Awakening

by G Clatworthy

  “I agree, I love dragons but I have no wish to meet one,” Aloora shuddered although her eyes shined at her favourite topic.

  “So the plan is to stop two crazy elves from waking up a dragon and we have no idea what they have found or how much of the ritual they have translated or where they are,” I summarised.

  “No. The female elf showed me a copy of the scroll they have, she left it in the room with me and I grabbed it while you were talking to the police. I have it here,” Aloora pulled a printed piece of paper from her pocket and laid it on the table with a flourish. It was covered in an unfamiliar language I thought was a form of Elvish. “I think there are more of them planning to do something on the Spring Solstice. It makes sense from my studies that it is done on a day of power and magic, any ritual will be more potent on that day. That is one week from today.”

  We were all silent, realising the implications of the short timeline. Gunther picked up the paper and squinted at it, “Can you translate it?”

  “If anyone can, Aloora can,” I replied loyally, squeezing Aloora’s shoulder.

  “I can try,” Aloora was modest but her eyes were gleaming at the challenge.

  I circled back to something that had been bugging me. “So there are more than two of them who are involved? Any idea how many?”

  Aloora shook her head sadly.

  Gunther set down the piece of paper and pushed it towards Aloora. “Well I’ll help however I can love. Dwarves have legends of dragons and they are not pleasant, we cannot let them return. I’ll speak to the Council, they might be able to help. Can you do anything to get the elves to help?”

  Lorandir nodded, “I will message our High Council, we too know the dangers of dragons. I cannot believe Espretha would be foolish enough to try to awaken one but we must not allow it happen.”

  Marco and I glanced at each other, both unsure what we could add to this. Aloora looked to me,

  “Can you make anything that would help us just in case?” she asked, reaching out to hold my hand. I was pleased she was involving me.

  “I don’t think I have anything that could slay a dragon,” I mused, “but I can make us something to help even the odds against a group of crazy elves…present company excepted.” I glanced at Lorandir, expecting him to be annoyed. Instead he nodded seriously.

  “We will need anything you can give us. That male elf was a powerful sorcerer and Espretha is good with blades. If it comes to a fight, your charms will be appreciated.”

  “But we can stop them before it gets to a fight, no?” Marco chimed in. “They have not translated the ritual. They cannot do it without Aloora, so we keep her safe and they cannot do it.”

  Aloora made a strange clicking noise with her mouth to disagree with him. “There are others who can translate as well or better than me. But I know someone who can help, Professor Maron. We can go there now.”

  “Will he be there now? It’s Saturday night,” Gunther asked.

  “He practically lives at the University. He’ll be there,” she replied confidently.

  “I’m going with you,” I said, grabbing my coat and a couple of biscuits from the plate on the table.

  “And me,” Lorandir added, also standing. I didn’t feel like arguing and it might be worth having another person who could speak Elvish when we met the eccentric elvish professor.

  “I’ll contact the Council,” Gunther spoke up. He gave us each a dwarfish goodbye by clasping wrists in comradeship before he left.

  Marco looked undecided and out of his depth. “I will stay here and cook,” he proclaimed. I smiled at him. Marco had inherited his love of cooking from his Italian parents and I was sure there would be a feast by the time we returned from seeing Professor Maron.

  Chapter 9

  We walkled briskly the short distance to the main University building. I walked behind while Aloora and Lorandir talked about internet memes and the latest dragon research she had dug up and shared on her YouTube channel. I was slightly jealous that they were getting along so well. As we crossed the small parking lot where I had been attacked the night before, I glanced anxiously around, surreptitiously checking under the group of cars parked outside the main building. I didn’t see any signs of wyrms but I was still tense until we shut the wooden door behind us.

  As we signed in, the security guard recognised me from the night before. “Found her then?” he chortled before clocking Lorandir’s sword; he was close enough that the invisibility spell wasn’t effective. "Er, is that a sword? You can leave it here,” he swallowed, his accent sounding much thicker than it had last night. I guessed he was nervous. Mundane people, those without magic, often were in the presence of magical beings and Lorandir was doing nothing to try to hide his elvishness.

  Lorandir’s hand went to the hilt of his sword and I was expecting an argument when Aloora stepped in front of the elf and brightly told him it was a magic sword and we were taking it to Professor Maron. The guard blinked several times.

  “Well I suppose a magic sword isn’t the strangest thing you’ve brought here…I want it recorded though.”

  Aloora nodded cheerfully and wrote “magic sword” next to Lorandir’s name on the sign in book in neat cursive. She ushered us quickly along the worn red carpet and upstairs to find the Professor’s office.

  “What was that about?” I asked when we were out of earshot.

  “What?” Aloora blinked innocently as if being accused of bringing strange things into the University was entirely normal. I narrowed my eyes at my friend. “We’re here.”

  She stopped by an aged wooden door with a brass handle and key hole that would have looked more at home in a stately manor. A brass nameplate next to the door proclaimed it belonged to Professor E Maron. The weirdest thing about the door was a large cast iron door knocker shaped like a dragon eating its own tail just below a peephole carved into the door.

  Unphased, Aloora knocked three times on the Professor’s door knocker then flung it open. The elf sitting at the desk looked old, with white hair and a long thin moustache drooping past his chin. He was wearing quintessential professor clothing of a green tweed jacket with leather elbow patches over jeans and I wondered if there was a special shop for academics.

  “Ah, the lovely Dragonquest. How goes the questing?” He smiled at Aloora then noticed Lorandir and I lurking behind her petite frame. “And some fellow adventurers I see, welcome, welcome to my realm.”

  I stepped into the room, which was lined with bookcases. Compared to the filing system in here, Aloora’s ransacked room looked neat. There were piles of books and scrolls everywhere, pouring out from the shelves and stacked on the floor. More piles of paper had fallen from his desk in an avalanche that I had the impression had been there for a while as some of the papers had a distinctly yellowed look.

  “Hi Elrond, we could use your help with a new scroll…”

  The Professor steepled his fingers and regarded us with interest but replied noncommittally, “Hmmm.”

  “Of course if you’re too busy…” Aloora started to turn as if to leave the room.

  His eyes twinkled. “Never too busy for you my dear! But we must observe protocols! Tea! Then to business.” He plugged an electric kettle into a socket right below a yellow warning sign saying for laptops and phone chargers only. Danger do not use for other appliances, and started to spoon tea leaves into an antique teapot.

  Aloora caught my eye and winked. “Elrond?” I mouthed. She shrugged. The Professor must have seen me though because he chuckled.

  “Yes Elrond. It’s a common enough elvish name. It is a blessing and a curse. I knew him you see, Ronald Tolkien, we taught at Oxford together and bonded over languages. I was obsessed with ancient Draconian while he was interested in Elvish as well as Anglo-Saxon. It is to my great pride and regret that he used the name in his magnum opus, for no one ever believes it is my real name. I assure you however, that I came before Lord of the Rings!” He finished with a flourish and a small bow, makin
g his moustache droop dangerously close to the hot water which he was now pouring into the pot.

  As we waited for the tea to brew, my eyes wandered along the spines of books I could see, I wasn’t surprised that I couldn’t understand many of them but the ones in English were all about dragons: Dragons and their beginnings, Dragons and the dinosaurs, Dragons: Myth and Fact and even a dog eared copy of The Dragon Book of Jokes. I paused in my perusal of the shelves to take the tea cup the Professor thrust into my hands and blew on it as he gestured for me to take a seat on a chair vacated from its stack of books after he had plonked them on the floor right next to it.

  “So, a gnome, an elf and a dwarf walk into my office…it’s either a joke or the start of a fantasy novel,” he smiled to himself.

  “Half-dwarf,” I muttered to myself.

  “Of course, but that doesn’t fit my joke!” Curse his elvish hearing. “So the question is, why are you here? You need my help with your quest, obviously, so you have found something that even the delectable Ms Dragonquest cannot translate. So what is it about dragons that you have found?”

  I forced myself to keep still. He had told us exactly what Aloora had told him in about three times as many words.

  Aloora leant forward. “I think it’s about the awakening ritual. These runes fit with other texts I’ve seen and been posting about recently, but there’s a lot here that’s new to me and Draconic is a contextual language,” I was sure she added the last part for mine and Lorandir’s benefit. The old elf leant forward and studied the print out that Aloora laid onto his desk, familiarly clearing some space by brushing papers to one side. He either didn’t notice or didn’t care that this pushed a couple of other pieces of paper onto the avalanche by his desk.

  He took a pair of pince-nez spectacles from a pocket and balanced them on his hooked nose. He inhaled sharply, “Well, well, well, my dear, this is a find indeed. Where did you get this from?” His blue eyes were sharp as they rested on Aloora.

  She met his gaze calmly. “I think someone’s trying to perform it. They want to raise a dragon.” He shifted his gaze to Lorandir then me, we nodded mutely.

  “Then they are fools,” Elrond declared. Again we nodded, “but it is not as easy as reading words on paper. This is a ritual.”

  “Sorry but what does that mean?” I sounded stupid, this was a world away from running a shop.

  “It means, my dear half dwarf, that one must be in the right place at the right time with the right equipment and the right words.”

  “And is that time the Summer Solstice?” I thought back to Aloora’s grim prediction from earlier.

  His eyes pierced me. “Ye-es, it could be,” he bent back over the paper and then poked at it “Here, it says here it must be a day of power. So, theoretically, it could be a solstice or a midwinter or midsummer, then of course there are other days of power, equinoxes for example.” He spun in his chair, the leather creaking slightly as he dug through a stack of papers.

  “Hah!” he exclaimed triumphantly, waving a pad of paper in the air. He threw it at me. I caught it but spilled my tea onto the floor. I carefully placed my cup down before rearranging the pad so I could read it. It was a calendar, from six years ago. As I flicked through, I noticed that the dates were falling on the same day and that days of power were marked with red text. I gulped. There were a lot more dates than I expected. I flicked back to March, but only the equinox or Spring Solstice in March was highlighted, so they could do it next week or they’d have to wait until, I turned the page, April 1st.

  “April Fool’s Day is a day of power?” I couldn’t stop myself.

  The Professor laughed heartily, “Why of course. What better day to do something foolish than a day for fools? And trying to raise a dragon is foolish! But if you truly do have people trying to do this, I suspect the Spring Solstice is a more romantic date… Now dates aside, what does one need to perform a ritual?”

  “An artefact?” Lorandir volunteered.

  “Yes, yes my boy, but what type? Will any old magic doodad do?” He moved his finger along the page. “No, this is specific. You need a very specific artefact for this to work, something imbued with dragon magic and something of a dragon. If I’m reading it right, that means a piece of a dragon. That is very difficult to get hold of.”

  “What about fossils?” I interrupted.

  “A good question! But, this means a literal piece of a dragon; dragon flesh or blood or claw or tooth or scale, not fossilised rock. If they think it will work with a fossilised claw then you have nothing to worry about. And then there are the words, which must be imbued with powerful magic, an ordinary person will not have the force to conjure them into power that would raise a dragon,” to illustrate his point, he read the text, his voice guttural in the pronunciation of the ancient language. I held my breath. Nothing happened. I breathed out again.

  The Professor laughed, “You see. Now I don’t know what all these words mean, that one is ‘awaken’, that one is I think ‘rise’. And of course I need to know so I can intend the meaning of the ritual. That is important! Without intent or power, the words are next to meaningless. And typically Draconic rituals require an offering as well…blood or flesh usually I’m afraid. I will need to take a copy to work on a full translation.”

  Aloora looked at us then nodded to the Professor who laughed with glee and rushed out of the room to the photocopier down the hall.

  “He’s nuts,” I whispered to Aloora.

  “He’s brilliant,” she sounded hurt. He was probably the equivalent of a rock star to her. I squeezed her hand as an apology and mouthed, “Sorry.”

  The Professor returned in a whirlwind of energy. “A copy for you and a copy for me. I shall call you when I have something.”

  “You mentioned the right place?” Lorandir’s voice sounded muffled in the office.

  “Quite right. I did. None of this will work unless you know where a sleeping dragon lies!” The Professor strode across the room and rocked on the soles of his feet a few times before he began pulling books out of a bookshelf. “These are theories on where dragons might be sleeping. Some are hogwash, after all fault lines are clearly responsible for some earthquakes and not even a snoring dragon could get above a five on the Richter scale. Browne has some interesting ideas, as does Petrovsky and Melathir, his work is in Elvish, but you won’t have any trouble with that. I never did go for dragon location studies so you can borrow these while I translate.” He shoved a stack of books onto Lorandir.

  “Thank you,” the younger elf was solemn.

  As we got up to leave, Aloora asked softly, “Is it possible?”

  The Professor met our eyes one by one, “Oh yes, I’m afraid it is. Improbable of course. But if these people you are so worried about have found the words then they may well have the other parts or a means to get them. You must tread carefully; anyone who seriously considers raising a dragon is someone who is dangerous.”

  We nodded. Schiztz. This was serious. Professor Maron bowed us out of the door and I thought I spotted a campbed covered in books behind the door as we left, maybe he really did live at the University.

  “Who keeps a calendar from 6 years ago?” I mumbled to myself as we left.

  “The days always come round again young half-dwarf! Until next time!” Bloody elvish hearing.

  We divvied up the sizeable pile of books that Lorandir had staggered downstairs with, waved to the security guard on the way out and walked back to Aloora’s in silence. I relaxed once we had made it out of the University gates, the wyrm attack still making me watchful. It seemed unthinkable that someone or a group of someones were trying to raise a dragon, yet Aloora had been kidnapped and the Professor had believed us. We entered the house in a sombre mood but I instantly perked up when the delicious aroma of cooking greeted us.

  Marco was amazing, he had cooked a rich tagliatelle carbonara and whipped up garlic bread to accompany it. I almost raced to the kitchen and sat down hungrily watching as Marco di
shed up the creamy pasta.

  I gulped down several mouthfuls while the others took their seats. “This is a-ma-zing.”

  “Thank you, thank you,” Marco fluttered his hands in a self-deprecating manner. “It was nothing, but I think you have news, yes?”

  I let Aloora fill him in while I focused on eating and drinking the heady red wine Marco had poured. It was smooth and warming and I was very grateful for the normality of eating with friends after the last two days. After my second portion of carbonara, I used the last of the crusty garlic bread to mop up any last smidgen of sauce from the standard plain white student-starter set plate.

  “So, we think we know the date and the crazy elves have the words, no offense…” he waved at Lorandir who nodded. “…but they don’t know what they mean so they cannot intend the ritual right. But in case they do translate them, we should find the location and this artefact.” Marco rubbed his hands together. “Where do we start?”

  Aloora squinted her eyes, “I should focus on translating, if I can help Professor Maron it will speed things up. Draconian runes often have different meanings and…” She trailed off, aware our eyes had glazed over, “you can work on the location so we have something to share with the Dwarven and Elvish High Councils.”

  Lorandir pushed back his chair as he left the room with his phone out to contact the Elvish High Council. I checked my phone, no word from Gunther. Aloora vanished into her room to focus on the print out and Marco and I stared at each other before shrugging and clearing the table.

  We split the pile of books into two, ignoring the one in Elvish and began flicking through them. Marco held up a centrefold from the largest book and showed it to me. “This is the world! They could be anywhere!”

  I rubbed my eyes, “Well, they’re in the UK so let’s narrow it down to that location. There are enough legends of dragons here that it makes sense there will be locations here, and Wales is the land of the dragons after all. There’s even one on the flag!” That made sense to me, but was it right? It was feasible that the elves and their gang could hop on a flight to anywhere in the next week but they had a flat here in Cardiff and why wouldn’t they go elsewhere to get their ritual translated? They were keeping local for a reason I guessed.