Brenyn’s eyes popped open at that realization.
Sword at the ready, he turned a pivot, watching all around for threats.
Was this it, he wondered? – the lair of the darking queen?
Was Emi in this place?
Slowly, cautiously, he examined the glade in all directions.
Nothing moved anywhere, either upon the grassy meadow that sloped gently upward or back among the shadows of the small forest. Nothing – no one – was in view upon the sloping meadow, so Brenyn decided to turn back to his right and search the depths of the forest to learn what, if anything, the dark trees concealed.
Turning toward the forest, he began to slowly approach the edge of the trees. After a few paces, he came upon a shallow, brush-filled ravine that angled down toward the river. As he started to descend into this swale, the brush in front of him abruptly erupted with activity, startling him. Three deer, a doe with two yearling fawns, jumped out of the brush and bounded across the meadow, disappearing into the shadows of the forest.
There was nothing mystical about these creatures, Brenyn’s senses told him – they were deer, normal, real, and natural, nothing more. While he stood there, waiting for his jangling nerves to calm, Brenyn realized that the magic that pervaded this strange place had a definite source, and it was not in the forest before him where the deer had gone. It came from his left, from the open meadow.
Puzzled by this, he turned that way once more, studying the grassy swale that sloped gently up to the bases of sheer rock faces on two sides, the east, to his right, and the north, straight ahead. The stream issued from the mountain on the northwest side of the glade, off to his left, and ran along its entire western extremity, beyond which, sterile rock walls rose up to the sky.
He could see nothing that he could identify as the source of the magic. Was the source of the power inside the mountain itself, he wondered?
Was there a cavern there, hidden behind the vertical gray stone from which the river issued forth?
Holding his sword at the ready in his hand, Brenyn walked northward, through the heart of the meadow, toward the base of the mountain on the north side of the glade. As he walked, gazing about him cautiously, he gradually became aware that the source of the magic was not directly to his front but came from the right, from the steep rock that bounded the northeast corner of the glade, opposite from where the river gushed forth.
He halted and studied the grassy slope along with the base of the mountain that defined its limits. Then he focused his gaze upon the rockface that rose upon the right-hand corner of the glade where the stone mounded up sheer and steep from the edge of the meadow. The primary source of the strange emanations of power was there – his senses told him as much.
But Brenyn could discern nothing that would explain this certainty. Before him, there was only a nearly sheer wall of stone.
Then, as he looked closer, the vertical rockface seemed to shimmer, to flicker at the edge of reality, just for a moment.
Moving to his right, and out of direct view of whatever or whoever might lie beyond that flickering rockface, he stared at the stone.
And, after another moment, it flickered again, as if, for just that moment, its solidity failed.
Brenyn understood now.
There was no sheer wall of stone there.
The base of the mountain was itself a conjuration. The stone did not exist. It was a veil of magic, a spell cast to hide something – or someone – from view.
Easing up the gentle slope close to the base of the mountain, Brenyn moved cautiously closer to the “rock” that was not rock.
When he reached the edge of the rock that was not rock, he did not touch the shimmering conjuration but gazed obliquely into the veil of magic – and then he could see. There was a deep, dark cavern there, with a high and broad entrance, that penetrated the mountain at the northeast corner of the glade.
The largest area of the grotto’s mouth was some distance off to the north, to his left as he stood before the shimmering false rock that concealed it. Where he stood, the opening ended, and here, it was just high enough to allow him to step through the curtain of magic and enter the space that lay beyond.
Keeping his sword to his front, pointed toward the larger region of the hidden cavern, Brenyn put out his hand and tested the concealing veil of magic. It was cold, colder than the waters of the stream, but it did not harm his hand. Watching to his front, toward the larger cave opening, he eased sideways, through the concealing magic, and into the cavern. There was a brief instant of extreme coldness as he passed through, but then he was beyond the magic and inside the mountain, standing at the edge of a great cavern that opened up a few feet from him and penetrated into the mountain, going out of sight back to his right.
The cavern was gloomy but not utterly dark, for the huge opening allowed daylight to come through the curtain of magic and illuminate the space.
On his right, between him and the cavern proper, the walls of the grotto rose up rugged and dark, hiding him from whatever or whoever might lurk within the larger part of the grotto – hiding that thing or person from him as well.
While Brenyn stood in that small, confined space, breathing deep and slow, peering into the larger region of gloom that ran out of sight to his right into the depths of the mountain, considering his next move, a voice suddenly broke the silence.
Deep, authoritative, commanding, resonating with a timbre of tiredness and, strangely, extreme age, the voice said, “Well now, you must be a mighty wizard indeed, to have passed through her magic so easily and so lightly. Why hide yourself? – I can smell you plainly enough. Come, show yourself, and let us know you.”
57.
Brenyn started, stiffened, and stared into the gloom but saw nothing to which he could attach the voice. Whoever spoke to him, they were off to the right, deeper inside the grotto, concealed from him by the intervening rock. Keeping close to the wall of stone that rose upon his right, he eased forward, toward the larger unseen region of the cave. He came to the end of that rocky extrusion and peered to his right, around the edge, and into the great open space that lay beyond.
He froze and stared in fear and awe and wonder.
There was a monster there, in the twilight, an enormous and terrible creature, unlike anything Brenyn had ever seen.
The immense beast possessed a massive head with a large maw that was hanging half open and filled with long, sharp – huge – teeth. It appeared to wear a sort of spiked crown. When Brenyn recovered somewhat from his terror and peered closer, however, he realized that the spikes were, in truth, horns, two of which grew out to either side and then curved upward again, ending in razor-sharp points, as sharp as the tip of Brenyn’s sword.
The beast’s vast body, enormous and dark, and ridged with spiny protrusions, stretched away into the blackness of the inner cavern. Where it ended, back there in the dark, Brenyn could not discern. There were extrusions that spread out from its body to either side, like great expanses of leathery fabric, lying flaccid upon the surrounding rock. The two massive forelimbs that supported the beast’s great body culminated in huge claws that were wrapped around mounds of rock that protruded from the floor of the grotto. The claw at the end of a digit on the forelimb farthest from Brenyn was broken, splintered, and blackened, and the digit itself was withered and white, as if it had suffered a horrific wound.
Brenyn studied the “face” of the creature. On either side of the immense head, almond-shaped eyes gleamed dully, as if lit by pale ambient inner fire. Those eyes appeared odd to him. Neither of those massive orbs seemed to possess any kind of delineation in hue – a dark-colored center – as did the eyes of most creatures, but were both omni-colored, and dull. They gleamed a faint yellowish-white, and were rheumy, without any suggestion of a dark nucleus, making it difficult for Brenyn to tell where the creature looked.
All in all, from its tired posture to its odd eyes, the creature seemed ruined, damaged. To Brenyn’s eyes the be
ast looked like the wreckage of something that had once been rather magnificent.
The deep, mellifluous voice spoke once more.
“Do not hide yourself, wizard,” it said. “Come out and let us know you better. I will not eat you; I swear it.”
Still keeping his sword ready, even while comprehending its uselessness when faced with the enormous monster that inhabited the gloom of the cave, Brenyn stepped out and faced the beast.
“My name is Brenyn,” he said. “And I am no wizard.”
The great monotone eyes blinked once, twice.
“Not a wizard?” The monster wondered. “How then did you pass so easily through the barrier?”
“I know not,” Brenyn replied, “but I am a human and not a wizard.” He studied the great beast. “I have never seen your like,” he admitted, “but you are quite magnificent. What are you?”
The monster swung its head in impatience. “Come out and stand there, where I can make out what you are,” it said. “I will not eat you, though I am hungered. I do not harm humans.”
Brenyn hesitated and then moved further out to stand and confront the creature straight on. After considering, he sheathed his sword. If the monster lied, and meant to do him harm, his only recourse would be to flee and hope that he was the faster.
“What are you?” He asked once more.
“I am a dragon,” the beast answered. “My name is Alongar. And I am pleased to meet you, Brenyn Who Is Not A Wizard.” The great head swung to the left, Brenyn’s right, in the direction that he had come. Then it came back. “How did you pass through her magic?” The dragon asked again. “If, indeed, you are not a wizard?”
Brenyn shrugged. “Magic seems not to harm me, nor does it seem to be able to prevent me,” he answered. “I know not why.”
“Truly? – how strange.” The dragon studied Brenyn with its pale, faintly glowing eyes. “Possessed of such power – and yet you know not why? And your name is truly Brenyn?”
“It is,” Brenyn replied.
“Prince,” Alongar stated quietly, thoughtfully. “Your mother and father named you prince. I wonder why?”
Brenyn frowned. “My name is not prince,” he argued. “It is Brenyn.”
Alongar chuckled, a deep rumbling sound that reverberated through the chamber. “But that is the meaning of the name Brenyn in the tongue of the Sylvan folk that dwell in the east of this world, among the ancient forests,” he said. “Brenyn means prince in their tongue, and, I have been told, it has not been bestowed upon any child born to them for many ages of the earth. So why would your mother and father name a human child thus?”
“It was my mother that gave me the name,” Brenyn told him. “She spoke my name in her last moments of life.”
The dragon seemed taken aback by this. “Your mother gave you this name? – and she died when you were born?”
Brenyn nodded. “In the very moment.”
“Indeed? How odd – and how sorrowful.” Alongar closed his eyes and lifted his great head and then went very still, breathing in and out slowly, drawing in huge amounts of air with each breath and blowing it out slowly. Every exhalation nearly pushed Brenyn off his feet, standing where he was, directly in front of the dragon. Silence, broken only by the sound of great intakes of air and the subsequent blasts from the dragon’s nostrils, fell in the cavern.
Then Alongar’s eyes popped open.
The dragon lowered its great head and gazed at Brenyn with its oddly rheumy eyes. The expression that took possession of the dragon’s leathery face might have been a frown, but Brenyn could not be certain.
“Ah,” Alongar stated then, and his deep voice was filled with puzzlement and wonder. “I see. You are not truly a human, are you, Brenyn? You are a son of two bloods.”
The dragon’s massive head moved slowly from side to side. “But how does that explain what you are?” He wondered. “I have lived long and seen much – and all that I know informs me that you cannot be. It is impossible. You cannot be, Brenyn.”
“And yet I am,” Brenyn replied, testily. “I stand before you even now.”
“Yes, yes, I see that you do,” Alongar responded. “And yet, I know that you cannot be that which I see you to be.”
Brenyn frowned up at him. “And what is it that you think me to be?”
Alongar did not answer at once.
Silence fell once more in the twilight chamber beneath the mountain. Again, Alongar closed his eyes. “I have often wondered what it would mean if someone like you were to come here, to this world – especially after all that has happened here since… since she came. I did not consider the possibility that someone such as you might be born here.”
The dragon lowered his head, opening his eyes once more. “But there you stand. What now, I wonder?”
Brenyn, uncertain of how to respond to this, did not reply. Instead he gazed into the dragon’s oddly colored eyes. “May I ask, sir,” he said. “Is there aught wrong with your eyes?”
Alongar chuckled, but to Brenyn’s ear that laugh seemed to carry with it a resonance of great sorrow.
“Oh, yes, there is,” Alongar answered. “She cursed my eyes, blinding me, because I would not help her torment humanity. And then, she cursed my wings that I cannot fly.” He looked to each side, at the great expanses of leathery skin resting upon the floor of the cavern, and then he lifted his head and gazed with unseeing eyes about the great gloomy cavern. “At the last, she locked me away inside this mountain that I could not work to prevent the evil that she intended.”
“Who is this she of which you speak?” Brenyn demanded. “Is she the queen of the darkings?”
Alongar looked at Brenyn and blinked his almond-shaped, unseeing eyes. “Queen of the darkings? What is a darking?”
Brenyn stared. “You know naught of the darkings? – those wicked creatures that drive men to war and ruin?”
The great head swept once more from side to side. “I know not whereof you speak, Brenyn.” He raised his head and looked around once more. “I have been locked away inside this cavern for nigh on a thousand years. I know not what has occurred upon the face of the earth in all that time.”
He sighed. “I only know what she intended, but, as I refused to give her my aid, I was not allowed to witness that which she has done. I have been locked away, here, that I might not betray her to her kin.” He lowered his head once more. “Tell me of the darkings – and of their queen.”
Brenyn shook his head. “Of their queen, I know nothing – only that she dwells in the east of the world. But the darkings – they are strange, wicked creatures. They possess great power, able to destroy a man with one blast from their weapons and none can withstand them. They cause the princes of the earth to make war upon one another, to bring ruin and destruction upon the peoples of every land. What the darkings – and their queen – are profited by causing such death and misery, none can say.”
He shook his head yet again. “Of their visage I can tell you nothing, for their faces are ever covered by masking cloths. Even those that I have slain were consumed by strange and dark magic ere I could remove the cloth and look upon them. Of she that is named their queen? – I know naught.”
Alongar blinked his great eyes. “You stated that none could stand against them, Brenyn Who Is Not A Wizard – and yet you say that you have slain these creatures?”
“I have slain several, including their lords,” Brenyn affirmed. “Indeed, it is my chosen destiny to destroy all of that wicked race. I have wrought vengeance upon all those I have found, and I hoped to slay them all, before –” Catching himself, he went silent.
“Who are these that are their lords?” Alongar asked, and the dragon’s posture assumed an increased intensity as he focused his unseeing gaze upon Brenyn. “There are ‘lords’ that rule over these creatures?”
“Yes,” Brenyn answered. “They are named ‘red darkings’; they are superior to the others and far more powerful. They wear cloaks and hats of crimson where the ot
hers wear black, and they are fewer in number.”
“And you have slain these lords?” Alongar asked.
“I have slain four,” Brenyn told him.
Alongar went silent for several moments, then; “You caught yourself a moment ago when you stated that you meant to slay all of these creatures before – before – what, Brenyn? What is it that halted you in the pursuit of your destiny and brought you to me?”
Brenyn met the dragon’s gaze for a time in silence. Alongar did not speak again but waited for him to return an answer. And in that moment, meeting the blind gaze of the creature who had been cursed for refusing to torment humanity, and, as a consequence, had spent nigh on a thousand years locked inside this mountain, Brenyn decided that the great beast was deserving of his trust.
“I will tell you all,” he said, and he began to relate that which had occurred in the course of his life, from the circumstances of his birth, his friendship with – and love of – Emi, and then her taking by the darkings and his subsequent actions, up to and including the vision of several weeks earlier.
“… and so, I came eastward, following the road that passes through these mountains,” he concluded, “and while passing along that road, I sensed the magic that constrains you in this place. I searched it out, hoping to find the darking queen and slay her, and so find Emi and set her free.”
For a time, then, when Brenyn had finished his tale, Alongar did not speak. As the silence lengthened and the dragon remained silent, Brenyn spoke.
“Will you tell me now,” he asked, “of her that locked you in this place? For I suspect that she is the queen of the darkings that I seek to find and slay.”
At that, the dragon stirred himself. “I am sorry, Brenyn, for all that you have suffered, for I know much of suffering. The She of whom I speak,” he went on, “is named Soreana. She is an ancient and powerful creature – indeed, one of the most ancient people, a member of the race of gods that ruled over the earth long, long ago. But, alas, she fell from her station – nay, untrue, she abandoned her station. Why? – I cannot say, for I did not serve her then.”
A Plague of Ruin: Book One: Son of Two Bloods Page 51