by 5kops
"My lord," Videon Hammerfell stammered. "I have been sent ... I mean I have been asked ... I mean, the High Lightbringer has given . . ."
"Out with it, lad," Bowon relaxed at the knight's obvious nervousness. The fact he was looking down was not an insult but rather the young man's way of dealing with direct emotion.
Videon sighed and met his eyes. "My lord, I have been sent here to remove you from your assignment, upon the request of Lord Taryon Lightbringer. Furthermore, you are to report back to Aresleigh and explain your failure to the high council."
"You are here to arrest me, Knight Hammerfell?" Bowon asked. It was a significant slight to his honor that Lord Lightbringer had not delivered the message personally. He was to be put on trial in front of everyone he loved. His ethos would be questioned. There was no greater shame than being recalled from a holy crusade.
"No, my lord," Hammerfell seemed surprised at the question. "I have been given a vision to complete the journey which you started. I am simply here to take your place, and to make sure that the proper instructions were given."
If they had sent a military escort to arrest him, Bowon would have convinced himself that he did not deserve such a fate. He told himself that being brought in forcefully was different than being ordered to face humiliation.
But what can do I do? Bowon thought, his pride stinging. Lowering his gaze in shame, he knew what he would do. He would walk into Aresleigh and face his punishment with grace. He would most likely be reduced in rank, branded a coward. Why hadn't they sent someone to bring him in? He might have died the way he imagined he would: in battle, serving God's purpose. Instead they had sent a newly inducted knight to die deliver the message . . . and expected him to return without protest.
"Were there any other instructions, Knight Hammerfell?" Bowon tried to remain stoic in front of his replacement.
"The High Lightbringer said you would come as commanded, that you would not fight or argue the fact that you had fallen from God's grace," Videon Hammerfell said. The lack of sorrow in the young man's eyes concerned Bowon. "He said only that your trial would commence at the summer solstice."
"I appreciate your candor, Knight Hammerfell," Bowon said. "If I have less than three weeks to arrive in Aresleigh, I must begin to pack. I don't suppose you will stay here?"
"No, my lord; the west calls to me," Videon explained. "I think it would be best for me to start there."
"Then I think our meeting is at an end, and you should be on your way," Bowon stood and extended his arm in formal etiquette.
"Lord Silvershield, I apologize for this . . ." Videon Hammerfell faltered and clasped Bowon's arm. "May Starsgalt shine upon you."
"You too, lad, you too."
Videon Hammerfell nodded and stalked from the room. As the door shut, Bowon sank into his chair in utter despair. His instinct was to pray, but there was no point. He had failed God. He was a fallen knight and deserved this fate. He would walk into Aresleigh with his head held high and pray for death.
"Yaarrggghhh . . .!" Bowon yelled, grabbing the desk and with all his strength, throwing it into the air, scattering maps and religious documents. He had never felt pain like this.
He stormed to the side of the room, poured himself a mug apple brandy and drained it. If he was going to face humiliation, at least he no longer needed to feel its pain.
For the first time in his life, Lord Silvershield was introduced to the numbing company of alcohol.
****
Silverwing soared high in the morning air, which made her feel revitalized compared to the earthy gales that plagued lower travel in the sky and made her elder body tired. More so, she appreciated such heights because they gave her a greater perspective of the world. If only she could travel so high more often!
She was glad of her distance from the ground on this occasion. The Great Devoid looked like a mosaic of ash, coal, and brimstone. It was almost beautiful when one was flying several thousand feet above it, though nothing was further from the truth. She hated the place. There was nothing—no wildlife, no vegetation, not even carrion creatures survived in this place of utter chaos. Even the mountains seemed to cry out in anguish at having been stripped of all life.
For a creature as old as she, it was a tragedy. Though dragons held to firm neutrality, they considered creation beautiful and assisted in the process when they could. Yet there could be no help for this destroyed region; only skeletons of great trees remained, distorted in the agony of a slow death.
Not even dragon fire could purge this land, she thought sadly, remembering it had once been the great Goldenwood Forest. She still remembered that elves had cared for the ancient woods, maintaining and nurturing a balance with nature, over three thousand years ago.
That was before the ferryll destroyed their civilisation and the humans waged the First War of Ancient Souls, she thought.
Another thought bloomed in Silverwing's mind. It is odd that I haven't seen any Vul'd'Kat patrols yet. She grimaced upon using the true name of the ferryll. The dragon did not say that name lightly. No denizen of the Material Plane did. Most were afraid of drawing the attention of the demonic race— a race known for slaughtering anything that moved, anything in their path.
Silverwing shivered, remembering her first meeting with the ferryll. They had come out of the north, unleashed upon man by the angel Illenthuul, an unholy plague of chaos and destruction. She had been young silver then, full of pride and arrogance, and had almost lost her life. Needless to say, it had been an enlightening experience, changing her view of what lesser creatures were capable of; they destroyed with no regard to balance. Wherever they walked plague followed, reducing entire regions to wastelands in days. Entire kingdoms vanished, races became extinct.
Again she shivered.
For the first time in history, dragonkind was forced to unite with dwarves, elves, and humans, all united under the banner of a human general named Anduin of the Light, a Champion of the angel Starsgalt. For nearly fifty years, the alliance fought the ferryll, to incalculable losses on both sides. Finally, the ferryll were pushed back into the depths of the Devoid where mortals could not easily travel. Although the dragons had been willing to form an invading force to wipe the world clean of the filth, the lesser beings decided to leave the ferryll in the wastelands to rot and rebuild the destruction to the south and west.
We could have rid the world of such vileness, Silverwing thought. She had never forgiven the mistake. She had seen countless dragons perish during the war, including most of her brood. We should have destroyed the Vul'd'Kat when there was a chance!
Two thousand years later, she remembered the war as if it was yesterday. She recalled fields littered with bodies, as the stench of death was nigh unbearable to dragon senses.
As the thought passed, Silverwing banked hard to the east and the ruins of an ancient city spread across the wasteland coming into sight. Although she would never forgive such ignorance, there would be time to fume over the stupidity of the lesser races later. For now, she needed to concentrate on the task at hand.
Catching a current, she tucked her wings and spiraled downward. With an acrobatic twist of her body, the dragon positioned her wings to allow for maximum speed. At the last moment, she spread her wings and caught a strong draft to slow her descent. The maneuver shot intense pain through her body as wings flexed and rippled, doing their best to decrease the speed of her plummet.
Having her fun for the day, Silverwing circled the ruins twice looking for a proper landing place, which ended up being a partially destroyed courtyard. With the grace of a five ton feline, she set herself down as lightly as she could. The impact shook the ground, reducing a crumbling fountain to shattered stone, dust and lichen clouding the air. Although she was not large for her kind, only twenty-six feet from nose to tail, Silverwing's body took up half of the courtyard and left little room to stretch her wings and maneuver. It was a drawback of being a dragon; as large as she was, it w
as always a hassle to collect useful information within the confines of the lesser races residencies. She had decided long ago that unless she needed to destroy something of significant size, it would be in her best interest to shift her form into something better suited for human cities.
She had chosen the form of a graceful young woman whom she had watched bathing in a stream fifteen hundred years before. She had modified and sculpted a perfect frame over millennia of using the disguise.
Most dragons refused to shape-shift, insisting that it diluted dragon blood and disrespected the powerful nature of their immortal race. There were even some who thought of shifting from the dragon form into that of a human as blasphemy.
That wight be true, she conceded. She had never particularly liked shifting into the form of a human female, but the end justified the means. She was a servant of God first and foremost, and though her methods were unorthodox, none could question her ability to extract information and record history.
Silverwing released a sigh. Walking as a human no longer bothered her anymore, so she assumed that her blood had indeed become diluted. That she no longer minded being one of the lesser beings scared her, an emotion uncommon for a dragon
But humans can do things even a mighty dragon must envy, she mused. Being able to go unbothered through ancient repositories of knowledge, actually experiencing life, and being limited by time are all positive attributes, she concluded. To her, the pain was worth the experience.
She began casting in a draconic chant which sounded like thunder rumbling. She could not help but feel exhilarated as she recited the poly-morph spell for the fifth time in a row. A buzz of arcane power danced around her, culminating in a loud rumble that shook the broken walls of a nearby building. The hum grew louder as a soft glow enveloped the dragon. Excruciating pain ran down her spine as her body began to shrink. She did her best not to roar in anguish. If there was a ferryll mage nearby, he or she would feel the powerful spell taking shape; it was best not to alert them precisely where she had landed. The spell took several minutes to complete as it snapped bones, stretched skin, and redesigned the pulpish mass of organic material into a lithe female body.
The human female lay naked and panting on the lichen-covered stone, suffering from the shock of such an intense event. She shook with cold in the stale air of mid-morning. The effects of the transformation would leave her numb and addled for nearly twenty minutes before she could regain wits enough to summon clothing that she had stored in a pocket plane of existence.
"I see you have the gift of poly-morphing," commented a voice. "I suppose that is why you are such an effective agent of the All-Knowing One. Your reputation is why I sent you here."
"Who is there?" she gasped, pushing herself up with numb limbs. When she saw a handsome young man dressed in a tailored royal tunic and green hose staring back at her, she collapsed. The man's features were compelling: an angular face, green eyes, and perpetual smile. The vertigo of looking up almost made her vomit.
"You do not recognize this form?" the man teased, sweeping his hand to present himself with a laugh. "Maybe if I gave you a hint, would that help?"
The female said nothing as she slumped to the ground and groaned.
"Well, if you are not going to play along, I will have to just tell you who I am. I am he who burned away the last vestiges of time from your soul." The man's tone became serious. "Come, child, as easy as the transformation came, I figured you would be able to shake off the after-effects. Needless to say, we have business."
"How did you find me?" she asked, voice touched with concern. This was the being who had done something that was relegated to God. The entire event was a fresh wound in her mind. It was he who had driven her here. This man, she well knew, was the Shadow Dragon Vulsevandat who had shape-shifted into human form. This was the malevolent being who had driven her and her God to seek this accursed city along with an artifact that it once held.
"Do give me some credit," Vulsevandat said. "I have agents roaming the entire region, seeking the same thing you do. Besides, I am the one who told you of this place."
"You told me of an artifact, not of its residence," the female said. "If you knew its whereabouts, why don't you already have it?"
"Ah, well, finally a legitimate question," the man said. "I told you of an artifact that could foresee the future. I also tried to explain that our entire race is bound to divine subservience. When you accused me of being evil, I said I could prove Illuviel's shortcomings. Do you remember this, Silver-wing ... or whatever human name you choose to go by?"
"You did not answer the question," Silverwing did her best to stand on the wobbly legs of a nearly perfect female.
"Didn't I?" the man arched his eyebrows in a very human reaction to a stupid remark.
Silverwing knew she was being made fun of and remained silent.
"Yes, well, let's look at my statement, shall we? I promised you proof of God's limitations," remarked the man. "Do you not find it odd that God did not know the whereabouts of such an item?"
"I have never questioned God, unlike some who have lost their faith in the One," replied Silverwing.
The man chuckled. "The reason I have never sought out this artifact is because it does not exist. I made it up. It is a figment of my blasphemous imagination. I knew you would come here, because it was I who planted the information you would find."
"That is untrue, heretic! You just want all this knowledge for yourself!" Silverwing stood straight and began casting a spell that would strip her fellow dragon of any magical defenses.
"I would think twice before acting too rashly, child," the man said sternly, as though lecturing a daughter. "I could bind your soul to this body and leave you naked—and quite limited—in this form forever."
"You wouldn't dare!" Silverwing shrieked, ceasing her casting in mid-speech. "Answer me! How did you know I would be here?"
The man sighed. "I told you why. Now think. Why would God allow such a thing to exist? If Illuviel knows all things, then he would have already known that such a thing would be flawed, limited, and altogether useless to his cause. If it wasn't, then he would know its whereabouts and already have it in his possession. Instead, he took my information as fact and sent you in search of an artifact that he knew nothing about."
"Illuviel is God! He is perfection! Nothing else can be true!" screamed Silverwing in desperation.
"I do not doubt Illuviel's power, or that he is beyond even me, but he is not God" the man replied with a firm tone of authority. 'You can no longer deny that he has limitations. It is proven daily by the fact that neither he nor any in Heaven know what you are searching for."
"Impossible!" Tears streamed down Silverwing's delicate human cheeks, which was impossible for Dragonkind. "He is God. You are lying! You are a Shadow Dragon heretic who has turned from the faith!"
"It is only your shackles of servitude that keep you from realizing that I speak the truth. I promised you proof, and you have now seen it for yourself," the man pulled his lips into a thoughtful smile. "Now you must decide what to do with this information."
For the first time Silverwing felt alone. She could no longer deny that God's holy crusade to find something He refused to talk about was indeed quite odd. She had asked herself many times why the All-Knowing One had never revealed exactly what was being sought. She had asked herself if an artifact for seeing the future existed, why Heaven hadn't demanded it in the first place. Illuviel had seemed surprised to hear of such a relic. Now, if this Shadow was not lying, her God had sent her on a false assumption.
Sitting in the middle of the ancient city, Karth'Palax, supposed home to an artifact that could see the future, Silverwing brought her unhappy face to meet that of the Shadow Dragon male. She did not attempt to clothe herself. She did not try to get away. Without God looking over her, what was there to live for? But if she was to die, she needed to hear the truth of which her kin spoke.
"If you know so much, then
tell me the truth," Silverwing cried.
"I am glad to hear that you are finally willing to listen," the man said, eyes sparkling. "There are truths happening that you cannot even comprehend, child, but, we will get to that later. The first truth you must learn is that of the Shadow Dragons . . ."
****
In the year 2009 A.D., the City of Aresleigh's future would change forever.
The Duke of Aresleigh grumbled, still partially asleep, as he was led down the palace halls by his retainers. He had been summoned by Lord Orbury, the castle seneschal, with urgent news. The duke could not imagine why his elder statesman had not been more direct. For that matter, what could possibly be so urgent that it needed his personal attention in the middle of the night?
He had planned on several weeks of peace and quiet. His sons and nephew, Count Edelin Hawkwind of Vendria, were on an annual hunting vacation in the far north. It was very like his sons to request their father so late in the night for unimportant business. The duke thought himself a patient man; however, if those young men had come back before their very expensive hunting excursion was up . . .
If my three sons are behind this, they will rue the day they were horn! the duke fumed. The thought made him vow to send his younger sons away to be merchants, maybe even monks! His humor was short lived when he realized that such a punishment would not be effective for his eldest son, Arturius, the heir to his throne. He would need to think of a fitting punishment that would not undermine the family's position. Maybe he could pick each of his sons a young, healthy and very ugly bride ... a perfect punishment for annoying young men. The thought almost made the duke smile.
The party walked down the long hallway in silence. It wasn't until he rounded the last corner that he shouldered past his men to personally greet Lord Orbury with a glower.
The portly seneschal was standing in front of the doors that the duke used to greet high ranking noble dignitaries. Lord Orbury looked quite grave as he reached to grasp his old friend's arm in salute.