A Dragon's Vice

There weren’t always dragons in The Valley. Haasgor, first breath of the born-again Empress Aleia Levros, shook his gaze from the ash-stained earth and neighbouring hills. The weight of his dark cloak, under a brazen sun, continued to see him sweat. He urged his horse into a canter, ignoring the burnt remnants of the stables he and his brother had worked years earlier. This side of the Broken Sea, and certainly so close to the Bloodlands, everything burned. Last Pass was once a sought-after sight for weary travellers of the dead empire, the final village before The Valley waned into what Haasgor’s great grandfather named Hill Heir’s Marsh. It took a moment to realise his mount had come to a standstill, Last Pass’s inn had been reduced to a deep blackened scar of scorched rubble. Haasgor peered down at his hands, webs of veins exalting up the back of the fist he had unintentionally made. His steed’s reigns were taught in his grasp.

“There’s nothing here,” he said louder than he intended, the horse’s name already forgotten in the three days he had known it. He reasoned there was every chance neither of them would survive the week. His mount had not moved and only at the press of his heel did it trot forward. The ruins of Last Pass were soon behind him and he opened his saddlebags, bringing the last of the bread he had purchased to his mouth. The empress had assured him arriving in the Bloodlands would be far harder than departing them. As he rode on, he mulled over his task again; he had paid Kuldth’s best smugglers to see him to the shores of Tryllan, his homeland. Then, he had bargained with the last of its merchants foolish enough to scavenge the remains of the coastline, and travelled to the village he swore he would never return. Now, as the hills shrunk with each of his horse’s stride, he felt the knot in his stomach wring itself all the way to his throat.

“Prophet will be there waiting for you,” the empress had said on the royal docks of Kuldth where they had last spoken. She wore a long ocean-hued coat that fell to her shins with black trousers. Known for always travelling, Aleia’s riding boots matched her dark hair and the thread she tied it up in. Haasgor’s wide eyes immediately betrayed him and Aleia, despite years of perfecting a mask of chilling indifference, allowed herself a smile. “Sorcerers are a welcomed sight when there’s a nation of dragons threatening our extinction,” she said. “Now go, I wish you every fortune and success. You are my first breath for this and so many reasons.” The empress nodded to Haasgor.

“Yes empress,” he had mumbled, managing a tight tuck of his head and a near stumble onto his vessel. They watched one another until the waves grew dark and restless, the famed tower of Kuldth finally fading into the evening sky.

The last reaches of The Valley receded from the heights of his knees to the red sands that stretched to the horizon. Haasgor stilled his horse and dismounted, retrieving his water flask and the dagger from his saddle bag. He took a long gulp and carefully moved the blade to the inside of his cloak. There was nothing left to do until the sorceress arrived, he looked up at the sky and noted the sun would not rise any higher. His horse did not complain as he grabbed its reins and led it for a moment back the way they had come. He gently let go and the beast continued to trot onwards. As Haasgor turned to the Bloodlands he paused at the harsh sigh of sand under foot. Before he could glance over his shoulder, a woman clad in grey robes stood before him. Her dark-red hair flowed down to her knees. Haasgor had encountered several magic users in his time serving the empress and was unsurprised to see the sorceress barefoot.

“Are you Prophet?” He asked slowly.

At his question, the red-haired woman cocked her head to one side.

“You may call me this, yes,” she said. Her voice was lower than he expected, she spoke clearly as if every syllable mattered. “And you are Haasgor, first breath of the born-again Empress Aleia Levros and child of Last Pass.”

Haasgor stifled a frown, nothing a sorceress could know should be surprising.

“I am,” he said. Prophet walked to his side and as her eyes met his, Haasgor swallowed. “So much of you is still here, despite the ruin. This place still remembers,” Prophet said, looking up at the edge of The Valley. For a moment she did not move a muscle, lost in thought or whatever her eyes detected between those trailing hills, then she was gone. Haasgor gasped, searching for the sorceress. He glanced towards the Bloodlands and there, fifty strides ahead of him, she stood waiting.

For hours they did not speak to one another; advancing into the burnt-scarred remains of Hill Heir’s marsh, on occasion Prophet would vanish and reappear ahead of Haasgor and quickly he lost the urge to search for her. Neither of the two stopped as the first bones began to litter the ground they walked on. At first, singular bones belonging to humans and animals; an arm or rib, a leg and the odd skull would greet them. As the sun began to recede from atop the sky, near-whole skeletons marked by rotten or burnt flesh began to punctuate the journey. Haasgor stopped at the mouth of what could only have been a dragon’s skull. It sat on its side and was taller than any man he had seen.

“They’re killing their own,” he said and heard a noise from above. Prophet appeared, crouched on top of the skull, her hand firmly pressed against the beast’s temple and her eyes rolled backward. She stayed like this for a handful of seconds, her brow creased before releasing a deep exhale.

“It is worse than the empress believed,” she said, appearing next to him. Haasgor paused. “You are going to ask if we should keep going,” Prophet said, resuming the walk. They continued to travel until there was no longer light to make out the hordes of skeletons increasing in number. Haasgor had counted thirteen dragon skulls when he and Prophet sat down to rest against the largest they had come across.

“I did not know dragons killed their own like this,” he said.

Prophet chuckled, although the harshness of it made it sound close to a grunt.

“Only recently have they had that luxury,” she said. “Tomorrow, we face their gerent as agreed by the empress.”

“Do we survive?” Haasgor asked, the sorceress grinned. “That’s your magic, is it not? Travelling through time?”

“You can call it that, yes. Others know it as time walking,” Prophet said, still amused. Though he could no longer see in the darkness, he heard her appear on his other side and she was much closer to him now. “Whatever happens tomorrow Haasgor, you must remember that the empress trusts me. It is the only thing that matters. Can you do that?”

He blinked, sensing her forefinger before she pressed it against his brow.

“Yes,” he muttered, breath escaping too fast out his mouth.

“Good Haasgor, now sleep,” Prophet whispered, and he groaned as his eyes closed and he passed out.

He awoke at the press of her hand against his mouth, his eyes flicking open. Prophet kneeled next to him, her eyes gazing at something above, slowly she released him and helped him stand.

“That was the third that has passed over us,” she said quietly. Haasgor nodded and glanced up at the dim sky, the sun had barely crested the horizon and the morning shadows seemed to expand the Bloodlands’s terrain all the further. They did not waste time, leaving their resting spot at a pace that saw the skull soon shrink into the red sand all around them. Their route became uglier, Prophet lead Haasgor across detours to avoid the clumps of bones amassed in piles and half-devoured corpses covering more of the red sands they walked on. He stopped suddenly as his cloak was yanked across his neck, hard enough to squash his airway. A long, thin blade severed the dark cloth from its snare, Prophet brought her weapon to her side and crouched down to inspect her work. In a blur she was standing, the sword swiftly keening towards whatever his cloak had been snagged on. Haasgor grimaced as the sword found its mark, bone cracking against the steel and a plume of red sand rising from Prophet’s effort. She bent down once more and held out the dragon’s fang for him to see. He peered at the tips of half a dozen teeth protruding awkwardly from the sand.

“Bested by a dead dragon’s fang it seems,” Prophet said quietly, her eyes scanning over her discovery. Haasgor remained silent, willing himself to his feet as his muscles protested the effort. The sorceress’s eyes were still fixed to the fang, she held it higher in the budding morning light and chuckled. “My thanks for helping me find this,” she pointed it at him before concealing it behind her cloak. Haasgor knew better than to waste time wondering what manner of things she kept on her person.

“How far can you see ahead of time?” He asked.

Prophet arched her head to one side, her red hair whipping tentatively in the wind. “It depends how long it takes to see it,” she replied.

“You have to wait all of the time between this moment and the one you wish to go too?”

“And the time it takes to come back. I could watch your mother give birth to you. I could hold you as a newborn in my arms, were my mind prepared to wait the thirty and two years it would take to go backwards,” Prophet said, gesturing for him to start walking again. “A decade from now, I could watch the empress’s flag fall from the Tower of Kuldth during a particularly vicious thunderstorm. But I would also have to see every awful thing that is about to happen on my way there and again on my return.”

Haasgor found himself sucking in great bouts of breath. “What happens in the time you wait? Where do you go? Where does it go?”

“Nothing. Nowhere. Time is in our heads. For me twenty years, a thousand, could go by like this,” the sorceress clicked her fingers. “And for all you know, we have been walking a minute in the Bloodlands while I have time walked decades.”

Haasgor snorted, it was that or belch his stomach warned. Prophet made him sweat faster than any heat from the sun, as he thought over her words he found his mind drifting towards the empress. Aleia trusts her, he told himself.

“What is the furthest you have ever travelled in time?” He asked after they had well and truly re-established their walking rhythm. The sorceress laughed loudly.

“You are aware of the Druthum Accords, the decrees governing all human magic?” She asked. Every citizen of the born-again empire knew of the accords. Haasgor nodded. “Then you know that the first accord mandates all magic must be paid for with sacrifice.”

“The second decrees no wielder can ever practise more than one branch of magic and the third says no human can break the Accords,” Haasgor said. “I don’t understand your point.”

“How much of your sanity would you forsake to learn how you will die?”

Haasgor blinked. “I don’t know,” he said after a moment.

“I have seen as far as my mind will sacrifice,” she said bluntly, her words landing like a knock to his ribs. He knew his lesson in the magics of time walking, as it was known, was over. Prophet vanished without another word, he guessed she would appear in front of him and instead of looking for her, wondered how far she had time walked in the split second it took to find her ten paces ahead. He thought of the days he had spent walking without speaking to another person or eating, the silences that he had no choice but to befriend and welcome, so that he might survive his journeys. And see her again. He grunted at his thought’s intrusion. Haasgor decided a month might be the longest he could see himself venturing forward in time, the present was too important to lose oneself elsewhere.

“How did you know where I came from?” He asked her when they stopped to climb a large mound of bones. The empress’s first breath took his time, placing his feet exactly where Prophet had before him. It continued to occur to him, she must have time walked to the end of their journey numerous times already.

“You told me,” Prophet said.

“What?” He coughed as sand kicked up into his open mouth.

“You are about to ask when and it is best I do not answer.

“Right,” Haasgor wiped the sweat off his brow. “And where are you from?”

Prophet paused at the top of the bones, long enough to concern Haasgor. “I no longer can recall unless I go back,” she said finally. “As I said, my mind has sacrificed a great deal.” He nodded, his throat tightening as he fought to find the right words. The sorceress’s face was blank, her eyes lost in thought as she scanned the land in front of them. Now only patches of red sand peaked through the endless arrays of bones and the ugly constructions they congealed.

“There is a large skull underneath the legs to your left, I suggest you get comfortable. We are to go no further,” Prophet said, staring at the heap of carcasses stacked on top of one another. Haasgor obliged, carefully shifting his weight between each step, out of his periphery he caught the curve of an enormous eye socket. He heard a deep cracking sound as he stepped towards it, and winced as bones tumbled in all directions. He took another step quickly and sighed when held his weight. When he reached the skull, he glanced over to see Prophet sitting down on another large skull, her eyes rolled backward, and her hands cupped around a dragon’s rib bone longer than her torso. Bones all around them began to break from within, the protruding limbs blurring into dust as all but the two skulls Prophet and Haasgor were now seated on disappeared. He looked at the sorceress open mouthed.

“That was an acceleration spell, very difficult. It takes hundreds of years to learn how to do that to a living thing,” Prophet said, she vanished only to reappear exactly where she had before.

“The empress said you had something to find before this mission, something we could not succeed without. You found it?” Haasgor asked.

Prophet smiled. “I did, yes you could say I did.” From her cloak she pulled out a bundle of material, swiftly unfolding the layers of cloth and holding it out to Haasgor to inspect. He did not know what to make of it, they were bones but different to any of the ones he had seen in the Bloodlands. It had to be a hand of sorts, though there were only two fingers. They were twice the thickness of a human’s, and the adjoining thumb was longer than either of them.

“What is it?” he asked.

“It is the hand of a first dweller, known in their own language as The Ulhyrras,” Prophet said, re-wrapping the bones.

“That will help us?”

She ignored his question, instead she turned her gaze to the sky. The sun had already returned to its highest point and Haasgor realised with some grace, there were no clouds today. They heard it first as a rolling echo, deep in tone but hardly threatening. Then the second roar shook the skull Haasgor was perched on with violent sonance and in the distance he saw a pair of outstretched wings thunderously beating as the dragon uttered a final war cry. It almost tore his eardrums; an explosive sound wave that left him dazed. Squinting, he watched Prophet stand and carefully strip herself of all clothing, the sorceress gently placing her garments to one side. He had barely processed a hint of her pale back before another roar from the dragon saw his gaze return to it.

“What are you doing?” He asked the sorceress.

“I suggest you do the same, this spell isn’t designed for fire,” she said.

Haasgor stood up. “What?”

“We don’t have time, quickly, take everything off!”

He looked at her again, still unable to process her nakedness before him, then at the dragon; its violet scales individualising as it neared. He shrugged himself furiously out of his cloak, before tearing at his shirt and pants. His bare skin warmed in the sunlight and he would have been glad of its grace were it not for the dragon diving towards them. Its scales were near blinding as beams of sunlight broke against its chest. Haasgor heard what he guessed was a dragon’s inhale, beautiful light from within brightened its abdomen as it raced up its chest and neck, its jaw opening.

“Prophet—” Haasgor bellowed.

Fire shot from the darkness of its mouth, a wide blaze jetting towards Prophet and Haasgor. The sorceress smiled, raising her hands towards the flames. The heat of it saw him sink to his knees groaning, he vomited as his body became caked in layers of sweat. The flames never reached them, slowing in their descent, unravelling in bright reds and vivid blues before vanishing into smoke. The empress’s first breath glistened in the aftermath, his legs buckling as he staggered onto his side. He saw a handful of embers dance on his cloak before he folded it over and extinguished them. Prophet was nowhere to be seen and in Haasgor’s search for his companion he noticed a now familiar set of violet wings circling the sky. Tears spilled out of his eyes as it roared once more. It was a blur at first, but soon he recognised its wings tucked as it careened towards him once more in rapid descent. He searched for Prophet but the sorceress had still not returned, the dragon’s final roar rattled the skull and bones around him, his gaze glued to the glistening behemoth. He realised his hands were covering his ears, and unable to look away he fumbled through his cloak for the dagger. The dragon’s belly began to lighten in a familiar dazzle of violet scales, he felt warm blood trickle down his hand as his fingers clutched tightly around the blade. There was no time to inspect the wound. The dragon bellowed as a torrent of flame greater than the last leapt from its mouth and Haasgor’s throat numbed all sound. It was as if there was now time to watch the flames gently bloom, the blue’s eclipsing into rawer reds and then whitening yellows. The first licks of the dragon’s fire were metres away and Haasgor muscles began to spasm, his knees failing him. A hand grasped his shoulder, steadying him. The sorceress’s bare skin was glowing in the flame’s light, she looked amused and before Haasgor could beg for help, a second pair of wings parted the flames. They were crimson and far smaller. The flaming breath died as the new figure absorbed the blast.

“Who–” Haasgor began but Prophet squeezed his shoulder until he was silent. The smaller dragon seemed more humanoid than its far larger peer. It could have only been marginally taller than Haasgor from head to foot. He watched in awe as it flew directly up to the violet dragon, hovering between its eyes for a handful of seconds, the larger beast howled and snapped its wings downwards. It ascended higher, wings beating feverishly before withdrawing the way it had come.

“It is time to get dressed,” Prophet said, letting go of Haasgor’s shoulder. He stumbled, trying to steady himself. The empress’s first breath had barely lifted his head through his shirt, when he noticed the crimson dragon landing in front of the two skulls it stood on. Haasgor gulped, the figure stood on two scaled feet, long claws curling out of their toes. The dragon was two to three heads taller than Haasgor, its broad chest puffed out, strongly formed limbs curved with muscle and slightly shorter claws protruding from the tips of its fingers. Yellow eyes stared at Haasgor. The dragon’s cheekbones were sharper and longer than Haasgor’s, but its mouth and flat nose did not stray as far outward as the other dragon’s. Closed, its mouth almost resembled a human’s.

“Malhenog, the gerent dragon,” Prophet said.

The dragon’s head turned to the sorceress. Their tongue flicking out their mouth as it opened, two large fangs from its upper and lower jaw greeted them.

“You know me, witch?” The dragon’s voice was deep but easy to understand. He thought he may have even heard surprise in the dragon’s rushing of their final word.

Prophet smiled. “I will soon.”

Smoke escaped Malhenog’s nostrils but if they felt anger, they abandoned it as they turned their gaze to Haasgor. “Sorcerer, you are not the born-again empress.”

“Me? I am not a sorcerer. I-I am Haasgor, the first breath of the born-again empress Aleia Levros,” he said the words fiendishly fast.

The dragon laughed, a deep guttural sound like two rocks grinding against one another.

“Do not lie to me, I can smell the magic in your blood. How many spells did you cast using dragon essence when we rotted in the mirror veil? What power did you take for yourself before Drutham freed us?”

Haasgor winced as his hands balled into fists, pressing against his wound. Malhenog snarled, a hissing sound escaping their mouth as they bared their fangs to Haasgor and Prophet.

“This is not what I was promised by your empress; an impotent sorcerer? And a witch so lost in mind, even I, Malhenog, cannot pierce much of it?” they said.

“You were promised a solution,” Prophet said evenly. “Kuldth has seen six dragons in the last two years. In eleven years since your kind’s release from the mirror veil, Tryllan has been burnt to a wasteland. You cannot control the dragons here anymore; they are too great a number even for your power.”

“My power? You dare speak of it? You who is bound by the Accords,” Malhenog’s mouth lit with flame, but none left their mouth.

“Which is why we need you Malhenog, more than I can say. You are not just dragon, but the dragon walker, a child of the dwellers blessed with the ability to speak my language and understand all things.”

Malhenog arched their head back, a streak of flame blasting up towards the sky. “I will not betray my kind,” they released another blade of flame upwards. In the distance Haasgor heard a chorus of harsh awakenings. His chest throbbed as countless dragon cries layered one another.

“It is not betrayal, Malhenog,” Prophet yelled. “It is salvation, you know they are lost.”

The gerent dragon blew flames onto the bone-covered terrain around them and putrid smoke rose around Haasgor. Countless dots emerged in the sky and the drum of a thousand wings beating shook the earth. There were too many to digest. Dragons of every size, their scaly hues spread richly across the sky. The blue of the heavens was lost to their sharp iridescence and Haasgor shielded his eyes as his vision became saturated by light unravelling in rivers of colour. His eardrums ached as a cacophony of roars threatened to burst them. He gasped, Malhenog’s yellow eyes met his and he felt Prophet’s hand press against the back of his head. Nothing moved except the sound of her voice, the gerent dragon’s gaze still on him.

“You need to listen to me very carefully,” Prophet said, she now appeared beside him, the first dweller’s hand in hers. It was alive, mud-green flesh spreading over the bones, muscles and veins forming underneath. “I am going to tell you a secret,” the sorceress whispered, her form wavered, and she vanished, appearing in front of him. The first dweller’s hand was now an arm. Haasgor reckoned the dragons were closer now. He could make out their claws and the shapes of their mouths. Malhenog was also nearer, their eyes still on him, the smoke from their mouth frozen in time like the world around them. Haasgor, to his dismay, found he could move. He inspected his hand; the cut had healed and the dried blood was gone. The sorceress’s pale finger touched where the wound used to be, and she placed her hands on his shoulders. Prophet’s face was red with veins, wrinkles scouring the edges of her eyes and descending her cheeks.

“Drutham’s Accords can be broken,” the sorceress grunted as she spoke. Behind her, a figure as tall as Malhenog stood; its face still forming as white robes materialised around its torso and legs. “They were broken before, and the coming war will be won by whoever finds who did it.”

A hood covered the crown of the first dweller’s face, stopping short of its large singular eye. The rest of its long face was bare, smooth mud-green skin covering its blank profile. Prophet released Haasgor’s shoulder, falling to her knees and clawing for the ground with her hand. The sorceress’s hair was thin and grey now, patches of her scalp visible. Her wrinkled face was besieged with spots of thinning flesh.

“You have my power,” she said as time resumed with deafening sound, Malhenog landed on top of the skull with enough force to knock Haasgor from it. He slid into a sea of bones, crying out as they cut into his flesh. From below, he could discern the first dweller blinking in surprise, its two-fingered hands raised as Malhenog stood before it. They roared as Prophet appear behind The Ulhyrras, her hands clutched around its neck. Above, the dragons were too close, their bellies preparing flames as they opened their mouth and Haasgor covered his ears once more.

“Now,” Prophet screamed, and a blinding beam of blue energy speared its way to the sky. Haasgor was thrown into the air, bones and sand bruising him as he rolled some metres from the blast. He covered his eyes by tucking his head to his chest as a thick cloud of dust encompassed him. Haasgor lay on the ground in a ball sucking in sharp breaths, he realised he was sobbing only as he began to choke on mucus. He lay there gritting his teeth, the red earth trembling around him. Eventually, he opened his eyes a fraction. The dust had settled, and hundreds of dragons lay dead across the Bloodlands, some or all of their bodies blackened and burnt. A dozen or so dragons crawled stiffly between their dead, searching for any signs of life and Haasgor writhed at the grating sounds of their grief. He watched a smaller, green dragon, no longer than Haasgor, whimper as it rubbed the flat of its nose against a far larger corpse. Behind him, he heard heavy footsteps crunch in the sand and he turned to see Malhenog limping towards him. The left side of their body was charred and bleeding. Haasgor searched madly for any sign of Prophet but the sorceress had vanished. The gerent dragon stood over him, blood still trickling down their scales and their yellow eyes staring intensely at Haasgor. He reached for his dagger but before his fingers found purchase, Malhenog’s claws tore into his chest and neck as the dragon hoisted him off the ground by his throat. The empress’s first breath found himself screaming and unable to avoid the gerent’s eyes. They seemed to deepen as they stared and Haasgor winced at the stabbing pain in his head. Interesting, he heard Malhenog’s voice inside his mind. A jewel covered in horse dung it seems. So you are what I was promised. The crimson dragon released him to the red sands, Haasgor legs could not hold him, and he rolled onto his side to absorb his fall. He glanced up at Malhenog.

“You are mine now,” the dragon said before spreading their wings and taking flight.