Chapter 19 Remember
REMEMBER
Iarrive in a nowhere-space, as the silver mirrors suck me in.
From a corridor underground, I come into a strange emptiness, where the light is everywhere around me but also nowhere, all at once.
Wan, it’s not like natural daylight but a blue-white mist that surrounds me now.
Out of that mist steps the kingly drake, wearing the ornate black battle-leathers I saw on him before.
He beckons for me to turn and glance behind me. I do, and have the strangest sensation as I see my body still standing in the corridor. Because I’m looking out from inside the mirrors now; beyond, I see myself standing in trance, chin lifted as my dragon-aura seethes around me.
Aesa’s silver rings clenched in my fist.
They resonate with the one I’m wearing, and Aesa’s Truthstone upon my chest; a searing vibration takes me and I glance down now, opening my hand to see those four silver rings still in my fist. Aesa’s ring is upon my finger, as well. Her Truthstone flares all-white, here in this space.
Luminous.
“Where are we?” I ask the ancient kingly drake now as I turn back to him. He watches me with a mystical patience, as he sees me finally understand what has happened.
That I am not inside this nowhere-realm, only my auric body is, like when I send myself up into the Void of Ancestors.
“This is a place of memory only,” he says calmly now, though he does not explain. “I imbued my memories here, when I placed the rings in the box, to be found later. Where my memories went, there went a part of my soul, as well. To abide here until my task is done.”
“Who are you?” I ask him then, curious as I watch him.
“My name is ?rn Magnussen,” he says, confirming my theory that he is related to Bjorn. “I was King of the Dragons of Blood and Bone, during the Wars. A terrible time, in which I failed my people. Disastrously.”
“You were a Bloodmate of Aesa,” I mention again, digging for deeper specifics, whatever he’ll tell me.
“I was her First Bloodmate, yes.” He nods, watching me with his vivid, golden eyes.
“Much as I feel you have also taken a strong Magnussen drake as your First, so did she. For our ancient bloodline has ever held not just strength but also vast surprises in battle. As you will learn. Right now, we must speak of the two sisters, Aesa and Hedda Anderlen. The strongest Bloodwalkers of their time, they were magnificent in battle, righteous of mind, and brilliant in their magic. But one fell to the challenges of our time, utterly dark… as the other tried desperately to stop it.”
“I’m listening,” I tell this ancient, ghostly King now, rapt with attention as I clench Aesa’s silver rings in my fist.
“By now, you know that a terrible war raged in our time, between the Blood Sages and the Bone Mages.” King ?rn Magnussen continues in our nowhere-space, his vivid eyes piercing me as the mists swirl all around us.
“Kin were lost from families on both sides; Aesa and Hedda were no strangers to loss, their powerful family torn apart when the Blood Sages and Bone Mages went to war.”
“They were both Bloodwalkers.” I’m riveted to be hearing this tale from one who lived it.
“They were, both powerful in the extreme.” He nods as he watches me.
“Aesa was my Battle-General, her harem of drakes, my most elite fighters and Jarls. While her elder sister Hedda was our people’s Head Matriarch, our highest shamaness, her drakes some of our best shamans, seers, and sigilwrights, incredible in their talents. ”
“All that was broken when the War started, though, wasn’t it?” I say then, wondering how this all played out.
“Not at first.” King ?rn Magnussen regards me sadly.
“For decades, the Anderlen sisters and us, their Bloodmates, fought side-by-side to quell the uprisings of the Bone Mages and Blood Sages, and bring our people back to peace. The factions that were at war with one another spread like a cancer, however; the more dragons they killed, the more others joined them, on both sides, seeking revenge. We could not contain it, as it blistered across the countryside like a plague. It was then that Hedda lost her original First Drake in battle, our Head Patriarch, a noble shaman by the name of Aleric Blom. Darkness consumed her, then; she retreated from the light, with all her drakes, leaving the fight. Discovering a place she could be alone… this place—the City of Remembrance. Which had not been previously found, except by her most grieving power.”
“This place is old, isn’t it? Ancient, even during your time? None of my people can translate the arcane Blood Dragon runes written upon these walls,” I say now, curious about it.
“Yes.” He nods. “The language that decorates this place is an ancient runic dialect of our people, known as Blodskorring. Even in my time, it was only used as a sacred rune-language for ritual. It comes from a time twenty thousand years back, and more. It is a masterwork of our forgotten days, back when our Ancestors were still united in their Blood and Bone Magic. When they were masters of all Dragondom, and dominated the skies.”
“United in their magic? How?” I ask, curious that this King knows stories from our ancient past, that us modern Blood Dragons have forgotten.
“Long ago,” King ?rn Magnussen intones, as he gestures beyond the mirror-space to the underground vault, “our people were united in their magics. You could say that everyone was a Bloodwalker, because Blood and Bone Magic were not separated then, but as one inside us. We were powerful; insanely powerful in the dragon world, our bodies far larger than even in my time. Then something happened; a dire schism in our magic, for what reason even the ancient tales did not recall. Some thought the gods themselves had punished us, because we had grown too masterfully vicious in our magic, and too bloodthirsty in our ambitions over all Dragondom. And so, our powers were split into a day side and a night side. Evermore, a youngling from the Dragons of Blood and Bone was born only into one power. Except for Bloodwalkers… in which the united magics persist. Although unstable and immature, until the Bloodwalker balances it.”
“With Bloodmates,” I say, knowing this part of the tale.
“Or ancient sigil-binding magics.” King ?rn Magnussen looks at me.
“But we digress. For now, you must only know that Hedda rediscovered this place when she was unhinged in her powerful grief over her First Bloodmate’s death.
She secluded herself here with her drakes, poring over the ancient histories written upon every wall for years.
Gradually, she formulated the idea for a masterwork of sigildry and magic.
A creature that could bind all souls from death… and end this terrible war, at last.”
“The Dragon of All Souls.” I see where his tale connects. Blinking, I glance back at the passage beyond the mirrors. “She got the idea for it by reading all the ancient histories written here, throughout the walls. And she got know-how from the ancient writings entombed in the library, didn’t she?”
“Much.” King ?rn Magnussen nods, his gaze dire as the gold in his eyes flares brighter.
“For it was in this place that Hedda’s knowledge of the most powerful magics grew a hundredfold, as she studied what the ancients knew.
Aesa would come and visit her here; together, the sisters would pore over star-charts and chronicles of Void-flow, as they talked into the wee hours about what Hedda hoped to create. ”
“But something went wrong, didn’t it?” I know, as I watch him.
“Gradually, Aesa became aware of her sister’s madness.
” King ?rn Magnussen nods now, intense. “For Hedda had lost something of herself when her First Bloodmate died; something she could not get back, even though she at last replaced her mate with someone else. My brother, actually, Gunthr Magnussen… but we will speak of that anon. Suffice it to say that Aesa became aware that Hedda had lost her valiant sense of right and wrong, as she dove into this vision she hoped to create. As the masterwork developed, Aesa saw it was a cancerous thing that had taken her sister. Plus all of her drakes; for they all lost some part of their sanity and goodness when Aleric was ripped from them. A piece of their own souls was torn away by his death… as can happen, when those who are so closely bonded lose a Bloodmate.”
“They had a multi-way bond, like my drakes and I do.” I understand then, as King ?rn Magnussen nods. “They shared everything… including the agony of their First Drake’s untimely death.”
“They did.” King ?rn Magnussen’s golden eyes pierce me, alert.
“It was then that Aesa warned me of what Hedda was up to. Hedda became suspicious of her sister before we could act, however; she used her magic with her drakes to seal the city from us, so even Aesa could no longer get in, to keep tabs on her progress. She continued, lightning fast in her intent. She found others she could manipulate into having a zealous belief in the creature she was about to create. She got them to donate their very blood, bones, and souls to the creation. Creating a thing of madness that rampaged through the skies.”
“The Dragon of All Souls.” I inhale, feeling my heart clench at this ancient tale of woe.
“It was then that horror truly took root, for all of us,” King ?rn Magnussen says, as I see an ancient terror still alive in his sorrowful eyes.
“For Hedda used the knowledge of the ancients to create her beast; she agreed with their beliefs, also—that Bloodwalkers were the pinnacle of our people, as we had been in times long past. That they should be the only ones to survive our petty, bickering wars, when all was said and done.”