Dark Moon Rising (The Prophecies of Zanufey)

by A. Evermore

  Asaph closed his eyes wondering what to say. He knew by reason alone that he could not have kept his gift secret forever, but he did not feel ready to talk of it and took a long time to reply.

  ‘I have known there was something different about me ever since I was young, for the other children did not have this... gift... and the abilities that come with it.’

  ‘Of all the things to keep from me you should not have hidden this,’ Coronos said, the raw hurt in his quiet voice made Asaph flinch, ‘especially not now, not in these times,’ he added, shaking his head.

  Asaph sighed, feeling like a child whose guilty secret had been discovered. ‘I was afraid to speak of my Dragon self... afraid of what it made me; huge, powerful, terrifying… and a damned shape shifter! I was afraid of what others would do if they found out. You know how the Kuapoh are about shape-shifters, and how they deal with them. So I kept it secret...

  ‘And what of these times?’ Asaph added in a raised voice. ‘These times of which you speak are the only times I have ever known. I have never known peace, not in myself, and I shall never know it. Not unless we are in our homelands and she is with me. I would not even have become the Dragon had she not needed me so.’ His voice shook with emotion. He closed his eyes, drained by his own outburst. But, despite the guilt, relief washed over him, his long-held secret was out; finally he had revealed that which he most feared to the one closest to him.

  ‘I am deeply sorry for your… isolation. Forgive me for straining you, especially now when you are weak,’ Coronos said in gentler words. ‘I just want to help; I could have helped you bear the burden... Being a Dragon Lord is no small thing and certainly nothing to be ashamed of,’ he paused and his shoulders slumped, ‘perhaps it was indeed a wise thing to keep it secret, for no one knows who is watching... or what. Baelthrom’s spies are everywhere. It is clear to me that no Dragon Lord exists, for none were spared, none save you and only because we fled with Feygriene’s blessing. You are the last Dragon Lord, Asaph.’

  Both were silent, Coronos’s words were like a lead weight upon Asaph’s mind; that he was the last of the Dragon Lords. Could it really be? Could Baelthrom really have captured all the Dragon Lords? Forced all of them to consume the Black Drink and then splitting the mighty Dragon Lord into two abominable beings? Asaph felt The Recollection open like a book before him, the pages flickering back and forth in some unseen wind until he looked upon an image he did not want to see.

  Asaph spoke aloud of what he saw in a quiet voice; ‘The human part becomes the Dromoorai, massive, mindless, soulless: Dragon riders made in Baelthrom’s image.’ He stared upon the image of his once brother or sister, the tripartite helmet, the triangular eyes glowing all colours, the heavy Dark Dwarven-made armour. Slowly his eyes turned to the monster lumbering at its side. ‘The Dragon becomes the Dread Dragon upon which it rides, bigger than a Dragon Lord could ever be and far more terrifying. It knows only to hunt and feed its insatiable appetite. Simply looking at one is enough to stop the heart.’ Asaph fell silent, staring at his brethren now become his hated enemy.

  After a long time Coronos spoke, his voice taut with worry.

  ‘Keteth now knows a Dragon Lord still lives, and soon so will Baelthrom. The Immortal Lord and his minions will hunt us down, Asaph; he will not let us live, he cannot let an heir to the throne of Drax survive.’

  Asaph closed his eyes, ‘There are true Dragons that live still, I can feel them in the Dragon blood that flows through me, but they are distant, far away, 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 broken 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 then winced in pain.

  ‘You know how to fly?’ he rasped incredulously.

  ‘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 true 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 am sorry I was not able to help sooner,’ he said and reached over to touch the younger man’s shoulder.

  Asaph smiled weakly, ‘You know I am not in control of it, the change. Sometimes when I want to change it will not happen, and at others it is all I can do to keep my human form without wings spurting out my back.’

  ‘That is 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 and both sat silently.

  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 again in pain.

  ‘What’s so funny?’ Asaph scowled, rubbing his aching ribs.

  ‘Never have I seen such a big Dragon, as big as the true Dragons in the farthest northern polar plains, almost as big as a Dread Dragon. Few true Dragons, and no Dragon Lord that I have heard of, have 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 turning from gold to molten rock. Most others are blue, green and silver and all shades in between.’

  ‘What is so special about gold?’ Asaph asked, as he reached back into The Recollection for images of golden Dragons, but finding none.

  ‘Gold is special, a colour cherished by Dragons for it is the colour of their beloved gold, the colour of the sun, their 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 stillness of my magic I felt the ripple of Dragon magic flow through me. It was like the familiar weight of an old promise: the Great Binding of man to Dragon still held firmly in its core,’ Coronos said in wonder.

  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?’

  Their enemy’s name jerked Coronos back to the present. ‘Through the orb’s magic we escaped, just, for it was hard to harness its power whilst Keteth was drawing all the magic to him. Its power is so strong it will have been felt far and wide by friend or foe. That coupled with you revealing your Dragon form... we dare not linger here although I know we sorely need much rest.’

  He took a final puff on the remnants of his pipe and set it down upon the ground, 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 minions will find us: Harpies, death hounds, Foltoy, Empty Ones or worse, Dromoorai hunting for their missing brother.’

  Coronos suddenly looked very old. Asaph hated to see the weariness in his father’s face, but could think of no comfort to offer. The very mention of Baelthrom’s hordes of immortal Life Seekers made him shudder. Though he had never seen the Immortals with his own eyes he saw them often in The Recollection. The Life Seekers sometimes came into his dreams in many awful forms, chasing him on tireless limbs, hideous, fearless and terrible in cunning.

  ‘The spies of Baelthrom, the Empty Ones, slink through the shadows in their formless mass, finding, infecting and inhabiting any living thing,’ Coronos said quietly, speaking his thoughts aloud. ‘They have no form of their own, for they are devoid of a materi
al 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, as powerful as they are corrupt.’ Asaph shuddered, Coronos continued.

  ‘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 the 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. Maioria could not help but crumble in his wake. The free peoples could afford to trust no one and nothing, be always on guard and look only to the self for guidance. With some effort Asaph forced aside thoughts of the Maphraxies.

  ‘How did you use the orb? I did not know it had such power.’ Asaph had never seen it glow as bright as it did when Coronos held it aloft before Keteth or felt such power as its light had engulfed him. Coronos looked at the younger man and then glanced about himself. He carefully slipped the orb out of its pouch from the folds of his robe 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. A part of me always hoped I would never need to use it, for its power is terribly draining, so strong is it. The Ancients created them but, despite their great knowledge, even they never fully understood the extent of the orb’s power, for the orbs were merely symbols, keys to the doors of a far greater power that lay beyond them. They are not the actual power itself, but a gateway to it, a portal through which it 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 the balance of power and the peace 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. It was with the orbs that the Ancients were able to bind and imprison him.

  ‘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. So this orb has been locked away, unused for centuries and its use, its very existence, largely forgotten, much like the Sword of Binding. 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. ‘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.

  ‘When I held it aloft before Keteth, power flooded through it into me, so strong I could barely hold it.’ He looked wide-eyed into the distance, speaking softly in wonder, ‘Such power… it was terrifying and exhilarating, I had become one with it, completely disembodied from my physical self. And then I was looking down at myself from high above. White light poured forth from the orb... it surrounded me. I looked for you and found you in the depths,’ his eyes clouded and he gripped his staff laid across his lap.

  ‘But then my sight was... was drawn to the dark light in the sea beyond Keteth, to where he fought so hard to get. The din of the raging storm fell to silence and there was stillness; a clarity of vision came upon me as the raven circled close. I reached forth and touched the power that came from the darkness, and it was like nothing I had felt before. It was old, older than the world itself, it touched everything for it spoke of the beginning and end of all things, it was truth in its purity and something more...’ Coronos was still for a moment, searching for the words, but then he shook his head as if he could not find them.

  ‘It was a most ancient force but it made me sad in the knowledge that all things material must end. But in their ending will come the light, the truth, and all that is happening is ultimately happening through the highest and strongest force that exists, it is all happening through love, pure and true.’

  Asaph watched the older man, transfixed.

  ‘I saw her face,’ Coronos continued, ‘as she floated upon the surface, and she looked directly at me, high up in the sky as I was. She was beautiful but otherworldly, like a Goddess might be, and she is a part of the force that will guide us through the coming darkness, though there will be much pain along the way.

  ‘Then I was back in my own body, and soon to drown with the sinking wreckage,’ he said with a click of his fingers. ‘Desperately I pulled upon the orb’s magic and combined it to my own will. There came a great rushing noise and the ocean fell away and in its place a mass of swirling clouds. There in the centre of a great whirlwind I stood, speaking words I did not understand and yet knowing that I must speak them to control the storm. I reached for you and, thank the Goddess, found you. Then I knew I must relinquish the power,’ he looked at Asaph wide-eyed, as if about to tell his own dark secret.

  ‘It took all of my effort, all of my strength, to let go of the power, The Flow of magic that came from the orb. I did not want to let go, Asaph, but had I not I would not be here now for it would have consumed me. Only the greatest magician could really command such power, and yet I nearly did not let go,’ he fell silent, seemingly afraid of his actions.

  Asaph smiled reassuringly, ‘We made it and that is all that matters,’ he said, sounding frailer than he had hoped. In the ensuing silence Asaph rested, watching Coronos through half lids as the older man pondered deeply.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Drifting In The Past

  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. Maybe he had been wrong; maybe he should have approached him sooner. 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 is a man now and a child no longer, he reminded himself. Asaph was twenty-five but still a young man in Draxian years for they lived twice as long as other humans, something to do with the mingling of their blood with Dragons.

  Who can help the young Dragon Lord now? Who is 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. Coronos, however, was old, very 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. He used his staff more now too: no longer was it simply a mark of high status but a much-needed support.

  In his mind Queen Pheonis’s hard but beautiful face smiled at him; he clamped his eyes down upon the tears that welled, the pain still cut deep. He had left her to face her doom alone so that he might save her son, lest they all perish, and that choice had forever broken him. Would there be vengeance? His hands tightened around his staff. Yes, there must be vengeance!

  And what of the woman child? Often he had wondered at Asaph’s dreams of her. Sometimes he spoke in his sleep, face covered in s
weat, hands reaching to grasp or catch something Coronos could not see. Now his dreams had become a reality, they had found the woman child, and Coronos was afraid.

  She was surely younger than Asaph, though not by much. She was as pale and ghost-like as the shadowy world from whence they had saved her, too dark haired to be a Draxian, her height, her eyes… she was more Elfin than human, though he knew she was not Elf either. Her accent was like Frayonesse but more colloquial, she had said she had come from Little Kammy but Coronos did not know it, though he knew there were some island nations off the coast of Frayon.

  Coronos could feel the 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 that resided within her as if she drifted somewhere between life and death; surviving, not living, always running from those that sought to destroy her. But now they had helped free her from the Shadowlands what fate did she face? What fate did they all face? Despite his fears, he knew that between Asaph and the dark-haired woman-child from the Shadowlands there was hope for a future.

  ‘Are you all right, father?’ Asaph asked, having awoken from slumber.

  Coronos nodded with a start. How long have I been drifting in the past? ‘Yes, I...’ he shook his head sadly, ‘was thinking of your mother... and upon many things. I wish it 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.’ Asaph nodded, but said nothing.

  ‘When I entered The Flow I felt the girl’s power beside mine, beneath it, like a river running hidden underground,’ Coronos said, half to himself. ‘She has power within her that she does not realise. I do not understand her power. It both frightens and awes me, an ancient magic, a seldom-used force that is the truth of all things.