Chapter 29: Chapter 29: Goo

The witch limped out of town along the sea road, following the ocean, drinking in the sea air, which would have been void of the stink of men if not for the loathsome creatures that followed her. Castle Togair was set high on an outcropping of land and rock. The drop from its walls to the sea almost three hundred feet. So, the first part of her walk had been downhill. Now she turned inland, laboring up another hill to enter the forest. As the shade of the trees closed in around her, her limp disappeared. She walked with an easier stride. Still, often she rested, winded, out of breath, sweating. The stench of her, not of the rotting meat that clung to her clothes, or the pus that dripped from her face, but rather the stench of her sweat had deer galloping away, tails raised, and birds taking flight. Before they saw her, before they heard the snap of twigs beneath her feet, her scent sent them fleeing. Wolves howled, racing for the safety of their den. As eventide descended, she arrived at the ruins of dragon's keep—now no more than a pile of large rectangular stones. Circling the stones, she came to the opposite side of what was once the tower. One of the large stones lay with one end on the ground and the other on top of another stone. Thus, it looked like a ramp. With ragged gasps, she breathed. Lying on her belly, she wiggled and squirmed until she was under the tilted stone. Cursing, her breath growing more foul by the second, her bony fingers relentlessly probed the ground until warm air touched the skin of her index finger. Following the vent, she pushed her finger deep into the soil.

Her eyes rolled back in her head. She reached for the change, sticking out her tongue so far she gagged herself. Tongue first, then teeth, nose, and eyes, she dissolved, the warm goo oozing down her arm, following her finger, dripping into the vent, into the fissures. Head and neck followed. Feet, ankles, knees, and thighs liquified, rushing up her middle and down her arm. The hand which had not found the vent and its arm also turned to mush and dripped into the earth. Her core dissolved and with it the rat, which had sat on her shoulder, and the snake she'd fashioned into a belt. These dribbled into the vent. Finally, the arm, hand and finger trickled away. All that remained were a few bits of seaweed and a poorly scraped deer hide.

Two hundred feet, seeping through cracks, dripping from rock to rock, she drained into the hot bowels of the Earth, and the bubbling pit of lava which lay directly below dragon's keep. Around the pit, the antenna of lava beetles shot up, awakened by the scent of a dragon. The witch goo, now floating on the lava's surface congealed first into a shapeless glob. Within minutes, the dragon's head formed, the energy required to reconstitute its immense brain cooling the lava more than eighty degrees. As the backbone formed, as the belly, limbs and wings grew, the lava beetles began their work, scraping off and eating ill-formed scales—of which there were many—allowing the dragon to regrow newer stronger ones. At last, the claws formed, only one made of obsidian. Whole again, the dragon had lost 50 feet of length. Some it lost to accomplish the transformation to witch and back again; the rest it converted to magic to fill its belly and give it the power it would need to harvest its last meal. The beast rested, using the heat of the pit to maintain its elevated body temperature. It dreamed, imagining the taste of the young girl and her abundant magic which would restore its former glory and might.

 

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