Trakon didn’t need to think it over. He answered, “I will await your decision then, Wise One.”
The godling’s eyes lost their white glow and once more Aarlian addressed the group. “Do you have another question prepared?”
How did the stone man know? Drakthira asked before anyone else could say anything.
“Know what, young dragon?” the godling asked, confused.
When I was given the opportunity to ask my question, I drank from the stone first. Why did Trakon not have to drink first before asking his question?
“The secrets of the earth are its own,” he answered vaguely, “but, as I told you before, we hide nothing from the stone man, as you call him.”
“Then I guess my question will not come as any surprise either,” Dax said. “And I will go next.”
Chapter Five
We have enslaved the rest of the animal creation, and have treated our distant cousins in fur and feathers so badly that beyond doubt, if they were able to formulate a religion, they would depict the Devil in human form.
~ William Ralph Inge
“DAXON AND MALITAK, ONE A SON OF BORL, THE OTHER A CREATURE OF THE MYSTE, BOTH UNITED IN THE BODY BEFORE ME. TELL ME, WHICH ONE TRULY CAME OUT OF THE MYSTE? WHICH ONE IS TRULY MORE DOMINANT SINCE YOU HAVE MERGED?”
Dax started to give the answer he had to his friends when they had first emerged from the Myste, but something stopped him. He looked deep within himself, reflecting on the life of Daxon and Malitak, both together and individually. He would be lying if he said he never had doubts about how much of him now was Malitak.
When he was around his friends, especially Drakthira, he always felt more like Dax than Malitak. It was easier to be Dax, his love for his friends overshadowed Malitak’s hunger for their magic easily. But, when he wasn’t around his friends, things were not always so clear.
He thought back on the many scouting trips he had taken to Daegonlot in search of the godling. Most had been rather uneventful, but one in particular had left him shaken. He had been walking through a dense forest looking for signs of the ancient tree he remembered from his youth when he happened upon a goriak. By the time he saw the creature it had already spotted him and was nearly upon him. It was huge, an adult male, all claws, dense fur, and fangs as long as his finger. Before he could teleport away, the goriak leaped at him and instinct had immediately taken over. A piercing shriek of challenge had torn from his throat and all fear had melted away. When the fighting was over, the goriak was little more than a steaming pile of meat with patches of fur clinging to it. He remembered going to a nearby pond to clean the blood from himself, and, upon seeing his reflection, he realized at that moment he resembled Malitak more than Dax. His teeth had been elongated and sharp, but most disturbing were his eyes, which had turned black. After a short while he had continued with his search, and by the time he had returned to Trakon’s cabin he had dismissed his reflection as a trick of the water.
But now, thinking back, he wasn’t so sure. Allowing himself to look deep within, Dax understood that on the surface he appeared to be the Dax that everyone knew, albeit with many of Malitak’s magical abilities and some slight physical resemblance to the creature. But, beneath the surface, something darker stirred, and another side that emerged whenever he felt threatened.
Taking a deep breath, Dax met the glowing white orbs and answered, “Malitak and Dax are now one and the same. I, too, have wondered which truly came out of the Myste as sometimes I feel more like Dax and other times I feel more like Malitak. But, how else could it be? I was two beings. Is it not probable that I would be both, given the circumstances and situation? Although I am both Malitak and Daxon joined into one person, I still have the memories of two separate entities, and naturally I draw on the experiences of both. I will admit there is more of Malitak within me than I originally thought, but the hunger that defined him is not present within me. What defines me is my love and devotion to my friends and that comes solely from Daxon. So, to answer your question, one must first define what makes a man. Is it his ability for violence? If so, then I am Malitak, the Reaper, and my ability for violence is great indeed. Or, is it his compassion and empathy for others? If so, then I am Daxon, for I am not ruled by fear or hunger, but by empathy and compassion. My first instinct is not to kill, but to understand.”
“YOU SPEAK TRUTH AND WISDOM, AND THEREFORE YOU SHOULD NO LONGER HARBOR ANY DOUBTS ABOUT YOUR IDENTITY. MALITAK WAS NEITHER GOOD NOR EVIL; HE WAS MERELY A GOLEM WITH NO CAPACITY FOR EITHER. LET GO OF YOUR DOUBTS AND EMBRACE THE MAN YOU HAVE BECOME. YOU MAY NOW DRINK AND SHARE MY KNOWLEDGE.”
Daxon cupped his hand in the red liquid of the rock and brought it to his lips, drinking deeply. Then the world spiraled out of control.
When Dax regained consciousness he expected to find himself in the chamber from Drakthira’s memory. He was pleasantly surprised to find himself standing before a pretty and serene pond, no more than fifteen feet in diameter. The pond was located in a shallow cave, and when Dax walked to the entrance he found he was atop a high cliff overlooking Daegonlot. He turned back to the pond and was surprised to see an identical pond on the roof of the small cave, mirroring exactly the one on the floor. Walking towards the identical pools he gazed into the depths of the one on the floor and saw Dax staring back at him. Not the current Dax, but the Dax he used to be, with tanned skin and blonde hair. Surprised, he raised his hand to feel the thick, blonde hair, but felt only the hair he now had, which was overlaid with sharp quills. He also noticed the Dax reflecting back at him in the pool did not mirror his action as most reflections do, but simply stared back him.
Raising his eyes, he looked into the pond above him and saw the reflection of Malitak staring back him. The vision was so realistic he jumped back and instantly dropped into a defensive stance upon seeing it, but, again, the image merely stared back at him, unmoving.
“The Pools of Truth can take some getting used to,” said a slow, gravelly voice from behind him. Dax whirled around to see the stone man from ‘Thira’s memory standing at the mouth of the cave.
“What would you like to ask of the earth? Perhaps you would like to know the story of Jessa Dragonheart? The true story, of course, and not that fiction they teach in Goldspine. Or would you, perhaps, like to know more of the powers Malitak possessed?”
“I have no need to know of Malitak, Great One,” Dax answered respectfully, “I’m sure I will discover any remaining secrets in time if they exist. Show me instead the story of Jessa Dragonheart. Particularly how she managed to create an Orb that could trap the dragons.”
“Look, and you shall see,” the creature said, his eyes glowing with white fire.
Dax looked into the pool on the floor of the cave. At first, all he could see staring back at him was the reflection of himself in years past, but then a tiny ripple interrupted the smooth surface of the water. He watched as the ripple grew, spreading over the entire body of water. As it passed, the image reflecting back at him changed.
Dax saw that he was no longer visible in the pool’s surface, but as he continued to watch, a young woman emerged from a tiny tunnel in an underground cavern. She was soaking wet and shivering with cold. The water surrounding her drew his attention immediately, as it was red in color, and he had never seen any water like it before. He glanced at the pool above him, seeing the same image except now, the water shimmered and sparkled radiantly.
“Why does the water look differently in this pool?” Dax asked the stone man, gesturing towards the pool above him.
“That pool will show you visions through Malitak’s eyes, while this pool,” he gestured toward the pool in the floor of the cave, “will show you through Daxon’s eyes.”
Dax nodded his understanding, although he wasn’t sure why he needed two separate ways of looking at the same thing.
“The water in the image above is different because Malitak’s eyes recognize the magic hidden below its depths,” the stone man continued as if reading
his mind.
“What is it, and where does it come from?” Dax asked.
“It is called the Blood of the Mountain and it plays a vital role in our story. Watch,” he said, once more causing the placid pool to ripple.
Daxon witnessed Jessa’s meeting with Riiele, the strange, purple dragon he had met under Daegonlot once before. He watched as they met each other, Riiele in the form of a man, and it didn’t escape his notice how desperately Jessa needed his company. It also didn’t escape his notice that, over time, as Jessa drank from the ruby waters, they seemed to lose their red luster until, eventually, they were as clear as a mountain spring. Looking into the pool above him, he was taken aback at how much she had changed in Malitak’s eyes. Her entire being seemed to glow with a faint, reddish aura that followed her everywhere she went. Tiny thunderstorms of red lightning swept over her being, but neither she nor Riiele seemed to be aware of them.
Time passed, and Dax saw Riiele saying farewell to Jessa as he led her out into the sunlight. Just before she took her final step, tears streaming down her face, she turned and looked back, looking to Dax as if she were hoping for one last glance at her lost love, before she wiped the tears from her eyes and continued out of the cave.
Glancing up, Dax caught a momentary flash of brilliance as one of her shed tears landed on the ground, and Jessa simply disappeared.
“Where did she go?” he asked, squinting at the pool as if it would show him what had happened to the woman.
“To Daegonlot, young rider, or at least what would soon become Daegonlot. It had not yet been separated from the mainland. As Jessa left the cave in the Crimson Peak Mountains, her tear inadvertently opened a portal to Daegonlot and she didn’t even notice. She thought when she left she was simply walking out above ground, never aware she had been teleported to another place. At least, not then.”
Turning back to the pool, the stone man waved his arm and the image disappeared, to be replaced a moment later with a vision of Daegonlot. Jessa was walking along a stream, looking at everything with a sense of wonder. Dax surmised it must have been shortly after she had left the cave, when the world of Darkenfel was still new to her.
The stone man touched the water with his finger, and time was fast forwarded. Dax saw a much younger Trakon and Jessa meet, and, eventually, fall in love. He witnessed the day Trakon risked his life to save Rakisa’s hatchling, and the beginning of their friendship. “He really was the first dragon rider,” Dax mumbled to himself.
“Yes, Trakon was the first human to ever ride a dragon,” the stone man confirmed.
The rock man once more touched the water, and Daxon watched the fight between Trakon and Jessa, her jealousy of his friendship with Rakisa apparent. Dax saw her storm off, alone once more, never to look back.
The pool rippled, and Dax saw Jessa huddled beneath a large boulder, tears once more streaming down her face. Almost absently, she reached up and caught one, the perfectly round droplet balancing on the tip of her finger.
“Why must I be alone?” she whispered, staring intently at her reddish-hued tear as if she had never seen anything like it before.
The tear began to tremble, and ever so slowly, it rose from her finger to suspend in the air above her hand. She beheld it, mesmerized, as it gradually began to spin. It picked up momentum quickly, and soon began to expand until it was the size of a pebble, then an egg, and, finally, the size of a man’s fist. Perfectly circular, Dax thought as he watched the reddish hue clear until he could clearly make out a single dragon egg within the newly-formed Orb. The sphere began to float away from Jessa, who quickly jumped up and followed it.
~Ripple~
The sphere was now floating above the dragon egg in the vision. Jessa stared, transfixed, then tentatively reached out a hand to touch the shell, which was yellow with jagged, green stripes. Almost immediately, the egg began to move, causing her to jump back, startled. Soon cracks appeared in the smooth surface of the egg, and a small, clawed foot emerged, followed by a tiny, yellow dragon’s head.
The hatchling was much smaller than Drakthira had been, no longer than a man’s arm from its snout to the tip of its tail. It wobbled over to Jessa and wrapped its body around her legs, crying for food. She scooped it up in her arms, cooing at it and rubbing it along its eye ridges. She took what Dax assumed was a piece of meat from a previous meal out of a small pack she carried on her back and fed it to the little dragon.
~Ripple~
Now the hatchling was almost a year old by Daxon’s estimation and close to the time it would normally leave its mother. He saw Jessa, still with the orb floating close by her, as she tried to feed the young dragon pieces of meat from a stag she had brought down. The dragon, however, was refusing to eat the meat provided for it. It wanted to hunt for itself. Spreading its wings, the dragon took to the sky, but only managed to get a short distance away before Jessa cried out.
Daxon watched as a thin, red line shot from the orb, attaching itself to the dragon, forming a tether to hinder the dragon’s ability to fly away. The dragon crashed to the ground instead, roaring in anger. It regained its feet, advancing on Jessa, its fury easily recognizable by its flaming eyes.
Jessa backed away from the beast, now much larger than she, her hands held out before her. She was speaking in a soothing voice, although Dax couldn’t quite make out the words. The dragon didn’t slow, growling deep within its chest, and flames began to erupt from its mouth around its snout.
Just as Dax thought the beast would blast Jessa with fire, she pointed at it again and said, “You will obey me!”
Glancing at the pool above, Dax watched as the orb began to glow with magical energy. A fine net of energy emerged from the sphere, engulfing the young dragon. The more the dragon tried to escape the energy net, the deeper the energy was absorbed into its scales.
Eventually, the dragon quieted. Jessa approached it once more, laying her hand on its snout and stroking the beast lovingly. She picked up the piece of meat she had tried to feed it previously and held it out again. This time the dragon took the proffered meat placidly, devouring the entire stag in this way. When it was finished eating, Jessa stroked it again, whispering “good girl” over and over.
~Ripple~
Jessa was standing beside a waterfall and the yellow dragon was once more trying to escape. Dax surmised that not much time had passed; for the dragon was only slightly larger than it had been in the previous scene. Dragons grew their entire lives, but the first year they almost doubled in size every few months. After that, their growth slowed tremendously, by only a few feet each year. If this dragon were older, it was by only a mere week or so in Daxon’s estimation.
He watched as Jessa once more brought the young dragon out of the sky, angering it again. She was crying, screaming at the beast at the top of her lungs, “Why can’t you just be with me?! Why do you keep trying to leave?!”
Unlike the last time, the dragon didn’t attempt to confront Jessa. Instead, it kept launching itself into the sky, hoping it would be able to put enough distance between itself and the orb to get away, but again to no avail. Each time the orb brought it down again, until the beast lay, exhausted, upon the ground.
Eventually, Jessa stopped crying, and Dax heard her say to herself, “I need to find a way to make it love me so it will want to stay with me.”
~Ripple~
When the image cleared this time, Daxon was certain that at least a year or more had passed. The dragon was noticeably larger, but what caught his attention was the dragon’s drastic change in appearance. The great beast’s scales had lost their previous luster and looked dull and unkempt, and its eyes had lost their fire. He wondered if it were now blind, and looked in the pool above once more, and gasped at what he saw.
Red, magical webbing surrounded the dragon’s wings, preventing it from spreading them and keeping them folded in close to its body. It trudged along behind Jessa and her floating orb, occasionally stumbling, but always managing to catch itself
before falling down completely. Each time it stumbled, Jessa would speak softly to it, encouraging it ever onward.
~Ripple~
Jessa and the yellow dragon were now sitting in the shadow of the godling’s ancient tree. It looked to Dax like the dragon was almost dead. Its head was lying in Jessa’s lap, and she was crying over it and stroking it, whispering softly. He felt immense pity for the poor creature, never having been able to live its own life, but always enslaved for as long as it could remember. He could tell the dragon had lost all interest in living and was simply waiting to die. No more than a few years old, it had already decided death was preferable to its current existence.
Jessa wailed, clearly distraught. She screamed to the sky, “Please! Please save her! I love her!”
Although he didn’t condone anything he had seen Jessa do thus far, Daxon couldn’t help but feel sorry for the woman. She was clearly lonely, and in desperate need of a friend. That she loved the dragon he did not doubt, but what she didn’t see was that her possessive love was killing its very will to live.
The godling, too, must have heard her cries within his great tree. Dax watched as Aarlian emerged, his little stick man golem by his side, and approach the crying woman. He took in the dying dragon, then spoke to Jessa.
“You must let her go, Jessa,” Dax heard him say.
Surprised, Jessa asked, “H-How do you know my name?”
“I know many things. Like I know this dragon is dying, and wishes it so. You cannot save what doesn’t want to be saved.”
“Can you?” she asked him, pleading with her eyes. “Please, I will do anything to save her. Anything at all, just tell me you can save her,” she sobbed imploringly.
The Godling Staff_Book Three Page 6
