The Prophecy Atlas

There weren’t always dragons in the Valley. During the coldest months of the seasonal year, the remainder of their kind escaped into the caverns that tunnelled deep beneath the Icehils, while the winter blizzards blew across Northern Country and made ranging beyond the Spindle Woods impossible for Dane Callahan and his men. Before the dragons of the Continent had been banished from the southern realm by human mages, they had been magnificent creatures born from fire. But five hundred years of ice and cold had extinguished their inner flame, and now they could barely garner the strength to fly. If the bitter winds through the Icehils ever allowed for such form of travel. They blew west across Northern Country—across its glacial fjords and frozen tundras, its barren mountain ranges and vast woodlands—from the eastern ocean where an eternal storm tossed the black waters and made sea voyages north of the Lialirian Isles a gamble with death.

Dane stared at that ocean now, intricately stitched with silk thread on the tapestry hanging from the brown marble wall of the library in the Berenth royal palace. It was almost identical to when he’d been a child and visited the Kingdom of Berenth from his childhood home, the Kingdom of Civara. Miniature bolts of lightning were sewn among the black waves, looking like pinpricks of light in the darkness that encompassed the northeast corner of the tapestry.

It depicted a map of the entire Continent and its surrounding oceans, and Dane examined it with an impartial eye, his hardened hands clasped behind his back. He located the fortress of the Frontier Guild, the longstanding castle he now called home, positioned high in the alps that stretched from east coast to west and separated Northern Country from the kingdoms in the southern realm. A route to the northernmost terrain of the Continent, where resided the reclusive Arctic witches and their gemstone mines, had been newly added to the tapestry since his childhood visit.

Eight years ago, seven after he’d joined the Frontier Guild, Dane had discovered that route on his quest to establish the exact location of the remaining dragons. Before then, if the kingdoms in the southern realm had wished to trade with the witch clans for their enchanted gemstones, they had been forced to attempt a sea voyage beyond the Lialirian Isles and through that storm. Most of these endeavours had failed, but the small number that succeeded had made their kingdoms enormously wealthy. Berenth most of all. Now, Dane had inadvertently added an alternate path to the map. For better or for worse…well, he was neutral to the economic desires of the southern kingdoms.

The exploration of the far reaches of Northern Country to locate the dragons had taken two months. A journey beyond the Spindle Woods and across the White Tundra, then up into the Valley between the Icehils where he had first seen a dragon in the flesh. The creature was malnourished and emaciated, clinging to the rocky face of the ice-capped mountains as it scanned the ground for wild yaks. Its dull, frostbitten scales had been near camouflaged against the grey rock. It had looked nothing like the dragons Dane had read about as a child, described with words of grandeur in the tomes of Constelliar’s Histories, sketched on their preserved pages in gold and ash and flame.

Dane glanced to one such tome, lying open on the carved wood table beneath a tall window across the library. He had been reading about the banishment of the dragons as he waited for the high council of the southern realm to summon him. He blinked upon finding Alasdair missing.

His fellow warrior and ranger of the Guild had been sitting in the chair opposite Dane’s, bouncing his knee and staring out the window at this shining city on the east coast of the Continent. Dane assumed Alasdair was irked at waiting and had begun to wander.

He recalled the night one week past when he’d been summoned to Berenth by the high council. A mid-winter blizzard had raged outside the Guild fortress, its strong winds buffeting the windows of the great hall. A seasonal feast had been underway—a rowdy affair with ale, stories, and songs—until a shivering Berenthian courier had arrived carrying a letter with the seal of the council. The message had summoned Dane Callahan, Head of the Frontier Guild, to a gathering of the high council of the southern realm, to discuss the threat posed by the rogue dragon sighted in the Kingdom of Jinan.

“Don’t they remember they banished the creatures?” A warrior-in-training had called out when Dane read them the summons. Drunken laughter had followed.

“Ease up,” another yelled over the noise. “Those Jinani southerners are having a right time of it with Nyvridia threatening to invade. Probably scared witless of their own shadows these days.”

One of the border scouts shouted: “Ten bronze pieces it was just a large bird!”

Dane was inclined to believe it. A dragon in Jinan, the southernmost kingdom on the Continent. It was impossible.

The next day he had called upon Alasdair to accompany him to Berenth, uncertain that such news could be true, but certain that the Frontier Guild would be named responsible.

“We don’t answer to the southern kingdoms,” Alasdair had grumbled as they saddled their steeds in the eastern courtyard of the castle. “We protect their soft arses from the northern tribes, without thanks, mind you. Not to mention delivering those cursed jewels right into their waiting arms. When did we start bowing to their every whim?”

Dane had once again pointed out that it was better for the Frontier Guild to act as an intermediary between the witch clans and the southern kingdoms, rather than have a trail of envoys and merchants marching back and forth through Northern Country. “It’s hard enough protecting the border, Alasdair. You want to start escorting those soft arses around Northern Country as well?”

In his usual top form, Alasdair had fought for the last word. “If you hadn’t wanted to find those dragons so much, that road would never have been charted in the first place. They’d still be sinking their ships trying to get their hands on those shiny rocks.”

“What’s done is done, Alasdair.”

They had descended the mountains and ridden east across the Kingdom of Berenth to its capital city. Now, Alasdair’s footsteps sounded on the marble floor behind Dane, followed by his gruff voice.

“Dane. The council is assembling.”

…

“No man can slay a dragon,” announced Lord Vathilor, King of Berenth. “Only another dragon.”

Dane heard Alasdair scoff under his breath. He also knew this statement to be pure speculation, but it was currently beside the point. From their position standing at the opposite end of the long council table, they watched Vathilor drink from a silver chalice. A salute to his own words.

The stately man was in his fifty-sixth year, twenty years older than Dane, and still in want of a male heir. His council robe was deep maroon with the eagle crest of his kingdom. A gold livery collar inlaid with witch bloodstones hung around his neck, and the red gems pulsed from within like they possessed steady heartbeats. Similar colours adorned his council chamber, an open room atop the southeast tower of the palace, overlooking the city and the harbor beyond.

“Very helpful,” the Bontessa Opula retorted, her Jinani accent deep and rolling. She sat halfway down the table, dressed in a lush plum gown that complemented her brown skin. Her gold headdress was a halo around her face, a mosaic of dazzling sunstones designed by the witches. The large, jewelled ring on her finger was fashioned like the sun, the emblem of her kingdom.

“Jinan is not a kingdom of soldiers, in times of peace or war,” she continued. “This beast burnt down an entire village on Amaranthine Cape, slaughtering thirty of my people. Two are still missing.”

Dane frowned at this revelation. He glanced at Alasdair, whose dark brows had risen in surprise. Their eyes met briefly before Dane faced the council again. Although he had not yet been addressed, he spoke. “That wasn’t mentioned in the letter of summons I received.”

Six heads swivelled to face him: Vathilor and his High Mage, the Bontessa from Jinan, the Queen of Tizar, the elf princess of the Lialirian Isles, and the High Mage of Civara who was attending this gathering in the stead of his queen, Mairead Elizabeth Ramona. There was a silence in the room as they all observed him, interrupted only by the distant noise of the city and the far cries of seagulls over the harbor.

“It wasn’t?” the Tizari queen asked, frowning lightly. Jemima, Dane recalled her name. The beautiful woman dressed in scant turquoise silk looked back at Vathilor with sweeping, kohl-lined eyes. The blue seastones dangling from her earlobes were luminous, like light underwater. “Why not, Vathilor?”

Vathilor ignored the question and spoke directly to Dane. “And I suspect your Guild believed we were mistaken in our claim.”

The King of Berenth did not try to hide his disdain. He was clearly recalling the time the two of them had been in a similar setting two decades ago. It had been Queen Helena Guilia Ramona of Civara seated across from Vathilor as they discussed future relations between their two neighbouring kingdoms. Prince Dane Callahan Ramona had stood beside his mother as a future marriage was arranged between him and the Berenthian princess.

Now, Dane didn’t respond to Vathilor, conscious that his decision to join the Frontier Guild had not been inconsequential. He addressed the council as a whole, thinking on his feet. “The dragons were banished five centuries ago. They have not been sighted in the skies since then, not even in Northern Country by the Guild.”

Opula held her chin high with scepticism. “But you have seen them alive,” she said, and Dane could not deny it. “So there is a chance that one of these beasts escaped exile and flew south without your knowledge.”

Across the table, the elf princess Laevris broke her silence and scoffed. “Do you truly believe your ancestors banished every dragon in existence?” she said scornfully. “They were the first creatures on this earth, born from the fires beneath the Ashen Mountains. Their numbers were greater than your own for millennia. In some parts of the world, they still are.”

Opula bristled at the scathing words.

Dane took note that Laevris was the only royal person in this room who was not wearing witch gemstones. Her only adornment was a simple, silver-leaf tiara to mark her status. He recalled reading in the second volume of Constelliar’s Histories that the elves of Lialiria believed in the existence of a land beyond the Continent from which dragons originally hailed. But once again, this was pure speculation and not currently relevant.

“What I am saying,” he spoke again with more cogency, “is that if a dragon was indeed present along the southern coast of the Continent then it did not come from Northern Country.”

“Can you be certain?” asked Marten, the High Mage of Civara. The question was unassuming.

Dane looked to his childhood friend from Civara. Aside from a smattering of grey at his temples, Marten appeared unchanged. He was dark-skinned and broad in the shoulders, with a neat beard and braided hair gathered at his nape. A familiar moonstone brooch shaped like the crescent moon insignia of Civara was pinned to his lapel. Its ethereal shimmer was eclipsed by the bright midday light.

“We in this room know that the magic that kept the dragons at bay has long-since faded,” Marten continued. “Is it possible one of their kind approached the boundary along the mountains and found the barrier missing?”

“No.” Dane shook his head, certain this was not the case. He looked around the table. “Our ancestors sent these creatures to the edge of the Continent, subjecting them to an eternal winter, where they cannot live and are barely able to survive. If a dragon did destroy a village along Amaranthine Cape, then it was at full strength and breathing fire. It did not come from Northern Country.”

“Wherever it came from,” Opula announced, “it must be dealt with before it continues its campaign. In all haste.”

Vathilor and Jemima nodded their agreement.

“It’s a dragon,” Laevris retaliated, leaning forward and flicking aside her long, fair braid. A delicately-pointed ear was revealed. “It does what it likes, when it likes, without a thought for the troubles of men.”

“It will raze our kingdoms to the ground and feast on our people,” Opula said. “The same reason they were banished in the first instance.”

“And it was rogue dragons then, too,” Laevris said. “But you subjected their entire race on this Continent to punishment. Dragons are not unreasonable creatures.”

Opula ignored her and looked to the High Mage of Berenth, hunched over in his carved wood chair beside Vathilor. “Can we not wield the same spells again? Send this beast back to its kin in the north and restore the barrier?”

The wizened man rose slowly, bracing his gnarled hands on the table. Unlike Marten, who was a Born mage, the High Mage of Berenth was a Made mage, which meant his power had been passed to him from its previous wielder via a rare tool called a transferring blade. The only other way to become a mage was by killing one with the same device.

When the High Mage spoke, his speech was solemn. “Since that fateful day, magic in that strength and specialty has eluded human mages. We are not meant to regulate the destinies of anybody but our own selves.”

Opula scowled. “Then the elves must do this.”

“Elven magic will not be used to fashion chains,” said Laevris, splaying her long fingers on the table. “But I see your way forward as plain as day. Free the dragons in the Icehils with your humblest apologies and perhaps they’ll deign to forgive you.”

Opula laughed derisively.

“The barrier is gone,” Vathilor scowled. “They are already free. And if Callahan speaks the truth about their condition, they would be of no help either way.”

“Where was the last sighting of this dragon?” Dane asked the council.

“Flying west into Nyvridia a fortnight ago,” Jemima answered. “As if we don’t already have enough problems on that front.”

“The Usurper has not given us any indication of a dragon attack on his land,” Opula said. “Not even a location, if it is still there.”

A few heads glanced toward the two empty places at the council table, although technically Dane was currently occupying one of them. It had once sat Cohnal Kar Nigh, the young King of Nyvridia, but sixteen years ago civil war had broken out in his kingdom. He’d been assassinated shortly afterward by the Usurper, who now ruled as Emperor of Nyvridia and was beginning to turn his sights eastward toward the remaining kingdoms.

The other place, across from Marten, had sat King Ptolemy of Addra, whose late kingdom was the first to be swallowed by the Nyvridian Empire.

“The Usurper hunts the mages among his imperial subjects,” Marten said, looking directly at Dane as he spoke. Dane saw a glint of urgency in his dark eyes. “He is powerful and possessive. He could be behind this attack.”

“A dragon was behind this attack,” Jemima said otherwise. “Do you think the Usurper is controlling a dragon?”

A memory sparked inside Dane like fire to kindling. He allowed it to materialise, quickly taking stock. Ten years ago, a band of the Usurper’s elite Nyvridian soldiers had been sighted by the Guild fleeing back south into Nyvridia through the westernmost stretch of the alps. One of the northern tribes had been pursuing them, but they had let the Nyvridians escape at the border. And since relations between the Guild and the northern tribes were strained, to say the least, Dane had never discovered what the Usurper had wanted from Northern Country.

“Your two missing people,” he said to Opula. “Were they mages?”

The Bontessa shook her head, sunstones gleaming. “No one has reported as much, but it is possible that they were. We do not regulate the mages among my people—Born or Made.”

To everyone’s surprise except Dane’s, Alasdair stepped up to the table with crossed arms and spoke. “The Usurper is a mage, right?”

There was general acknowledgment around the table.

“And he possesses necromantic power.”

“That’s a rumour,” Vathilor snapped. “There is no evidence.”

There was evidence. Dane had it on good authority that the Usurper had scoured Nyvridia after his takeover to find a mage with necromantic power to kill with a transferring blade. It was a rare type of magic, and for centuries the unlucky mages who possessed it had been viewed as pariahs.

Alasdair smirked at Vathilor. “Let’s open our minds to the possibility,” he said with spectacular impertinence.

Vathilor’s eyes narrowed to slits.

“Your point?” Opula asked impatiently.

Alasdair finally looked away from Vathilor and answered the Bontessa. “Well, did this dragon look…undead?”