by C. K. Rieke
The queen bowed low, looking only at the cracks in the stone at her feet in her own chambers and waited patiently for their beckoning.
“Get up,” Eyr said. The voice of the goddess was hollow and seemed to be with a great disdain, whether it was meant for the queen or not, Lezeral wasn’t certain. She rose.
Standing before the two gods, the queen wasn’t sure what to say, so instead she waited for them to usher in their normally insistent and powerful ‘welcome.’ Dânoz seemed to have a great amount of anger, or worry, in his bright blue eyes, an unusual look for the powerful, grand god. Eyr stared at the queen, who tried to busy her eyes elsewhere.
So, clearing her throat, the queen asked, “You asked for my presence?” Then, she heard a prolonged silence that seemed to perturb Eyr but seemed to not pass into the Great God’s ear. And after a few moments of quiet, she decided to ask, “I may come back later, if that is what pleases you. I too, have much on my mind, and things to attend to.”
Dânoz’s eyes shot at her like the hungry eyes of a starved sandwolf out in the wilds. “No!” His voice shook the very foundations of the palace at her feet, and the Queen’s Guard momentarily shifted to defensive positions with their spears held out, not even enough to point at the god, but Eyr took the offense quick enough so the Great God didn’t have to. With a loud screech of her rattling voice, the Queen’s Guard flittered off to specks of dust like cremated corpses, or a quick burning leaf on a hot fire.
“Come with us,” Dânoz said, and as quickly as her escorts had disintegrated to dust, Lezeral found herself being propelled through a tunnel of brilliant—yet terrifying—white lights speckled with silvers and golds. The rush that swept through her pushed the limits of her body to the extreme. Her organs felt as if they were on the brink of exploding, and the queen thought she may be going into the afterlife. She was wrong.
Before her, as she was short of breath were not only the bleak, old, and decrepit walls of the interior of the god’s castle of Firen-Ar, but the other royal figures of the Arr. King and Queen Marindírr of Godan stood holding each other next to a hearth of fine ancient wooden design with inlaid turquoise and marble. They seemed to be past the point of ‘royal-fearlessness’, with their old age and the gods Vigolos and Fayell on either side of them. Vigolos stood as half the height of Fayell, and his emerald-green eyes were framed by his long black hair and beard, streaked with silver and the long scar on his face. A fur of white slung across his back. Fayell, who was told to be the splendid beauty of the gods with her pale blue eyes on silky skin with her long, flowing auburn hair rolling down her shoulders and back, held an aged disdain on her voluptuous lips as she looked at Lezeral.
Just as she had the sense to wonder where the king and prince of Scindír was, they appeared. In a rush of white light with silvers and golds lining their streaking divine tracements, the king and his son appeared in the large room, lit with thin windows above, both of their dark-skinned faces were as pale as Lezeral had ever seen them. Their eyes darted around the room, panic-stricken. Behind them appeared Arymos, possibly after Dânoz the most wrathful of the gods, now that Gorlen had been killed. His one cold-blue eye matched with the pupil-less other, and his fresh-shorn bald held wrecked with coursing veins and aged-drawn wrinkles. Lezeral noticed that the prince was crying, trying to hold in his fear.
She had a couple of moments to take in what was happening and the surroundings before any of the gods spoke. Dirty, black walls with aged moss and dust enveloped the old stone walls of the lowest parts of the tower they were standing in. Looking up, Lezeral saw the splendor of the encircling staircase as it wound its way up to the divinely high reaches of the top of the castle of Firen-ar on the god’s island of Arralyn. Torches of undying-silver flame illuminated the way up the winding staircases.
“Why have you brought us here?” Lezeral asked, and all the gods’ eyes shot at her with inhuman glares.
“Why have you been brought here?” Dânoz asked, he looked at Arymos, expressionless.
“You’ve been brought here because we are going to war!” Arymos said. “You were put in charge by us in your tiny lifespans to do our will. You are here to fulfill your duty. Do you understand?” His eyes were frightening and menacing, far past his words.
“We are here to serve you and fulfill our roles,” King Borr said. “We will do as you please.”
“You are here to see,” Fayell said, her delicate soft-brown hair flowing past her shoulders. “Come.”
In a maelstrom of another shifting of white light and golds, the kings and queens found themselves shooting downwards through the aged-stone floor into the depths of the castle. They traveled far deeper than any of them ever thought possible under the god’s castle. It seemed like they were traveling into the Eternal Fires themselves with the gods.
Their hurtling journey took them to a deep, dark part of the palace with an eerie calm. From what had been an awe-inspiring cacophony of rich colors and vertically streaking bright white had been replaced with a room with no walls in sight. It was a shadowy black that only let Lezeral see the other royal pairs next to her.
The air was still, yet thick like an old cellar beneath a keep with a door that hadn’t been opened in centuries. Yet, as the queen watched the King and Queen Marindírr stare back at her with frightened, aged, and wise eyes—she found no fear in herself. She looked over at King Warrgon, who himself, in his brutish presence seemed as though a stiff wind would knock him clean over. His son, the prince, had turned from a whimpering, frightened boy to a still child with wide eyes staring out into the darkness with pale, flush skin.
“What are we here to see?” the queen asked to no perceivable god around, but she could feel them and their power. “We are here to see what you’ve brought us here for.”
A torch lit directly from behind her, and the elderly king and queen gasped at the spark that lit it. The golden torch has held high by the Grand God himself, Dânoz. He strode out between Lezeral and the king and queen of Godan. King Borr held Eza closely next to him. Lezeral walked after Dânoz.
As she walked behind him, in his glory she fell deeply into his shadow as his shoulders loomed high over her, and more than three times the width of hers. She looked back to see the other four gods following behind. Looking around at the empty, stale dark around she saw that the shadows were beginning to fade from the light of the torch. The circle that its fire created at its feet was growing.
“We aren’t far,” Dânoz said, his voice like a rumble of thunder, echoing throughout . . . wherever they were.
Lezeral continued her walk behind him, and something appeared in the torchlight around them. It appeared to her at first as roots of an old tree sticking up through the hard dirt. Then she thought it may be sticks. It wasn’t until she heard the snap of one of them under her feet that she realized what those sticks were: bones—human bones.
“Where have you brought us?” she asked the Great God. He didn’t answer. But Vigolos did in his gruff tone behind his smooth black beard littered with silver grays.
“We ourselves haven’t been down here since the old war was won,” he said. “This was their home . . . before the old wars even started this was where they lived, and this is where they were brought when they died.”
“Who’s they?” Queen Eza asked, looking around for a sign of what they were speaking of. The queen’s fingers on her hands tapped nervously on her sides.
“Behold,” Dânoz said, moving to their side in an elegant, powerful stride. The light of his torch shot out, illuminating everything before them in a golden glow. As the royalty of the Arr laid their gaze on the sight before them, Queen Lezeral couldn’t help but bring her hands up to cover her mouth.
Queen Eza gasped, and King Warrgon took a single step back in awe.
“The dragon Kôrran’s body was hidden from us,” Eyr said. “But the others, we brought down here.”
Before them, on a series of pedestals made of a white, marble-like rock, each as wi
de as Queen Lezeral’s throne room laid collections of bones. These were not the bones of a man though, they were far too big, and the most recognizable of the bones were the skulls, which were nearly as large as the queen herself. Each skull had large empty holes where eyes should be, and long aged horns atop their heads. There were three of these pedestals before them.
“The dragons,” King Garrond said. “The last of the dragons from the Great Serpentine Wars. You’ve kept them. This is your trophy room then?”
“In a sense,” Arymos said. “We’ve held onto them for all of the years, to look back at our old enemies, but also we kept them for a day we thought would not come. Yet that day is nigh.”
“Because of the dragon that the girl has released?” King Borr asked. “Is that why you’ve summoned us to witness this?”
Arymos shot back, “It’s not the one dragon that bitch raised! There’s another now, a mate for the first!” They could all feel the ground shifting under their feet from the infamous god’s rage. “She’s found another, and this one’s a male. How could you let this happen?” He approached Garrond, ready to strike him down. “We gave you the power, armies and the entirety of the Scaethers with only one charge: kill all who attempt to take what is ours! The girl is trying to take what is rightfully ours!”
“Steady your hand,” Fayell said. Arymos glowered at her, but brought his hand back, and Garrond visibly cleared his throat.
“Six dragon resting monoliths,” Queen Lezeral said. “This mortuary is ancient, and each of the six dragon’s remains rest peacefully on them. It is beautiful.”
“We didn’t bring you here to admire its crafting,” Vigolos said.
“Why . . . why did you bring us here?” The prince squeaked.
A thought came her then. “You wish to raise these dragons . . . And you need our help . . .”
Dânoz’s eyes shimmered in the torchlight.
“You need our help?” King Borr asked, his voice unwavering and wise. “Why would you need our help? Do you not have the power you need to resurrect these creatures? We certainly would not if that was the case.”
Eyr walked over to the king’s side, her flowing red hair dipping low as she leaned to whisper into his ear, “Raising dragons is not a thing the divine can do, that power is only given to the royalty of the Arr. After all, as gods, even we do not command infinite power.”
“You want us to raise these dragons?” Queen Eza asked. “Aren’t you worried they’ll turn on you? Just as they did in the Great Serpentine Wars? You defeated them once already.”
“Leave that part to us,” Dânoz said.
“Do we have a choice in this?” Queen Lezeral asked. “How many innocents would die at the whims of a hungry dragon? Let alone six?”
“Many,” Fayell said. “Many will die, but we cannot allow these dragons to breed, and we cannot allow Kera to live, she’s poison in our lands.”
“How do we raise them?” King Garrond asked, the war-hardened king was regaining his strength.
“A drop of blood from each of you,” Eyr said. “A drop of blood for each dragon. We will do the rest.”
King Garrond unsheathed a broad, silver dagger from his scabbard with a metallic ring. “Then let it be so.” He approached the monolith on the left, and cut through his left palm, clenching his fist to let the blood drop onto the dragon’s skull. Then he made his way over to the second.
Prince Garrond pulled his dagger with great assurity then and made his way to the first dragon’s remains. King and Queen Marindírr looked at each other, and made their way to the first dragon’s bones. Queen Lezeral didn’t move, but she heard the prince cut into his own hand as he winced. She then heard the elderly king and queen of Godan unsheathe a dagger.
“Lezeral?” Fayell asked. “You may make your way up there now.”
King Garrond was already at the fourth dragon, squeezing his fist, letting his blood drop on the bones. Queen Eza was letting tiny drops of her blood fall onto the first dragon. Queen Lezeral still stood in place, and there was an eerie still growing around her.
“What’re you waiting for?” Arymos asked. She didn’t reply.
King Garrond and his son were now returning to where they were, having left their blood on all six of the pedestals. King Borr and his wife were making their way slowly around the monoliths.
“What’re you doing?” Garrond asked Lezeral. “They aren’t asking.”
She looked up at him with an icy gaze, and she lifted her chin high.
“No,” she said firmly.
The stillness in the air turned to a whirling storm of divine anger and rage. Lezeral heard the gods yelling all around at her. Her eyes were closed, and the ground shook, rocks from the ceiling high above pummeled the ground. The air rippled from the loud yells and she felt at any second she could be struck down, torn apart, or been given a fate worse than death. But the queen only thought of her people then, the millions of people that she was to protect. It would only take one dragon to decimate a city if it so pleased—and this was six dragons the gods wanted her to help them raise.
In the middle of the burning hot rage going on around her, she opened her eyes to see each of the gods in the middle of angry tirades toward her, all except Dânoz, who still stood to the side, yet his eyes were burning onto her. She figured that since she hadn’t been killed yet, that they really did need her to fulfill her part in using her own blood voluntarily.
“No,” she said again, and the gods let out another barrage of threats and rage that made her insides shake. “No! No! No!”
All the light in the room faded, and the fury of the gods died down to a murmur. Lezeral looked up blindly into the dark, but then a pair of familiar blue eyes appeared before her, and then the full body of Dânoz shown as if he was standing in full sunlight.
“My child,” he said. “What is the matter? Why do you wish to not grant our request?” She didn’t answer, biting her lip. He lowered himself to a knee, still only having to look slightly up to look into her eyes. “Tell me.”
She looked at the Great God kneeling before her, but no words came. She didn’t know what to say.
“I know what it is,” Dânoz said with a smile. “You worry for your people. Don’t you?”
The queen wanted to cry, but held back all tears, nodded her head while still biting her lip.
“I understand,” he said. “I want to do the same. I want to protect my people. I’ve already lost one, and so have you. Nothing makes the heart yearn more than the loss of a loved one.” His eyes were gentle and mesmerizing. “So why don’t you just go up there and follow your friends, and help me so that I can help protect my family?”
“I . . . I can’t. The dragons—they’ll kill too many. Too much death occurs when the dragons are free to fly.”
Dânoz sighed and shook his head. “Fine.” He looked back up at her, his eyes were different now, not as warm, and tiny flames fanned out from the corners of his eyes. He stood back up, looking down on her. “You’re worried the dragons will kill your people? The people that I gave you? Let me help you with your decision then, and I want you to listen to my words and make your decision very carefully. Either go over there and do as I ask like the courageous queen you are—or I will kill every last living soul in your miserable city myself. Yes, I’ll kill every woman and child, and I’ll do it in your name. Do you doubt my words?”
“No, I know you’re telling the truth.” The tears fell as she walked over to the first monolith. The room was quickly lit again. She drew her dagger from underneath her dress, and pricked her left thumb, and let a drop fall to the cracked pile of bones painted with light drops of fresh red blood. She could feel the pride of the gods behind her, but she didn’t want to look back to see their spiteful grins.
She made her way down the line, letting her blood flow to each one, and when the last one was done she returned and stood next to Queen Eza’s side, who embraced her. “You did what you had to do,” she said. “We all did.�
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“Rise!” Dânoz called out. “Old dragons of ages past. You’ve been summoned for a new war, a war that gives you what you long for most—death.”
Lezeral turned to look back at the piles of bones, and she was startled to find that fires were beginning to rise upon each monolith.
“Rise!” the Great God called out again. “To the skies. Kill those that oppose us. The new dragons are not of your kin. They seek to take your lands from you!”
The fires quickly rose to brilliant pyres of grand flames that Lezeral had to step back from as the heat was too intense for her, and she soon had to shield her eyes. But she could feel the fires were growing hotter and larger still.
“Rise, my dragons. Rise!”
The flames died down, and the heat subsided. Lezeral was able to open her eyes again, but found that Dânoz’s torch had been extinguished, and the only light that lit the area was from the small, last flames that danced along the tops of the white pedestals. She looked closely to see that the bones of the dragons were gone, and then that was when she heard it . . . They all heard it . . .
Like lightning followed by swift, booming thunder . . . A roar bellowed out in the darkness, a roar that made the queen drop to her knees. It was a roar she’d wished she’d never hear.
Queen Eza clutched at Lezeral’s sleeve. “That was no baby dragon,” she said, her voice shaking. “We summoned adult dragons—war dragons.”
Another roar was let out, then another, and another. They echoed from all around them.
“What have we done?” Queen Lezeral asked. “What have we done?”
Part VI
The Return of Dragons
