Santhom walked to the mirror, inspecting her masked face. It concealed most of her head and neck, leaving only an opening for her waist-length brown, braided hair.
Walking through her subterranean habitat, Santhom put the palm of her hand on the candles, extinguishing each one in turn. As the light from the last candle disappeared Santhom’s den was plunged into darkness.
The mask’s ancient power began to stir and it steadily came alive; the eye-pieces lightened in colour, glowing blue and pulsing rhythmically with arcane magic.
Santhom looked around and the details of her room started to emerge; everything was grey but she could identify clearly the furnishings and items in her room. It was pitch-dark, but she could see.
She strode through the rooms until she came to a tunnel at the back of the complex. The stone tiles that covered the other rooms stopped abruptly. Doing one final check of her equipment and weaponry she grabbed a small sack waiting by the exit and entered the rough, natural tunnel, following it upwards at a slight incline for some two hundred yards until it came to a sudden end.
Santhom stood in the darkness with her hands against the rough granite wall. She cleared her mind and controlled her breathing. Feeling her heart beat slower and slower, she began to enter a meditative state. Then it happened.
Her hands started to become translucent, then her arms, until finally her entire body shimmered and glowed. Santhom stepped forward into the stone; she concentrated firmly on not falling downwards through the rock and kept her movement swift and horizontal. After ten yards of passing through solid stone, she emerged from the side of the ridge on which the royal palace was built. Breathing deeply she could feel her pulse begin to rise again, and as she did her body started to turn opaque.
Santhom dropped to her knees, shaking. Passing through matter was something that she only attempted every few hours otherwise she risked re-materialising while still in the rock. After a few minutes the pain and nausea subsided, and she became aware of the chill in the early autumn air. Getting to her feet she looked around the gardens of the palace.
Two nights had passed since she had last been out: she could only become fully ethereal seven nights in the month when her power was at its strongest, the night of the full moon and the three nights either side. The moon and she were intrinsically linked, their prowess waxed and waned and only came to the fore when the sun went down.
Santhom watched wisps of mist moving across the almost full moon, stars pierced the thin veil of cloud that lingered in the sky. She heard bats chirping and a dog howl in the distance.
Santhom adjusted her weapon’s harness and tightened her greaves before taking off at a jog, moving swiftly through the undergrowth. Mobility and agility were the order of the day, and like a jungle cat hunting in the night, she weaved and ducked between trees and vines, vaulting over hedges until she reached the gardener’s hut located in a corner of the grounds. Outside its door was a mound of compact soil, a rugged wooden cart and several wooden boxes.
Just the right combination of items for a perfect take-off.
Moving her arms faster to get the blood pumping, Santhom began to run, her long legs quickened and her stride lengthened, and in a flash, a jog had given way to a sprint. She accelerated up the compact soil onto the cart and leapt from the cart to the boxes without breaking step or sacrificing speed. She summersaulted upwards, coming down on all fours on the roof of the hut. Momentum carried her forward across the clay tiles until she approached the wall of the palace gardens, she jumped onto it, digging her feet into a cleft and propelling herself upwards, soaring through the air and grabbing on to the battlements.
Pulling herself up Santhom crouched against the parapet and looked for guards patrolling the tops of the walls. Satisfied that no one was watching she climbed over the wall and dropped to the grassy hill below, coiling into a ball as she hit the turf and rolled.
At the bottom Santhom sprang up out of her controlled descent into a sprint towards the city. As the clouds began to clear she went about her familiar route under the light of the moon. She reached the oak tree beside the Silvermane Inn, climbed into its boughs and ran along a branch before jumping on top of the stables. From there she bounded onto the roof of the inn like a trained acrobat and ran along its dark grey slates until she came to the edge. Leaping into the air, Santhom vaulted across the gap between the buildings before carrying on across the blacksmith’s roof.
Muscle memory kicked in as she leaped from roof to roof, hurdling chimney pots and diving across the gaps made by alleys and passageways. Crawling to the top of the highest building in Yavalon, the bell tower of the temple of Bahrôc, the Sun God, she perched beside the gargoyles and gazed down upon the city; its citizens were mostly fast asleep, unaware of the glowing eyes watching them from the darkness.
Climbing back down, Santhom made her way to the less affluent part of town. She tiptoed along crumbling rooftops of ramshackle buildings, all the time watching for life on the streets.
Everything she knew about the world, Santhom had learned from books. The history of each realm, its towns and cities, even information about the plants and creatures that inhabited those kingdoms was gained from the tomes that sat in the royal library. Yet there was one topic the books could not teach her about: people.
Santhom was fascinated by people; how they interacted intrigued her. Sometimes she would sit in the darkness for hours listening to adventurers and travellers exchanging tales outside the city’s taverns or overhear the chatter of prostitutes as they stood on the street corners, touting for business.
After completing her nightly roam Santhom decided that she had seen enough of Yavalon and began making her way to the city gates.
Sneaking past the patrolling guards, Santhom made her way into the farmland that surrounded the capital. She peeled off her mask and walked through the barley fields with her arms outstretched, feeling the stalks brushing against her hands. The moon shone brightly on the fields outside the city, causing them to glow a ghostly, pale white.
She strolled across farmland that was bathed in moonlight, delighting in the nocturnal wildlife of the Mantarasian countryside and thinking how tranquil her world of darkness was. The air was cool and the silence only fractured by the low howl of wolves in the distance.
Santhom reached a farm with several small orange groves. A wry smile crept across her face as she descended the hill and began picking some of the riper fruit before placing them into her sack. Content, Santhom walked back up the hill and looked towards the city; she needed to make her way back to the palace; it would not be long before the moon set. Taking one last look around the landscape she started the trek back to her den, carefully avoiding any early-morning travellers.
Three days later, Santhom was sitting at her table reading and making notes from the book while deciding whether or not to go out again. It was the second to last night before her powers would diminish for almost three weeks.
There were three knocks at the door. Santhom found Teagar on the other side of it. He shielded his eyes from the light of the candelabra before coming in and closing the door.
Santhom returned to her table and carried on reading, as Teagar sat on the edge of the bed. Taking a thin, well-worn copy of a book from under his royal cape he set it down on the table in front of Santhom. She picked up the book and examined it:
Conspectus Dragonius
‘You found it,’ she stated.
‘Yes, it was found, just like the rest. About these books. It costs a lot of gold pieces to find and buy them, and well, the royal coffers, they’re not limitless.’
Santhom was already turning the pages, engrossed in the information the book was relaying to her. Teagar shook his head and lay back on the bed, sighing.
‘Did you know that the darker the colour of the dragon, the more powerful it is?’ queried Santhom.
‘Fascinating,’
Teagar replied, picking a piece of food from between his teeth.
‘And not all of them breathe fire,’ Santhom informed him.
Teagar flicked the tassels that tied the emerald-coloured curtains surrounding Santhom’s bed.
‘In fact, only the red ones breathe fire, the white ones breathe an icy blast, the green ones spew acid, the blue ones…’ she continued.
‘What about the black ones?’
‘There are no black ones any more,’ Santhom dismissed, turning to the next page.
‘That’s not what the shepherds to the West say.’
Santhom glanced up to see Teagar inspecting the growth of his fingernails. She placed the book on the table and turned to face him.
‘What do the shepherds to the West say?’
‘Look, I knew you would react like this. That’s why I didn’t tell you right away.’
‘What do the shepherds to the West say?’ she repeated.
‘A few shepherds reported seeing a black dragon flying from the South two nights ago,’ the boy said, trying to pass the information off as hearsay or tittle-tattle.
‘But, there are no black dragons,’ she muttered, glancing at the book in a suspicious manner.
‘Santhom, they were drunk. It was dark. You know what these shepherds are like. It could have been pink with yellow stripes for all they knew.’
‘But if it was black, then what? If the books are wrong about this, then what else could they be wrong about?’ she asked, posing the question more to herself than to Teagar.
‘It was dark,’ Teagar repeated.
Santhom slumped in her chair and a look of despondency crept across her face.
‘You are right. It was dark. There are no black dragons,’ she said in a monotone.
‘Finally,’ Teagar said, as he hopped up off the bed and hugged Santhom before walking towards the door. ‘I will have to get back to the palace before they wonder where I am.’
No sooner had Teagar closed the door behind him than Santhom was running to her antechamber to consult her journals on what time the moon would rise. After recording the graduation marks on the hourglasses, she flipped them over and calculated how long she had to prepare for the night ahead.
When the bell rang to inform her that food had arrived she had a light meal of bread and cheese, then lay reading her new book, skipping to the chapter that mentioned black dragons.
Black dragons were by far the largest and fiercest of their kind. They were the dragons that led the others in a revolt against the gods, killing scores of them – an act of defiance that resulted in Flaxius, the God of War, leading the other gods to hunt them to extinction. It is said that these giant beasts were the only thing that could strike fear, or the equivalent of fear, into the heart of a god. Such was the destructive power of the black dragons that it required the gods to unite to overthrow them.
Placing the book on her chest, Santhom considered what she had read.
Using the royal wealth she had gathered information, and the king had dispatched messengers to the four corners of the Northern Realms, to find out about both the gods and the dragons. Everyone at the palace believed King Teagar to be well-read and erudite. Only the king and his uncle knew who the books were really for.
Santhom mused on how anything could even begin to stand up to a god. The gods had destroyed cities, sunk islands and brought empires to their knees, yet they feared the might of these winged beasts.
When it came to the gods Santhom had known from an early age the predicament she faced. The god who had fathered her would one day come to kill her, or send his high priests to do it; such was the burden of being Shadowless.
Knowing that each day could be your last was a high price to pay for being able to walk through walls. Her life was spent underground or in the shadows, gathering as much knowledge about who or what she was and training for the day when she had to face her fate. Santhom was not naive enough to believe that her life had any other future than a bloody one. It was not pessimism, it was realism, but she was determined to make a fight of it and find a way of levelling the odds.
Legend had it that, during a war which took place over five hundred years ago, priests from the realm of Kankulēsis had summoned Dhalfire, the God of Death, to aid their army in battle against Ashensörth. A long dead squire had written in his diary that the Ashensörth army had wounded Dhalfire that day, and if the gods could be wounded by mortals then they could be killed by them. Santhom clung to that belief; if it was true then she had to find a way of slaying the god that would one day come for her.
Standing at the opening of the tunnel Santhom prepared to leave her den.
Boots, leg greaves, belt, breast and back plate, weapons harness, arm greaves, mask. Once happy that everything was in place she grabbed her cloth sack and disappeared into the darkness.
Santhom climbed over the wall and stalked through the city under a gibbous, waning moon. Jumping from balcony to veranda and scaling overhangs she ran along the capital’s rooftops with poise and speed in equal measure. Slipping past the guards she travelled west from the city gates for almost three hours and, after bypassing the farms outside the walls, finally reached open countryside.
Making her way up a large hill Santhom scanned the surrounding area for signs of life. It was a cloudless night and the landscape was once again lit by moonlight. Peeling off her mask she looked around and spotted a small campfire less than half a mile away. Jogging down the hill she broke into a full sprint upon reaching level ground, eagerness getting the better of her.
Sheep ran from her, spooked, and dogs barked as she slowed and then stopped just shy of the encampment. One of the shepherds, a tall, weather-beaten man with light brown hair, walked towards her with two of the dogs by his side; they were heavy, muscular animals with spiked collars that protected them from wolves.
‘I mean you no harm,’ Santhom explained. ‘I only seek information about something you might have seen recently.’
‘Oh yeah, and what would that be?’ the shepherd asked, trying to calm the dogs down.
‘I was told that some shepherds in this area might have seen a dragon two nights ago, is that right?’
‘That’s right. It was us that seen it. Biggest thing I ever laid eyes on, big as a galleon,’ the shepherd replied in a gruff voice.
‘What colour was it?’
‘Black.’
The shepherd was still trying to quiet the dogs.
Santhom looked down at the ground, trying to conceal her joy.
‘But how do you know it was black? It was dark.’
The shepherd puffed out his chest.
‘Look here, lady, two nights ago was a harvest moon. The whole land was lit up like it was middle o’ the day. This thing came from the south and was heading north. It flew so close to us we felt the wind from its wing-beats. If I say this thing was black then it was black, you understand me?’
Santhom put her hands in the air to signify that she admitted defeat.
‘I’ll take your word, it was black,’ she said as she turned and walked away, a smile forming on her lips.
She was sure the shepherd was not lying.
This was the outcome she had been hoping for, proof that these creatures still existed.
But where had the black dragon come from? Where was it going?
She knew dragons were fiercely territorial and were unlikely to leave their hunting grounds without good reason, or so her books had told her, but then those were the same books that told her there were no more black dragons. There would have to be more research done about dragons and in particular their uprising against the gods.
Santhom put on her mask, and began walking back towards Yavalon.
She travelled along the road to the capital swiftly; the moon was setting fast and she was still some way from home. Whilst walking in the
long grass, by the side of the road, a blinding white light flashed in her mind, stunning her and knocking her to the ground, blurring her vision.
Santhom lay rubbing her eyes struggling to see. She began to crawl along the grass and tried to feel her way around. Her sight suddenly returned, but rather than seeing the dark landscape of the Mantarasian countryside her view was that of an underwater battle scene.
The sun shone down through the clear water of a bay or lagoon, in which Santhom saw a man garbed only in an animal-skin loin cloth. Also in the water was a large figure wearing a suit of green armour. Hunched at the shoulders and heavily muscled, it was wearing a helmet shaped like a lion’s head; two giant light-green eyes glowed through the visor.
It was a god, she recognised it instantly from the drawings in her books.
The two were thrashing around in the water, seemingly locked in combat, the god thrusting with a spear while trying to grab his opponent with the other hand; the man was darting in and out between the god’s arms and legs, trying desperately to land a blow with what looked like a diving dagger. The two spun and arched in a deadly game of cat and mouse before the man dived between the colossal figure’s legs, sprang off the sea bed and glided up the back of his opponent, plunging his dagger between armoured plates on one of the god’s shoulders.
The god threw back its head, presumably in pain. The man struggled to dislodge his dagger and so let go as the god took a swipe at him. A dark substance leaked from the wound and the water turned black as the god tried to strike his now unarmed opponent.
Having lost his only weapon the man tried to make for the surface. He kicked his legs and swam frantically. The god seemed to anticipate this and crouched down, before springing up through the water. As both combatants neared the surface, the god let fly with his spear, catching the man in the thigh and knocking him clear of the water and into the air.
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