Slowly he reached down, and kissed her softly. When their lips parted, Shera smiled.
“I was waiting for that for quite a long time.”
“And you would know how badly I wanted to do it too.”
The heart of Sedayval was enveloping them. It was a large cavern, and Shera was helped to her feet by Vahren. She brought him to the nearby pond where the waters healed. Dipping his body into the invigorating pool, he let out a sigh of relief. His wounds began closing.
Water flowed freshly in the cavern, forming brooks. Mossy flowers bloomed on the walls, defying the need for sunlight through photosynthesis. Shera looked at the wide, cool cavern and wiped the sweat from her brow. The Jewel of Maan was an open secret to Sedayval and the rest of the world. Though people knew of its existence, not many were aware of the circumstances surrounding the very stone.
For one thing, the Jewel of Maan was not exactly a jewel. Shera knew now. As she stared at the heart of Sedayval, the truth became clear to her.
The Jewel of Maan was a dragon.
“I can’t believe it,” Shera gasped. She rubbed her eyes, unable to grasp the reality of the situation. There it was, in the middle of the cavern, a bluish green and yellow dragon. Its legs, and the many-scaled carapace armor on its body, were tied down into the ground by a form of binding magic. The blueness of its scales were the same tone as the flattened piece of jewel in her mother’s letter. It was a dragon’s scale that Irinde had stolen from the Jewel and enclosed in her letter to Godema.
Snaking on the dragon’s feet were parasitic roots, draining the essence of the dragon.
Vahren got down on his knees and cried. His sobs were racked, painful and raw. He could not imagine his kin being tortured in such a way, denigrated for centuries to fulfill the lives of those who lived in the city above.
“See, Shera? See what your people have done to the Jewel of Maan? See how they have tortured my people! Being kept alive by force-feeding and life-force magic! Is this a way to live?”
Shera looked at the bindings covering the dragon’s feet. The magic had sapped it dry. It had none of the austere glow of the dragons she had seen in the books. Its eyes were exhausted, wide, and its carapace, once shiny and glowing, was now dull. There was life in the dragon, but barely.
The Jewel of Maan looked at the two humans with a disinterested glare.
Shera took a step closer and the dragon flinched and inched backwards.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” she reassured it softly.
Still, the dragon growled at her and tried to move its wings, but failed. The sheer exhaustion of its lined, wizened face broke her heart. The line of magic binding the dragon snaked into thicker magical fibers which rooted itself into the ground and made its way along the walls of the cavern. It leeched out the seemingly limitless powers of the dragon, and fed it into the floating city of Sedayval.
“Antoher lie. Another fucking lie!” Shera threw her hands in the air. “I can’t believe this. The Jewel of Maan is a trapped dragon. And this city is a parasite that has been feeding off this dragon.”
Vahren wiped his tears. “Every time I use a Rune magic, I am taking your life…”
“I’m sorry you had to find out this way. I wanted to tell you… but I knew you wouldn’t believe me,” Vahren said behind her.
“It was… the moment we fused. I felt your thoughts. You wanted to keep this from me didn’t you, but you also wanted me to know?”
The dragon had now managed to push its entire body against the far end of the cavern wall. It leaned against the wall, eyes partially closed, but its orange iris still fixated upon the runes on Shera’s hands.
The Young Acolyte knew the dragon’s fears. It probably thought that the High Priestess had come for a visit. She wondered, her body growing nauseous, what the High Priestess did to this poor creature. She could not, did not want to imagine it.
Vahren stepped forward. When he spoke, a different language came out from within him. It made tense hind and rear legs of the dragon relax considerably. Its jaws fell slack, and a rasping, choking roar came out, as though it had just stifled a cough and tear. The eyes widened, and it looked from Vahren to Shera, hesitating to move, to dare believe. Vahren continued speaking to it, and as the soft words came out of him, he stepped forward, one step at a time. The dragon did nothing to protect itself, nor did it raise a sickled claw to attack.
Slwoly but surely, Vahren made his way towards the Jewel of Maan, till he was now standing inches away from the dragon. Still, he did not touch it. He couldn’t. Shera was quick to warn him not to pat the dragon, no matter how much he wanted to.
“Those runes on its legs, is tied to a draining spell. That is an encrypted rune. It requires a Priestess to undo it.”
“Can’t you do so?” The desperation was thick in his voice. He would look often at the entrance from which they came, fearing an ambush from High Priestess Iktai.
Shera was hesitant. For one, this was a smack towards the belief system she had been trained to believe since a small child. But, certain elements of it still contained truths pertaining the Jewel of Maan. Where the energy sapped the great big dragon, it was used to fuel the city’s livelihood. People relied on it. In that regard, the Jewel of Maan expounded its truth – to sustain the people living above.
But at what expense?
“I can’t do this, Vahren. I cannot,” Shera bit her lip. “If I undo its binding, there is no saying what the dragon might do. If it chooses to escape, the whole city will come crashing onto earth! The people above would die.”
The Jewel of Maan blinked lazily at the arguing people in front of it.
“I can’t believe it Shera. You know now that Maan is a made-up concept! Isn’t it clear to you that this dragon is tortured to keep Sedayval alive?”
Serve, lead, disperse, Shera thought. They were what was transcribed on her body in Maan’s tongue. The runes had served her well. When she allowed the power of Maan to flow through her, it was always the power of this Jewel – this dragon. She had felt it all her life. All the other Acolytes and Priestesses had felt it too.
She took a deep breath. Because the runes were already tattooed on her arms, there was no need for a chant. She focused on channeling the power of the Jewel, and struck her arm with a finger sliding across the runes in a sudden manner – like a match striking the box to light a flame. Her runes glowed a strong turquoise, something it had never done before. Instead of pure energy coursing through her, it made her feel elevated. The energy was pure, concentrated, and it came directly from the dragon’s eyes, which were now gazing intensely at her.
The bridge of energy was connected between them two, and Shera stepped forward. Vahren saw the whole thing, puzzlement racking through his head. He could not hear their telepathic conversation, but he egged her to hurry.
Shera however, did not care anymore.
Can you hear me? she said in her mind.
The Jewel of Maan nodded, much to her astonishment. And then it told her how it came to be.
*
The great war of the world did happen. But it wasn’t as you thought it was. It never is.
The sorcerers in Queen Vahana I’s court were dabbling in magic that was considered too modern, too erroneous, and dangerous for the court back then. It was to tap into the consciousness of a being, and seep out the energy from their minds. Thoughts contained some of the most powerful energies, and our brain is an intense, self-replenishing reservoir, with the right chemicals. They were interested in the way the Dragon Knights could fuse their bodies and minds to compound and exaggerate their strengths in the Dragonian form.
When the sapping magic was perfected, they tried it on many test subjects. Back then, Sedayval was still a city aground, clenched by the Earth. Prisoners, children from all over Sedayval, even peasants were kidnapped to be experimented upon.
And then they made the mistake of kidnapping a Shando woman and her child, who was in the region for her merchant
duties.
We Shandos were an extremely communal people. Dragon Knights were sent to Sedayval to investigate the missing woman and her child. Though we very much lived in this fertile region in peace with the others, we could not take what the Queen was trying to do, when we got wind of it. Our spies were horrified to find out what was happening, and the experiments they were conducting in court.
And that was why we went to war.
The whole region plunged into an intense battle, between the sorcerers of the north, Sedayval near the bay, and the elementalists of the region, who were at that moment, also jealous of the mysterious progress of Sedayval in their magic.
Alas, our powers were too weak for them. By this time, Queen Vahana I had amassed a collection of prisoners, and the High Priestess could tap into their minds to draw out such intense power. It was a landslide victory for the Queen, and she took to banishing us to our respective areas. The sorcerers were sent to the north, the elementalist the south.
The Shandorianians, who she regarded was the worst of them all, she killed. Queen Vahana spared no one – no children, no women, no men. Those of us them who survived, ran across the mountain pass, past tundra, past wastelands, past seas and settled in the eastern most point of the continent, the modern day Shando.
Most of the prisoners of Sedayval were humans. They could not take the immense powers vacuuming their mind’s powers, and so they succumbed to exhaustion. Most died after their latent energies were pulled out of their bodies three times.
But the High Priestess noticed that some prisoners survived better than the others. It was then they realized that the ones that survived were the Dragon Knights of Shando, who had a latent dragon’s consciousness swirling in them like a potential energy waiting to be unleashed. And so, they did the most unspeakable – they forced the prisoners to fuse.
And that was how I came to be. I was bound in magic and enclosed within this cavern. Draining magic was put around me to tap into my almost limitless power. Three hundred years later, I still wait for the day that I can escape.
“And my mother came to you?”
I spotted the woman who had the eyes of a native Shandorianian. At that point of time, I had already forgotten. I have no identity. But her greyish white eyes were a reminder to a life I once knew. She came close and took a scale from my body as proof. And then she ran away.
I am the sum of the cruelty, the forbidden magic, the selfish.
“Stop it.”
I am the product of the greed of your queen.
“No, please, I can’t take this.”
I am the lie to your so-called truth. We suffer so you can live comfortably above us.
“I beg you. I can’t take it anymore.”
How does it feel to have your life fueled by the suffering of the many? How does it feel to lead a lie?
Shera screamed, breaking the connection between her and the Jewel of Maan. When the runes on her hand stopped glowing, the Jewel of Maan casted a weak look at her before turning its head away from them in a small growl. It seemed defeated, and was clearly at the last of its life.
Shera went towards the dragon. She ignored Vahrencalling out her name. There was nothing more that she could do. As the true words of Maan rang through her body, she questioned the existence of the very god that had been keeping them alive.
Was Maan real? Was the Magic of Maan real? Or did it only come from this poorly treated creature in front of her?
“Shera.”
Vahren felt guilty, having forced Shera down this road. But it was imperative that the people saw what
was going to happen. He did not know what she was going to do next, but they had to hurry. The rumbling of the war overhead had begun to reduce.
In a surprising move, the Young Acolyte reached down to the cables near the dragon and wrenched them away. Her runes were like blades, her hands, and the hands of the other followers of Maan allowed to severe the sapping magic binding the Jewel of Maan.
The dragon looked at her in puzzlement and shook its head, letting out another high-pitched squeal.
“I’m letting you go,” Shera grunted.
As she pulled out the fibrous tendrils, the roots of magic which had dug deep into the dragon’s carapace came out easily, no longer strong and fleshy, but grey and withered. With each tug, the dragon begun moving its claws and legs more comfortably. It stretched out.
“Leave one,” the dragon said out, surprising both the humans. “It will give me enough time to power the city so everyone can leave in time.”
Shera could not believe her ears. Why did this dragon care what the others went through? Why was it concerned about the lives of the other people living up there? She did not have the time to ask this of it, for the dragon stretched magnificently, and spread open its slightly torn, wizened wings. If it could smile, there it was, a small grin etched on its face.
Thank you, it telepathically relayed, before shooting off from the cavern, a single strand of binding magic still glowing to its left hind leg. As it flew towards the top of the cavern, the dragon swirled into a torpedo like formation and easily broke through the wall.
Vahren looked at Shera, who was still awestruck by what she had just witnessed. He took her hand into his and kissed it. He tried to contain the tremble she felt over what she had done.
“Thank you.”
Shera could only nod and embrace him. There was nothing else she could do but see what the Jewel of Maan had in store for all of them.
“It will all be all right. We will be fine,” he reassured her.
Just then, a sharp shriek was emitted from behind them. They turned to see the High Priestess standing at the entrance of the cavern, her body bloodied. A long gash ran across her face, and her staff was broken. She limped at them.
“Where… where is that damned dragon?” she gritted her teeth. Discarding the staff at the side, Iktai wheezed. The bulge in her eyes was almost too fear soaked, unwilling to come to terms with what Shera and Vahren had just done. “What did you do?”
Her scream was now a distant relic to Shera. What was once fear born out of respect for the prolific figure in Sedayval, was now replaced with pity. This was the woman who had to conform to the ideas and beliefs of the others before her.
The old woman limped badly, the injuries getting to her.
“Gone. I set it free.”
Iktai pointed at Shera, but no beam was emitted from her fingers. The symbols on her hand glowed weakly, flickered intermittently before dying off completely.
“What did you do?” Iktai moaned. “What did you do?”
Shera and Vahren looked away when Iktai slammed her head against the ground. The High Priestess sobbed like a baby, unable to come to terms that the Jewel of Maan was no more. She spoke in a sad monologue, not caring if they were listening.
“When they first showed me the Jewel of Maan, I did not want to believe it. It was… a dragon. Something disgusting. There was nothing god-like about it,” Iktai said, her mouth curling in abhorrence. “But… but I had a duty to fulfill and this was it. I did the best I could.”
Iktai sat atop a rock and looked at the discarded nest formerly occupied by the Jewel of Maan. Its detached scales were still littered on the cool rock floor of the airy cavern. She looked at the emptiness with a wistful expression on her face. There was nothing else left to be said. She had given up.
“A three-hundred-year-old secret, and it is now revealed,” she said, looking up at the hole caused by the Jewel of Maan. One solitary sapping wire remained active, tied to the dragon as it revealed itself to the denizens of Sedayval.
*
They left Iktai to cry in the cavern. Nothing much could be done anymore. To get out of there, Vahren fused again with Shera. There was not much energy left between them, but as a united form, they could climb out through the hole.
As they made their way into the central square, it looked like a scene of carnage. The beautiful pillars on and statues and marbles w
ere broken, and the fight was slowly beginning to dissipate.
When they broke apart from each other, Shera was greeted by the sight of her rival, Iman, who was panicky.
“Shera, what are you doing here?” she asked, helping her up. To Vahren, she gave a yelp of fright.
“Don’t worry, he is a friend.”
“What?”
“Iman, I don’t have time to explain. Sedayval is going to fall soon.”
The look on Iman’s face doubled in its fright. She was close to the verge of tears.
“Get yourself, your family, as many people out of here.”
“Shera, what is going on?” Iman was almost at the verge of tears. The city was plunged into darkness. The lights no longer glowed, the waters no longer flowed. Everything was in stasis.
The Truth in Lies: A TALE OF MANN Page 9