Interlude XIV – Old Foes, Old Fiends

The Empress

The Volan Empire had, in an age long past, once ruled the world. From the First City of Al-Qassa, to the Isle of Albion beyond the Feverish Sea, to the edges of Ruined Kel Tekisliklari. Once upon a time the whole world bowed to the Empire of Man, with only the most primitive or primordial resisting their relentless march of civilization.

And then the Volans fell.

It was, in hindsight, natural. Humans were short-lived creatures, and thus any society they built would be just as fleeting. That they had ruled as long as they had mas more impressive than the empire they built.

But humans were also stubborn creatures. Not as stubborn as dwarves—thank the Goddess for small mercies—but stubborn enough that, rather than accepting the collapse of their civilization for what it was, they had built a new Empire from the mangled corpse of the first.

The Second Empire—sometimes called the ‘Roisuissian Empire’ after the ruling dynasty—ruled the West for nearly ten centuries. From its founding in 1044 P.T. to its fall to the Demons in 2004 P.T., the half-elven dynasty ruled a much-reduced Empire, one which stretched from the Starlight Sea to the River Reka. In its time, this empire was known as the ‘Holy Volan Empire,’ merely a continuation of the original Volan Empire.

Then it fell, and now it was known as the ‘Second Empire.’

As it crumbled to the seemingly endless waves of Demons, the many territories it once governed began forming their own petty states. The Kingdom of Castella was the first to declare independence, the naturally abrasive people abandoning their Emperor to die as he once did them. And as the rest of the royal family died with him, what remained of the empire collapsed into infighting.

But one member survived the slaughter. The Queen Mother, who fled to her ancient homeland in the east. There she took command and stabilized the remnants of the Holy Volan Empire into what is now known as the ‘Third Empire.’

In theory, it is the continuation of the Second Empire of the Roisuisse, simply now ruling from Feinstadt rather than Bellasari, just as the Second Empire was supposedly a continuation of the First. Under the new Empress, the Queen Mother of the Roisiusse, the ideals of the Volan Empire were kept alive even after its heartlands were ravaged by Demons. If anyone asks, it is the same most Holy Volan Empire that once ruled the world, and which to many still did.

In practice, it is the Volan Empire in name only. Holding almost none of the original Empire’s lands, worshiping a different god, and being ruled by elves instead of men, it’s existence likely caused the ancient Volans to collectively roll over in their graves. In fact, considering the existence of the Volkihe—who also considered themselves the true Volan Empire, and held much of the old Volan lands beside—one might end up confused on who exactly the true successors to the Volans were.

Especially since the Holy Volan Empire had just lost the last of the original Volan heartlands.

This is what led Henric of House Blaustand to nervously approach the Empress’ solar, the middle-aged elven noble dreading the bad news he would be forced to present.

Unfortunately, such was his job. He had been appointed Chancellor a mere thirty years ago, having been granted the honor of the position after the late Lord Grunheild’s death on the battlefield. And as Chancellor it was his duty to report any changes in foreign affairs, no matter how unseemly they might be.

The grand doors of the Empress’ solar seemed to loom over him as he approached. Towering mahogany sung into shapes which revealed the construction of the castle in silver studded detail. Thirteen Silver Knights stood guard before it, their feathered helmets denoting rank and number. The ornate helmets concealed each and all of their faces, never to be revealed before her majesty’s disparaging eyes. Even they, elves one and all, were not so worthy of her direct attention.

As he approached the door, a Knight held out a veil, which he swiftly yet carefully draped over his face. Tying it snug against his chin, he took a moment to confirm with the guards that his face was completely covered before entering. One heard enough stories, and Henric von Blaustand was far too important to be executed.

Sparing the guards a nod, he stepped forward, watching the petty sprites dance and cavort across the spiraling wood of the door. Slowly a hole unwound itself, exactly large enough for him to step through.

Once beyond the hole sealed shut behind him, and the silence of the castle was replaced with the faint hooting of owls. A soft breeze caressed his neck which beckoned him forward, his way lit by only the barest hints of moonlight shining through the leaves of the Holy Tree.

Nervously patting down his robes, he continued up through the winding branches of the Feinschloss. The grand castle was an ancient structure—much older than even he—and as such included some truly old-fashioned aspects. The Holy Tree was one of them, a massive magical tree grown from the central spire of the castle, at the top of which rested the Empress’ solar. The branches of the Holy Tree—so unlike any others he’d seen—reached longingly into the sky, liquid silver dripping like sap from its gnarled bark. It was an archaic type of worship that ancient elves were said to have utilized, a monument to their devotion.

Considering how many steps he needed to climb just to talk with his liege, he understood why they phased the things out.

Eventually, however, he finally reached the top. A circular open-aired platform greeted him, gripped tight by the tips of only the highest of branches. In this place the holy moonlight was bright as day, casting in sharp relief the shadows of the solar. Behind a desk of wood and moonstone sat the Empress herself, surrounded on all sides by enough papers to bury an empire.

Truly, it did not matter how powerful you were. The relentless march of paperwork came for us all.

Gazing upon her visage, Henric was as always stuck by how off the Empress looked. Though he would never say so out loud, she did not have the features of a normal elf. Her face was a fair bit longer, with an angled jaw and a sharp chin. Her eyes were far thinner than his, near invisible if not for the pale light which poured from beneath her lashes. Her skin shone as polished silver, unblemished despite her age, decorated with the faded marks of a worship long forgotten. From the crown of her head, long silver feathers fell instead of hair, completing the monochrome palette which gave her an ageless—some might even say holy—quality.

That, in and of itself, was a topic of much speculation. None knew her age. She had been Queen Mother of the Second Empire for countless years. She had been there during the reign of the last emperor, the emperor before him, and the emperor before him. Some say she was the only Queen Mother, the one who had given birth to the first Emperor and had merely refused to die after.

Honestly, some people. He’d bet it was the humans who came up with that rumor, those people who saw all long-lived races as immortal. Any elf would know that such a thing was impossible.

His internal musing was cut short, however, as the Empress noticed his arrival. Her eyes glanced up at him, judging him, the weight of the twin moons within her eye sockets bearing down upon his very soul. He was frozen in place, his breath caught in his throat as he waited for her judgement.

She glanced back down at her work, and he exhaled in relief.

“Speak, Duke of Blaubrücke,” the Empress commanded him. “Inform me quickly of why you have interrupted my work.”

Henric paused, taking a moment to register the archaic name she’d used for the Duchy he ruled over. Only she would ever make such a mistake, though none dared call her out on it.

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“There have been some… developments, in the south,” he grimaced, considering how to phrase the news in such a way that would see him not get thrown from the balcony. “An army of Demons managed to circumvent the border and have attacked us through the Cantons. From what I’ve heard they’ve been laying waste to the Highlands, and the Grand Marshall has only just managed to muster a response.”

The Empress paused in her work. She flexed taloned fingers, absently scratching new marks across her desk, exhaustion evident. “…The Cantons have fallen, then?”

The question was reasonable, but Henric felt sweat begin to form on the nape of his neck. It would have been a tragedy to lose such a bulwark, but it might have been preferable to the truth. “Ah… no, your majesty. The Cantons still stand. In fact, they appear to have been… not attacked.”

The Empress stilled, and for a moment the Holy Moon itself seemed to dim.

“Damnable Dragons,” she whispered. “Damnable Dwarves. Sinful, greedy bastards, one and all! Will they claim ‘neutrality,’” she sneered the word, an unsightly look across her face, “against even Daemen!? The Dwarves may be young enough to have forgotten the ancient pacts, but I’d have expected better of the Dragons!”

She paused, turning to narrow her eyes off into the horizon, to where the holy light of the moon did not reach.

“I expected better of you, Fthora,” she whispered, before scoffing. “Or do you not even care anymore? So sequestered you’ve become, have you abandoned even your own children to their all-consuming greed?”

The Empress scoffed. Turning back to him, her work forgotten, she pinned him with a glare that brokered no argument. “What else has happened? They must have allowed the Daemen through for a reason, and I will not wait to hear it. Which of the Highlands did those Dragons try and claim? Berghügel? Alterhafen? Not Miststadt, surely?”

Henric swallowed. “…Iscrimo, Empress. We just received word from the south. They’ve executed the Duke Visconti and joined the Cantons as a Free City.”

The Empress stared at him silently. The feathers on her head began to puff up, sheer rage expressed across the whole of her body.

“What greed,” she snarled softly, eyes glowing so bright they drowned out the moon. “What audacity. A Dwarf did not come up with such an idea. Neither did a Dragon. No, no, it was a Human, only they would be so bold. So willing to spite me. Luciano. The brigand, I do not doubt it was him. He has fought my rule since before the Daemen returned, that short sighted—!”

Henric was forced to take a breath, and it seemed the motion reminded the Empress she had a witness. In an instant she had collected herself, as calm as when he’d first arrived.

“Duke of Blaubrücke,” she commanded him, eyes narrowed with barely restrained rage. Though her body appeared calm, the glow of her eyes had not ceased. “Send a response to the Grand Marshall. Inform him that once he has slaughtered the Daemen to the last, he is to rally at the border. I will meet him there with further instructions.”

Henric swallowed, bowing. “To war again, then?”

“No,” the Empress told him softly, almost kindly. And he very nearly sagged in relief, for he knew they could not afford another war, not so soon. But the light in her eyes was blinding, and he could not help but send a prayer of mercy as her mouth once more dipped into a sneer.

“I am not so kind.”

--

Fthora, Last Son of the Red Moon

The Night was still. The Moon was dim. Even the Stars seemed to dim, as the Angel Threads which streaked across the dark side of the Moon quieted one by one.

An almost peaceful emptiness swaddled the world. A moment of held breath, a moment of pause.

“IT SEEMS SOMETHING HAS ENDED,” Old Fthora rumbled softly, the Ancient Dragon’s endless bulk curled gently about his Fragment. “OR, PERHAPS, SOMETHING HAS BEGUN.”

Beneath him, clutched beneath endless claws, his brood squirmed. Restless, they strode circles between his legs, offering prayers in hopes of gaining understanding he would never bother to grant. Instead they tended to the unborn, the marble eggs which filled his tower near to the brink. Artifacts of countless promises with countless mortals, their lights fading one by one with every year that passed.

They were stillborn, all of them. A lack of luck, a lack of power, a lack of will. Twelve thousand eggs since the Red Moon was slain and not a one survived.

Yet.

That was a word which the Ancient Dragon clung to, the one to which he still prayed. None had survived, yet.

It was all he could do to hope. For how could he not? His last promise to his late Father, but one which seemed impossible to accomplish.

No new Red Dragons had been born in an age. Not since ash smothered the sky and the Daemen were cast out from the Heavens. In an age where Dragons were closer to gods than the mortals they ruled.

An age which died alongside his Lord Father, and which he accepted now would never come again.

It was natural, he had come to accept. Things were born, things grew, things died, things decayed. He was not his Golden kin, he knew his Lord Father would never return.

He hummed, casting those thoughts aside. This was not the time for them. The world was quiet, and so too would be his thoughts.

Or they would have been, had the flapping of scaled wings not broke the stillness of the night. To his ancient ears the noise was near grating, and he resigned himself to a night of conversation instead.

It appeared that one of his pitiful kin had arrived. Of course, on such a night, who else would be so arrogant but they?

The Red Dragon—large as a hill yet miniscule against his own titanic frame—landed upon his back and curled behind his ear. There they whispered to him words of conquest and glory, of new territory gained in the name of their late Lord-Father.

Iscrimo, the ancient citadel of the Dwarves turned citadel of Men had fallen to their Cantons. They had used the ambition of petty Demons to turn them against the elves and take the city for themselves. Now the dragons, for the first time in millennia, ruled a piece of the old Volan heartlands.

His pitiful kin spoke those words of victory with such pride. Look, the dragon whispered, look at what we have accomplished! Look, oh grandfather, at our glorious victory!

How disappointing.

In times past his kin had commanded the great Broodmothers of old against Fey Courts and Northern Giants. With tooth and claw they tore new valleys to the abyss and plucked stars from the sky. Before the Endless Darkness, before the arrival of Man, before the Original Sin, the Dragons had been the undisputed envoys of the Divine.

And now they struggled to take a single city.

Oh, Father, look how far your children have fallen! Do you not weep for them, even now, even dead?

Fthora sighed, the simple expulsion of air triggering an avalanche on a nearby mountain. He ignored it, for none would be harmed—there were reasons more than faith that few approached his Fragment.

The Ancient Dragon began to tune out the words of his lesser kin, as they went on and on and on about the whole affair. Details he did not care to learn were spat proudly in one ear and filtered out the other. And endless deluge of information that in the shifting tapestry of history would be unimportant within the century.

At least, until a familiar name was mentioned.

Fthora did not bother remembering the names of every mortal his kin spoke to him of. Some he learned of, if they dared become so important—such as the Slave, the Sacrifice, or the Traitor—but most were simply ignored and forgotten by a Dragon far too old to care.

But he’d made a deal. Not with her, no, but she was the one who walked away. The one who scaled his tower and left him with the gift of new kin.

He forgot many names. Given a few more years he might have forgotten hers too. But not now, not yet.

“PALMIRA,” he rumbled, silencing his lesser kin. The name tasted familiar on his tongue, a name which had once merely sparked against his tastebuds now burned with the heat of a new star. Indeed, something even greater seemed to have taken root in the heart of her flames.

Fire danced, and Fate melted into mere chance.

Fthora threw back his head and laughed. His lesser kin was dislodged from his neck, but he did not care. He laughed long and hard, the booming of his divine voice rending the very sky and causing long dormant volcanoes to suddenly erupt. The world itself shook, forced back into wakefulness by his merriment.

Turning back to his Fragment, his eyes locked onto the egg which rested at its peak. The only one still alive, the only one perhaps still capable of living.

“DID YOU HEAR, LITTLE ONE,” he whispered, leaning so close that the heat of his breath steamed against the marble egg. “IT APPEARS YOUR FRIEND IS MAKING A NAME FOR HERSELF. IS THAT NOT SO WONDERFUL TO HEAR? DOES IT NOT MAKE YOU WISH TO JOIN HER?”

The egg did not move, for it was an egg. But within, as flesh melted and reformed and melted and reformed, something shuddered, and a focus that had once begun to wane suddenly was restored.

“YOU CAN TELL, CAN’T YOU? THINGS ARE NOT WHAT THEY ONCE WERE. YOU WERE TO DIE HERE, WE BOTH KNOW IT. EVEN NOW, EVEN THEN. BUT YOUR FRIEND HAS DECIDED TO SCRIBBLE HER OWN NOTES WITHIN THE MARGINS OF FATE’S CHRONICLE. SO WHY CAN’T YOU? YOU CLIMBED MINE TOWER TOO, DID YOU NOT? CAN YOU NOT DO WHAT SHE—WHAT PALMIRA—COULD DO?”

Life boiled within the egg. A soul which had previously dimmed now burning bright once again. Melting and reforming and melting and reforming, what had once begun to slow now began to speed up.

A child who had once been doomed now freed from the shackles of someone else’s story.

“YOU CAN DO IT, MY SISTER, MY DAUGHTER, MY KIN,” Fthora smiled as the stars began to move again, and the stillness which had consumed them both was shaken off. “YOU ARE A TRUE DRAGON, ARE YOU NOT? SURVIVE CHILD, SURVIVE! YOU MAY MAKE IT YET.”

And atop the Fragment of Babel, beneath the Dark Moon which signaled both the beginning and the end, a marble egg cracked, and an Ancient Dragon laughed.