The Callerion

The Callerion

There weren’t always dragons in this valley. The legends recall a previous peace before the Magic Wars were waged between the kingdoms of the Patriarch. The powers they unleashed on the world ripped a hole in the fabric of space and time. It was their contest for domination that created the Rift. Dragons came from that unholy gash of greed, terrorizing the realms that men once lorded over.

Dragons weren’t the worst thing that came through the Rift. They were but foreign animals compared to the legions of Demon Spawn who chose sides in the Magic Wars, quickly realizing that they could easily manipulate the greed of man. The world was at a tipping point with the claws of chaos rendering silent the desperate breath of dying civilizations.

One day, as the story goes, the moon turned blood red and she appeared from the black night of the Rift. She was like a vision, with long strands of flowing red hair, eyes of glowing ember, robes that flared like fire. She was armed only with a gnarled staff. No one knew who or what she was.

She was known only as the Crimson Queen.

She lifted her staff and called out a song in a celestial tongue. Storm clouds gathered in an ominous spiraling mass. Like a seamstress with lightning as her thread, she sealed the Rift. But the damage had already been done. The wars had not yet ended. It was said she was a goddess of dragon-kind. And she came to tame the beasts, to quell the chaos that the dragons might unleash with their untamed presence. But her work had only begun.

Upon sealing the rift, she began her search for the Dragon Kin, those among humanity born to bind themselves to the Dragons. The search would be known as the Callerion. She built the most formidable army the world has ever seen, dragons and humans fighting together to put an end to the Magic Wars once and for all, to overpower the armies of men, eliminate the Demon Spawn and bring forth a promise of peace once more.

They fought for decades, seasons upon seasons were lost to the war until the dragons routed the armies of men and sent the Demon Spawn scurrying into the mountains. Thus began an age known as the Great Paxus.

That was when the Crimson Queen went away. No one knows where she went. The mysterious goddess had simply disappeared, leaving behind only her Dragon Kin and the great tradition of the Callerion brought forth from the Valley with each new generation.

We have practiced the Callerion around the world for centuries. It remains our ritual, ancient and venerable, practiced throughout the highlands and the low, in the wastelands to the north and the lands beyond the roiling seas. All daughters and sons must be brought before the dragons. Those who are called are sent to the Valley to propagate the Dragon Kin and tend the dragons.

A millennia has passed.

Since the time of my grandmother, the Callerion came to be dominated by a council of elders, all of them men. In some unspoken way their motivations have been less than savory. Whereas the Great Paxus brought by the Dragon Kin of the Valley have brought peace upon the world, the Valley is now angled toward domination of the realms.

In my grandmother’s time, the council of elders added a new tradition to the Callerion, the claiming of a fiery red head said to be the Crimson Queen reborn. The first return of the Crimson Queen is now nearing 100 years of age. She has seen 400 seasons on this land in a time of peace. And now the Council of the Callerion prepares to replace her. Most believe in the validity of their claims. My grandmother believes they use her as a puppet to rally support to their own greed.

It is said that our ancestors were bred with the dragons to create the Dragon Kin as we know it today. But our elders have forbidden our teachers to share these details. My teacher was taken away just last season and has yet to be heard from again. We are given no reason why we are all endowed with scales, not skin, unlike the smooth texture of humans in the other lands. We are given no reason why some of us are green, or blue, or red or black, or even gold. Just like the dragons we tend. But some of us have ancestors still left alive to tell us the tales of old.

Where once the dragons were fearsome beasts who ruled the land as apex predators… Where once the dragons helped us restore balance to a world brought to the brink of destruction by the bidding of the Crimson Queen… Now they are fat and lazy like the rest of us. Beasts of burden awaiting their next feed by their loyal keepers, those of us whose ancestors were called in the Callerion. Those of us who have come to populate the Valley.

**

That day started like any other. I went to feed my family’s dragons as they languished in the rising sun. The afternoon had a promise of painful heat, just the way dragons like it. They get their energy from the sun. I suppose sunny days are ok. I prefer clouds.

Lately, the Valley has been windy. I wish I could make it stop. But unlike other girls of my generation in the red tribe, I don’t really wish I had the powers of the Crimson Queen. It’s really all just a fantasy, anyway. I can’t even imagine these beautiful gentle creatures as dangerous as the legends say they once were. I started thinking the legends were lies a long time ago.

My older sister Meeria has been training all her life to be chosen by the Callerion. She’s tall and pretty with the right look, fiery red-hair and flaming golden eyes. All the boys like her.

I’m short and dumpy. No one even notices me, and that’s how I prefer it. Well, people, that is. The dragons like me just fine. So, it’s my job to take care of them.

My favorite in the herd is the short red one. Grandmother called her Rexitar. I just call her Queen. She has golden eyes like my sister’s. In fact, they match each other, but Meeria doesn’t even like the dragons. She says they’re ugly and dirty and they smell. That’s always followed up by some sort of insult about me also being ugly and dirty and smelly. I wonder how that will go for her when the Callerion Council comes through the Valley to find their new puppet… excuse me… dragon queen.

Secretly, over the years, I’ve let Queen’s wings grow. Whenever the clipper comes, she and I always conveniently disappear. No one even notices. I’ve decided that’s my secret power. Invisibility. The kids who speak to me in the learning square only do so because they want to know about Meeria. She’s the favorite in our tribe.

They say dragons were once intelligent and could talk. I’ve spent countless hours lying awake in bed wondering how that could possibly be. Did they talk with their mouths or their minds? Did they use their flicky tongues to make words? Did their mouths change shape as they formed vowels?

That morning I showed up at the herd and started my task of tossing chunks of meat. Queen came and laid down at my feet, watching the others, knowing I always saved the best selections for her. Lying down with her long neck upright, her head came up to the same level as mine. With the others fed, I ran my fingers along the edge of her wing so I could inspect her wingspan. Obediently, she stretched it out. Magnificent. Most dragons didn’t have their webbing intact. Hers is iridescent with shades of bright gold and red depending on which way you look at the shining surface.

As I tossed her the best piece of meat I had saved, a rich female voice appeared in my head. “I’m not hungry today, Meeks. Thanks anyway.”

“Okay.” Absently I tossed the meat toward the other dragons then stopped and turned again toward Queen. “Did you just…”

“Yes.”

I looked closer. The voice seemed audible and yet, her jagged mouth didn’t move like I had always imagined. The golden kaleidoscope of patterns in her eyes shifted as the voice appeared again. “Do you feel that?”

A gust of wind swept through the Valley, bending blades of grass flat to the ground. It was almost frigid. Unusual for this time of year. “You mean that freakish cold wind?” My eyes drifted to the dragon herd. The younglings tumbled and played in the grass while the elders lay with their scaly arms folded in front of them, lifting their snouts to the wind.

Queen stretched out her legs one by one with a tremendous toothy yawn. A sputtered cough brought a ball of fire from the depths of her gut. I watched in awe as it dissipated. Fire. Of course, the legends always said the dragons used to breathe fire, but the Dragon Kin have been removing their fire glands for centuries.

I thought back to where Queen had come from the first place. We hadn’t bred her. My father was always too drunk to care about the herd. My mother focused more on Meeria. The only one who would know would be my grandmother, and she’d been in her sick bed. How old was Queen, anyway?

“I lost count of the sunrises many centuries past,” the dragon’s thoughts came as an answer.

I just stared.

“Don’t sit there gawking, child. You are my Dragon Kin. You have cared for me the entire span of your measly life. You and your grandmother have been some of my favorite keepers over the years.” She rolled on her side and heaved a heavy sigh. “The Great Paxus is coming to an end. To be honest, I was starting to get a little bored with the way you humans decided to use my gift of peace. Pathetic, in fact. Close your mouth, child. You’ll catch bugs and I know you don’t eat bugs.” She pushed my jaw closed with a delicate claw, the points of her teeth showing through a smile. “Well, come now. We have much to do before the Demon Spawn rally. They’re prepared to open the Rift again. Seems like this council of old men have made it easy for them.”

“But…”

“No buts. You are my chosen Kin. That means we have a lot of training to do before the time comes. Climb up now. No time to waste.”

“But. Who… Who are you?”

“You mean to tell me you don’t know?” She stretched her wing down to scoop me onto her back. With a mighty glimmering flap, we were airborne.

"Now, let's go get me a proper meal, shall we? I'm so tired of this domestic crap." I could hear her voice in my head as if we were sharing my head somehow. The words almost felt like a liquid caress. It made me feel weird. I clung for dear life to one of her spines as the wind whipped in my face and flattened my red curls.

"You mean, you want to hunt?" I felt nauseous at the prospect. My life had always been so tame and uneventful.

"Oh yes. I think a nice, tasty phoenix will do the trick."

"But... those are just stories."

"Nonsense, child. They are very real and very tasty. Besides, a young buck will restore my magic to what it once was. Hold on tight. Your life as you knew it is now over. You should be glad. That was pathetically boring, and none of those people would have ever been able to appreciate you. You are my pet now, and I take care of what is mine."