No turning back

Tomorrow is a momentous day in my life; it's my birthday. Yea me! But it's a different one. Well, every one is a different one Robert, you say. True enough. But this one sticks out.

I've never been one to worry about how old I became. I actually still don't. It never bothered me when I hit my thirties, forties, fifties or even sixties. I know some people this really bothers. I have always joked that middle age is ten years older than whatever age I currently am. The flaw in that is, I'm guessing middle age isn't when one is seventy years old. At least I have outlived that joke.

I was born in the fifties, grew up in the wild sixties which was really the decade that changed much of America and continued into the next decades. That also means I've lived in two centuries, which really isn't all that common these days. I am now living one-hundred and one years after my father was born. That kind of makes your head spin. Although he has been gone now for several decades, I still remember him before his heart issues. That's generally now I remember my father.

So, what is this momentous day? Tomorrow I turn 61. Sixty years of age is now behind me. You'd think that would be more of a nerve-rattling number than 61. But for the first time I've come to the realization...there's no turning back.

Happy Birthday to me! I hope everyone else enjoys their day as I hope to enjoy mine. 60 didn't hurt so I'm guessing 61 won't either.

NIght 3 - Still on Patrol

As a much shorter story than The Dragon and The Princess, this is the last installment of Still on Patrol. I hope all who find their way to this blog enjoy the work offered on these pages. Special thanks to the men and women of our Armed Forces to whom this is dedicated.

Night 3 --

     Frey stood to his full height and began to swing his hand down again onto the console but stopped himself. He had to stay calm. That was his job. He was captain of the boat and all his men looked to him. He needed to have nerves of steel.

     “What are they gaining by this?” the captain asked himself out loud.

     “If it is the North Koreans,” Torres replied, “maybe just to see if they can. A sub lost in the middle of the Pacific without proof to the outside world it was them.”

     “An astute hypothesis Mr. Torres,” Frey said as he looked up to him. “You a student of International Studies?” he asked with a slight grin.

     “International politics actually Captain. It was my major in college.” Torres looked down at the console as the number ticked off. “Do we return fire?”

     “Thirteen-hundred feet.”

     “Rules of engagement allow it,” Frey replied. “We have to have a target though.”

     “What if we launch decoy and let them fire? That’s should give us a firing solution.”

     “The other choice is to stay quiet. We can outlast them if they’re really diesel boats,” Frey replied.  “They’ll have to snorkel in a couple days.”

     “But I don’t like sitting here like a target.”

     “Me either.” Frey picked up the mic as he looked across the console at his XO. “Torpedo room, ready a decoy. Launch to starboard in three minutes. Set to course zero-nine-zero.”

     “Torpedo room aye,” came the reply.

     “Sonar, plot a firing solution from the decoy.”

     “Sonar aye.”

Silence hung over the close space, the narrowness of the small room becoming uncomfortable as the next two minutes passed as they waited ... waited.

     “Fourteen-hundred feet.”

     “Launch decoy,” Torres announced into the mic.

     “Decoy away,” came the reply.          

     The torpedo carrying the decoy launched with low pressure so not to make a discernable noise. It carried a recording of what a Virginia class submarine would sound like. If the decoy could draw fire, they would have a target.

     “Decoy tracking to course zero-nine-zero,” sonar announced.

     “Fifteen-hundred feet.” The Officer of the Deck looked around the control room at the faces he served with. He wasn’t the only one who looked at the inner hull of the boat. The Virginia hadn’t been this deep since refit.

     “Pressurized noises aft, high speed screws, heavy cavitation off the starboard beam.”

     “Second set of screws aft Captain,” Marchi announced. “Very loud. Six thousand yards dead astern.”

     “Third boat?” Frey asked wide-eyed. “Con, emergency flank, left full rudder!”

     “Helm, emergency flank, left full rudder,” Office of the Deck ordered.

     “Second set of screws port to starboard across the line of the boat dead astern.”

     “Con, belay that order!” Frey announced.

     “Contact Alpha heavy cavitation, popping noises,” Marchi announced.

Frey watched as his sonar operator lifted his hands to the headphones clamped to his ears and gently pulled them away. The acoustic hull of the Virginia vibrated with the pressure wave that washed over the boat as Vic Marchi let his headphones come back to rest on his ears.

     “Sonar, residual noise from contact alpha?” Frey asked.

     “Only miscellaneous sounds sir. Presume contact destroyed.” Vic leaned in toward his station as he screwed his eyes shut. “Heavy cavitation port beam, eleven-thousand yards. Fading.  Sounds like contact Bravo is moving off Captain.”

     “Do we have a savior?” Torres asked.

     “No other boats in this area I’m aware of,” Frey replied. “Recommendations?”

     “Slow surface,” Torres replied.

     The next sound vibrated throughout the hull, the tone distinct and clear, a sound every man whom ever wore the dolphins on his collar knew instinctively.

     “We’ve been pinged Captain,” sonar announced.

     “I’m aware of that Mr. Marchi,” Frey replied. “Con bring us up, surface.”

     “Helm, ten degrees up bubble on the planes, all ahead one-half.”

     “Helm aye, ten degrees up bubble on the planes, all ahead one-half.”

     The next thirty minutes was agonizingly quiet within the boat as the USS Virginia began her slow rise to the majestic surface waters of the South Pacific. Stephen Frey had undergone his first live fire engagement as captain of the boat. It was something he had hoped he would never come to realize, never have to face in the real world. But his was a world of secrecy, the secrecy of a world few would ever know.

     Stephen Frey pushed the hatch open on the top of the sail climbing up into the fresh air and sunshine of the southern world. He scanned the horizon quickly catching the dark shape off in the distance, the black line cutting through the waters that rose to a submarine’s sail. It was fading into the distance, its course not aligned with his own. His XO slipped up beside him and trained his glasses on the boat.

     “There’s a number on the sail,” Torres said.

     “We don’t do that any more,” Frey noted. “They stopped doing that several years ago. What’s it say?”

     “593”.

     “Are you sure? Look again.” Torres nodded as he noted the sudden agitation of his captain.

     “Yes sir, 593,” he replied as he lowered his glasses. “Something wrong sir?”

Stephen Frey’s face went ashen as the realization of that number made his frame shiver, his body breaking out into a cold sweat as he watched the boat in the distance slide silently back beneath the waves of the warm Pacific.

     “Mr. Torres, do you understand the phrase ‘eternal patrol’?”

     “I’ve heard of it Captain. Why?” Torres looked out at the sail of the distant object sank below the waves. “Whose boat is that?”

     “That number belongs to only one boat,” Frey replied as he looked somberly back out to sea... USS Thresher.”

In April 1963 the US Navy submarine USS Thresher

was lost at sea with all hands. She is considered

still on patrol by the Navy

Dedicated to those men who never made it home

 And are on Eternal Patrol

Special thanks to former Petty Officer James E. Walker

USS Sea Devil (SSN-664) - United States Navy

For his expertise on this subject

Still on Patrol © Robert Thomas 2019

Still on Patrol - night 2

Welcome to night two of the short story Still on Patrol. This is a different type of story than most who may have followed my writings are used to. It is a present day military story set aboard a United States submarine. This story will wrap up in another night or two. I hope you enjoy the passage for this evening.

Night 2 --

     Frey looked up to his XO with a frown. “Sonar, what do you have?”

     They could feel the vibration in the water as the torpedo exploded one-hundred yards to starboard aft quarter.

     “That was too close,” Torres said.

     “Nothing Captain. Towed array shows nothing.”

     “Run a diagnostic as quickly as possible.”

     “It was fully functional at sea trial,” Torres commented.

     “I’m aware of that,” Frey replied. “We wouldn’t have put to sea if it wasn’t.”

Torres stepped back letting his captain have full access to the console. He’d misspoke wanting to have something to say.

     “Captain, all sonar systems seem to be functioning to specs,” the operator announced. “Still no signal to detect.”

     “How is that possible,” Frey muttered to himself.

     “Whoever this is, they may have been waiting for us.”

     “That’s a distinct possibility Commander. I can’t believe we wouldn’t have heard something, anything.”

     “Do was have any analysis of the torpedo?” Torres asked.

     “Washing it through the computer now sir.” It took only seconds before Torres had a reply.              “Computer has it as a Russian 111 torpedo.”

     “Russian!” Torres said. “Damn.”

     “Contact aft. Eight-thousand yards,” sonar called out.

     “Designate Alpha,” Frey ordered. “Signature?”

     “Just a low hum so far Captain. Then it cut out.” The sonar operator looked up toward the center of the boat. “Nothing now,” he replied as he pressed his hands against his headphones again. “Wait ... hum again. Very low frequency.” He looked up again. “Captain, this isn’t coming from the same direction. Port beam, approximately ten-thousand yards.”

     “Is that firm?”

     “No sir,” Ensign Vic Marchi replied. “It was only there for a couple seconds. I need a longer signal to dial it in.”

     “Two boats. Damn.” Frey looked up to his Exec. “Options.”

     “We move dead slow Captain. The pulse drive will have no cavitation noise for them, whoever they are to draw in on. Right now, we’re as big a hole in the water as they are.”

     “And they’ve shown their hand,” Frey replied.

     “Have they?” Torres looked directly at his commanding officer. “Sir, we don’t know that there are only two. We’re guessing.”

     “Point taken.” Frey turned back to the sonar operator. “Run your acoustic signature through the computer.”

     “Already done Captain. Nothing firm but best guess is Russian diesel boats. Not enough to guess at a classification.”

     “They could be boats sold off to China or worse, Korea,” Torres said.

     “A distinct possibility with the current state of affairs above the water,” Frey replied. “I have a hard time thinking Russia would just lay in wait to ambush a boat. They’ve got nothing to gain.  Now North Korea, yeah. They’re just crazy enough to do that.”

     “How would they even know where we were?”

     “A leak, Mr. Torres. Remember, this isn’t a military mission. There are all kinds of ways this thing could have leaked out to someone we aren’t friendly with.”

     Frey looked around the control room of his boat. This was the first time his command had come under live fire. Everything else had been drills; so called live fire events that really weren’t live fire. You couldn’t risk a 2.4 billion dollar piece of equipment with an accident. The tension was thick. He could see the small drops of sweat running down the faces of nearly everyone within view; except his XO.

     “We go down,” Frey announced. “Con, ahead dead slow. Take her down easy. No noise. Make your depth fifteen hundred feet.”

     “Con aye,” came the reply. He could see his officer swallow hard. “Helm, ahead dead slow. Making depth for fifteen-hundred feet.”

     “Steer for heading one-five degrees.”

     “Steering for heading zero-one-five degrees aye.”

     “If they don’t read us we’ll be able to slip directly away from them,” Torres said.

     “If they don’t hear us Mr. Torres,” his captain replied. “If they don’t hear us.”

     “Popping noises aft Captain,” Marchi announced.

     “That’s odd,” Frey said as he looked to his XO. “Distance.”

     “Nine-thousand yards.”

     “Either they don’t think we’re still here or they have an older boat,” Torres said.

     “I wouldn’t make the assumption we weren’t here if I just fired on someone.” Frey turned back toward the sonar station. “Anything on contact Bravo?”

     “Nothing sir.”

     “Eight-hundred feet,” the Officer of the Deck called. “Coming up on heading zero-one-five degrees.”

     “Heavy cavitation! High speed screws aft!” Marchi yelled.

     “Full speed,” Frey called. “Left full rudder.”

     “Nine hundred feet.”

     “Screws are coming nowhere near us Captain.”

     “Damn!” Frey yelled as he slammed his fist on the console. “They needed us to let them know where we were and I walked right into it.” His face reddened with a menacing scowl.

     “High speed screws in the water starboard. Five-thousand yards.”

     “Ready counter measures. Launch at fifteen-hundred yards,” Torres ordered.

     “Counter measures aye,” came the reply.

     “Steady on turn,” Frey announced. “Come to new heading two-seven-zero degrees. He looked over his crew again. Gone were the initial jitters he recognized when an action first begins. His crew was settling into the jobs. Jobs they’ve been training for years to do.

     “One-thousand feet,” came the call.

     “Inbound screws at fifteen-hundred yards,” Marchi called out.

     “Torpedo room,” Torres said loudly into the mic, “launch noisemakers.”

     “Eleven-hundred feet.”

     “Right full rudder,” Frey called.

     “Right full rudder aye.”

     “Screws fading away, passing aft seven-hundred yards.”

     “Thank you Mr. Marchi,” Frey said. “Con, come to dead slow, continue decent. Make your heading three-six-zero degrees.”

     “Twelve-hundred feet.”

     “All ahead dead slow,” the Officer of the Deck announced. “Steering to heading three-six-zero degrees.”

     “Making ourselves a hole in the water again sir?” Torres asked.

     “We are.”

We'll do this again

If you've been following along recently you (hopefully) read over a series of seven nights a fantasy short story I wrote in the past month. I enjoyed doing that so much I thought I would post another short story I wrote earlier this year.

This one is quite different however. It is present day military. The title is 'Still On Patrol'. This one is a little shorter than The Dragon and The Princess so it may not take as many nights to put up, but here is tonight's first installment.

Still On Patrol

     “Dive, make your depth six-hundred feet. Helm, all ahead one-third.”

     “Six hundred feet, aye.  Five degree down bubble. Make depth for six-hundred feet. All ahead one-third.”

     “Five degree down bubble, all ahead one-third.” came the reply.

     Captain Stephen Frey leaned in over his command screen and scanned the data rolling up. He watched the display as the electronics on his Virginia class sub continued to change according to his orders. He could feel the boat change attitude as they passed five-hundred feet. Most wouldn’t notice, but he’d been doing this quite a while. He looked at the chronometer overhead; 18:05. At that moment his XO stepped into the control room.”

     “You’re late Commander,” he said.

     “Sorry sir, my stomach’s been acting up. Not feeling so well.”

     “You able to skipper my boat?”

     “I’m up to it sir. Stopped by to see the doc,” Lieutenant Commander Eugene Torres replied. “He gave me something to quiet it down.”

     “Boat level at six-hundred feet,” said the Office of the Deck.

Torres stepped inside the control room and looked down on the screen his captain was again studying. He was new to the boat and needed to make a good impression on his captain.

     “We’re a little deeper than normal as we come up on the abyssal plain we’re to study.”

     “Isn’t it rather odd that a naval attack boat is on a scientific mission?”

     “Not these days,” Frey replied. “It helps to cover the costs of these boats. We’re a bit expensive in some people’s minds.”

     “I understand.” Torres leaned in over the charts and began evaluating their position. “What are these notations here, here, and here?”

     “We’ll be dropping some new sensors developed by Woods Hole to study the subduction zone against the continental shelf. They’ll hit bottom about eleven-thousand feet.” He looked up to his XO with a serious face. “I’ve no desire to test the crush depth specs of this boat, if you know what I mean.”

     “Understood sir,” Torres replied with a slight grin. He wasn’t sure how to read his new captain just yet.

     “Signal me when we get ready to deploy the sensors.”

     “Aye sir,” Torres replied as he watched his captain step out of the control room.

The first officer of the USS Virginia, the first vessel of her class, looked about the control room. He was new to this boat, this crew. He met the gaze of one or two but they casually turned back to their stations. He checked the distance to the first scheduled drop. It would be another three hours. He pulled up the coordinates from the last surfaced GPS readings. They were on course for the initial rise of the continental shelf where the Indonesian archipelago began, a hotbed of volcanic activity where the Australian continental plate slipped beneath. It was generally considered the southern-most point of the Rim of Fire, the volcanic zone that rings the shores of the Pacific Ocean.

     The next hour passed without fanfare, only the routine chatter among the crew, the normal comings and goings of life aboard a submarine. Torres skimmed through the routine orders of the day and generally paced back and forth. Command at this level was different than what he was used to. Other tasks about a submerged boat gave you a focus. Being over everyone else wasn’t focus, at least to him.

     The Virginia being the first of her class had recently undergone a refit. She received upgraded electronics to her bow sonar systems and a slight redesign of the pulse propulsion system along with routine maintenance. This was her first deployment out of the refit trials.

     “High speed screws in the water! Three thousand yards.”

     “What!” The announcement caught Torres off guard. “Emergency flank speed!” he yelled. “Left full rudder. Blow ballast. Ten degrees up bubble.”

He listened as the commands were repeated through the Officer of the Deck and echoed from his helmsman. He could feel the sudden change in the boat. Everyone could. He stabbed at the com button and yelled.

     “Captain to the bridge. Captain to the bridge.” He finished his last word when Stephen Frey came running through the hatch. “Con, mark the time.”

     “What’s going on with my boat Commander?”

     “High speed screws in the water aft,” repeated the helmsman. “Distance now twelve-hundred yards.”

     “Deploy countermeasures. Launch noisemakers,” Frey ordered.

They could hear the compression as the decoys launched. Frey looked down and watched as the numbers rolled up his screen.

     “Four-hundred feet and rising,” came the call.

     “Put it over the speakers,” Frey ordered, and just like they were in a World War II movie they could hear the sonar sounds echoing through the boat.

     “Five hundred yards,” sonar announced. “Object is veering toward starboard decoy.”

     “Trace back the firing line,” Frey ordered. “Con, all stop.”

     “Con aye. Helm, all stop.”

     “All stop,” helm replied.

     “All quiet on the boat.”

My writing journey

This blog is now ten years old. Many people have tapped into its pages, some I don't know from across the world but most likely the majority are people I have come to know over the years either personally or from my association with writers. One thing I don't know that I've ever really addressed is how my writing journey came to be. Well...

I come from a family of voracious readers, siblings, cousins etcetera. (I don't think I've ever typed the full word etcetera before). I was one of the few who spurned the written word. Oh, I read on occasion. I remember my first book, Peter and the Rocket Ship. As a little boy I read a few in this series which led to other books my Sainted Mother put around the house for me. Many had to do with the burgeoning United States space program in its formative years. That lasted for a small time before I rode off down the road on my bicycle.

North of 50, Beloved Brother and senior voice of this blog dove headlong into the Hardy Boys series. I'm sure my other brothers Anonymous and Graybeard had similar series or books they ravaged but I'm not sure what they may be. Both of them and Baby Sis (who may possibly be able to quote most passages of Lord of the Rings) to this day are constant readers and I know there are a few cousins that can't be found without a book in their hands or at least within reach. But for me, it was different.
I grew up as an activity kid, always running around the neighborhood, playing ball, riding bikes and mostly the classic things one thinks a kid does. Reading was only something done in school.

As I grew older the closest I ever got to books were comics and the new books put out by Gary Trudeau in the Doonsbury comic series. Real books weren't for me. Then as college hit there was little time for even that and by the time I was ready to start adult life, books nearly vanished from my life.

Then a curious thing happened, a fellow name Tom Clancy published a cold war novel titled Hunt for Red October. I'm not sure why I bought it, but it immediately had me hooked. The detail of his writing and the times in which I lived, the USSR vs US, drew me to his every word. I think to this day my favorite book is one of his, Red Storm Rising. I read the next, then the next before cracking the spine of something my siblings knew so well; Lord of the Rings.

I struggled with the first few chapters; how did they think this was riveting? I almost closed the book by the time Bilbo's birthday party even ended. I think if that had happened my writing and this blog may never have happened, but I persevered. Then to my delight, I found myself still up at two in the morning reading. Yes, it's a long read but between Tom Clancy and JRR Tolkien, my interest was peaked in the printed world.

By the time computers actually became somewhat affordable, around the late eighties, I toyed with the idea of writing a book so I purchased a Radio Shack computer and figured out how to write with it. The memory was so small it wouldn't hold a single chapter. The final installment of my first book, The Crystal Point was held on about fifteen 3.5 inch floppies. Now, you younger kids probably don't know what that means but trust me, your phone is infinitely more powerful that my old TRS computer.

Now most people in the publishing world will tell you, you shouldn't start out with writing an epic fantasy of 500 pages, but that didn't stop me. That's what I wanted to do, because, what the heck did I know? There were some things you learn the hard way, grammar issues, punctuation, how to develop a writing style etcetera. (There, I wrote that word out again). Being blessed with someone as well-read as North of 50 to become my editor was a godsend. He genuinely liked the story and critiqued my work as I went along. He left most of the story telling to me and was a great editor.

To keep my hand in other things we began to collaborate on this Rambling50 blog. I think it was a way to write in a different way, a different style and let us both let the world in on our life events as well as hopefully begin to give me some exposure on the exploding world wide web. A funny thing about writing, the more you write, the more you come up with ideas to fill pages, the more ideas you have. To date, this blog has over 650 posts from the two of us. It was a brutal slap in the face at my brother's passing. He was the one I bounced ideas off and the person who sharpened by words. To this day I keep this alive as much for him as for me. His voice was unique.

Anyway, after many rejection letters from publishers and agents along came this thing called Amazon.com. Can you imagine? A place that let you put your book up on their site and they would let people buy it. That's when ebooks exploded. All those people like me who couldn't get through the wall built by publishing companies now had a way to sell directly to the populace. It opened up a world to many that was locked away.

With the first book now available, my appetite for writing grew. The Crystal Point literally enveloped me in a new world, one I never thought I could ever enter. But more than that, it unleashed a hunger in me I never knew existed. From that point on I was a writer. It was a creative outlet that differed from anything I had known before. With the second book, another epic fantasy titled White Staff writing became a passion. I knew from that point on I would write for the rest of my life.

What has come of that has been ten novels in fantasy, action-adventure and science fiction as well as several short stories. I have partnered with other authors on several anthologies, two of those to benefit writers I know who were afflicted with cancer. Unfortunately one has passed and the other still struggles with the ravages of his disease.

So, that's where this journey has led me. That's where I am this day. I have been told my writing is powerful. I have been told I'm a world-class writer. I'm also sure there are plenty of readers out there who shrug their shoulders and say, he's okay. It is a fantasy nearly by itself to write the great novel and be discovered and suddenly become rich and famous. I know someone that happened to, but it's a one in a million shot. Am I jealous of that? No, I'm quite happy for her. Writing isn't a competition between authors, or it shouldn't be. It's a collaboration. There are many authors I have come to know over the years that have helped me along and I would hope there are others I have helped. We are stronger together in this Indie thing we call self-publishing.

Many readers think if you aren't published by a big publishing house you aren't very good at your craft. I can tell you some of the best authors I have read are Indie authors. The publishing business is so closed off from outsiders if your name isn't 'Clinton' or you're already famous you don't stand a chance of entering the gatehouse. I may never make much money from this, perhaps supplement my Social Security in my old age so I can take My Beloved out for a nice dinner once a month, but that isn't why I do this and hasn't been for many years. It's because I'm a writer...it's what I do.

Buy a book, leave a good review. That's the best thing you can do for an author

Night 7 - The End

Tonight is the final 'stanza' of The Dragon and The Princess. I hope all who have followed along have enjoyed the story.

...The Dragon and The Princess...

     I jolt myself awake in the early hours as dawn begins to crack the world. My subconscious has spoken in the shadows of my dreams and revealed that which I failed to realize. The magic that has held me here is absent. It is gone. It is the emptiness I now feel. Perhaps the touch of my Lily has distracted me from knowing the truth. Am I wrong? I close my eyes tightly as I reach out to probe into the depths of Whitehall. My steps are hesitant as I begin to lose all hope. How long has my prize lay dormant? Surely I would have felt its absence before. And the king, he would certainly begin to lose hold of his life.

     My thoughts begin to explore the passages as I find my way down to the main hall. Whitehall is virtually empty as Sol begins to crest the edge of the world. I have not made this journey in decades. To do so was only be torture; to see my prize and not possess it. I as enter the hall I come to rest above my prize. The chamber is empty save for its cage. I look upon it with sadness as I feel no presence, no magics that should reside within. I close my eyes in my chamber as the tears begin to roll down my face. My prize is dead, the life it once possessed usurped by another. My world has crumbled.

     I feel the sadness begin to fade and it is quickly replaced by anger. My life has been nothing more than a wasted breath. I feel the heat begin to build within my soul for the first time almost in memory. It isn’t anger! It is rage! It is a burning desire to free myself from my prison, to roam the skies as only a dragon is able. It is what I am.

     I push myself back against the ancient stones and feel their coarseness against my back. It is a wall that has held me too long. I look above at the timbers that are my gate to the heavens. They will falter as the stones below them tumble to the ground. My surge is instant as the fire from my mouth shatters the stones across from me, the walls exploding as their bright red shards plummet to the ground. I kick once at the remaining stones and they fall away as easily as dead leaves in a windstorm. The sun bursts across the heavens at that instant as her light fills the world outside my opening with all the colors of the rainbow.

     Within the blink of an eye I am airborne, the soreness of my muscles a distant memory. I am free, free to escape to lands not thought of by this place, but I have one thought that pulls me back; Lily. I will not let her become captive as I have lived. My anger again builds as I turn back toward the towering spires of Whitehall. I see the fires below my turret spreading across the dry landscape as the flames lap at the outer walls. It is not dragon’s fire, but it will leave its mark, as will I.

     The air rushes past my fame as I bear down on the other towers. I vow they will not stand another day. A dragon’s fire that Whitehall has never seen surges from my throat and within minutes nearly everything that has held me against my will is in flames. From above I see the king’s men running in all directions. They look like ants. They are in chaos. I see the north tower topple falling inward upon the main hall opening a fissure through the roof. The red clay roof tiles fill the floor like sand, scattering in all directions as they hit the floor. I bring myself to a stop and as I look down into the hall I lock eyes with the king. He stands below me with his fists pushed upward, his staff in his right hand, yet he is powerless before me. He holds my prize no longer. I hear his voice challenge me before I begin to turn away.

     “Nivä! I will destroy your egg!” he bellows.

     “You have already accomplished that,” I yell in reply. “My prize is dead and soon you shall be as well! I will be your toy no longer!” I scream at him.

     I hear the anguish and rage in his voice. That which he holds so dear in his heart is in flames around him. He now commands nothing more than a burning mausoleum for it will be his grave, the magics he stole will end his life. He has only one thing left and I will now take that from him.

     I veer away and arc toward that tower that held me prisoner for it has one I shall not forsake. It is the only tower left standing on the corners of Whitehall yet its side is blistered with dragon’s fire. I see my child standing at the opening of her chamber. She is afraid; she is crying as her hands wrap around the stone sill. She lifts her arms in my direction and as I extend my thoughts she blinks in recognition. ‘Stand away’ I command her and she disappears from the opening. I dive into the stone letting my wing slash through the mortar as a knife through a carcass. The stones give way falling to the ground below. I turn and spy her as she runs to the opening. She is calling my name and it brings a smile to my face.

     I feel the updraft of the airs as the flames climb up the stone walls as I bring myself beside the opening. She is still afraid but she is strong. There is a strength within her I could never have imagined. My wing extended she touches me for the first time and I feel her skin upon my rough exterior. It is a softness I have never felt the like of and I feel her heart beating in unison with my own.

     I push away from the ancient stones that held us prisoner as we climb into the skies of a new day as sunlight fills the world with all its glory. I feel the touch of a child around my neck as we leave a world of torture and despair behind never again to look back upon, never again to return. There is one now who rides a dragon above the world, a rider that has not been seen in an age. She is a dragon rider, and we are free.

The End

thank you