Dragon Rigger

by Jeffrey A. Carver

  Has anyone felt the contact of an iffling? Deeplife asked the others urgently. Can we send warning that way?

  The ifflings are failing, whispered the hushed voice of Seatouch. Their strength is nearly gone. They cannot reach us now.

  Deeplife spoke to FullSky. Have you any way to reach Windrush, quickly?

  Not now, FullSky whispered, with a breath of steam.

  Then we can only watch.

  That is why we are being allowed to see this, Deeplife said softly. So that we might watch, and despair.

  FullSky hissed quietly to himself, but said nothing. He knew that despair was the Enemy's greatest weapon, and if the draconae succumbed, there would be little hope indeed.

  The drahls and dragons gathered, rising over the harsh twilit peaks of the Enemy's territory. Instead of taking flight to the east, however, they flew in formation in a great, spinning circle. Gradually they closed their orbits inward until they were turning dizzyingly fast, like the storm clouds FullSky had braved in reaching the Dream Mountain. He sensed that threads of the underrealm were being stretched and altered, even as he watched. The empty air in the center of the formation shimmered and opened somehow, and the drahls banked and fell inward through the distorted air, and vanished.

  FullSky blinked, feeling a disturbance in the underrealm. The Enemy, he knew, had just released a potent sorcery, sending his legions through some astonishing shortcut to their target. FullSky stared at the image of empty sky over the Dark Vale and felt more helpless than ever.

  * * *

  Leaving the darkened window, three of the draconae—Deeplife, Starchime, and Gentlesong—remained close to FullSky in the underrealm, but drew him to a place where they could speak quietly. They all knew that the dragons, back in the held land, must even now be fighting for their lives. But there was nothing any of them could do about it, and they had agreed that FullSky should learn all he could while he was among them, in hopes that he might take some useful knowledge back through the underrealm with him.

  They seemed to be perched on a ledge overlooking a place of silent but intense draconae activity. They were granting him a glimpse of the Forge of Dreams, a place where draconae skilled in the powers of the Mountain labored to maintain the defense of the dreamfires, and through them the integrity of the entire realm and the underrealm, and everything that lived there. From where FullSky sat, the view seemed to shimmer between a darkened cavern with draconae gathered around a glowing hearth—and a breathtaking and impossible-to-grasp view of an all-enveloping darkness full of stars, and a blazing source of light and heat that seemed to be everywhere and nowhere in that darkness, all at once. The underrealm itself seemed to pulse and breathe around the power that flowed from that source.

  There are not many to whom we would show this, Deeplife said. But even now, we must keep from you any greater knowledge of the dreamfire. Though it saddens us, you may be vulnerable to the Enemy.

  FullSky nodded. He was grateful to be seeing this much.

  You took a great risk, venturing past the Enemy to come here. Your presence encourages us, murmured Gentlesong. In the underrealm, she presented a kuutekka of graceful arcs of light, somehow coming together in the shape of a dragon.

  My risk increases, the longer I remain. There is so much that I would like to know!

  We will share with you—

  But, said FullSky, I hardly know where to begin! I wonder what can help us to prevail!

  Deeplife spread her wings. They flared with multiple colors, as though sunlight were passing through them. Her eyes seemed infinitely deep, one facet leading into another, and another . . .She sang softly:

  A word names the nameless

  And light dawns from dread

  To the heart of darkness

  Are the fearful ones led.

  And she was echoed by the other two, who sang, like repeating chimes:

  And the realm shall tremble . . .

  Raising her voice slightly, Deeplife sang:

  Challenging darkness

  will come one

  Speaking her name

  will come one

  From that one

  comes a beginning

  From that one

  comes an ending

  From that one

  all paths diverge.

  And the other two echoed:

  And surely the realm shall tremble.

  FullSky was silent.

  Those, said Deeplife, are the Words that have been foremost in our hearts lately. They sustain us in both our hope and our fear.

  Words, FullSky thought. He feared them, and longed to know their secrets. But could words defeat the Enemy?

  The Enemy knows those Words as well as we do, Deeplife said. And make no mistake—he fears them.

  FullSky gazed at her in puzzlement.

  Starchime coruscated with radiating circles of light. He fears them because he does not understand them. He knows there will be an ending, and a new beginning. But he does not know what kind of ending, or beginning. Nor do we.

  FullSky admitted, I hardly know, myself, whether to draw hope from them, or fear.

  The draconae made chiming sounds of assent. That is their nature. But we choose to draw hope.

  Hope, FullSky thought. How difficult it was to feel hope when the Enemy was so powerful, and so . . . unknowable. For all of his encounters with the Nail of Strength, he still scarcely knew what or who Tar-skel was.

  None of us knows for sure, whispered Gentlesong. But much has been handed down in wisdom from of old.

  Legends, he whispered back.

  More than legends. Told through legends sometimes, but real nonetheless. Open your thoughts to us, FullSky, and learn of our foe.

  FullSky stared at the dracona, and at last met her gaze. He felt her thoughts slipping deep into his . . .

  * * *

  The images stirred melancholy memories. As a youngling he had been taught much that he had since lost to the dimness of time. Like most draconi, FullSky had not really wanted to remember such things, not when he was a youthful dragon, eager and invincible. These were dark memories, the memories of Tar-skel.

  (Indeed,) whispered Gentlesong. (But the time has come to face them, and to learn.)

  The Enemy entered the realm in a time before even the draconae's memory (Gentlesong murmured). His life before that was known only through his boastings, recalled and passed on by his servants and foes alike. He came from another realm altogether, where he had been an influential being in a race of immortals or near-immortals. There he had been an artist of some sort, a shaper-crafter of wondrous powers and great renown—but not, it seemed, renown enough. His pride grew with his work; and with that pride came a darkening of his spirit, as his fellows granted him too little praise, too little understanding, too little bowing to his wisdom and his power.

  (Was he driven by jealousy?) FullSky asked wonderingly.

  (By jealousy, pride . . . and in the end, madness,) answered Gentlesong.

  The seeds of madness, perhaps, were present from the beginning. But the rise in fame of another shaper, whose work overshadowed his, brought about a final eruption of envy, and a lust for mastery and revenge. What truly happened then, no one except Tar-skel himself could say now. But somehow he found the power to destroy that realm and all who lived in it, and he fled with his own life. And as he did so, he called himself Nail of Strength, his anger and pride burning hot as a sun.

  Over the eons, his anger cooled somewhat, but never went out. After unknown wanderings, he came in time to the dragon realm. He arrived quietly, and studied the realm carefully, before gathering his power here.

  (Was he known to the dragons then?) FullSky wondered, trying to recall his own earliest times of learning.

  (They knew of his presence, but not yet his nature,) murmured Gentlesong. (Our ancestors were not as wise as they might have been. Many followed him without knowing that they did so.)

  (Then little has changed,) FullSky noted, and Gen
tlesong could only agree, as she continued conveying the images to him.

  Tar-skel's sorceries in the underrealm were unparalleled, but that explained only a part of his success. He drew a growing following of dragons under his sway, through appeals to greed, to power-lust, and to fear. He seduced many with promises of great magics, and he offered overproud dragons a chance to rule over others who were more fearful, weak, or timid. These were the early times of dragon civilization, and the dragons had little tradition of history and order. Even the draconae were only just learning the powers of memory and word, and the quiet taming of the dreamfires. But they knew enough, even then, to guard control of the Forge of Dreams from this one.

  Across the ages, numerous wars erupted between those who served him and those who hated the turmoil he had brought to the realm. Dragons died in those wars, but Tar-skel did not.

  (And yet he was defeated,) FullSky recalled.

  (Yes, in the greatest of those wars, he lost most of his followers, and his sorceries were broken,) said Gentlesong. (Some thought that he was dead. But in fact, he only slept, leaving the realm untroubled for a time.)

  As Tar-skel slept, stories and legend grew up around his name, keeping his true nature from burning too deeply into the dragon conscience, sparing dragonkind the pain of remembering its own failures. He was portrayed as a spirit that punished wicked dragonlings, or draconi whose courage failed. He became a tragic figure, a dragon whose ambitions outstretched his abilities—a character whose story revealed the price of becoming powerful, but not powerful enough. Many said that he never lived at all, that his was just a name given to an ill wind that blew in the hearts of some dragons—a name given to an impersonal evil, to render it less terrifying.

  Thus the true history diminished in dragon memory. The reasons for past wars vanished in a murk of discarded guilt and shame. As the draconi forgot their own misdeeds, the fictions became so entangled with reality that even by the draconae, the truths were sometimes misremembered. And so the Enemy was reduced to a fable who had no true life, no true name, no true power.

  But though silent for many generations of dragons, Tar-skel indeed had life, had a name, had power.

  FullSky, remembering his recent brush with the Enemy, knew well that one's power. Gentlesong paused, sensing his unease, but FullSky urged her to continue sharing . . .

  Quietly, while the draconi were forgetting that he had ever lived, the Nail of Strength gathered his resources, his forces, his legions of twisted and altered beings. If from time to time a young fledgling vanished from the slopes of the Dream Mountain, the draconi preferred to believe that accidents were to blame, fledglings who tried to fly before they were ready, or caretaking draconae who were inattentive to their charges. But the singing ones knew, and perhaps even a few of the male dragons suspected: the invisible one was stealing fledglings, stealing them and twisting them into something terrible and deadly, and calling them drahls, servants of the Nail. But of the draconi who flew and dueled and maintained (or so they believed) the strength of the realm, most refused to recognize the truth.

  Once again, Tar-skel grew strong, cloaked in silence and invisibility. His darkest works were performed in secrecy; his influences were whispers in the darkness to those who did not even know whose voice they were hearing. If he did speak audibly, it was in a voice of unworldly beauty. Some, like FullSky, were drawn in to challenge his magics, and were captured. His presence was concealed by senseless disputes among the draconi, by brooding distrust of outsiders, by a growing belief that anyone or anything not-dragon—such as a rigger, or even an iffling—must be demon. And this time, his silence lasted . . . until one such outsider was befriended by a dragon, mirroring the ancient prophecy . . . until his sorcery, to his fury, was defeated by that same rigger.

  (Jael,) thought FullSky. (The One.)

  (So we have believed,) Gentlesong sighed.

  Tar-skel's malice, if anything, flourished following that humiliation. He had already quietly concealed the way to Dream Mountain from dragons who were too absorbed in their duels and disputes to notice. He was determined to complete his ultimate weaving of power, a web that would draw not just this world, but all those beyond, into his grasp. But he was angry, as well; and if he could avenge himself against the rigger in his moment of success, so much sweeter would be the victory that he had long craved—the mastery of all worlds.

  (But what of the prophecies?) FullSky whispered, awed and terrified by the recounting of their foe's staggering power.

  (The Words came to us in the days following the last great war,) said Gentlesong. (And not just to us, but to a surviving servant of the Enemy.)

  An aging dracona, Sunfire, standing watch over the Forge of Dreams, had witnessed the vision and spoken the Words aloud. And the rest of the draconae had remembered them, through song and verse and vision, for the ages to come. And the Enemy's servant had fled, bearing the knowledge of the same Words to its master.

  And over the generations, the draconae—and, it was believed, the Enemy as well—had been striving to understand those Words. Friend and foe alike now, all were waiting, waiting for the final story to unfold.

  * * *

  Even as Gentlesong poured the images into FullSky's thoughts, much of it echoed back from his deepest memories of early teachings. But even hearing it, and seeing it in his mind, he felt an unreasoning desire not to believe that they, today, could be facing this same, legendary Enemy. He seemed too powerful, too terrible, too . . . immortal.

  (Can he really be so ancient?) FullSky hissed, barely able to speak even in the privacy of his own mind.

  (More ancient than our memory,) said Gentlesong.

  A wisp of steam curled up slowly from FullSky's kuutekka as he reflected upon his Enemy's, and his own people's, history. He was grieved by the tragedy of the dragons' failure to remember their past, and grateful for the draconae's preservation of the truth against the erosion of the ages.

  He all but forgot his own precariousness in the underrealm as he whispered to the dracona, (Tell me, please—what can I do?)

  Chapter 29: Battle for the Deep Caverns

  Word of attack came in the night, not from the Valley of Fallen Light, or from the outposts to the south, but out of the darkness to the east. Windrush had been flying vigil with the guardians of Fallen Light, and left Farsight in charge of continuous patrols out along the western border and the Scarred Mount Ridge. The border seemed secure. Nevertheless, Windrush felt a vague but growing suspicion that something was wrong; and several times, had landed so that he could probe the underrealm for any signs. But it never did any good; he felt that something was stirring, somewhere, but until it broke out into the open, he could not tell what it was.

  And so, despite all of their preparedness, it came as a shock when a flame-billowing messenger appeared out of the east, shrieking: "Attack! The Enemy has attacked! Send help to the Deep Caverns! Send dragons to the Deep Caverns!"

  The dragon did not even slow down, but trumpeted his warning as he passed the Valley of Fallen Light on his way to the main encampment. Windrush rose to intercept him and flew alongside toward the camp. "Report!" Windrush called. "Your name! How many of the enemy? What have they done?"

  The messenger's angry flame flashed in the night. "Skypiercer, Windrush! More drahls than we could count—and enemy dragons, too! It was sorcery—they appeared out of nowhere! They are destroying our guard, and the caverns as well. If we don't have help, the caverns will be lost!"

  Windrush was dumb with astonishment. Why the Deep Caverns? Did some power remain there, after all? He beat the air furiously. "Tell Farsight, in the camp!" he commanded Skypiercer. "Gather all that can be spared! I will take some from the valley and fly ahead!"

  "Enter at the Amethyst Cliffs! The guard there is still holding. But hurry!" Skypiercer cried.

  Windrush broke away and sped back toward the Valley of Fallen Light. As he approached the valley, he called out to those on guard. "I need six to fly with
me against the Enemy! The rest of you stay, and be more vigilant than ever! Who will come?"

  Within moments, he had his six: Longnail and Rocktooth, formerly of WingTouch's patrol, Hardscale and FlyForever, two lanky dragons from the south, plus WindSpear and—to his surprise—SearSky. Farsight had probed SearSky and pronounced him as cantankerous and ill-natured as ever, but utterly loyal to the realm—and not just ready to do battle, but eager.

  "We'll fly fast and hard, and be outnumbered when we arrive," Windrush warned, as the seven climbed away, eastward, from the lumenis grove.