Dragon Stone: The Cave of Fire

“Alas, we have neglected the ancient archives lying deep in the Vault. Much of what is hearsay and myth might have found some truth had not ignorance turned to secrecy and shame. One in particular speaks of an old Dwarven Empire in Nafud Dahyl that disappeared from time. Some say the Dragons of Death spawned a new Dynasty overseen by three witches from the beginning of time.” Jeremiah Delalande, Lost Obituaries.

“In the black sky thunder sweeping
Underground, and over water
Sounds of crying weeping will not save
Your faith for bricks and dreams for mortar.
All your prayers must seem as nothing
Ninety-six below the wave
When stone is dust and only air remains”

Temple of Love, Sisters of Mercy

“Every time I see you there
In the place moonlight
Dancing there all alone
With a grave in your mind.”

I Love the Darkness in You, 69 Eyes

“And I came to a river of fire in which the fire flows like water and discharges itself into the great sea towards the west. I saw the great rivers and came to the great river and to the great darkness, and went to the place where no flesh walks.”

The Book of Enoch, Chapter XVII

This is another short story for this month’s prompt as I explore the world of the Necromage.

BLOGBATTLE prompt word Exquisite

Dragon Stone: The Cave of Fire

The Necromage stood as the Crows fluxed in and out of phase. Each wore a pendant, which he knew held a Dragon Stone. These, he knew, were the keys to controlling the Death Dragons. With them as allies, matters would tip in his favour. The question before him was which Morrígna bore the Eyes of the Dragons. This was the one he would dance with first.

“Enter, Necromage.” Ember Jinx flowed forward. Her shapeshifting solidified into the woman who first greeted him in the chamber below the hypogeum. Around her neck was a pendant whose centre carried a Bloodstone. Darkest green and speckled with hematite inclusions that dripped like blood within the confines of the Stone.

The Necromage took it all in. This Mórrigan had mastered The Bloodstone wyvern. If only he could penetrate their protection field he knew The Matriarch would know of these beasts.

“If I do, Ember Jinx, will the way back become sealed?”

“Trust, Necromage. If we are to negotiate, then first you must show respect.” Elsbeth Crow joined her sister. On her chain sat a deep blue tourmaline crystal, which flickered as if staring at him. This was the Crystal Death Dragon Stone. That left the third of the Morrígna holding The Serpentine Stone. Myth lore on these was weak, but the legends of Death Dragons persisted across the civilisations that ebbed and flowed with time. They were depicted in pictographs, petroglyphs, and engravings in many worlds, even on runes etched in the Necropolis.

“As you wish, Elsbeth Crow.” He stepped across the threshold. Ozone filled the air as the crypt shimmered from existence. As The Matriarch foretold, this was a trap baited with witchcraft.

The exit emerged in a haze of incense. For a moment, panic took hold. Ozone and incense were the hallmarks of a conjurer’s bubble. It was short-lived, for as the haze cleared, what came into view was a desert wasteland as bleak as that ranging from Barrow Woods to the Dragon Bone Yard. A landscape scorched by Dragon’s fire and bleached by the sun. The air smelled of salt that wafted onshore on a breeze. In the distance, a towering citadel stood on the edge of a cliff that dropped into an ocean A stark reminder that time always wins. This he knew to be Nafud Dahyl. Founded by the Dwarven Empire before it ceased to exist in the historical record.

He stood alone on the edge of the desert, his shroud billowing in the wind, creating dust storms through which he must pass. Of the Morrígna, there was no sign. He was certain that they were watching. Even now, crows gathered in the distance. Reaching out, he could hear the dead turning in fear. As he had cast a genocide upon Elder Magi and Dragons, so too had this place experienced mass destruction. On a whim, he cast his art upon the nearest bones. The vision cast revealed sights of forests and villages burning as The Death Dragons unleashed wildfire upon the lands.

With the smallest push of necromancy, those interred below the sands relived their deaths. The Necromage found it exhilarating as he learned of a landscape before it became a raging conflagration. An exquisite landscape turned to ash and dust, leaving a sterile desert that would remain locked in the agony of death for millennia to come. None lying beneath the sands remembered either dwarves or Originators. Those lay deeper in the past. He stood awhile, pondering lore. Were these places time-locked, or did prophecies exist that might once again restore the lands to fertility?

Or, as his mind drifted over the Morrígna, the thought materialised: Was not Elenwen Vex a Goddess of land and fertility? She was part of a triad: one destroyer, the Battle Crow, one for rebirth, and Ember Jinx resting between them, casting balance. If that held, then had they forgotten their roles and turned upon darkness out of, he paused, what? Dwarves delving too deep in their eagerness for minerals and subterranean citadels. Perhaps disturbing an ancient curse. Was there a key that could assist in claiming their allegiance?

Satisfied, he drew his shroud tight and began to cross the desert in search of the ruins of what was once the dark kingdom of Nafud Dahyl.

###

In another world a parallel journey had been made by the blacksmith known as Wayland Ferrers. This, the Necromage did not know. Connections and opposites exist in many universes stacked upon each other where thin points flux. Such a place exists in the centre of a Black Marsh where a folly draws darkness into our world. Readers know this: if you believe not in ghosts and daemons, then be warned that it does not mean they do not exist. In deep points of the night, a few hours before dawn, in the witching hour, they seek thy souls. It is another thin point between dimensions and mocks religions of the light.

###

The journey was long and harsh. The fact that it was rich in sand and desiccating heat did not bother the Necromage. These things existed outside the reach of the Shroud, whose weave lay in a temporal flux. Powered by collections of souls that swirled in torment, fuelling his art. Time mattered not either. That he reached the outer walls was sufficient.

Necromage, you stand on the edge of a precipice. Do not use thy art again, fool.

A Dragon’s voice entered his mind, but it was unknown. Not The Matriarch. It could only be one of the Death Wyverns. It meant they were close and watching over their desolation, as The Black did upon his vigilance over the Dragon Bone Yard.

“I seek an audience, by invitation, with Ember Jinx of the Morrígna.” He stood on the edge of a stone wall constructed of immense blocks of granite. Each lay so close to the next that not even a hair could pass between. A marvel of Dwarven masons. Like all Key Masters, past and present, of the Vault, such appreciation was shared, even by those who warred upon each other.

We know that fool. That plan has changed. Now, you will commune with us. Enter and seek the lower chambers. Be warned: As with The Necropolis, all is not ruined.

The Necromage gripped his staff. No sign of The Matriarch existed here. There was a severance field, and a powerful one at that. Trickery and deceit. He had been warned.

“Dragon, is there a way back?”

That decision is yours, Mage. Fail, and you will roam these wastelands for an eternity.

A veiled threat. Dealing with Dragons never ended well. No doubt the Morrígna would overwatch the discourse. A test, perhaps, but to what end? Turning back had terminated on leaving the hypogeum. His destiny lay forward. With that, he entered the threshold of Nafud Dahyl.

###

The harsh desert gave way to shadow as he moved under an arched gatehouse that once would have held sturdy iron-clad portcullis behind a wooden oak gate impregnated with iron spikes as protection against an onslaught. All were housed in a barbican with a neck that would join the city walls. The Necromage considered that in the deep past, like the Keep at Tor Angra, it would have held a drawbridge spanning a great moat. All long gone after the scourge of the Death Dragons left dust, ash, and sand.

But for what reason? If this was their bastion, why lay waste to the surroundings? Something had caused them to act, as with his attempt at the battle of Barrow, to the cliffs housing the Dragon Gate. If that were true, then an adversary, as yet unknown, had tried to storm this fortress. That answer lay in the bones interred below the sands. He would investigate these on his return, assuming there was to be a return.

Beyond the barbican lay a vast courtyard. Little remained, save charred rocks and ruin. Some buildings had weathered and collapsed. Others bore the signs of war, charred wood, and cracks that some trebuchet had struck. The obvious question now was, where did the invaders spring from? Another forgotten civilisation lost as millennia coated them in time, smothered by weed, forest, or sand. None of these things were expected as he first entered the Necropolis. He felt anger stir. Even he had not used the Vault properly. Know your enemy was fixed in the hall of the Assassin’s Guild. Answers were buried deep in the archives, and yet… maybe The Matriarch was right. He was a fool.

At the end of the inner ward was the Great Hall, or what was left of it. Much of the stone had been robbed out or fallen. One gate partially remained on the steps leading up to the door. Petrified in time and a reminder that all fails as the world turns ever onward. He entered to be greeted by the same illumination that filled the parts beyond the hypogeum. Some old dwarven system that denied the ages. The Necromage considered they must have an enchantment field. That tied in with the weapon smiths of lore. Forging blades that were imbibed with sorcery to craft weapons like the Dragon Blades.

To think that acolytes of the present thought that those living in past dark ages were fools was a gross misunderstanding. Wisdom, it seemed, atrophied as time moved on. Only the chosen remembered all. He used his staff to move a fallen roof tile, revealing part of a rich mosaic floor, no doubt depicting the world of the Morrígna. At the end of the first floor, steps descended to lower levels. Rusted sconces clung to parts of the wall. Not all had managed to hold fast and lay rotting on the floor. Though weathered, the risers were dry. An artefact of the heat drifting across the desert.

Dwarven constructs always led downward. To deny their skill as masons and artisans was folly. Such were the size of their constructs that books and scrolls could not do justice to them. Below the courtyard, it seemed much of the underworld had survived intact. Whatever assaulted Nafud Dahyl had either withered under the Dragon’s Breaths or failed to breach long-rotted defences. Perhaps a rune door that had now fallen in time. The stairwell opened into a vast antechamber. Huge, engraved pillars drifted upwards, acting as supports for the floor above. Most were heavily etched in pictograms and runes that belonged to the lost Dwarven Empire. The Necromage suspected these had not been defiled out of respect. As his eyes drifted over them, he could understand why. After circumventing the chamber, he located a second passage that descended in a spiral. He suspected that the pillars ran from wherever the lowest chamber was all the way to the surface and that these were excavated around during construction. That alone was an immense realisation. All of the rock was dug out by some lost ingenuity that defied present understanding.

Halfway down this new tunnel, he could smell the sea air. That suggested there was an opening toward the ocean at the southern tip of the metropolis. Intuition suggested this was how the Death Dragons entered and left. It was not too disparate from the cave where The Black overwatched his dominion, except that one also held an Elder portal. Was it possible a similar one existed here? That, though, was tempting, even though he doubted the Elder Magi ever made it this far south. That it was Aurelia Wrenn that woke the Morrígna indicated they had slumbered throughout millennia untouched by anything the world turned over.

He stood awhile, taking that thought in. He was the first to tread these ruins since they fell into ruin. That could be an indication of trust despite the warnings. It meant that there was something he could bargain with, provided he could determine what might tempt the Dragons to agree.

Welcome Mage. The Caucus awaits. We know you have questions concerning those who defiled our Empire. Touch their bones not until our meeting ends. If agreement is reached, then a new dawn of fire will rise.

---

Dragon Stone: Aurelia Wrenn