MANA

Skyrow was a snow dragon. He kept a journal using an old apprentice's grimoire, enchanted to survive basic wear as through moisture and temperature changes. He had an impressive memory and no real need for such a thing. Especially since he was, by the reckoning of his kind, extremely young.

He kept it because the woman who raised him was a human. She'd been adopted in turn by his birth mother, the snow dragon Vespeer. He'd never met Vespeer. He'd grown up mostly among humans who belonged to the religion of the Star Grail.

Those humans talked about the arrival of dragons with wonder. He wanted to be proud of that, even though they hadn't helped much in tracking his parentage. They wanted to know how dragons came to this world, not who his mom was.

Some said the nearby mountain was the earth that had been pulled out to make the Valley, then set aside like the mound of dirt left by a digging dog. It was special to the faith. It was the mountain to which Skyrow now flew.

He grew his legs back out again to make the landing. His scales had a shimmer like frost on the surface of stiff snow and his body could act like the dusts of winter. The other kindreds had to hang their limbs from their bodies as they flew and snow dragons felt a gleaming sadness for them. How terribly awkward.

Snow-caked surfaces and sparse mountainous footholds were no problem for Skyrow. Folding his wings (and missing flight already), Skyrow kept close and moved with the wind when the juts or sheets of ice or rock allowed it. Folds in the rock and small spaces or proper caves were common on such cliff faces. Temple goers – priesthood, worshippers, dragons, and labourers – could use these to go to and from without any witnesses being much the wiser, since the temple blended with the peaks and sides of the mountain.

Skyrow’s wings flitted this way and that or stayed pressed to his frame, depending on the demands of his movement. A cave entrance soon yawned past him, the legs and tail silently blustering him along. Several humans carrying planks for wooden scaffolds skirted to the wall to make way for him. Greetings were nodded on both sides.

The snow dragon wasted no time. Folding his wings, he walked with a solemn gait and kept his tail at a low, rhythmic slither; the posture the temple had developed for appropriate dragon conduct. Skyrow soon found himself in the Water-bearer’s Chamber where his adoptive mother, Priestess Aura, was in the midst of a rite. She stood upon a rectangular stage, with steps echoing out and down from it like a pyramid. Before her was an altar upon which was laid a cauldron of black marble, a rare material in these parts. Silver-filled carvings of the cauldron created religious imagery against a nighttime background. Stars, constellations, and the three Bearers made up most of that imagery.

The Bearers were also reflected in structures that shared the stage with Aura: sconces on the corners that represented Flame; two large glass jars glittering with swarms of the Firefly; and suspended from above, a stone sphere polished to a golden gleam for the Sun. The Star Grail was considered the point of focus, for that was the world into which the Bearers poured their light.

Skyrow calmly joined the group who’d come to bear witness to Aura’s rite. Technically, a priestess did not hold any kind of congregation, but it was expected that the light would be witnessed. Once completed, the priestess stepped away from the stage so that labourers could clean everything immaculately. The witnesses – other than the labourers – went about their way. Skyrow approached Aura as she passed the last step.

“Sunlight, son,” she said with an affectionate glow in her green eyes. She had greying black hair, a long face with a hooked nose, and lips that were somehow both thin and gentle. Her robes were purple, woven with grey to represent starlight or gleaming silver.

“Starlight, mother,” Skyrow responded. He arched his neck but lowered his head, the conventional bow. “The Star Grail brims today. I was just talking with Tarsun.”

“Oh?” Aura said as she began to walk. He fell in step with her, long accustomed to keeping his gait smooth but still aligned with a human’s pace. The priestess spoke again: “It’s been moons since we saw him here.”

Clenching his jaw against the embarrassment, Skyrow went on: “Yes, well, ring dragons – you know. But he tells me there are more moons than light.” This expression was common in the Temple of the Grail, and it meant that something was amiss. In a big way.

“It is a big world, Squairau, but don’t fret. Many are the labours,” she replied. Aura always pronounced his name with something that was not quite an accent, but a resonance. He could hear her spelling his name correctly in her head. Technically, the expression “many are the labours of the Bearers” referred to larger facts of life, but it was often abridged this way when discussing daily affairs.

Before he could respond, Aura added: “I am proud of you. Your devotion is pure, and I’ve never felt anything quite like it from you. I don’t believe it is the touch of the Firefly, which I know you prefer, but you are luminous and carry the Grail’s purpose.”

Shame shone in him with a hurtful blare, but he tamped down a response to that. “You honour me, mother,” he said instead. “I should like to mantle soon. Great would be my joy to share the sky with you.”

“Flames, you’re not grown to mantling already?” She touched three fingers to her throat well.

“I’m thirty years old, mother,” the snow dragon said. He couldn’t help feeling that he was one of those teenagers the humans talked about.

“Yes, so it has, for Firefly’s faith,” the priestess replied at a near-murmur. “I don’t know that I belong in the sky. It sounds frightfully harsh on the bones.”

Skyrow leaned his head in her direction, sidelong, for just a moment. It was a hair too slow to be a flick of the neck, but not so lengthy as to be inappropriate. In private, he’d have bumped her with his head in this gesture; it would be unthinkable to do so here. “I hope to try it for Friday the 13th,” he said.

“She is the Sun,” Aura replied warmly. To the Star Grail, the Sun was feminine on one day of the year and masculine on the rest. When She is the Sun, the day was spent celebrating femininity in society and in oneself. “That would be lovely.”

Skyrow opened his mouth when she turned her gaze away as they climbed a gently-sloping spiral stairwell. It had exit points to different levels as it went up. He closed his mouth before Aura noticed. He’d have to do this through his journal. He just didn’t know how to say it by just…saying it.

“How’s that travel journal of yours coming along?” the priestess asked.

Swallowing hard, the snow dragon reminded himself that a priestess was probably not a mind-reader. Mothers, though? Maybe. Shaking that thought, he replied, “I don’t know how much of my spiritual travel can happen without – well – travelling. Or living more. Doing things. Adventures?” Inwardly, he groaned. Did he sound false to her?

They reached her floor, the next one up. She knelt at the stair gate, cupping his head in her hands. “You know the difference of that, Squairau. Deep, involved spiritual quests have been trekked by those who were born here and never left. Enjoy your stop at the library.”

“Is there nothing you don’t know?” He hadn’t meant it to sound surly, and there was the barest flash of sorrow in her eyes.

“There is much, my Flame of the frosts. But worry not; it doesn’t take a sage to know you’ll visit the library. You’re you, after all.” She kissed his snout. “Run along, now. And tell Tarsun to get a hobby.”

Skyrow blinked as Aura swept away with a chuckle. She had a way of flustering him. Or maybe he was just awkward. Rustling himself, he continued through the temple. He heard the rings of a dragon of Tarsun’s kin as he went, though this one must have been much larger. They were well out of view. If there were any others, Skyrow did not encounter them. Soon the temple’s library opened before him.

Most of it was made up of tapestries, scrolls, and sheafs of parchment. Books were mostly bound vellum. There was, however, a growing collection of books made with a new material created by the Corpus Coin merchantry. “Paper,” they called it. Skyrow hadn’t much perused those yet. He did love this library.

Approaching a mahogany writing desk, the snow dragon carefully set aside its accompanying chair; he had no use for it. He swung his neck about to look for anyone who might have been watching. One or two clerical workers were doing their thing in the stacks, and there was a custodian. Ignoring them, Skyrow withdrew his journal and an inkwell from his body. It was as though snow had shifted to get under a rock within it and pushed it up to the surface.

He arranged the inkwell to his liking and set down the book. From his tail extended the tip of a quill pen, blended into his flesh as though packed with snow. Deft and surreptitious, he turned the cover of his journal as soon as he could. With the book open, it could be anything. It was labelled Squairau in his elegant, slanted, yet angular cursive script.

The first leaf of parchment inside read, M.A.N.A. Beneath, Skyrow had written it out – Mother: Adventures, Notes, Avowals. After the title page were dozens of pages of scratched-out starts, notes about his lessons, records of significant childhood experiences, doodles, diagrams, ponderings, and copied passages from scrolls and other texts. Everywhere were notes, references, and copied documents intended to help him track down more on his birth mother and his snow dragon kindred.

Also in his journal were his efforts concerning Nigh Light. Meditations and philosophical thoughts were among them. Sometimes he vented feelings. There were a few pages slashed by a pen with too hard a stroke. Other times he collected or recorded what information he could find about Nigh Light, such as scouring the indices and classifications of the temple library, consulting travelling booksellers, noting tales from orators of various kinds, and even some info Tarsun had managed to dredge up for him.

The ring dragons didn’t talk much about where they got their information. Many documents cited them as the sources themselves. Skyrow quickly learned to be cautious in his investigations of the Nigh Light. A cleric of Flame nearly went apoplectic from the mere mention of it, and he dared not ask his mother. Not yet.

He could adjust the snowy texture of his flesh, giving himself the sticky friction of snowballs. This friction on the broad side of a claw was how he was able to turn the pages. Skyrow left the table, skittered to the book cart of new materials, found nothing of interest, huffed, and returned to his journal. While not about travel as such, his spiritual journey was a real thing and part of what he was doing here.

The more Aura talked about her faith in him, the more he feared a disingenuous spirit quest. Tarsun’s disconcerting hints weren’t helping. He’d have to settle for imperfection. So he started:

Dear Mother,

My first memories are from soon after my hatching. The egg crumbled into an ice block of the same shape, and I remember the blurring I could see of the world from being so encased. You were there, and you were explaining to…someone. Adventurers had been in the valley, and they’d rescued me. I was part of a clutch, you said. One molested with alchemy and less savoury practices.

You adopted me then. The Valley talked for years, and I used to think the words never reached you. They talked about why you’d want a son who was not your kind. But you knew, I think. Little escapes you.

You knew that I had a gift, of a kind. Light. Glowing spirit. Something magical, maybe of a higher power. Beyond the natural majesty of dragons. No conceit, that. I am what I am. But you always thought…

Skyrow continued in this manner until he finished his letter to Priestess Aura.

Getting it out was important. Much of the letter came in fits and starts. Doubts gnawed at him. The temptation to wait just a little longer was like a warm hand on top of his own. Skyrow scowled at the notion of putting his heart into it. Nevertheless, he got through to the end – even when he felt the worst about himself.

“Hi, Squairau.”

The snow dragon nearly jumped out of his own scales. “Tarsun! Don’t do that!”

“I didn’t read anything.” A ring dragon, Tarsun’s voice had the organically stony quality of a bone flute. His was the body of a serpent threaded through floating rings of bone. They all spun slowly around his trunk, coming more frequently at his neck and gradually spacing out as they progressed down his light blue and silver length. The last ring, near the tip of the tail, was actually connected; it would have to finish growing before the skeletal base could release it.

“That’s not what I-...” Skyrow sighed. He was glad his friend was here, but he’d melt before letting Tarsun see that. “What brings you into the temple?”

“The Dragonpath,” he answered. “Pack up. We need to go.”

Skyrow narrowed his eyes at the use of a term he’d coined and glanced about, but this section of the library was empty now and Tarsun had been quiet. The snow dragon re-absorbed his belongings and left with his friend through a side passage. It led, after some wooden doors to keep in the heat, to a cave outlet. They were soon flying away from the mountain.

Tarsun didn’t talk and made more haste than Skyrow could match. While every dragon had a certain amount of magic wrapped up in their being, the winged ones still needed to actually beat against real air to stay above ground. Ring dragons did something akin to swimming in the sky. The gap between them increased and Skyrow couldn’t spare the breath to shout. Certainly not loudly enough.

Tarsun’s rush soon explained itself: a mantled snow dragon was battling a group Skyrow had never seen before. Humans, with all manner of war machines, alongside a sight Skyrow hadn’t till now been sure was real. The mantling meant that the snow dragon was monstrously huge; the ballistae the humans used were scarcely the size of her hand, not counting the claws. She must have absorbed half a mountain of snow!

The unbelievable sight was a hideous cross-breed of human and dragon. Known as Pinions, they were used as slaves. They were stripped of free will and bolstered the human side with incredible strength, endurance, and ferocity. They couldn’t use a breath weapon, but compensated with the ability to self-destruct in a blast of draconic fire. Even mantled, the snow dragon was hard-pressed.

Tarsun and Skyrow dropped near to ground level, studying the situation as they drew together, and collected themselves for action. The mantled snow dragon was winter’s wrath. Her breath was such a cutting cold that human, Pinion, and artillery alike were frozen and shorn. She often half-blended with the ground or became as a cloudy avalanche. “How did you…?” Skyrow started.

“No time,” Tarsun cut him off. “She’s not simply flying away because she’s protecting a clutch. I don’t know if they know that clutch is there, and I’m not sure if she knows if they know.”

There was a roadside grove near the pair. They skirted around it so that these people with Pinions wouldn’t notice them. “It looks like the leaders are over there,” Skyrow tossed his tail in the direction of a group on an open wagon. Individuals would run up to them, converse briefly, run back to the battle lines, and watch the results before repeating the process. The mantled snow dragon had to put most of her effort and attention into repelling the Pinions, which came after her from distant points of the spread of forces. She couldn’t just wipe them out with a single breath.

Ballistae, arbalests, and a small mobile catapult filled in the rest. The humans stuffed between Pinions were there to harass. Most got wiped out. Many fled. Pinions blew up several times. The draconic pair of friends flew inches off the ground at the best speed Skyrow could manage while still being able to do something when he reached their target. A runner, returning from the group early, pointed and shouted at them.

Tarsun sped ahead, swinging about the group from the end opposite the runner while Skyrow spewed his coldest at their Pinion, which froze solid. Among this leading group was a human man wielding a hammer that felt – even from here – like a living profanity to the dragons. It had been made from dragonbone. He glanced at both of the younglings accosting his group, then grinned in Skyrow’s direction. “You were in that botched clutch! The temple has much to answer for.”

“The temple doesn’t answer to you!” Skyrow declared righteously. He wouldn’t understand the mistake this represented until much later.

“Oh, but all answer to Jaxon eventually. RETREAT!” Jaxon called, then blew a horn that sounded elemental. Another exploitation of Skyrow’s kindred.

The humans egressed with immediate efficiency, taking as much of their artillery as could still be moved. Every Pinion, on the other hand, instantly made a mad rush at the mantled snow dragon. Meanwhile, Jaxon and his group drew out flasks and vials which they threw at the two younglings. These exploded into mists that caused crippling pain and horrific sensory experiences like alien screams and dreadful sights. Both fled backward until they could clear their senses.

Molten earth steamed as it froze in the darkening winter cold. The fleeing forces took off toward the roads running parallel to the distant mountain. The mantled snow dragon jumbled herself over to the pair. “My thanks, wyrmlings,” she said. “I cannot stay.” Even as she spoke, the damaged parts of her mantle fell away like chunks of discoloured ice. The remainder of her became a regular, powdered snow until it shrunk a little and reshuffled, forming again as a still-gigantic snow dragon.

“Were they Corpus Coin?” Skyrow began. There were rumours about the merchantry’s resources.

“They were,” his elder replied. “And I am called Vespeer. They’ll return. If they didn’t know about the clutch I protect, they’ll have figured it out from my resistance. I must away to warn the other guardians and move the eggs.” She cast Skyrow a meaningful glance. “You’ll want to go to the Gloamwild.” She flapped a wing in the direction opposite where the merchantry’s forces had fled. “The Stillwind awaits.”

Vespeer flew then. With a speed Skyrow did not know his kind could produce. But he only knew about mantling through reading and word of mouth. The young snow dragon looked at Tarsun, whose rings moved counter-clockwise and simultaneously shuddered to a stop part-way through; nervousness. They took to the air. This time they flew in a more comfortable style. Not quite leisurely, but enough that they could talk, think, and recover after their encounter. They flew high, though, so that they could see anyone coming.

And see the Gloamwild before its dwellers saw them.

“You didn’t know her,” Tarsun said. It wasn’t a question.

“Nope.”

“She knew you.”

“Yep. She’s my mother.”

Tarsun’s lids and slitted pupils narrowed. “How do you know that if this is the first time you’ve met?”

Skyrow couldn’t manage anything resembling a shrugging motion mid-flight. “Her name, for one. And because of the Nigh Light. It was like I have a rainbow inside, and she’s the blue section that’s been missing. Does that make any sense?”

“I’m not sure I’ll ever completely make sense of the things you do – never mind your plans – with the Nigh Light,” Tarsun replied. “But if you knew, and I think she knew, why didn’t you say anything?”

“That one stings,” Skyrow admitted. “I mean, she’s protecting a clutch. And we were all a little busy at the time. It didn’t sound like they were her eggs, but…”

Tarsun nodded. They flew in silence for a few moments. “How did she know about your connection to the Gloamwild?” he asked.

“I’m not sure she did,” Skyrow half-answered, half-pondered. “For that matter, I’m not sure if I really have a connection there, exactly. And it’s hard to get there without help, without the temple knowing. Plus the defences. Why now? And she didn’t seem to recognize you; you’d been there…”

They bandied guesses about the most unusual day they were having. Tarsun cracked jokes. Perhaps it was his whimsy, or the ring dragon’s…innocence? It felt like the wrong word.

As the moon rose, the Gloamwild came into view. “Gods,” muttered Tarsun. “What happened?”

It was a mushroom forest. That part had been so for as long as either youngling was aware. Now, however, its stalks no longer looked like toadstools limned in the veils of the fae. They were just grey-brown mushrooms. Taller than Tarsun was long, but still. There was no evidence of dwellers of any kind. The pair of friends didn’t even break stride. Though their caps made for a tight canopy, the spaces between the mushrooms were large enough to accommodate Skyrow’s wingspan.

They reached the Stillwind uneventfully. To the casual observer, it might have looked like a lake. It was colourless, transparent, and filled a crater the way water might. Its surface, however, was perfectly smooth. Like glass. The night sky was dimly reflected upon it, with the constellation Aquarius standing out more on its surface than it did above. Skyrow walked over it, and it was as he remembered:

Clear resin. Like a wind that did not move.

Tarsun broke the divine spiritual stillness Skyrow experienced as the ring dragon called out, “Priestess Aura!?”

The snow dragon looked about, astounded. Sure enough… “Mother?” He called.

Aura emerged from the stands of mushrooms, breathing hard. Her hair was in disarray. She did not step upon the resin. “We have much to discuss, Squairau. But there are many struggles before us.”

Skyrow’s maw hung open.

Tarsun said, “I’m going to make sure the coast is clear…” He flew into the Gloamwild, but never far enough that he couldn’t see the Stillwind.

“My conversation with m-...with Vespeer was hard,” Aura said. “I let Jaxon go during the holy wars. She tells me you encountered him. He was the one who took you for the clutch to be played upon, though I didn’t know that when we accepted his donations to the Temple of the Grail. We’ll talk about all of this and more when she gets here.” The priestess pointed.

Skyrow, stupefied, looked as directed. Looming over the opening in the mushroom canopy produced by the Stillwind was an empty mantle. It was like a suit of armour left behind. Vespeer would have been far too large to penetrate the mushroom forest while mantled. Aura continued, “She bears a new clutch upon her back. She also bore, as she carried me, some news I did not understand. She told me you’d be here. She told me you’ve been here before.”

Squairau hadn’t wanted it to be like this. He was sick with shock. How much had she withheld from him? Did everyone know? “Why here?” he asked shakily. “Why now?”

“Jaxon and the Corpus Coin will be here in a week at most. The fae will probably show themselves shortly. May the Grail bear us! There’s so much we must work through. Vespeer said you bring hope unlooked for. What did she mean?”

Skyrow made his way to her. He stood upon the edge of the Stillwind and withdrew his journal from within himself. “I…I wrote it down. Please…” and he handed it to her, flipping to the appropriate page.

Frowning, Aura accepted the book. If she hadn’t been raised by a snow dragon, she wouldn’t have been prepared for the implications. But Skyrow wasn’t the only one still with questions. Aura read the opening passages her son had penned in the temple library:

Dear Mother,

My first memories are from soon after my hatching. The egg crumbled into an ice block of the same shape, and I remember the blurring I could see of the world from being so encased. You were there, and you were explaining to…someone. Adventurers had been in the valley, and they’d rescued me. I was part of a clutch, you said. One molested with alchemy and less savoury practices.

You adopted me then. The Valley talked for years, and I used to think the words never reached you. They talked about why you’d want a son who was not your kind. But you knew, I think. Little escapes you.

You knew that I had a gift, of a kind. Light. Glowing spirit. Something magical, maybe of a higher power. Beyond the natural majesty of dragons. No conceit, that. I am what I am. But you always thought I was chosen by the Star Grail. I showed devotion to your temple because it meant so much to you.

This was a lie.

When Tarsun and I went on that sleepover we asked you for as kids? It wasn’t just to be dragons, young and independent. He showed me the Stillwater because he knew (the way ring dragons do) that there was something to it. Something…more. And I felt it. I touched upon the Nigh Light, a glow in the depths of the Stillwind. I touched upon something that caressed the starlight directly. The Nigh Light, which I sought to learn about for so long.

Your Star Grail was an inspiration to me. Not one of the gods, but divine. The world itself, ready for new light. And you know about dragons and our path. Even the Pinions in the stories bear the power and onus as part of that. Of being the land, not just living on it. I bonded my heart to the Nigh Light I found that day, mother.

I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for your faith and our time in it to be a lie. But the Nigh Light was the opportunity I’ve sought from my heart and bones ever since I saw you through the ice of my egg. I don’t know yet what shape that bond will take, but I love you. I’m proud of my years at the Temple of the Star Grail.

The Dragonpath needs a divine representative. If I can rise up to that, embrace the Nigh Light to become a divine light of my own, then I can bring the failing bloodlines together. I can save the Pinions, and stop the harm they cause. Most of all, you won’t have to hide anymore. Neither will Tarsun.

And I won’t have to hide from myself.