"Oh," Friel said, accepting the explanation at face-value. He stuck out into the shadows hesitantly, poking his head down a gloomy alley. "What happened to everyone that lived here, then?"
"Dead, I'm sure," Zuignaar answered quickly. She kept an eye on her slave as he investigated the ruins, but in the meantime she withdrew a piece of parchment from a satchel on her back. Upon the scroll was a detailed map of the city, along with a few verses written in the language of the Old Wyrms. Only learned dragons could translate such ancient runes. "We know little about the fate of this city other than what was recorded in an old book -- “The dragon caught herself. She realized she had almost told her servant about the mortal-penned Tome of Rathnik. The Council would have had her spiked tail for such a blunder. Humans simply did not read and write.
"A book?" the slave mumbled.
"Yes," she said, glancing at the slave as he wrestled with a heavy door. She found a bitter taste upon her tongue with each new lie, but knew she could not reveal the truth to Friel no matter how much she trusted him. "More like a journal, really -- kept by a reclusive dragon. It reports that the city was sacked by some nameless legion from the deep jungle before the dragons could come and lead the humans back to safety in the heart of the empire."
"Such a tragedy," Friel said, grimacing. He rammed his shoulder against the stubborn door one last time before giving up. "It goes to show, though," he said as he wandered back to Zuignaar's side, "That humans must not strike out on their own. They are best kept by their masters, protected from the bad things of the world."
"Precisely," the gray dragon said, nodding her head. "Now, I believe that the shrine we seek should lay down this avenue --"
"Perhaps someday," Friel said absently, interrupting the dragon, "Humans will be ready to leave the roost, though. Dragons and humans could live together, not as master and servant, but as equals."
"I don't know about..."
"...and humans could build new cities, cities as big as this one -- only more splendid, and far less gloomy."
"Friel," the gray dragon said firmly, "We have much to do. We haven't the time to dream silly dreams." The Council of Elders had entrusted this important task to Zuignaar knowing that she would not disappoint them. She would not allow her feelings for her slave to jeopardize the success of her quest. "I know I can depend on you."
"Yes, Zuignaar," the human said solemnly, bowing to his master. "I am sorry."
"Let us find the Shrine of the Black Monolith and secure the tome. Then we can leave this accursed place and never set eyes upon it again."
The two set out down the avenue cautiously, knowing that spawn of the savage jungle could stalk these streets. Moonglow provided some light, but failed to disperse the gloom from many corridors. Zuignaar shot delicate ribbons of fire into some of the more ominous shadows, scattering the darkness long enough to assure her slave that nothing monstrous or menacing lurked there.
Friel hiked bravely down the increasingly narrow city streets while Zuignaar hopped from perch to perch atop the fast-decaying buildings on either side. She took great care when she set down on the old buildings, knowing that her weight might be enough to collapse any one of them and to send a shower of debris raining down into the street and upon her servant.
Zuignaar shuddered to think what she would do if any harm were to come to her little Friel.
"I think I've found it," the slave cried out. "The pillars are of the darkest stone I've ever seen -- as though they were cut from dusk itself."
"That is it! Those are the Columns of Haydin the Wicked, first priest of the Black Monolith." The gray dragon found a sturdy landing place and stretched her long neck down into the street where Friel stood. "See the nine steps of black marble," she asked, her voice quivering with thrill of discovery, "And the thirteen nesting gargoyles perched atop the crest of the temple?"
"They are hideous, those things," the slave said eyeing the uncanny sculptures teetering on the ledge high above him. Glaring downward with vengeful eyes were thirteen mammoth winged demons cut from the same black stone that had begot the columns, the stairway and the monolith itself. "What made them forge such horrible things?"
"The evil of this place, of the Black Monolith itself, twisted their minds and made them create such abominations in the name of their gods." The dragon regarded the gargoyles uneasily, their stony wrath disquieting her. "All around this city you will find such loathsome things -- but these thirteen are the most malignant of them all, for Urawn himself carved them from the black stone."
"I do not understand," the slave said, shrugging his shoulders and scowling.
"Do not let it trouble, you," Zuignaar told her favorite slave, nudging him gently toward the steps with her snout. "Now take your firebrand and enter this place -- walk to the center of the temple and you shall find an altar. Upon that altar is the Tome of Urawn." She snorted and puffed smoke from her gaping nostrils. "Bring the book to me, and then we can leave."
"It is so dark inside -- can we not wait for the dawn?"
"No, little one," she said, "I cannot bear to stay here a moment longer than I must. If you are afraid, call out and I will answer."
Friel hesitantly entered the temple, the light of his torch shimmering on the walls of polished black stone. Dust layered the floor, and a handful of bats clinging to the ceiling stirred and shrieked at the unexpected intrusion. The dragon watched apprehensively as he passed through the archway and faded from view. The rampant darkness inside quickly swallowed all trace of his torch.
"Friel!" Zuignaar called out only a moment later, already worried about her servant, "Friel, can you hear me?"
"I can," the slave answered promptly, "I am moving down a corridor toward the central chamber -- I can see statues and fountains, and --”
"Yes," the dragon asked, frightened by the sudden silence. "What do you see?"
"The altar...and the dread Tome of Urawn"
"That is wonderful," the dragon said. She sighed heavily and smiled. "Now bring it to me."
Friel did not respond for several instants, and the warmth of the dragon's victory began to grow cold.
"Friel?" Zuignaar quit her perch and flapped her wings nervously, hovering above the temple while she bowed her head closer to the entrance to try to find her slave. "Friel, are you still there?"
"Yes, I am fine," Friel called out from the darkness. "I am going over a few of the passages in this text."
"What are you talking about?"
"I am reading," the slave said, and Zuignaar staggered in the air. One of her wings accidentally grazed a nearby building and bricks tumbled into the street. "Do not be angry with me -- not all humans are illiterate, you know."
"But the elders do not permit humans to --”
"No, the Council of Elder Dragons does not allow humans to do much of anything. They certainly don't approve of sharing the truth about our history with us." Zuignaar kicked aside the remnants of the building across the street from the temple so that she could draw even closer to the archway. She thrust her head through the massive doorway and stretched down the corridor. "It is most fortunate that we humans have managed to pass on our history verbally from generation to generation, so that it is not forgotten how the dragons subjugated us after our numbers were depleted from the plague."
"You mustn't say things like that," the dragon pleaded as she strained to push a little deeper into the temple. "If you just bring me that book, I will explain everything."
"I do not think I am in need of your explanations anymore, old Zuignaar. I think I understand everything, now. Arrahkeesh was a secret city founded by escaped slaves -- and Urawn was a sorcerer who learned that dragons had natural enemies of old, and he knew that if he could summon them then he could liberate his people from their servitude. The Tome of Urawn provides the invocation to rouse our allies from their slumber."
"Friel, please," the gray dragon said. "I cannot bear to hear such blasphemies -- don't force me to punish you, please!"
"You thought you could keep this from us," the human said bitterly. "You really believed that we would not grow tired of slavery. The time has come, master."
"Your kind could not have survived without us..."
"'Kah-rah, Alh-fahl, Kohnah, Ir.'"
"We gave you shelter, protected you from the goblins,"
"'Mah-rah, Kah-Han, Naguu, Ir.'"
"Friel," the gray dragon pleaded, "Don't read another word..."
"'Toh-mah, Sha-Toh, Nando, An.'"
Zuignaar shuddered. A ripple of activity raced across the city as things long-dormant awakened while the last syllable of Friel's summoning echoed through the halls of the temple. The dragon whimpered as she heard the sudden savage howls shatter the silence of the night. Ugly black wings fanned out beneath the twilight, dark eyes filled with fiery rage and stony faces twisted with anger.
As their spawn gathered in the skies above Arrahkeesh, the thirteen reigning gargoyles stared at the plump dragon before them and smiled.
At long last, the feast would commence.
THE END.
THE FALL OF LONDAPTA by Charlotte Lee
Lurda first saw it after it clanged against the plough’s foreshare below her seat. It tumbled off to the side, and she called the team to stop. She hitched the reins and swung down onto the freshly turned earth, dusting her hands off against her buckskin breeches. Meelar was always going on about bits and pieces of the old world showing up here in the New World. He’d be thrilled to have an old bit of his own.
She picked it up in her work-rough hands; the engraved metal ball cool against her callouses. The odd markings sparkled in the mid-day sun between the smudges of clean smelling dirt, and wary of getting snared by it, she stowed it into the bag slung across her jerkin. Baron Enunson would not look favourably on her if she didn’t finish the first turning of this field by the end of the workday. She was determined to have the faith he placed in her vindicated. Perhaps he’d speak well of her to the Countess then.
Dreams of land grants kept coming unbidden to Lurda through the rest of the ploughing, though she banished them as soon as they appeared lest they take her attention from driving the team.
“Really Meelar, please come to bed now,” Lurda said, pulling her pillow over her head to block the lamplight. Meelar sighed and set the old bit down, wrapping a rag around the bottom to keep it from rolling off their sturdy table. He swung his feet over the long bench, but stayed there a moment longer.
The treasure his wife had brought home for him still held his eyes, as it had from the moment she’d presented it to him over their supper. He’d barely torn away his eyes when Lurda’s mother brought the children round for their goodnight kisses. The old woman had given the ball a suspicious look as he polished it, crossed herself, and chivvied the children off to their beds. Oddly enough, she hadn’t returned as she usually did to work the mending or bake cookies while he cleaned the dinner dishes and did his marking.
When Lurda had come back in from sharpening the harrows for tomorrow’s work, she’d said nothing but her pointed look at the stack of papers he’d ignored had been voluminous enough. Reluctantly he’d turned to grading the papers, though by the fourth lazy rendition of the Fall of Londapta, he’d given up and gone back to puzzling out the old bit.
He slapped his breech-clad thighs lightly and stood, turning down the wick of the oil lamp until it went out. The puzzle would be there in the morning and his wife wanted him in their bed.
“Judging by the average mark on these papers,” Meelar said as he passed back the students’ essays, “we will need to review the end of the Londapta Empire.” A chorus of groans answered him. “You may feel that it isn’t relevant to your lives to know this, but the unrest that led to its fall is what gave us the framework of our Code of Freedoms.”
He strode back down the center aisle steps to his podium at the front of the class, kicking the folds of his black scholar’s robe out before him. Their glum faces presented a challenge when he turned back to face them in their tiered rows. “I will assign groups of four a section of the Code. Each group will write and perform a play demonstrating what principles are behind each section based on the political situation of the time. In order to pass, the performance must reflect actual events but a single performer can represent either an individual or a group.”
Pupils glanced at their friends, uncertain of what to make of this. Whispers grew louder as they sorted out their groups. Meelar gave them time, only intervening to assign the outcasts into the short groups. He gave stern words to each of those groups about inclusion and the benefits of variant perspectives. He wondered if mankind would ever learn, but then reminded himself that was why he taught history – so that he could help the next generation be better than the one before. It was his way of making the world a better place.
“Tarleton, your group will take the Freedom of Thought. Hibsot, your group will take the Freedom of Religion…” Meelar doled out the eight sections, hoping the students’ tendency to dramatize their personal lives could be transferred to their lessons.
The orb still puzzled him. There was a familiarity to the markings, but he couldn’t put his finger on why. Round and round he turned it, the engravings mesmerizing in the desk’s lamplight. A knock on the study chamber’s threshold frame startled him out of his contemplation, and he fumbled to keep from dropping the old bit.
“I hear you’ve been making our students’ lives miserable,” the old woman said shuffling in, bringing the musty odor of the Records Chamber with her. She shook out the gold sash of her black robe and took the seat across the heavy wooden desk. He couldn’t even work up outrage for Nerylla’s rudeness, he owed her too much. His smile acknowledged her right to come in and sit down whenever she felt like it. Her bright eyes twinkled, though her face was stern. “I’m glad to hear it. I worried I’d wasted my reputation on you.”
He gave her a toothy grin, leaning back in his heavy chair. “But you always say that sponsoring a curious mind is never a waste.”
She flapped her hand, skipping the lost point. “What have you got there?”
“Lurda found it in the new field Baron Enunson opened. I cleaned it up, but I haven’t been able to figure out what it is. I’ve looked in every text I can find on magic, though there may be something in the restricted section.” He ended on a hopeful note, hefting it from the desktop. He couldn’t get access to the restricted section, but she could as School Elder.
“I don’t need to look it up, I know what it is,” she said, her brow furrowed. She hadn’t reached for it, though she had brought her eyes close enough for an inspection. Meelar was tempted to point out that her spectacles were perched on her head, but forbore when she went on, “That’s an old bit that will bring you nothing but trouble. Best be rid of it. Bury it at the bottom of a well.”
“But what is it?” he pressed. She knew better than to think he’d just get rid of it without knowing its purpose – even on her say-so.
“It’s a memory ball.”
He eyed her, determined to get the whole story from her. He knew she wouldn’t tell him false, but long association with her tricks also made him aware of how hard he’d have to work to get something out of her she didn’t want to talk about. “How does it work?”
Nerylla stared at him, and he waited, steady and true to his inquiry. Finally, she gave in. “You speak the incantation ringing the middle.” She reached up to pat for her spectacles, and finding them, pulled them out of her hair, leaving strands floating wildly in their wake. She held out an imperious hand, gnarled with age, and slid the spectacles onto her beaked nose.
With reluctance he passed the old bit to her, anxious she might drop it - it was heavier than it looked. He needn’t have worried, once again she showed him just how much stronger she was than she appeared. She peered at the markings, lips moving in time with her thoughts. She glanced back up at him, eyes unnaturally large behind the lenses. “You don’t need a text on magic. You need to
learn Londaptan.”
Meelar slid the parchment rubbing to Nerylla across her massive desk, careful not to drag his robe sleeve through the still warm apple scented wax drippings. “I’ve been able to translate the words from Londaptan to Obergan, so I know what they mean. What I don’t know is how to pronounce the Londaptan words.”
“What makes you think I do?” she asked, scowling. She ignored the parchment.
“You recognized the writing, and you knew what the old bit was.” He managed to keep any hint of accusation out of his voice. Working up the translation had been time consuming, like solving a secret cipher. As much as he’d enjoyed it though, he’d paid his dues.
“That doesn’t mean I can speak it.” Nerylla leaned back in her thickly padded chair, gazing at him over her lenses.
“That’s not a denial,” Meelar said, watching her. “Can you speak it?”
“Yes,” she said, reluctance etching her face and voice. “Why can’t you just leave this be? Toss it away. Forget you found it.” She perched her spectacles onto her greyed head. “You will be much happier if you let it go.”
“You’ve always taught me that knowledge is often uncomfortable, and the comfort of ignorance is dangerous.” He cocked his head and narrowed his eyes at her. Whatever it was he was going to learn, it was bound to be worth every moment of toil he’d put in.
“Very well,” Nerylla said, and gave a deep sigh, puffing her cheeks. She reached for the parchment, swung her spectacles back to her nose, and taught him the pronunciations until he could read it back letter perfect.
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