Dragon God (The First Dragon Rider Book 1)

by Ava Richardson

  “Come with me,” the Abbot said simply, turning to walk out of the room. I could see fear and apprehension in the faces of my peers as they looked at the retreating back of the Abbot’s thin form, moving as silent as a ghost. It felt solemn, like a funeral, but followed him we did.

  Our feet clattered on the stones of the Great House, as he led us deeper into the building than we had been before, via a route that I had not seen. We walked past tapestries of the queen and of dragons, threaded in many different styles. I tried to keep my eyes peeled for signs of the source of the Order’s magic. Was it woven through the stories the tapestries told? Were the secrets kept in these back corridors? Was it in these rooms that they kept their magical documents, the ones that allowed them to supposedly manipulate mountains and summon storms?

  “Here, take one of each,” the Abbot said to the leading student, handing the boy a black cloak and white candle. “Light it and walk through the door.” He pointed to the sconce set over a small wooden door with black iron bands, and the boy, pale and shivering, did as he was told. The Abbot stood to hand the black cloak and a white candle to every student that passed by, watching us as we filed through the door one by one. I had no idea what was on the other side, and half-expected there to be another Great Hall like the other one. When it came to my turn, I once again felt that wash of cold that seemingly came from nowhere as his eyes bored into mine, and the Abbot pressed the black cloak into one of my hands, the white candle into the other.

  “They say that the Gypsies of distant Shaar have magic running through their blood,” the Abbot said to me, as if he’d been reading my mind. “I wonder if it is true.” The Abbot gave a half-smile that I sensed wasn’t entirely generous or kind. I shivered again, my heart filled with that trembling feeling that could be hope or fear. I knew what the people said in the marketplaces at home, that Gypsies could read palms and tea leaves, and that we could put curses on people with one eye closed. Maybe I could too, with someone to teach me.

  It would be nice, wouldn’t it…to be magical? Maybe then I would be something special. Something worthy of my father’s respect, and my brothers’ too, once Father was gone. Maybe then there would be a purpose for all the hours I’d spent daydreaming about dragons. My fingers fumbled as I slipped on the cloak, lighting the candle and following the others outside.

  It was not as bad as I had thought, to find myself on the bare escarpment of Mount Hammal, with a line of candles weaving up ahead of me, as if they were climbing into the very skies above, I had imagined the training to be like the Protector training somehow. Fighting, shoving, having to think on my feet – or otherwise like the Scribe training, long, boring and tedious. Even though it was eerie being out here on the mountain, I also found it oddly nourishing to be outside and under the stars.

  I fell into line with the others, the night so dark that I could barely see my feet below me, though the cold permeated through my legs and through the thin fabric of my cloak. The circle of candlelight extended to my colleague’s jet-black cloak ahead of me, and to the sides of the rocky path that we trod upwards and upwards. For a moment, I experienced a sudden feeling of dizziness and vertigo, as I tried to make sense of the lights and sounds all around us.

  Somewhere to our left and below us the ground shook with heavy, almost rhythmic vibrations and I wondered if I was listening to the sound of one of the dragons clawing its way out of the crater. I was glad for a moment that I couldn’t see the edge of the crater that had to be very near to us, as we could hear the heavy roars and breathy whistles of snoring dragons somewhere very close.

  I stumbled over rocks and my legs started to ache with the constant climbing, but after a while the sounds of the sleeping dragons nearby faded, to be replaced with the low but insistent whoosh of the mountain wind. Our candles spluttered and threatened to go out, but not one of them did. Maybe this is our first taste of a bit of magic.

  “Students,” the Abbot’s sonorous voice called through the murk. He had somehow managed to get ahead of us, although the path had not been any wider than from one corner tip of my cloak to the other. I heard Lila gasp and say something under her breath in her own native tongue, but I was not so easily impressed.

  “There might be other paths up the mountain,” I whispered to Lila Lanna, who nodded, her eyes still wide and round.

  “You all will have heard about the strange powers of our sacred Order, and that is probably why, in the end, your parents sent you here to learn from us,” Abbot Ansall said. His blunt and simple honesty made the situation even more eerie, somehow.

  “Your fathers and mothers will have thought that you can be trained up in magic, and then you will be sent home to further whatever petty feud or rivalry they have,” the Abbot sounded weary, “and they would be wrong.”

  What? I thought in alarm. But that is precisely what I had to do—return home to help my father and our lands, using the magic if I could to protect Torvald from all threats. What did the Abbot want us to do? What if we weren’t here to study magic at all? Or what if I couldn’t learn it?

  I heard a gasp from someone in the crowd, which I guessed had to be Terrence. His father was a prince, after all, and, aside from Char, he had the most reason to use the Draconis Order to further his father Prince Griffith’s claim to the throne of the entire Three Kingdoms. It was exactly as my father had always said— Many rivers can come together to break a bridge, but further down, they’ll just be streams - even those we allied with had their own ends to pursue, and at some point, our interests, even with our closest friends, would diverge.

  But if alliance-making or breaking was on the Abbot’s mind, he showed no sign of concern as he glossed over the interruption.

  “Not all of you will be able to learn magic. In fact, hardly any of you will be able to learn it,” he said sadly. “And of those who do, even fewer might be able to truly master it in the way the rest of the Mages of the Draconis Order have.”

  ‘How many Mages have been trained?’ I remembered Nan Barrow’s rhetorical question from earlier.

  “But some of you will, and those will be the ones who will be able to usher in the new Dragon Age with us,” the Abbot said gloriously, as a figure stepped forward from the darkness to his side.

  It was not someone that I recognized at all, nor had I seen this person before, but I heard a few muttered gasps from the assembled crowd of students. Some people recognized the tall, thin young man with the midnight hair, save for one lock of silver from brow to braid. He also wore a black cloak, but beneath it was a deep plum-colored jerkin and trousers with deep umbral blue edging. He was no Draconis Monk, that much was clear, for his clothes were of a fine craftsmanship which far outshone anything that even Abbot Ansall was wearing.

  He also had a thin silver circlet around his forehead, with a single red gem contained within.

  “On your knees before your ruler, students; Prince Vincent of the Three Kingdoms!” The Abbot ducked his head, and swept a hand to all of us assembled students who, like a wave, knelt down at his command. My knees hurt as the hard and cold stones of the mountain bit into them, and I saw other students wincing similarly. We were in the presence of one of the three princes, this one the ruler of the Middle Kingdom itself. It was no secret that his ambition, like each of his brothers’, was to unite all Three Kingdoms under just one ruler--himself. I looked over to where Terrence was kneeling near the front, and saw his jaw clench in anger. He was the son of Prince Griffith—making Vincent his uncle—and there was clearly no love lost in that family.

  “What nerve!” whispered a voice at my side, and I turned to see that the black-cloaked student next to me, and peering out from her own hood was none other than Char, daughter of Prince Griffith. “The Draconis Order is supposed to be about equality and peace for all of our realms, not just the Middle Kingdom!” she hissed to me, but I did not know what to say in response. I felt torn in my loyalties.

  Father always said that Vincent was a self-righteous foo
l, but so were all of the princes – but aren’t we Torvalds sworn to the Middle Kingdom? Don’t we owe this man our fealty?

  Maybe this meant that the Middle Kingdom was now safe, and that I could send word to my father that all was well, that the Draconis Order was supporting the prince, and so Father didn’t have to worry so much about the Order’s loyalties?

  But Father had never trusted the dragon monks, and certainly never trusted the prince either! My mind kept returning to that point. My father had always told me that the prince would not keep the kingdom safe, and that it was our job to do so. But safe from what? From who? It could only mean one thing—my father didn’t want Vincent on the throne. He wanted the secret of the Draconis Order to keep the realm safe from Prince Vincent.

  I reeled at the revelation, panic making my heart race. I felt truly that I was now in hostile territory, and that Prince Vincent was my – or at least my father’s – enemy. But I was not the only one who might consider Prince Vincent a foe. I looked over to the others whom I knew might find it similarly excruciating to bow before a man who they did not want to see rule over them, and indeed Char and Terrence – even Lila– all wore expressions of horror.

  “Thank you for inviting me here to your demonstration, your holiness.” Prince Vincent’s words swam and eddied over us. “I trust that these new recruits have been applying themselves well and bravely in the service of the great Order?” He had the same sort of Middle regions accent as Dorf, although far more cultured and posh. The warrior-gypsy in me bridled at staying on one knee before him (or anyone).

  “Of course, your highness,” the Abbot said. “Now, students, look to the East!”

  We all did so, our heads moving the way a flock of birds turn in mid-flight, back the way we had come, back towards the Draconis Monastery, and what we saw almost stopped the heart in my chest.

  Out of the darkness there flew a boulder, a rough granite block that was larger than any of us standing, and about the size of a cart. It swung across our view from the east further up the mountain of its own accord, and we heard no rumbling or crashing or grinding as the slab disappeared into the gloom.

  What? But how? I had heard of the powers of the Draconis Order of course – everyone had! But I had never believed those stories until now. There were tales that the monks had helped build Queen Delia’s old castle – that they had ‘summoned the stones of the earth’ (or so the old tales said) to create it. Or there were the everyday folktales told in every town square – that a Draconis Monk could tell if you were lying just by looking into your eyes, or that a monk could command you with the power of their mind, could command the heavens and summon lightning from the skies. So far, before tonight the only evidence that I had seen that the monks could do anything was the small ball of flame that the Abbot himself had conjured on my first day.

  Until now.

  “And there, students!” The Abbot pointed in the other direction, to the West, where a man appeared to walk above our heads. But it was no flesh and blood man, it was a statue of a man wearing a suit of armor, carved to appear lifelike, and even more so in the fact that we could see its knee joint opening, its leg-stone moving in perfect concert, its shoulder cracking, its arms swaying and moving in rhythm to the fast-paced march. If I could not see the separate sections of the statue aggregate and open apart as it marched straight over our heads (in thin air!) I would have been convinced that it was a person, not a statue. It too, strode into the darkness, and I felt a cold shiver in my heart.

  I have to tell father of this. If the Draconis Order can animate the very stones, then what chance do any other warlords have against them, if they choose to side with an enemy clan??

  All around me were round eyes and white faces, (although I could see Terrence gritting his teeth and shaking his head). He must think that it was all trickery and charlatanry, I suppose, although I couldn’t see how it could be.

  “Well done, Abbot, very impressive,” Prince Vincent clapped. “With you at my side, we will have the new fortifications and watchtowers built by magic!” He laughed in surprise.

  “The Draconis Order remains in service to the Three Kingdoms,” the Abbot said, which, although I knew was technically true, I noted that Vincent’s brothers had not been invited to this display of magical might.

  “They are showing off. Making a point,” Char hissed at my side.

  “Why?” I whispered back.

  “Think about it, Torvald: they have all of the most important children and youths here from across the Three Kingdoms. The Abbot and the prince are telling us that they are the ones in charge from now on,” Char muttered darkly, but before I could agree with her, the Abbot was talking to us again.

  “Students! Now that you have seen some of what a true Mage can do, it is time to begin your first test – all of you, raise your candles,” the Abbot ordered, and we did so. A forest of light appeared above our heads, and I was still amazed that none of the candles had blown out. Was it some special tallow or wax that they were made from, I wondered?

  “The first step along the Draconis path is to learn how to control and center your mind. I want all of you to close your eyes, and imagine that candle flame above your head. See it clearly in your mind!” the Abbot said, and I did so, feeling stupid and cold, but able to visualize the flickering candle flame as it had stood atop the candle that I had so recently held.

  “Hold that candle flame, students. Hold it in your mind until there is nothing else at all,” the Abbot said, and I tried to do so, although my body shivered and my knee ached. The moment stretched long, and after a while my breath slowed, and my mind calmed until all that existed was the bright imaginary spark.

  “Good, good. No fidgeting, Lesser!” I heard the Abbot say, his voice swimming towards me as if from very far away. The sudden interruption made me remember my aching knees, and the cold seeping through my clothes from the mountain below. “Now, I want you all to take that candle flame in your mind, and seek to put it out. To make it not exist, as if it never had done. Just darkness. Total, complete, darkness.”

  I tried. I really did, but the problem was that once I had started thinking about something being there, it was really hard to not think about it. I could imagine the candle flame puffing out suddenly, but it felt weak somehow, like I was replaying the same memory again and again: Lit, Out; Flame, No flame. It didn’t feel like I was doing magic.

  This is hopeless, I thought, opening my eyes just a little to try and see what was happening around me. All of us students were still kneeling on the floor, with one arm achingly in the air above us, and still all of the stubborn candles alight. Apart from Maxal’s, I saw.

  Whoosh! There was a sudden palpable shudder in the air that made the hair on the back of my neck shiver just like it had earlier when the Abbot had walked into the room unannounced. I turned my head a fraction as light spilled over me, and I saw that Char beside me was no longer holding a lit candle. Instead, she appeared to be holding a torch with flames that leapt upwards into the sky several feet above everyone else’s.

  “Sheesh!” I jumped at the sudden display of power from the girl, and my gasp caused other students to startle and open their eyes in panic. Char’s flame went out as soon as she opened her eyes, leaving only me and a few others who had seen what she had unwittingly done.

  “What?” Char said as I stared at her in awe. “What did I do? Did the light go out?” she asked hopefully, but before I could answer there was a feeling like a claw as a freezing cold hand seized the back of my neck.

  “Torvald, I see.” It was the Abbot, hauling me out of the pack of students. “You interrupted my lesson,” he said simply. He wasn’t angry, it wasn’t an accusation, just a statement of fact as he brought me to the front of the group, with Prince Vincent looking at me with a curious half-smile on his face.

  “Are you going to punish him, your holiness?” the prince said and I could see a gleam of enjoyment in his eyes.

  “I, I’m, sorry, Abbo
t—sir.” I managed to say, as I kneeled on the floor before them both. It shocked me when the prince stepped forward and addressed me personally.

  “You should address the good Abbot Ansall as his holiness, do you understand?” He laughed. “Did I hear right when his holiness called you Torvald? You’re Malos’s youngest get, aren’t you? The one that Malos got from his Gypsy-woman? They say she hooked him with her lucky magic charms!”

  I opened and closed my mouth in shock. Even amongst the guards and the soldiers of the practice yard never had anyone been so rude to me before. For a moment, I felt that righteous anger welling up in my chest. I am still a Son of Torvald. We are warriors. We keep the entire eastern half of your kingdom safe, you pompous idiot! But the words died before they got to my lips as I looked at the prince’s cruel eyes. He wouldn’t even think twice about ordering me thrown in the jail, or of levying higher taxes against my father’s land. The thought of being a failure here, and of having to be rescued by good people for my stupidity stopped me from saying anything that I might want to. Instead, I looked down at the floor, feeling shamed. “I, I guess so, your highness,” I managed to say.

  “He guesses,” Prince Vincent sneered, and then whispered to the Abbot, “Well, I would have thought that any from Gypsy stock would take to magic like a fish to water, but apparently not, eh, your holiness?”

  “The magic comes out in different ways for different people, your highness,” the Abbot said at our side, once again in that neutral, non-judgemental way. “But it is clear who the real star in our midst is,” the Abbot said, raising his voice and his hand as I knelt before them both.

  Char. The Abbot and the prince must have seen what I had.

  “Maxal Ganna!” the Abbot announced. “Come forward, boy, and aren’t I pleased to see the Son of Ganna prove so useful to the Order as his father has been.”

  The shaved head and owlish-looking Maxal stepped out of the crowd and started to kneel down beside me, but the Abbot stopped him.