“I hate you. I hate you for what you are, and I pity you for not seeing what you are. Someday you will though. You will see exactly what I do. On that day, you will hate me. You will hate me almost as much as you hate yourself.” ~Prince Orvit
As the new millennium begins, life goes on mostly unchanged. Soldiers watch for the Kye Marah day and night. Stories of King Soltimork’s festival are heard across Mur. They gossip about the strength and brutality of the gora. Some go so far as to say; they believe such ferocious beasts could slay the Kye Marah. They speak of King Soltimork’s speech and his army of ten thousand. The mountains are ripe with this gossip, and King Soltimork knows it. He sends envoys to ever mountain. They carry the king request for soldiers. The message is heard, but few follow the call. Arkybes are a careful people; they do not run into danger if it can be avoided. Disappointment strikes King Soltimork when only a few hundred arkybes are sent to aid him. The reality of his people begins to set in.
In a hundred day, the month of Airigid ends. Prince Reidulf trains with cladimait under the supervision of his father. He works with clay to shape his own mountain. Tirelessly, Reidulf trains to become a king. His younger brother, Prince Rosarr watches him intently every hour of every day.
Diadric spends most her time playing with the young princess or listening to Kynthelig’s many stories. As of Soltimork’s request, Diadric does not leave the palace. On rare occasions, Princess Abi convinces Diadric to take to the sky in her dragon form, with the princess riding on her back. When Diadric refuses, Abi mopes about the royal guardian.
The king busies himself with preparations against the Kye Marah. Most meetings include just General Drahg and himself, sometimes the chiefs of the five tribes. Diadric is rarely called in as her part never changes. It is always fly and burn. She also knows very little about the Kye Marah’s weaknesses other than fire. The only strategy she knows is to burn the Kye Marah to death with overwhelming magical power. With the king so busy, it falls on Queen Aslog to see to the daily needs of the people.
It isn’t until a little over half of the second month on the fifty-eighth of Athidal, that the Kye Marah is spotted far off in the distance. At first, it resembles a thin black line on the horizon; but as the days pass, the black line grows more and more. It seeps forward at a snail’s pace. Another month will pass before it reaches Vaskmarr. During this time, moods grow tense. The people find themselves watching the great shadow inch ever closer, like a blade slowing being pushed into their hearts. Their faith in Soltimork fades as the shadow only grows ever larger, its end yet to pass the horizon. Not until the eighty-first of Athidal, do the arkybes final see the tail of the beast. The kye Marah resembles a great black lake in the form of a slug.
In the morning of Athidal, the ninety-third, Diadric rests in the lap of Kynthelig under the first tree of Vaskmarr. It is a beautiful tree with a smooth purple-red bark and light blue leaves which hang from drooping branches. When in bloom, lovely pink flowers cover the tree. These flowers have the softest peddles in Diadric’s opinion and smell sweeter than sugar tastes. Even out of bloom, the tree holds a pungent scent, which reminds her of honey.
Kynthelig smokes a potent mixture of herbs while telling Diadric a childhood tale, “It was my uncle Ilbani Catreppa who finally pulled me from the cave in.”
“How fortunate you survived,” Diadric says while fiddling with a collection of her favorite fabrics. The collection is held together by a gold ring. It contains several fur patches, three types of wool, and one silk. As a dragon, Diadric knew only sight and sound. She could not feel the world through her thick stone body. She had no tongue to taste the air, nor nostrils to smell it. In the single year of life she has lived, Diadric found the world far fuller than she had imagined.
“Indeed it was,” Kynthelig replies. He begins muttering to himself searching his mind for an untold tale. It amuses Diadric, Kynthelig’s desire to entertain his goddess. It is for this reason, no matter how many stories he tells she is always willing to hear another.
As Diadric’s head lies on Kynthelig’s lap, her white hair spreads out around them. It glows with overflowing magical energy. Much like the tentacles of an octopus, Diadric’s hairs have minds of their own. They slither through grass and float in the air. They expand and detract to great length at will.
Before Kynthelig begins his story, Princess Abi appears in the garden. As soon as she sees Diadric, Abi sprints up the grass laid path. Diadric’s hairs open a way for the girl. She drops to her knees at Diadric’s side, who greets her, “Good day, would you like to join us for a spell?”
Princess Abi shakes her head, “Pampa sent me.”
“He did?”
“Un-huh,” Princess Abi says gasping for breath, “he’s with Reidulf in the mountain room.”
“Oh, I see,” Diadric says, rising to her feet, “well let’s not keep them waiting.”
As Diadric walks, her hair floats behind her. It swims through the air like an eel in water. Kynthelig follows a few steps behind and to Diadric’s left. As he smokes, he hums somewhat of a waltz. Princess Abi holds Diadric’s hand and smiles up at her, “Can we fly there?”
“But it’s indoors, and we’re almost at the palace,” Diadric says, “and what of Kynthelig. It would be rude to leave him.”
“Alright,” the princess says as she looks at her feet in defeat. Kynthelig humming quickens and grows harsher. It pulls Diadric’s attention and advises caution; however, she can’t stop pity from falling upon her face as she looks down at the princess. Against her better judgment, Diadric says, “Well, how about after. We can fly through the night sky, and I’ll take you right to your bedroom window.”
“Really,” Abi asks. Her head jolts back up with a smile twice as large on her face. Diadric laughs and Kynthelig’s humming slows and dissipates into the background. Giggling, Diadric responds, “Of course.”
The mountain room, as Abi calls it, is a large circular room in the center of the palace. On its walls are paintings of all twenty mountain erected by arkybes so far. In the center of the room is a sandpit. There, Prince Reidulf practices with Cladimait. He kneels before the sand. Cladimait raised above his head. With his eyes closed, Reidulf takes a deep breath. Quickly he brings down the hammer and strikes the sand. Blue light emits from the hammer. The sands begin to rise and shift. A tiny mountain starts to form. As it rises, the mountain shape alters frequently. Without a solid form, the mountain grows more unstable as it rises. Ultimately, it collapses in on itself.
“That’s enough for today,” King Soltimork says. He sits outside of the sandpit to Reidulfs right. His arms crossed, he observes his son, “go and rest, and think over what we talked about.”
“Yes, father” Reidulf replies, defeat heavy in his voice. He leaves the sandpit and hands Cladimait back to Soltimork. Diadric notices blood on the hilt. Reidulf walks pass the three silently. Diadric turns toward him and considers saying something. Kynthelig, knowing better, steps between her and Reidulf. She hears the door open and soon close. Diadric then turns back around and heads over to the king with Abi and Kynthelig.
“I bought Diadric,” Princess Abi yells to the king. He smiles at her, “Yes Abi, you did very good. Now go along and play; I must speak to her alone.”
“ok,” Abi replies. She looks up at Diadric, “don’t forget you promised.”
She then grabs Kynthelig’s hand. Pulling him, she says, “Come on Kyn, we have to go.”
Kynthelig looks to Diadric, who nods her head. The two leave the room out the same door as Reidulf. As Diadric approaches the king, he asks, “What promise?”
“Oh, nothing, I just promised to play with her before bed,” She then asks, “what happened? I thought Reidulf already knew how to form mountains.”
“Any mountain sure, but not his mountain,” King Soltimork says wiping the blood from the handle of Cladimait, “Different mountains are better for different things. Reidulf still doesn’t know what kind of king he wants to be, and what type of people he wants to lead. So how could he know what type of mountain he wants to make.”
“I thought that’s what all the clay sculpting was for. Are none of those good enough?”
“Of course not, those sculptures were just to show him the different things he could do, not the final result. And it’s about more than that. The shape of his mountain will decide what his people can do: pottery, fishing, hunting, farming, mining, forging, and so on? He doesn’t want a hunting mountain like mine. No surprise there. The boy never had the stomach for killing. It seems farming and pottery are his desired fields. Pottery is easy enough; just need clay, water, and heat. As for farming, he doesn’t know what type of crops to grow, and not all crops grow in the same field. “
“What happened to his hand?”
“Oh that,” The king laughs, “well, for us mortals magic has its price. When one uses Cladimait, it turns their skin to dust. Not much, mind you. We’ve been at this all day and he just now started to bleed. It does get more intense the more you ask of the hammer. My hands were all but skinned when I raised Vaskmarr.”
“Really, it’s a fair price. To raise a great mountain, one must endure great pain,” Soltimork’s looks down at the hammer, and his voice grows somber, “It does beg the question, what would it cost to surpass Iuee. I doubt he suffered the same when he raised Dathagruin, aye”
“Fascinating, I wonder if I have such limits now,” she says so plainly Soltimork raises an eyebrow.
“Yes, Diadric, that would be a fine thing to know,” The king states far more seriously, “And I know just how to test it. You see, several days ago, I sent a party to practice some of our poisons on the Kye Marah. They should have returned by now.”
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“There probably died,” Diadric says just as plainly.
“Yes, I have no doubt of that,” King Soltimork replies, “But I still need to know which poisons work and which don’t. So I’m sending out another party. And to make sure they get back alive, I want you to accompany them.”
“It would be my pleasure,” Diadric says delighted to be leaving her gilded cage, “but you’ll have to tell Abi why I can’t play with her tonight.”
“It was just playing, right,” King Soltimork asks.
“Well, playing, flying,” Diadric answers, her eyes wondering about the room. A spark of rage strikes the king, but quickly fades as he sighs, “Really, I should be proud to have such a fearless daughter; but I don’t care for all that flying, and I could do without the rumors of conjurors and dragons and those flames.”
“I think she’ll make a great queen someday,” Diadric reassures, “besides there not hot flames, more illusions than anything.”
“Fine, I’ll talk to her,” King sighs, “You should leave for the east road at once. The party waits for you across the bridge.”
She leaves Soltimork. Once outside, her hair lights on fire and grows rapidly. It forms the frame of her dragon body. Her mortal self is pulled into the cavity of the chest as it closes. Scales and feathers grow from the strands of hair like leaves on a branch. Thin capes of light make the folds of her wings. She takes to the sky.
Within moments, Diadric reaches the east bridge. She lands on the other side of the moat, which surrounds the mountain. As she touches the ground, her dragon form dissolves. It flows back into hairs, which float behind her as she steps.
The wasteland of Mur is a hard, cracked floor covered in a thin coat of sand. A party of four waits for her nearby. Two arkybes ride atop feathered horses. The riders wear thick robes and long hoods. Wool scarf’s mask their faces. Slouched over the moat, a hobgargen fiddles with a bronze spear. He dresses far less than the arkybes, wearing only a morcaisel fur skirt. Diadric is greeted by a grimmora pulling two horses, “I are Drahger, eighth son of Drahg. You come to hunt?”
Diadric smiles at him. He wears a heavy fur-coated bronze armor, a bronze plated fur skirt, and skull cap. A long red feather, from a Loreteoc serpent, sticks out from the tip of the cap. Given his appearance, the grimmora is high ranking in his tribe. Diadric can’t help but wonder about his name. Normally, gora names are meaningless sounds. They hold no greater value than the gora thinks it makes for a good war cry. It is possible this is true of Drahger, but to choose a name so close to his father’s is odd. Diadric resists the urge to ask. Instead, she greets him, “Good day, Drahger, eighth son of Drahg. I am Diadric and, yes, I do come to hunt.”
“Magic hairs,” The grimmora nods.
”They are not hairs, Drahger,” Diadric corrects, “but thousands of magic strings, which once pulled a great marionette.”
“Now they can only mimic its form,” She says softer as she walks past him. Diadric hops onto one of the horse and yells, “come now while the sun is still up.”
The party rides for the rest of first the day and through the night. They break for a midday meal on the second day and continue riding until night. They rest for the second night. As they sit around the fire, the taller of the arkybes, Eyskip, offers Diadric a blanket. She feels the fabric, which is rough and itchy, before refusing the offer.
“Won’t you be cold, Diadric,” the other Arkybe, Lygaug asks looking at her apparel. Diadric wears far less than any arkybe would in the wastelands. Her outfit consists of a top, which is but a thin strip of fine green silk covering only her chest, and a skirt, while full length is made from the same thin green fabric and split into four wide ribbons, the rest of her body is bare. Given the lack of an offer the night before, Diadric wonders if her comfort is the men’s only concern.
“No,” Diadric states, “I never get cold, and I enjoy the feeling of cold on my skin. I never know such a tingle when I was a dragon.”
“So you are Elder Dragon,” the hobgargen, Crogg, asks. Diadric nods her head. Crogg ponders this for a moment before he says, “Why you become this?”
“It is not your right to ask, hobgargen,” Eyskip yells. Crogg growls back at him. With the arkybes and Crogg watching each other, Drahger is the only one looking at Diadric, who is merely staring at the ground. “Because a man once said I would grow to hate myself. And he was right.”
Now, she had the entire party attention, all except Drahger. With his back to the fire, He curled up, like a sleeping dog. “Time for rest, so sleep.”
Crogg slept in much the fashion of Drahger. The arkybes lied on their backs, wrapped in their blankets, their heads to the fire. Diadric did not sleep. It was something her body did not do. She stared deep into the flames. Her hair danced about her head, mimicking the campfire. While she could not sleep, Diadric could slow her mind allowing time speed up. Slowly Seconds turned to minutes and minutes turned to hours. In what felt like only a short break, night turned to day, and the party began to rise.
For three more days the party traveled across the wastelands. Crogg sung songs of his people in his native tongue, which to the arkybes sounded like a trapped hound and seemed to aggravate the horses. The arkybes told stories of the twenty mortal mountains. An argument broke out between the arkybes and Crogg on the fourth night of their journey. It was regarding the granddaughter of Orvit, Trunadhir. It is known she did not agree with her grandfather in many ways. Trunadhir was the first to raise a mountain outside the Kye Marah’s path. Crogg accused her of being a coward. The arkybes took exception to that. The argument was ended by Drahger. Diadric spoke little but was asked many questions. Only Drahger spoke less than her.
On the evening of Athidal, the ninety-eighth, the party set up a camp roughly half a league from the Kye Marah. Before calling it a night, they decide to test one poison and ride over to the monster. The Kye Marah is a large pool of thick black slime. It reaches only ankle height. Huge Bubbles pop on its back and bits of unfinished creature grow and dissolve throughout it. The party dismount and Drahger grabs a glass bottle tide to his horse. He shows it to Diadric, “From the guts of the Loreteoc.”
Diadric nods. Drahger opens the bottle and splashes some over the Kye Marah. The ooze sizzles for a second; before the poison is swallowed into the mass. The party waits, but nothing else happens. Drahger walks closer to the creature and begins to empty the bottle over it. This time, something rises from the ooze. It’s a giant faceless monster with only one arm. The arm is overgrown and has a club for a hand. The monster drags it through the ooze as it runs toward Drahger. He tosses the bottle at the monster with such force it burst. The monster seems unfazed even as its skin begins to bubble around the splash.
Drahger pulls a bronze sword from his belt. He readies himself for the charge but is pushed out of the way by Diadric. A whirling beam of fire erupted from the dragon head already formed from her hairs. The flames incinerate the top half of the monster instantly. Diadric turns to Drahger, who throws his sword into the ooze. It strikes the head of an already forming large mouthed hound. Diadric helps him up and pushes Drahger toward the party as five more hounds rise from the Kye Marah. As she burns them all, Diadric says to the party, “Head back to camp and rest the night. You won’t be able to properly test any more poisons today.”
“What of you,” Drahger asks.
“I have my own test to see to,” she answers taking her full dragon form. The party leaves as instructed and head back to camp, half a league from the Kye Marah. Diadric remains destroying abomination after abomination. Soon, she flies above the Kye Marah and begins dusting it in fire. As she does, giant serpents with heavy bone covered skulls rise from the Kye Marah. To kill them, Diadric concentrates her flames into a single beam, which slice through the snakes. They burn and blister as they fall dead back into the Kye Marah’s slime.
Hours pass and day turns to night. A new feeling flows through the dragons. Diadric grows fatigued and even hot. Unfortunately, a far stronger and older feeling stops her from leaving. A dark primal hatred for the Kye Marah pushes the onslaught. Diadric continues to fly over the monster. Coated in flames, the Kye Marah folds into itself over and over.
Soon, a familiar creature rises from the ooze, a great black wyrm. Only a fraction of its girth and length, the wyrm still dwarfs Diadric. She appears no more than only a tiny bird in its wake. Even her most powerful flames only cut so deep before the ooze heals wounds. Greater grows Diadric wrath for the wyrm is so closely resembles her sisters. She sees her sister’s six red eyes and a mouth of bristled teeth. An eater of sand was her sister. From the earth, she formed life. Now this monster takes her form and twists it.
Pointlessly, Diadric cuts into the wyrm again and again. In return, the monster vomits black ooze at her. Diadric engulfs herself in flames to burn the ooze. Creatures soon fly with the ooze and grab at Diadric as they fall back into the Kye Marah. The two continue to fight until the light of morning. Pain burns into Diadric’s skull as she fights. Only when her vision begins to fade, Diadric chooses to flee. She flies north toward the party. She finds them a mile from the Kye Marah on their return. As Diadric lands, the world turns black. She feels a sharp pain as she strikes the ground with a thud.
When Diadric wakes, she finds Kynthelig looming over her. He is pouring a shiny gold oil over her hair. When she tries to rise, Kynthelig pushes her back down, “Rest goddess; your hair must soak.”
“What are you doing,” Diadric asks in a daze, “What is that.”
“You don’t recognize it,” Kynthelig asks. She stares up at him questioningly. He continues, “it is blood from your old body. When I pulled your heart from your chest, this gold liquid flowed from the wound. I gathered as much as I could for safe keeping. I don’t know if it really helps, but it is all I could think to do. These hairs held your heart to that stone; I think they are veins in some way. Not like mine, but like the roots of a tree. I thought, if I soaked your hair in this blood, you might wake up sooner.”
Diadric smiles up at Kynthelig. Tears fall from the old drikyn’s eyes, “I’m glad you’re awake, goddess.”
Shortly, King Soltimork enters the room. He is accompanied by the Queen and his three children. Princess Abi races to Diadric’s side. Her face is swollen from crying. Diadric puts a hand to her cheek to console the poor girl but finds her arms bandaged. She looks to Kynthelig, “Your arms and feet were burned. It seems your fires were moving up your body. It is the price of overusing your magic, I fear.”
Diadric thinks back to Reidulf’s bleeding hand. She then looks to the king, “It seems I failed to test your poisons. I am sorry.”
“We’ve learned something far more important. Your powers have their limits and their price,” He states, his voice heavy, “It seems you can only battle the Kye Marah for a single night before fainting. And it takes four full days for you to awake.”
“Four days,” Diadric asks. The king nods, “Yes, it is the second of Carcech. Drahger brought you back as fast as his horse would allow.”
“But time may not be the only factor. How much Kynthelig’s treatment helped is unclear,” the king states glances at Kynthelig for a second, “It is possible that only this blood can wake you. As for your hands and feet, we still don’t know how long those will take to heal.”
“As of right now, I can only use you for an hour at a time,” Soltimork continues, “and we have no idea how long you must rest between uses.”
Diadric looks down at her bandaged hands; tears swell in her eyes. Kynthelig places his clawed hand over hers. He says, “Magic is a dangerous thing in the hands of mortals. Destructive magic is even more dangerous than the rest. Many Drikyns have died in the pursuit of mastering fire. Those of us, who know how, use the power sparingly. I was unsure if you would be bound by the same laws. I apologize for not being there when you needed me. But you are fortunate. The firee did not take your tongue or eyes. It did not kill you, and I am sure your hands will heal quickly now that you are awake.”
“But what can I do now,” Diadric asks, “I gave up all my power to help Orvit’s children; but, what can I do now.”
“What do you mean? You can still fight,” says Prince Riedulf in a strong loud voice, “that’s more than I’m allowed. I saw you battle that thing. Your fires lit up the night and the giant it was forced to summon. Who knows how much you hurt it. Who knows how much closer it is to death. Even if it is just an hour a day for the rest of the year, I bet you could kill it alone.”
“And we’ll kill it much sooner than that,” King Soltimork declares, “but we’ll need you, Diadric, now more than ever.”