by Colt, K. J.
Every wyrmling hatched in Atikala breathed its first breath in the nursery—the cavern that was the deepest, strongest, most protected part of the entire city. We meticulously recorded its parentage in our libraries before it was put to work as a craftsman, warrior, or some other assigned task, reproducing at the age of six winters, and toiling until killed by war, misadventure, or overwork.
This was the cycle. Birth, assignment, reproduction, death. It was a system ruthlessly enforced with unwavering devotion, and our society flourished for it.
However sometimes things went wrong. Sometimes order was not upheld.
For every clutch of eggs the system produced, and it produced many, some were not viable. Those that did not contain the spark of life had their names reclaimed, the dead eggs cast into the furnaces, becoming fuel for the fires that heated the great central nursery and drove the forges we used to create tools and weapons.
So it was for me.
My dead egg was cast into the furnace with a dozen or so others; the fire burned around us, and one by one, they were consumed by the flames, soon reduced to nothing.
Yet I was not.
When the great conflagration died down, my protective shell sat unharmed and cradled in a pile of ash, glowing with a faint golden light.
The first thing I remembered was the glow.
This was a strange event indeed, seen from the inside of an egg, living inside a hardened shell. I remember the light, bright but welcoming, and the sincere feeling of comfort that accompanied it. Then movement. My egg was brought before the high sorceress assigned to watch over the clutch. I remember this moment most distinctly of all. Impossibly oversized claws enveloping my home, and I remember hearing her voice. The voice of Tzala.
“You were certain that it was without life?”
Dragons are hatched knowing how to speak. The same is true for my kind. We all know the tongue of our forebearers, and even before I had left my shell, I understood the nuances of our people. It was instinct. A racial memory we all possessed.
Another voice, female, unknown to me. “Yes, Leader. Cold as the stone, it was. I used the wand to verify it; there was no spark. Protocol demanded it be destroyed.” There was a faint shuffling, claws scratching on the stone underfoot. “Am I to report for execution?”
“You followed protocol,” the voice holding me reminded her, “and your duty was clear. You could not have foreseen the egg’s survival, plucked from death’s embrace by fate itself.”
“Very well, Leader. With your blessing I will return to my labours.”
I heard the kobold leave, and my home turned over and over in Tzala’s claws, a strange but not uncomfortable sensation. I felt drawn to her, comforted by her voice. She was known to me. I had met her already somehow, although I didn’t understand it. My earliest memories, however, did not reach any further back than the fading heat of the flames; my second birth in a roaring pit of fire.
“How is this possible?” Tzala mused. “What are you?”
Beyond this, I remember nothing.
ACT ONE
The Only Way to Go Is Up
HOME.
THE WORD HAS A special resonance with us all. Great or humble, rich or poor, everyone cherishes their home, and if deprived of it, loses a piece of themselves. We crave the stability of the known, a warm bed that we can crawl into every night, our possessions around us and everything just as it is supposed to be. We fight to defend it. If we are lucky, home is the place where we die.
I remember looking back at Atikala, its ceiling collapsed, the homes of fifty thousand kobolds crushed under unimaginable tonnes of rock and dirt. I wanted to reject that this had happened, to scream to the ceiling until the rock receded, until fate changed its mind and restored everything to the way it was. I thought life could not be so cruel as to take everything I’d known in an instant—everything we had all known.
Oh how I now understand that life can be capricious indeed.
It took me many years, but I eventually realised that my species is not so dissimilar to the humans, the dwarves, or even the gnomes. We hate and fear so much and so many, but we are more alike than most know.
We all have one thing in common, and that is we love our homes. To lose our home is a terrible thing that pains our hearts like the death of a close friend. Physically a home is nothing more than inanimate stone and wood and nails, but it is so much more when surrounded by friends, by family, and by all the things we love.
I don’t remember how long Khavi and I wandered in the long, winding tunnels at the north of the world. We survived entirely by chance. We were two kobolds stumbling around the underworld with nothing but our patrol gear, weapons, armour, and a backpack full of supplies for a week’s march. We had no plan, only a vague idea where we were going, and nowhere to return to.
It was the single great event that changed my life, and I feel, beyond even the strange circumstances of my hatching and training in the great city of Atikala, beyond discovering my sorcerer’s talent and awakening the spark of magic within me, that this is a good point to begin the story of my life.
There are other stories that I wish to tell, and I will tell them one day, but this story must come first.
The story of how I came to the surface of Drathari and unwillingly traded a life for a life.
— Ren of Atikala
CHAPTER ONE
THE DAY ATIKALA WAS DESTROYED was a special day for me.
I woke up with a start, the memory of a dream still raw and vivid, every detail seared into my mind. It was another night filled with haunting dreams. This one was a memory, that of my second birth.
I disliked being unable to control my mind while I slept, but sorcerers always dreamed. Our dreams reflected the faint sliver of powerful blood in our veins, a body stuffed with too much soul, the excess spilling into the night hours. It was the price we paid for our arts.
The dreams, sometimes original and sometimes mirrors of my own memories and experiences, stayed with me and refused to fade when my waking hours came. Each one was infused with power and omens, the beating of golden wings, and the comforting yet intense heat as I exhaled a wreath of flame that could melt stone.
But prophecy was dead. There were no portents in my dreams. Nobody had been able to see the future for hundreds of years, to the point that some wondered if such things ever existed. Yet sometimes I wondered, somewhat fearfully, if the memories appeared in my sleep not because they had happened before, but because they would happen again.
I uncurled myself from the cool stone floor of the quarters that served as my lodgings, the simple home of a warrior. I was careful not to let my claws scratch any of the nine others sharing the floor with me, all huddled together around a pile of coals for warmth.
Of those who lived with me, I always awoke first, and always because of the Dreaming. I climbed to my feet, stepping over and around my fellows as I gingerly made my way over to the wooden chest, six inches by nine and six deep, the vessel for all my worldly possessions.
It was rare for kobolds to own anything at all, but the sorcerers amongst us tended to have keepsakes. Memories of our younger years, things to ward away nightmares or to grant nights without dreams. My box held only a red velvet bag. I lifted it, tugging open the string and upending the contents into my hand.
Eggshells. Golden fragments of my egg, still glowing with a faint light after all these winters. They were so small in my palm. I turned them over and over, listening to them rattle against each other. I had once lived completely within this thing. It had been my entire universe, all I knew and experienced, but I had eventually broken free of it and seen so much more.
It was like this city. Few kobolds outside the Darkguard had left Atikala, but I knew there was a much wider world out there. A world of fantastic creatures, of monsters and evil. Was Atikala my new egg? My new existence waiting to be shattered?
I had so many questions but had found no answers. Why had the egg not burned? Why did it
continue to glow to this day? Why was I golden coloured when all around me were rusty or black?
“What am I?” I spoke to the broken pieces, hoping the fragments of my birth device would have words to speak back at me.
“Talking to yourself again, Ren?”
Ren. It meant nothing. With my name struck from the register after my death, Ren was what everyone called me.
I didn’t have to turn around to know who was speaking. The low, deep voice belonged to Khavi. Khavi was an oddity; he was the only male in our patrol team. Only one in twenty kobolds were male.
I had reached six winters, and Khavi had been the first assigned to breed with me when the season was right. He had successfully bred with another of our patrolmates already and came from a respectable line of strong warriors. There was nothing to dislike about the pairing, but I wasn’t sure about the idea of mating with him. Not that it mattered. I knew I had to do my duty. The numbers of the city had to grow.
“No.” I tipped the eggshells back into the pouch, careful to catch them all, then slipped the string around my neck.
“I’ve heard you talking to that thing before,” Khavi said. I heard him stand, claws squeaking faintly on the stone. “You should throw it away. It’s not healthy to keep talking to it.”
“It’s mine,” I said, turning around to face him, “and I’ll keep it if I wish. Sorcerers are permitted personal effects.”
“That doesn’t seem fair.”
“Life’s not fair,” I said.
“But it’s unnatural to own things.” It was clear by the way Khavi spoke he was reciting one of his lessons. “The community’s goods belong to everyone. To own is to restrict, and to restrict is to devalue. Why would you devalue the society’s property, that which is owned by all?”
I didn’t have a valid answer to the wisdom of the city leaders. Instead I dodged the question and stretched out my limbs, joints cracking as I exercised them. “We should get to the armoury. We have our patrol today.”
Khavi’s muzzle split in a grin, revealing a wide field of razor sharp teeth. Males had duller teeth than females, but Khavi seemed to be an exception. Despite his narrow chest and shorter stature, Khavi was as strong as any female. “We do. Our first patrol as seniors. Our first time in charge.”
I walked to the thin curtain that divided our room from the hallway, pulling it aside and stepping through. Kobolds had no doors, no locks, no internal dividers. Doors were to keep intruders away. Fellow kobolds were not intruders; the cloth was simply to reduce noise.
“Are you sure you’re up to this?”
Khavi’s red eyes glowed with an eager light as he moved to follow, the two of us stepping into the tight passage with a throng of others, all moving either to our duties or returning from them. “I have been waiting for this day for some time,” he said, moving with me through the bustling crowd. “You have your dreams, and I have mine. They’re somewhat less literal, I admit, but it’s the same thing.”
I stepped over a glowbug that scurried underfoot, its bright light flaring as my footclaw scraped its back. “It’s not, it’s different,” I tried to explain for the hundredth time. “My dreams are not ambitions, merely…things. Things that I see and feel. Not what I want to be or do.”
“Fortunate that you do not wish to be a dragon!” He laughed, a rasping noise that drew the attention of other kobolds in the corridor. “I fear you are much too small for that, goldling.”
Goldling. My derisive nickname since hatching. I clamped my jaw together, careful not to sever the tip of my tongue with my teeth. “Thank you,” I hissed. “I hadn’t noticed.”
Soon the tunnel widened away from the sleeping quarters and out to the city proper. Atikala was built into a subterranean cavern, and despite its massive size, had few buildings. Sleeping quarters were built into the walls, making the best use of the limited open space our people could find. Khavi and I crossed the plaza, a flat area teeming with kobolds moving between sections, until we arrived at the central part of the city.
The great Dome of Daily Reflection. We knelt obediently, as all were expected to do in the morning, reflecting on the lessons we had learnt throughout our lives, focusing on the one we anticipated would be the most important for the day.
As this was my first day as patrol leader, I drew upon a lesson Yeznen had given me about the enemies of our people. His words flowed through my mind as clear as the day I’d first heard them.
We are cousins to dragons. If fate were righteous and fair, this entire world would be ours, with the dragons at its head and us by their sides.
But fate is neither righteous nor fair. We may have the blood of our masters in our veins, but never let your arrogance blind you to reality. We live in a world surrounded by hate, by hungry steel in blood-soaked hands.
Humans. Elves. Gnomes. Jealous of our gifts, these wicked races of darkness are your enemies. They hate you as you hate them, seeking only your destruction and the denial of our destiny. Never hesitate to spill their blood, for they would end you in a heartbeat.
The righteous can have no mercy for monsters. Say it with me now, children! Shout it to the stones above! Let all who hear our voices tremble in fear!
No mercy for monsters!
No mercy for monsters!
No mercy for monsters!
“So I hold, Leader,” I said to the dome.
“So I hold, Leader,” said Khavi. I stood, then offered Khavi my hand. As I pulled my friend to his feet, I wondered which lesson had played through his mind. It was probably the same as mine. “No Mercy for Monsters” was his favourite.
Our observance completed, we headed to the open-air bazaar that served as the city’s armoury.
Kobolds did not own things, so we had little use for walls inside the city. No locks or guards protected the weapons and armour supplies; they lay on open benches unattended, and the two of us attracted no attention as we approached our allocated table.
“Do you think we’ll kill anything?” asked Khavi, hoisting his well-worn suit of armour, its humanskin leather plates squeaking as he pulled it over his head. I did the same with mine.
“I doubt it,” I answered, adjusting my straps, making sure the armour was snug and tight without snagging on my scales. “It will be as every patrol we had as wyrmlings. Uneventful.”
“That’s dangerous thinking,” said Khavi, drawing a belt around his thin midsection, and then strapping the shin guards to his legs. “Our eyes should always be alert. If you expect no danger, you’ll find none until it finds you. Yeznen told us that.”
Yeznen was too paranoid for my taste. “The gnomes, may the shit of the dead Gods fall on them, don’t value the minerals below them, and the humans above us know better than to burrow where they are not welcome.”
Khavi reached out and tapped a claw to my leather breastplate. “These one’s didn’t.”
“Perhaps it is good we might encounter some raiders then,” I said, reaching up and tucking my pouch of eggshells under the plates. “The community could always use more armour.”
We shared a laugh, and then retrieved our weapons. Khavi easily hoisted the large two-handed sword that was his trademark weapon. He eyed me as I lifted the delicate short-blade I favoured, slipping my buckler onto my arm. It was an action I’d done hundreds, if not thousands, of times.
“You are a sorcerer, are you not?” asked Khavi, a variation of the same question he asked every time we donned our equipment.
“Yes,” I answered, an edge of exasperation creeping into my voice. “I am.”
“You cast spells, then.”
“You know that I do. You ask me almost every time we’re here.”
Khavi smiled. “Perhaps I’m expecting a different answer one day. I just want to know why you remain with the patrol teams instead of becoming a leader. You choose to be a warrior.”
“Yes, I choose to be a warrior,” I echoed. This was enough of a reason, enough justification.
“Then I fear I
will never understand you,” said Khavi, strapping the weapon over his back. “Nor will I understand your desire to choose things. I go where the Leaders tell me to go.” His voice took on a serious edge. “You know that the only reason they permit you to train as a warrior is those scales of yours.”
My annoyance bubbled and grew into insult. I turned to him, hissing faintly. “You know I hate it when we talk about this.”
“About being a warrior or about being a Goldling?”
“About my scales. About what I am. It’s just a colour.”
Khavi affixed a firm stare on me. “And what is that? Perhaps your hue is more than an innocent pigment. Perhaps you draw your power from the blood of the rotten golds.”
Gold was the colour of the hated metallic dragons, cousins to the silver, bronze, brass, and copper.
The metallic dragons were our mortal enemies. The gold wyrms were lofty and uncaring, the silvers were collaborators with our various enemies, the bronze were foolhardy and destructive and the brass were deceptive and manipulative. The last of them, copper dragons, were maliciously cruel and wicked, delighting in torments and riddles. Plain out-and-out evil. In Atikala the coppers were hated above all the other metallic dragons, especially as one lived relatively close to a neighbouring gnomish settlement.
Nothing had come of the copper’s presence yet, but our leaders were always wary. There were no known gold dragons nearby, something that had certainly helped secure my survival. Nobody could be sure of anything except that I manifested spells, but my colour had always been a source of confusion and shame.
Khavi was being more inquisitive than usual, and I didn’t like it. I snarled and thumped my fist into his shoulder. “Don’t,” I warned. “It’s just a pigment. It means nothing.”
He held up his hands defensively, taking a step back. “As you wish,” he said. “It’s just a pigment.” He gave me another smile. “Look, forget it, okay? How about we just enjoy this special day of ours?”
