“The Vault is like many things. Wars lost in time. Who now remembers Ang Nafud, The Barrow Woods before the wights, the Elven landscape before the Dökkálfar, or the collapse of the Dwarf Dynasty at Carad Duir?” Arch Mage Eldred Mortain.
“The two most powerful warriors are patience and time.”
Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace
“All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”
J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring
This is another entry for this months
BLOGBATTLE prompt word Eschaton
DRAGON STONE: THE VAULT
The three Key Masters convened an hour before the summons of the Assassins Guild Master, Lord Cresswell.
“Jeremiah, have you learned anything about the crow prophecy?” The Amanuensis added flame to candles on a large table inside the Vault’s antechamber.
“Nothing at all exists in the Guild libraries I’ve visited thus far. No written word or hearsay. Blank looks return each question upon the subject.” The scribe never felt less in awe at the enormity of the rooms within the Vault. It gave him anxiety. Why build something on such a scale for people? Were the Elder Mages giants? And if so, how would they gain entry through the door? Even the antechamber was carved in immense detail. Much of it was dragon based, suggesting once they were common and enmeshed with the Elders.
The Arch Mage looked from one to the other. A slow glance as he read each aura. They had gained access so must all be in the same temporal phase. Either that or the Vault was now safeguarding such fluxes. “And what about here? Have you searched the known archives within yet?”
“No,” Delalande replied, “that will take time we do not have unless there is a way to narrow the scale down.”
“My own explorations suggest there may be. There are scrolls describing how scholars once searched the archive with ease. There is a mechanism enabling speech and modified scrying orbs to locate information. We are but novices even now.”
“Then how do you know of changes in history?” Jeremiah aimed this at the Amanuensis.
“A side effect of my tenure. If it occurs alarms sound in the Time Library. I’m am instantly aware of when and where to search the outside archives for the transgression. These provide the coordinates required to dispatch the Monks to redress the interference.”
“I still find this principle of operation beyond my understanding. A library that knows all history, writes it as it occurs and monitors its own archive for changes invoked through chronomantic interference. Outside of this place it’s bordering absurd.”
Mortain half smiled. “That is why you are the scholar and the Amanuensis is the librarian, for want of a better term. Personally I think you grasp more than you reveal Jeremiah.”
“Caution is never to be underestimated if ones ambition is not to be proven a fool.” Delalande let his hand flow across some relief carvings. There was an immediate side effect.
Information fled into his mind as if conscious thought spoke to him through the wood. Dragons were dying by the score. Dökkálfar and men closing into the base of a cliff. None took flight save for a mighty beast hewn in black spewing fire across the hordes below. On they came like a raging inferno blown by the winds. These were the sacred grounds where dragon kind came to die. The Black was the keeper and inflamed by wrath at the intrusion. Melted flesh drooled across the fields and still they came. Riders hacked from their wyverns as arrows fell like rain. If only they had taken flight then the massacre would be to the intruders. But they refused. Not here, this was the ground of their ancestors. Upon their dead bones did these serpents cast away life. Corralled against the cliffs that had stood for millennia.
The Black soared in circles until exhaustion crippled it’s flight. From a watch den high upon the cliff wall did it witness it’s own kind butchered. The blood of dragons flowing like water. The Elder Mages fleeing to a portal resting at the base of the mountain. Too few remained to make a difference now. Delalande felt eyes rest upon him. The Black knew of him. They come scribe.
Jeremiah staggered backwards. Matters escalated in his mind. “The Vault is sentient.”
“Say again,” said the Arch Mage.
“The Vault is aware. It has shown me the meaning of these carvings. I was touched by the past as if it were the present.”
“Your demeanour suggest the insight was unpleasant,” observed the Amanuensis. “However, the conclusion is something more disturbing.”
The Arch Mage nodded. “To suggest the Vault is sentient changes matters. All these decades being blissfully unaware, discussing openly in secret when a new entity is potentially listening to all.”
“Is there a reporting structure do you think?” The Arch Mage had a tendency to slip straight to the point.
Jeremiah still felt faint. Was sentient the right word? What had really happened? The touch was more a memory of an event and yet those eyes had seen him. Swirling and hypnotic. The images of death haunted his waking mind. So much gore. Fortunately the sound was missing so he’d escaped the noise of battle and death. Thankfully so was the smell. The most haunting feeling was loss. Had he really witnessed the end of a species save for the great black wyvern? Why had it not grounded and died with the rest of it’s kin? Did it still even now hold vigil in this foreign time.”
“I sense there is more to tell Jeremiah,” the Arch Mage spoke softly.
“There was a battle, the end of species, a genocide. Men and elves united to exterminate dragon kind. They all fell save one. A mighty beast, exhausted as it tried to protect a sacred graveyard of dragons. It spoke to me.”
The Amanuensis came closer. “What did it say?”
Delalande looked up at him, “They come scribe.”
Both Arch Mage and librarian exchanged a glance. This was more than a transfer of memory. Delalande was not prone to fabrication. If this was his interpretation then there was nothing suggesting he was not being honest.
“Arch Mage, a word if you please.”
Both Amanuensis and Arch Mage moved deeper into the chamber. Sconces flickered as they approached another doorway. Neither had considered how the illumination appeared as they walked until now. They left the scribe where he was. A nod from his shaken body indicating understanding before he turned back to the carvings. This time touching it with his eyes and keeping his hands well clear.
Beyond the second oak door was what might have passed as a reception chamber. From it there were two other doors. One leading to a descending stairwell and the other to a recreation room lined with scrolls. Marble topped stone tables sat where they always had. Once scholars might have used these for extended research in solitude. The Amanuensis had examined many of them already and made copies of those he needed to spend time pondering and place in his own library. Others Delalande had read. It struck him that neither had really shared their labours properly. Part time, and part scale of the chambers contents.
“I fear all we now know is about to fade Arch Mage.”
Mortain let his hand pass over one of the table surfaces. Hard and polished, but tinged with a faint heat that appeared at his touch. Another mystery they glossed over and simply accepted.
“We have guarded this place too tightly Amanuensis. It was designed to be used and we have misunderstood things.”
“A culture of somnambulism I fear. Moving through time expecting all to continue unabated. Underestimating what they had, not learning to use resources well and failing to see the future despite warnings.” He stared at the scroll banks. “So little have these been explored. This is but one room, there are hundreds, if not thousands, as one descends into deeper levels. How could we be so foolish?”
“A statement reiterated throughout eternity Amanuensis. Has any civilisation expected the end? Sooner or later this discussion loops as the realisation that yesterday is gone and a new dawn brings another dark age.”
“Aye, and here we are, but I sense this philosophical debate is not why you called me aside.”
The Arch Mage sighed. “Jeremiah is distracted. I sense his research is far deeper than he lets on. That might have already been at great cost. Has he often wandered through the Vault alone?”
The Amanuensis gave this some thought. “It is his nature to seek out what went before. To try and pass the lore onto acolytes in some vain hope that history won’t repeat itself. There is growing fear amongst Guild Masters that elder artefacts are to be shunned. That they created their own downfall by wandering too far from the path through which life flows.”
“Gods and ignorance. Whatever collapsed the old ways was not a result of knowledge, more likely poor dispatch of its teachings. After what just happened I believe there is now more seer in our scribe. If what he was shown has any significance then this place can search through history and allow one to commune with its players.” The Arch Mage glanced up through the rim of his spectacles. If his idea is correct then there may well be a way to change events from far in the future.
Time was now a precious commodity.
###
Creswell inhaled the cold night air, satisfied his live dream had not yet come into being. It was a relief. There was still time to unlock the puzzle before an eschaton entered this reality. He pondered this on the way back into his chambers. This reality or all realities? Could the release of the crow really undo all history and set up a new timeline where darkness ruled?
Again he considered his trade. Not for the first time did he suspect this could be the ultimate assassination. A re-writing of history across all planes of existence. Everything in the now simply ceasing to be.
Then there was his role in things. Was he here by some grander design or not? The live dream had given him food for thought. Had he always been here or traversed a temporal flip that had written him into this worlds lore? If so, why? Did the key masters know, or accepted he was of this place? Maybe he was and the live dream was a false flag luring him into creating that which might cause the fall of everything. In this he could only trust in facts, of which there were few. The dream spoke of a fallen keep and a terrain of ice. The Vault incomplete with its tower missing. He was not known for prophetic dispositions.
“The crow,” he spoke aloud. It conferred decision and self belief. A purpose. If time was about to collapse then he needed to find out what exactly the prophesy related to and whom. His eyes scanned the room. Despite his attention to detail there was always a chance of overlooking something. He was certain of all the Keeps rooms this one was secure from spying holes. A by product of being Assassin Guild Master. Longevity was rare. This did not happen by accident.
###
Blacksmith, have you calmed your mind?
Wayland stared into the darkness. He could smell wood rot and decay. Time didn’t matter. He should be dead. Had they not buried him and performed the last rites? Or was that some ancient dream? He remembered the sensation of dream walking. A cliff where a large beast circled overhead. A place where he held an enchanted sword and a stone of obsidian looking glass. An intense black. In his hand it felt ice cold, but as his palm closed a pulsating energy passed up his arm.
That and a daisy that rotted below his boot had all gone unnoticed until it was too late. Which world had that been in? There had been a girl too. She meant more, he was certain.
Fool, have you forgotten everything?
The voice again, resonating deep in his skull. It sounded familiar.
“You’re not real,” he replied.
The voice receded. He could still feel it watching though. Blood red eyes boring into his mind. Blood, he thought. He could smell that in the priest who declared him dead. Visualise the pump that drove it round a body of flesh.
A sensation rippled up his arm. The first he had felt since the day he was cast down the slope as his world atrophied. The cold he remembered now, and the pulsating throb.
Impressive blacksmith, despite everything you have summoned the stone at last.
“What do you mean wyvern?”
The memories will return now the madness has passed.
His arm felt warm. “How long Dragon?”
Centuries.
“And this stone, what is it?”
Mine, what you hold is the Black Dragon Stone.
Ah, back to the misadventures of the Amanuensis and glimpses of the Black – although with all the time jumping involved, I presume this scene with the Amanuensis takes place before he was trapped in the ‘time bubble’? (Sorry, I forgot the actual moniker for that ‘place.’) Jeremiah’s psychic connection with the Black is quite intriguing. I did wonder, if elves and men united to exterminate dragon kind, would he come across as a man to the Black, and if so, if the Black is using him for some kind of revenge or trying to instigate a truce. Cresswell and Wayland also offer unique perspectives on the end, one with a broad application and the other more personal. Another thought-provoking tale!
Conjurors bubble is what you’re after. And yes, this is part of one of the opening chapters with a few additions. I spoke more on that in a reply to Roger. Not elves and men as such. More dark elves which you will learn more of next month plus who Yish really is haha. Cresswell has a few uncertainties of his own too that are in chapter 1. Thus far it has 3. Installed there which was why I had that extended break. Trying to get my head round if it was working plus reduce social media. I had a lot of uncertainty on whether to continue writing and blogging for that matter. The Black reaches out more than anything else. It is warning them that the Crow Prophecy happened and that the Keep is about to be assailed. All my other BB stories are backstory to this beginning. Ie. have occurred long before this. They do dip into the Amanuensis’ future prison, but here it’s before that happens. Writing this answered a few questions on how he gets there…
Thanks Abe. Appreciate you reading this
Still being new to the deep and wide realms Dragon Stone, the first aspect to grip me was the term ‘crow prophecy’, there’s a phrase heavy with meaning and foreboding, setting the scene and atmosphere.
Stories with a temporal theme can be tricky because a good one needs an aura of instability; after all ‘We’ are innately wired to think linear and need that concept to be disturbed. The sense of the narrative moving backwards, forwards and sideways ran through this, add to this the notion of a sentient library recording events as they are happening and the reader should and is thrown off balance, just a smidge- as it should be.
The pervading sense of gloom, trepidation and loss adds to the weight of a near-at-hand colossal event all underscored by Weyland’s conversation with the wyvern.
A very compelling read Gary.
Thanks
Thanks Roger. Much of this is an extract modified from an actual chapter. My missing year occurred after writing this piece as it was getting overwhelming and I needed a time out to think about time management. The crow prophecy is covered in the chapter before this where the assassin guild master and Jeremiah first refer to it from older texts.
Regarding linear thinking that is a prime reason I found doing this compelling. The library is more than sentient. It writes as history unfolds. If the outside libraries contain discrepancies it sets of alarms the Amanuensis hears. The idea being there has been a chronological disturbance. The monks (Templar inspired) are sent back to the time co-ordinates to rectify the discrepancy. The Library cross references what then occurs to ensure time continues as it should. The trip is one way for the monks so there are chronomantic safe house they go to in order not to make further changes. The concept of Templars is that these monks would join that order.
I have a BB story with Yish and Naz where they are challenging which time they are in.
Wayland’s full discourse or, if you like, first encounter with The Black occurs in Dragon Stone Originalis. That is set in a parallel world where he ends up locked in after a fall. This is where The Black begins to claim him. It also has the disturbing aspect of him in his state being buried after hearing his last rites. This flows into the Gothic Horror I tried that references dead ringers in grave yards.
His predicament cross references all over too.
I hope it unfolds as it is in my imagination haha.
Next months might be a tad more confusing too. It’s back to the Amanuensis and his own existence outside time in a conjurors bubble.
These images are compelling Gary. I like the concept of Time being seen as a many-layered aspect with narrative taking place in various parts in a near simultaneous fashion, giving Past, Present and Future quite different meanings and thus values.
I must make the space to read more.
It would be greatly appreciated to hear your views on the none BB writing Roger. The time aspect also includes multiple worlds layered underneath the story arc. The Amanuensis often refers to them. Ours being built on science and physics. The concept being just because that’s our plane does not mean others work the same way. Not too dissimilar to our why should aliens think like us discussion.
You describe it well too. The simultaneous aspect of our librarian far out in time referencing events deep in the past as concurrent in his thinking.
I do like stories which feature locations where the fundamental foundations are different from our own.
When considering the mysteries of possible Dark Energy, Dark Matter and the Quantum concept of 11 or even more dimensions then other locations whose dynamics are different to our own should always be examined.
I must visit your worlds Gary.
You may feel find my next BB one interesting then. It’s possibly harder to follow as it dips from a central perspective with the Amanuensis in Letters he writes for posterity. He then travels in mind connections interspersed with extracts of other characters. I think a swift read will end up with a reader going “Eh?” Think of it as a challenge haha. Also there is a link at the bottom that will take you to who Yish actually is
Temporal collisions through multi-dimensional landscapes.
I’m going to enjoy that! 😃
What I enjoy the most in your stories are the little nuggets of current affairs commentary. It might not be intentional, but it read that way to me. “A culture of somnambulism I fear.” That paragraph was on point. Your fantasy has a lot of realism, and I think the mix works well.
The wall causing him to see things was great – I could imagine the trans he was in the moment his fingers met the wall. But was that the first time anyone had touched the wall? Did he maybe know what he was doing?
Most, if not all, of your stories comprise multiple scenes that run parallel. Where does this affinity stem from?
I have a huge interest in ancient civilisations Sam. What I see most is repeating mistakes throughout time. Not seeing a disaster until it’s hit. These are tools I use a lot in my writing. To me fantasy fiction has to have a sense of realism a reader can hook into. If it feels relatable then (to me when reading) it has far more reason to be invested in continuing to read. I try and use that in what I do. Sometimes it might even work haha.
The wall part was very new to Jeremiah. His role is a scribe, researcher and historian trying to decipher meaning. I think his touch was more curiosity at the carvings. It’s established elsewhere that The Black is a very strong sender and can hook into minds where it wants to show the genocide.
Jeremiah has no sense of what he’s doing, but both arch Mage and Amanuensis realise this point is critical. Without revealing too much it’s the point at which the idea for a conjurors bubble hits the arch Mage.
As for others touching the wall yes, but none have connected with it. Or deciphered why it can do this. Part of Elder Mage lore.
Well spotted too. Nearly everything I’ve written has links intertwined. That was not intentional initially, but as the core (this story arc) grew then it became more in tune with trails leading away from it. The only ones free of this are the Corona ones and the gothic horror. Both of which I want to pursue too!!
Thank you for your comment too
This one threw me because I saw it published in August and figure it was something I read before. Well, I was wrong. Will give it a go soon.
Weird… I’ve just looked and it seems to have copied the previous intro even though it’s not in the actual post. No idea why as yet. Date stamps seem off too. It’s definitely a new post
Cracked it. Post was copied but I forgot to alter the post description. It should now show up as nothing to do with the previous post