When Dragons Die- The Complete Trilogy Box Set

by K. Scott Lewis

  Aradma and Tiberan

  One by one, Aradma’s friends passed to old age through the years. Attaris first, and then Yinkle. Odoune and Suleima came later, and Aradma and Oriand mourned their loss.

  Oriand made it her life’s work to establish nonmagical children’s schools throughout the Nine Realms, dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge rather than power. She convinced the Realms to establish libraries in every major city and train and pay professors to teach. The schools and libraries called themselves Oriand’s Legacy.

  Thirty years after the Turning, Oriand passed from the world at the age of seventy-five. Aradma grieved, and all three of her daughters, Fernwalker, Naiadne, and Meara, mourned at her funeral.

  And then Aradma left Artalon for a time, leaving it in Fernwalker’s hands. She flew the world as a falcon for over thirty more years, observing the unfolding of life and new civilization. She did not withdraw completely, never losing contact with her daughters. She rarely challenged sovereign authority, understanding that life, including the evolution of thought, was an organic process. Aradma’s purpose was neither universal peace nor the cessation of all suffering.

  Her purpose was growth.

  * * *

  Keira lived to ninety, growing older as Tiberan remained youthful, but it mattered not to him. His two sons had grown to become Glavlunder hunters, with children of their own. The orange dragons bonded with the tribe, and the Glavlunders grew as a tribe of dragon riders, ruling the frozen north. Tiberan could not have asked for a happier life.

  Keira passed quietly in her ninetieth year, and Tiberan grieved. He and his sons took her body to Artalon, to be buried next to Oriand as she had requested. She and Oriand had become close friends in the years after the Turning, and Keira wanted to be buried according to her childhood tradition in the style of the northern realms: in a cemetery with a gravestone marking where her body returned to the earth.

  In her honor, Glavalunders came on dragonback to her funeral. They spoke of the elder woman of two souls, who knew the hearts of both hunters and hearthmakers. They shed tears even as they celebrated her life. She had become the hearthmother and huntmaster of the tribe in her latter years, and they sang songs with her name to preserve her memory for generations to come.

  After her body was lowered into the ground, people slowly departed one by one. At the end, Aradma left Tiberan alone as he grieved the loss of his wife.

  Tiberan departed with Kreen and withdrew into solitude for a time, just as Aradma had done after Oriand’s death. He journeyed the world, exploring the forgotten frontiers far away from civilization.

  When he returned a year later, he gathered his sons and gave them counsel. He told them for the sake of the Glavlunder tribe they must only live one lifetime among the humans. Seelie men could only father seelie sons with human mates, and they would live for centuries. If they continued to take Glavlunder wife after Glavlunder wife, the tribe would die out.

  He asked his sons to follow his example and pass the tradition to their sons: that each seelie male in the Glavlunder tribe take one wife, and one wife only. When the passage of time claimed her for the Halls of Ancestors, they were to withdraw and join their cousins in Artalon, so that the tribe might continue into future generations.

  A year and a day after Keira’s death, Tiberan returned to Artalon. Kreen landed at the gates of the cemetery, and he walked into the garden. The bushes and vines flowed with clarity of purpose in natural lines. Nothing looked cut, chopped, or engineered, but the manner in which the greenery flowed and separated grave sites into discrete private alcoves was too perfect to be wild chance.

  Tiberan walked beneath the trees, and tall bushes provided peaceful walls between which butterflies played. He came to a quiet, unassuming clearing where swaying sunbeams fell through breeze-touched leaves.

  Side by side stood two gravestones, one of white obsidian from the Ice Mountains, as white as the snowy slopes of Glavlund, and the other of the darkest glass obsidian from Vemnai.

  The black stone read:

  Oriand

  T.A. 11,038 - 11,113

  Loving Companion, Loyal Seeker of Truth

  Whose Legacy Will Forever Illumine Ahmbren’s Minds

  The white stone read:

  Keira

  T.A. 11,054 - 11,144

  Mother, Wife, Lover

  Whose Hearthfire Will Forever Warm the North

  Tiberan stood quietly before them.

  * * *

  Aradma found Tiberan in the grove, standing serenely with a soft smile as he gazed upon the gravestones. She walked softly up beside him and slipped her fingers into his hands.

  He squeezed her fingers and intertwined his hand with hers.

  “Their lives more than any other paid the price for us being… us,” Tiberan said.

  “Caught in the whirlwind,” Aradma murmured, “and loyal to the end.”

  Tiberan smiled softly. “After Oriand passed,” he said, “Keira told me to leave her and go to you. She said she was too old for me, and for love, and that I needed a younger woman.”

  Aradma grinned. “I’m not exactly younger.”

  Tiberan chuckled. “I wouldn’t leave her,” he said. “It didn’t matter to me that she had grown old. She was my best friend. I loved her.” His eyes watered. “I will miss her.”

  “I’m glad you never left her,” Aradma said. “I would have thought less of you. You would have forgotten the truth of your being.”

  “You had Oriand, and I Keira,” Tiberan murmured thoughtfully. “We both had Meara. Keira made her peace with that long ago, thanks in no small part to Odoune.”

  “She loved you,” Aradma said. “For her, love conquered all.” Then she smiled thoughtfully. “Odoune knew what it was to be caught between us. No one else could have helped her.”

  Tiberan nodded. “That’s why I called for him when she didn’t return. Only he had the wisdom to bring her back.”

  “Through all these years, you still bear the stag horns,” Aradma commented.

  “Keruhn transformed me,” he mused. “The gods left a real mark on the world.”

  Aradma squeezed his hand.

  A white owl glided from the nearby treetops and shifted into the form of an elven woman, short for a seelie. Strawberry-colored hair fell in a mound of frizzy curls, falling over her left eye. From a gap in her bangs, her right eye looked upon Tiberan with green intensity. Her cheeks shone pale blue, and she wore a thick white-feathered cloak.

  Tiberan couldn’t help but grin. “Meara,” he said. “It’s good to see you again.”

  “Hello, Papa,” Meara said, the light joy of her voice contrasting the intensity of her green-eyed stare. “It’s good to see you again. Will you make your home here now?”

  Beaming, he released Aradma’s hand and approached his daughter. “I’ve watched you grow through the years,” he said, “but I was always sad to leave you.”

  Meara reached up and touched the base of his antlers briefly, studying them with that same intense gaze. She nodded once, as if satisfied, and threw her arms around the elven man, closing her eyes and pressing her face to his chest. “Yes, Papa. I’m proud of everything you’ve done, for all of us. The Turning is over, and all debts paid. It’s time to come home now.”

  And again, Aradma wondered at her daughter but lay aside the question she told herself she would never ask.

  Tiberan looked up at Aradma over their daughter’s strawberry-blond head. “Fernwalker and Naiadne?”

  “They are well,” Aradma replied. “Fernwalker spends almost as much of her time in Vemnai as she does in Artalon. She often visits Naiadne in Erindil. She’s made amends with Arda and Anuit, especially since they were so important in helping Naiadne find balance. I see Naiadne from time to time, but she still prefers to keep her distance. The memories remain too recent for her. Arda trains her as a Kaldorite. Perhaps, in time, she will let me back into her life.”

  Meara let her father go. “It will take time
,” she said. “Naiadne paid the highest price of all of us.”

  All of us. There it is again. A strange way to put it for someone who wasn’t yet born.

  Tiberan shot Aradma a quizzical look, but she just smiled. Some things are best unspoken, she thought.

  “Will my brothers return here, too?” Meara asked.

  “In time,” Tiberan said. “When they’ve lived a full life in the north, they will retreat to Artalon, and leave room for their children to take their places in the tribe.”

  Meara took her father’s hand in her right and Aradma’s in the left. The three of them walked out of the grove hand in hand and made their way home to the garden city of Artalon.

  Afterword

  So what now?

  I’d always wanted to write an epic fantasy, and now that it’s written, where do we go from here? I’d like to continue writing stories in Ahmbren for a long time.

  The obvious backstory is the prequel about the childhoods and growth of Kaldor, Valkrage, and Sidhna as they learn about the Dragons inside them attempting to change them into avatars. In fact, this was the story I set out to write first and had gotten a few pages into it when I thought to myself, “Huh. What happened after the Black Dragon died?” I opened a new document to jot some notes down, and Aradma made lightfall on the slopes of the Windmane Mountains. What was intended to be a “write something down lest I forget it” expanded and became my obsession for three years.

  When Dragons Die is only the beginning of Ahmbren’s Steam Age, and there’s potential for much more to follow. Artalon remains a neutral haven for free thinkers, but Hammerfold is still a kingship. Roenti is decimated wasteland, frontier space ready for resettlement. Astia is firmly in the grips of the Covenant, and Count Markus is there to stay as a political leader for years to come. And there are the Dark and Light paladins, working to keep the world safe from the nebulous threat of Those Who Dwell Beyond. I also am intrigued about the rise and fall of the Darkling Empire, in the first Artalon, taking us back to pre-high fantasy to a more Bronze Age, swords-and-sandals-themed fantasy.

  There are many possibilities. The primary stories of Aradma, Arda, Anuit, and Tiberan have concluded, but I’m sure we’ll see those characters again, in some way. Aradma’s three daughters and Tiberan’s two sons will live many years, able to see how the world their parents shaped unfolds.

  And just because the gods are dead doesn’t mean religion dies. There will always be people of faith, from the benevolent Glavlunders who will continue to honor the memory of Keruhn and the Way of the Hearth, to pockets of fundamentalists who seek to use religion as a political tool of control, to more nefarious cults bents on making contact with Those Who Dwell Beyond in a misguided attempt to find “the true gods of the universe.”

  Ahmbren lives in the hearts and minds of its readers. Is there, then, a living Ahmbren?

  “No,” Anuit says.

  “Perhaps,” says Aradma.

  “I hope in one,” says Arda.

  ---

  Thanks for reading!

  If you’ve enjoyed this story, please consider leaving a review, even just a few words. Positive word-of-mouth is critical to any independent author’s success, and my gratitude for your kindness will far outlast the memories of this story. It would be a huge help!

  ---

  About the Author

  K. Scott Lewis has always had a passion for telling fantasy stories, but stopped writing for a time after graduation and the events of 9/11. He started writing again in 2010 as a means to pass the time during deployments to Afghanistan. His passion for world mythology, combined with overseas military service from Korea and Japan to Belgium and Afghanistan, has inspired depth in his fantasy world building, and Ahmbren has grown into an obsessive passion during his free time. K. Scott Lewis is the creator and author of The Ahmbren Chronicles books:

  Myth and Incarnation (Novel)

  When Dragons Die:

  Lightfall (Volume 1) (Novel)

  Covenant (Volume 2) (Novel)

  The Tides of Artalon (Volume 3) (Novel)

  Complete Me (Short Story)

  The Fisherman’s Daughter (Novella)

  To see a current list of Ahmbren books with links to all the available formats, visit the author’s website at www.ahmbren.com

  If you want to get an automatic email when his next book is released, sign up at eepurl.com/32HI9. You will only be contacted when a new book is released, your address will never be shared, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

  You can also follow him @kscottlewis on Twitter, The Ahmbren Chronicles on Facebook, or send an email to: kscottlewis@gmail.com

  Appendices

  Old Archurionite Mythology

  Before the God-King dominated the Archurionite Church, the Church believed in and worshipped many gods. The Dragon Archurion brought disparate beliefs of the world together during the First Age and revealed an underlying mythology concerning the interrelation of different peoples’ gods. An early version of the Archurionite Church formed but dissolved after the end of the First Age. By 800 in the Second Age, the Church had completely vanished, but the myths continued through many different, competing temple traditions, each with their own version. Runewardens and priests became relatively unimportant during the rise of the Darkling Empire until the end of the Second Age in the year 10,452 with the sinking of Artalon.

  When human civilization crumbled into fiefdoms, disparate temples rose in prominence, and the people turned to priests and runewardens. It wasn’t until 9668 of the Third Age that the Archurionite Church was formally reestablished with common doctrine between the Nine Realms.

  In 10,051 of the Third Age, Aaron raised Artalon from the depths of the sea and united the Nine Realms under one Empire. The next year, he declared himself the head of the Church. By 10,350, the Church taught that he was Karanos himself, returned to the pantheon, and it wasn’t until 10,351 that the worship of all other gods was outlawed.

  The mythology below reflects the common teachings of the Archurionite Church in the time immediately before Aaron’s rise to power—what Rajamin refers to as the Old Archurionite Church. The mythology presented here forms the basis of his Church of Light.

  There are three generations of gods. The first are the Elder Gods, who have neither beginning nor end. The second are the High Gods, children of the Elder Gods. The third are their children, the Younger Gods, and are only capable of giving birth to demons and lesser spirits. Creation of mortal races is understood to be a different act than giving birth to divine children. The gods below are listed in the Church’s accepted order of precedence.

  The Elder Gods

  Nephyr the Black Goddess—Goddess of Fate, Death, and Destruction. Opposes undeath. Goddess of Portals and Doorways. Dark Goddess of the Starry Expanse. The All-Mother. Goddess of personal will, joy, ecstasy, and possibility. Coequal with Daag.

  Daag the Good God—God of Time and Destiny. Transcendent Father God. Coequal with Nephyr.

  Modhrin the Lord of Storms—God of Mountains, Stone, the Depths, and Storms. Crafter God. Creator of the dwarven race. Also favored by humans with Athra and Keruhn.

  The High Gods

  Athra—Goddess of Wisdom and Civilization, Culture, Law, Justice, and Martial Skill. Co-creator of human race with Karanos.

  Karanos the Dead God (slain)—Dead solar God of Joy and Beauty, co-creator of human race. Slain by his chief servitor who became the god Yamosh. Now his light is scattered in shards across the cosmos. Karanos died before the rise of human civilization. Some believe that gathering the shards could lead to his resurrection, but not even the gods know if this is true. The Archurionite Church under the God-King teaches that Karanos’ remnants eventually coalesced in the mortal known as Aaron, for who but a god could slay the Black Dragon?

  Karanos the Resurrected God, Aaron—Karanos’ spirit was born to a mortal man, Aaron from Windbowl. The Three Archdragons were his messengers and surrendered their power to make Karanos whole in
the person of Aaron.

  Geala the Lady of Change—Goddess of the Seas, Travel, Nomads, and Trade. Goddess of Transformations and Initiations.

  Soorleyn—Goddess of the Moon, Love, Autumn, and Secret Magic. Sometimes seen as the goddess of tricksters and witches. Daughter of Nephyr. Creator goddess of the Otherworld. Co-creator of trolls with Rin.

  Malahkma—Goddess of Desire. Mother of Dragons. Cast into the Abyss by Athra. Malahkma’s direct children are the Archdragons. With Karanos, she bore Archurion. With Daag, she bore Eldrikura. With Rin, she bore Graelyn. With Yamosh, she bore Klrain.

  The Younger Gods

  Keruhn—Horned God of the Sun and Harvest, Knowledge, and Life. God of Compassion. The Consoler. Usually depicted wearing a solar disk and crowned with stag antlers on his head. Son of Athra and Karanos. Adopted human race upon Karanos’ death. Became Soorleyn’s consort.

  Lorum—God of Magic and Learning, Knowledge, and Wisdom. God of historians, archivists, alchemists, and wizards. Son of Serin and Athra.

  Rin—Goddess of Nature and the Untamed Wilds. Antithesis of Athra. Co-creator of orcs with Voldun. Co-creator of trolls with Soorleyn.

  Serin—God of Art, Beauty, Inspiration, Prophecy, and Magic. Son of Soorleyn. Creator god of the Fae as artistic embodiments of human and other natural races.

  Sestra—Goddess of Murder, Assassins, Spies, Black Magic, Spiders.

  Yamosh—God of Evil, Debts, Power, and Tyranny. Was the chief servitor of Karanos. He became a god by slaying his creator.

  Voldun—God of War, Conquest, Conflict, and Glory. Co-creator of the orcs with Rin.