The Dragon was thought to be a mythical creature in an Age where history evaporated in time to be replaced by ignorance of the past. This is why civilisations rise and fall. Wyverns exist in multiple worlds. Remember, not believing in angels and gods does not mean that daemons do not exist. “The Collapse of Civilisations.” Jeremiah Delalande.
“Moonglum and Elric hunting Theleb K’aarna
Moonglum, Chronicles of the Black Sword. Hawkwind
Myshella now replacing Queen Yishana
See them travel through open skies
See the amazing steel bird fly.”
“My name is Elric
And I bear the Black SwordThis is the tale of Elric
Before he was called Womanslayer
Before the final collapse of Melniboné
This is the tale of the two
Black SwordsMighty Elric, mightier Sword
Sorcerer and Swordman
Slayer of kin
Lord of a dying race, King of ruins
Dragon Master
Champion of DoomImmryr, the Dreaming City
Yyrkoon, the hated usurper
Cymoril, the beloved
All had fallen
To the fury and unholy power
Of the albino prince
And his terrible Sword.”Stormbringer, Hawkwind. Chronicles of the Black Sword
“And now your servant says, ‘May the word of my lord the king secure my inheritance, for my lord the king is like an angel of God in discerning good and evil. May the LORD your God be with you.’ ”
Samuel 14:17
“Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone.” to devour.”
Peter, 5:8
This is another short story for this month’s prompt as I explore the world of Dragon Stone.
Dragon Stone: Skellig of Fire
The Necromage stood at the edge of a cliff. Below, waves crashed against the rocks. Ahead lay the island of the Death Dragons, upon which vast monoliths soared into the sky. Upon these, he knew, rested ancient citadels crafted by a long-forgotten civilisation perverted into myths of angels, gods and daemons. How else could mortals craft such miracles? Time bastardised all. Dark Ages spawned in cycles as each brief interlude became less rich in knowledge of what was once full of knowledge.
Wind and sea spray filled his senses, as did the long-dead bones on the ocean floor. His oath to the Morrígna remained for now. Not that it prevented him from scanning those now empty of life. Everywhere in Tor Angra lay death and destruction. By whom and what, he could only guess. A distraction, it was obvious, without scrying the corpses for information. They lived on the island and did the bidding of their concubines.
With a final glance at the towering monoliths he turned back to locate the Elder portal that rested in a side chamber.
Show me the runes Mage. The pattern is locked and needs a Dragon to decipher.
The Matriarch chose to connect. Did that mean the Morrígna were out of reach? Or sitting on the edge of his consciousness, waiting for deceit. He chose not to reply but allowed the wyvern to see through the eyes of the serpent on his staff.
Sounds of dripping water filled the passage. If dwarven masons ever came here, their knowledge had long been eroded by time. As with parts of the Necropolis, ruin and decay had spread like cancer. A travesty.
Darkness proved no defence to such as he. If anything, the Necromage preferred it. Few could cope with nocturns, and history had spawned deep fear of both them and the night. Myths and legends cluttered libraries of all cultures. Fear of the dead, lycans, vampires, and more was an enlightening thought. That said, The Black had roasted the one he had turned out of the Necropolis. That Dragon was chaos personified, and still, he knew not what the connection with The Matriarch had been.
As he entered the hidden passage, he sensed ozone. Faint but there. None had used this portal in aeons. But once they had the residue still tinged the air. He was close. Ghost lights and ignis fatuus bothered him not. They were dead and withered away from his presence. All seeing the collected souls screaming within his shroud. These things pleased him, and yet he yearned for their knowledge.
It struck him that a deal with the Death Dragon might usurp the hold of the Morrígna. If that were possible, then their bargain would be nullified, and he could interrogate the dead. He paused, letting that thought linger.
Ahead in the darkness, he sensed thaumic vibrations. Faint but there. The portal still lived. Whether it could be unlocked remained to be seen. The darkness intensified as his aura entered the Gate Chamber. The entry was a vast granite arch etched in the forgotten language of Ang Nafud interspersed with runes depicting the rise of the Morrígna. The Builders he already knew. At least their ancestors, given the expanse of time that had drawn lines over the dead. The Gate itself was polished obsidian. The hieroglyphs scribed upon it showed a mastery of masonry. No current tool could form such perfect glyphs in anything he had witnessed so far.
He stood before it. Dark lanterns flickered in the shadows as the death lights hid from his presence. With a bone hand, he placed the bottom of the serpent staff on the floor, noticing that dust and stone debris were absent. Even the floor was smooth. A timeless sanctuary. He waited to see if The Matriarch was watching.
The serpent’s eyes flared red as it scanned the runes that surrounded the portal. To one side was a keystone with glyphs and a central orifice. This was new. Never had the Necromage seen a secondary rune lock on any Dragon Gate he had encountered. Clearly, this way to the island was guarded well in the past.
Place my Stone in the centre of the dais Mage. If it glows then the portal is active. Allow the rune keys to light before depressing each in turn. Do not hesitate between each touch or it will lock out access to my Heart Stone permanently.
The Necromage nodded, preferring not to reply lest Ember Jinx was listening in silence. Approaching the platform, he took out The Matriarch’s Stone. With some reluctance, he did as the wyvern asked. For the first time in millennia, it left his possession. Once in place, it began to resonate. Blackness filled its heart, sending tendrils in channels toward each rune in turn. One by one, thirteen glyphs were illuminated.
Thirteen runes for thirteen Dragons. No coincidence, he thought. Did that mean that long ago, all the Great Wyverns communed in Ang Nafud? Was that how The Black and Matriarch engaged in their liaison? The very creation of the hatchery by the builders he had set to restoring and securing against infiltration by Aurelia Wrenn. If she ever escaped the conjurer’s bubble. It reminded him of the deal with the Djinn in the hypogeum. His witch of a sister estranged would pay for her deception.
That would come later. He stared at the illuminated dais and pressed each rune in turn as The Matriarch had commanded. In front, old engines creaked into life. Light flicked from above as if trying to remember how to function. Ozone filled the chamber, and the mighty granite circle flared into existence. What was once just a stone monolith out of time now held a rift field. One that would take him to the heart of the island. Lifting his staff, he stepped through.
###
Darkness greeted him on the other side of the Gate. Not that it was a tragedy. His first impressions were of a great library. Shelf upon shelf of olde texts reaching into the shadows, even his eyes failed to reach. Untouched since the dawn of time or some long-forgotten epoch of history. A repertoire of all that once existed in Ang Nafud. Parallels with the Vault in Tor Angra. Lost by foolishness and desires that olde gods forbade.
That or buried in secret to ensure the masses never learned the truth of false doctrines. Without thinking, he dispensed a sorcerer’s light that illuminated a labyrinth of tomes stretching into the distance. The knowledge of Djinns was held within ancient prose. All within his reach, as was the dead library in the Necropolis. Add to those interred beneath the sands of Ang Nafud, and the power of knowledge was waiting to be taken.
The Necromage reined back his thoughts. Avarice, the great seducer of selfish minds. The destroyer of worlds by those corrupt enough to succumb to its thrall. None survived long under the mightiest of conjurations. This the gods of olde used in trickery to gain those ignorant enough to believe their guile. All lore spoke of politics and religions as the undoers of time itself. Far better to remain as the silent assassin hunting in the shadows of darkness. His world was a prime example. Steeped in longevity and knowledge of arts that other fools made taboo. Little wonder Tor Angra fell so readily.
He continued to stare at the thousands of tomes stacked upon gantries of oak shelving that stretched long into the distance. Another place that he would need to revisit if he could not use necromancy to make the dead reveal what rested inside. It was possible that Ember Jinx and her sisters would be aware of this place. All paths hung on the edge of a knife.
Turning from the forgotten library, he began climbing a path that spiralled upwards, meaning on this side, the portal was in the bowels of one of the Skelligs. As with all constructs in Ang Nafud, the scale of the building was vast. Even the Necromage was impressed. It was as if this place lingered on the edge of reality. Hiding in the past and surrounded by powerful deception fields that blurred everything south of the Targa Oona in a mask of false visions. Again, his sister flowed into his thoughts. What had she unearthed that led her to search for a Stone? He tempered the anger that was rising. When he returned, he would collapse the conjurer’s bubble and crush her along with those she had stolen from the crypts to secret their dead thoughts from him.
He paused as the stairs ended in a rune door. It was another example of a fallen civilisation that was deemed primitive by those of the present. Divination had told him aeons ago that it was the path of stupidity and held sway in the world of the Paradox Man. His grip on the serpent staff grew tighter. It was another that needed to be collected, man and world together as payment for turning the Witch Queen. The cost to her, the dead chylde and Oracle, were down payments.
If his horde legion had continued their hunt, then the Obsidian Tower would be under siege. The Oracle would be the first to fall along with the accursed Emerald Dragon that had defied his advance on the forest of the Ljósálfar on the road from Mossgarde.
A pleasing thought that he turned aside to focus on the rune door. This one was similar to the in the depths of the Keep. They were alike enough to be beyond coincidence. Was it possible that before the avarice of dwarves, one Empire ruled all? An Age of Enlightenment corrupted as a subspecies mined too deep and unlocked the Gates that gods once sealed in a war lost even deeper in time. It seemed truth lay interred within the religious texts of the chylde’s world, yet they were too ignorant to read with the open mind necessary to see them.
Of all worlds, it seemed to him that one was the one most corrupted by power, avarice and religious doctrines. Little wonder it stagnated. Even without his infiltration, it was doomed. More somnambulists walking into oblivion to be superseded by yet another Age with the belief that they were the most gifted of all.
This door needed no Stone to open. As with that in the Keep, the rune lock was no match for his learning of certain ancient runes. This was an Elder device that soon opened as more aged machinery turned in silence. It opened into another antechamber housing yet more books from the lost empire. He did not waste time pondering these. He could smell sulphur, indicating he was nearing the nest of the Death Dragons.
Care Mage. The next course of negotiation will direct much and beware. Their wrath is vengeance, and unknown to the Morrígna within this crag of an island lies a second hatchery. This one they guard with venom.
This time, he agreed with The Matriarch. Confusion rattled his mind. Why tell him of this new clutch of Dragon eggs? Did it mean she also mated with these as well as The Black? If so within his grasp was an army of younglings waiting to birth. One that could decimate entire civilisations and forge a wasteland in their wake. Did the Chaos Dragon even know this one existed? If not then perhaps that was an angle with which to bring that beast onside. Assuming he could pacify the beast and find some way to convince it, the genocide was necessary to bring in a new world order.
He entered the antechamber. Another chasm that resembled the hypogeum. Frowning deep within his shroud, he searched for the well of a Djinn. Never in his travels through time and space had he witnessed so many fallen gods in one realm.
There was more to Ang Nafud than he realised. If all went well this would be the ideal place to amass his horde and create a bastion none could enter.
