“Why do you wish to save her so badly?” the godling asked her.
Jessa looked down at the dragon’s head, still stroking it gently, and whispered, “She’s my only friend here. Without her I’m all alone.”
Aarlian regarded the woman for a long moment. Finally, he said, “There is a way to save the dragon. But,” he said, raising his index finger to keep her from speaking out, “it will not be easy. I can keep the dragon alive for two days. Much of its magic has already left it, and will need to be replenished. To do this, you must bring back some of the Myste.”
“The mist?” she asked, not understanding.
“You will not find it here, you must travel to the borders of Darkenfel, and on to the edge of the world. There, you will find the abyss, and you must capture some of it and bring it back here.”
“But… how do I capture fog?” Jessa questioned.
“The orb you have should work just fine. It has more than enough magic to contain the Myste,” Aarlian answered her.
Jessa glanced at the orb she had somehow made from her tear. She hadn’t given much thought about the magical properties of it; she simply knew it gave her what she wanted. At least, most of the time.
“What will the Myste do? How will it save my dragon?” she asked.
“If you manage to capture some and bring it back here, I will use it to replace some of the magic lost from this dragon. You see, the Myste protects Darkenfel’s borders, preventing intruders from entering, and residents from leaving. It consists mostly of dragon magic, which is closely attuned to their souls. So, you see, as the magic leaves this dragon, so does its soul. To save it, we will need to replace it. But, even then, I can’t guarantee it will work. This dragon has no will to live. You have tried to force it to bend to your will because you fear being alone. That is not friendship. That is enslavement. If you want to truly bond with this beast, you must do so on its terms. Friendship, true friendship, cannot be forced,” the godling finished.
Jessa hung her head in shame and Dax watched as a single, reddish hued tear perched on the tip of her nose and hung there, suspended. “I understand,” she whispered.
Jessa rose, and with a final pat on the yellow dragon’s head, she turned and said to Aarlian, “I will return before two days’ time with what you require. Please, keep her alive until then.”
Aarlian nodded as Jessa took the orb in her hand and said, “Take me to the Myste.”
In a flash of red, she was gone.
~Ripple~
Now Dax saw Jessa standing at the edge of the Myste. She looked tired, but determined. She approached the abyss, hesitantly, somehow sensing its power, even though she had never encountered it before. She walked a short distance inside the Myste, far enough to be surrounded by the dangerous, grey fog, but still close enough to the edge to easily find her way out again.
She spoke some words to the orb, but Dax wasn’t close enough to hear. He turned to the stone man. “Can we get closer?” he asked.
“No,” the stone man answered. “In the realm of the Myste, I am not master.”
Daxon filed that information away for later. He found it interesting that even the earth could not penetrate the Myste’s magic.
He turned back to the pool, seeing the orb collect the Myste by simply forming an opening and closing around it. Once Jessa felt there was plenty swirling around inside of the strange globe, she crossed the boundary out of the abyss, the orb grasped tightly in her hand.
~Ripple~
Jessa stood once more before the ancient godling tree. Her hair was tangled and dirt streaked her face and clothes. Dax wasn’t sure how she had traversed Darkenfel, but he guessed the orb wasn’t able to take her directly to the Myste. Perhaps like the stone man, the orb was limited in its interactions with other magic. The woman looked almost nothing like the Jessa he had seen before. She had bags under her eyes, a clear sign she hadn’t slept in the time she had been gone, and her shoulders sagged tiredly.
She held the globe out to Aarlian, who merely shook his head sadly. “I thought I could keep her alive for at least two days, but she rejected my magic. She didn’t want to live any longer,” he said. “She passed just a few minutes before your arrival.”
Jessa merely stood there, trembling, her shoulders heaving. Dax thought she must be crying, but her long, dirty hair was covering her face and he couldn’t be sure.
He heard her, then, her voice thick and gravelly, as if she hadn’t had anything to drink in quite a while. Her sobs wracked her body. She clutched at her midsection, hugging herself as she rocked back and forth on the heels of her feet.
“What am I supposed to do now?” she asked no one in particular, her eyes wild as she looked upon the body of the yellow dragon.
Suddenly, her eyes snapped to Aarlian. Pointing her finger at him, her voice unexpectedly loud, she said, “Fix her. Bring her back.”
“I’m afraid I cannot,” he said, turning back towards his tree.
Jessa watched him and his stick man golem retreat back to the massive tree they called home. She watched, motionless, as Aarlian disappeared back into his tree, seeming to meld seamlessly into its massive trunk, the little stick man a few yards behind.
Without warning, Jessa rushed forward just as the stick man reached the tree and grasped the little golem around its twiggy neck. Dax saw the stick man start to struggle, trying to free itself from her grasp. When that didn’t work, he simply began to merge with the tree, becoming an unassuming branch within seconds.
Still angry, Jessa yanked at the newly formed branch, finally managing to split it away from the trunk just as the tree began to disappear. Dax saw thick, red sap begin to bleed from where she had split the branch. With a final wrench, she freed the branch from the tree just as it disappeared completely.
In the pool above, Daxon saw the branch glowing a brilliant green, evidence of the life magic living within it. Where it had separated from the trunk of the tree, streamers of thick, bloody sap oozed out, and where it hit the ground, flowers sprang to life.
“BRING HER BACK!” Jessa shouted, pointing the staff at the lifeless body of the dragon.
Immediately the orb rushed to the broken limb, embedding itself in a space near the top where the limb forked. Dax could see the red lightning storm of magic from the orb join with the Myste magic it had trapped inside itself, and the life magic from the severed limb. They swirled around each other, finally merging into one, and shot from the orb into the body of the dragon.
Daxon watched as the body of the dragon began to glow from the inside. The magic seemed to saturate every particle of its being. Eventually, it made its way out, and he saw the dragon’s scales regain their lustrous, shiny color. The magic traveled from the dragon’s tail, transforming everything it touched, renewing it, until it finally ended at the snout and stopped.
For a few long moments, nothing happened. Then, Dax saw the dragon’s sides rise and fall as it took a breath, and soon after, it blinked open its eyes. The beast seemed confused, but when it saw Jessa, a horrendous roar escaped from its maw.
Lurching to her feet, the yellow dragon advanced on Jessa, fury in her eyes. Dax could see her taking deep breaths, a sure sign she was stoking the fire in her belly.
“Why do you hate me?” Jessa wailed at it while backing away. “I brought you back! I gave you life again!”
Unmoved, the dragon continued her advance.
“Why can’t you love me? I have done everything for you!” Jessa pleaded, tears streaming down her face.
Dax saw the yellow dragon take a deep breath, preparing to roast Jessa where she stood. Flames licked out of her maw and around her teeth. Jessa also saw the flames, and understood what it meant. Just as the dragon drew back its head to exhale the deadly fire, she shouted, “STOP! YOU WILL OBEY ME, EVEN IF YOU DON’T LOVE ME!”
Magic once more shot forth from the Orb, now embedded in the godling staff. Dax saw it enter the dragon’s body, and when it emerged, he couldn’t hel
p but gasp aloud.
Twisting at the end of the beam of magic was a luminescent light so bright it hurt to look upon it. It was shaped like the dragon from which it had come, but smaller, and ephemeral. Tiny, thin membranes seemed to attach the shimmering light within the dragon’s body, but as he watched, the magic from the staff severed a piece of the substance, drawing it back with it into the Orb. Once it vanished into the globe, the remainder snapped back into the dragon’s body, and the yellow dragon roared in agony, writhing upon the ground.
Not wanting to witness the poor creature’s misery, Dax looked at the Orb and saw it was swirling with a brilliant yellow color. A color so rich it made every other shade of yellow pale in comparison, and could only be called a “…True color,” he whispered.
Not wanting to see any more, but knowing he needed to gain as much knowledge as he could, Dax watched as Jessa approached the now quiet yellow dragon. When she was just a few feet away from it, she said, “Rise.”
Obediently, the dragon rose to her feet, looking at Jessa for her next command.
Jessa climbed atop the dragon’s back, raised her staff in the air and said, “Let’s go.”
As the vision of Jessa riding the yellow dragon over Darkenfel faded, Dax once more felt his world spinning out of control. He shut his eyes against the dizziness, wishing what he had just witnessed had been nothing more than a dream, but all the while knowing it was not.
Chapter Six
Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end.
~ Seneca
As Dax readjusted to his surroundings, he noticed that Trakon was looking at him expectantly, waiting to hear what he had discovered.
“I know how the Orb was made, as well as how Jessa got the staff,” he said. He then told them what he had seen, sharing the visions with Drakthira as he did so. When he reached the end of the tale, Trakon lowered his head in sadness while Drakthira growled deep in her chest.
“Is there a way we can get a staff from you as well, Aarlian?” Dax asked.
Before the godling could answer, Trakon shook his head. “It won’t do any good, Dax,” he began. “The staff is a part of the spell, that’s true, but even if we are able to get another, we would still be missing a vital piece of the puzzle.”
“What do you mean? What piece? We already know where the Orb is.” Dax said.
“So far it looks like Jessa used at least three different sources of magic to create the Orb.” He held up one finger. “First, she used the Blood of the Mountain within her to create the Orb.” Holding up another finger, he continued, “Second, she used the Myste, which she captured and held within the Orb.” He held up a final finger. “And third, she used the life magic within the staff.”
Dax continued to look at him blankly. “And…?”
“And then there are the intangibles. Why did she cast the spell? Was it out of love? Out of fear? Or simply because she was lonely, or maybe a combination of all? You see, intangibles are just as important as the actual components of the spell if you want to undo it. Unless, of course, you can find a source of power greater than the spell itself and simply rip it apart,” he explained.
“So you are saying that unless we can find a power greater than that used to create the spell, we first have to know the reasoning behind the spell?” Dax asked incredulously.
“Yes, that’s exactly right. Not only that, but even if we take possession of the Orb, that alone will not guarantee that we also possess the Blood of the Mountain. I suspect we would need our own supply of that as well,” the old man continued.
Sensing Daxon’s frustration, Drakthira cut in and asked, In a perfect world, wizard, what would be the easiest and safest way to destroy the Orb and free the dragons?
Trakon didn’t answer at first, simply gazed off, staring at nothing. Finally, he said, “The easiest way to break the spell is to have the one who originally cast the spell to undo it.”
“You mean Jessa?” Dax asked, his voice rising in frustration. “We don’t even know if she is still alive! According to the history of Goldspine, Jessa lived over six hundred years ago.” He ran his hand through his hair, careful not to prick himself with the quills lying beneath it. He paced back and forth, and then suddenly stopped.
“Wait,” Dax said, looking at Trakon pointedly. “You told me you are over six hundred years old, and I believe you. That means you were here on Darkenfel when Daegonlot was separated from the mainland. Why did you never tell us how it happened?”
“I have given a lot of thought to that as well, Dax. The truth is, I don’t remember Daegonlot separating from the mainland, and I can only guess it happened during the time Jessa and I were still together, before I met Rakisa. We made our home in the far northern part of Darkenfel. There were no other people around that area, and we both preferred it that way. At one time we had come across a small village of humans, probably a week’s travel to the southeast, and they told us of constant raids between themselves and another village a day’s travel to the west. We wanted no part of that, having come from a more civilized world, so we moved on. I didn’t realize Daegonlot had separated until years afterwards, when I was flying with Rakisa. It was one of the last flights we ever took together.”
Aarlian spoke up, “It wouldn’t have mattered if he were there, Daxon. No one, not those who were there or those who were not, remember how Daegonlot was separated from Darkenfel. Only the earth truly remembers.”
“Why?” Dax asked, genuinely curious.
“We like to call it a natural defense, but the truth is Darkenfel is the apex of many timelines. This has its repercussions. Currents overlap each other, and ripples of significant events sometimes have an effect on other timelines. History becomes fluid. Do we remember what truly happened or was it simply an event from another timeline that bled over into Darkenfel? Then you have places on Darkenfel like the Myste, a step away from the currents of time.
“What I’m trying to say is that Darkenfel doesn’t adhere to any standard of time like other worlds. There is simply too much magic, and too many crossing timelines to make it so. For that reason, residents of Darkenfel simply stop trying to remember specifics even though they think they remember. Just like the history you were taught on Goldspine, Daxon. The only thing really agreed upon is that it happened in the race wars, the rest is simply conjecture. It’s the same everywhere.”
“But, I have aged since I have come here,” Trakon interjected. “If time doesn’t really exist here, how did that happen?”
“I’m not saying time doesn’t exist here, I’m simply saying there is no true standard of measurement. You told Dax you were over six hundred years old, but by what measurement? The world’s you came from? How do you know that even applies here?” the godling asked.
Trakon considered the godling’s words. It made sense when he thought about it. Even the geography of Darkenfel changed sporadically; portals would form out of nowhere and close just as quickly. Why would time be any easier to track?
“Sylas still needs to ask his question. After that, if you really think Jessa may still be alive, we will try to track her down and see if we can convince her to reverse what she’s done,” Dax said to Trakon. “Even if we can’t convince her to help, we may be able to get the staff away from her, or find out more about how to undo the spell.”
Trakon nodded absently, his mind preoccupied with his thoughts.
Aarlian looked at Sylas. “Are you ready?”
Sylas barked in response.
Sylas watched Aarlian. He knew from seeing the others ask their questions he would need to wait until Aarlian’s eyes began to look different. Then the man-beast-that-smelled-like-a-plant would ask him something. He also knew his answer would determine if the godling would grant Trakon’s request to make him like Dax; entirely free from the Myste. But, he didn’t think about that. Here in this place he didn’t feel the pull of the Myste, and if he had to return, he would put it off for as long as he was able to help his fr
iends.
The godling’s eyes opened, blazing white. He asked, “SYLAS, CREATURE OF MYSTE AND MAGIC, IF I COULD GRANT YOU BUT ONE WISH, WHAT WOULD IT BE?”
Unlike the others, Sylas didn’t have to think of his answer. He showed the godling a memory of Dax chasing him around their campsite, trying to recover the bedroll he had taken. Dax was laughing. It was a good memory. Once it faded away, another took its place, this time of him and Drakthira sleeping peacefully together, side by side, after sharing a stag he had brought down for their food. She looked content and full. It was a good memory.
Finally, he showed the godling his favorite memory of all. The memory of Trakon inadvertently changing him with his life magic, the first time he had been able to feel anything other than hunger. That memory faded, and immediately one of Trakon playing with him, throwing a ball, took its place. He hadn’t realized at first that Trakon wanted him to go get it, and the old man had laughed until his belly hurt at the quizzical expressions on Sylas’ face as he tried to teach him to fetch. It, too, was a good memory.
Lastly, Sylas showed a vision of Trakon, staring off into the distance, murmuring to himself. His eyes were full of sadness, and only one sentence came clearly to Sylas; “I’m sorry I let you down, Rakisa.”
Sylas didn’t know how to free the dragons, but he did understand Jessa had done something terrible to them, and especially to Rakisa. He also knew he never wanted the terrible something to happen to his dragon friend, ‘Thira. More than anything, he wanted to erase the sadness he saw in Trakon’s eyes and protect his dragon friend from any harm.
The godling took in all of Sylas’ memories, understanding the jumble of visions as clearly as if the dog had spoken to him. He said, “SYLAS, YOU ARE INDEED WORTHY OF THE GIFT TRAKON HAS BESTOWED UPON YOU. I, TOO, WILL GRANT YOU MY GIFT AND FREE YOU FROM HAVING TO RETURN TO THE MYSTE. DRINK AND YOU WILL BE FILLED WITH MY EARTHEN MAGIC, AND YOU, TOO MAY SHARE MY KNOWLEDGE.”
The Godling Staff_Book Three Page 7
