The Lady's Man

by Greg Curtis

  The track was too narrow for the party to ride other than in single file, and Myral quickly found the front of the party, while Yorik enjoying the peace and vibrancy of the falls took the rear. It gave him a chance not just to think, but to simply relax and soak in the magic and life all around without feeling that others following were judging him.

  The track was a long one, and it hugged and wove around the cliff faces almost like a constrictor around its prey, rising only slowly as they kept heading for the mouth of the valley. And it was so narrow that even a small misstep could lead to a deadly fall. But despite that Yorik let Crysal take her own lead; she was a clever horse and he fancied she wouldn't put a foot wrong, which was for the best as he simply wanted to soak up the vitality all around him.

  It wasn't just the wizards that could benefit from such wondrous magic. He could feel it working within him, aiding him with his fatigue and injuries. Despite what he'd told the elders before they'd set off, his shoulder had been troubling him more than a little, and the battle with Cavutos hadn't helped it any. He could use the restorative magic of the falling water.

  For hour after hour they continued on their journey up through the cliffs, with all of them eventually starting to wonder if they were ever going to reach the end. But it was only a minor matter. The time for supper might have come and gone as they kept on travelling, but all his thoughts of hunger and an aching posterior were kept at bay by the view alone as he looked out at the cliffs all around them and the valley floor far below. To be able to see out along the huge rift valley through which the mighty river flowed, and then beyond it to the great forests was a revelation. The proof of the glory of the world that the elves always spoke of. It was a sight that few in their life would ever be lucky enough to see, and he felt privileged.

  Eventually they reached the end of the track, and just as the sun was setting in the west they found the top of the cliffs and the narrow trail opened into an entire plateau of long grass and wild flowers. A vast expanse of flat land with a few trees and grass for as far as the eye could see. It was a beautiful place. A land which the sun beat happily down upon, and in which he imagined a man and a woman might sit and enjoy a picnic lunch while children played and small woodland creatures grazed.

  There was magic here Yorik knew. More than even the magic of the falls. It was the magic of life itself, maybe even of creation, and the magic of peace. This was a place free of violence, free from the anger and darkness of the real world far below, free from death and he suspected free from undeath as well.

  This he thought was finally a place where a unicorn might be found. They liked the forests, but he had been told long ago that they liked the highlands too. They abounded in the Land of The Sky, the home of the sylph, and the sires being as vital as they were had often sired half breeds among their horses. The resultant offspring were the acornia, the magical white horses the sylph rode. Maybe here he would finally see one for himself.

  Above all else this was a good place, and Yorik couldn't help but smile and simply enjoy the warmth of the sun as it beat down upon him, while his horse ate her fill of the lush green grass as he let her reins slip. He wasn't alone, and from the smiles gracing all their faces he knew that his companions were similarly affected. Even Myral seemed unusually easy.

  Naturally that couldn't last.

  “We should head over to the chapel.”

  Myral having been here before was the first to speak, to find the wit to lead them, and even to identify the crumbling pile of stones in the distance as a chapel. And though he didn't want to – it was simply too peaceful to risk upsetting things by doing the mundane things they'd come here to do – Yorik flicked his mare's reigns and immediately started following him. The others did the same in time.

  It wasn't much of a chapel Yorik thought. No more than a stone altar with a few half finished stone walls erected around it, and facing it a few dark stone pews. Actually they weren't half finished. They were half destroyed. They probably had been finished once. These were the crumbling remains left after thousands of years of weather had worked its will. The chapel was a ruin. The only question was where the fallen masonry had disappeared to? Mayhap it was covered up by the long grass?

  If there had ever been a true floor it was grass now, and any possible ceiling or roof had been taken away by time. But it didn't matter. In some strange way Yorik knew that this chapel was exactly as it should be. With no roof, no floor, half missing walls and only a few broken pews the chapel was still somehow complete. More than that however, it was alive. Alive in a way he didn't fully understand.

  Unbidden he dismounted and unbridled Crysal to let his horse enjoy her fill of the good grass as a reward. She deserved it, and despite the ruined nature of the chapel, he still somehow didn't think it appropriate for a horse to enter within its confines. The others did the same he noticed, all without a word, and once the horses were happily grazing they followed Myral up what would have been the centre aisle to the altar.

  “Welcome friends, to the Temple of the Last Dragons.” Myral turned to face them as he said it, and they all stopped dead, wondering what happened next.

  “This is one of the few places in the world where the Mother's creation can be felt directly. Where her will can be fully known. And where the echoes of her greatest creation can still be heard. The dragons.”

  “Their time was before the mortal races. Their lives and everything about them is a mystery to us. And yet long after their passing they can still provide a guide to the events in the world. They can give us an answer.”

  An answer? That surprised Yorik. It implied that they had a question, and he wasn't aware that they did – unless it was how to defeat the seemingly endless undead, something that he thought they would do with time. After all, sooner or later the Dark One had to run out of corpses to raise.

  “As you know, these attacks by the undead grow more frequent and more terrible. From what we have learned they extend over an ever widening area, engulfing more and more realms. And always the goal is the same; to kill.”

  “You have also been told one thing more. That it is the Dark One himself who is behind these attacks. That he seeks to free himself from his prison by any means possible, even at the cost of his own soul. And that the prison will be opened once the last mortal has departed the world – for that was the binding that was used to hold him.”

  “What you have not been told is that this part is but speculation. None of us know for sure. The farseers are limited in what they can see, and none can see into the Dark One's prison. The foretellers are limited as well. They can see the plans but not who makes those plans. And while a great many necromancers have been consigned to the prison with the Dark One, we do not know if they are the same ones that are being returned as undead to spread this plague.”

  “All our normal means of learning such things have failed us. It is time to try something new. And as you know from the legends, the Dark One's prison was created by the dragons. If any can see into it – can pierce the veil between realms – it is they.”

  And that meant asking the ghosts of the dragons Yorik suddenly realised. It was certainly new, and something he would never have thought of. It was also clever. The wizard was right. If this was the Dark One, the great demon tearing itself loose from its prison, they would know – if anyone did. But it sounded dangerous. Ghosts were dangerous, and dragons according to what was known of them, had been truly terrible creatures. So what would a ghost dragon be like?

  But at least someone else was asking the same question he had been asking himself for months. Could it really be the Dark One?

  Hopefully they would know in a few minutes.

  Myral began by raising his hands above his head in supplication to the Mother, and intoning a prayer of some sort. Yorik knew from the tone rather than the words that it was a prayer and not a spell. They were in a tongue he didn't understand. Not Elvish, not even the strange dialect of it that Myral spoke, but something
he'd never heard before. The words were wrong. In fact some of them weren't words at all as far as he could tell. They were sounds, and not those a mortal throat could make. Not a human one anyway.

  They were powerful though. From almost the moment Myral started speaking he could feel the presence of someone or something looking on. Growing interested, coming closer. And while he didn't feel threatened in any way, he did feel a little awed. Whatever it was, the Mother or a ghost dragon, it was powerful.

  “Lady be with me.”

  Yorik called to her, not because he thought that there would be any need for her presence in a battle. But because whenever he was uncertain he liked to know that she was there to explain things he didn't understand, in the way that she did. She never really told him anything specifically, just let a little of her understanding flow through him. And this time was no different.

  Through her he understood that what was being called wasn't the Mother despite the fact that Myral as an elf was a follower of hers. It was a dragon, but not a live one. Not however, a dead one either. But rather something else. Not live, not dead, not undead either, but something else. Something good. The Lady liked it and he could feel her happiness within him as he waited. He could feel her coming closer too. Taking more interest in what was happening.

  He didn't have to wait long before he felt the strangely thrilling flow of a breeze against his skin and knew that what had been called had arrived.

  It was like a wind, but he knew it wasn't really a wind. Wind just sort of blew and sometimes you could see it a little because of the dust it carried. But this was more like smoke, pale and wispy, and though it moved and flowed across the sky all around them, it didn't really blow so much as coil around on itself, bending and twisting almost as if it was dancing. And the sound; though it was light and barely a whisper, it echoed strangely and carried with it the promise of great power.

  “What is that?” But Yorik was only asking himself as he gave voice to his question. No one was listening to him although he suspected the others were all asking themselves the same question anyway. All except Myral of course, who had summoned the – whatever it was – and was simply standing there, his arms uplifted before it, in supplication. The Lady though was telling him it was good and that that should be enough for him.

  If he'd had to guess Yorik would have thought the strange smoke was actually some sort of creature. An air elemental maybe. He'd heard of such things. But it was so vast and though he still couldn't make out much about it, the way the smoke seemed to weave and coil around itself was almost like a snake coiling around a stick. Could it be a giant smoke snake? He had no answer.

  Slowly though, as the smoke thickened a little, he began to make out a little more of the shape, and he realised that it wasn't a snake. A cousin maybe, but absolutely not a snake. After all snakes didn't have legs, and he was slowly beginning to make out huge, talons on the end of four vast, powerful legs. Lizards had legs, and maybe it could have been one of them, except for the other feature that was slowly forming; its wings. Massive, long, leathery wings that could spread themselves across the heavens. It was a dragon. And that was impossible.

  The last dragons had died out thousands, maybe tens of thousands of years ago, long before even the elves had begun to form their civilizations, long before anyone even dreamed of in their tomes of ancient history had walked the world. So it couldn't be a dragon.

  Except that as the magic spun itself and the smoke kept weaving itself into something more and more solid, it was.

  It was a ghost dragon.

  As explanations went it wasn't much of one. In fact it explained nothing. But at least it was a term he'd heard before. And what else could it be? He knew that ghosts and shades had been summoned in the past, though not by any wizards in New Vineland. Such a thing was far too close to necromancy for comfort, and summoning ghosts of any sort was forbidden in the realm. In fact he found it hard to believe that that was what Myral had done. And as he had to remind himself the Lady seemed happy. She would not be happy if he had summoned a ghost. Yet he could think of no other explanation for what Myral had called, let alone a better one.

  Then the ghost dragon leapt into the sky and soared away and he forgot his questions. It was magnificent. Athletic and powerful, graceful through the air and wondrous to behold. But more than that it took joy in its flight; wheeling and soaring through the air, diving and climbing, and snorting fire while thunder roared all around. The creature was relishing being alive again, the feel of the air under its wings, the vitality of its muscles as they worked, the sinuous movements of its body as it wove its way through the sky.

  Yorik knew nothing of the creature – not what it was nor what sort of magic had been used to summon it – but he knew it was revelling in its rebirth. And that was very different to the undead. There was no joy in them at being recalled to life. Joy came from the soul, and there was no soul in them. And though he'd never seen a ghost he had never heard of them taking joy in their return to the mortal world either. The fact that the ghost dragon did showed that it was something very different to them. That was enough to silence his questions and simply let him enjoy the spectacle.

  For ages it seemed they watched the dragon revelling in its flight. Streaking like an arrow from the distant mountains to the cliff which they'd just climbed, diving for the ground and then banking and climbing at the last instant, rolling as it flew until it soared upside down, playing in the sky. It even darted down into the falls below them where it managed to get completely soaked before climbing back into the sky and covering them with rain as the water fell off its back. And how, he wondered, could a creature with a body made of smoke or fog no matter how solid it appeared, actually get wet?

  In the end though it didn't matter how. It was enough that it did. That it took joy in the flight. And that it shared that joy with the world.

  Eventually, and it was a good half hour that passed before it happened, the ghost dragon remembered them and it alighted on the ground in front of where they were standing. Although “alighted” was the wrong word for its landing. It was as graceful as a bird in the air but when it landed the ground shook with the impact. A dragon made of smoke that shook the ground when it landed on it – there was just so much wrong with that that Yorik couldn't quite grasp it. But he did grasp that he was staring at a dragon.

  It was massive. In the air he had known it was huge; but between the distance and its uncanny grace as it flew, he hadn't quite realised how large. On the ground behind them, he knew. Its head stood twenty feet above the ground, and the long snout full of teeth had to be ten feet long. Its long sinuous neck had to be another thirty feet. And behind that things just got bigger. Four legs as large as trees. A body the size of a house but seemingly slender because of its length. A tail disappearing somewhere into the distance behind it. And then of course there were those wings. The ghost dragon could have stretched out over an Ender's Fall city block.

  It was the eyes that truly captivated him though. Golden eyes full of knowledge and age. He knew nothing of the dragon but he knew that much about it without any doubt.

  Myral greeted the dragon in the tongue he'd summoned it with, and as before Yorik understood nothing of what he said. He understood nothing of the dragon's response either save for the fact that he had answered the wizard. And that seemed a little amazing in itself. But within him he felt the Lady listening to the conversation. Listening and agreeing. She understood.

  In time she even interjected, using his voice and body to speak, and soon the three of them were having an animated conversation. A conversation that Yorik understood nothing of even though many of the words came out of his mouth. But he was a paladin of the Order of the Lady – it was enough that he served.

  One thing he did notice was that the three of them were in agreement on whatever they were saying. Myral might have been asking questions of the ghost dragon, but he wasn't at all surprised by the answers. And he could almost feel the impu
lse of the Lady within him to nod with everything the dragon said. She agreed completely.

  There was one other thing that eventually caught his notice. This was a conversation of equals. For Myral and the Lady he could almost understand that. Even though she was surely far beyond him, the two were old companions and had travelled together five long centuries before. But the dragon and Myral? That seemed odd. On the one hand the ghost dragon was a truly massive creature with vast knowledge and power at the tips of its claws. It could have killed Myral with a single swipe or a puff of its fiery breath. Yet the wizard showed it no great respect. And on the other hand it was a summoned creature, undead or not, and the rule was that summoned creatures had to obey those who had called them. They were respectful of them. The dragon showed no such inclination.