Empires at Dawn

There weren’t always dragons in the valley.

Then there used to be countless. Now there are barely any left in the gargantuan cavity in the earth, covered in bright green grass and dotted with wild flowers growing in messy clusters. Sandwiched between two flat mountains that curved towards one another, like two crescent moons facing each other. Or a whole moon sliced in half by a bloated river. It sat deep in the grassy plains, days’ worth of travel outside the nearest empire, Oratta. One of the many new empires that grew atop the bones and ashes of an old one.

The river cascaded into a waterfall, emptying out into the ocean. The mountains black, tipped with stark white sparking snow. Trees climbed up the sleek rocks, their wide branches casting dark shadows on the ground. The sun rose in the center of the cut through the mountains, the damp grass like emeralds in the morning. At night, when the sun set, the valley was basked in a golden glow; the sky a mirage of navy and red.

It was, by all accounts, beautiful.

But no one really used to go.

It reeked with magic. Leaves rustled, even when there was no wind. As if the tree was alive, in more ways than an average tree should be. The rocks would move about, even if nothing prompted them to move. The valley was as strange as it was beautiful. And no one quite understood it. Maybe no one wanted to. Magic did not abide by the laws made by men, written down on old paper with black ink. Magic was something only whispered about in the crooked streets drenched in shadows, as if they were too deep in the corners of the cities for the sunlight to reach. It was practiced by only those mad or desperate enough for their own spot in history. More than just a footnote in the books. That’s what people said. Magic was old, misunderstood, a language dead and lost to time. Long before the dragons.

So, because of its mystery, magic is what people blamed when the first dragon slipped through the crack between this world and the one that apparently rested underneath the river. People noticed the waterfall had thinned. The water from the river must have dripped through the open crack into the dragon’s world.

At the beginning of their arrival, everyone shivered in their sleep. Though not from the cold. It was plain summer. But because of their dreams were being twisted into nightmares, plagued with flying monsters with clawed wings and thick scales and fiery breaths.

As far as the wrinkly historians of the time were concerned, right after they came through the gap, the beasts stayed within the confines of the crescent moon mountains, perched on the snow, or on the trees; perhaps afraid of the world beyond. They were themselves misplaced. Spit out into a world so unlike their own. But humans are often were selfish when it comes to their fear. They easily forget others around them are too; for their own reasons.

Fancy cursive letters in giant history books then described the beasts as fliers after some days. And the period they burned and scorched the earth was simply coined the Era of Great Terror. Tall, proud castles with looming towers and ornate arches, reduced to ashes. Cities, great and small, squashed beneath their massive feet. And when the first empire fell, the others scrambled and fought to defend it and themselves.

Years the battle lasted. Countless dead, and even more missing. Lost to the makeshift trenches, the charred ruins of fallen empires. Swords, broken or whole. Arrows, thick and split in two. Shields, chainmail. Rotten, rusted. Scattered around the surviving lands like little treasures. Reminders of an age long since passed.

Because yes, dragons had come to their world. But that was already hundreds of years ago. And since then the war with dragons and been fought and won. The beasts now scattered, small and weak. Easy to kill, harder to skin. Dragon meat became a luxury. Served in small cubes onto large fancy plates. Eaten only to those wealthy enough to afford it. Always the royals, never anyone else.

Years passed and the cracks in the river disappeared. The waterfall flowing like it used to. The once quiet valley, burned to a black crisp, had healed. Every so often, people came to the valley. Not for pleasure, but to keep an eye on the river. To make sure nothing appeared beneath its waters. Loud rustles in the tall trees spooked them.

Magic, the one the valley had held.

Or perhaps the dragons.

For they might have been meager and barely a threat, but their existence had not been entirely annihilated. So long as they remained, so did the fear that had seeded and blossomed with their arrival. At the very least, magic was no longer a word uttered in the shadowy streets. Magic was barely uttered at all.

But, so concerned they all were with this valley that they did not notice far away, though not far enough, beyond the outskirts of another new empire named Erledia, there was another valley. Another broken moon. Another river. Another world. Because unlike the crack that had once let the dragons visit, this one, was open. And had they known what was about to slip through, they would have begged the dragons to come back.