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“Swords are an important part of the culture in Arindell. It’s been that way since Lieber founded the first city and declared, sword raised high, that a new Golden Age had begun. And it was that way again, when Conri raised the same sword and declared the Long Night had ended.”
– Arindell Tourist Bureau
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Chapter 9:
Surprisingly Hospitable
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#9.1 – Friday, the 13th day of the 9th month…
“Dr. Young?”
Without waiting for further invitation, Roy pushed through the door and entered the small, cramped office. For a moment, he mused how much it looked like his daughter’s bedroom: desk dead-center of the floor, every conceivable inch of the walls lined with shelves. Dr. Druet Young’s office, however, proved far less tidy, with papers and files strewn amidst choking drifts of dust. “I’m Mr. Jusenkyou. I was told by Dean Haralson that you’d be expecting me?” Even the chair opposite the desk sat heaped, leaving Roy to sit awkwardly on a stack of boxes.
Young fished a scrap of paper from his disorderly desk and waved it around. “Your fame has proceeded you, but the note about your appointment, not so much. Just as well, I don’t check my calendar. What can I do for a distant son of the last Pendragon?”
“It’s actually a distant daughter I’m hoping you’ll assist,” Roy began to fight with the jammed latches on his valise. “I understand you were a protégée of the late Emmerich Thompson?”
“I was among his last official doctorial candidates,” Young nodded. “Owe that man my career. I’m still a touch miffed he passed without revealing the identity of The Weevil. Still, nothing but respect for a scholar of his stature.”
“Well, then, I don’t suppose you’ll mind doing a little post-mortem favor for him?” Roy finally managed to free the clasps and rested the briefcase on his lap. “Emmerich was helping my daughter with a history paper, and now that he’s gone, I’m in need of someone else to look over it.”
“I’m sorry, I don’t deal much with the undergraduate program,” Young shook his head. “What is your daughter working on? Masters, doctorial?”
“Eighth grade,” Roy said. “You know those remedial summer assignments?” Roy hefted Scarlet’s report and tried unsuccessfully to rest it gently on Young’s desk. The weight of the papers being such that, without significant upper-body strength, it came down like a ton of bricks. “I’m aware this is a bit unorthodox.”
“I’ll say,” Young glared suspiciously at the assignment. “Look, I’m a high-ranking Antiquarian and a scholar of considerable note,” he gestured around him. “In addition to educating some of the finest minds in the city. I respect my former colleague, but I don’t really have time to play grade-school tutor.”
“I’m not above a little quid-pro-quo,” Roy offered.
“Ah, careful, now; we professors get mighty defensive when we hear those words,” Young warned. “Many in my line of work have been brought low by a young graduate. Best to avoid temptation all together.”
“Dean Haralson tells me you can barely balance a checkbook,” Roy said. “I’m a certified public accountant. How’d you like to let me do your taxes this year?”
Young sat up a little straighter in his chair and his mouth twisted into something not unlike a smile. He folded his arms and rested them on the desk as he leaned forward. “So, what grade were you thinking? A? A-Plus?”
Roy grinned at him. “Tough but fair is more what I’m after. My kid is smart, she worked hard. She was going to have Emmerich look over the paper but, well, you know.”
“Tragedy, that,” Young agreed. “My nephew had to do one of those remedial papers for science—the schools generally don’t grade them that harshly.”
“As you can see, my daughter went a little above and beyond,” Roy said. “So, please, grade it harshly.”
Young ran his finger over the corner of the report, fanning the pages and frowning at the numbers. “Paper this size is going to take a team effort to properly evaluate.”
Roy fished in his pocket and took out a small stack of business cards. Snatching a pen from Young’s desk, he began to scribble little notes on each. “Listen, you get four or five experts to go over that monstrosity, I’ll take care of the lot of you this year.” He passed the stack of cards over to Young, who read through the details and nodded.
With the cards secured by a paperclip, Young opened the faux leather cover on the report and stared at the grade, eyes wide with bewilderment. “Wow. What the hell are they teaching children these days?” his eyes scanned the page in a practiced, methodical fashion. Once again, Roy felt reminded of his daughter, who evaluated every new book the same way. Not so much reading line by line as scanning, taking in the pertinent notes and mapping the page. “Mr. Jusenkyou, your child rather desperately needs a spelling tutor.”
“Her language arts teacher said the same thing at the last parent-teacher conference,” Roy agreed.
Young’s eyes popped open suddenly as he reached the second page of the report. Sparing a short glance at Roy, he flipped all the way to the bibliography at the back and began to rapidly work his way through it, murmuring as he went. “You said your daughter knew Dr. Thompson, right?”
“Yes,” Roy nodded.
Young straightened his back and tented his fingers, meeting Roy’s gaze with cold calculation. “I am going to need a few weeks, at least, to go over this myself and have it properly peer-reviewed. I’ll have a panel assembled by the end of the day and get you their contact details. Of course you can understand the need to do this correctly.”
“Take all the time you need,” Roy said. “I just don’t want my daughter being held back, is all.”
Young whipped a red pen out of a mug protected by several worn books and began circling things on the page. “I suspect how far this child of yours goes will be in your hands, more so than anyone else.”
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* #9.2 (Friday, 13/9) *
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The aquamarine dragon’s name was Esperanza Venahaj, of the Seacrest Spire Flight*, out of Ajan, by Souroc, or ‘Espy’† for short. As they walked side-by-side down the tunnel, Scarlet expected the massive dragon to lumber, but she moved just as gracefully as a cat.
Thirty-four feet from nose to tail, like most reds Esperanza had a body comprised principally of limbs. She had a long, thin neck and fragile, wilting wings. Her core body, torso and four legs, all only about the size of a large automobile.
Scarlet had never been this deep underground. At eighty feet across and double in height, the cave didn’t feel claustrophobic. The passageway slopped gently upwards as it burrowed deep into the heart of High Mountain, the lair of the dragons.
“But I am definitely related, right?” Scarlet pressed. “I am part dragon?”
“I can tell,” Esperanza chuckled. “A dragon can always tell… even what flight!”
For lack of anything relevant to say, Scarlet blurted out the first thought that entered her head. “You’re not of the High Mountain Flight+.”
Flight names were of great importance. Any dragon ‘of High Mountain’ could trace their lineage back all the way to the progenitor flights and the Dracosages. Seacrest Spire was a similarly ancient and hallowed flight, among dozens of others scattered around the continent.
Esperanza’s laugh echoed off the rock walls. “I might as well be, for all the difference it makes. My father was High Mountain, and my grandmother on my mother’s side. Seacrest Spire and High Mountain have been allied for… oh, just about forever! There’s a lot of encouragement to mix the flights since then, helps strengthen blood lines.”
Without breaking stride, Esperanza swiveled her large head around and flashed Scarlet a big, toothy grin. “It helps that the boys from High Mountain are quite handsome,” she winked. “When you go looking for a mate yourself, you might take a peek up here.”
“I, jg—uhm,” Scarlet fidgeted and tripped a few times. “I’m j—I’m not sure I could marry a dragon…”
“Why not?” Esperanza giggled musically. “One of your ancestors did, otherwise you’d be in my belly right now.”
“I’m a little bit young to be sizing up potential mates, though,” Scarlet twisted her hands together.
“You are awfully tiny, aren’t you?” Esperanza turned back towards the tunnel and bobbed her head.
“That’s right, dragons use size to determine age,” Scarlet squeaked. “Green, pink, red, black, gold—”
“I can never tell with uumens,” Esperanza nodded, shaking her head about on the end of her long, serpentine neck. “You’re… what, seven? Eight?”
Scarlet scowled at her. “Thirteen.” She knew well the differences between humans and dragons, and that dragons were just as bad at judging human ages as humans are at guessing dragons.
They came to a large gallery where several massive tunnels branched off. The fantastically vaulted ceiling lit by root-like veins of glowing stone, reflecting off natural marble and basalt and creating beautiful hues. The radiant stone pulsed vaguely, stretching out like arteries from a bright heart in the ceiling.
“It’s just as well,” Esperanza teased. “All the reds your size are down at Low Mountain. All right… what would you like to see first? The hall of records, the hatchery, the horde?”
“Records are tempting…” Scarlet murmured. “But… well, gosh, who could pass up a first-hand peek at a dragon horde? Has… has anyone—any ‘uumen’, I mean—ever seen it?”
“Heh, not for a good, long while,” Esperanza snorted. “I dare say one or two has tried to steal it, though… why, hardly a week goes by when some ne’er-do-well doesn’t come sneaking in. I hear they are quite crunchy, and taste good with ketchup.”
Scarlet could feel her palms sweating and rubbed them on her pants. When they came away grubby she realized just how filthy she’d managed to get.
Esperanza laughed, her voice reverberating off the rock with a sound like wind chimes. She used her tail to tap the stone behind Scarlet, her version of a pat on the back. “You belong to us. No one here will try to eat you.”
Enough light reflected out of the chamber ahead that Scarlet could see the whole tunnel clearly. Laid out along the walls sat a series of enormous stone slabs, as long as Esperanza’s tail along an edge. These were covered in scratch marks and carefully placed, intense burns.
“ScoriographyP,” Scarlet gasped. “The written word of dragons!”
“There’s a room full of treasure just ahead,” Esperanza commented. “Are you sure you want to stop and look at books?”
“C-could I… I mean… is there any way that I could learn to read them?” Scarlet asked.
“Oh easily,” Esperanza waved, towering off towards the horde and gesturing for Scarlet to follow her. “We’ll spend some time playing in the gold and then I’ll give you a basic lesson. I imagine you’ll have it mastered in no time.”
“How will I study?” Scarlet gulped.
“I’ll have the flight loan you a book,” Esperanza said.
Passing a two-story tall pile of shattered alabaster jars, they emerged into the main chamber.
The spectacle rendered Scarlet speechless.
The awe-inspiring, hugely massive natural cavern lit by enormous lobes of dragonite# served as little more than window-dressing. In the middle lay the real prize: a beyond immense hoard of dragon gold. Mostly coins, but there were plenty of bars, bricks, rounds, and various other measures. Then came the objects: weapons, furniture, thrones, vases, tableware, tables… if you could make it out of metal, there was one here made of gold.
“Is that a solid-gold kitchen sink?” Scarlet asked, pointing.
“Why yes!” Esperanza nodded. “I believe it was commissioned as part of a tribute by someone who had just the right sense of humor.”
The hoard-room formed an enormous confluence of chambers, with several side caverns also filled with treasure. And dragons. Lots and lots of sleeping dragons.
Dragons slept just slightly more than cats.
Lit by thousands of veins of dragonite running through the ceiling, the entire space had a soft, warm orange glow. A literal mountain of gold dominated the center of the room. That they were underground made the whole thing that much more impressive.
The passage they entered brought them about level with the middle of the hill, where a long, natural stone bridge intersected the hoard. From here, Esperanza made a few casual leaps to the top, while Scarlet dug in with her hands and feet, making the precarious climb. In the back of Scarlet’s mind, she felt the danger perfectly evident. This room was meant for dragons. Dragons who ranged in size from a light truck to a small airliner. The dangers to someone of even normal human-size were ever-present, to say nothing of Scarlet’s rather fun-sized mortality.
They ended up just feet below the cave roof where Scoriographic inscriptions decorated the rock. Exhausted, Scarlet kicked a large goblet and watched it topple, bringing down an avalanche of wealth.
“Are we really sitting on top of a huge pile of treasure?” Scarlet gulped.
“Alas, no,” Esperanza sighed. “It’s really just a treasure-covered spire of rock. I mean, we’ve got enough gold to build a mountain this size…”
They sat and stared for a long while, watching other dragons move about the cave. The way they could fly mesmerized Scarlet. Inside, gliding with an impossible slowness.
“If you do learn Scoriography, you should want to visit the Djr Archipelago,” Esperanza said. “They have the largest dragon library in the known worlds. All the records of the Dragonlands, a complete history going back clear to the dragon cycles. I did quite a lot of reading on my pilgrimage.”
“A dragon library…” Scarlet gasped in awe.
“When I find a suitable mate, I plan to return with him to Djr,” Esperanza said. “And spend more time among the records. I like genealogy, and it’s said a dragon can trace her roots back at least to the Age of Wonder.”
Scarlet settled into a sitting position and scooped up two handfuls of coins. She let a stream of solid gold and electrum* pieces topple out and back into the horde. Even from this small sample, she could see a dizzying array of ages represented. Slayer Dragon Challenge Coins†† of a modern lint, bullion from all over the known worlds, and even pieces from the old Alliance era, many thousands of years ago. The electrum was older, having been hand-tooled and stamped into coins during the Mage Wars. For a brief moment, Scarlet could see all of recorded history falling from her hands.
“I like books, too,” Scarlet said in a small voice. “A lot.”
“Am I meant to be surprised?” Esperanza said. “Because I am not surprised.”
“I’ve been researching the Slayer Dragons,” Scarlet explained. “In particular the last true Pendragon; the dragon-half called The Dragon of the Setting Sun.”
“You know, I think I know who you need to talk to,” Esperanza said. She turned away from Scarlet and let out several sharp, guttural calls, each with a slightly different intonation.
Scarlet gasped and stood up. “Were you just calling out to another dragon in the dragon tongue?!”
“No,” Esperanza coughed. “I was clearing my throat.” She turned her head again and bellowed. “HEY! ZYACRUN! COME HERE!!”
From across the cavern, an enormous dragon half-buried in gold raised its head, shook itself, and leapt into the air. Scarlet’s heart pounded upon seeing a creature of such size move so nimbly.
Then, Scarlet noticed he was coming right at them.
“Eeeeep!!” she screamed, diving backwards and scrambling for cover. Even if the treasure was still piled atop a natural stone outcropping, it had to be ten or twenty feet deep! If that monster rammed into the stack, he’d definitely bury Scarlet’s tiny, broken body beneath a landslide of gold.
At the last second, the dragon clapped his wings, spun talon over tail, and instead of ramming the mountain, sank his claws into the ceiling and stopped, dead, upside-down.
He swiveled his massive head on his long neck, turning it over so at least that portion of him was right-side-up, and extended down towards Scarlet.
“Hello,” Zyacrun said pleasantly. “To whom do I owe the honor?”
“Introduce yourself,” Esperanza whispered.
Scarlet quivered in fear. Zyacrun had to be over two hundred feet, nose to tail; with most of that a big, meaty body. Another two hundred, wingtip to wingtip. Scarlet had flown on airliners smaller than this behemoth hanging by talons, his weight threatening to tear down the ceiling.
Breathing hard and crying a little, Scarlet crawled backwards like a crab, desperately searching for some kind of shelter.
Esperanza’s tail landed behind her with a mighty thump. “Don’t be such a wuss.”
Scarlet bumped into the tail and hugged it for dear life.
With unbelievable lightsomeness and dexterity, Zyacrun dropped his back legs off the ceiling. He twisted his entire body around and dangled his feet until he found purchase, then sank into the golden mountain and rested his face in front of Scarlet. His head alone was the size of a house. His wings fully encircled the mountain top.
Scarlet had come face to face with a Gold Dragon++.
“I don’t like to be kept waiting,” Zyacrun said to Scarlet. “You know what they say about testing the patience of dragons…”
As he spoke, the wind from his voice made Scarlet’s clothes whip and flap against her body. As he paused to inhale, he pulled Scarlet towards him.
“Uncle, could you please stop with the theatrics?” Esperanza rolled her eyes. “Can’t you see the poor thing is terrified?”
“H-h-he’s your uncle?!” Scarlet cried. “B-but he must be at least five hundred years old!!!”
“Five hundred and sixty-two, next spring,” Zyacrun spoke in a cordial voice. “I knew Aden Jusenkyou, personally.”
With that word, Scarlet leapt to her feet, quite suddenly a bottomless well of courage. “Oh, my god! What was he like? How did his hair smell?!”
She leapt over Esperanza’s tail and moved closer to the dragon’s body where she could be shielded from the worst of Zyacrun’s breath.
“I am Scarlet Jusenkyou,” Scarlet announced. “Of the High Mountain Flight. Out of Annaria, by Royland.”
“Ahh, is that who you are?” Zyacrun chuckled. “Well, then, I am Zyacrun Rarapa, of the High Mountain Flight, out of Mentapha, by Zorxer!”
“That’s why I figured she’d want to talk to you,” Esperanza explained. “Scarlet is a bit of a history buff, having you know one of her ancestors and all, that’s special, isn’t it?”
Zyacrun lowered his head below the peek of the treasure pile and let out a snort that sent up a shower of gold. He raised his head again and commanded for Scarlet to step forward. “I am going to give you a gift, young Scarlet,” he announced, speaking towards the ceiling so he didn’t literally blow her away. “One that you shall treasure unto your dying breath!”
Zyacrun reached out with his massive forepaw and touched a talon the size of a tree stump to Scarlet’s forehead, while another circled behind her and touched the base of her skull.
“Thorner,” Zyacrun whispered. “Was good enough to share with me some of his memories of the last Pendragon. I, now, share them with you.”
“W-what do I do?” Scarlet breathed.
Zyacrun lowered his head again, and when he spoke his voice shook the whole mound of treasure.
“OPEN… YOUR MIND!!!!”
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* #9.3 (Friday, 13/9) *
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Laying flat on her back, Scarlet listened to the dragon’s conversation with stilted detachment.
“Poor thing, fainted dead away,” as she spoke, Esperanza used the end of her tail to scoop up warm water and dribble it over Scarlet’s forehead. She found herself laying inside a small cavern on a bed of soft moss. It felt warm and quite comfortable, but the entrance was too small for the full-grown dragons to join her inside.
“I like the rookery,” Zyacrun said absently. “The way a little egg can grow into a mighty dragon fills me with joy.”
All at once water tumbled into Scarlet’s throat and made her gurgle and scream. Fighting for every breath, it got her alert again in no time. Esperanza’s tail lifted up and then dropped a very recently hatched green dragon* into Scarlet’s lap. About as big as a house cat, the perfect size for Scarlet to cuddle and hug. She held onto it for almost two full minutes before realizing what it was and yelping with delight.
After taking a while to recover fully, Scarlet emerged from the rookery and joined the other dragons on the floor of the horde. She felt much more comfortable down here, but still struggled to process what happened.
“What you’ve just experienced will have a deep hold of you,” Zyacrun explained. “I would suggest you write down whatever details you can, perhaps try to draw the scene. All will help to re-enforce the memory. This is a very special memory; with luck you are not apt to forget it.”
“I won’t,” Scarlet cried tears of joy.
“Dragon memories are strong,” Zyacrun continued. “Strong enough to have a life all their own; this is the secret that lets us transfer them to one another. What you saw there, you saw through Thorner’s eyes, felt with Thorner’s body. You got none of his own thoughts, but you experienced his feelings through his own heart. A record of all of that is imprinted upon you. A record of the day he met Hokori.”
Scarlet couldn’t even breath as she took in his words Hokori carried the sword before Hunter, and Hunter had been in the room as well. Two Pendragons from the Old Count all at once.
Except… Zyacrun had his dates off.
“Zyacrun…?” Scarlet said cautiously.
“Yes?”
“T-that wasn’t Thorner†.”
Zyacrun’s whole body recoiled and he tightened his neck.
Scarlet wrenched her shoulders a few times to bolster her courage, then raised her chin and spoke. “Thorner Jusenkyou, of the High Mountain Flight, out of Narisa, by Fumer. He hatched sometime around the start of the Age of the Dragon. H-his parents… weren’t even mated yet, when Hokori fell.”
Zyacrun lowered his great body and shuddered, breaking a wave through his shimmering scales. He drove his snout down into the pile of gold and exhaled like a hurricane, kicking a shower of coins into the air. Finally, he mumbled under his breath “I must have… Thorner carried some memories of Fumer, his father. I must have… gotten them confused.”
“That was something,” Esperanza swiveled her head around to give Scarlet a toothy grin. “Not often one bests an elder dragon.”
“I’m sorry,” Scarlet said in a small voice.
Zyacrun’s body began to shake and Scarlet again felt the need to run for cover. But after just a few moments he pulled his head back out of the gold and raised his maw toward the ceiling.
The dragon’s uproarious laughter thundered through the cavern.
Relieved, Scarlet dropped to the ground again. “What you gave me… was beautiful, and amazing, and priceless…” she paused and furrowed her brow. “And also really age-inappropriate! EWW! Come on, you gotta keep this stuff PG-thirteen!!!!”
“In all of your readings, young Scarlet,” Zyacrun said. “In all your research, your fact-checking, your cross-referencing; could you ever hope to have understood the meeting of three great beings with such incredible detail?”
“I just thought such an event would involve fewer bare bodies,” Scarlet wrinkled her nose. “Also, some of the dragon feelings are gonna take a toll on my psyche, blech. Maybe I need to take this up with my head doctor! No, no psychologist will get this…”
“Consider what you saw,” Zyacrun said. “The essence of it.”
“I…” Scarlet hugged her knees to her chest. “I saw the face of Hokori+. I saw the true sword Echbalder in his hand. I… I saw the face of Hunter JusenkyouP, when he was young…” she paused a moment and winced in disgust. “I saw a lot more than the face, eww, eww, eww, ew!”
Scarlet pinched the bridge of her nose and thought further. “All we have are paintings. Copies of copied paintings created and re-created down through the Long Night. No one has ever been able to recover anything real…”
“You, Scarlet,” Zyacrun said, touching her head again. “Have now seen the faces, as if by your own eye. You are the only uumen upon whom we have bestowed such a memory.”
“I am… humbled,” Scarlet said, rising to her feet so she could bow. “Zyacrun, do you know what happened to the sword?”
“Nothing of note,” Zyacrum shook his head. “We preserve the memories of events, not the fate of objects.”
“At least I’ve seen the real sword,” Scarlet exhaled. “Sort of…”
“I can provide perhaps one clue,” Zyacrum said. “You are of High Mountain, you are a part of our blood. Very rare is it for an uumen without dragon blood to earn the trust of a flight, but it has happened. In the days after the Death of Hope, one such uumen earned both our trust and our respect. Both Fumer, and his son, Thorner, aided this uumen in an event that happened during the sunset of the Long Night. The exact nature of the event is not known to me, for the dragons involved trusted this uumen enough to swear secrecy. Still, I have gathered that it involved moving something of great value and importance. Moving it and hiding it.
“The name of that uuman is one you will well know. To us, he was called only ‘The Shadow of the Light’.”
The reverent way Zyacrun said the words, it sounded as if he were reciting a prayer. But Scarlet knew, instantly, without him needing to say any more, that he spoke of her ancestor’s chief lieutenant, a man who had survived the Death of Hope.
The author of the eulogy for the Alliance.
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End:
Chapter Nine
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