by A. Evermore
They all clustered round to stare at it. Its wings were spread wide and its head turned to the side. Every feather was perfectly detailed, its wedge-shaped tail fanned out, its eyes shining and lifelike.
‘Dark dwarven black iron?’ Jinfrosthard asked. Inklemak shook his head.
‘No. It’s more like marble or something, and yet it’s a type I’ve never seen before. I don’t know what it is or where it came from, but it’s not evil, and it’s not dark dwarven. Perhaps the Ancients will know. Its magic I cannot read. It feels locked away from me, somehow. It’s not dangerous to us, as far as I can tell.’
‘Well, whatever it is, the dark dwarves were clearly afraid of it,’ Inklemak said, putting it back in the box and hefting the book under his arm again.
Jinfrosthard shook out the tension in his shoulders, wanting to relax, but the words Inklemak had translated from the book filled his soul like a dark secret.
‘Let’s get out of here and as far away as possible.’
No one disagreed with him and they hurried out with the book and the raven object.
Jinfrosthard and Inklemak took the dark dwarven book to the king and queen of the light dwarves.
‘We will not frighten the people with nonsense created by our most hated enemy,’ said the king in response to Jinfrosthard’s plea to warn the people of what they had learned. ‘That’s the last I will hear of it. If you so much as speak of this again, you will be beaten and hanged.’
Jinfrosthard stared at Inklemak, the wizard’s face mirrored his own shock. They had left the great hall in stunned silence. Only when they were alone did they dare to speak.
Inklemak shook his head. ‘How can they not warn the people about the coming darkness? How can they not send warning to Tusarza?’
‘They’re afraid,’ Jinfrosthard said. ‘Fear stays their tongues. They are more afraid of the disruption and unrest that would spread through the kingdom, than they fear the coming of an evil power. So it is easier for them to ignore it, to deny it.’
Inklemak nodded. ‘Then we shall not tell them about the talisman.’ That is what they had come to call the raven object.
‘Take it, Inklemak. You should look after something that has magical powers. Keep it hidden and secret until we can find someone trustworthy who might know about it.’
Jinfrosthard decided to tell everyone, anyone who would listen, about the dark dwarves book and the coming Immortal Lord. His conscience made him. But when the king and queen heard, he was banished from Venosia under threat of death, and was forced to flee his homeland with his wife. He was thankful to make it to the peaceful Isle of Celene, but for the rest of his life his soul was tortured with the knowledge of the coming darkness.
Chapter 2
Yisufalni
THE image of proud and noble Jinfrosthard, standing humble and pleading before the King and Queen of the light dwarves, faded on the surface of Yisufalni’s sacred pool in the Ethereal Planes. Yisufalni’s eyes misted over as she lay beside the pool.
‘So much is lost,’ she breathed, curling her legs up. If they had known perhaps they could have done something, but deep down she knew they could not have. The dark road Maioria would take when the Immortal Lord entered her lands seemed to be written in the stars, and no amount of pleading on Jinfrosthard’s part, noble as it was, would ever change that.
He came to Tusarza, just as Jinfrosthard had warned. The sacred waters clouded over in response to her thoughts, and its surface filled with rain clouds.
A ball of flaming rock bigger than a mountain hurtled across the sky, trailing a scar of black smoke. It hit Tusarza, shuddering whole valleys, and flattening forests. The earth cracked and lakes boiled over, flooding entire villages. The sea slithered away only to resurge in a rage, smothering the land. Yisufalni knew the history but she had never witnessed it, and she stared into the pool, wide-eyed at the destruction.
There came a moment of calm, then the ground began to shake. Valleys were torn apart as foreign black rock thrust through them, stabbing high into the sky. The three-peaked mountains of Maphrax were born, dominating the land and challenging the goddess herself.
She knew it didn’t stop there. History said the earthquakes lasted for months, and great floods came and went without warning. The volcanoes of Maphrax, even thousands of years later, never stopped spewing lava, and volcanic ash poisoned the atmosphere, forever blotting out the sun over that land.
Those who survived the impact, the floods, the earthquakes, and the poison, soon fell to starvation when the crops failed and famine came. Change was quick, and in less than a decade the place was a barren wasteland where not even the dead dared tread.
The image in the sacred waters showed how it looked today; ravaged, desolate, poisoned… A sky filled with magenta-tinged clouds, restless volcanoes and rivers of lava running like opened veins. Winds screamed as they tore across a land unopposed by tree or house or valley. The life force of all things ravaged and consumed by Baelthrom to feed his unholy essence, and to ensure that nothing not of his design grew or lived.
Tusarza, and all that it had been, was gone.
Maphrax. Yisufalni mouthed the name of the black mountains that would become the Immortal Lord’s fortress, but dared not speak it aloud.
“Maphrax” was the name joyfully whispered on the lips of the dark dwarves, the name of their holy land prophesized within their books. Eagerly they called for their Lord of Oblivion, as he, in turn, called to those who would be his followers. Long had the dark dwarves awaited their Immortal Lord. Long had they yearned for the power he would give to him. Now he had come, now they had found their true god whom they could worship.
Under this new threat that came from beyond Maioria and time itself, the Light Dwarves and the Ancients, the Elves and the Humans, and all the beings of light formed the Feylint Halanoi.
‘But it was not enough,’ she breathed. Not nearly enough to stop the spread of darkness. Even splitting the magic life-force of Maioria had not been enough to stop his rise to power.
Tears of joy mixed with sadness blurred her vision as she looked upon the tall elegant frames of her ancestors holding the six orbs of power. ‘We were so graceful, so beautiful, so… arrogant. We should never have underestimated Baelthrom’s seething rage, and the retribution he would wreak if ever he broke free.’
She looked away from the waters, her heart fluttering in her chest. She did not need to see her people slaughtered again. None could touch Baelthrom’s power, it was beyond the Flow of Maioria, it came from outside of it. The Under Flow they began to call it - a dark unholy magic that flowed from the Dark Rift itself.
With the power of Maioria now split, we became weak. We didn’t have a chance. It was our own undoing.
Such was their utter destruction at the hands of Baelthrom that the Ancients created a myth to give those remaining strength and hope. In the myth the fallen had not died, but had fled to another dimension - a sacred holy land that they called Aralanastias, and it was hidden by mists and safe from harm.
‘Nothing more than a myth,’ she breathed, staring into the middle distance. Even the elven Land of Mists was more real than Aralanastias. But it would not keep the elves safe, nothing could. Baelthrom would find them in the end.
She rubbed her temples, her energy was wasted from having spent too long in the physical world. Two days had passed since her last visit, and yet still she could barely stand. An hour at most, in a small weak form, was all she had ever been able to manage before she had to return to the Ethereal Planes. All she could do was witness, impotent from afar, Issa battling Keteth.
Thinking of it now brought welcome tears of joy. Seeing the souls of her ancestors freed, after millennia bound in Keteth’s prison, felt as if her own soul had been set free. They were free to return to the light of the One Source. Ah, the goddess had not left them to their dire fate, she never had.
The raven talisman. Her thoughts turned to the raven sculpted object that the dark dwarves
kept chained under lock and key deep within their underground cities. So little was known about it. Even the Ancients, with all their knowledge of the history of Maioria, knew little about it. Only that its magic was pure and old, older than the dragons, and not from Maioria. It may as well be as they said, that Zanufey herself crafted it and brought it to Maioria. It seemed the dark dwarves knew more about it than anyone, fearing it and locking it away like they had.
She had to find it, she couldn’t help but think Issa would be able to unlock its powers. If it was as the prophecies said, that the Raven Queen would stand against the darkness, then surely the dark dwarves feared the talisman’s power. Why indeed would they have locked it away? Why would she think of it now, and see it in the sacred pool? Was she meant to find it? Would the sacred pool show her where Inklemak had hidden it?
An orange glow drew her attention to the waters. The raven talisman lay upon black rock surrounded in flames, but it did not burn or melt and seemed impervious to fire.
‘Where is this,’ she asked. A cavern of solid rock materialised, glowing red in the lava light. The talisman was on an island surrounded by the rivers of lava. It was not guarded from what she could see.
She sat back on her haunches trying to think. Inklemak and the dwarves of light lived in the great city of Tarvalastone in Venosia before Baelthrom came. Half the city lay within the mountain, and the other half sprawled across a land of hills, trees and rivers. Beneath the city ran the Red River, a river of lava carefully channelled and managed to assist the dwarves’ mining, smelting and crafting of rock and ore.
Inklemak could have hidden it somewhere along the Red River. Could it still be there, forgotten? But how to reach it? Tarvalastone was controlled by dark dwarves and had been for a thousand years. If she went there she risked capture and death.
Was the talisman even important? Why would the sacred pool show her it so easily if it wasn’t? Too many questions. She closed her eyes. She couldn’t return to Maioria until she’d regained her strength. Every time she went, she was sure Baelthrom could feel her, hunted for her. Going to Venosia was simply too dangerous.
But even as she thought it she knew she would try to find the talisman. It was either that, or live another millennium wondering what might have happened had she found it. Issa needed all the help in the world. Yisufalni’s death would be nothing compared to the loss of life that would ensue if the Raven Queen failed.
Perhaps it was vanity that made her stay alive. Vanity that she was one of the last Ancients that still existed on Maioria. Did she foolishly hope the Ancients would return one day? She may as well wish her life away.
They all perished. All but two gone forever from the mortal plains, all but two to endure endless suffering. Unable to die, unable to ascend… Her heart ached with that old wound, it would never heal. She blinked back the tears and forced a smile. At least she could smile for those souls freed into the light by Issa.
Beloved Murlonius, I pray for the day when our curse is broken, that I might see you again before I too leave Maioria to join our ancestors.
At her thoughts the dark waters brightened, and a pale blue sea was revealed. White light sparkled almost blindingly upon the waves. A dark shape came into focus, an ornately carved boat moving steadily upon the surface. Cloaked beneath a hooded robe, a man rowed. He had a tireless rhythm, for the sea was never ending, and he had been rowing his boat across it for thousands of years. Her breath caught in her throat.
‘Murlonius,’ she sighed, and ached with longing. For one brief moment the boatman paused and looked up. She strained to see his face in the folds of his robe, but could not. She never could. The man carried on rowing.
She had tried to reach Murlonius before, many times, thousands of times, but the curse proved true. She could not reach him. She could only see him from afar as he rowed his boat through eternity, doomed as she to never walk upon Maioria again, and yet unable to leave its outer realms. They were trapped between the mortal and ethereal plains, but unable to ever meet in either.
Did he search for her or had he forgotten her? It was the one question that plagued her more than any other. He had heard her voice then, she was sure of it, why else would he stop rowing and look up? But did he recognise it? She lay back down again beside the pool, her eyes never leaving the boatman.
Baelthrom cursed them for his own pleasure. Murdered a whole race and spared them for a life of torture. Perhaps it would be his undoing. She prayed it would be his undoing. I would have gone to Baelthrom millennia ago, and ended it all then, had I not seen a dark moon rising in the future.
‘Did you see the dark moon too, my love?’ she whispered to the rowing man, even if he couldn’t hear her. ‘What is it that keeps you going? Helping those we can is a balm on the soul. We always do what we can. That is why I must find the talisman.
‘How I remember your face, Murlonius, it is as clear in my memory as my own,’ she smiled, remembering his deep violet eyes that always seemed to be laughing. He was the carefree happy one, whilst she, a princess, was serious. His eyes were forever cloaked from her now, and she doubted whether they would be so happy.
‘Do you remember our home? Do you remember our temples and our shining cities all made from marble and crystal? Even the elves speak of our grand dwellings and are unable to build them themselves.’
Murlonius’s image wavered and she reached for him, wanting to be with him, but the pool reflected her memory and she looked down at the Ancient’s city that had once been her home so long ago. White quartz crystal temples towered into the blue sky and gleamed in the sunlight. Below them a turquoise sea swayed, empty of dark and evil creatures.
There had never been anything so beautiful created again. Even if the people could remember how to shape crystal, there was no longer the power to do it. Ahh Murlonius, our time ended here long ago. The image faded back to the rowing boatman.
‘I wish I could remember before the Dark Rift came, when there was no such thing as death, and only freedom and peace existed. What a place that must have been. Perhaps that is why we should stay alive, to remind others of what Maioria used to be, of what we all used to be.
‘But I know the real reason why you and I remain,’ her smile dropped and her voice became hard. ‘Not until the last breath leaves our bodies will we cease fighting the Immortal Lord. The goddess is with us, my love, and now we can all hope. One day I will see you again, and on that day Baelthrom will be destroyed.’
She bit her lip, worrying the hem of her robes. ‘How we will defeat him, only the goddess knows. But I will help the Raven Queen, even if it costs me my life. You would understand, my love, you would do the same. With Zanufey’s chosen we have a chance. Even if it’s only a small one. There is hope in Issa,’
The image in the water changed to a dark ocean. Purple lights moved on the surface, and amongst them the pale form of Issa. The Wykiry were carrying her home. She was so tired she barely noticed the dark shapes moving fast upon the horizon as she drifted into a dreamless sleep.
Chapter 3
Dragon Flight
IN a feverish half-sleep, Asaph witnessed the final moments of the struggle between the one he loved and the one who had imprisoned him. It was through the flame ring she wore that he could see Issa now, and in his lucid dream state, with his soul somewhere trapped in Keteth’s domain, he could actually see their bond as a silvery cord between them, stretching out across time and through space.
He followed that cord until he found her where the indigo light of Zanufey’s dark moon fell upon the ocean. Strengthened by magic, she gripped the struggling beast as they stood suspended above the surface, bathed in powerful moonlight.
He watched, somewhere between terror and awe, as a tall slender figure materialised beside Issa. The Night Goddess, hooded and cloaked in a robe made of stars. Awesome power flooded from Issa as Zanufey stepped into her form. A wave of the strongest magic, the purest love, the feeling of absolute unshakeable faith, and the pow
er that such faith brings, flooded through him as he knew it flooded through Issa and all that might be near her in that moment.
The white dagger flew of its own will from Issa’s hand, and pierced Keteth’s twisted heart. Light engulfed all. There came a shattering tearing sound, and he felt his mind released. Relief washed over him with such intensity, he found himself groaning. Keteth was dead, now he was free. He felt as if he had been struggling in the twisted realities of Keteth’s prison forever. His thoughts were suddenly clear and his soul no longer felt wretched.
The light faded. Issa stood alone upon the blue moonlit ocean once more. Then he saw them, a vision so wonderful he thought his heart would break. The souls of the enslaved Dragon Lords, glimmering shining white lights, rose up from the depths of their prison. Their joyous songs were a melodic harmony such as only angels could sing. They were free too, and they moved as one shimmering ribbon up towards the light of Feygriene.
‘Brothers and sisters,’ he called to them in his mind. ‘I shall eternally miss you. Be my guide in The Recollection, if you can. You are free, now and for forever.’
For a brief moment he glimpsed Issa and the blue moonlight again before she faded. He tried to reach for her, but there came a pull, as of something drawing him backwards, and he could not resist.
Asaph opened his eyes. He tried to stretch. His body was weak and he felt as if he had slept for an eternity. Though it was dark, he found his dragon sight adjusting swiftly. He peered through a gap in the curtains, and did not recognise anything. He was in a large round room or hut with a conical thatched roof, and there was a hearth with a smouldering fire in the centre, giving the place a warm dim glow.
Where in Maioria was he, and how did he get here? The soft snoring of two people came from nearby. One was the familiar sound of Coronos. He smiled in relief, his father was alive and close. He tried to sit up, but fell back down with a gasp when his stomach muscles refused to obey. They had wasted from lack of use. How long had he been here?