by Jason Alan
By now, dozens of dark elves had noticed the huge white beast. At first, they couldn’t believe their eyes. A cloud dragon, here? They pushed their way through the mob, smacking their brethren’s heads, swinging their faces toward the lagoon. Soon, hundreds of fighters and dozens of mages were running and flying for the intruders, ecstatic to have an enemy target for their ritual rage.
The dragon saw the incoming mob, gave Morigos a quick nod, and lunged forward, smashing through the dock and seizing the gauntlets with its foreclaw. Morigos wasn’t surprised by its reaction. The dragon shrieked in pain, its grip seared with the freezing burn of the infernal gloves. Nevertheless, it held onto them, turned about, and leaped into the air, toward the cave port’s entrance.
Sensing his kin all around him, Morigos threw his arms into the air and screamed, “Kill it! Kill it!”
Fifty fighters in the lead ran up to the lagoon’s edge, intent on flinging their glowing obsidian glaives. They brought their arms back, but to no avail, for their heads were lost as the dragon cracked its giant whip of a tail. The elves’ bodies crumpled to the ground or plunged with their heads into the lagoon.
Right before it reached the enchanted fogwall, the dragon twisted over, putting itself perpendicular to the water. The maneuver both protected its rider and enabled it to fit through the magical drape, which was much taller than it was wide. But the maneuver also exposed its belly.
For a split second, the dragon was vulnerable.
That was all the time the oncoming horde needed to throw a multitude of swords, spears, and fiery spells into the dragon’s exposed hide.
The dragon endured the onslaught and burst through the magical drape, leaving the outraged dark elves screaming by the lagoon. Some of the fighters were enraged enough to dive into the water after it (Morigos couldn’t suppress a fit of laughter at that sight). Some scattered for the passageways that led to the balconies. Others held a quick discussion about flying after it, but summarily rejected the idea, for there weren’t any among them that could keep pace with a cloud dragon, not even the fighters on their fastest bats.
This was something Warloove himself would have to contend with.
When the initial furor calmed, they all turned to Morigos. Veterans of the Black Claw seized him, shoved him to his knees. The Moom floated down and gathered around him, shaking their heads.
Shouts came from all around.
“It’s his fault!” “He saw the dragon, why did he not save the gauntlets?” “Will the deep elves return?” “Bring him before our ruler!” “Kill him now!” “Bring him before Warloove!”
Daggers were thrust toward Morigos’ face, but the Moom interceded before the mob could slash him apart. The mages warded his sorcery and took him out a side passageway.
“We are all slaves!” Morigos shouted as he was dragged away. “All of you will die! The Dark Forever will spare no one, and the war will slay us before even the dying sun snuffs our lives! Enjoy your celebration! You all will— ”
Morigos was gone from the Cave Port of Kroon.
He would never return…
Outside, the Raging Sea roared, the sorcerous storms wailed, and more stars disappeared from the sky.
Now our story is in motion.
Indeed, gather yourself together, keep your eyes peeled, and perhaps even say a little prayer, for the race against darkness had begun.
The passage of time is all the more difficult to endure when one bears the burden of an evil past.
Lord Dark Sorciuss
Wizard, Warlord Ruler of Forn Forlidor
With dozens of venomous blades buried deep in her hide, the cloud dragon let loose an agonizing shriek when she shot out of Kroon’s enchanted fogwall. Alas, the night took no pity on her. Hail pelted her head, howling winds battered her wings, and for a moment she mistook the pounding of thunder for the sound of more violent spells. She flinched, then dashed upward, hoping to find more considerate clouds than the ones that now drenched her.
“Yes! Yes!” her rider shouted. “We’ve done it, Zraz! Fly, fly!”
But Zraz faltered almost immediately.
Poison rapidly spread through her veins and every movement pulled at her wounds, deepening the penetration of the imbedded blades. The pain was excruciating. And she could feel the dread power of the gauntlets working to bring her down. The vile gloves felt like steel weights in her foreclaw, and their dark aura beset her spirit with despair. It was all too much to bear. After ascending only a few hundred feet, she slowed to a hover.
Her rider called to her. “Zraz?”
She grunted in response.
He reached down, gently patted her. “Stay with me.”
She barely managed to say, “Yes…my Lord,” for it stung just to speak.
The man glanced to the obscured heavens, whispered, “May the Gods return and help us.” Then he looked back to his dragon. “The dark elf upheld his part! I never would have thought… But ah, you see, there is hope!”
“You were right…”
“And more hope awaits us in the sky. Fly, my beloved, if you possibly can, fly us toward salvation! The stars of every galaxy are with us!”
She desperately wished to heed her master’s wish, but she couldn’t, try as she may. The gauntlets intensified her pain, pushed their nefarious influence into her heart, pulled her down, down toward the sea. She briefly considered putting the black gloves in a saddlebag, but knew they’d only eat right through the material. She was getting desperate, losing altitude. The tip of her tail dangled in the crests of the passing waves.
All went blurry.
Then all went dark…
If the Gauntlets of Loathing Light had been a demon, its face would have then been marked with an evil grin. These detestable artifacts delighted in surrounding the dragon’s spirit with darkness, rejoiced as she succumbed to despair. And now they just about had her defeated. Her will was shattered, her life force giving out…
But she would not die.
She drew strength from her rider. She had a bond with him, you see, a bond reinforced by traits the gauntlets didn’t know how to combat—compassion and trust, loyalty and love. These things empowered the dragon, gave her subconscious the will to persist.
Now the gauntlets weren’t so pleased. They fought to sever the bond, to rip it apart, but her rider wouldn’t allow it. Apparently, his heart was as stubborn as it was strong.
The gauntlets gave up trying to destroy the bond, but they’d never stop pressing both beings with despair.
“Fly, Zraz! Fly!”
Her rider’s incessant screams shook Zraz from her semiconscious state and, mercifully, she felt the weight of the gauntlets lift. But when she blinked through the rain, she saw a monstrous wave coming for her. No, I belong to the sky. If I am to die, I’ll not be taken by the sea. Her ebbing strength revitalized by a surge of adrenaline, she looked to her sky and said, “Hold fast, my Lord.”
Her rider complied. He sheathed his sword, leaned forward, and hung onto the saddlebow for dear life as she flapped her wings hard and darted straight up.
She just made it!
The wave roared in beneath her, tickling her tail with its foamy crest before crashing into the cliff side. Zraz was doused in a spectacular spray, but flew on unhindered. She spun over, faced her belly to the obsidian wall, and soared free of the sea’s salty reach.
“Good! Good!” her rider yelled.
The rider was a human named Herard Avari Fang, a man of many stories. But now there was time for only one, and it was unfolding before his rain-filled eyes. It was his guess that they held with them the fate of all stories, for if they failed, there would be no one left to tell them, in any time, in any galaxy. He hoped his dragon had the strength to go on, and he prayed she wasn’t as grievously wounded as he suspected. In the cave port, he had heard hundreds of blades cut through the air with whistling malevolence, had felt the rapid-fire thudding as many of them imbedded in her hide. Many of them… He winced ju
st thinking about it.
There was no hope, Zraz wasn’t going to make it, she—
Herard shook his head, admonished himself. The Gauntlets of Loathing Light—already they made to invade his will with their morbid power! You will not overtake me.
“Strength,” Herard said to himself as much as to his dragon.
“Strength,” Zraz returned, her voice shaky but her resolve firm. She continued skyward, hugging the cliff side, pouring all her concentration into the beating of her wings. She was so engrossed in her efforts, so focused on reaching the clouds high overhead, she never noticed the dark, spherical distortions enlarging in the air directly above her.
Herard did.
He yelled, “Lookout!” as a trio of black fireballs came streaking down to incinerate them.
Oblivious to what Herard was shouting about, Zraz reacted instinctively. She lifted her foreclaws up to shield her face, and the fireballs exploded right on top of her…
…but lo, she did not suffer their burning wrath, for the Gauntlets of Loathing Light consumed the explosions as efficiently as the black holes consumed the stars in Phate’s galaxy. The fire was stretched out, pulled between Zraz’s talons, and sucked right into the gloves’ palms. Not a spark escaped. The runes on the cuffs flared red for a moment, then dimmed as the flames disappeared.
Zraz stared at the gauntlets in disbelief. “Such diabolical power…” Then she snapped her wings down hard and flew up as fast as she could, more intent than ever to escape the vile realm of Kroon.
But unfortunately for poor Zraz, escape from Kroon was not yet to be.
Herard lifted his helmeted head and peeked over the saddlebow just in time to see yet another obstruction. “The balcony! The balcony!”
Zraz saw the obstruction this time, but not nearly soon enough to keep from slamming into it.
Three dark elf Mages of the Moom peered over the railing of the balcony that Morigos and Tatoc had earlier been standing on. Assuming the horrific power of their perfectly placed fireballs would have at least slowed the beast, they hadn’t contemplated what to do should their sorcery fail. They were completely unprepared as Zraz accelerated toward them. They looked blankly to one another, then scattered.
Too late.
Ten tons of dragon blasted the balcony into serrated shards, crushing the mages and slicing their limbs to pieces. Blood, bones, and shattered stones rained down into the Raging Sea, and Zraz went flailing out from the cliff face, her pain-filled screech echoing through the storm. Disoriented and out of control, it took only a moderate gust of wind to flip her over.
Herard was unseated. “Argh!”
His legs flung out from underneath him and he lost his embrace on the rain-slicked saddlebow. One of his hands managed to maintain its grip on the reins, though, and he dangled in midair, screaming his dragon’s name. Thankfully for him, Zraz recovered almost instantly. She pulled in her wings, let the wind’s momentum twist her body all the way around, then looped down beneath him. He thumped back into the saddle, and she called back to him, “My Lord! Are you all right?”
Herard gasped. “May the Gods return! Yes, I’m all right. I think…”
He looked down to his armor. Although dented and punctured, it had absorbed the brunt of the balcony’s beating, and he’d survived the collision virtually unscathed. He noticed his chest piece was stained with blue blood, though, Zraz’s blood. He was dismayed at this. The violent collision had undoubtedly inflicted her with more wounds. He looked up to her. She looked back to him. Her eyes fluttered, but did not dim, the fires of conviction smoldering within them. She still clutched the Gauntlets of Loathing Light, her heart ever combating their icy evil.
“Oh, Zraz, and what of you? Perhaps I hadn’t taken enough consideration of your fortitude. We participate in a game whose players include the most diabolical forces I have ever known. But if we can just escape Kroon, the angel should be able to harbor us from evil! My dear dragon, can you carry on?”
“I will, my Lord, I must.”
And with that, she beat her wings and again challenged the storm. Up, up, up the duo climbed. She fought the elements all the way, and the cold began to numb at least some of her pain. She fell into a rhythm, and eventually scaled the cliffs. She curved over the ledge…
...and flew right into a spectral ruin.
“Damn,” Herard swore, “as if the gloom of the gauntlets isn’t enough!”
He had forgotten—standing on the edge of the cliffs was the ethereal imprint of the Dead Towers of Ulith Urn. It was a fortress compound, a complex of towers and temples that had been raised by the vilest necromancers on Phate to honor the Devil King’s first attempt at ascension a thousand years before.
Although the physical structures had long been destroyed, the dark magic that had raised them remained. Now Ulith Urn’s towers stood like the guardian ghosts of the sea, flickering between sight and sightlessness. The jagged spires and crenelated fortifications wavered like flags in a lazy breeze, and the temples teetered on the brink of solidity. It was ruins, but it was also a reminder—the Dark Forever was fated to return.
“Should I turn back?” Zraz asked, the compound’s dark blue haze already enclosing all about them.
“No,” Herard replied, “just fly through it.” They needed to get as far away from Kroon as fast as they could, and it was best not to further strain Zraz by maneuvering about, he mused.
They carried on, straight toward Ulith Urn’s center, the oscillating outlines of the towers looming all around them, a paralyzing chill seizing their hearts. “Look at this place,” Herard said with a sort of disgusted awe.
“It’s…hard to breathe…” Zraz stammered.
Herard nodded in agreement. It truly was hard to breathe. And it was so cold, so quiet. Deathly quiet. There were ghosts here, Herard knew; he could sense their presence, could feel their vaporous fingers slide across his skin.
It was all so dismal.
Herard closed his eyes and reminded himself of all he fought for: Zraz, his home palace, everything and everyone who had come before him, their lives, their sacrifices, their hopes. He thought of those who were yet to walk beneath the warm gaze of a loving sun, of their stories yet unsung.
And he thought of his son. His beautiful, innocent son.
He smiled.
The simple expression cut through the darkness better than any magical blade ever could. Should he die by the sword, by the spear, or by the incomprehensible muttering of some dark mage’s sorcerous song, Herard would accept such and end; but he would not die by the dissolution of his own spirit.
Not on this day, nor any other.
He opened his eyes. “My dragon,” he said.
“My Lord?”
“Remember when you picked me up and carried me from the shores of the Crystalmyst Sea?”
“Yes.”
“Do you remember how wounded I was, how frightened?”
“Yes, yes I do.” Zraz coughed.
“Do you remember what you said to me?”
She thought for a moment, then shook her head “no.”
“You said, ‘Fear not, for there are no wounds your spirit cannot endure, and there is nowhere you can go, should it even be beyond this life, beyond the Seven Glories itself, where my wings won’t be around you.’”
Zraz managed a small smile. “I don’t remember saying that, but it’s true.”
“Zraz, my arms are about you now, now and forever. Know that together we will persevere, and remember that the skies were once blue, and for some they will be again.”
“I remember, my Lord. I remember. And I’m with you, always.”
“For blue skies, my dear friend.”
Herard reached down to give her a comforting touch. But when his hand pressed to her back, his fingers moistened with blood, and he could feel her muscles clenching, struggling to hold what remained of her life together. He wouldn’t let this undermine his determination, though. I must remain strong, for her, for ev
eryone! Spirit and strength had taken them into Ulith Urn’s blue chill, and it would take them out.
It did. Zraz cleared the ghostly compound’s reach, and they flew into the thicker air of the free sky.
“Well done!” Herard said, his breaths instantly coming easier. He was compelled to turn around and take a last look at the spectral towers, but dissuaded himself. There was no need, for he knew the night had not yet liberated them from evil.
They had evaded Kroon, but had not yet escaped….
Onward they flew.
They glided low over the Wicked Plains, an expansive plateau that spread back from the cliffs as a tremendous field of ash. Here and there, small patches of yellow reeds struggled to enliven the scorched ground with at least some measure of life, but ever would death dominate the area. Packed with the crumbled corpses of a million unmarked lives, it was essentially a giant cemetery—the perfect back yard for Ulith Urn. You see, it was here that the first war with the Dark Forever had pinnacled a thousand years ago, when Ulith Urn’s corporeal towers had been felled by the forces of light.
And it was here where war would come again….
As they passed over the plains, Herard uttered a quiet prayer for those who had sacrificed.
They continued inland. The storms intensified. Wild discharges of lightning filled the surrounding clouds with blazing branches of red, yellow, and blue. Herard was wide-eyed. Never had he seen such a chaotic night. “The world itself is restless, my dragon. Pay it no heed! No creature such as yourself has ever been felled by the whimsy of the storms. Remember where we go, and why. Remember—we believe the universe is a place of unending light.”
“I believe,” Zraz murmured, even as she bled a blue streak upon the ground, and even as the landscape ever made to remind her of that which now ruled—the death and dark about them.