The Before

There weren’t always dragons in the valley. But there hadn’t always been a valley, either.

Every day he wrote it down as he muttered to himself. Then he would read every page he had written, each nearly identical to the one that came before. To keep myself sane, he told himself.

There weren’t always dragons in the valley. There hadn’t always been a valley. And the sky had been…

He squeezed his eyes shut and dipped his quill, even though it didn’t need ink. Each day leeched vital details from his memories of the Before. Each day it took him longer to remember.

Blue. The sky had been blue.

The old man cast a sideways glance out the window between scratches of the quill, as if afraid to look for too long. Yes, he thought. Blue. Now nebulous clouds of color fought for dominance: shifting, swirling, and bleeding through and around each other like a variety of oils shaken together in the same glass.

The soft hush of rain pattered at his window. No clouds, he thought, yet it rains. He wrote it down before he could forget clouds again.

I can’t forget. Someone has to remember.

He squeezed his eyes shut.

The Celestials.

The scratching of the quill.

To keep myself sane, he told himself.

This isn’t something sane people do.

There hadn’t always been the Celestials, he wrote. He knew nothing of the Celestials. Nobody did, except that they looked like massive rocks thrown skyward by some creature of incalculable size.

He had tried tracking them. He had by necessity learned every star and constellation in the sky as a young boy, and he knew them better than he knew the sky was blue— though that wasn’t such a good comparison anymore. All he learned was that the Celestials moved, but he could unearth no reason why. A variety of hypotheses were tested, tried, and thrown out. Each one a waste of time. Precious time.

A breeze sent goosebumps up his arm, so he stood and shut the window. He sat down, thought for a moment, and then stood up again and locked it. On his way back, he paused and rested a weathered hand on an amulet depicting a seven-pointed star in front of a rising sun.

Vizir wasn’t always a religious man. But there weren’t always dragons in the valley, either.

Before, he had sworn off the gods. Poppycock and balderdash from imbeciles who hadn’t the mind for science, he had thought. Now his thoughts were less harsh. Poppycock and balderdash from hopeful souls with no other avenue for respite, he thought.

But he wasn’t seeking respite. He was seeking answers.

Why are there dragons in the valley? Why is there a valley? Why here? Why now?

There is no other solution. There can’t be.

Why am I the only one that remembers?

Though details of the Before were slipping away from him, he could remember the first day like it was yesterday. Though, admittedly, he only knew it wasn’t yesterday because of the dozens of pages that were already filled. Time was passing strangely, and his awareness of it was even stranger.

He shut his eyes again. What was the first thing he had noticed?

…yesterday, as it turns out, was difficult to remember.

The dragons? No, the valley had to have come first. The valley, then. Yes, that was it.

On that day, a townsman made the trek through the forest to Vizir’s hut to trade essentials for furs and leathers he had trapped, as had been done for many years. The townsman had apologized for being late because of a delay on the road next to the valley.

“What valley?” Vizir had asked.

Once the townsman realized he was serious, he patronized, “THE valley. You know, the one directly middle of town and ‘ere? What I gots to go ‘round every time I come ‘ere?”

Vizir left immediately. And found, to his stupefaction, that the townsman was right. A valley, where there had been flat forest just a day prior, now clear of trees and perfectly round, like someone had taken an iron ball and pressed it into wet clay.

A quick trip into town and a few questions later, he knew that he would get the same response from everyone. There was a valley, and there had always been a valley. Such was the case when the sky changed. And when the Celestials appeared. And when the dragons came.

Vizir had stopped pointing things out, and had stopped asking, a long time ago. If he was the only one who remembered, it wouldn’t do anyone any good for him to be wrongly diagnosed and shut away in an asylum for the rest of his days.

Unless I actually am crazy.

He shoved away the intrusive though, shook his head, and opened his eyes to find that he had absent-mindedly been grinding the quill into the paper. He dipped the quill and dabbed at the blemish to mitigate the damage.

There is something I’m forgetting.

He racked his brain, scratched his head, clenched his fists, and squeezed his eyes. It sat on the edge of his mind and teased him, like an enormous fish prodding a lure but never taking the bait.

He started at a powerful knock at the door.

Vizir’s eyes narrowed. It wasn’t a trading day again already, was it?

He walked cautiously across the hovel. The lock clicked. He swung the door open. Strange multicolored shadows, cast from the nebulous sky, shifted across the person standing on his doorstep. They were slim and of indeterminate gender, with deep indigo skin, thick auburn hair woven into a short plait, long pointed ears, and piercing eyes the color of lightning.

Of course, he thought.

There weren’t always dragons in the valley.

But there wasn’t always magic in the world, either.