Though his was unchallenged within the confines of a singular competition, the talents he faced now were not separate singularities he could progress through one by one; they were the combined symphony of the age’s greatest musicians being directed by the most legendary conductor the realms had even seen. And they were preparing a musical composition unlike any before. At first, the low vibrations of the score of spells created a rhythm for their attacks. Relentlessly and unforgivingly, the various types of energies cascaded against the prepared shield of Intellos. Fire from Thindorin, pure energy blasts from Xainock, and memorizing beams of light from Dagos all dissipated against his protection. He knew they would attempt to blitz him, seeking to overpower him with their combined efforts, which was why his first act was to summon a shield of immense fortitude.
While his one hand actively fed his shield more power to maintain it, his other hand made a simple flicking gesture and launched and energy bolt directly at Esthinor. It was imperative to keep his attention focused on defense. His magic, though not as outwardly dedicated toward the imposing visual effects as the first three, was, nevertheless, every bit as effective if left unattended. But when the energy bolt fell harmlessly on Esthinor's shield, one of which Intellos was sure he lacked the power to create, the former Grand Wizard he knew faced a trouble more urgent than he previously believed.
Now, with the initial movements passed, the others each launched their own attacks. Bengrako, ever given to outright demonstrations of his power, amassed all of his and, creating a torrent of flames, directed them at his former friend. With his free hand, the one not given to the sustenance of his shield, Intellos coalesced the wind around Esthinor's immediate surroundings. He hoped to create an environment that would not kill the wizard, but render him unable to access his valued jewels. Before he could check the effectiveness of his thickening spell, he flicked his hand again in three repetitive motions successfully blocking the attacks of Mindthris, Jhundal, and Ganoninial.
He needed time, and to do that, he needed to isolate some of his opponents. Again, singularly, they were no match for him, yet collectively, their power was almost enough to challenge gravity itself. And it was beginning to wear him down. Though he was quite capable to continue on like this, focused on his shield and utilizing the other aspects of his dynamic talent to quell the attacks in preservation of his shield and life, he was unable to attack them outright; therefore, he was unable to emerge from his current conflict in a condition that would allow him to continue in his endeavor to find The Scribe. Resulting from this revelation, his goal changed from victory to escape. But that still did not alter his current situation. He still needed time.
Time! That was it! To give himself time would be an impossibility as it was not time's nature to be given by the hands of mortality as it was something entirely outside of mortality. In fact, there was nothing about time that was mortal; it was entirely immortal. And that was the key to his life’s long quest for its understanding. He could not know time. He could only believe in it. Knowledge was the function of our mortal minds to understand our mortal surroundings in an effort to create a construct of rules within which we can successfully operate. This is why we label measures of things; the distance between them, or the volume of containers, or different quantities. It is much easier to function when speaking of knowable properties such as feet, cups, and numbers than abstract descriptions. Such as it is with time. Regardless of our labels, time is and will always be. But just because we, mortals, give it labels making it easier to understand, it does not mean our labels have defined its nature. We cannot, therefore, understand the true nature of anything based solely on our own subjective quantifications. Therefore, time cannot be known, it can only be believed.
But, regardless of the rapidity of his revelation, his time and opportunity was quickly diminishing. However, now he was not only armed with what he needed to do, but he wielded the belief of how to do it. In a devastating display of his power, he poured all of it into his shield and held it as its momentum to be released had reached its apex. Allowing it to be to expanded outward at an explosive pace, it not only ruptured the walls of the council chambers, and the concentrations of the twelve wizards rendering their assaults halted, it cracked several of the other walls of the university. Its massed destruction was not Intellos's goal, but the opportunity it created for him to work one last spell was.
For the first time in his life, the first time in anyone's lives, he was going to attempt something standing outside the possibilities of the rules governing magic itself. He was going to cast a spell based solely on belief, and not on knowledge. With a blind disregard for everything he and all of his wizarding predecessors had been taught, he reached for his talent without a firm grasp of that which he sought to manipulate. He reached for time, and felt it. Yet as he felt it, wavering there, waiting for his direction, he could not reach it because there was a gap existing between he and it. But the more he reached, the more the gap resisted. And when he was about to give up all hope, as his companions began to form their spells to subdue him, he felt a presence slowly begin to bridge the distance between that which was mortal, and that which was not. But the presence was something entirely familiar and he identified it as Lacorion immediately. There was no possibility for him to misinterpret it as anything but the Divine presence of the Great Gold Dragon King. So he chose to walk upon the bridge and found himself in the all-consuming realm of immortality. And in this realm, all things were possible because he believed.
Seconds before he released his spell to thwart the progression of time, or more to the point, to remove himself from its progression, he caught the eyes and grin of Esthinor. There was a dark essence behind it he had no name for, but did have an understanding of. Had the voice he communicated with years ago, while interviewing a young boy and again on this night, while being interviewed by his former colleagues, possessed a physical face? If it had, Intellos was sure its expression would have the same ominous, knowing glare reflected in the eyes of his former colleague. But now was not the time to confront this faceless unknown. Now was the time to escape.
As his spell was silently activated, he felt a small surge of power within him, and then everything around him stopped. He was able to observe everything, but soon found out that he was unable to have any affect upon it. He did not fully know how, but he had removed himself from the mortal progression of time, and it followed that, because he stood outside of it, he could not manipulate anything within it. So for now, he could not stop the dark presence within Esthinor or his hidden control of the council. That confrontation would have to be postponed for another time, another opportunity. Though he was plagued by the thought that he was not sure he could stand against the fullness of the unnamed entity, he did not allow it to usurp his examination. It was otherworldly and echoed of the same substance of the immortal.
There was so much pressing upon his intent. He was to find The Scribe, that much he was certain about, but he felt a slight instruction to travel to The Stone Keep. He heard the rumors of the Dark Legion, but had not believed them until now. What about the scrolls hidden in the cavern of the Dragon King? Would they contain that which was necessary to face this new doom confronting Avendia? The implications of the battle that had just transpired were immense. What would happen to all of the Initiates and Ascendants who were still in the University and now under the charge of a dark presence unlike any Avendia had seen before? As he exited the University and mounted Ethdios, he felt a slight helplessness as he looked back to his home for hundreds of years. He did not know what to do, but he felt the hopelessness slightly abate the more he focused on traveling to the stone keep. Taking one final moment to appreciate the grand structure of The University, he was overtaken by a dark foreboding that everything had already begun to change, and if he did not catch up, the change would be allowed to alter the fabric of not just the land and its inhabitants, but the very nature of divinity itself.
Dua’dra (D
ragon Within).
Cold. Wind. Rush. Those were the first conscious sensations he recalled after feeling the beginning of his physical awareness return from a slumber lasting since the very beginning of his first memory. Yet those were the only three sensations he would feel for a time he would never be able to define. He remembered the sound of the wind whipping past his ears along with their repeated popping as if his elevation was changing rapidly and frequently. Aside from the Legendary Orcish Legions of the Prey, who were said to have ridden immense birds into battle, there was no living explanation for what he was sure he felt was a sense of flying. Had his rational thought returned to him in this moment, he would have been left void of any reasonable explanation to his current flight. However, since his thoughts formed from any source of mortal logic were still vacant, the housing of his mind was able to seek tenants from another source altogether. As irrational as it would have appeared to all considerations, he knew that which supported him now were the wings of a Dragon.
Sound. As the wind continued to whip past his ears, he began hearing its high pitched whistling. But interrupting this whistling were the deep, repetitively timed and thunderously loud beats of the great beast's wings. The longer he focused on this sound, the more consciously aware he became of the sound of his own breathing, which had fallen into rhythm with the Dragon. Each time the large wings descended, powered by muscles of unfathomable strength, he would reflexively exhale. With each subsequent preparation to perform another great downward beat, he would inhale slowly. All the sounds were patterned against the depth of the Dragon's own breath, which now was heard as a deep rumble, like the beginning of an avalanche before it became infiltrated by the sounds of its matured progression down the mountainside.
The two sensations of feeling and hearing combined to create a very peaceful emotional state contrasting the violent nature of his current condition. For the strength required to produce flight in a creature so immense yields nothing short of a violent action, though its violence had nothing to do with intent and everything to do with the result of simply being a Dragon. The next subsequent movement reflected this violence as he descended sharply in a singular fluid motion, not totally different from one of his elegant sword strokes. Taste. Bile flowed from his stomach to his mouth resulting in his taste returning as rapidly as he was descending. And from this taste flowed a sickness of stomach almost causing him to vomit, if he was indeed able to call upon the physical wherewithal to do so, but such that he was, he could not, and therefore did not.
But what he did do was smell. And the freshness of the wind this high above the mountains stilled the violent storm of his nausea and returned the peaceful emotions just as his descent was leveled to soar upon the innate currents of air. Infiltrating his nostrils and coupling with the clean and clear fragrance of the unfiltered cool wind was the smell of warmth, as if a deep furnace had activated providing heat to the cold, sterile halls of his youth's domicile. He remembered how the chill of the winter never touched the interior of the castle. He remembered how the heat vents produced a very distinct aroma, and how the aroma itself seemed to warm his cold fingers and toes. But unlike his youth, this heat was not generated from the burning of wood or coals, but rather the burning furnace of the creature beneath him. And this heat, generated from the living and breathing Dragon, warmed more than just his skin, it seemed to warm his soul by abating any uneasy feeling or conscious doubt, if indeed it was his consciousness that was responsible for his returning faculties.
"Dromaine danee, Eriboth. Dromaine danee, Dra unith," he heard echo from the depth of the dragon's impossibly long throat. Yet he understood is to mean, "Rest now, Eriboth. Rest now, Young Dragon."
He instinctively opened his eyes to attend to the deep and perfect voice of the Dragon which seemed to create a harmony all on its own. It was not that he was forced by something pushing him to respond, for that would mean he was being controlled, but rather something he was called to attend because of its splendor, much like how a beautiful sunset grips and holds its observers because it overcomes any and all desire for the eyes to attend anything else. Upon his eyes attention to the observable sights of soaring high above all other living entities, he was met with nothing short of a complete contrast to his expectation. When he thought, if thoughts were possible in his current state, he would see the magnificence of the mountains and vast country side sprawled out before him in a panoramic cornucopia of visual stimuli making it difficult to process the totality of what he saw, his eyes returned the visual equivalent of nothing. There was no color, no distinguishable markings, not even the presence of a simple shape. There was just nothing. And as such, his ability to process nothing was much more difficult to process than his previous expectation.
"Dromaine danee. Dromaine danee. Dua ascom," breaking the beginnings of worry the Dragon again spoke in its perfect language with its perfect voice. And again he understood it, and could not deny it, "Rest now. Rest now. You have much to do."
As the last sound from the beast's lungs resonated for an eternity, he felt his eyes become heavy and his mind slow. Fading just as slowly as they had come, his senses all dulled and left. He no longer smelled the distinct heat of his youth, nor did he taste the nauseating bile. He could no longer hear the depth of the Dragon's wings as they beat against the relentless force of gravity any more than he could feel the air as it continued to whip past him. He no longer was, and so he slept a dreamless sleep in a wonderfully peaceful state where his concerns of sight faded into the void of perfect bliss.
Lightly, tenderly, he felt something soft prod against his shoulder as if testing it to see if it was indeed a shoulder and belonged to the head and neck it was attached to. Again he felt a gentle prodding. This time he responded by turning his head toward the tender force.
"So you are alive!" he heard a high pitched voice say with excitement. "Drashin, Drahin, come here!"
He heard the footfalls of two people approaching him. He could not say how, but he knew they were male and female and held no threat for him. In fact, he knew their intent was born of a deep concern for their child. Wait, how was he able to know this?
"What have you found?" called the man to his child. Turning his attention to the young child, he knew it was a boy of eight years. He could tell the boy was average and possessed no potential beyond that possessed by all others of his average ability. But in that average existence, he also understood the beauty of it. For even the average, as estimated by those who see only subjectively, cannot deny their role in the greatness of creation. What? He knew these thoughts were his, but he did not recognize them. They seemed different. He seemed different, but from where this difference was drawn and sculpted, he could not tell.
"I found a man. He is alive, and he is without clothes!" said the boy whose emphasis on the word 'without' caused his parents to increase the pace of their gait. He felt their intent turn from curiosity to caution, but still holding no ill will toward himself.
"Gromerick, please come here," said the father.
But when the boy stayed standing in place with the intent to prod the shoulder of the naked and fallen man, it was his mother who spoke up, "Gromerick, move away from that man!"
Startled with the concern in his Drashin's voice, the boy dropped the stick and ran the few paces to his still approaching parents. The woman gripped him in a protective embrace and situated him behind her thighs as the father continued his approach toward the man, though his gait had noticeably slowed having secured his child to a position of safety. Eriboth sensed a very pronounced shift in the intent of the man approaching him, who was now exactly two and a half paces away. He was unable to account for this knowledge because he had yet to open his eyes, but it was there as if solidified by his sight and subsequent mental calculations.
As the man squatted down to examine him more closely, he knew the man was seeking signs for life, and he also knew the man, after seeing Eriboth's chest rhythmically rise and fall, was
intending to notify the closest city watchman. "Trishiana, take Gromerick and find the nearest city watchman and bring them back here. They will know what to do."
"We should not get involved, Hammerick. We do not know the circumstances surrounding this man," his wife responded in her reluctance. "Clearly someone left him here with nothing. Perhaps we should continue on our path and just forget we saw him."
Eriboth felt the man stand up and look around. Seeing no one to take his place, the man named Hammerick spoke again, "You may be right Trishiana, but would you not want someone to assist me regardless of the circumstances surrounding my abandonment?"
"Hammerick, please be careful. And at the first sight of trouble, will you promise me you will leave immediately?" she said with great concern.
"Yes. I promise I will stay well clear of the dangers if any do present. Now go, I do not know if the man is injured. He may need assistance beyond what we can provide. And remember to have the watchman bring some clothes," he instructed as he knelt down to further examine Eriboth. Trishiana gripped her child’s hand who was attempting to stay with his father, but was unable to overcome the grip of his mother.
From his satchel, the man produced a water skin still containing a few refreshing swallows. He held Eriboth's head and allowed him to weakly finish its contents. "Thank you," Eriboth said.
"Do not speak. Conserve your strength. You are in a bad way, right now," said Hammerick using the emptied water skin as a small pillow for Eriboth's head as he gently eased it down. But even this minute movement was more than Eriboth was capable to bear as he fell unconscious once again.
Convergence (The Dragon Within Saga Book 1) Page 67
