The Written

by Ben Galley

  ‘The spell needs a well of dark elf magick, and your memories could point to one that has survived.’

  ‘We haven’t found one in years. Jergan and his team were the last to do so.’ Farfallen said.

  ‘I know, but it’s the only way they can summon the creature. If we find the well we find them.’ Farden clenched a fist behind his back. He felt like he was back in the magick council, but this time there was no Vice to help him. He tried to convey the urgency of the situation to Farfallen with his mind.

  ‘And what if you’re too late?’ Svarta asked. The dragon-rider turned to face the wind again.

  ‘Then we’ll just have to be quick then won’t we?’ Farden retorted.

  ‘He has a point.’ This came from Farfallen.

  ‘Well there’s no time to lose then. We can have the men from the library come look at the tearbook. If there’s a clue to a dark elf well, they can find it,’ said Svarta. Farden was unsure whether she was being sarcastic or not. She scowled at him once more and then left the balcony edge. Farden watched her leave, and turned back to the Old Dragon.

  ‘You will have to forgive her blunt remarks.’ Farfallen sighed with a strange reptilian smile. His horns shook as he turned his head into the wind. ‘The wind feels good today. The snow keeps us cold you see. I think that inside we’re all fire and heat, so the north always keeps us cool and comfortable. And the weather is better here too.’ He chatted almost conversationally, as if the two were sharing stories and drinks in a tavern. Farden found himself liking the huge dragon, and he smiled. ‘Really? I thought Krauslung was bad. But this is far too cold for me.’ The mage shivered even as he said it.

  Farfallen laughed his deep rumbling chuckle. ‘For flying, that is.’

  ‘I suppose that‘s true.’ He nodded and paused. ‘I’m glad that you have your tearbook back. Many things happen in war that shouldn’t… if you know what I mean,’ Farden shook his head at his lack of eloquence.

  ‘I agree. I know that my forces did some terrible things to yours, and vice versa. A king never wants war on his people. If he does then he is a despot, and not a king in the first place, just like the one who sits in the throne of Skölgard. What happened between the Sirens and the Arka is now long ago, and Emaneska forgets.’

  Farden simply nodded, and tried not to betray any thoughts of Cheska and her father. He quickly tried to think of a question. ‘What’s it like? Flying I mean?’

  Farfallen cocked his spiny head to one side for a moment. ‘For us it is not about what it is like to fly, but trying to imagine living without it. Think how natural picking up a sword is for one such as yourself. You take it for granted. Now think, without your hand, how much you would miss the feel of a sword in your palm?

  ‘I once knew an unfortunate dragon who had sadly lost one of his wings during a terrible battle along ago. I forget his name now, but he said living without wings was like seeing without colours, a wash of grey landscapes and charcoal sunsets.’ Farfallen solemnly bowed his head, and Farden felt a deep sadness. ‘What happened to him?’ he asked.

  ‘If memory serves I think he ended up dying from a broken heart. It doesn’t happen often to a dragon, but it can. The same happens when we lose a rider we’ve bonded with. Dragons are born in the air and we die in the air, so without the rush of the wind beneath our wings we feel useless. Like birds, in a way.’

  ‘The flying part sounds intriguing.’ Farden squinted at the mountainside and the grey clouds and wondered where the colour was in the first place.

  ‘Ask Svarta, or one of the other riders about it.’ It was Farfallen’s turn to pause, and he looked at the mage beside him. ‘What is it like?’

  Farden looked confused. ‘What?’

  ‘Being a Written.’

  Farden was surprised that the Old Dragon would want to know about him and his kind. He tried to put the feeling into words, and realised he had never had to explain it before. Even Durnus had never asked him. ‘It’s difficult,’ he said. ‘You can feel the power burning on your back when you cast a spell, or the sensation of the magick rushing through your veins. But then at other times it’s intangible. You can’t grab at it or hold it, like a dim star you can only see when you look to the side of it. Sometimes we wake up at night with a dizzy feeling when it rushes through your head. But it’s dangerous, and some say that it’s more of a curse than a blessing, but we’re sworn to strict rules to keep others safe.’

  ‘What are they?’ asked the dragon, and Farden absently clicked his knuckles as he stared at the landscape. ‘Not to breed, especially with another Written. Not to let anyone read the tattoo.’ There was an awkward moment, and the mage looked up at Farfallen. ‘And for that I apologise,’ he said. But the Old Dragon shook his head slowly. ‘It was his own doing. I saw that, as did Svarta. She might not admit it, but there is a lot of blame to be shared between our countries. Please go on.’

  Farden shrugged. ‘Whichever way you look at it we’re sworn to a life of service to the Arka, one that either ends in death or madness.’ The dragon kept staring at him, taking in all the mage had to say. Farden looked into his giant eyes. He suddenly found himself talking openly to the dragon, as if they were old friends. Farfallen seemed to be a golden rock of common sense, and for some reason he felt like he could tell this giant dragon anything. His lips kept moving. ‘My uncle was one of the unfortunate ones. After thirty-three years fighting for the Arka, his mind started to slip and the magick started making him see things and hear noises. It kept him awake for days on end and he ended up going mad. He convinced himself that there were things in the darkness trying to kidnap him, and he told everyone that there was a daemon trying to control him. So, one day he went out into the streets of Krauslung and killed a man for no reason. Ripped him apart and painted the walls with his blood. It was chaos. Later that morning they caught him trying to scale the city walls with a rope. He was stark naked, and had bitten the tips of his fingers off and scratched words into his arms. The last time I saw him he was being hauled away to the prisons in shackles, shouting and spitting, biting at the guards who carried him.’ Farden stared at the snow.

  ‘What happened to him?’ The dragon asked quietly.

  ‘He was cast out of the city, banished from the Arka, and sent out into the wilderness with a blanket and a gold coin.’ Farfallen looked confused, so Farden explained. ‘It’s not the first time one of the Written has lost their minds, so when a mage gets to a certain age the council starts to watch them closely to see if they act strange or different. It only happens to about one in every three Written, so it’s a risk we all take when we go through the Ritual. And if you are one of the unlucky ones, like my uncle was, then you’re exiled. Tradition states that you’re given a blanket for the cold, and a gold coin to use however you see fit. If an exile tries to get back into the city, then it’s an instant death sentence. It’s been like that for centuries… that’s just the way it is for us. So we fight, and we fight hard and fearlessly, and hope that death comes to us quicker than the madness does,’ said the mage. He closed his eyes to feel the wind on his skin.

  ‘It seems like a heavy weight to bear, Farden.’

  ‘Sometimes it is. Sometimes I don’t even think of it at all. The way I see it, I was born to fight for the Arka, and so fight I will. It’s just hard when you have people who care about you and worry what you do.’ The mage flexed his fingers and looked at the dirt under his nails, finding Durnus’s words coming out of his mouth. He hoped the dragon could not feel the anger under his skin, the rage that burned there. He thought of Beinnh, and the people he had killed. There was silence for a moment.

  ‘There is one that cares about you more than the others I take it? A female?’ Farfallen squinted. Farden didn’t say anything, and kept his eyes straight ahead. ‘I don’t mean to pry, Farden, and your secrets are safe, but I can feel it burning inside you,’ said the dragon.

  Farden didn’t speak for a moment, and then nodded. ‘Any sort of romance, howev
er brief, is against the law for us. So we keep it secret, and hope that one day, if we both live that long, we can find a way around it.’

  ‘A fire burns more intensely when it is covered up, mage,’ said Farfallen, and the simple truth of his words made Farden think. But the Old Dragon quickly changed the subject. ‘It is strange how different our two peoples are. The way you treat magic for example. To the Arka magick is something you can learn through reading a book or a spell, something you can carve into skin. But for the Sirens it’s more natural, a hereditary gift rather than a skill. They all have some magick in them, but it is an innate magick that leaks from the dragons. Have you ever wondered about why Sirens have scales like us?’ asked Farfallen. The mage shook his head. ‘It is the dragons. Living too close to us for too long can change a person in odd ways.’

  Farden nodded, abruptly realising that was why every rider had the same colour scales as their partner. ‘I could feel it as soon as I walked into the hall.’

  ‘Not everyone does, but anyone that spends a long time in the company of dragons will feel it eventually, and by the time they realise it, they’ve already been changed.’

  Farden thought about it. ‘Maybe that’s why our people have been fighting so long.’

  ‘Perhaps. I have always been curious at the way you treat magick like a secret art, a power that must be controlled and carefully guarded from others by your council, like it’s a treasure to be locked away. But I suppose on a level many Siren wizards envy the ease with which you Arka can control and bend the magick to your will,’ said Farfallen with a sniff.

  ‘I don’t think I’ve ever thought about it like that,’ the mage admitted. ‘Some say we caught the magick at sea, while the Arka were just a race of fishermen, others say it came from our goddess Evernia, or the Scribe, but either way, you have a point.’ He stretched and yawned. Tiredness seeped into the spaces behind his eyes and even though evening was swiftly approaching, he found himself blinking and squinting in the snowy light. He wondered how it was still so bright when he couldn’t even see the sun.

  ‘Down there, to your left, is a small room that our old servant used to occupy. Its warm, and I hear the bed isn’t that uncomfortable.’ The dragon flashed his weird reptilian smile again, bearing a few knife-like teeth. ‘Rest for now, and by tonight I think it will be time for me to see it.’ He held the mage’s gaze a few more seconds before turning back to face the wafting waves of cold wind on his gold face. ‘Oh and something else survived the shipwreck besides you. It’s in your room,’ the dragon said without looking at him.

  Farden nodded, slightly confused, said his thanks, and headed towards the little door hiding between the rock and the edge of the big balcony. It was unlocked, and as he pushed it forward he heard a little mewing noise, and saw a black shape trotting across the floor towards him. It was Lazy, the ship’s cat. Farden was speechless, but even so he crouched down and let the little cat nibble at his fingers and rub itself against him, watching her intently. The cat must be as lucky as he was, he thought, and shook his head in disbelief. She rumbled with a happy purring, and watched him remove his cloak and tunic. The mage collapsed weakly onto the small bed and into a tangled mess of deep thoughts and cold pillows. Lazy settled down somewhere near him and fell asleep instantly.

  Farden thought of dragons in the sky and dragons on the ground, and then he thought of flying, wondering whether dragons slept at all, or how they would never need a flint or tinder to light a fire for their rider, and what it must feel like to snort and breath fire as if it were just simple air, not forgetting of course how beautiful it was to watch them fly, how they made picking up a fork look harder than merely jumping into the air, and how these were the true dragons, not just simple worms of the wilderness hunting magick. It was like what Durnus had said years ago, about dragons living for hundreds and hundreds of years, that they just keep going and going and going and going like the snowfall outside that small circular window near the door, grey and drifting like dust on his pillow…

  Farden had never slept a deeper sleep.

  Chapter 8

  “Never not to understand the beast,

  for takes one bite, evermore curs’d to feast.

  All morality and goodness, fair well to silver moon,

  For evil take thee, wolf claws and doom.”

  Lycan curse

  A banging awoke him. A persistent resolute knocking that stubbornly shook his recently acquired door. The blankets tugged at him to get up, and his eyes snapped open to see a boring stone ceiling. It told him to stop staring and answer the door, so he did.

  Svarta stood behind it with her arms crossed. It was now night time and the low yellow light of a nearby torch cast angular shadows across her face, accenting her stern expressions of impatience. ‘I have been knocking for a long time,’ she said.

  ‘I’m sorry, I was asleep. Look, by now you must know I’m not here to harm anyone, so why can’t we just forget that you want to lock me up in a cell and start over?’ The Siren merely stared at him and frowned. ‘Do you want to come in or something?’ He asked.

  She snorted and turned around to walk away. ‘We don’t have time for your games mage. Follow me, and be quick about it.’

  Farden smirked to himself and adjusted his rumpled clothing. He smoothed his hair back into some sort of socially acceptable order and rubbed the last vestiges of sleep from his eyes. He noticed his sword and Scalussen vambraces had been returned. He decided against taking the blade but slid the pair of vambraces onto his wrists. The metal contracted slowly around his skin with tiny slithering whispers like a coiled snake wrapping tightly around a tree. Farden smiled. A new pair of surprisingly comfy boots had been left by the door, so he put them on. His red scarf was nowhere to be seen however, and he wondered if Cheska would mind. He had been threw a shipwreck after all. Farden then turned, ruffled Lazy’s ears, and slammed the door with a bang.

  ‘Who’s we?’ he called after the tall Siren.

  The mage followed Svarta back through their huge room and out into the cavernous corridor once again. They meandered through long seemingly endless identical hallways that curved through the mountain like the tunnels of some monstrous rabbit warren. Farden felt completely lost already in the grand palace, but he held his tongue during the walk and walked slightly behind Svarta. She was silent and brooding, occasionally throwing him a look to see if he were still there.

  After a while the mage and the Siren reached a tall set of iron doors and Svarta stopped abruptly and swivelled on one heel to face him.

  ‘If it were up to me you wouldn’t even be standing here. But Farfallen thinks there is some sort of good in you, and wishes you to be here for the reading. I for one think you should be kept under lock and key and watched like a dangerous animal. If it were up to me of course.’ Svarta cocked her head to one side.

  ‘Of course,’ Farden nodded and mentally rolled his eyes.

  ‘Don’t be clever with me, mage,’ she snapped.

  ‘If I had wanted to hurt anyone, then believe me I would have done it already. If Farfallen trusts me then maybe you should too.’ Farden stared defiantly into her yellow eyes. Svarta’s lips curled into a reptilian snarl and she spun back around. She pushed against the doors and with a huge creaking scrape they swung open.

  A few torches glimmered in the shadows, trying to throw their meagre light out into the cavernous hall as best they could. Behind them the doors closed with a long echoing thud and Farden tried blinking his eyes to adjust to the gloom. Between the spots dancing in front of his vision and the yellow flickering of candles, he could discern a massive shape at the end of the room. Farfallen crouched in the shadows, eyes closed and quiet like an elaborate statue.

  He felt Svarta close to his ear, whispering. ‘Unless someone asks you a question, you are to be silent in this room.’

  Farden nodded and took his place a dozen paces in front of the silent dragon. He looked up at the faraway stone ceiling held high above th
em by the many thick stone pillars stacked around him, like uniform grey trees. The hall was bare, with no decoration or furniture, and only a small shrine sat against the back wall behind Farfallen, a powerful looking statue of what looked like something half man, half dragon. The alabaster figure sprouted arching wings from his back and a thick spiny tail curved around stone clouds that formed his pedestal. Small candles hid in niches or danced gleefully in small metal holders, sparkling for their deity, Thron the Siren weather-god.

  ‘Bring the book!’ Svarta called to the shadows, and soon a small man shuffled from the darkness holding the tearbook, looking for all the world like a shrivelled shrew with glasses set into his wrinkly face. The bespectacled man put the thick tome on a low stone table under the dragon’s chin and then backed away into the darkness. As he did so, Farfallen opened his eyes, and Svarta moved forward to the table and grudgingly beckoned the mage to follow. Farden did so silently and became aware of a low hum that seemed to be coming from the dragon, like the rumble of a distant avalanche.

  Svarta turned the book over so that its back cover was facing upwards, and turned to the last page slowly. Farfallen flicked one eye to look at Farden. ‘Tearbooks go backwards. The start is the first memory a dragon has, the last are the most recent,’ he rumbled. A single tear rolled from the golden orb and coursed its way with agonising slowness down his scaly jaw line. The single tear quivered on the very end of his chin and hung for a long second before dropping quietly onto the book.

  Farden looked down at the pages and saw them quiver with energy. Nothing happened for a moment, and then slowly, as Svarta closed her eyes and lifted the page ever so slightly, a rune slowly appeared. It was swiftly followed by another, and yet another, until the page had been completely turned. The strange foreign lettering that Farden couldn’t even begin to understand kept writing itself across the next page and then the next after that, filling up every inch of blank paper. The letters danced over and over themselves, every invisible quill-stroke scurrying across the page like sand through an hourglass word by spidery word. As Svarta’s page-turning became quicker, so did the letters. The lines soon scrolled across the flying pages and Farden could see the dragon’s eyes twitching as he tried to follow the writing at the same pace. The mage wondered if Svarta would slow down, but her practised hand movements only sped up. The sound of her hand on the pages grew to a flurry of little papery whip-cracks that echoed around the hall.