Asaph closed his eyes. ‘There are true dragons that live still. I can feel them in the dragon blood that flows in me, but they are distant, hidden, sleeping as if in stasis.’
‘They know that to reveal themselves means their own death, for they cannot possibly face Baelthrom,’ Coronos said. ‘Who knows how many still live deep in their lairs? But it will not be many and they are weak, just as the binding between dragon and man is now weak. Maybe you can re-forge that bond somehow. Still, you should have told me. I could at least have taught you how to fly rather than that pathetic flapping you did earlier. Nearly got us both killed,’ Coronos scolded. Asaph barked a laugh and winced in pain.
‘You know how to fly?’ he rasped.
‘No, I do not know how to fly, for I am not a Dragon Lord. But, as you know, I was a Dragon Rider, and have flown atop many dragons to know something of the art. If we had defeated the Maphraxies, you would have been trained along with the other Dragon Lords, and you would have excelled. In the absence of all that should have been normal for you, I do understand your fear of your dragon-self. I’m sorry I wasn’t able to help sooner,’ he said and reached over to touch the younger man’s shoulder.
Asaph half-smiled. ‘You know I’m not in control of it, the change. Sometimes when I want to change it won’t happen, and other times it’s all I can do to keep wings from spurting out my back.’
‘That’s what the training would have given you, control, power, strength. How you will learn now I know not,’ Coronos shook his head as he puffed on his pipe.
After a while, Coronos seemed to brighten as if his deep thoughts had become lighter, and he murmured to himself, though Asaph could only pick up the word ‘golden.’
‘Pah,’ Coronos laughed out loud, making Asaph jump and grimace in pain.
‘What’s so funny?’ he scowled, rubbing his aching ribs.
‘Never have I seen such a big dragon, almost as big as a Dread Dragon. No dragon or Dragon Lord that I’ve heard of has ever been golden in colour.’ Coronos was beaming at him, all lines of fret and worry gone from his sparkling eyes. ‘Your mother had been burnished orange, like the setting sun. Most others are blue, green and silver and all shades in between.’
‘What’s so special about gold?’ Asaph said. He reached back into the Recollection for images of golden dragons but found none.
‘Gold is special, a colour cherished by dragons, for it is the colour of their beloved gold, the colour of the sun and the goddess Feygriene. Blessed by the Sun Goddess herself,’ Coronos said as if speaking a spell. ‘You know I felt your change from man to dragon? Within the Flow, I felt the ripple of dragon magic move through me. It reminded me of the old promise of unity - the Great Binding of man to dragon and peace between them.’
Asaph smiled, glad to have pleased his father, but also bemused as to what it all meant. After a time, a more pressing question formed in his mind.
‘How indeed did we escape Keteth?’
‘Through the orb’s magic, we escaped, just. It was hard to harness its power whilst Keteth was drawing all the magic to him. The orb’s power was so strong, it will have been felt far and wide by friend and foe. That coupled with you revealing your dragon form. We dare not linger here, although we sorely need rest.’
He took a final puff on the remnants of his pipe and set it down, frowning as he scanned the thick line of trees ahead. ‘We’ll stay here tonight, but then we must be off. We can buy horses at the next village to speed our journey. If we stay in one place too long, Baelthrom’s Life Seekers will find us. We don’t want to meet a Dromoorai hunting for its missing brother.
‘The spies of Baelthrom, the Empty Ones, slink through the shadows in their formless mass, finding, infecting and inhabiting any living thing,’ Coronos spoke his thoughts aloud. ‘They have no form of their own, for they are devoid of a material body. Their twisted essence moves amongst living things, infecting even the trees. They feed on those unwitting bodies they enter, destroying the mind and filling it with their own. Once inhabited the metamorphosis is quick, irreversible, becoming foltoy, death hound, or some other false life.’ Asaph shivered at the thought.
‘Once the body is spent, its life force eaten up, the Empty Ones leave the rotten husk, becoming formless once more until they find another body from which to drain life. The Maphraxies may look different, whether clever Dromoorai or brainless death hound, but their function is the same, to seek out life, destroy it, and replace it with false life.’
Asaph sighed inwardly, feeling hopeless. It seemed Baelthrom’s resourcefulness was infinite, his reach of power immense and his ambition ruthless. With some effort, he forced aside thoughts of the Maphraxies.
‘I didn’t know the orb had such power,’ Asaph said. He had never seen it glow as bright as it did when Coronos held it aloft before Keteth, or felt such power when its light engulfed him. Coronos glanced around, then slipped the orb out of its pouch and held it in his lap. Its swirling grey surface was a mirror of the sky above.
‘Much of what we know of the orbs has been lost. It’s so strong I find its power terribly draining. The Ancients created them, but despite their great knowledge even they never fully understood the extent of the orbs’ power. The orbs are not the actual power itself, but a gateway to it, a portal through which a greater power can be channelled.
‘In total six orbs were created by the most powerful sorcerers Maioria has ever known. They were formed from the primordial elements that are the essence of Maioria, splitting the energy that binds us into its constituent parts so that no one being could access all the power at once. It was meant to keep peace and the balance of power equal between all the races of Maioria, and to keep such power from Baelthrom’s grasp. Without access to the magic that was the essence of Maioria, Baelthrom had no power over it.
‘A long time ago, when the war against Baelthrom was happening on distant shores and had little to do with proud indomitable Drax, I spent many years studying it. Its Keeper before me, as all the orb protectorates are called, dared hardly to look at it and kept it hidden away like his master before him. Had I not studied it, I would not have been able to do what I did back there to save us, but that is pretty much the limit of my knowledge.
‘I discovered that, if handled correctly, one could use it to carry the body through air, the medium from which it was crafted. I willed for you and me to reach the nearest shore, and so it brought us here, through the air,’ he laughed aloud and clapped. ‘I had no idea if it would work, or how safe it would be, but we had no choice.’ Coronos grinned and tugged on his white beard.
Asaph smiled. ‘We made it and that’s all that matters,’ he said, sounding frailer than he’d hoped.
In the ensuing silence, Asaph rested, watching Coronos through half-lids as the older man pondered.
Coronos watched the young man slumber. He had always suspected the boy kept his gift hidden and besides, even if he was not a Dragon Lord, no son of one of the greatest Dragon Lords could be born without some power. He had wanted the boy to come to him about his abilities of his own free will, and so he had not pressured him. But now he knew what could he do? What could he ever have done? He worried for the boy as any father might.
No, Asaph was a man and a child no longer, he reminded himself. Asaph was twenty-five, but still a young man in Draxian years. Who could help the young Dragon Lord now? Who was there to train him? He was well past the time the normal training would have commenced. There must be another way to teach him. He would have to find one, lest Asaph destroy himself and those around him.
Asaph would always be young in his eyes, but he, however, was old even for a Draxian, and each day his strength waned and his bones ached a little more. I am well into my second century and he has barely begun his first. He laughed inwardly at himself, how quickly time passed. And what of the young woman? Often he wondered about Asaph’s dreams of her. Sometimes Asaph spoke in his sleep, face covered in sweat, hands reaching to grasp or catch somethi
ng Coronos could not see. Now Asaph’s dreams had become a reality, they had found her and Coronos was afraid.
She was surely younger than Asaph, though not by much. She was too pale and dark-haired to be a Draxian, but her height and her eyes… she was more elfin than human. He could feel an ancient power around her whenever she was near, it was both soothing and unsettling, and she was completely unaware of it. He also felt a deep sadness within her as if she drifted somewhere between life and death. Surviving not living, always running from those who hunted her. But now what fate did they all face?
‘Are you all right, Father?’ Asaph asked, giving Coronos a start.
‘Yes, I…’ he shook his head and seemed sad. ‘I was thinking. I wish the past were different, I wish for a lot of things that cannot be. But I guess we can only do what we can, the Great Goddess cannot expect more. I feel the tides of change sweeping across Maioria and none can escape it. The dark moon rising heralds this change, and now the girl inaugurates it.’ He looked at Asaph. ‘Every day, try to search for those other dragons you feel, be ever alert for their presence.’
‘I feel them, but they seem so far away,’ Asaph said.
‘We must get closer to Drax where the bond will be stronger. I can think of no other way to help you as a Dragon Lord.’ Coronos lowered his voice, ‘It is a dream of mine, a fervent desperate hope, that we will defeat the Maphraxies and restore Drax to its former glory. Only then will justice be delivered, only then can we know peace.’ Coronos sighed and tucked away his cold pipe. He stood up and set about making a rough bed of leaves, then eased his stiff body down to lying.
‘A night’s rest and no more, we must be off at first light. I would leave this place now if I could, but you need longer for your wounds. The herbs I used are the best I could find in this place. Perhaps the orb can help us again in some way, though I dare not use it so soon after the last, and I’m still weak from it.’
The wind had dropped, though clouds remained that blocked out the stars. It would be a dark night, which would blessedly hide their presence.
‘Sometimes I can feel her faintly through my mother’s ring, but not now, she must be far away. How can we be sure she is safe?’ Asaph said, his face was pale. ‘I did not spend my whole life dreaming of her and risking my life in the Shadowlands to lose her now.’
‘When I feel it is safe, I will scry with the orb,’ Coronos said, opening his eyes and staring at the dancing fire. ‘The Wykiry will have taken her to safety, and of all the creatures in this world, it’s the Wykiry alone who can elude Keteth. Remember it was he that caused their fall when he stole their Orb of Water. Never again will they allow him to take from them.
‘Beyond that, we must trust in the goddess. Have faith, Issa is stronger than either of us know.’ Coronos laughed inwardly, hearing the same words he had used to comfort himself when Asaph entered the Shadowlands alone. He closed his eyes again and muttered, ‘I am sure the dark moon rises with her.’
Sleep was a while in coming for Asaph, lost as he was in unhappy thoughts. He felt as Coronos did and longed to return to his homeland, for the fall of Baelthrom and the destruction of his Maphraxies. He wanted to be free of hiding, of not knowing who he was, and worse, being afraid of what he was. He felt as though he had been hiding his whole life.
He looked at his sword, it glistened blood red in the firelight. It had been Coronos’ once, but his father was ageing and had no use for it. It was old, but the blade was still un-notched, deadly sharp and perfectly balanced. It was a good sword. Once it had been a great sword, made great by the man who owned it.
Asaph pondered on Coronos’ words for a long time but found little comfort in them. He was too tired to control his racing mind filled with thoughts of her, longing only to have her near, to make sure she was safe. He stared into the fire, seeing not the orange flames, but a pale face framed by long dark hair. He prayed to Mother Feygriene to keep her safe. He pulled his cloak close, and finally drifted off to sleep, sinking into the depths of those sea-green eyes.
It was probably the poison in his veins that brought on a fevered sleep that made him toss and turn. The Recollection opened up before him in his dreams and he could not stop the things he always fled from, the last of his mother’s memories.
As he flew above the city he saw thousands of black armoured Maphraxies attacking the walls of Draxa. The dead and dying were strewn all about, the river ran red with blood. A trail of death and destruction stretched from their shores into the heart of the capital. Anger and repulsion made him shudder. He could almost smell the acrid stench of their rotting flesh and feel the twisted magic of the necromancers that flowed.
He tossed about under his cloak, ignoring the pain that shot up his side, even thankful for it.
Then he was within the castle, waiting for death to find him. His mother trembled with exhaustion from labour and fury, but she was not afraid, there would be no fear in her half-dragon heart. Taking her own life had never crossed her mind. It was dishonourable for Dragon Lords to shy away from death, they had to face it and fight unto the end.
Asaph smelt the stench of the Maphraxies long before they exploded into the room. His mother’s maids, all trained warriors, took down the first with their daggers. The Maphraxie sunk to the floor gurgling black blood.
Two more came, carelessly clambering over their fallen comrade, soulless eyes feverish with the dead light of the Sirin Derenax. Their grey skin was wrinkled and stretched over disfigured faces that nature itself would never allow. Bloodless lips curled back over broken teeth blackened from the deadly elixir. It was hard to believe they had been human once. The battle was swift, there were too many to fight and the last maid finally fell valiantly atop the other with a triumphant smile set eternally on her face.
Dark dwarves followed, crowding into the room, their faces sickeningly eager for spoils. They were not deformed or huge, but possessed an air of cruelty, of calculating wicked intelligence, and Asaph found he feared them more than the Maphraxies. But his fear of them was nothing compared to the building terror of the dark void that followed. The void spilled into the room and a dark shape materialised. From it laughter came and a freezing wind spread through the chamber.
‘Mighty Drax has fallen, my Queen, and all the Dragon Lords lie dead or bound,’ the voice scoured his ears. ‘Soon they will enter my service, immortal and twice as powerful.’
Pheonis trembled with rage and terror at the sight of the Immortal Lord filling the room. The light dimmed as if he sucked its energy dry. His torso was human yet twice the size of any man. His lower half was surely Saurian, a reptilian race who inhabited the swamps of Ostasia. Scaly skin covered heavily muscled legs, razor-sharp claws dug deep grooves into the wooden floor. A thick tail swayed lazily behind. Protruding from his back were two black wings like those of a demon.
His head was encased in a black metal helmet extending into three high points, the outer points curling in towards the centre like a crescent moon on its back pierced by the central one. From behind two triangular slits in his helmet glowed blue pupil-less eyes. They darkened until they were two black pits boring into her soul.
With all her will she tore her eyes from his and sagged. Baelthrom’s eyes blazed red with rage. With a motion of his hand, the dark dwarves dragged her from the birthing bed towards him. She cried out in pain from their groping grasping hands. Asaph tried to pull away, to awake from this terrible half-dream within the Recollection, but he could not.
Baelthrom’s burning eyes filled her vision as it did Asaph’s. Cold metal gauntlets crushed her fragile human form in a deathly embrace. Pain tore through her body, soul and mind as his magic of undoing entered all, took all, refusing even her sanity to remain for even her thoughts he plundered and ravaged. An eternity of agony stretched out before her.
In that darkness, an older, more powerful force grew, as unstoppable as breathing, as relentless as the ebb and flow of the tide, and she reached towards it. A door appeared befo
re her and upon it was carved a beautiful dragon head. She touched the door and it opened.
A figure cloaked in stars stood in the doorway and her pale luminous hands lifted back her hood. Asaph felt an outpouring of love from his mother, like a wave of warmth as she looked up into the face of the Night Goddess. Before he could see her face the Recollection snapped shut, jerking him awake. Asaph sat up wide-awake, and let out the breath he had been holding.
‘Oh Mother,’ he sobbed, shaking with emotion, fervently wishing that he had never left the Kuapoh, never left those rich and fertile lands, his friends and adopted family. But knew that when he’d accepted the quest to free Issa from the Shadowlands, he would not return. His only home was as far north as the Uncharted Lands were west. A place that was not warm and peaceful, but cold and rugged. A place where majestic snow-capped mountains reached high into the sky. Drax, how he longed to see it, to free it, to claim it.
The pain in his side forced him to lie back down and finally a dreamless sleep came.
Chapter 21
The Sacred Isle
IT was pain that first drew her attention—a terrible burning sensation in her back and shoulders. Pain. That was what it was to be alive, and her whole body was filled with it. The more she tried to ignore it, the worse it became until she could bear it no longer. It was a stark re-awaking to a living body that was no longer a wraith.
She sucked air into her parched mouth and filled her lungs with the rich scent of the ocean. It felt as if she was breathing for the first time. Was this what it was like to be born? Never had the air tasted so sweet, so unlike the stagnant air of the Shadowlands, and never had she felt so desperately thirsty.
Her mind wandered loosely, trying to make logical sense of events. She remembered Keteth and the huge golden serpent, but the purple lights came, and after that, darkness.
Night Goddess (The Goddess Prophecies Book 1) Page 21
