A frown touched his brow, and his mouth turned down as the elf shook his head, drawing back a red fletched arrow. As soon as he saw it, Erik knew it resembled an arrow Erik’s dagger became the first time he used it in battle. The elf fired, and the arrow struck Sustenon in the breast. The wizard stumbled backward and began chanting something. Another arrow struck his chest, and then another, and another. As the wizard fell backward and lay still, the sconces filled with firestone flared, and all that had erupted from the floor disappeared, and the floor was smooth stone once more.
Erik stared up at the elf, his piercing blue eyes meeting Erik’s before the elf jumped down from the altar to stand face to face with Erik.
“You are the elf from my vision,” Erik said, “and from the dagger. You are the first dragon rider.”
The elf bowed, and now Erik could tell this was not a true living being, the elf’s body translucent.
“Rako Rokhev,” the elf said with a slight bow.
By way of habit, Erik extended his hand, but the elf shook his head.
“I am only here in spirit,” Rako replied. “This is the punishment for my pride. But before we speak, you must look to your friend. I fear the worst for him.”
In the moments of the elf revealing himself, Erik had forgotten about Beldar, and now he cursed himself.
“Excuse me,” said Erik and he hastened over to where the others had gathered.
The snow cat purred softly and rested its large head on Beldar’s legs. Bofim gently placed Beldar’s head on the ground and stood, his eyes red-rimmed and wet.
“He gave his life for you, Erik,” Bofim said.
He looked angry, at first, his eyes slightly squinted, and his lips pursed.
“Too many good people have given their lives for me,” Erik said.
Bofim shook his head.
“He willingly gave his life for you,” the dwarf said. “It was a commitment he made the moment he decided to follow you. I would have given my life for you, too.”
“We all would have,” Bryon added.
“But ...” began Erik, but his cousin interrupted him.
“There is nothing any of us could do to change what has happened, and now, I believe you have some unfinished business with your friend over there.”
Erik looked to his cousin and then the dwarves in turn before he wiped the tears from his eyes and turned to see Rako standing behind him.
“I don’t have long, Erik,” the elf said.
“I am ready now, to learn,” said Erik, and the elf nodded his head.
“My pride killed many people, Erik. I hope I am a lesson to others. The Dragon Sword is a powerful weapon, one that must be wielded with care and conviction.”
“I can’t return it to the Lord of the East, can I?” Erik asked.
“No,” Rako replied.
“What about my family?”
“We all must make hard choices,” Rako replied, “especially when the Shadow offers us easy ones.”
“I don’t understand why Sustenon just didn’t take you if I had the Dragon Sword all along,” Erik said.
“I don’t have much time here,” Rako said, “but this much I will explain to you. The Dragon Sword must be freely given in order to do what it is supposed to do. It is why it never worked for Marcus. He bought it, and before that, it had been stolen, and before that hidden by the dwarves, but because his heart was righteous, Marcus passed it to his son, who then freely gave it to you, thinking it was nothing more than a fancy dagger. The magic within the blade worked for you; your heart is good and pure. Sustenon could not simply take it from you, not without magic that would have even been beyond him. However, he knew that if the wielder takes his own life with the blade, then the next person to hold the sword becomes its owner.”
“But why me?” Erik asked.
“I don’t know,” Rako replied with a shrug. “I only know what it does and how it is passed from one generation to the next. Originally, it was meant to be passed to my first-born, just as my mother passed it on to me. It was the great gift given to the elvish Dragon Riders by the dwarves when our peoples were still friends.”
Erik looked to the altar. His dagger was gone, and so was the dragon tooth. Only Ilken’s Blade lay there.
“Take it,” Rako said. “It is now the Dragon Sword, reforged by magic.”
The elf began to fade, his body becoming even more translucent, wavering as if he was a specter about to disappear.
“It almost looks like it did before,” Erik said, noticing that the handle looked to now be golden and there was greenish hew to the blade.
“It is not the same blade,” Rako said. “But it is a blade crafted by the dwarves—your dwarvish friend Ilken Copper Head—as the original Dragon Sword was so many years ago. When they forged the original, it contained a piece of a dragon—a scale from the ancestor of the dragon both my mother and I rode. The dragon tooth was part of the key to reforging it.”
“How was the original Dragon Sword destroyed?” Erik asked.
“It was a powerful weapon, but it had its limits,” Rako explained. “I overexerted the magic in the blade. In my pride, I destroyed it…and all that I held dear.”
Erik picked up the blade. It felt like it had before. No. It felt better, even more suited to him, if that was possible.
“Dragon Tooth” murmured Erik.
“That is a good name,” Rako said, and Erik looked up to see the elf smiling.
Erik looked at the blade. Ilken Copper Head’s inscriptions were still there—his name and the etching of a raven. But there was a new set of etchings, just next to the raven. They were the same runes as Erik’s shield.
“Dragon Fire,” Erik muttered.
“My gift to you, Erik,” Rako said. “Whoever the sword passes to, for all eternity, your name will be etched into the blade as the first wielder of Dragon Tooth, the Dragon Sword reforged.”
“And will you be with me as well,” Erik asked, “like before? Or have you been released from your bondage to the blade?”
The elf smiled. It was a sad smile.
“I am not actually bound to the blade,” the elf replied. “I am bound to something else, and after exerting what little power I once had, I don’t think I can ever extend myself beyond my bonds, ever again. This is farewell.”
Erik considered this, and another tear touched the corner of his eye. His dagger, this elf, had become as good a friend as any flesh and blood person could.
“What if I released you from your bonds? How could I do that?”
“You cannot,” the elf said, his spectral body fading more quickly. “It is too dangerous.”
“People have told me that before,” Erik said, “and I didn’t listen.”
The elf smiled momentarily and then looked serious, his body mostly gone.
“There is a shadow growing across our lands,” Rako said. “You have seen it in your dreams.”
“The Shadow,” Erik said, but Rako shook his head.
“No. Something different.”
“Something more dangerous?” Erik asked.
“In a way, yes. So, I give you this task, not so that you can free me from my prison, but so you can save us from the growing evil lurking in the darkness.”
“Tell me,” Erik said, insistent. “I will do it for you.”
“Then listen to this: Find the Dragon Stone. It has many names, but for now, we will call it the Dragon Stone. It is hidden away, in a village in Hargoleth,” Rako’s voice said, a distant whisper that came out of the air. “Find it and take it to the Lady El’Beth El’Kash in the Forests of Ul’Erel. She can release me as well as help stop the spread of this darkness. Do this, and not only will I be free, not only will we cause this new evil to stumble, but you will be one step closer to solving the riddle of the Dragon Scroll.”
With that, the voice was gone. Erik looked at the Dragon Sword … no, Dragon Tooth, and the green hew that consumed the blade deepened, and it was as if green flames engulf
ed the steel. He heard a rustling behind him. Sustenon sat up, gingerly, the red fletched arrows still protruding from his chest. The wizard looked haggard and much older than before, his magic fleeting with the blood that ran from his wound.
“The Dragon Sword is mine,” Sustenon croaked, and he began to incant something under his breath.
“No,” Erik said, stepping to the wizard, “it is no longer the Dragon Sword, it is Dragon Tooth, and it will never be yours, just as it will never be the Lord of the East’s.”
Erik raised the sword over his head. The blade flared to a green brilliance and flashed as he brought it down on the wizard. Sustenon screamed, and when the blade struck him, he disappeared as if a puff of smoke through an open window.
Erik looked back at the altar, the place where his sword—Ilken’s Blade—became Dragon Tooth. The place where an elf who had possessed his golden-handled dagger—Rako Rokhev—once stood and explained the consequences of his pride. A low, reverberating sound echoed through the circular room, and the altar cracked, the light that once illuminated it disappearing. And Erik wondered if he would ever hear Rako’s voice again. Then he remembered he would never hear Beldar’s.
55
Bryon stared at the broken altar. The stone hadn’t turned the same gray as the keep but remained an alabaster white. It reminded him of the white altar they had found in the tower in the meadow, another magical place. The altar held runes, even though they were hard to see because of the broken stone, but they resembled the runes he saw on the white tower’s altar. He wondered now if, over time, the gray of this place would slowly become white again.
A doorway had appeared in the wall of the altar room and Bryon passed through it, walking out onto a balcony that surrounded the tower. He looked out at the surrounding tundra and the valley in which Fealmynster rested. As people gathered together below, what was once a stale looking town was now a myriad of different buildings and homes and shops. Many of them were broken and run down, but nonetheless, they no longer had the uniformed look they once had.
Looking back out to the surrounding frozen plain, even the land looked different. The craggy, icy protrusions that rose from the ground just before they reached the edge of the slope that led down into the town were gone. And the plains, still white and covered in snow and ice, seemed brighter and less threatening. Even from the circular platform, Bryon could see the green of grass poking through an icy covering.
“Erik,” Bryon called, “come look at this.”
It took a moment, but his cousin had finally joined him on the platform.
“Look,” Bryon said, “it’s as if the wizard’s magic had cursed this whole land.”
“It’s amazing,” Erik said. As he stared out, he was surprised that a smile grew on his face.
“Does this place remind you of anything?” Bryon asked.
Erik just shrugged.
“The white tower,” Bryon said. “It’s as if this place was its opposite.”
Erik looked around, even looked back into the altar room, and his eyebrows raised.
“You’re right,” he said.
Bryon walked back into the room, and, as the magic of Sustenon faded away, he found another pile of broken statues, just like the white tower, but all of these statues were of men, and they were made of some black stone. He crouched down and picked up the head of one, half its face gone.
“This was an elvish tower once, too,” Bryon said.
“You think?” Erik asked.
“It has to be,” Bryon replied.
He heard Erik walk away, but he continued to look through the broken statues. He found one with pointed ears—an elf. He picked it up, inspecting it. It was a female elf, and, even though the head of the statue held pot marks and chips, Bryon imagined that she would have been beautiful. As he held the black visage of an elvish woman, something stung his hands, a wave of pain traveling up into his shoulders. He dropped the effigy with a yelp, and it broke.
“Are you alright?” Erik asked.
Bryon stared at the rubble that was the elvish head. It shouldn’t have broken so easily, and not into as many pieces. He looked at his cousin over his shoulder.
“Yeah,” he replied. “Fine.”
Turning back to the rubble, something caught his eye. Something, among the broken stone glimmered, something polished and black. Bryon pushed the broken statue aside and saw a perfectly round rock sitting there, underneath all the shards. It sparkled at first, a shimmering black—the antithesis to a white star in a dark, nighttime sky—and then it turned dull, drinking up any light that hit it. Bryon picked it up and, squinting and peering closely at the thing, he saw the faintest glimpse of a light, deep inside of it.
What are you?
It reminded Bryon of the red stone Erik had. He had two of them, once, but he used one to defeat the dragon, in the mountain just outside of Orvencrest. They were clearly powerful magic, and, as Bryon stared at this one, he felt a flutter in his stomach. He put the rock in a pouch hanging from his belt.
Bryon watched as Bofim cried over Beldar, silently, stoically. Erik put his hand on Bofim’s shoulder and knelt next to him. He saw tears form at the corner of his cousin’s eyes. He was sad too, but the burden that Erik carried—Beldar had given his life for him. Bryon didn’t quite know how he would handle such a load. He had moments when he wasn’t sure his life was worth much, let alone the life of another. When the other two dwarves joined them, along with the emaciated snow cat who had befriended them in their fight against the wizard, they hoisted the dead dwarf’s body up and left the room.
As they carried Beldar’s body through the hallways and down the stairs of the keep they met no resistance. With the passing of Sustenon, the possessed soldiers they had been fighting no longer had a greenish, pallid tint to their skin, nor were their eyes black anymore. They looked like normal men and women. They were all different skin colors and sizes, seemingly from every corner of Háthgolthane. The last mutant they had been fighting when Beldar died had been injured, and as they had made a litter for their friend’s body, the monster regained consciousness. As it did so, this one with yellow plate-like scales, two sets of horns on its head, and two sets of tusks in its mouth, melted away into a rather small man with beady little eyes and a bald head. The scales fell all around him, like a snake shedding its skin. The man screamed and curled up into a ball, obviously afraid of what fate might now face him. When nothing happened, he got up and ran away.
The men and women, no longer possessed, looked about in a daze. They seemed to have no clue where they were or what had happened. Through his sadness at another death, Erik tried to smile as he looked to each one of them, free from their mental bondage.
“I don’t always know why you do what you do, but look at these people. Look at this place,” said Bryon, walking up to Erik and putting a hand on his cousin’s shoulder.
Indeed, those who were once possessed began to recognize others. They embraced and laughed and cried. Even those who had died had reverted to their original form, and though they became a source of sorrow, Erik could sense relief as their loved ones cried over them. They were free as well. Even the keep began to change. The blackness of the stone washed away, leaving the bright gray of freshly shorn rock. There had been no windows in the tower, and now many openings, allowing in cool air and sunlight, appeared in the walls.
Once he stepped foot onto the ice-cold tundra, Specter could feel this place was full of magic. Even the natural, mystical essence of enchantment, something that reminded the assassin of the elves and made him think of the ice bridge, had been infected and twisted by something dark, the mad wizard no doubt. Specter didn’t care, but it changed the feel of the magic, the taste even. As Specter made his way towards the keep of Fealmynster, he could feel it in his skin and bones. He didn’t need a map.
This wizard, Sustenon, was truly a powerful mage to be able to infect a place so significantly. He wasn’t some simple mad experimenter. Specter didn’t kno
w much about the man, but to infect the land and curse the natural magic of a place—especially if that originated from the elves—took strength and much experience in the dark arts. No simple mage at all. This man was a mighty necromancer, but he had been trained by an even mightier one.
As evening fell, he felt a surge of magic. It might have been the same way an animal could sense when the weather was changing, or a storm was coming. If it was possible, the necromancer of Fealmynster’s magic had grown even stronger, spreading out over the land like a wave. It washed over the Isutan assassin, and he felt stronger as the black magic hit him, but then something strange happened. His strength waned, and he became dizzy. His thoughts were jumbled and, even though his own power was still there, he couldn’t access it. His feet were unsure, and he had to hold out his hands to steady himself.
What, by the gods?
He blinked, his vision blurry, and he tried to breathe deep even though he couldn’t. It wasn’t like the ice bridge, where the elvish magic literally stole his power away. No. His power was still there; he just couldn’t summon it. The cold bit at his skin, where it had not affected him before. He felt the aches and pains of life, of an old worn-out body, and then … it was gone.
Specter turned his hand ethereal, just to make sure he could still access his power; it worked although he felt drained and tired, so he materialized his flesh quickly. He needed to rest. He needed to feed.
He saw the keep ahead, its shape more distinct as it glowed in blue magic. Something was happening. Should he go ahead and investigate? He’d maybe find some sustenance, but Specter decided to wait. He let the night pass him by, moving more slowly towards Fealmynster, careful to feel the ebbs and flows of necromantic magic around him. Then, as the new day took hold with a rising sun that brought an almost inaccessible warmth, there was another surge of magic. It washed over Specter like before, but this time he lost none of his power.
Dragon Sword: Demon's Fire Book 1 Page 37
