“It came from an imaginary dragon that was a carving of an owl on that staff wielded by a madman. He said it was a Dragon Stone.”
“The Sapphire,” Yish knelt to look at it. “Naz, that means….”
“One of his tears fell in my mouth, where it became a blue sapphire, source of strength, source of strength and eternal hope.”
Anita Diament
“I desired dragons with a profound desire. Of course, I in my timid body did not wish to have them in the neighborhood. But the world that contained even the imagination of Fáfnir was richer and more beautiful, at whatever the cost of peril.”
J.R.R. Tolkien.
This is another short story for this months
BLOGBATTLE prompt word Merchant
Dragon Stone: The Sapphire
“I’m not touching it again,” Naz glared at the staff he’d cast off after the elder trap.
“And if it chose you?” Yish did her look, the one the dwarf struggled to deal with. No sending necessary.
“Don’t make me laugh,” he stroked his beard contemplating whether his axe might cleave it in two and be done with sorcery. Either that or perhaps discreetly disappear in the next hovel masquerading as a town and pass it off to some nefarious pedlar.
“Don’t you dare.” Yish scowled at him. “If that’s real then the Sapphire is alive and it’s avatar is there. She pointed at the carving of a tiny dragon curled up around a gemstone.
“No privacy in thought,” Naz rolled his eyes. Not getting angry at her intruding into his mind told the strength of their bond. It had saved his life on more than one occasion and, despite his reticence, the staff, he knew, wasn’t for sale. He cleared his throat, “Are you certain it’s genuine? I mean what just happened felt unreal.”
Yish nodded in thought. Explaining the intricacies of thaumaturgical anomalies was not quite the same as talking rocks and minerals. “It’s not easy to align what this all means Naz. We know so little of Elder artefacts. Granted we’ve found many, but understanding them is still beyond me.”
“Aye, but were we not supposed to catalogue them and bring anything small enough to carry back to the Sorcerers Guild?”
Yish pushed her palms into her eyes trying to clear her thinking. Or was that early onset headache induced by the conjurors bubble that somehow this dragon stone had released her from. “That was the reason for this expedition yes.” Except the man had called it a conjurors lock. Was there a difference? They had all known more than her about the mechanisms of elder magic. She could feel frustration adding to what she knew would soon burst out in raw emotion.
Naz sensed a “but.”
“But,” she continued, “things have changed.”
“Such as?”
Yish just looked at him, “Seriously.”
He filled his pipe, a wry grin most would not see behind his beard indicating he was joking to avoid the next move. “I know. But what do we do? Go back and find ruins or worse?”
“That’s the problem with chronomancy. Knowing when you are as well as where.” She looked back up, her eyes now mildly bloodshot. “I,” she paused searching for the right words, “don’t trust my Guild right now.”
There, it was out. A festering thought finally in the open.
Naz watched his friend. He was waiting for her to continue. A trick he’d learnt long ago. Yish never wanted sympathy when trying to out something. Interrupting at this point had once resulted in half his beard smouldering. Instead he used his eyes. They looked deep into hers.
“He sent us, not them.” She swallowed trying to keep her emotions level. “What if that was deliberate? Did he know everything that followed stemmed from my own Guild? Did he do it to ensure we would be safe?”
Unexpected. The dwarf stroked his beard thinking. “Not something I’ve considered. However, that assumes the Amanuensis has powers of foresight. How could they know or are you now using collected experiences since to pollute what was?”
“I don’t know anymore.”
Ok, so she was losing it. Naz anticipated another singing. “You miss him don’t you?” Not really a question.
She nodded, knowing she was going to break down now.
“We could go back and see what remains. Know rather than guess?”
Again she nodded. This time Naz risked more than a singe. He knelt in front of his friend and wrapped his arms round her.
The sobbing took some time to abate.
###
Naz let her sleep afterwards. How long he didn’t really know except the sun had move round and he was now aimlessly poking embers in a fire that needed more wood.
“Feeling any better?” He saw hir stirring.
“Not really. My head is throbbing.
“Chew on this.” He handed her some willow bark from his gunna.”
“I didn’t know dwarves were famous herbologists.”
“Not as a rule, but I mix with the wrong elves.”
She smiled, “Sense of humour too. Will wonders ever cease.”
He placed another log on the fire, “You’re a bad influence.”
Yish sat up chewing slowly. The taste of willow sour.
“It may take a while to kick in,” he said blowing on the embers trying to re-ignite what he’d neglected far too long.
She nodded. “Thanks for before Naz. Sometimes I hold things in too long and when it breaks I… well, you saw the result.”
“No shame in that Yish. In that we are similar, except my constitution on emotional matters is a shade more sturdy.”
“Neglected you mean.” She spat the bark out. “As friends we should try better.”
He nodded as the flames began to char his log.
“What now?”
“I suggest you pick up the staff and see if anything happens.”
Naz looked from her to the witch-wood stave. Then frowned. Trick of the light or had the dragon opened an eye to return his gaze? He blinked and all was as it should be.
“What is it?”
“Nothing.” He shook his head then reached for the staff. As his hand gripped it there was a shock. The smell of ozone returned. The glade with his fire blinked out and as his eyes now focussed on another world. Unbeknown to him the dragon had uncurled and wrapped its tail around his wrist.
“Naz?” Somewhere in the distance he heard his name.
“Nadir.” Another voice.
He turned his head and thoughts of the frozen wasteland returned. When was that? He could not remember. Just the huddling in a ruined guard tower as words drifted through time to him.
“Amanuensis?”
“Aye.”
“But how?”
“The Stones, they call out as they claim a host. I know of three now.”
“We need more, Yish no longer trusts her Guild.”
“The Black is taken by a dead man, the Emerald and Sapphire exist, but only Sapphire hunts it’s living counterpart.”
“Fewer riddles Amanuensis.”
“Nadir, the one curled about your wrist wants its dragon.”
Naz snorted, “And that is our road how?”
“Who claimed it? I now believe more stones exist inside Conjurors locks. Both you and the elf seem to have an unusual affinity for the elders.”
Claimed it, Naz went through his memories. He took it yes, the dragon told him what to do to save Yish from the lock. He’d felled at least three of the Sect. One had fled. That much came back.
“No,” he began carefully, “I did not claim it. It spoke to me to save the elf.”
“Word play dwarf, the Sapphire has chosen you. Like or not it is what it is.”
“And what are we supposed to do now?”
“Listen.”
Naz sighed. So much for going back now. “And Yish?”
“She must remember what she read inside the lock.”
“Aye, I’ll tell her and find a smoking beard for my trouble.”
During the discourse his eyes had watched the dragons offering. Sand drifts ripping like waves on an ocean. Oases throwing life amid the parched earth. Around one looped a wyvern. As it turned the sun captured its scutes. They were deepest blue.
Naz didn’t know either Wayland or The Black. If he had then he would know what was coming. The eye of the dragon hunting.
“And Nadir…” the Amanuensis interrupted the rabbit caught in terror.
“Yes.”
“Tell her I miss her too.”
###
“Naz.”
Her voice sounded louder now.
“Naz, snap out if it.”
Thus spoke Tara to Wayland in another plane. His was backed onto a cliff as The Black swooped down. Without her his doom was sealed in both worlds.
Naz fell back, groggy from the experience. He looked down at the dropped staff. The dragon curled up as if nothing had happened. Reaching for the willow bark he stared up at Yish.
“He was there.”
“Who?”
“The Amanuensis.”
Her eyes grew larger. “What did he say,” her words but a whisper.
“Much, but two you should hear first.” He looked deep into her eyes, “First, he misses you too. He says this at the end to stave off…” he broke off. Dream or reality? “…Stave off the Sapphire. It saw me and I froze.”
“You saw the Sapphire?” Thoughts of his first point were relegated. She knew he missed her. Weakness fell through her own despair at wanting him here.
“Where?”
“A vast desert ocean from which oases spring. From one it emerged and caught the sun. Flanks fluorescing in deepest blue. A magnificent beast, yet full of terror and her eyes. They hold the glam, hypnotic gaze to fell even the stoutest of hearts.” He spat the bark out. “Were it not for the Amanuensis then I may well not have returned.
“But how did he know?” Yish had more questions. The problem was where to start.
“The stones speak to him. As each claims a soul he seems to have a connection.”
“How many?”
“Three now, The Black, Emerald and,” he looked upon the tiny carving huddled round its stone, “mine.” As an after thought he added, “The emerald is not yet awake.”
Yish frowned, “The others mean nothing to me.” She paused letting the last part sink in. “Yours?”
Naz stared at the remaining embers, “His exact words were word play dwarf, the Sapphire has chosen you. Like or not it is what it is.”
The sounds of oncoming night reared up to blend with the cracking of burning wood.
“He also said you must remember what you read inside the lock.”
She didn’t answer. His words alone had sent her mind back. Old parchments put there deliberately. The lock come bubble. They wanted her to read them over and over. To remember and yet she had forgotten. Had everything been a ruse to get them to this point? Was the reach of the elders this long? Were they supposed to release the crow? Destroy the Keep in doing so? If so then why?
“I can’t Naz. It’s all a blur.”
A small hiss distracted her negativity. Eyes were now glaring at her. Naz was leaning back against a fallen tree that crossed the glade and acted as a rest before the fire. His hand was resting on the tiny dragon carving.
She stared back. “What is it you want of us tiny wyvern?”
It shook its head and curled round the dwarfs wrist letting his fingers touch the stone.
Yish too leaned back on the log. She stared at the half moon until her own eyes began to find sleep. Her conscious faded.
It’s inevitable, she thought as the drift of slumber edged forward, tonight the dreams will mean something more.
###
Far away in space and time other eyes saw this unfold through the gaze of a carving. He stared long and hard. Remembering a face that once stood in front of him in a life taken for granted.
From his own conjurors bubble he stared out across the snow plane. Feeling the wind cold as it swept up the walls and onto his balcony. He knew it was an illusion. The edge of the bubble creating false environments to propagate the myth of imprisonment. The only reality lay inside his room. And within the two keys that could release him. She had made it sound so simple. Needles and haystacks.
Returning to his desk he thumped the oak out of frustration.
On it parchments dislodged dust. Three stones. Were there more? The Sapphire was found by chance. But it was always those two. The wild dynamic amid the flow of life. Where they trod time pivoted.
The Amanuensis turned a page. Gazing at the notes written an age ago. The emerald. One of ours holds the stone. Who had told him that? It mattered not, the owner was a sorcerer and last he’d heard it was an oracle he sought. Or a girl lost in a mind ruin after the necromage sought to… it was coming back. The paradox man again.
###
Naz dreamed of a wyvern hunting him. Yish of a conjurors bubble slowly shrinking as she tried to interpret old parchments. Neither slept truly. Both linked into the same dreams. One shouting unheard to the other.
Outside all this a small dragon carving kept vigil. It had not been outside of the portal field in millennia. Not since the genocide. Now it was alert and acting as sentry while the others fought their mind battles.
In a distant dessert the Sapphire entered her lair. Therein she also slept on, hunting a dwarf in another place.
When elf and dwarf encounter a conjurors lock.
