
She glanced one last time at the doors of the temple where the Aegyptian man and the strange girl in black were speaking to the guards.
I wonder. Could she be one of them? No, she doesn’t look anything like them. Then, could she be a prisoner? A slave? Are they taking her in there, never to let her leave? Well, she won’t be among them for much longer. She’ll be free soon.
Asha closed her eyes and exhaled slowly, preparing for the dragon, and searching for a memory to call it forth. She had so many memories to choose from. The doctor who tortured the people of India and Rajasthan, the foolish parents who neglected their children, the spouses who beat each other, the landowners who reduced their workers to starving slaves, the murderers, the thieves, and on and on. She kept a vast gallery of human monsters and atrocities in the back of her mind, each one bright and hideous, and each one able to inspire some degree of rage in her heart.
But now, she reached all the way back to the first evil, the very first vision of hateful cruelty in her mind. It was the image of a beautiful youth lying on a table, his chest carefully opened and his blood dripping slowly onto the floor. The surgical knives were arrayed nearby with the lenses, powders, and razors. The doctors were coming toward her, leaving the room, leaving the youth alone on the table, his face still contorted in his final moments of agony.
She had asked them, Why didn’t you save him?
And they had answered, Because we didn’t want to.
Asha felt her skin burning, her heart pounding, and her brains searing as the tears welled up in the corners of her eyes. She curled her hands into fists and clenched her teeth as her lips rippled in a silent snarl.
The dragon awoke.
The soul of the great golden dragon, which slept deep down within her own fragile spirit and flesh, opened its ruby eyes and opened its golden maw, and from within her own heart, the beast roared.
Asha opened her eyes and saw the change begin. Her smooth brown skin rippled with golden scales that shone in the late day sun. Her fingertips grew longer and thinner, becoming deadly scarlet claws. She felt the warm pulses running down her skin as she traded her human flesh for dragon armor. Her spine throbbed as her slender whip of a tail erupted from her back and began to coil and lash the dusty ground behind her, tossing her pale yellow sari left and right.
All around her, men and women cried out in fear and surprise and she could sense them running away. Horses and zebras whickered and screamed before racing down the road. A nearby sivathera drawing a stately little coach reared up on its hind legs, bellowing and snorting, and it too thundered off down the street.
Yes, run away. Run away, all of you. And keep running.
A terrible heat rose in her chest, scorching her throat as she exhaled, and she saw the air around her nostrils shimmering like a watery mirage on the horizon. Asha pressed her hands to her forehead, knowing what would come next, but still afraid. She’d never let it go this far before.
From her temples where the golden scales met her thick black hair, two small mounds rose, and rose, and went on rising. The dragon’s horns were angular and ridged, and they curved gently back and forth through the air before finally tightening into ruby-tipped points.
Asha straightened up and stretched her back and arms, feeling the mass of her golden armor and the power in her legs. Her horned skull weighed heavily on her neck, and her lashing tail tugged her hips left and right. It was all awkward and new, all so much stranger than just the scales and claws that she usually released, but now with the dragon awake and raging within her breast, the strangeness felt natural and right.
This is what is needed. This will consume the evil.
I will consume the evil.
I will… devour… everything…
She looked up at the temple again as a crimson veil passed over her eyes. The world became a flat landscape of dark reds and light reds, punctuated by the sharp white figures of people and animals.
But through it all, she held on to the image of the youth on the table, and the doctors who had laughed as they walked away from his dead body, and hadn’t cared whether their patient had lived or died.
He was mine. My first.
They killed him.
I stood by. I watched them do it. And I did nothing.
Never again.
