Dragons' Fall_Tales from the Mirror Worlds

by James Calbraith

  “Garoud’s wish,” the Angel answered in a tone the priests used when they spoke of the Will of God. “You are to fly to Anelai by your own strength. To face Him as we face Him, like an equal.”

  “It hurts!” he complained.

  “It’s your own fault. If your skin wasn’t so damn tough…”

  A great shadow fell upon the raft city. Garoud was approaching on the northern wind.

  “Stand up,” the Angel’s foot nudged him, impatiently. “You must learn how to use your wings by the next Passing.”

  He followed the Angel’s lead into the dazzling bright skies, and then higher, until the air grew too thin for his wings. Despite the arduous training under the Angel’s guidance, he was still unused to their presence, and to the winds and the air currents he had to learn how to control.

  He spotted an updraft that took him higher, through the moist, cool clouds. The flight was exhilarating, and he wanted to enjoy more of it, but then noticed that both the Angel and Garoud above him were soaring away at great speed.

  From the surface, the dragon seemed to float lazily on the currents, but that was just an illusion caused by his immense size. In reality, the Dragon Knight had to strain to keep up.

  He flew past the swarms of birds — millions of them, an uncountable multitude of life; and then past the dragons; magnificent creatures he had no more desire to slay. Underneath Garoud’s wings the air grew dense again, and a whirlwind grabbed him forcefully and carried him still further upward; he lost control: the current was taking him straight at the outstretched wing, which covered half of the sky. He braced for an impact.

  There was none; instead, he found himself in a moist foam, thin enough to breathe. The updraft still carried him up, for hours, in a wet, cold darkness. At last, he emerged on the other side, dazzled by the sunlight. He wiped his teary eyes and looked down. He knew only the very few were allowed to see what he was now seeing: Garoud’s back.

  Between the dragon’s mountain-like shoulder blades, the Angels had built a city, Anelai. A city of clouds, with all its buildings hovering in the air like balloons, tethered to the dragon’s bumpy skin with lines and hooks. It spanned miles in every direction; a chaotic collection of flying towers and palaces, a city without streets or squares, but with grand avenues of Chuakk trees between gardens that hung in many layers and waterfalls of flowers.

  His guide led him to a round platform of white stone, surrounded by orb-shaped dwellings.

  “What now?” he asked.

  “You can wait in one of these houses,” the Angel replied, “until you are summoned again. You will be provided with everything you need.”

  Another wait?

  “It shouldn’t be long,” the Angel smiled, and in this smile, for the first time an honest one, the Dragon Knight finally recognized him.

  “You’re Ennaki,” he said.

  “They call me Ennaiel here,” replied the other with a slight nod.

  “Queen Espe mentioned your name.”

  “Espe…” a shadow marred his fair face.

  “You were together? After what you did to her people?”

  “What you made me do.” His eyes lost their benevolent dazzle. Then he shrugged. “When you’re immortal, you have an eternity to forget... and forgive. Yes, we ruled the dwarves as a royal couple for a few millennia.”

  “She said you returned home.”

  “This is my home,” Ennaiel said, waving his arms.

  “This is Rizniel’s world?”

  “Don’t you recognize it, knight? This, too, is your doing. After Rizniel died, the ice melted, and water covered the planet, just as you predicted. While we hunted your dragons, the descendants of my people turned into the Sea Dwellers… others evolved into Angels. I met some of them as slaves of Nivar. That’s when I first learned of what happened here.”

  The Master walked to the edge of the platform and looked down. The rays of the sun reflecting off the waves of the sapphire sea twinkled playfully through the dragon’s grey wings.

  He grasped the immensity of his achievements for the first time. How many worlds had he left dead in his wake? How many transformed out of any recognition, like the one below? How many lives destroyed for the sake of his quest? He felt an odd sense of pride.

  A God, they called me. Am I not like Garoud himself?

  “Still feeling no shame?” A booming voice roared in his head. “You dare compare yourself to me, little man?”

  “Garoud?” He spoke out loud. Ennaki stared at him, startled.

  “You think you can handle being a God? Let me show you how a God sees the world.”

  For a flash, he saw the entire tapestry of Fates and Lives, the futures and past of millions; worlds, reflected in the mirrors spinning around each other in the branches of the Great Tree; the entire multiverse; darkness, light, and shades of grey in between; wars, deaths, births, joys and sorrows…

  He felt sick, and doubled down, retching. His head was pounding, his heart tried to break free from his ribcage.

  “Enough!” he cried. The vision disappeared.

  “Every second of every minute, this is what I see,” said Garoud. “Do you think it’s fun, playing with destinies? Making sure the threads of Fate untangle properly? It is exhausting, even for a God like me. Would you like to take my place?”

  “No, I — ”

  “But isn’t that why you have come here? To slay me and gain my power, to add them to everything else you have accomplished; to finally finish what you started all those thousands of years ago?”

  “I… don’t know.”

  “You are ready. Ennaiel!” The voice shook the air. The Angel dropped to his knees. “Bring him to the Chamber of Questions.”

  The Chamber was a round hall so big it’s curved walls disappeared in the shadows; it was filled with pilgrims, all dressed in black, who shuffled around the walls in eerie silence – only the sound made by their feet could be heard — from one tubular opening in the wall to another, each hoping to finally hear the answer to their Question.

  “Do I have to join them?” the Dragon Knight asked, weary of waiting.

  “No,” replied Ennaiel. “You have been chosen by Garoud.”

  They landed on a raised dais in the middle of the floor. The black crowd around them did not even stir, not sparing them a glance, careful not to miss a word whispered by the dragon in their ears.

  “Tell me, Ennaki,” the Master said, “why didn’t you stay on Niðavellir? With Espe?”

  “Haven’t you seen what she had become?” Ennaiel shook his head. “I loved her, yes, but… you stood between us, always. There was one thing she could never forget: that she did not get a chance to kill you. She wanted to release you from the lava dome and fight you as an equal, yet we both knew that duel would never end. I could not stand to see her descend into madness, and I could do nothing to help her.”

  “But – why return here? I know this was once your home, but it was so long ago, and you had so many worlds to choose from… Why become an Angel? Why serve Garoud?”

  “I do not serve him. Like I did not serve you. Remember? There was no contract between us, I was always free to go. I wanted to stay by your side…”

  “And now you want to stay by his?”

  “Garoud is old. Nobody knows how old. And he’s tired. All the Angels want is to help him in his suffering.”

  “That is not the answer.”

  “It is an answer.”

  The floor shimmered beneath his feet, and the Chamber, and all the people in it, flickered and began to vanish.

  “You are being summoned,” said Ennaki. “I envy you.”

  “Do you think we will see each other again?” the Dragon Knight asked.

  “I’m sure of it,” the Angel replied with a smile. “The threads of those who meet on the Water remain tangled forever.”

  “Bring her here,” the Master said, disappearing. “Heal her mind. You two deserve each other.”

  He was standing
on a narrow gravel road, running over a causeway from nowhere to nowhere; around him was a steel-blue void through which lightning strikes wandered in radial bursts.

  A tall Angel stood in front of him, with blue hair and grey wings. He held a long, curving sword, burning bright red with heat.

  “Where am I?” the knight asked.

  “Inside my mind,” the Angel answered.

  “You are Garoud?”

  “It is a form I use to travel between worlds. My real body is a bit… unwieldy.”

  “The Angels…”

  “I allowed them to shape themselves in my image when I first arrived here.”

  “Why did you bring me to this place?”

  The Angel did not reply: he lunged forward and slashed him in the shoulder with his sword. The Dragon Knight, used to his immortality, did not flinch to dodge the blow. But to his surprise, blood continued to spurt from the wound. The injury did not heal.

  “Enough small questions!” Garoud declared.

  “What’s — ”

  “I said, enough!” the Angel cut again.

  This time the knight jumped away. His sword appeared in his hand.

  “A touch of this blade would destroy a mere mortal,” explained Garoud. “Remove him from existence. On you, however, it will work like normal steel. You better defend yourself if you don’t wish to die!”

  The dragon struck again. The knight parried the blow effortlessly.

  “I did not come all this way to be killed by you,” he said.

  “Didn’t you? Why did you come here, then?” Garoud mocked.

  “I thought you were supposed to give me answers, not more questions.”

  The blades clashed repeatedly. Garoud was a poor fencer, but his strength and speed made up for the lack of technique; the knight had not fought a worthy opponent in millennia, and his sword arm was more than rusty. Soon, however — how soon, he didn’t know as he’d lost track of time in the blue mist — he began to gain the upper hand.

  “Then ask me,” said Garoud, dodging a feinted thrust. “Ask your Question.”

  The knight stopped mid-fight, panting. It’d been a long time since he got tired in the middle of a fight.

  “Who Am I?” he asked, and the words echoed through the void, sparking a wave of lightning bolts in the fog.

  Garoud stopped also. On him, the effort of the duel left no trace. “You are the Dragonsbane. You are the Garoud-Slayer.”

  “Garoud-Slayer?”

  The dragon smiled. “I created you, in the mines of Nivar,” he said. “I found you among the slaves of the Abyss.”

  “Who was I?”

  “It doesn’t matter. A minor prince on some back-water planet. You forgot your own name long before I got to you. But your spirit was exceptionally bright, burning with revenge. Your mind was pliable, and your soul willing. I filled your head with knowledge and set you out on the path.”

  New questions buzzed in his head. He felt dizzy. “And what of the Prophecy? Was that false as well?”

  “Oh, no, the Prophecy was quite true. It just didn’t concern you. He Who Does Not Bear the Helmet had truly arrived, some time after your… incident on Niðavellir. He had even come here, once… and then went off to fight on the Old Earth to the very end. He’s still there, for all I know.”

  “Then why…? What was the point of all this?”

  “Haven’t you guessed yet?”

  “You want me to slay you,” the knight realized, stunned. It was the only possible explanation, and yet the truth still evaded him. Slay Garoud? He no longer thought it possible. How do you kill wind? How do you murder a cloud?

  “Of course it’s not easy,” the dragon read his mind, “otherwise I would’ve done it myself years ago.”

  “You… wanted to die?”

  “I am old, Dragonsbane. Unfathomably so. You may think me eternal, but even I have a beginning — and every thing that has a beginning, has also an end. I am the first of my kind — the Great Dragons — and it fits that I’d be the last to go.”

  “Then it’s true. All the Great Dragons perished.”

  Garoud nodded sadly. “Not all died in the War, but eventually, even those who survived couldn’t stand the new world, a world we dragons no longer belonged to. Even my mate... Don’t look so shocked — yes, there were two of us, Wisdom and Mercy, the greatest of all dragons. But Mercy could not bear to see her children die, and went to the Old Earth to try and save them all… she died when she reached the no-magic barrier. Her poor heart simply could not sustain such a great body.”

  “You knew all this would happen.”

  “Yes. I see all threads of Fate, past and future. But I cannot account for everything. I was hoping you’d arrive here much earlier, that I wouldn’t have to suffer for so long.”

  “I was betrayed.”

  “Indeed. Poor Ennaiel repaid for this mischief with long and faithful service.”

  The Dragon Knight raised his sword again. “And is this how I repay for mine?”

  Garoud laughed. “You destroyed billions! Your deeds may be forgotten, but they will never be forgiven.”

  “You made me do it!”

  His own words rang falsely in his ears.

  Strange. It sounded so true when Ennaki said it…

  “I had only given you purpose. How you went about it… that was all your own choice.”

  The knight grew impatient and angry. He had enough of the dragon’s puzzles.

  “If you want to die, why not simply give in to my blade?” he cried.

  The Angel smiled again, and also raised his weapon. It burned even brighter.

  “I told you, it’s not easy to kill me. You don’t live as long as I do without growing a strong immune system. All of this,” he waved his arm around, “is just the first line of defence.”

  He struck out, and renewed the duel with even greater ferocity. The conversation, for now, was over.

  He opened his eyes and, for a moment, he thought he was hovering in the air. It took him a few seconds to realize he was falling — towards the ocean below.

  He remembered the final few seconds of the duel; summoning all his strength and skill, he managed to break through the grey-winged Angel’s parry and strike straight at his heart. Black blood stained his sword, and a vision flashed in his mind, the complex pattern of a spell — and then everything vanished, and he found himself on the dragon’s back, on the outskirts of the flying city.

  Then the dragons attacked — blue, silver, and white, coming at him from all sides, crazed with fear for their God and master, and fury at the blasphemer who dared to harm him. He slaughtered them all, and they all fell into the sea like scorched leaves from a burning forest.

  An army of Angels came marching from Anelai; he was already weary, but he stood against them, too, and laid waste to entire hosts of the winged warriors until his sword-arm was numb, and his body caked with dried blood. The city crumbled beneath his feet as the last of the Angels lay dead. He fell through the cracks in a dazed stupor. He had been falling ever since.

  Below him, the floating cities attending the gathering of the sea people had been transformed; they had grown in size, the buildings changed shape and style. There were iron-clad ships in the harbour where there hadn’t been any, and they bore unfamiliar banners.

  “We were fighting for a hundred years, Dragonsbane,” the voice boomed in his mind.

  Above him, Garoud soared, majestic and incomprehensible as always. The dragon’s eyes, like two dark moons, were looking straight at him, but they were dimmed with blood-red mist, as if eclipsed.

  “Finish what you started,” the dragon pleaded.

  The knight flapped his wings — he still had them, thankfully — to stabilize his flight. He began to gather all the magic dwelling inside his body; the glimpse into Garoud’s mind as he stabbed the blue-haired Angel had given him one last piece of the puzzle: the killing spell. It required all the dragon hearts to work together. He would lose all that he had
spent so long gathering: invulnerability, invisibility, even immortality… in one final blow.

  It is my destiny, he remembered. Nothing matters after this.

  He aimed the tip of his sword at the spot where he thought was the dragon’s heart. He dared not even think how big it was — the size of a mountain? An island? A continent? Size didn’t matter. His spell had the combined power of eleven dragon hearts; it could slice through a planet.

  “Arhheah!”

  The beaming ray of light was disappointingly narrow, almost underwhelming. It pierced the dragon’s cloudy flesh and vanished into the night sky, a faint beacon. For a moment nothing happened, then, it was as if a shudder went through the world; a soft sigh of wonder and regret.

  “Thank you,” the dragon said.

  “You’re still alive?”

  “Did you think a God would die in an instant?” Garoud chuckled. “My heart stopped beating, but it will take a while for my mind to register that fact.”

  “Then how do you know — ” he began, before guessing the answer. Of course, he knew. He had known this since he was born.

  “What do I do now?” he asked.

  “I’m afraid I can’t answer any more questions.”

  “But I did all I was created to do. I have nothing left to live for.”

  Suddenly he felt very old and tired, and all his wounds began to ache. The skin on his hands returned to its original, pale ivory colour; it wrinkled and dried out. He was mortal again, and his years were catching up to him.

  “You have everything left to live for,” the dragon smiled, and the sky brightened. His wings were beginning to dissipate; the sun shone through them, dazzling and new. “Just like them. Look.”

  The last of the Dragon Knights gazed down and saw an Angel flying towards him. He grasped the sword, ready to defend himself, despite the exhaustion, before noticing that the Angel was carrying in his arms a slender woman with long, dark hair.

  “They are here because of you,” said Garoud. His voice was growing quieter and softer with every word. “And now they have come here for you.”

  For me…?

  “Something new is coming,” the dragon added, and the knight spotted a small bump growing under Queen Espe’s robe. “Something I can no longer foresee.”