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Dragonspine

Chapter 1 - Truths

By Edoardo Segato-FigueroaPublished 2 years ago Updated about a year ago 25 min read
4
Dragon bone by Kosi An on ArtStation

In the beginning, the Valley of Myl was a desert of dust and rocks, devoid of all life, plagued by hostile scorching winds. No flower ever blossomed on our Home-isle, no fruit ever hung from the trees, because there was no water in the ground, nothing to nurture roots and leaves. There was only fire and stone. And the Valley wasn’t yet known as Myl, because Myl was the name of the flying mountain upon which came the first Dragons, our Greatfa’s. One day a shadow appeared in the sky, a speck where the blue grew darker every minute, until it obscured the Star and the Eyes of the Ancestors opened up as if it was already dreamtime. The shadow was a piece of the Isle of the mighty Dragons, far beyond the void whence they came. They rode upon it, their wings of lightning woven into a thick web, helping them defeat the Pull of the Underworld. Their scales moved across their skin and down their tails like gears of a large machine. Beneath it, the Greatfa’s harbored seeds, protected like precious embryos by metal and pure cold Flamelight. Their crystal voices resounded like bells in a vast cave as they sang a poignant song that shook the lands below and blew away the fire. They were singing because they carried a gift. A gift of life.

Myl mountain landed gently in the Valley, and there they planted their seeds, which grew into a pristine virgin forest. Water started flowing abundant and endless from the mountain’s core to the bottom of the Valley, wetting the dry earth and quickening the growth. Soon, the forest became an oasis enclosed by a beautiful aquamarine sea and in the depth of its waters a stirring of vibrant things were born and spread at an untameable speed, imbuing Home-isle with the first spark of the Lifekin. In the forest by the beach the Greatfa’s struck sand with their lightning, turned it into molten glass and shaped it into bodies. Then pulled a bone from their spine and stuck it deep within their creation - breathing fire into our kind, the Draconians. But our spine is too sacred and wild, and if left untamed, it could burn us from within. So we must tame it to honor our creators and preserve their life gift.

“That’s the story we always told you and the other children, every time you’d ask about the bones in the Sanctuary.”

“It always takes me back to when I was a little drakka.”

My Fa’ and I were walking the grove behind our nests, picking bark from the luvol trees, that my Ma’s Gonwami and Rajal would grind for their soup.

“Look, I found some byobi shrooms! Do you think Ma’s would be upset if we ‘spice up’ their recipe a bit?”

My Fa’, the Archward Korminius Tūl, replied with a distracted hum. He seemed troubled, anxiously rolling a luvol acorn between his claws.

“What is it, Fa’?” I asked. He paused, threw the pointy acorn away and let out a low grumble.

“I have to tell you something, Morjana. I’m done pretending. It’s time for you to learn where our people really came from. The Dragons… they’re not as the stories say.”

“Fa’!” I protested. “You always say we are never to disrespect the Greatfa’s.” Then with a pinch of sarcasm. “To whom shall I sing my wish-songs at star-rise?”

Fa’ frowned, suddenly appearing much older than he actually was.

“Not to them.” He said, in a lapidary tone that swept away my irony in an instant.

“I’m not in the mood for this, Fa’.” I sighed, frustrated.

“This cannot wait any longer. One day you’ll understand and will thank me for telling you the truth.”

I began to worry. “What truth, Fa’?”

“The truth that was revealed to my ancestor dozens of generations ago. The truth myself and a handful more in Myl Valley have guarded and passed down in secrecy under the oath of the Treenity Coven.”

“The what-Coven?” I asked, overwhelmed by the eruption of new knowledge.

“The Treenity Coven. You’ll hear this name many times, Morjana, but you shall not repeat it to anyone. Not yet.”

“What is this truth that your Coven guards?” I asked skeptically.

“That the Dragons are not the creators. They did come to Home-isle from across the void, but once here they nearly wiped out the Lifekin, enslaved it and ruled over it for centuries.”

The world crumbled around me, slowly and painfully. Suddenly I felt as though the ground disappeared from under my feet, sending my stomach reeling, until I landed in the new reality, shocked and disoriented. I managed to gasp a few words, my eyes wet all of a sudden.

“The landscapes of the Isle are beautiful, the Lifekin thrives… and that’s all thanks to them! They are not destroyers and slavemasters! Not the Greatfa’s.”

“The Lifekin existed before the Dragons came here, Morjana.” Said Fa’, with a long, tired sigh. He started walking again between the trees. “Myl Valley was already home to many beasts and lush nature that today are no more. The Dragons were homeless and rageful, and with their foreign fire they incinerated nearly anything that lived under the Star and in the Xybeerean sea. They melted the hills and turned the water into clouds, covering the Eyes of the Ancestors with a thick fog that made our Isle look like their alien home.” He stopped walking, kneeled and picked something from the ground. It was the luvol acorn he had thrown away earlier. “No one knows how the Lifekin sprouted in the first place. How the first animals learned to walk and swim. How bugs and birds learned to flap their wings strong enough to temporarily resist the Pull of the Underworld. What we do know is that the Dragons caused Ëskathos, the first apocalypse, and that the Lifekin survived it.”

“How do you know all this is true?” I asked in a hiss.

“One day I will tell you that story as well.” Said Fa’ preoccupied while sliding the acorn into one of his pockets. “For now, I must ask you to have faith in me.”

“Faith?” My spine started to overheat. “I had faith in your stories for my entire life! Now you’re asking me to believe the exact opposite… How do I know that this new truth of yours isn’t just another lie?”

“I know it isn’t easy, I went through the same pain when my Fa’ told me, a young Ward and his firstborn. To protect our family and our tribe, I had to pretend for years, even when I became Archward, while secretly acting in the interest of the Coven. I was going to tell my male firstborn, but your Ma’s only gave me daugthers, your sororis. You are my firstborn, Morjana. You have to believe me.”

I stared at my smooth palms, then turned them around and shivered at the sight of my thick scales. My voice wavered when I asked, “What do you believe, Fa’? What does your spine tell you?” He was taken aback by my question and answered only after a few seconds.

“I believe the Underworld pulls us all down equally, until our body returns to the dirt and our Flamelight flees to the sky where a new pair of eyes opens and joins those of the Ancestors. Stones and leaves and water also feel the Pull because everything on Home-isle is alive, and it has always been, long before the Dragons arrived. I know it. After Ëskathos, they aided the century-long recovery of the Lifekin, but only so that they could shape it to their likeness, tampering with the growth of every leftover branch of the Treenity.”

My forehead crunched while Fa’ came closer and lowered his voice even more.

“There’s a story told only within the inner circle of the Coven. In the aftermath of their outrage, the Dragons found a child alone in the middle of a burnt forest, a toddler with no scales and horns. They didn’t know what it was, but amidst the fire and destruction they decided to take it in, corrupted it with the dragonspine and raised it as their serf. From that child came the draconian race was born, and the Dragons fed them lies for thousands of years about what really happened.”

His words were like heavy rocks falling into a frozen lake, crushing its icey surface. He let them sink in, then continued.

“As Archward of the Bone Sanctuary I dedicated my whole life to the Creed. When I joined the Coven my world was torn apart and all I knew about the past was set on fire, yet somehow I ended up preaching the same things I and the other Wards had been teaching for years - abstinence and withdrawal. Unlike the Lifekin, Dragons don’t feel the Pull of the Underworld, they live thousands of years. That’s because they are not from Home-isle, they never belonged here. We on the other hand are not like them - we came from the Lifekin - but they instilled a dangerous power in our spine. The Creed says we must keep it asleep because if awakened it will burn us alive. I don’t think that’s right. The Coven says that unleashing the dragonspine wouldn’t kill us, it would make us like the Dragons, greedy and hungry for power. We would turn against the Lifekin, destroying it and eventually ourselves, just like they did. It doesn’t matter who’s right or wrong, Morjana. We live today. What matters is that we do everything we can to keep our dragonspine dormant. It’s the only way to protect the Treenity.”

That word again! “What is the Treenity?” I asked nervously.

Fa’ began drawing three lines in the dirt, making them meet at the center like spokes on a wheel. Then drew three circles at the end of each line.

“Each circle represents an element.” Centered in each circle, he drew three more lines, each triplet oriented in a different direction. “Wood is represented by the vertical lines, water by the horizontal lines and wind by the slanted lines. Together they form the Treenity.”

I stared at the symbol, unsure of what to make of it, yet inexplicably attracted by it. Fa’ went on.

“Our Coven serves the Treenity. Wood, water and wind - the true source of the Lifekin. The first uncreated elements that always existed and will always exist. We swore to prevent draconians from turning into Dragons, for it would inevitably bring about Ëskados, the second apocalypse.”

I felt like throwing up. I was sweating and my spine was spasming unlike ever before. I began reciting the overture of the morning wish-song to try and calm my nerves.

Greatfa’ Dragons, protectors of the water, I thank thee for adding salt and sugar to the rain and the green sea. Greatfa’ Dragons, guardians of the Isle, I thank thee for turning dirt into wood, for making skin with mud and hair with sand. Thee who carry the blood-fire and forged the Lifekin, thee who granted us a dragonspine and…

“Morjana, stop! Don’t you understand? The Dragons won’t listen to your prayers, they decimated the Lifekin to colonize Home-isle and rule over it as Kings. This is why we cannot keep living in their shadow aymore. We need to find a new Flamelight to follow. The time of the Kings is over.”

Dragon Graveyard by AllrichArt on DeviantArt

That night I ran away from the Valley. I traveled for three days and three nights in a row, barely stopping to rest. I didn’t know where I was going or if I would ever return. I just knew I needed to get as far away as possible. My Fa’ thought that by telling me the truth - his truth about the Greatfa’s - he’d be doing me a favor, but now everything I knew was gone and there was little hope of ever getting it back. I continued to roam rogue for weeks, without a north, like a rover with no home to return to. When I was tired I slept. When thirsty I drank. When hungry I hunted and killed. My claws began to sharpen, scraping the rust clean off the edges. My body felt alive for the first time since I was little. I spent too many years keeping my instincts at bay, following the words of the Creed - of my Fa’ - living a life of comfort and withdrawing from any worldly desire.

One night I asked for directions to the Eyes of the Ancestors, but they responded with unexpected counsel. I was very close to Nyr Woods and the settlement of the Lagoon tribe. I felt like visiting Domak, I hadn’t seen him in almost six moons. I found my shelter for the night up between the branches of a luvol tree. As a small drakka, it was my favorite place to sleep. The soft bark cradled my itchy backbone and the long velvety leaves tickled my horns while the soothing smell of luvol moss lulled me to sleep.

The next day I covered the distance that separated me from Nyr woods, and by star-set I found Domak’s grotto. He was curing some animal pelt, when he saw me approaching. The summer starshine had tinged his scales a deep bronze, making his golden eyes gleam like ember gems. He was sultrier than ever.

Varad!” He exclaimed in his thick accent. “Cottonmouth, I haven’t seen you in a while. You look… feral. What are you doing around here?”

“I’ve been travelling for a while, I thought I’d pay you a visit.”

“You know you don’t need to pay to visit me. Especially if it’s going to be like last time I saw you.”

I looked straight into his eyes, careful not to blink. He was half smiling, then blushed. Good.

As the Star descended into the Underworld, Domak prepared a meal of fresh game from his traps and vegumes from his garden. It was the best I had eaten in weeks. He looked at me in the glimmer of the campfire. My gonalf guernsey kept me warm but was too large. It hung loose and slightly tilted on my shoulder, revealing my collarbone. When Domak saw it illuminated by the firelight, he groaned, then sighed.

“Did you just pur?” I asked.

“I will never grow tired of your landscapes, cottonmouth. The Lagoon and Castle-spire on the King's faraglione, Nyr Woods and the Xibeeryan sea, their beauty vanishes when I see your skin and bones.” He sat beside me and gently traced a claw down my spine as he spoke. “Even Myl Valley disappears in the curving hills of your thighs and the fertile glen that lies between them.”

I kissed him, harder and harder. In an instant the fire was lit again and the amber in our furnace started glowing more intensely. Our wingspans stretched out as our shoulders were struck by convulsions. Our hips pulsated as the spirit of the feathered serpent came alive in our backbone. I was his skin, unsheathing. He was my forked tongue and my teeth. Wrapped in a circle, his tail hung from my mouth, mine from his. The Uroboro was forbidden by the draconian Creed. I had been disobeying for months already. Tonight I couldn’t care less.

“You didn’t lose your touch. The Flamelight of the Dragons is stirring in your backbone.”

I was sad all of a sudden. Fa’s words were still loud and painful in my head. Domak noticed and drew near. “Did I say something wrong, ‘Jana?”

“You never say or do anything wrong, Domak. It’s just something my Fa’ said about the Greatfa’s.”

“What did he say?”

“That they didn’t create the Lifekin.” The taste of half truth was bittersweet, but I couldn’t bear to utter the rest. Domak looked surprised.

“I didn’t expect the Archward himself to be an intriguer. The creation story is one and clear, even though our tribal wish-songs sound different and my dragonspine comes from saltwater, and yours from stone.”

“Maybe that’s why I like the taste of you so much.” I replied, trying to change the subject.

Domak kissed the scales on the back of my neck.

“Everyone knows that the Greatfa’s planted the Lifekin on Home-isle, ‘Jana. You know it too, deep down your spine.”

I didn’t reply. I just snuggled up next to him on our rock in the undergrowth, my back enclosed in his hug. The silhouette of Castle-spire against the star-set was visibile through the berrybushes. The ancient faraglione upon which stood the King's palace looked as if it was about to crumble into the water below in a million pieces.

“I was thinking about visiting King Edivad. Since his mind began fading, he’s always alone in the tower, with no one but his dwarf-bishop Fon Gaius IV° to keep him company. And you can’t really talk about much with a gargoyle, can you?”

“You’d have to roam across the Lagoon to reach Castle-spire, all on your own. That’s a long way from Nyr Woods.”

“You could come with me?” I suggested. “Unless I’m also losing my memory, you are quite good on water!”

“Not as good as you, stone-spine!” He mocked. “Remember how you sank straight to the bottom last spring, when we went diving from Fledgling Rock?”

“A gonalf is nicer than you are!” I teased back. “I was just daydreaming… I haven’t seen him in so long, since I was a drakka at the gatherings of the Wards of the Bones, before his spine started cooling. He used to tell me such wonderful stories of the burial sites where the Greatfa’s bones lie with the Kings of old. I wonder if he still remembers me…”

“I’m sure he does, in his own way.”

Even after so long, Domak still knew how to make me feel better. I fell into a deep sleep. It’s rare for draconians to find enough peace to actually dream. Our spine is always too frantic and agitated. But that night, the knobs and bulbs on my body got softer, my eyes rolled many times under my eyelids and unlike ever before, I dreamt a dream as clear as wakelife. I saw the bones of the Greatfa’s coming alive. Their words to me are still burned into my spine to this day.

“Morjana,” They said in unison. I shivered in my sleep. The Dragons knew my name!?

“You have been called to gather, by the same fate that called us long ago. We need you, child, and we need you now. You must find us.”

“How am I to find you, Greatfa’s? I thought you were all gone.” My voice sounded as if it belonged to somebody else, making my own words roll oddly on my forked tongue.

“We are not Greatfa’s. We are your Greatma’s.”

I froze. “But there’s no such thing as a female Dragon!”

“You have been lied to your whole life.”

“My Fa’ said the same thing.”

“Your Fa’ is right, but not the way he thinks he is. We didn’t create the Lifekin, nor did we corrupt it.”

“But you gave us the dragonspine when you created us.”

“Those are just stories, Morjana, daughter of Gonwami. You and your people have a dragonspine because you are our children. Flame of our flame. We didn’t find the first Draconian in a forest, we carried her in our womb and gave birth to her under the Eyes of the Ancestors.”

My body became stone cold as if the dreamtime had sucked all the warmth and the light from Domak’s bonfire. He gripped me tighter in our sleep. The Greatma’s went on, slow-paced.

“Back on our Isle we were the Queens of the hive, until a young dragoon dethroned us and proclaimed himself King, starting a rebellion that eventually led to the annihilation of our home. When we fled here we fell in love with the Lifekin and became pregnant with a child, the first of your kind. She was much more than just a dragon… we were proud, for we created something more beautiful and more potent than we could ever be. We were happy for a while, we thought we had escaped the false King and his followers. But he managed to find us, and when he did…”

I had never heard Dragons cry, it sounded like a birdsong, tinted with notes of nostalgia and melancholia. Then one of the Greatma’s spoke to me alone, her voice shattered.

“You must assemble a complete dragonspine, each bone from a different dragon. Only then you will be able to talk to us again.”

“But that will take me years, no one knows the location of all burial sites.”

“Ask for help and you shall receive it. Seek King Edivad.”

“His spine is getting cold, his memories disappearing. I’m afraid that the Pull of the Underworld almost has him.”

“Then you’ll have to move fast. We beg you. We have much more to tell you.”

“Tell me now.”

“Our time has run out.”

“Then come to me again at dreamtime!”

“We were only granted one visit. Find our bones, awaken the dragon within you. You are special, child.”

Then, Greatma’ did something I will never forget. She bit her own wrist and with a lightning-fast movement, cracked her bone in half. There was no pain, there was barely a sound, but I felt my spine flounder, reverberating through all the layers of my sleep. I remember seeing one last thing before I woke up. At the center of the broken bone, there were three sets of lines enclosed by three circles. I recognized the symbol from when my Fa’ drew it in the dirt.

I left Domak on the rock and departed Nyr Woods. He was right, I couldn’t go visit the King on my own and now I knew who needed to come with me. I ran as fast as I could for a whole day and a whole night and made it all the way back to Myl Valley a few hours before star-rise. I slithered through our settlement until I found our nest, where my Fa’ and Ma’s laid asleep. I shook him softly. He grunted and snorted until his eyes were open and reflected those of the Ancestors through the leafroof. When he saw it was me, he sprang up to a sit position and touched me, probably checking if I was real or if I came from dreamtime. In a way, I did.

“Morjana… where have you been?”

Ma’ Gonwami moved slightly and Ma’ Rajal mumbled something in her sleep.

“Fa’, I need you to come with me.” I whispered.

“Where?”

“To the Temple.”

As soon as I said that, he stood up and followed me out of the nest as if hypnotized, still visibly gnarled and dazed from his sleep, but clumsily keeping up nevertheless. I kept glancing at him from the corner of my eyes as he followed me closely, constantly one step behind. I could sense his unease and could almost see his spine working, rifling through all the possible explanations for my wanting to go to the Temple and for dragging him along with me in the middle of the night. He didn’t have to wait long to find out. The Temple is open at all times, from star-rise to star-set, from pregnant moonday to birth-moon eve. Only the Archward had access to the Bone Sanctuary, the inner sanctum locked at its center.

“Open the gate for me, Fa’.” I asked him in a whisper.

“Have you lost your spine? You can’t go in there.” He replied.

“If what you told me is true, then it’s no sacrilege to enter the Sanctuary.”

He looked surprised, probably wasn’t expecting to hear me say something like that, as if I finally believed him. He reached around his neck and pulled out a strange key hanging from one of his mandolo’s strings that Ma’ Rajal had made for him using gonalf hairs. He pressed the key into a small crevice to the side of the door, turning it in different directions in a specific sequence until something in the rock clicked and the stone gate opened before us. Once inside, I fell to my knees, my forehead almost touching the stream born from the waterfall babbling down along the back wall of the Bone Sanctuary like a curtain. That’s the most sacred water in the Valley, for it comes straight from the forest on Myl mountain, the original Dragons’ abode and the chariot that took them across the void all the way to Home-isle. Or so we were taught by the Creed. Just like I hoped, my Fa’ thought I was praying and respectfully waited one step behind me. Before he could do anything, I reached my hands through the waterfall, grabbed a vertebrae and a thigh from the dragonspine and stormed out the doorway.

“What are you doing?” my Fa’ growled while panting right behind me, now finally fully awake and even more confused.

“I need dragonbones.” I replied, dryly.

“You can’t do that, Morjana!”

“Why not?” I replied, with a rage I never dared to show in his presence. “I thought you didn’t care about the Dragons and their bones.”

“I don’t. But the other Wards do. They will kill you if you don’t return the bones immediately. And I don’t have the power to stop them. I’ll have to tell them the truth, and if I do, they will kill me too, and your Ma’s and your sororis.”

I led both of us outside the Temple into the woods. “Then we will have to leave. Now.”

“Why do you need dragonbones, anyway? What in the Isle is going on? Talk to me, Morjana!”

I stopped in front of a rock that had a sharp edge pointing at the Eyes of the Ancestors, that in the meantime were getting fainter and fainter while the light of star-rise flooded back from the Underworld. As if I was answering his questions, I held the Dragon’s thigh with my hands on its ends.

“Sorry, Greatma’.” I said, and smashed the bone in half on the rock. Fa’ tried to scream but no sound came from his open mouth. We were both paralyzed. I took a deep breath, then looked at the broken bones. Right there in front of us, visible even through the jagged crack of the rough break, was the Treenity.

“No one could ever know. Dragonbones are sacred and it’s absolutely prohibited to touch them, let alone break them! Even the Archward can’t desecrate the skeletons in the Temple.”

“How did you know?”

“I was told in a dream.”

“A dream? And told by whome?”

“The Dragons.”

“The Dragons?! You can’t trust them, Morjana! They are dangerous beings, more dangerous than you can possibly imagine.” Then his voice took a more cerimonial tone. “To live by the Dragons’ ways is to live in sin. Living on the path as a good draconian means leaving sin behind.”

It was the Archward speaking now, not my Fa’. I was tired of his games and if the Dragons spoke the truth, which I suspected they did, every moment was precious. I held the broken thigh in front of him and quickly our breaths paced down and synchronized.

“They’re intriguers, Morjana. This could be one of their deceptions. I can’t believe you’re falling for it after everything I told you.”

“What is the point of living in denial?” I bursted, “Your Coven is no different from the Creed, professing absolution through abstinence and withdrawal. How can we avoid something that is embedded in us and defines us for what we truly are? We have a dragonspine because we are the Dragons’ children, the Greatma’s gave birth to us.”

“Greatma’s?” he interrupted me, puzzled. “What are you talking about, Morjana? There are no female Dragons, you know that.”

“I saw them, Fa’. They spoke to me and showed me the Treenity in their bones. They also said that you were right: they didn’t create the Lifekin. We were lied to countless times. Their Flamelight lies dormant inside our spine, their wings survived in our wingspan. They didn’t find the child in the burning forest, they carried her in their womb together with their Flamelight, the same womb that I have and the very thing that makes me a draconia. I am tired of running away from who I am, Fa’. Don’t you want to learn the truth, the real truth? Don’t you want to know why our spine twitches and waggles? Deep down, you know it isn’t dangerous, as the Creed and the Coven want you to believe. Its movements are a language, a secret tongue to talk to the Dragon inside us. And I mean to learn to speak it, so when I have collected all the dragonbones, I’ll be ready.”

Fa’s eyes were welling up but he kept them locked with mine as if he was looking straight at those of the Ancestors. I could see he knew I was telling the truth because my words moved his spine, unlike those of his Fa’, many years before.

I put down the fragments of the Dragon’s thigh and held his hands into mine. “I must find the other burial sites. Will you help me do that?”

Dragon Bone by Kosi An on ArtStation

Fantasy
4

About the Creator

Edoardo Segato-Figueroa

Storyteller, Singer-songwriter. Husband and dog dad.

Author of "Countercurrent", Italian biography of Nikola Tesla.

Sci-fi and Cli-fi novellas. Sciencey essays.

Co-founder of NYADO and producer of Mission to Earth music-film.

Reader insights

Outstanding

Excellent work. Looking forward to reading more!

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  1. Eye opening

    Niche topic & fresh perspectives

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  • Rossella Rispoli Segato2 years ago

    Really beautiful!

  • Rocky Fox2 years ago

    Amazing! Can't wait to read the other chapters.. will you be publishing the rest anytime soon?

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