Gods Do Not Die

“There weren't always dragons in the Valley.” The fire crackled, casting shadows across the deep folds of the sage’s face. He shuddered, the winter winds raking his frail frame, sinking into his bones. Still, it was the Frostmourn, and he must tell his tale, “At least, we didn’t call them dragons. We called them Gods. What else could they be?

“When they first descended, from the heavens, big enough to hide the sun and cast us all in shadow, our ancestors thought that death had come. Indeed, it had come for many other places. Whispers of the Bone King had begun and to this day he still rules from his dead throne in the south, terrible monsters at his beck and call.” The old man took a moment to snarl and pull a scary face for the children at the front. They squealed and reached for their mothers, who would giggle and remember when the sage had scared them as children. By the Scales, he was old.

He continued, “Yet the Gods were kind. Oh, they had their demands, but they returned love with love. We fed them, bathed them, worshiped them and in turn, they defended us. The field of glass sits at the mouth of our little valley, a reminder of the first times the Gods breathed the heavens to defend us. Though, it would not be the last.

“It was Hekatate, Scale Father, who hid us that night. He dug a cave into the side of this very mountain and hid us all. Babes cried and men prayed. What could have terrified the Gods so?” A darkness fell over his face, his voice growing distant, sad. Even in the gloom, he could make out the shadow of the cave mouth, now known as the Godgrave. It loomed over them, high on the mountain. None had been up there in a century, but he knew. Knew the history scattered all over the floor.

“It was after four days, four terrible days, that the first God fell. A mighty crash and Gyrassian was smote to ruin upon the rocks. They say her blood ran down the mountain for a further four days, flooding the valley we sit in even now. She cried and bemoaned, ‘Beware the Quiescence, antithesis of dragons!’. Strange, terrifying words, but it let us know. These were not Gods”

His voice cracked and the tears began to flow, “Afterall, Gods do not die.”

Those around him did not get it, could not. The tragedy had happened a hundred years ago, it was old history, remembered only by the weeping sage before them. For a moment they humoured the old man, but soon children began to fidget and murmurings began. He must continue.

“Our people dragged Gyrassian’s corpse to the cave. We did not understand, we thought prayer would bring her back. It did not, nor did it stop the deaths of the others. Veriduul, Parakix, Mavadyne.” As he named the dragons, Sym behind him banged the large drum made from stretched out lambskin. Sym was a good boy, attentive to the moment. He did not let each thrum linger, but hammered them out as quickly as the sage said the names, each one a dagger in the old man’s heart.

“Eventually, only Hekatate was left, Scale Father. He protected us from the Quiescence, but has been wounded and slumbering ever since.” He pointed now to the other mountain that formed the valley, the one without the Godgrave. Clinging to the side of it, like a child to its mother’s leg, was a huge, crimson serpent. If one were to watch it for a few hours, they would be able to notice the soft rise and fall of breath, pushing through lungs bigger than a man. They would also see, much sooner, the great rivets of flesh gouged from the creature’s hide. The broken and shattered wings. The gleaming bone, where the scales of its face had been torn away.

It was slow, but each year the sage convinced himself Hekatate looked a little better.

“Alas, the world does not stop just because we grieve. The Quiescence is gone, but the Bone King is not. Still he brings heat, drought and famine to the lands far south of here. His throne, lashed together from rulers and Gods who have opposed him, warps the world and brings destruction. So, we sit and pray. We pray that if the Bone King comes for us, Hekatate will be ready. For if not, there will be no valley anymore. There will only be dust.”

He wiped the tears from his face and many in the crowd mimicked him. They did not understand fully, but the sorrow in the old man’s voice was often enough to bring the people of the valley to tears. None of them could remember the glory days of the Gods, but when the sage spoke, his voice took them there. They could taste it, feel it. Then, they had to mourn it.

With his part of the festival done, the old man got up and let the musicians take over. They would always start with something slow and sad, usually ‘The Embers’. It would let everyone have their tears, their regrets. Let them leave such things behind with the cold and give way to the hope of the sun. After that, the real music would start and there would be dancing, laughter, love.

No one would notice the absence of the sage. He was an old man and had been old for a very long time. They would think he had merely gone to bed early, wrapping warm against the chill still lingering in the air.

Instead, once none could see, the sage would climb the stairs carefully carved into the mountain long ago by Parakix. He would sit, legs dangling off the cliff edge and stare out the entrance of the valley to the rest of the world.

He would try to see if this was the last year for the valley.

After the field of glass, jagged shards of sand and earth warped by the heat of dragon fury, the forest still stretched beyond his sight, though some trees at the far edge looked weak. There were fewer birds, and he could see less stars far to the south as the sky became blocked by black smoke. It had not been so bad this last decade, something had stalled the Bone King. Hopefully, it would last.

As he sat and watched the world burn, the night gave way to the morning and, as he always did, the old man looked down and wondered if he’d survive the fall this year. He grinned.

Then, he fell.

Glass shattered when he landed, the shards spraying away from his form.

The screaming caught him off guard. Quick as a lightning bolt, the old man was up and had pinned the screaming intruder against the stone of the mountain. His hand clamped over the mouth and he gave no sign the viscous kicks from his captive hurt at all.

The man was strange. His skin was soft and pink, no scales to speak of. A child could hit harder than him, he had no claws and his eyes were mostly white. For a few seconds, he let the man scream and panic. Eventually, he squeezed his hand around the man’s mouth, letting him know that, if the sage chose to, the man’s head could be pulped like a ripe pear.

When he seemed calm, the sage spoke to him, “And who are you? Why do you trespass? This is not your place.” The old man then moved his hand from the mouth to the throat, allowing the captive to stammer out an explanation.

“I find on purpose. I… I am teacher. Look for Dayne.” The words were sloppy in his mouth, like his tongue was too thick to say the words. Which, the sage realised, might be true if he was one of the uncarved. A man from the south, come all this way. That was not good.

Sighing, the sage snapped, “Dayne is dead. You are chasing ghosts.” He took a little bit of spiteful pleasure in watching the soft man comprehend. This man had clearly come with the intent of bringing terror to the valley again, if he was looking for Dayne. He could not allow that, they had suffered enough. Dayne would need to stay dead.

He let go of the self-proclaimed teacher, realising the man posed no threat, and turned to return to his people. For a moment, he thought that would be the end of it, but he could hear the man butchering his language again, “Please, please, grandfather. Help. Dayne helped. You help?”

When he spun around, the soft man gave a yelp and stepped back. The sage fanned his wings, even at his age they remained glorious, strong. With a gust of them to show his frustration, he spoke again, “We do not help the south. The valley is for the dragons and none other. Leave, return to your Bone King and his dead throne.”

Now, for a brief moment, the southerner grew angry and snapped, “Us. Bone King get us.” When the sage snorted, the man continued, “More movement. Wider. More metal.”

When there was no reaction to that, the southerner, clearly agitated by the limits of ability to speak the language, thrust his hand into his coat and pulled out a gleaming metal object. Two lengths of metal, forged to meet at an angle. One of the sides was gripped tightly by the man and the other had an opening at the end of its long, shining cylinder. Angry now, the man waved the tool in the sage's face, “Weapon. Fast arrow. Dragon breath inside.”

The sage laughed. The little man was insane. Dragon’s breath was a legendary weapon, terribly wielded by his Gods to defeat the Quiescence. To think it could be contained in such a small thing-

Now, the sage screamed. Face red with frustration, the soft man had taken the tool and pulled a small handle with his finger. The thing had bellowed. Fire blasted out of the front and the air seemed to crack. Several hundred feet away, a tree on the edge of the forest exploded in a rain of splinters and dust. The old man’s eyes were wide with terror as he looked at the southerner, who stood, grim faced, pointing at the smoking weapon.

“Dragon breath. Metal. Bone king. Dayne.”

Sighing, the old man supposed that even death was too much to ask for. When he next spoke, it was in one of the southern tongues he had learned long ago, “What would you have with me?”

Dayne watched the southerner melt in relief, replying happily in the same tongue, “Oh thank the rains, we were at the limit of my dracus. Allow me to formally introduce myself, I am Professor Rylen Merriway, faculty member of Fawn’s Starbright Academy.”

Dayne knew of Fawn, a land filled with soft men far to the south. Rylen fit what Dayne knew of those people perfectly. Long winded, unblooded and too wrapped up in their own world to care much for others. If Dayne didn’t get to the chase, he’d be here all day. He pointed a clawed hand to the tool in the man’s hand, “What is that? And why did you bring it here?” Dayne’s eyes narrowed, ready to kill the man if he intended to harm his people.

Rylen seemed to understand the threat in Dayne’s voice, he looked quite flustered as he explained, “Yes, quite ghastly isn’t it? They call it a drake, because it has the power of a baby dragon, they say.” Dayne sneered, the name struck something deep within him, making his gut turn sour. Oblivious, Rylen continued, “The man you know as the Bone King invented them after facing an enemy a hundred years ago that wielded… true dragon flame.”

He looked at Dayne now, a piercing, intelligent gaze fixing the old man into place. A gaze that showed why Rylen worked at one of those large southern schools. “The Bone King has brought many such things into the world, but they are all metal and smoke. He makes rich men richer, but others suffer. There is enough to go around, but people starve. The Bone King prepares for wars that do not happen and uses them as excuses to further eliminate those who oppose him.”

“And what would you have me do?” Dayne was not unmoved by the man’s plight, but it had little impact to the valley.

“Help us,” Rylen pleaded, “as you did before. Bring your power and-”

“No!” Dayne’s voice was razor sharp. Birds scattered from a nearby tree and Rylen took a step back as if physically struck. The sage snarled at the southerner, advancing with slow, heavy stomps, “You can not ask us that again. We were ruined, ruined. Look, look at what the Quiescence did. We are nothing but a grave now.” With a lunge, he grabbed Rylen’s head and twisted it to see the broken, wasting form of Hekatate, clinging to the rock. His majesty ruined, like a burned painting, or poisoned lake. Even as they watched, scales fell from the form and Dayne could hear his people keen at the ill omen.

Rylen scrambled at his hands, but could not free himself, could not look away from the ravaged body of the last dragon. When Dayne finally shoved him to the ground, both men were weeping, “You take your drakes, your mockeries of our Gods, and leave. I will not bring my last Father down to your terrible lands to die.”

A moment of silence, while Rylen got up, dusted himself off, straightened his fine clothes and took a steadying breath. Dayne had begun to walk away, when the man confessed.

“I’m not here for the dragons.”

Dayne stopped. His back blocked Rylen from seeing the emotions ravaging his face, twisting his features.

Relief, anger, fear.

If he was not here for the dragons, he could only be here for one thing. Memories threatened to batter the old man, to tear him asunder. They had made promises, costly promises, that few could remember except for Dayne. Each word was carved upon his heart from that terrible night a century ago.

Rylen, unaware of the turmoil ripping through the scaled man, continued, “I’m here for the Quiescence.”

Dayne tried to lie, tried to fight it, but he was overwhelmed by the memories, by the shame. He could not lie. He dared not tell the truth. He just stood there, silent.

The silence lasted for minutes, stretching painfully long as both men had stopped their weeping. Neither wished to break the silence, to admit they had given up their own aims. The little scholar wanted to use the greatest sin of Dayne’s people. In his head, the dragon’s last curses and pleas echoed over and over. His hands shook, and Dayne wished for something to end this unbearing silence.

The explosion knocked him to the ground, collapsing in a heap with Rylen among the jagged shards of the field of glass. A plume of fire and smoke bellowed out of the mouth of the valley, and Rylen’s people were screaming, dying.

More sounded, deafening blasts of power, like dragon flame. Dayne could see Hekatate scrambling, moving so painfully slowly, away from the attacks. Just above him, strange, gleaming birds. Their squat bodies hovered, while wings spun over their head so fast it looked like a flashing disc, and from their stomachs came black spheres. They struck mountain and ground, exploding in fury and devastating the land. Part of the mountain began to tumble, to crash down on the few of Dayne’s people left.

He tried to stand up, to move towards them, but he could barely see straight. There was a tightness in his chest, his legs struggled to support him and all he could hear were the screams. Screams of his people, screams of mournful Hekatate, screams from his own mouth.

Hands grabbed his shoulders, spun him around. Dayne was looking into the face of Rylen, his hair askew, blood trickling from a broken nose and glasses cracked. The small man shook Dayne with a conviction he had thus far lacked, “We need the Quiescence now. He can’t get it, you understand? He can’t control that.”

When Dayne did not answer, the words still catching in his mouth, the scholar slapped him. “Dayne. The Quiescence. It can stop the bombs. Your people are dying.”

Hearing another say it helped. The slap grounded him. Reminded him of what he once was. Dayne had been a sage and caretaker for too long, he had forgotten that once, he was a warrior. The greatest warrior in the land.

Shoving Rylen off of him, the Knight of Serpents, Sky-burner, Herald of the End, Dayne Steelblood stood and felt the spark of violence, the spark that he had long ago thought snuffed out… rekindle. With a snarl he turned to Rylen, “Keep up.”

Then, he ran.

He ran into the smoke and flame, around the falling rocks, the bodies. Though it broke his heart, Dayne could not afford to look too closely at the ruin of his home. He ignored the people crushed by debris, the people torn to shreds by shrapnel. He ignored the size of some of those bodies, which were too small to be so still.

Sprinting through the haze, his tears did not have time to fall. They were caught by the wind and carried away, adding to the regrets that already trailed the tired hero.

With a leap, wings spread out behind him, Dayne smashed into the rock face and began climbing. Behind him, on the other cliff, he could hear the keening of Hekatate as the bombs tore chunks out of the side, throwing them down to crush the peaceful villagers below.

His clawed hands smashed into the stone easily, his strength not as faded as he recalled. The distance was covered quickly and when Dayne reached the summit, his body glistened in sweat. Sparing a moment to calm his breath, the former legend looked down upon the valley. It was hidden by smoke, but the few glimpses he could see were of blood and carnage.

Above, the strange birds still hovered and now he could see men inside. They wore strange clothes that seemed to cover their entire bodies in grass and he could see them prepping more of their bombs. They laughed.

“Is this where it is?”

Dayne was surprised to see the little scholar next to him, face red from effort, hands looking chapped and bloody from the climb. The old man raised an eyebrow and Rylen simply shrugged, “You are not the only people with magic. Though I am running low on my elixirs now. Hopefully, I shall not need them on the way back.”

Dayne waited for the little man to explain just what his elixirs did, but nothing more was said. Tearing himself away from the destruction of his home, Dayne forced himself to look upon the Godsgrave. It loomed, a black void cut into the world. A place of tragedy and terror, forever squatting over the peaceful valley, an unwelcome omen. An omen that had now been grimly fulfilled.

As he walked into that gaping maw, letting the darkness swallow him, Dayne explained to Rylen, “We tried to destroy it but by its nature, it is unchanging. We could not wield it, we could not control it. So we just left it here, trapped.”

They walked, solemnly, deep into the cave. Something about the darkness seemed to suffocate the sound from outside, the screams sounded more and more distant. You could almost mistake them for screeches of joy. Almost.

The first skeleton blocked their way, curled around the passage. Bones of glistening obsidian, curled up like a loyal hound waiting for its master. “Mavadyne, she tried to block us from the ritual of sealing. The power was too much for us to understand, the few mages we had went mad helping them. Its power tore her back to ribbons, she was the last to die. I…”

His throat closed around the words. Memories of when his people had Gods weighed on him, making him force the words out, “I had been named for her.”

The words sounded hollow in the darkness, but he had needed to say them. Needed to remember.

Dayne reverently stroked the ribs, cracks running through them from the power that had ruined her body, before moving through the skeleton and deeper still. They passed others, each skull twice the size of Dayne. As they passed them, many still twisted from their deaths, Dayne would talk. His voice was soft, and if Rylen couldn’t hear, Dayne did not care. He did not remember for the scholar.

“Veriduul, suffocated and left thrashing for hours while the others pushed it back.”

“Cerebelium, burned from the inside when his flames would not release.”

“Orgatan, used his body to block a lava flow from long ago, back when the rock was new.”

Finally, with the sounds of explosions from outside all but forgotten, they came to the end of the cave. The bones of Gyrassian dominated the small altar that had been carved into the cave wall. They were laid out to make it appear as if the dragon had fallen asleep with her belly up. The arms were fashioned to be gripping the head. Dayne had remembered the difficulty in making the supports strong enough.

In the centre of the head, an orb of pure darkness thrummed with terrible power. At times Dayne felt the darkness of the entire cave came from that orb, that it would sneak out and that is what made day turn to night.

“Is that it? The Quiescence?” Rylen’s voice was hushed, in awe. Dayne could only nod, his eyes scanning the intricate symbols written in dragon’s blood around the perimeter of Gyrassian’s bones.

He knelt down to the symbols near her foot, runes of binding and sealing. “I’m going to release it, but I do not know what it will do.”

Rylen’s eyes went wide, “You don’t know? Haven’t you mastered it?”

Dayne shook his head, “We do not even understand it. I know only that it is dangerous and that it knew how to kill dragons.”

“But you’re still going to release it? On my word?” The man seemed almost honoured.

“If it is what these men want, then I will make sure it is not here anymore.”

“Wait if we could-”

Dayne did not wait. He scratched a line through the runes at his feet, sundering the circle.

Unlike the bombs, the Quiescence did not need to make a show of flame and smoke to demonstrate its power. Instead, when the circle broke, the darkness seemed to convulse. It contracted, gathering with the Quiescence at its centre. Then, a sound like rushing wind filled the room and with a pulse, the bones of Gyrassian shattered to dust.

Dayne screamed out in horror as the small orb cracked and burst. A tendril of smoke lashed out and struck the scholar in the chest. Dayne watched the small man tumble into the distance, crumbling in a heap when he was stopped by the rib of Parakix.

With a beat of his wings, Dayne landed next to the small man. Black veins raced through his skin and his eyes had rolled back into his head. Dayne cradled the frail scholar, whose face was twisted in agony. Rylen’s hand was clutching at his chest with a surprising strength, such that Dayne could not shift it to check the wound. As the warrior scanned the area, looking, hoping for aid, he heard Rylen’s breath quicken, deepen.

Then, it stopped entirely. One last exhale, a complete release of pain that only comes with death.

Dayne stared. Despite the short time with him, there was a great heaviness in his heart that the little man had died. He had been a credit to his people, to have come so far on will alone. Dayne would bury the man with his people, an honoured hero to be woven into future tales around the fire. Still, he hoped the release of the Quiescence had been enough. He cradled the body gently as he walked out of the cave.

Coming into the sun, Dayne could see smoke and fire still covering the valley, coating it in ash. Still those strange people-carrying birds hovered and even then he could see another bomb drop, catching the side of the screaming Hekatate. Dayne cried to the heavens, his fury and grief cracking his voice in two, “Leave! What you seek is gone! There is no unchanging here!”

He knew it was pointless, they would still wipe them out, but it had been the only action left. His small spiteful move of denying them the thing they sought. Looking upon Hekatate, the work of healing over the last hundred years undone in an instant, hammered home the pointlessness of the whole endeavor.

They had lost everything.

Then, the sound of steel on steel, a screeching tear as one of the birds smashed into the other, tangling both’s wings and setting off the bombs still in the body. Dayne watched mesmerized as the two machines spiraled, trailing flames like falling stars. One landed south, in the forest, tearing trees to splinters and no doubt crushing deer and foxes. The second fell the other way, passing close over Dayne’s head. As he ducked, the sage could see the bodies of men in a small room at the front, now red ragged messes, shredded by the wings of the other bird. It struck the far side of the mountain, causing rock, metal and bodies to all tumble down and away from the valley.

“That wasn’t so hard.”

Dayne looked down at the scholar, who had spoken almost wrly. The little man smiled and wiggled fingers, which were now black and withered, like the grasping hands of death. Fear striking him, Dayne dropped Rylen and backed away.

“Well, I suppose that is called for. Apologies for making you carry me, I tried to pay you back.” He gestured sheepishly at the smoking crater.

Dayne could barely comprehend, “You… you controlled the Quiescence?”

“I suppose, though not for long. The power to stop change. Amazing. I simply made the rotors stop… rotating.” He coughed then, a deep, hacking, cough, “Though it seemed very dangerous, I wouldn’t like to do too much of that.”

It was unbelievable. Dayne’s people had lived in fear of the Quiescence for years. It was untameable, undefeatable. Yet this strange little man now wielded it. How?

His contemplations were shattered by a rumbling. Horror mounting, Dayne turned to the other mountain, where Hekatate had rested for a century. The last dragon, the first dragon, Scale Father, was standing. Each shift of his huge weight caused rocks to tumble down into the ruin of the valley.

Extended to his full height, Hekatate’s brow was of height with the tip of the cliffside. His jaws could have swallowed the metal birds whole.

His wings spread out, eclipsing the valley below in darkness, and Dayne could hear the cries of his people growing even more shrill and stricken. He could hardly bear it, they had lost so much. Must they lose this too?

With not a glance or word to his people, his children, Hekatate leapt into the air and flew south, ragged wounds dripping blood across the forest. As he faded into the distance, occasionally a burst of flame would illuminate him. All too soon, the dragon was gone, driven off by the attack, or the freeing of the Quiescence. Dayne tried to tell himself he had no choice and could not have stopped it, but his heart knew he lied to himself.

Instead, he could only stand there, helpless. The greatest hero of his age, unable to do a thing. Next to him Rylen was talking, babbling about how they had to go south, to use the Quiescence to stop the Bone King. Dayne didn’t really care about that, but he would have to follow Hekatate. He would need an explanation, and vengeance for his people.

This attack had shown they could not just live apart from the world, that they had grown reliant on the myth of dragons, soft with the bounty of the valley. Dayne’s people needed new myths to guide them, to help them survive. To make them warriors once more.

There were not always dragons in the valley but, hopefully, there could be Gods again.