Cassandra Pendragon

“First of all, there’s a limit to what we can do without stripping our world of its protection. I’ve told you before, I’m hunted. My siblings are waiting, just beyond the veil, and if they should find me here… it would make our previous suffering seem like a walk in the park. Also, our cousin is protecting the Emperor for some ungodly reason.” I hesitated, but ultimately decided against divulging my suspicion, that most of his intervention had been orchestrated to influence my development. “We aren’t equipped to face a fully grown immortal. You’ll understand, should you ever suffer the misfortune of meeting one. No… for now, we have to make sure that he can’t turn our world into the likeness of his empire. Since he’s here, I think that means turning Free Land into something else… a bulwark that can weather his might and greed.”

“And how are we supposed to do that,” Sylvia asked incredulously. “From what you’ve told us, the city is in shambles. What can we even do? We have seven ships filled to the brim with soldiers, tallying to 245. That’s not enough and you and your friends are heading north within a few days. What is there to do?”

“Slaves,” I stated simply. “There are so many slaves there… setting them free will give them something to fight for and then, there are the vampires. Enforced loyalty and enhanced strength… it’s another thing we can consider.”

“There’s also this,” a new voice was heard, as Viyara spoke up. Slowly, she extracted a golden scale from the folds of her dress. It wasn’t hers, the colour was too dark and dull, but I didn’t have to guess, whose it was. Ignus’ coat had looked just like it. “You’ve already heard what I am and I’ve still got some relatives left. My grandfather asked me to call him, should I ever need help. I’ve been tempted to do so already, but I didn’t want to summon a dragon and all the trouble it might bring, without your consent.”

“Whose consent,” my brother wanted to know. “Surely not mine. I can’t imagine a dragon would ask a kitsune for permission.”

“No,” she focused on me. “Not yours, but Cassy’s. As far as I’m concerned, she’s… let’s just say I owe her.” I chuckled. The girl had been walking around with a direct link to her old man and she hadn’t bothered invoking it… admittedly, it wouldn’t have been of much use, yesterday, but still…

“By all means, go for it, once we’re back,” I replied. “I imagine, if we could get a true dragon to settle here, most of our problems would be solved.” And without your father terrorising the neighbourhood, they might even be willing to, I added silently. A heartbeat later, I realised, that she could still hear me, thanks to the connection I had allowed her to establish. She smiled at me toothily and shrugged, apparently agreeing with my assessment.

“Fey, vampires, dragons, immortals…,” Arthur mumbled. “You were right Sylv, this is much bigger than us… and we were bickering about hierarchies and power. What, on Gaya, have we stumbled into? Is there even a point to us being here?”

“I believe so,” his wife replied. “There’s much we can do.” She looked at us, her eyes sparkling with curiosity: “but I do wonder, what you have in mind. What do you think we can provide?”

“I don’t want you to get involved, not directly,” I immediately said, before my mom could intervene. “I’ve lost enough and I’m not planning on adding to the list. I don’t want you to fight. If it’s up to me, you’ll take the kids and return home. Maybe use your influence to spread the word and support us, if necessary, but I don’t want you anywhere near the actual conflict.”

“That’s harsh,” my brother commented. “Do you trust us so little? Why? Because of…”

“This has nothing to do with what happened here. Arthur, your… colony is all we have left. I won’t risk any harm befalling it. You’re what’s left of our people, don’t throw that away to play the hero. You’ve said it before, you’re not a prince anymore. You can’t risk your life or the lives of your charges. Not without reason.”

“Protecting our home, avenging what happened isn’t a good enough reason for you,” he retorted heatedly. Oh my, first they had been reluctant to even accept me and now this? What was it with misguided pride, that it always flared up in the most unwelcome moments?

“It is, but a wise dwarf once told me, that the needs of the living always outweighs the debts of the dead. Allow me to take care of our past, while you focus on our future. If you want to be king, that’s what you’ll have to do. I… Arthur, whether you want to admit it or not, I’m already much stronger than you. Ahri and I would be able to burn this whole fleet to cinders without being scratched and we’re only getting more powerful with each passing day. I don’t need you to fight, I need you to keep my… our people safe, so I can actually do what is necessary.” He tensed and the muscles in his jaw worked. It was a bitter pill for him to swallow, but he knew I was right.

“All hells, you sound like a queen yourself,” he finally pressed out. “When did that happen?”

“Somewhere between remembering aeons of war and battle, falling in love and accepting my responsibilities? It’s a work in progress, though.”

“You can say that again,” Ahri whisper, only for me to hear. I grinned self consciously. But I hadn’t done badly, had I? Considering where we were coming from, I’d even say I had done pretty well.

“Do you want us to turn around,” Sylvia piped up. “If so, you could have told us sooner.”

“No, not immediately. I want your helping returning a modicum of order to a city in turmoil. 250 magic using warriors could go a long way in that regard. Once everything has calmed down, though, yes, I’d very much like for you to sail back home. Wasn’t that the plan, all along? You didn’t come here in the first place to join a war, did you?”

“No,” my brother said, “we didn’t, but I also didn’t expect to stumble upon a conflict that might soon devour our entire continent. When we first saw the scope of the magic…” my mom interrupted him:

“You mean the destroyed fleet, don’t you? Would you tell us what actually happened? All I’ve heard are bits and pieces, most of them second hand. I’m sure all of us would like to know the truth. I’m glad you came out the other end unscathed, more or less, but I’m wondering how you managed. I’ve seen the power Amon can bestow upon his servants. How come no one died?”

Arthur and Sylvia exchanged quick glances before my brother replied: “luck, Xorlosh’s warning and the strength of more than 200 mages. You’re right, if we hadn’t known what was coming, if we hadn’t already started disposing of the corpses… I don’t think we would be having this conversation, right now. Let me see…

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It was around sundown when the outlook alarmed us. Smoke was rising in the East. I didn’t want to delay our arrival, but still decided to have a look around. We found an uninhabited island, small by local standards, but still large enough to support a verdant forest, only most of it was in flames. All over the island, amidst the burning trees, even close to the cliffs, we saw shipwrecks, more than I had thought possible. 50, maybe more and it’s anyone’s guess how many had fallen into the ocean below, only to be devoured by the creatures of the depths.

The winds were already picking up, heralding last night’s storm, stoking the flames even further. Soon, the island would be reduced to ash and dust. Billowing clouds of smoke obscured our vision, like a suffocating blanket. I didn’t expect anyone to survive. A massacre like that usually means someone was thorough and meticulous, but there was something else on my mind. The stones. Of course, they might have been taken, but the sheer number of destroyed ships made it very possible, that some were still down there. You know how precious those things are. The flow of energy within them is quite unique and I ordered our most adept mages to search quickly. Not only did they find traces of still intact stones, they also found signs of life in the hellish inferno.

Despite the risk, I wasn’t willing to abandon whomever was down there and I was also determined to retrieve as many stones as we possibly could. Each one represents a new ship, after all, a chance to trade, to grow, but I digress. As fast as possible, I assemble every practitioner with an affinity for fire or air and led them into the ravenous fire, while the rest made haste to examine the ships, which had crashed beyond the edge of the forest.

The heat didn’t bother us and we could breath freely, but none of us were prepared for what we’d find.” An almost imperceptible shudder ran up his spine, but he quickly pressed on. “I believe you can relate when I say, there’s nothing comparable to the heinously mutilated corpses we found. I imagine you’ve seen your fair share of it on Boseiju, so I’ll spare you a detailed description. Let’s just say it was bad, real bad and the worst part, some of the tortured, desecrated souls still clung onto life. Empty eye sockets stared at us accusingly, while we worked to cut them loose from the improvised racks they had been nailed to and sent them to our ships for treatment. For a while, there were only the crackling flames and the agonised hisses of the survivors, until the dwarfs reached out to us through one of our telepaths.

They had just communicated with Xorlosh and his message was simple: Burn the dead, kill the survivors without a second thought. Otherwise, we’d soon come to rue the moment, we ever set foot on that island.” He paused, massaging his temples. “I hesitated. I know Xorlosh, I’ve known him for a while and I was convinced, he had a good reason to ask us to commit cold blooded murder, but I just couldn’t get myself to give the order. Not immediately, at least. At the very least I asked my soldiers to hand the corpses over to the flames, but the survivors… I didn’t act, until the first one… changed, for want of a better word.

I don’t know what initiated the transformation, maybe it was a threshold of magic we had crossed with our spells, or a certain amount of suffering they had to endure beforehand, but whatever the reason, a panicked cry reached me, as I saw one of my warriors collapse. A hollowed out husk of a man with burning red eyes and wriggling runes all over his body had suddenly broken free of his restraints, leaving behind bits and pieces of himself, as he had torn away from the spikes, driven through his limbs. Now, he was nothing but reaching claws and a frothing maw filled with needle like teeth. I charged towards them and flung the creature away, but even while his screams were silenced by the bonfire he crashed into, more and more of them rose. Even the dead refused to remain still. From one second to the next, we were engaged in a bloody struggle amidst a burning world, fighting spell and sword against claws and fangs.

They didn’t surrender, they didn’t collapse, even when their legs were cut off or their arms became obliterated by a spell, they always got back up and continued to fight, until they were burned to a crisp. It was… difficult and downright frightening. The smells, the sounds, their appearances… like a nightmare come to live, they beset us, abominations, filled with venomous fury and unbridle hatred. Still, all of us are strong in their own right and we managed to hold our own after we had overcome our initial surprise. It was a gruelling task, slaughtering those we had felt pity for, not a moment prior. Strike after strike, spell after spell we drove them back and when their lines were starting to crumble I became careless. I was knocked out as a result.”

“Meanwhile,” his wife picked up the thread, “the ones already on board were much easier to deal with. We simply chucked them over the sides, once we realised what was happening. When I heard, that Arthur had been injured, I took command. In the end, no one died, but some were injured, a few severely. Luckily, we have one caster among us, who can manipulate life energies. She managed to prevent the worst, but exhausted herself and our entire supply of potions in the process. She’s still recovering. The rest you know. We came here as quickly as possible and we’ve got six flying stones to show for our troubles. It might not seem like much, but we almost doubled the number of ships, available to us in the future. They’re on the dwarven vessel, for now. It can hold the most cargo.”

When she had finished we remained quiet, each of us wrestling with the demons, the Emperor had cursed us with. For me, even though Arthur had spared us any evocative descriptions, the images of Boseiju’s fall had still cropped up, like twisted roots, blooming into poisonous, obscenely colourful plants. It took me a moment, another sip of the unsavoury tea and Ahri’s caressing touch to push back the suffocating tide. When I returned from the murky marshes of painful memories, everyone was looking at me, their expressions somewhere between pity and worry. Great, now I even felt embarrassed. I cleared my throat and quickly said:

“Whatever else, that you managed to get away without the loss of life is truly remarkable. I wish we had done half as well. You even got your hands on a few flying stones…”

“Which makes absolutely no sense at all.” Erya blinked in surprise, when she saw us staring at her. “I didn’t mean to say it out loud,” she mumbled, “but since I have… doesn’t it strike you as odd? A schemer, who’s orchestrated the fall of a mage kingdom, subjugated an ancient dragon and has two immortals scared shitless, pardon my Common Tongue, even though he was on the other side of the world, suddenly decides to leave behind resources, worth thousands of gold coins? Furthermore, he went to all the trouble of instructing his people to carve the armies of Free Land up meticulously only to leave them behind? I don’t buy it. That’s not all there is to it.”

“You’re right,” Viyara agreed hesitantly, “it seems fishy, but what purpose could there be?”

“Beats me,” the fey replied, “but considering how he played us before, I’m willing to bet that you didn’t find those stones by chance. Maybe…”

“They haven’t been tempered with,” Arthur interjected. “We checked.”

“No offence, your Majesty, but unless one of us,” she indicated Viyara, Aurelia, my mom, Ahri, me and herself, “say so, I’m not going to take your word for it.” Sylvia’s tails twitched angrily, but Erya pressed on. “It’s simple, really. I’ve never met anyone as talented in the magical arts as him and I’ve lived with… served an ancient gold dragon for years on end. None of us are his equal in terms of talent or knowledge, not unless the lazy, hibernating, arrogant… never mind. I don’t doubt your intentions but your abilities. I have the experience and the rest of them the power to at least recognise, when we’re being fooled. If it’s all the same to you, I’d like to have a closer look at the stones. If our dragoness and her immortal knight would join me, I’m sure we can figure out what’s actually going on.” Arthur and his wife shared a look, communicating wordlessly.

“If you believe it’s necessary, you’re welcome to,” he finally said. “Do you want me to arrange transport?”

“We can manage. If it’s all the same to you, I’d like to get going, though. After being hoodwinked twice, I’m decidedly paranoid, when it comes to him and his creations.” She lithely jumped to her feet and offered Morgan a hand. “We’re only in the way here, anyways. I’m sure, you Pendragons have enough to talk about, anyways.” She winked at Reia. “All of you.” She surprised me, when she bowed to my brother and his wife. “Your Majesty, Your Grace. It has been an honour.” Her antics hadn’t gone unnoticed and suddenly my sister was the centre of attention.