“The greatest threat to peace are fanatics. I unearthed a parchment deep inside the vault. The Magi of Enigma were such a sect whose sole ambition was genocide.” Jeremiah Delalande, Lecture on Thaumaturgical Archaeology.
“We have a criminal jury system which is superior to any in the world; and its efficiency is only marred by the difficulty of finding twelve men every day who don’t know anything and can’t read.”
Mark Twain, 4th of July speech 1873.
“Noble dragons don’t have friends. The nearest they can get to the idea is an enemy who is still alive.”
Terry Pratchett, Guards! Guards!
This is another short story for this months
Dragon Stone: The Magi of Enigma
“You fled, is that what you’re saying?” Landis flicked a hair from his cowl. His fingers drummed on the table in annoyance.
Leona tried not to bite, “Yes and no. The dwarf took one and the man indicated I should seal the traps exit.”
“And the man?”
“Headless.”
“And you escaped with the artefact?” If looks could kill the stare thrown at Leona by Sephiran would have the soil being tossed into her grave.
So many questions, “Not exactly.”
“Meaning no.”
“Yes, the carving bit the man just before he could execute the elf.”
She secretly fumed. Why bother submitting a report if this was going to be trial without jury. It was all there in writing. Or had this cult lost the ability to read now too?
“So you lost two of the sect, the artefact, and both subspecies that could either read the parchments or master the Stone.” Sephiran listened until hearing her illicit acquaintance had been terminated. Now she was full of fire.
Landis held up his hand. “Not now, Seph, matters of retribution can wait until the enquiry ends.”
“Not forgetting the portal field prevented deeper access. The initial target also escaped.” Leona figured drip feeding information might interrupt the inquisitors train of thought.
“You lost the Elder Mage too. This is unbelievable. Do you realise how long it’s taken to find just one? Not just a Mage but the Sapphires stone and a portal trap with the necessary information to hunt both down and slay them.” The drumming turned into a slamming fist. “I should have you executed in lieu of the elf.
###
“Yish.”
The elf looked up.
“Does a stone claim an individual or the other way round?”
She sat up. A curious question and no doubt he’d spent all night mulling it over. “I’m no expert in Dragon Stones Naz.”
“No, but how come it’s always us ending up with…” he looked at the staff. The carving slept. It had done since his vision when the Sapphire came hunting. The blue stone was never far away now. It kept drawing him, daring him to touch it.
“With what?” She was growing impatient. Ever since the stone found him there was a tendency for the dwarfs mind to distract.
He blinked and lit his pipe from an ember. “To end up lost in the middle of a sandstorm.”
“It was better when you swore, at least then I knew what you meant.” Even though she did. Both were on edge. The trap was an oversight. She should have seen it coming.
Then again she should have seen the conjurors bubble too. She still wasn’t sure if they released anything from it. Naz had blanked and her mind was fog. The same fog preventing her remembering the words on the parchment.
“He said the crow was loose. An old prophecy from the Vaults archives.”
“He also said it’s meaning was lost.”
Naz stroked the carving. Yish could have sworn it moved into his hand like a cat purring. All she ever got was an accusatory stare.
“What now?” He drew on his pipe. The carving slept again.
Yish shrugged, “I have no idea. I don’t trust going back to the Keep lest it is as you saw it. Dead and lifeless. Yet…” she stopped short of saying they might get there before it was sacked.
Naz blew a smoke ring and nodded. He knew what she meant. Their chronology was out. It was no longer just where they were, but when. “Early and we might be able to warn them.”
“And who do you tell if trust has gone?”
“Him of course.”
Her eyes said it all. Hope dashed by fate. Arrive too late and witness him lost in in a conjurors bubble hurled into the void. A temporal misfit. Behind just crumbled rock and ice.
She knew what he was thinking. No need for searching his mind. Not that she could with the dragon stone blocking all thoughts now. Still, she knew him well enough to read him.
“I couldn’t face that Naz, it would be too final. Besides we have another problem.”
He followed her stare. The dragon was looking back at her. Except, he could swear it was smiling.
Yish closed her eyes. This had thrown everything into turmoil. No chance of returning to the keep now, which in truth was a relief. To find it ruined would add more to burden her mind with.
“Stop it,” said the dwarf. His empathy with the elf didn’t need mind reading. “We know it’s fallen, just not when.”
Chronomancy again. If only they hadn’t found the Cromlech and subsequently the elder portal that threw them both into temporal chaos. “He could answer questions on the stone Naz. You’ve already seen him in your vision. Why not try that again?”
Naz blew a smoke ring and the carving opened an eye. “I don’t know how Yish. That was more a case of him seeing the Sapphire stone and appearing as the wyvern circled.”
“Try holding the stone and staff then. Stare into the flames and let your mind drift.” She felt helpless. Wanting to see him and yet discarded from the connection. Why Naz and not her? He might even know how to remember the parchments he was so interested in. She had a nagging feeling they were important. Referring to a cult the elders knew as the Magi of Enigma.
Sounded impressive, but her guts said these were hunters. She remembered the man who first greeted them. The leader of a group that ensnared them both inside an elder portal field. The trap within a trap that vetted travellers before allowing passage through. How had they learnt that and where did he get the staff from. They clearly knew more about the elders than her own guild.
That said the bulk of the vault was unexplored as far as she knew. Unless the key masters kept close their secrets. Not that Delalande could keep this mouth shut. It was not his nature to keep things quiet.
She sat on a log and watched as Naz shrugged and gathered stone and staff. An audience of one, although the sapphires avatar was awake so did that make two or even three if it’s connection to the Sapphire herself was strong.
That didn’t bare thinking about. A beast watching every move as it searched for the new keeper. Could the dwarf tame it or did the leviathan intend to tame the dwarf, or worse.
Naz sat with his back to a tree stump. The staff across his knees and stone pulsating in his palm. Purest blue and mesmerising. It took several minutes before he forced himself to stare at the flames. Curiously there was no smoke.
###
Eleanore Snow froze. The inquisition still prevaricating. As seer she knew when a stone was activated. She could sense it’s heart waking. This one was powerful, not far off the Black and yet softer than both emerald and ruby. The source was the wyvern itself.
“Landis, pursuit of the Sapphire just got harder.”
He looked up. His witch was pale and if he were not mistaken was showing fear. “How so Eleanore?”
“The Sapphire has claimed a rider and is searching for him.”
“Who is it?”
“The dwarf our comrade allowed free.”
“That’s a lie and you know it,” Leona flashed her eyes in disgust. “That dwarf slew two of ours with an axe. The staff rebuked the man and turned on him.”
“Aye, he saw that in the glam before leaving. He was unsettled knowing who they were tackling.”
Landis turned to Crowley, “You knew of this? Who exactly are the subspecies?”
Crowley met the gaze leering at him, “The elf and dwarf are from the keep. One is part of the High Elf Caucus and the other a master of rock and earth. Both know the Key Masters. The man knew this and still failed.”
“I told you Landis,” Leona hit the table with her fist, “my report to this façade is written if you’d bothered to look. One can read the elder texts and the other drew a natural affinity to the stone. They were not acting alone. Something over-watches and we seriously underestimated them.”
Landis sighed. “Then we have little choice but to bring closure in this inquisition. “I motion death by lack of foresight and Leona Whisper not guilty.”
All cult members present offered no resistance. Eyes were now on the witch.
“Where are they?”
Eleanore’s eyes rolled back. Her hands gripping the table edge. “A forest glade. The dwarf is communing with the Sapphire, the elf watches. There is a power coming that is beyond my ability to divine.”
Leona sat next to her. A whisper escaped, “Is it him? The one from the keep trapped in a conjurors bubble.”
The witch slumped back in the chair. Hair stuck to her forehead. She turned to face the one sat next to her. “You know it is. If he finds out it was you then we may as well slit our own throats now.”
Crowley stood. This was his area of expertise, “Intervene witch, I have a hunch the Sapphire has a mate. If they combine then both sub-species will have a Stone.”
Seph nodded. “It can be done, but you do know it may expose us and reveal the location to him.”
“The hunters turned hunted,” Leona felt her palms go clammy, “and what do we do about the absconded Elder Mage?”
Landis sighed, some days start well and end in disaster, “That is why we need one of the sub-species. The exit protocols are in the parchment. It’s one thing to seal an exit and another to pass through it.”
Leona eyed him suspiciously, “What you are inferring is the man saved my life. In which case this inquisition was pointless.”
Inside Seph fumed, “Now why would he do that?”
Leona shrugged, “Maybe he already knew he was going to die and decided to take us all down with him.”
###
Naz felt his conscious waver. The flames danced and dickered with his mind. The carving unfurled and folded around his wrist, the stone pulsed and he sensed a darker presence.
Elsewhere the Amanuensis looked up. The parchment he was reading was stirred by a breeze. His eyes turned toward the two black candles whose flames were in flux. Not a new experience just unexpected. He let his mind flow as he watched them flicker. An active stone and, if he were not mistaken, a very frightened witch. This warranted deeper investigation.
Nahir.
“Yes.”
The stone is calling the Sapphire.
“I know,” the dwarf felt drunk. From flames to red Badlands. It left him feeling disoriented. This was not what he remembered from before.
Withdraw from the flames.
“Why?”
Your path has been corrupted. This is the home of another beast.
Naz drifted. He saw undulations in the rocks. Old lava flows coated in dust dropped by airs passing across deserts. Nothing lived here he was sure.
It is an illusion field.
“Yish needs help. It’s why I’m here.”
Then she still needs aid remembering the scrolls.
“Aye, and I to lose this stone.”
This is neither the time nor place.
“She needs you.”
I know, now grip the stone before the Crimson arrives.
Naz felt him pull away. From afar he heard her calling. In the distance a great shadow crossed one of the peaks.
The Amanuensis sat looking at the candles. Another awakes. But how did he know? Was the Sapphire that aligned with the dwarf already? Do the wyverns know where others sleep? Answers leading to more questions.
And here I still am. No closer to the keys to unlock this prison.
###
When Naz returned he found Yish next to him, “He was there wasn’t he.”
The dwarf nodded. Returning was a sickly experience. He reached for more willow bark before drawing on a water skin.
“Well?” She was agitated and impatient.
“Something hunts us. He terminated my vision.” He sat up as his memory kicked in. “There is another Yish. A Crimson in the Badlands. I was trying to see the Sapphire, but something intervened. He said it was an illusion field.”
She gripped his arm, the carving glared at the contact. “That is Elder magic. If someone’s created it then they are gifted with knowledge we scratch at.”
“He knows you want to speak with him.” He looked into her face and saw the pain invoked. “That it was neither the time or place.”
“It never is.”
Tears again. She looked like a breakdown waiting to happen. “The roads been too long elf, we need closure. Have you thought about everything we’ve seen since embarking on this errand of fools?”
She nodded. “And were we sent because he knew treachery was about to destroy all we knew?
“In which case he saved our lives. Ever thought of it that way?”
“I’d have rather died at his side in battle than this Naz.”
He put his arm round her shoulder. Her head came to rest against him. “And who would then be able to save him?”
“What do you mean?”
“The conjurors bubble, you know how they work yes?”
She sat back up. “Yes, but get it wrong and they collapse crushing what’s inside.”
“Then don’t get it wrong.”
She smiled ruefully, “Easy to say from the outside.”
The carving twitched. It’s eyes open and deep within swirls of Sapphire moved as it unwound from the dwarfs arm and returned to the staff.
The stone began pulsing and the sounds of night fell silent.
Naz poked the fire. “You sleep Yish, I’ll linger a while. I need to think.”
She nodded gratefully. “Anything in particular?”
“This,” he held up the stone. “I’m no dragon keeper. It should be you.”
“Tell that to the staff.”
He glanced across to see the carving sleeping with one eye watching him.
“You do know,” she had a rueful smile, “given half a chance I think it would curl up in your beard.”
He threw a stick at her. “Go to sleep elf.”
