I Am Sorrow

by D. J Richter

  I Am Sorrow

  D.J. Richter

  I Am Sorrow

  Copyright 2011

  By Books to Go Now

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  First eBook Edition –August 2011

  Printed in the United States of America

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  This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to any person, living or dead, any place, events or occurrences, is purely coincidental. The characters and story lines are created from the author’s imagination and are used fictitiously.

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  I Am Sorrow

  “For in much wisdom is much grief: and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow.”- Ecclesiastes 1:18

  Ovid looked down at the many angular tops of the narrow stone skyscrapers that were clustered about the city of Menst.

  It seemed so funny now. Citizens of The New Kingdom of Sentreya spent a lot of time talking about safety. All that lies ahead is the safety of the Melodian Dawn, they’d say. But, what seemed like safety on ground level, from a dragon’s perspective looked like one giant three-and-a-half-square-mile threat. The city liked its buildings tall and showy and sharp. They were dozens of titanic spears raised expectantly toward the sky, as though they feared the wrath of the heavens.

  Yes, that sounded right. Sentreya was overdue for some wrath. That’s what they would call Neubane: The Wrath of The Heavens (the dark side of the heavens, anyway). All would tremble in fear whenever his terrible shadow fell upon the countryside.

  ...eventually.

  For now the Dym-delighted creature was proving rather resistant to, well, almost everything.

  Of course it couldn’t literally resist Ovid’s will. It did its best to circumvent it though. Ovid had a number of close calls when the dragon took a jab at him after he stopped actively willing it not to harm him. It was amazing how often his own safety happened to slip his mind. Of course, he was an Elsati, and like all Elsati, he learned quickly.

  Ovid tightened his hold on Neubane. They began to descend at a gradually steepening angle. After building up some momentum, Ovid gave them a terrific burst of speed by having the dragon partially fold up its wings.

  The Nagella were a very unique breed, even more so than Ovid first thought. Neubane had a total of three joints in each wing, rather than the usual one. This gave his wingspan two possible lengths: one unusually long, for increased flight stability, and one closer to that of an ordinary dragon, for better aerodynamics.

  They barreled toward the earth below. Neubane circled the city’s tallest tower, missing contact with it by inches. A split-second before reaching the ground he leveled out and extended his wings. He bobbed, tilted, and weaved his way through narrow spaces between dark, unwelcoming structures.

  Ovid was getting much better at this. The key was to let the dragon do all the work. At first this was difficult. It was tempting to over-think it, but every time he tried to tell Neubane how to fly he’d fall out of the sky faster than a flounder. The dragon was the one who knew how it was done. All Ovid had to do was will it in the direction he wanted to go.

  Speeding up toward the darkened clouds, Ovid noticed something peculiar.

  Was Neubane getting paler?

  No, it was getting clearer. He could see the city below, through its wings.

  A thin beam of bright yellow light peeked over the jade treetops to the east, catching Ovid’s eye.

  Oops... sunrise. The dragon was fading away.

  And now where Ovid had felt the slippery metallic surface of Neubane’s scales beneath him there was nothing but a chilling rush of wind.

  As he began to plummet, Ovid shouted “Hover”, but it was no use. The spell would have no effect at this height. He released a weary sigh and oriented himself into a diving position, scanning his trajectory below. He was en route to hit the side of a Sen Tower. Pointing his palm at the tip of its spire, he took in a deep breath, and waited. When he was almost touching it he yelled “Push”, and was instantly forced away from the building.

  But, of course, the magic worked too well in the hands of an Elsati. He had to use the spell again to keep from smashing into another building, and a third time to avoid the tower again. But then he happened to fly through an open window. He skidded across the floor, knocking over several wooden tables and taking a woman’s feet out from under her, before hitting the wall and coming to a stop.

  He groaned and got to his feet. He looked around at all the stunned faces in the crowded cafeteria.

  “What?” he barked, “You people never lost track of time before?”

  While the necessity of becoming nocturnal was certainly annoying, it was not the most troublesome aspect of training Neubane. More troublesome was the fact that the dragon evidently did not want to be trained. Ovid demonstrated dozens of maneuvers designed to help it survive, but the creature attempted none of them unless forced. True, these maneuvers were all very unnatural things for a dragon to do, but they were for its own good. How was Neubane supposed to know he was being shown these things for a reason? How does one convey to a beast that you’re trying to help it?

  Clearly the answer, if possible, was to speak to it. That was the most frustrating thing of all. No matter how many times he spoke to Neubane, Neubane would not speak back. The creature had spoken to him before. Why would it fall silent now that he was its master? Just to spite him?

  “Why do you ask ‘can the Nagella talk’?” said Arupaia, eyebrows raised quizzically, “I think it is clear that the answer is no. The Nagella are as they were imagined. That is why they fade out of existence during the day. They belong to the darkness of the night. When the Summoners conceived them, they were never imagined aside the daylight, just as they were never imagined to be able to speak.

  “However, if you mean to ask if I believe it to be beyond their power to learn, then the answer is no.”

  “But if they are as they were imagined, what makes you think they can learn to talk?”

  “Because the creation aught to be capable of learning nearly anything that the creator is able to learn.”

  “Why is that?”

  Arupaia frowned intensely. “It is a lonesome thought,” he said, “To be reminded that not even the Elsati are inclined to mind such matters.

  “As you well know, since the beginning of time all creatures have brought forth after their own kind. Beasts begat beasts; men begat men; dwarves begat dwarves. Never has a dwarf begat a man, or a man begat a beast. Everything after its own kind.

  “The same goes for the Summoners. Though the Summoners may have imagined a beast, they themselves were not beasts. They were not, in fact, so very unlike you and I.”

  Ovid narrowed his eyes and placed his index finger over his mouth. A moment later he shook it vigorously at Arupaia. “But you said the Summoners had Absolute Originality,” he said, “That they could imagine something completely unique.”

  “Absolute Originality allowed the Summoners to do what you and I never could: isolate their minds. Their imaginations were free from all external influences. They were not, how
ever, free from all internal influences. Therefore, they were incapable of creating something wholly unlike themselves. Intelligence will always beget intelligence. Though the Summoners intended to imagine a beast, their creations will always retain some small artifact of intelligence, and it is in the nature of intelligence to learn.

  “The Nagella certainly do many beastly things, and are, on the whole, very beast-like, but beneath their outer shell there ought to be a minute seed of intellect, which, if you can penetrate its mind, you may ultimately be able to nourish to the point that its sentient thoughts outweigh its animal instincts.”

  “And how exactly do I nourish its intellect when I can’t seem to teach it anything?” said Ovid, gritting his teeth in frustration, “Do I sing to it? Play it music? Give it a puzzle to solve? What!?!”

  “The answer lies in the specifics,” said Arupaia, “How does Neubane learn? You say he spoke to you once before, correct? ‘Nice try’, wasn’t it? Find out why he remembered those words and you may find your answer.”

  A typical interaction with a Guardian ended with the typical frustration. It had been educational, informative, and most of all, not immediately actionable.

  “I understand your reservations against doing so, but a word with the Village Defender might well be worth your time,” added Arupaia, “He may be a diluted simpleton, but he has had numerous encounters with the dragon. I know the Elsati have always resented this, but while intelligence, wisdom and instinct are invaluable traits, they are no substitute for experience. Regardless of the questionable quality of his experience, Smetterson may be able to provide insights into the dragon’s psyche of which I cannot begin to speculate.”

  And what’s more: now he had to talk to someone else who wasn’t going to be any help.

  Walking down a long dirt lane squeezed between patches of golden pasture, with a bright blue sky overhead, Ovid found himself oddly uneasy. His eyes darted about, glancing around corners and toward anything that moved, or didn’t. He’d recently become accustomed to sleeping at this hour. A little crankiness was to be expected, but it was more than just that. Seeing things sun-lit once more was a blunt reminder of how disturbingly askew everything in this country seemed to be.

  The houses on either side of him, for one, were too close together, with a few too many right angles between them. They had a bit too much color, in just the wrong places, and didn’t cast enough shadow. They looked a little too peaceful, too static, like they were there to be looked at.

  And those were some of the more obvious flaws. The others were slight and hard to pin-point. It was in the air, or in the way the people stood. It was the way they looked at each other, or the way they breathed. It was the way they all seemed on the verge of a smile without a meaning.

  Half the time he couldn’t say exactly what was wrong with what he saw. He only knew that nothing here was quite right. Everything was wrong.

  And how was he supposed to find Smetterson’s abode? He’d been told he lived somewhere in these sleepy outskirts of Enesta. Back home, you could tell exactly what kind of person lived in a house just by looking at it, but all these houses were the same. They were all pale sand colored with yellow trim, blue-handled doors, and red-tiled roofs. There were slight differences in size, shape, and proportion, but nothing telling. It was like they had all been copied off the same smeared, blurry painting.

  “Heeyy!” came Smetterson’s high, crackling voice. The man sounded as on-edge as he was. He was barreling down a hill toward him, waving his arms in the air.

  Ah, now why wouldn’t his be the largest house in sight? The cretin was the noble Village Defender, after all.

  As Smetterson coasted to a stop, Ovid had to side-step to keep from being careened into. Leaning on his knees, the man coughed out a few words. “What... did you... do?”

  “I’m not sure what you mean?” said Ovid, scratching his head.

  It was best to play dumb at this point. It wouldn’t be difficult. If Smetterson was stupid enough not to realize he’d been killing the same dragon every month, he was stupid enough to believe Ovid was stupid too.

  Smetterson froze in place. He stared at Ovid, his eyes wide and his jaw hanging open. “You mean... you haven’ heard?”

  Ovid shrugged, almost entirely concealing his long, skinny neck. “Heard what?”

  “It’s a bleedin’ mess! Everthin’s gone topsy-turvy ever since you couldn’t kill the Blot that night.”

  “Well I’m not sure what that could possibly have to do with...”

  “You spooked ‘em, ‘r somethin’! I don’t know what you did, but the next time one of ‘em appeared it didn’t even attack the village! Firs’ time in... well I don’ rightly know. An’ there was this weird fire tornado. Wildest thing I ever did see.”

  “Fire tornado, eh?” Ovid rolled his eyes. “Those are never good.”

  “An’ that’s not even the weirdest part. After the fire tornado, the dragons start showin’ up plumb every night. Scarin’ the bloody daylights outta everyone!”

  “Well have they hurt anybody?”

  “Naw, but they been spottin’ ‘em all over. Even as far as Menst, on the other side of the Sendorf Range. This has got to stop.”

  At this, Ovid just couldn’t suppress a laugh. “So the dragons have stopped attacking, but you’re actually more worried than you were before, just because they’re more visible?”

  “We can’ kill ‘em if they don’t come to us. The New Magic don’t work over a distance.”

  “So you’d actually prefer them to be more aggressive.”

  “Yes! Seein’ ‘em fluttering aroun’ up there just outta reach is givin’ us the willies. Everyone’s scared stiff.”

  Only in Sentreya could such an expression fall into common usage. Going stiff was usually the opposite of the correct response to something scary.

  “Well I don’t know what you expect me be able to do about that. After all...” Ovid flinched. “...you’re the expert.”

  “S’pose you’re right,” said Smetterson, suddenly standing up straight, “Say, you think there might be a New Magic spell for flying?”

  Ovid gave a shrug that was almost a wince. “Could be. So anyway, I was wondering... Have you ever heard one of the Blots talk? Because that night I thought I heard it say ‘nice try’ to me.”

  “Sounds like what a Blot might say,” said Smetterson.

  “You mean...”

  “They like to mock us every now and then,” explained Smetterson, “Nothin’ real snappy. You know, things like ‘take that’ or ‘get back’. Not very timely either. Usually ‘appens just before they go down.”

  “Get back...” repeated Ovid, rubbing his chin, “That doesn’t sound like mocking. It sounds more like what you say to a bully when you’re trying to fight back...”

  ...just like he had been doing when he said “nice try” to the dragon. Just before he struck a blow.

  Could it be that Neubane only remembered what was said to him in defiance? Until the advent of the New Magic, it had been impossible to kill a dragon. However, over the years there were several cultures with methods of harming a dragon, of causing it pain.

  Pain... that had to be it. Any creature, even a beast, couldn’t help but remember pain. After all, that was the whole purpose of pain. It was why you didn’t make the same mistakes over again. You touch a fire once and you never forget that fire is hot.

  Ovid stared deep into the glowing purple eyes of his mount. There was no comprehension there, no understanding. There was just a quiet malice lying just below the surface. The dragon was fully a beast, as he was meant to be. He had no idea what he was going to become.

  It wasn’t right. He shouldn’t have to change.

  But it was this or condemn the dragon to live a hollow half-life of being murdered over and over until the end of time. It had to be done, but it would mea
n the end of the beast that the Nagella was intended to be. It was a kind of death, for there would be no going back. Though it would bring forth a new life, for Neubane would be unlike anything that had ever existed, but the birthing process would be painful.

  “My friend, this is going to hurt me more than it does you,” said Ovid, stroking the creature’s long, scaly neck. He felt it tremble as it breathed in hate and breathed out rage. He would never again look upon such pure emotion. He gave a slight, reverential bow before hopping astride the creature.

  He took it high into the star-lit sky. He retracted its wings and got it moving as fast as he could. The scenery below seemed endless, rolling back further and further every moment. At this point he applied the Harden spell to Neubane’s scales. When a sharp, snowy peak rose above the horizon without warning, he drew his sword and plunged it into Neubane’s flesh. “Mountain!” he shouted, and the dragon screeched madly. A tremor moved through its muscular body as it fought with its own desire to buck Ovid off its back.

  Ovid turned them about, retreating a distance before rounding back again. When they reached the mountain again, he drew his sword and stabbed the dragon once more. “Mountain!”

  He backed up and got moving again. The mountain appeared and he struck the dragon yet again. “Mountain!”

  But this time it was Neubane that spoke. The word was drawn-out, sounding almost like a moan, but the creature was trying to talk. No doubt about it.

  “Good!” said Ovid.

  Approaching the mountain a fourth time, Ovid needed only draw his sword before the dragon said the key word. The fifth time he didn’t need the weapon at all.

  “Good!”

  Ovid continued on for some time, repeating this method with other large, obvious things. It wasn’t long until Neubane needed only to be struck once per word. Before the night was up the beast could (and did) name every landscape he came across.

  For the next month Ovid taught Neubane dozens of words, always accompanied by an agonizing slice with the Elsati Issue Longsword. It didn’t matter how much damage he caused the dragon. Every evening when it re-materialized it would always be whole, ready to be maimed and broken anew. Although, to his great annoyance, one night Ovid discovered that if Neubane died, the next night his memory would be completely wiped of everything he learned that day. It was no wonder he had never been able to learn how to avoid being killed.