Chapter 24 Mist
MIST
My drakes and I dress in new battle leathers from our bedroom’s vaults, since our previous ones got burned up in our insane firestorm earlier, then leave the dormitory area.
We follow the searing rune light—far brighter and thicker now, than the whispering incandescence that led me on the night I found the triptych mirrors.
The ancient silver and gold runes on the walls flare hot tonight, seething with their own inner fire as they lead us to our destination.
We follow—to find the birthplace of the Black Dragon, at last.
We’re tense, silent, as we pass through chamber after chamber and hall after hall. With each twist and turn we take, however, an instinct inside me grows; that we’re following a path we’ve walked before—countless times.
When we finally arrive at the library with the gargantuan floating silver mirror stone in the center of the space, my suspicions are confirmed.
As the seething runes flare throughout the walls and floor now, lighting up the vaults high into the ceiling above, I suddenly feel like we’ve been cheated.
Because there’s nothing here, except the towering stacks of tomes and vellums, and the gargantuan silver stone in the center of the space. It shows nothing right now, only blows with its millions of infinitesimal rune-phrases, scrolling through it and giving it its antiqued look.
“Was this a bust, do you think?” Strom says now as we halt in front of the silver mirror-stone. Inert, it does nothing—even though the runes have lit up like a simmering wildfire all around the space now, showing that this is our destination.
“Well, they’re not indicating any other place in the library,” Baldur says with a frown as he gazes around, then nods to the mirror. “Whatever we’re looking for, I’d say it’s connected to this mirror.”
“The mirror shows us what we focus on; what we want to see.” A thoughtful look takes Mikkel as he glances at me. “Should we all focus on finding this secret creation chamber of Hedda’s? See if the mirror will show us where it is?”
“Worth a shot.” I nod, his logic sound.
We all face the mirror, then. I feel it, as each of my drakes and I focus our thoughts and intentions on one phrase: let us find the birthplace of the Black Dragon.
As before, however, when we asked to find our enemy Litha and her drakes, we get only a scathing tirade of runic gobbledygook from the mirror, as it swirls in a maelstrom.
Then flashes out, back to its inert state once more.
“Well. That did nothing.” Bjorn grumps as he crosses his strong arms, scowling at the mirror.
Still, the silver and gold runes all around us in the space flare and flow with their auric fire, showing that something is here, connected to the Black Dragon’s birthplace.
We just have to find it.
“We’re missing something,” I say as I gaze up at the mirror, then around the space. “Perhaps it has nothing to do with the mirror. Perhaps it’s this space… perhaps there’s something else here that we need to find. Separate from the mirror and its abilities.”
“Fan out,” Bjorn says at once, nodding at my drakes. “Search the area. See if we find anything unusual.”
We do, roaming the space now as the runes continue to flare and flow all around us.
Though we search all the furniture inside the vast hall, plus the stacks of hale and rotten tomes within the rune’s light, we find nothing out of the ordinary.
Only the regular trappings of an ancient library hall, most of it gone to mold and dust. We reconvene before the silver stone.
Everyone scowling now, perplexed.
“Unless we want to search every fucking book on the shelves, for some secret trap-door mechanism,” Mikkel says now as he scowls thunderclouds, “I think we’re out of luck.”
“It wouldn’t be easy to find such a massive power spot as the birthplace of the Black Dragon,” Baldur counters, as he glances at me.
“Our ancient Ancestors would have hidden such a place, because it’s probably dangerous.
Only the most learned or robust in their magics could probably access it.
Not just any causal soul wandering through this library and picking up a tome. ”
“Baldur’s right,” Strom says as he gazes around again.
“Whenever Alfhild and I raided magical lockboxes and vaults to get items she wanted to sell or deliver to Litha, the hardest ones to penetrate were often the ones hidden in plain sight. One time, we had to break a safe that could only be accessed from the owner’s toilet.
You had to be actively shitting while unraveling the magical curse-wards and locks, or you couldn’t get in. ”
“Ridiculous.” Mikkel grins to beat the band.
“Smart.” I frown, however, thinking about it. “Stool is one of the hardest natural dragon-imprints to crack, if you use it to imprint a safe’s locking mechanisms. Because of each of our unique gut microbiomes, it’s almost as secure as using our breath-scent—more so sometimes.”
“I don’t see any toilets here,” Baldur says with his subtle humor as he lifts an eyebrow.
“What else hides in plain sight here, though?” Bjorn is on to my thought process, however, as he glances at me, then gazes around. “The silver stone, obviously. But there are also the vaults, the pillars, the stacks, the ceiling, and the floor itself.”
“Could it be as simple as X marks the spot?” Strom chuckles as he and I share a sudden vision of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.
“Maybe,” I wonder, as Aesa’s Truthstone suddenly hums on my chest.
It had been quiet this entire time; now, it surges, pulsing with a rhythmic flare. It’s almost like how the runes surge and pulse around us as they flow over the ceiling, floor, and walls.
As my gaze travels over all the permanent edifices here in the hall, I feel a deeper instinct. I glance at Baldur, then nod to the vast room.
“I think we need to look at this hall with fresh eyes,” I say.
“See it from the Dreamtime, maybe, or even look down on it from the Void. If our Ancestors who built this place were all Bloodwalkers, able to produce auric fire to even be led to this place, it stands to reason they would have immensely high-level Void-abilities. I think we need to replicate that, to unlock the secrets here. And see what can be seen.”
“Naturally.” Baldur nods, as he understands what I’m proposing. As he glances around my drakes, he says, “Gather close around Rikyava. We need to do a spontaneous Bloodwalking to send her up into the Void quickly, and look at this place.”
“With you, ideally,” I tell him now, as my drakes gather around me and him. “So I know what the fuck we’re looking at, if we find anything. Especially complex rune-work.”
“Of course.” Baldur steps in to me now as my other drakes close our circle. I feel us come into a deep harmony as Baldur takes me in his arms. I step to him, moulding to his body as he holds me. He lowers his head, whispering his lips over mine.
Then he kisses me.
He does it deep; hard and fast. I didn’t expect it; he catches me off-guard now, when I thought we would have some kind of slow ramp-up into the heat and sexytime to do this.
Baldur isn’t wasting time, however; as he seizes me in his hands, gripping my waist and devouring me, my inner Bloodwalker magic responds. With all my drakes close now, touching us, they suddenly can’t keep their hands off me from the roaring heat Baldur provoked.
As we spiral up into a spontaneous Bloodwalking.
Just as before, I feel the inky veil that lies around me in the Void of Ancestors. It’s not gone, despite all the ways my drakes and I have bonded recently, and all the firepower we have now that Baldur is once again hale.
Even though I can’t speak to our Ancestors yet in the Void, however, I can turn back and gaze down at where my drakes and I still stand in this ancient hall. What I see astounds me, as a different space is revealed all around us from Baldur’s and my Bloodwalking in the Void.
A towering, ancient cavern—not a single book in sight.
I blink as I see that massive, natural space all around us. Rough, ancient, dominated by natural pillars of stone that rise all around the space in a circle, it’s completely different from the lovingly carved and meticulously curated library.
Gargantuan dragons, fifty times the size of modern Blood Dragons, ring the space.
Their ancient, desiccated bodies are entirely inscripted with silver, gold, and searing white runes.
They blaze through our vision, emitting some kind of cosmic white light, as Baldur and I gaze down in shock at this new space.
Which we’re apparently already standing in—but are not.
What the fuck…?! I breathe through the Void, amazed at what I’m seeing.
It’s phase-shifted. This cavern we’re seeing is not in our dimension, but has been cast out of the Twilight Realm. Placed next to our Realm… by some vastly powerful magic. Baldur says to me now as we gaze down upon that gargantuan hall.
Far bigger than the library, it’s bound by simmering, ancient runes just like in our space, which curl and flow around the slumbering dead dragon-behemoths.
Except those runes are far more extensive and ornate, as they seethe across every surface in that ancient chamber, dazzling my mind with the complexity of what’s written there—and how much magic all those runes can hold.
I see now that those other runes form some kind of complex sigil all across the ancient floor of the cavern, which seethes up into the towering dragon-mummies all around, and into the walls and columns.
As Baldur and I contemplate that vast, ancient magic now, I feel him become drawn to it. Not just to figure it out, but wanting to wield it; to unlock its secrets and use that ancient sigil for his own purpose.
It’s his addiction, as Baldur gazes at that ancient space and I feel his light gutter, dark. I move close to him in the Void, taking his hand.
He shocks out of wherever he’d gone, blinking at me.