A History of Eldland in the Draconic Age...

There weren’t always dragons in the valley. There wasn’t always a valley. Once the world was not, only rock without time. Then, there was want, there was will, and the heart of the world beat with desire and did bleed and sigh with longing. Any amongst you who have been in the throes of love knows well how tears cut crows feet into your eyes, and sighs cut jowls beside your lips and bony depressions into your breast. Thus it was with He, the World, and his blood-spurt tears of She, The Great Desire, his sighs for She, The Great Will. And those of you still trapped in this maw, so ensnared in this bears trap that you certainly shan’t escape without losing a leg, recognize how you toss and writhe at midnight, and much the same at daybreak. How you go cold hot in different places. How you love and hate and love again. How your heart grows too big for its cage and racks against the bars, how mysterious bumps boil to the surface of your skin as an embellishing emblem of you overflowing passion. Verily it was with the World, bleeding rivers that cut valleys and mountains jaggedly, sighing winds that rounded them; going hot here and cold there; shifting lands, bursting with mountains and hills; wrinkled by streams, exploding with eruptions here, and frozen with ice there. Remember still, how you dragged yourself to the edge of the water and recognized yourself for the first time with your mothers lips, the arch of her eyes, and the bridge that extends gracefully between. When you drag yourself to it still to weep, doubled, seeing only the rosied lips of a lover in the distorted gaze of a mirrored image that ripples in warbles. The same with the World: nothing, then two and three; nothing, then world and will, and rock, water and fire. With eons upon eons, stacked like grains of sand sifting through the hands of time sometimes gracefully oft violently but always at the same pace, history moved by the forces of carving and growth. The wind and the water whispering while washing over Him sliced into him like the biting tongue of a hurtful word, and from wounds springs forth life and the new. And wind and water lay bare life and yet death after life is still new as life after death. Epochs, kingdoms, empires, species, histories, peoples, tongues, dreams, moralities, religions, goods, evils, many gods and their many incarnations rise up from the depths and go under to return to that which they are but a manifestation. Many draconic ages are recorded in legend and history, and also many a beast and fantastic creature far stranger far grander than dragons. The World and Will have known many deserts of time devoid of life, barren but far from boring, and many great storms when lives fell into the ocean of death like so many drops of rain out on the deep sea; loud, quiet, and unobserved. As I am no theologian, I understand not the full meaning of these poetic verses that the scriptures have left us, but I do understand that the fantastic things of this world come and go like the rains that blow east or west across the plains of our very valley. Here is but one more drop running from the storm. How far yet to the bottom?

Maag, illegitimate son of a merchant, inherited his father’s trade. His father died mad, with many debts and his business ,which was once the most profitable for miles around, in shambles leaving Maag not much more than a pauper. But Maag, being more prudent and clever than even his own father had suspected, built upon his old man’s business a worthy empire practically out of the dirt. Being witty, wealthy, and handsome, with golden curls bouncing at the sides of his noble head shaking beside his noble lips quivering in a grin with mirth, he married a woman of high birth that was beautiful, wise, and virtuous and all if not a tad stubborn. Maag’s own life had been full of adventures and twists as he carved out a name, legacy and reputation for himself, a worthy tale recorded elsewhere and omitted here. But, as the Great Will ordained, a storm cloud was to loom over this otherwise bright golden day to preclude the sun.

In the days of the first dragon attacks Maag was sitting at home with a good friend and his wife in a chair nearby writing poems by the window as he enjoyed a good game of Arrowhead, a game with which I’m sure most of you find yourselves most familiar. Smoking a witches brew of herbs and weeds, the pipe passing between him, his friend, and his wife, he sat deep in his chair resting after a long journey from the East, with strategies racking his brain both for the game and his trade. Just the day before, Maag had returned to the city of Daved from the city of Aad, where he had made some bold maneuvers and had some very close calls. In that very city, he left the vast majority of coin to his name, bound up in strategies he had devised after receiving a helpful tip from a local lord who had ears pricked to such a kind of information that he shared with Maag to their mutual benefit and satisfaction. In that very city he left all of his men, all of his ambitions, all of his coin, and the two young men he had called his sons, that which he cherished more than life itself. Since, no matter how vigorously and often they had tried, Maag and his wife were unable to conceive and had taken in two orphan boys Maag had found swindling men in the market square. So impressed he was by the pairs business intuition that he had wanted to employ them on the spot and had the two, no older than 9 and 10 at the time, housed in his very own home and had given them his very own surname. He deposited these crowning jewels of his family name in the city of Aad and left them, since the two were immensely wise and clever and he trusted them implicitly, in charge of all of his affairs in his absence at the ages of 16 and 17.

He was to leave again to rejoin his men and his sons in the city of Aad in a weeks time, and in 3 months time he expected to return home with the bulk of them after realizing the success of his operations. But, a familiar rapping came to the door which caused Maag a moments pause. It was Ardin, one of the youngest, most timid, and laziest of those he had employed, his eyes drawn to the ground in a forlorn expression.

“Ardin, you shouldn’t be back for at least 3 months. What is the matter? Where are the rest of you?”

Like a cabman beating a stubborn horse, Maag assailed Ardin with a series of unanswered questions, cursing himself for ever hiring him. But, under the whip mares hesitatingly begin to stride and this dark cloud cracked with thunder after lying dormant over this house. Ardin informed his master with many pauses and stammers:

“On a bright and sunny day we had been doing our business, a-as days past, all fared well. B-but then a blackness came upon the sky. A dark cloud precluded the sun's light from touching the city. Some thought it an eclipse, some thought it something demonic or some sacred motion in the heavens as I was told by others who had been spared death. And then it got darker still, as the cloud had been getting closer, swooping down descending upon the city. And then fire!! Fire! Fire!" At this point Ardin was for a moment out of his wits, but bidden by those listening he continued:

"People screaming and burning. Corpses cracking in flame like pigs roasting on a spit in the blink of an eye!" It was here that Ardin began to get down on his knees rubbing them with his hands as if trying to console himself, brushing himself like a man his mare to coax it to go yet further.

"You s-see master. Th-th-the only reason I made it out alive is because I just happened to be with a girl outside the city during these happenings, and I am remiss to admit I was neglecting my duties. I had brought her with me to a delectable clearing to court her away from prying eyes when suddenly I heard a distant sound like the roaring of the see and immense plumes of smoke rise to the sky. Riding back astride the horses we heard screams. We could hear the roar of fire. There were many running past us fleeing the scene, and my fair maiden, seeing one of her brothers riding past, left me and I've not seen her since. I gathered up some gall and rode on and the city went silent except for the sound of burning. Staring at the walls, that stood between me and great columns of fire I stood there dumbly. I then saw a sight I'll never forget as that beast crawled over the wall and descended upon me with a slam. A beast, a dragon, a wyvern. The Aadwyvern it has been dubbed. It was horrid. A giant beast with wings that blot the sun, and blue scales that sagged about its frame. It had one eye blue with a cataract and one red. It seemed very old. Wrinkled and worn with holes in his wings torn with age. His breath wreaked death and he drew near enough to startle my horse throwing me to the ground at its mercy. It sniffed and then sneezed disgusting phlegm upon me and took flight causing the wind to drag me no less than 5 yards. I've traveled the nearby villages and returned to the city to find survivors. But the city is lost and there are none in it who live. So you see sir, that if no others have returned I am sorry to report that all is lost and all are dead."

Something came over Maag, perhaps our same cloud, and brought a deep silence over him. A storm had come raging through his heart and swept clean his house, his city within himself except for one nameless man, one faceless soul. Despite what the records say Maag did not die at four score and 9, but at that very spot, standing in his own body like an abandoned temple burning quietly at midnight on the periphery of some deserted village, and only his body later. Before he knew it he was strangling the boy and it took both his wife, who's eyes had filled with tears, and his Arrowhead companion to free the sorry young man. What his wife found strange though is how silent he was, how he had looked forward where Ardin’s neck was in his hands beneath him on the ground, how steady his breath. He left his home, and his wife weeping and wailing alone with none to console her save her maidservant and that same good friend, that very evening without a word to the maiden. As he stalked the night he passively heard whispers and rumors of villages sacked by dragons in the East, and fears of such a contagion spreading west. He had heard how some kings and armies were mobilizing, how some gates had been drawn closed, but all this had passed over his mind like clouds over fields.

For three days and three nights he had barely left the nearest tavern and had acquired a devilish laugh, as if it, like a spirit had possessed him riding down a river of spirits from the bottom of a bottle. Up and down the alley he’d pace piss drunk and cackling. When any would disrupt these fits of laughter, especially those who knew him for his renowned jests and retorts, to ask the meaning of his laughter, he’d say (wading through both drunkenness and mirth), “Do you suppose sir, that dragons fart flame? Why do you not laugh at the prospect of these foul beasts passing flaming winds?” or something else equally nonsensical concerning what he had appeared to consider comical reflections of what it is the body of a dragon could or could not possibly do. And he’d roar into laughter again confounding his listeners, and eventually the whole of the city.

He’d then continue his march carrying with him his dark laughter. The children had begun singing songs of him. Merry-Mad-Maag, and other such names of the same vein circulated amongst them, who were amongst the few, except for brigands and the disreputable sort, to approach him with little fear for their own amusement. By the third day, few dared cross his path, thinking him more dangerous than humorous, more tragic than comic, more cursed than amusing.

At the end of the third night spent in this fashion the rivers of liquor stopped and he returned home at the height of the moon's arc across the sky. Like a spectral fog he rolled passed his wife, asleep in a chair beside the door, as she had given up trying to persuade him at the tavern, so pitiable and embarrassing was the sight. In the dead of night he had a cart packed full of valuable possessions and went about pawning all he’d owned, often at prices far beneath their worth. Another three days passed in this way despite the tears and protests of his wife, as he sold all that was hers too with naught much more than a single word. On the seventh day, she sat on the floor in the middle of an empty house cursing her fate. She had resisted her brothers who had attempted to first cajole, and then force her home far from the madman, her husband. Both of her brothers on a road leading East would eventually lose their lives far away from the city in an attempt to visit vengeance upon the madman. Revenge, as often as not, claims the wrong souls.

On this seventh day her heart had begun to change and she would, the next morning send for her brothers, she thought. But that morning never came, only Maag, home with packed saddlebags and fully armed. All of his servants had been dismissed save for the maid servant who held her mistress in her arms. He made a widower of himself and left the bodies, the maidservant upon the maiden.

Astride his horse, he rode down an empty alley, making his way out of the city and he crossed paths with a young child who stopped and stared at him quietly. Without his urging, Maag’s horse came to a halt. This urchin was the nameless son of a prostitute, a well respected and beloved woman of the slums. As sometimes happens, she died during childbirth before ever uttering the poor boy's name. For a time he stayed with a poor old crone who had, by some, been suspected of being some sort of witch. But she too did pass and the boy took to the streets. A strange boy clothed in tatters and rumors by virtue of circumstance, living company, and the fact that he never spoke a word. In fact, no one had ever heard his voice, as he had never cried neither whilst being born or his years as a babe. Furthermore, a noblewoman, riding through the streets accompanied by her husband, upon seeing Nameless, as he’d come to be known, and his pretty eyes and his round face, cute despite the mud, adopted him practically on the spot. A week later, she was dead and her house up in flames, he, the only survivor who still had yet to receive a name.

Many other whispers of this sort followed him including the odd fact (I emphasize that this is contained in crime records of the province and not merely rumor) that he very often happened to be at the exact spots of murders that occurred around the city, being witness to an inordinate number. The city folk had witnessed many times the comedy play out when the magistrate brought this young mute before the court and how he, without a word would point out a murderer under oath and then would be let back onto the street. Some would say, though it varies through what device this was made possible, that he had some mysterious power that enabled him to be present, in some way or another, at everyone’s death in that city. This, coupled with the penetrating gaze that he might bestow upon you, like a cold gust that blows through every layer of your garments, led him to also be known as The Seeing One. He even became a sort of saint for the impoverished masses of the city, and it was considered to be either immensely good or immensely bad luck if he stopped to stare at you, as he rarely stopped, always walking with nary a smile, glance, or whisper. As he wandered through the stretch of the city it has become a custom in some neighborhoods to throw food at his feet and to kneel and pray to The Greater Will. Some would go right up to this vagrant body following alongside him clasping their last coins in his hands, venting in whispers in his ears, sins, dreams, wishes, and prayers hoping that he may stop and listen and look. Almost always he’d pick up some food, eat, pick up coins, fill his satchel and keep walking paying no mind to the whispers in his ears or the wails on either side, with his eyes fixed ahead as if he had no concern for the things of this world.

What had made this boy stop now, and look for so long? Maag had of course known of him, and even passed by and been passed by him. Perhaps, if rumors of his gifts are to be believed, he saw Maag that evening as he watched the evening sun descend upon the city as if to engulf it in a bloody ball of fire. How he had dragged himself to a lake and emptied his stomach into it, his eyes of tears into it, and when the ripples settled in it he saw only the Aadwyvern glaring back at him. How he stood motionless in the clearing in front of his house and saw the beast as it was described to him by Ardin enveloping him in its wings. Perhaps Nameless’ eyes had become the mirror of this weary soul and he knew how all the world was now to him to be composed of two things: the Aadwyvern, and machines for killing the Aadwyvern. Had he seen how in that very river he had emptied himself of his heart, lungs, stomach, bones, and brain and was a hollow shell housing gears that turned only to the marching rhythm of war on a dragon and its kind? Had he heard that promise that Maag the Madman dared not speak when his soul had made a pact with The Deep, to build a kingdom of riches out of dragon carcasses? How he wished to hunt them like stags or bears and profit from their bones, glands, gristle, and organs. Or perhaps, as his reputation might also suggest, was he present, did he see the crimes committed under Maag’s own roof?

Maag wore a cold and empty expression betraying more mask than man, and when his mare stopped he looked queerly at the boy. After a minute or so his lips curled up into a wry grin. Perhaps he had thought he had happened upon another machine. He got off his horse and he seized the boy who made no protest and he placed him on his saddle, cloaked him, and made off. It is not known why the boy had gone with him or why Maag had taken him, only that it happened as I’ve described. The city realized the disappearance of Nameless overnight and riots ensued. His whereabouts were not discovered until much later, but by then all those formerly concerned were either dead or had forgotten him.

En route to leaving the pair came across a burning house. Maag stopped his mare and his eyes lingered on the sight. They, with many onlookers, watched as a family one by one ran screaming from the burning building, how they were trailed by the conflagration, how they fled and were extinguished with a splash of water from a bucket. Maag was struck by an image truly sublime, when a hound burst forth in flames, squealing and howling running in circles. Three men with buckets chased behind it trying to put the fire out. The first threw the contents of his bucket on the ground missing the hound entirely, the second tripped and fell in mud spilling his water, and the third had managed to cover the poor mutt with water thus snuffing the flame and saving the hound who, in the end, had not been much more than singed. While this comedy continued to unfold Maag turned his horse around and rode up to his own porch. He unmounted and went in for no more than a minute. He came out and rode the way he came, and as he left the city a second plume of smoke troubled the city sky.

When the fire abated, the entire city was certain that it had bore witness to a miracle. The maidservant and the maiden, Maag's wife, lay there amid the debris a most tragic juxtaposition so tense that it propelled most of the spectators into tears. All had been certain that the city had thenceforth been blessed or cursed, and that this was the corresponding manifestation of The Will, like rashes to plague. Two weeks after the Burial of Megdeleh and her maidservant Saleah, departing this world in a fashion befitting saints or queens with the prayers of the people, their flowers upon their brow and at their feet, the whole of the city would be reduced to ash except the church, of course, in which they were venerated. Thence begins the legend of Magdeleh to be taken up again when the time comes.

Nameless and Maag had been on the road for two weeks and three days, the former silently revered the landscapes, the latter here laughing there silent. Being the only surviving men of a city and families condemned do death, they were like a travelling house, a travelling city. Wherever they went scores of men, women, and children of many skins and tongues fleeing from cities that would have to be removed from the most up-to-date maps were traveling west, and they were as a vessel traveling against the wind and the currents, a fisherman out of his mind and his first mate, following the broken compass of a man who’s eyes see one fish, one wale or some other goal equally monomaniacal. On the terminal day of this interval they were to set on the road that would lead Maag to first cross paths and once swords with Ohd the Nameless, Ohd the Hero, Ohd the Merchant. Many fates bound in one body by one name.