View Full Version : The Black Dragon's Light
The Black Dragon's Light (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MlXAf7RUJdc)
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Sequel to The Storm Hold's Call (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?23650-The-Storm-Hold-s-Call).
Look at me, bound tight,
In depthless, sinful night,
Castrated by volition,
My need has turned to fright.
I long to be controlled,
Or to be controller of emotion,
I long to be so dominated,
By younger, youthful motion.
I’m bound to look forever,
For I want two things apart,
I wish that I was tied up,
To stop movements in my heart.
Cydney Oliver.
Prologue
The Arcanum
“That is hardly fair,” said Ozoric, with lips pursed and eyes flaming with contempt for the ageing figure of the Drakengard’s Record Keeper. “You know I have no possible way of knowing what you ate for breakfast, Maester Jokaero!” he exclaimed. He folded his arms over his chest and puffed up his torso, for all the good it did him. The tall and imposing man made Ozoric feel infinitely small, in size and intellect. He managed to do this even when he was not standing.
“Then you do not enter the library, the archives, or the Aerie.” The librarian replied smoothly. He smiled from beneath a dual disguise of thick rimmed spectacles and wide-brimmed hat.
“I…I…” Ozoric mumbled, before he fell silent, defeated by his own insecurities.
Whilst seated behind a small desk at the front of the entrance to the inner sanctum of the dragoon’s citadel, the Maester Jokaero kept a seemingly eternal vigil over the vast library that housed all the knowledge of the Empire. Whilst many such libraries existed, from the chronicles of Regis Dali in Underwood, to the Grand Simaculurm of the city of Radasanth, the library of the Drakengard specialised in Elder knowledge; dragons, the Tap, and daemons of the dark.
“You are not trying nearly hard enough my boy,” Jokaero snapped. If Ozoric wished to delve into the secrets beyond the pale, he would first have to contest wits with the wisest men of the mountain. He had many names amongst the dragoons, and Old Oak was the one Ozoric brought to mind as he leapt into a series of analytical thought trains. With each step closer to an answer, he stripped away the old man’s bark.
“I can only assume you ate something traditional and simple. Something that would be appropriate for the kitchens to be serving in these cold and arid winter months.” He said softly, lips less pursed and more curled in concentration. He tried to gauge the man’s reaction, but saw no shift in position, twitch of muscle, or change in breathing. “Porridge, perhaps?” he added, raising an eyebrow and dropping his arms to his sides. His defiant posture would do him no good here.
Jokaero continued to scribble entries into the ledger set before his crooked stoop on the battered surface of his work space. It was a hefty tome, bound in cracked, dark, and worn leather. In the ledger were a hundred or so entries per page of books checked in, and out, of the vast archives. The old man was seemingly marking a tick or cross next to each of the recent entries he had not yet checked. Ozoric had heard that a cross meant a visit in the night from the Reclaimer; Maester Jokaero’s personal bodyguard.
“If I ate porridge, Mr Newalla, I would not be a skeletal relic of these hallowed halls. Try again.” There was a non-chalant tone to the man’s voice, as if Ozoric were not the only keen, young, and ignorant student that had attempted to enter the library that morning. Ozoric was stubborn enough to not give up until he was the first to succeed.
He glared through the tall archway that was situated immediately behind Jokaero’s desk. It was forty or so feet high, twenty wide, and cut with little décor or splendour into the rock of the mountain range itself. The library’s entrance was situated at the base of the Drakengard, and its libraries were accessed via an ascent up a grand spiral staircase that rose for half a mile into the Arcanum proper. It was one of the few places in the castle that was entirely separate from the rest of the sections, and it was accessed through this one route.
Not even an ancient dragon of terrible, mighty, and endless power was said to be able to pass the Maester’s dutiful presence. Ozoric had seen enough bruised knees, bashed cheeks, and bloody noses to half believe the rumours. The tepid air filled his lungs as he took a deep inhalation, and then exhaled. The echo of his breath bounced across the obsidian floor and up into the tower.
“Then you could only have had a choice between toasted poppy loaf, fruit, and that… thing, that concoction the Verger tries to pass of as muesli. I would wager you in fact decided against the muesli for health reasons. I know for a fact you do not eat fruit, like so many of the old guard of the mountain, which leads me to the natural conclusion by deduction that you had the toast!” he barked triumphantly. When no response came from Jokaero, he sighed with frustration.
“How did you arrive at that conclusion, might I ask?” the Maester pressed, not satisfied with just an answer.
“Alright, alright, I will play your game.” Ozoric took several eager steps forward and tapped the edge of the desk. “I deduced, as you put it, the answer to your riddle quite simply. You would have had the toast brought down to you by a servant, and you are somewhat short-sighted, so did not notice you made…” Ozoric chuckled, “quite the mess.” There were several crusty crumbs scattered on the front edge of the wooden surface, and a small circular area at the centre of the wheat debris, where Ozoric assumed the plate had been set.
Jokaero looked up from beneath his hat, and set his quill to ease in his withered hand. The old man’s green eyes were milky due to age, not the distortion of his spectacles crudely formed lenses. Thin wisps of white hair poked out from the straw dome of his hat, and a simple red shirt, also covered in crumbs, covered his skeletal frame. When he smiled, though Ozoric was warmed by the gesture, he could not help but silently muse over how such a learned man had let his once porcelain white teeth become a row of jagged, stained, and rotten stumps.
“Very good,” he applauded, though more in intonation than with a clap, or offer of praise. “That is the first time anyone has bothered to pay attention to their surroundings.” The librarian chuckled coarsely, leant back into his seat, and let the quill drop onto the page. It was practically empty of ink, so left only a tiny pattern of splashes on the right page’s edge.
“Might I ask,” Ozoric took a polite step back from the desk, “what the purpose of testing my mind was?” he could only half smile half frown. His eagerness to enter the Arcanum and continue his research was becoming fever pitch in the pit of his stomach.
“I test everyone the first time that they come to seek knowledge in the chasm of the library. A mind is a terrible thing to waste, so I must permit only those who wish to use their discoveries for the betterment of the Drakengard. Altruism, servitude, dragon-spirited; that is the sort of mind I wish to let enter.” There was a judgemental tone to his statement that Ozoric did not like. Knowledge, in the mind of the young initiate, should be free and available to those who seek it, no matter its protector’s wishes.
“Must everyone earn their passage into the Library, Maester Jokaero?” Ozoric made no attempt to hide his contempt. He had learnt, almost from the moment he set foot in the castle, that the Maester of the Drakengard were plain speaking, hardy, and forthright people – they expected to be challenged, contested, and treated relatively equally.
“If I believe they have come to take advantage of the secrets contained within, then yes, they must.” He knocked the quill from the page with a careless finger and lifted the ledger’s cover up with both hands. Beneath its bulk he struggled and grunted to fold it over. It slammed shut with a mighty bang that filled the grand, empty, and haunting chamber.
“That sounds like you do not trust me…”
“Oh, I trust you for who you are, Mr Newalla. I do not however trust you for what you will become.” The Maester’s voice turned sour, a cackling and scolding voice that was portent and proverb and put down alike. Ozoric frowned in response to the man’s sudden turn.
“What will I become that make you spurn me so?”
“When you step into the library and enter the Northward Arcanum, the dome at the northern corner of the library complex, you will find out. Captain Aelfric asked you to read something from that section, did he not?” there was a questioning tone to Jokaero’s voice, but his all knowing smile told Ozoric that he was being asked purely out of convention. Maester Jokaero knew exactly why the novitiate was here.
“He did, just an hour ago in fact…”
“Excellent. So read the book and you will find out the answers you have for so long sought. It is a dark time, Ozoric Newalla, and though the Storm Hold’s Call has sounded you as its champion, you will have to work much, much harder to earn the title you so desperately seek.” Without further discussion, Jokaero waved Ozoric over his shoulder and rose. “Go now; I have to return some scrolls on the merits of manure and straw for the stabling of young bucks. I have no desire to whittle on all afternoon with you.”
Ozoric bowed politely, as was tradition, before he scuttled hurriedly through the archway. With a thousand new questions spiralling in his mind from the Maester’s one answer, he bounded as quickly as he could up the stairway. Unlike the great tower that housed the Storm Hold; the summoning horn, the steps here were rugged and bulky, not worn by a thousand ascents each day. At the top of the stairway stood the central arboretum that served as a gateway to all the Arcanum within the library.
“What will I become that scares one as wise as Maester Jokaero…” he asked a rhetorical question between heavy breaths. Doubt was furrowed onto his brow, and guilt boiled in the pit of his stomach. “What am I going to do?”
After five minutes of stoic exercise, Ozoric slowed his pace and finished off the last few hundred steps at snail’s pace. He gathered his wits, and his strength, and his breath back whilst he thought about what awaited him ahead. The tome called To Cower & Tether Drakes called out to his eager thirst for knowledge, and the ritual that would bind a dragon to him, when one gave in to his will and heart, called him along with it.
Part One
The High Perch – The Knight Commander Jacamar’s Office
“Captain Aelfric, I do not think you quite grasp the severity of what I am saying…” Jacamar said with a half-hearted scorn plastered across her scarred face.
In the swaddling warmth of the High Perch, the Captain of the Guard shuffled nervously in his seat. Sat opposite the Knight Commander of the Dragoon, Aelfric could not help but feel estranged, belittled, and incredibly humbled by her presence. She was, amongst the citizens of the Drakengard, a goddess given flesh.
“Ozoric must bond, it has to happen. After he sounded the horn so wondrously…how could it not be in his destiny?” he raised an eyebrow, a soft and worthless attempt to break through the stoic defences of his superior.
From behind her desk, Knight Commander Jacamar continued to hold the Captain of the Guard in her sway. She wore a simple white blouse, a tiara of twisted silver, beset with diamonds, and tight leather slacks. In the midday sun, she would have shone, despite her simple attire. In the gloom of the High Perch, a chamber untouched by sunlight and day’s caress, she still glimmered. With a cock of her head, a curious gesture, she undid Aelfric’s offence.
“What becomes of young Ozoric Newalla is what shall become of him. Our interference will not change that fact, Aelfric. If you can honestly sit there, aloof, ignorant, and loyal, and tell me that you think you have the power to change destiny, then prove me wrong, would you not?” she leant forwards and leant her elbow against the Liviol and pine panelling. Her brunette curls bobbed and her bosom, tightly wrapped in muslin, bulged over her folded arms.
“So we just leave him to his fate?” Aelfric finally overcome his superior’s aura of cogitation and took a stand. “Is that just, moral, and right?”
“Right? No, Aelfric, it is not right. I truly wish there was something I could do to help him through the coming trials. However, we all have to take this road at some point in our life. It is a road we have to travel alone. We arrive at our destination quite changed because of it.” Jacamar’s expression told Aelfric all he needed to know about his chances of swaying her from her conviction. He scratched his beard in humble contemplation.
“I think I understand…” he whispered. The Knight Commander nodded.
“Good.”
“Even if I do not agree with it…” he added, pursing his lips. There was a spark of sibling rivalry between the two, which fizzled out quickly when Jacamar glared at him.
“You sent him to the library, correct?” she returned to her paperwork, working on two fronts to further the needs of the Drakengard. She moved quickly through a pile of reports, assimilating the information on each whilst she waited for her Captain’s reply. There were long lists of inventory, changing of the tower guard, and predictions for the coming winter hardships.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Then when he returns, you must do as you have always done, and show him to the aerie. If he has understood the contents of the book you directed him to, what he needs to do will come quite instinctively.” Content with the reports, she began to unfurl the scroll set before her on the desk, which rustled in the claustrophobic interior of her office. It was sealed with a length of jet black ribbon.
Aelfric waited patiently, becoming increasingly light headed both by virtue of the occasion, and the sheer altitude of the High Perch. It was a small spherical dome teetering on the top of the tallest spire of the Drakengard. There was only one way into the chamber for those not bonded to a dragon. Accessed by a small, narrow, and almost infinitely long stair, it was seldom visited by the lesser echelons of the dragoon society. To Aelfric’s right stood a large, heavy, and well locked double door that lead out onto a circular balcony that ran around the tip of the spire. It had several small landing jetties, from which Jacamar leapt when she called her mount.
“What is it, ma’am?” he asked haphazardly. He was unsure if he was supposed to stay to receive further instruction, or see himself out. He shuffled forwards on the coarse and solid wood of the seat he had been offered. The back of his breastplate made a noisy ruckus against the tall, ornate, and satin lined back.
“I am just wondering, Aelfric…though I say we should leave him to discover the nature of his tattoos on his own terms. What would you say to introduce the boy to Chalazae?” she looked up from the scroll, raised an eyebrow, and then turned the paper around so that the Captain could inspect the inscription inked onto the ancient parchment.
He began to read it, and as he took in every word, his jaw slowly fell open with surprise.
“How long have you know about this?” the Captain spluttered, shocked, scared, and bewildered by the information on the parchment. There was an inscription on the paper, and beneath that, a picture of a tattoo remarkably similar to the facial markings on Ozoric’s upper forehead. It was Shankar, the language of the dragons. Aelfric could not quite believe he had not noticed it before.
Jacamar dropped the paper to the table and leant back into her chair. She crossed her hands and set them gently on the soft fabric of her lap. With a wistful purse of her lips, she examined every haggard wrinkle and misplaced patch of stubble on her brother’s beard.
“I have always known that Ozoric was what we call a Baja; dragon-born, drake kin, a natural dragoon.”
“You did not think to tell me?”
“I had to wait, Aelfric. I had to make sure. When Ozoric sounded the horn three weeks ago, and even Chalazae answered…” she cocked her head and smiled warmly, “all my doubts were quashed. He is a dragon born.”
They stared at one another intently for several seconds, until Aelfric had to look away. Jacamar chuckled, ever bemused by her brother’s lack of resolve against her. He was known as the Old Stone amongst the guard of the castle, and even the elder dragoons respected him for his stoicism; except her. She looked around her office wistfully, picking out dragon skull, armour stand, and weapon rack in a bid to distract her whilst he gathered his wits about him.
“What does this mean for his future in the Drakengard?” he asked, finally composed. He scratched his beard, his skin and hair still itching with sweat from his long ascent into the High Perch.
“For young Ozoric, it means that, despite his talents with the dragons, he may never be able to truly bond.”
“How can a dragoon not be able to bond?” Aelfric’s expression told Jacamar that he was genuinely perturbed. She sighed.
“A bond between a human and a dragon is a sacred thing, earned in combat, where the human forces their mind upon the creatures and they combine as one.” She picked up the scroll again and unfurled it, to re-read the long inscription. It was written in an ancient dialect of Tradespeak, the language of the first Dragoons. “As Ozoric is half-dragon, there will be few dragons, if there are any at all, that would be willing to accept his mind as their own.”
Aelfric mouthed surprise, “except Chalazae.”
Jacamar nodded, “except the Empress, the mother of all Dragons, ar-Chalazae.”
The Arboretum, the Arcanum
At the heart of the Drakengard’s grand library stood the Arboretum. It was a grand sphere, with a balcony around its middle that was accessed by two spiral staircases. Each staircase was made of wrought iron, blackened by age, and immeasurably heavy. As Ozoric emerged into the warmth, a humidity created by the oxidisation of the grand oak tree that stood at the heart of the chamber, he pictured all the work that had gone into creating it. In the face of such grandiose architecture, design, and beauty, he could not help but feel awed. Like every chamber in the Drakengard, it was a work of art unto itself, a priceless vigil to the timeless trials of the dragoons.
“Blessed be,” he mumbled, fingers twitching, heart racing, and eyes sparkling.
He came to an abrupt halt at the top of the well stairway, and looked back over his shoulder. The cavernous expanse threatened to swallow him, and he swooned with nausea. He hurried to mount the last step and depart the edge as quickly as his fatigued body could manage. He did not wish to tumble to his death quite yet, least of all in front of the fickle impressions of Maester Jokaero. He did not wish for his legacy on this world to be the long, croaking peal of the old man’s laughter at the sight of his splayed corpse.
“Now,” he mouthed, looking frantically at each of the tunnels that lead away from the aura of the Heart Oak with a curled lip, “which way is the Northward…” there were four tunnels leading away from the base of the Arboretum, and four more on the upper balcony. Each of the smaller spheres was laden with the historical and intellectual wealth of the Dragoon Order, each one a world of its own. One day, Ozoric would be entitled to explore the other seven, but for now, only the first was his right.
“Why did I not listen closer to Aelfric’s lecture,” he grumbled.
With a shrug, he dragged his lanky body around the foot of the oak, which was a good two hundred feet tall and verdant and bountiful with acorns, until he came to the far tunnel and stood before it. There was a warmer draft flowing out of it, as if a hundred torches were bracketed on the obsidian walls beyond. The once smooth wall of the Arboretum’s sphere was covered in a woven blanket of ivy, lichen, and pulsating glow moss. Nature had somehow bypassed the many hundreds of miles of corridor and cloister that made up the Drakengard, and found a sanctuary here, in wisdom’s bosom.
It sang with life.
Somehow, Ozoric Newalla the dragon born had chosen the right door. He felt it in his bones, which hummed, rattled, and seemingly grew at the thought. He cocked his head with a curious smile and for a few moments, he let the warmth of the thermal wash over his body.
“Oh smother me, honey glaze,” he whispered. His shrew like nose twitched furtively, his nostrils ran thick with snot, and his hands shook with the dizzy schema of potential. The quotation from his favourite novel, in which the two lovers found happiness in the desert of yonder lands, gave him momentary hope. His lank hair, black strands laden with sweat flapped over his sticky forehead.
It felt sickly, invigorating, and welcomed after his ascent. Sweat was running freely down the ridge of his spine now, and the furrows in his forehead, but he did not care. Who would see his weakness, locked away in the shadows of madness?
His simple grey cloth wafted in the movement, his belt tinkled as he swayed, and his very soul seemed to sing. His inner sense of levity made him advance, and he strode into the Northward ready to face whatever trials awaited him. As he moved forwards, leaving the green foliage of the Heart Oak behind in favour of the cold lifelessness of the obsidian, his tattoo glowed.
Ozoric could not know that his empathy, his connection to the dragons, and his soul made the decision for him, not luck. Destiny dragged him into the dark, the silence, and into the learned hovel of the Dragon Sage.
The Northward Book Depository was a small sphere set two hundred feet away from the Arboretum. Standing a hundred feet tall, and the same wide, the curved wall of the sphere was lined with two thick circular bands of bookcases. Here too, the upper level was found on a balcony, accessed by one of two wrought iron staircases, though much smaller than the grandiose counterparts in the central chamber. Every ten feet or so the bookcase gave way for a small obsidian column, on each of which there were brackets, in each, a torch flickered with dutiful flame.
“Hello?” he hazarded, hoping he was alone. Whilst the Maester made it very difficult for initiates to enter the library, the Dragoons had no such compunction to take his riddles and tests. “Is anybody in here?”
Though the Northward was an open plan chamber, the darkness, and the tapestry of colour on the shelves left plenty of blind spots in the dark rock for some dutiful student to remain unseen. Ozoric penetrated as much of the upper balcony’s seclusion as he could, and, assured he was the only person in the Arboretum, he took a brave step forwards across the flattened floor. His boots pressed down on the first curve of the grand etched glyph, which burst into life. The flames rose from the cracks, and spread out across the floor from the point of impact.
“Welcome, Ozoric, to the Northward.” A strange voice penetrated the awe, and from the centre of the glyph, a grand depiction of a dragon coiled around a heraldic shield, a shrouded figure appeared in two ribbons of azure light. The youth’s jaw dropped.
“M-Maester Jokaero?” he stuttered, unsure about the reality of what he was witnessing. The flames died, leaving a faint glow in the glyph, and revealing the dark, swaddling robes of the old man. “I thought you…”
“You thought nothing, my good boy. I am not Maester Jokaero,” he pulled back his hood with a withered set of fingers. The face that was hidden beneath the cotton was surprisingly familiar to Ozoric.
“Good lord, Verger!” the young initiative tried to make himself more presentable. He tucked the strands of hair behind his ears, wiped the sleep from his eyes, and adjusted the folds of his clothing. It made no difference whatsoever, but he felt better for it.
“Don’t sound so surprised lad, I did tell you the cook was the heart and soul of a castle.” The old man was not so old in the light, and he could not help but smile at the surprise on the boy’s face. Without his chef’s whites he was quite imposing, but with his presence, not his authoritative command over the hundred apprentices in the culinary team that produced the Drakengard’s many daily feasts.
“I don’t understand, what are you doing here?”
“The Verger is merely a front, I am also the Sybarite.” He held out his arms wide, and Ozoric approached. They exchanged a hug, patted one another on the back, and retreated several steps. At the heart of the glyph, Ozoric thought he started to understand. “It is my duty to guide new initiatives into the castle, as I did when you first came here, and also my duty to oversee their ascent to The High Perch.”
The young dragoon could not quite place the name. There were many parts of the castle that he was forbidden from entering, and would remain out of bounds until he bonded with a dragon and took his oath.
“The High Perch is the Knight Commander’s chamber, lad, where you’ll take your vows.” The Verger frowned, his enthusiasm for his brightest pupil fading. “Before you are allowed to climb those stairs, though, you will need to do a little…” he curled his lips, stroked his beard, and pointed at the book shelf immediately behind his bulky form, “light reading.”
Ozoric nodded. “Aelfric has informed me that the answer I seek lies in a book to be found here.” The boy shrugged, he did not think a single book could teach him all he needed to know about the Bonding Ritual. Then again, Captain Aelfric had not become Captain on a hunch and supposition. He had overseen countless young sons of the Drakengard into their rightful place amongst the ranks of the dragoon.
The Verger stepped to one side and gestured for Ozoric to advance. He walked past the Verger, boots clipping against the stone, and his heart racing with nerves and bewilderment. He did not quite believe the man who made the best roast potatoes in the northern counties was also the Guardian of the Northward Spire. He guessed it took all sorts, but he made a mental note to be more wary of the staff from now on. Maybe the guard in the dungeons was the real Knight Commander, or the young servant scamp was in fact the best mage in the fortress.
You could never tell.
“You will find the good Captain’s recommendation to be,” the Verger pursed his lips, “quite informative.” Ozoric grasped enough of speech craft to realise that the man’s statement was riddled with foreshadowing, suspense, and hidden agendas.
“That, Verger, is quite what I was afraid of.” Ozoric reached out to the closest book at chest height and ran his finger down the well-worn spine. The large section of book shelf was, seemingly, one of the most read from of the Northward Chamber. It was twice as wide as all the other sections, twenty feet of knowledge, and was lit by two torches on each dividing section either side of its expanse. The books were so tightly packed, horizontally and vertically, that Ozoric had to wonder just how long it would take to read every single page. Now the wrinkles on Maester Jokaero’s face made more sense.
“Don’t fret, boy, it’s not quite as testing a trial as we perhaps have made out.”
“There’s a trial?” Ozoric glanced over his shoulder, a worried look plastered over his pale face. He continued to trail the spines, and looked back when he ran his finger over a warm spine clad in mithril fleur-de-lis. He pulled it from the shelf with a single finger pressured down against the top of the spine. “Nobody said anything about a trial…” he tossed the book over in his sweaty palms and read the cover. It was red vellum, emblazoned with gold leaf text and a large magic circle etched with diamonds.
“You simply have to find, read, and memorise the oath from the book. The real trial,” the Verger’s voice become distant and echoic, “begins when you stand before Jacamar in the High Perch.”
“Why does that not,” Ozoric paused, feeling suddenly quite alone. He turned about, and was greeted with an empty chamber. Where the Verger had been standing not moments before, there was nothing but an after image burnt into the fabric of the world. He had, seemingly, retreated into whatever corner of the castle demanded his presence at that particular moment. Ozoric sighed.
“Surprise me…”
It took him several moments to compose himself. With the Verger present, he had felt confident, certain, and unafraid. Left to fend for himself, he lost all his composure. The Captain had guided him to the chamber, and to the book he required, but beyond that, he was swinging blindly into the dark.
He brought the book into view and read the title aloud. “The Empress; a Guide to Draconic Husbandry.” He chuckled at the thought of their being a breeding guide for nature’s most ferocious lizard, and turned to replace it noisily back where he discovered it.
“I won’t need that,” he said chirpily. Dragons, fortunately for the humans of the Drakengard, reared their own young. There was nothing more dangerous in the mountains than a brooding dragon, or their ever hungry young. Ozoric had been warned, almost the same day he had arrived, that if he ever came near a young dragon he should do one thing and one thing only.
Run.
He continued to examine the contents of the shelf, mouthing the strange and archaic titles as he went. Twenty minutes went by before he finally came to the bottom shelf, and whelped with excitement as he slipped To Cower & Tether Drakes from the shelf. It was a green vellum bound book, clad with iron clasps, and heavily read. The edges of the spine were battered, and its front cover dog-eared. Ozoric jostled it in one hand, as if testing its weight, and then pushed himself upwards on shaky knees.
“Great…” he grumbled, turning to walk across the cold floor back into the Arboretum. The Northward Chamber was simply too hot to concentrate, and though the Great Oak was still stuffy, it would provide a soft layer of moss to sit on, and a well-worn, ancient bark to lean upon whilst he devoured the contents of his supposed trial.
Minutes turned to hours, and hours turned to days. Before Ozoric could calculate how long he had been ensconced at the foot of the great tree, the Verger appeared up the black iron stairwell, eyes docile, heart pacing.
“My dear boy, I know the book well, but I do not recall it being quite that intoxicating!” he wheezed as he pulled himself about the final turn, and stood ready to collapse. Though mysterious, powerful, and intellectual, the Verger, it seemed, was long out of shape for the catacomb like innards of the world he pulled at with puppet strings.
Ozoric chuckled, snapped the book shut, and then rested it on his knees. “It’s a bit of an encapsulating read, considering its implications.” The implications, the dragoon had no doubt, would be the weight of their ensuing conversation.
“That is why you were directed to that book,” he waved his arms wide as he began to approach, “out of all the tomes in this library. It is, if you like, a book written exclusively for people like you.”
“People like me?” Ozoric grit his teeth defensively. As the Verger clambered over mossy knoll and fallen branch, Ozoric adjusted himself to sit more upright, more proud, and more ready to flee if the Verger’s ramblings became their usual uncomfortable selves. His words had a power to come to life and strike you dead with boredom, when they were not inciting you to wonder. “What does that mean, exactly?”
“Now,” was the reply, “no need to be all cocksure,” the old man smiled, a cracked, parchment like smile that spoke through age with wisdom. “People like you, as in people born of dragons.” This was, in essence, what Ozoric was.
“You sounded jealous…” Ozoric mused, before correcting himself, “no, more bitter.”
The Verger arrived at the foot of the tree at last, and collapsed into a cross-legged position before his student. Beneath the folds of his cavernous robes he adjusted his frail form, at least the frailness people expected to see in an old man, and stared directly into Ozoric’s youthful eyes. The canopy of the great oak swayed in a silent breeze, and if either of the two men had been paying attention, they would have noticed the temperature rise a few degrees.
“If I were bitter, Ozoric, you would not be here.” He glared, “but I want you, out of the entire past dragon born, to truly grasp the reigns of your destiny.”
“I have a destiny, then?” Ozoric was a free spirit enough to resent the idea that his life was prescribed. He wanted to be in the Drakengard because he had chosen to stay – he wanted to fly with the sky kin because he had earn that right. He did not wish to ascend the ranks and the towers of this ancient place because another had deemed it fit. In his anger, Ozoric did not realise the Verger was both talking out of his usual maladroit manner, and seemed to be speaking between the lines.
“Your destiny is to challenge the greatest dragon that lives, and to assert your authority over her.” It seemed simple enough. Ozoric looked down at the book longingly. “Yes, do you not see?”
“The dragon I am supposed to bond with…is Chalazae?” Sceptical, Ozoric rolled his eyes. “My mother – I thought children were supposed to watch their parents die, to overcome their progeny, their hereditary faults, and their mistakes?”
“Oh, they are. But surely, here in the arboretum, you feel so much greater than a simple son vengeful for his parent’s abandonment?” The Verger looked up into the withered branches, traced the patterns of the gnarled knots and cracks in the trunk, and sighed. “The Knight Commander thinks you will fail.”
“The Knight Commander,” Ozoric chuckled, “thinks everyone will fail.” Amongst the ranks of the Drakengard, dragoon and guard alike, the Knight Commander was known as a woman impossible to please with anything other than the death of a dragon. She was a cold-stubborn, but entirely efficient military mind.
“Do you want to be the one who proves her doubt right?”
Ozoric shook his head.
“I did not think so. What do you aim to do about that, exactly?”
The incessant questions were beginning to get to Ozoric. He had come expecting answers, and although he knew now for certain who his mother was, the revelation had born only more questions. His head was starting to spin, a sensation augmented by the rising humidity and the sweat clogging his pores.
“My mother is the empress of dragons, my father, the emperor of Corone…” he grit his teeth again, an all too familiar expression of late. “If I am to ‘unite’ draconic kind by quelling Chalazae’s rage, then I am at a loss as to how my heritage will be anything but a hindrance.” Both his parents had, after all, both a tyrannical and an anarchistic streak.
“On the contrary, my dear boy.” The Verger prodded a withered finger at the book. “Did you not read the chapter on the reasons for cross-species mating?” he raised an eyebrow.
Ozoric had, but he had not considered it noteworthy. He was very as much a man of fact. The facts he had to hand were simple – he was half-dragon. There was not much more to it. “If I did, I missed the point.”
“The dragons began mating with humans, at least those who possessed the magic to shape shift, some five hundred years ago.” The Verger shuffled on the spot, adjusted his spine so that he sat upright proper, and cleared his throat. This was a clear sign of a forthcoming lecture. He had snared Ozoric with curiosity, so that this time, the youth did not depart in a hurry. “When a dragon mates, the female of the species, in her rage, or perhaps ecstasy, devours the male.” Devour was a term few used. Tear to pieces and gorge was the phrase most relied on.
“Yes, a petty thing for a woman to do.” Ozoric smiled. “Like humans, in many ways.”
The Verger shot him down, “animalistic instinct is much more potent in the dragon. It is this precise reason that dragons in Corone have become near extinct. Their numbers have fallen dramatically, if records are true, and they are, because I keep them.” Ozoric, and all the other trainees, had been taught from day one that there were only ninety or so dragons left in the mountains surrounding the Drakengard. Whilst that number was still impressive, at least for any one kingdom to hold, that number also counted the population of most of the eastern continent.
“So why do they not try to quell that rage?”
“It is not so simple. Chalazae, however, a black dragon – a potent magical conduit, longed to be human. At least, she longed to raise a child of her own in the manner of a human. They are, despite their faults, quite endearing and kind creatures when they have to be.” The smirk on the Verger’s face made Ozoric sigh. “She has, to date, conceived three dragon-born. Children like you, possessing the potency of a dragon, its spirit, its power, but none of its physical traits.”
From what Ozoric had read in the battered old tome, those children had tried to become dragoons too. None of them, even after discovering the truth about their parentage, had been able to overcome their rage, self-loathing, and hatred for the many horned witch they had to call a parent. Chalazae had devoured them all, succumbing to her true nature despite all her sacrifice and planning. Ozoric did not, he vowed on that spot, at that moment, want to become another corpse in her long reign.
“So I am to quell the beast, am I?”
The Verger nodded.
“A dragon born used as a weapon against his own kind…” Ozoric took on a maudlin’ tone, which The Verger noted, and recognised, as the same self-expression of doubt all the other dragon born had expressed in the same circumstances. “It hardly seems right.”
“It would seem less so if the one who had been given this opportunity squandered it.” He produced a small parchment from within his robes, and held it out at arm’s length. The dark yellow paper remained docile, but the shining ring of silver that kept it closed danced with the light of the distant glow stones. Ozoric examined it pensively, before taking it with a nod of thanks. “Here are your orders, my son, for your first recon.”
When a dragoon novitiate received his first recon assignment, though it would be under the guidance of a seasoned dragoon, it meant that novitiate was soon to take the Trial. Though Ozoric’s own trials with Chalazae would test his worth, he had to pass each of the tests any other dragoon hopeful had to, in order to earn his right to ride into battle, to wear his armour, and to strike with a spear or lance forged in the world’s heart. He nodded gratefully.
“This is…a good day.” Were they all the words that seemed appropriate?
“Take what you have read to heart, dwell on it, and decide. The Knight Commander will not force you to tempt to quell Chalazae. There are, as you saw when you sounded the Storm Call, many other unbound and unbidden mounts that you could take as your own. You could live a life like any other dragoon, and aid the Drakengard’s long efforts to keep Corone safe.” The description seemed hallow, empty, and worthless. The Verger was making no effort to conceal his displeasure if Ozoric chose that path.
“I will subdue The Black Dragon’s light.”
The Verger smiled.
“You will be her greatest achievement, but her undoing.”
Ozoric had sat as an orphan, but as he pushed himself upright from the bough of the oak tree, he rose as a son.
A son of a dragon.
A son of an emperor.
A son of the Drakengard.
To be continued in A Dragon Comes To Town
Sagequeen
01-10-13, 02:53 PM
Plot ~ 21/30
Storytelling ~ 6/10 – Your story unfolds well, and it’s interesting. Since I read the other, I understand more of what is happening, but for a new reader, much of it could be very confusing, especially the magnitude of the sounding of the horn.
Setting ~ 8/10 – You have a brilliant skill of not just describing a setting, but seeing that it lives and breathes with a life of its own. You pay attention to detail quite often, and while that in itself is not a problem, the reader sometimes can loose sight of the bigger setting.
Pacing ~ 7/10 – You build slowly, toying the reader along with bits of information revealed slowly. If this were a part of the previous story, I’d think it was perfect. However, the pacing is a bit too slow for this story to stand on its own.
Character ~ 22/30
Communication ~ 7/10 – Your communication between characters is well done.
Action ~ 6/10 – Again, since this is part of a larger story, this would be just fine as it is. However, for it to stand alone, it begs for a little more, not necessarily to make it exciting, but to make it a full story.
Persona ~ 8/10 – You have a wonderful skill for creating characters, and it shows from your very first post. However, Ozoric could use a bit more revelation – he’s still a bit of a mystery, and I’m not sure if you intend it.
Prose ~ 22/30
Mechanics ~ 7/10 – Since this is light rubric, I’ll just say: proofread.
Clarity ~ 7/10 – My reasons have been stated in a few other categories – this is a part of a bigger story, so to sit and read it without the knowledge of the other part could be difficult.
Technique ~ 8/10 – You’ve a way with words, for sure. Keep polishing that talent!
Wildcard: 8/10 – Overall, I enjoyed this! I look forward to Ozoric’s next adventures, especially as he takes on the dragon-mama.
Total ~ 72/100
Ozoric receives 891 exp and 130 gold!
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