Shylldra
Shylldra knelt in the Hall of Sorrows with her staff lying across her knees.
She wore the green robe with gold trim of an Initiate of Maia, goddess of birth, motherhood, and life. To reach the Hall she'd had to walk through the temples golden arched pathways and up the stepped gardens outside there the temple maiasaurs fed and kept their nests. The temple had a hundred rooms dedicated to some aspect of the worship of Maia, and her love for all things that lived. A hundred rooms where the walls were inlaid with beautiful gemstone murals, or carved in exquisitely detailed reliefs depicting the priestesses at prayer or the hatching of eggs. A hundred rooms dedicated to celebrating the beauty of life.
And a very, very select few dedicated to death.
The Hall of Sorrows sat deep in the foundations of the temple carved from a natural deposit of blue green rock. There were no gemstones here, no beautiful reliefs, just smooth carved supports that kept the dome shaped room stable. An enormous maiasaur skull hung from one wall, flanked by two smaller skulls, over a row of natural tunnels bored into the rock by some ancient underground river.
When a priestess of Maia died she was brought to the hall for the secret ceremonies that passed her on, the ancient rites that allowed a woman steeped in the power of life to pass on peacefully into death. It was where the corpses of the temple dinosaurs were brought to be lovingly butchered so that their deaths might continue Maia's promise of life for others.
And it was where Initiates became Acolytes, If Maia chose them worthy of the test. If they faced the death and pain of it and rose to the next level of Maia's service.
Shylldra knelt with her hood pulled back, hair so black it was almost a shimmering blue playing around her shoulders. Lying on the ground in front of her were a golden bowl, and a selection of knives with golden handles, gleaming sharp and clean. The staff across her knees was six feet of solid ash, with the skull of a maiasaur hatchling fixed to the top. The staff had been made in this very room, from the bones of a stillborn hatchling from the temple herd by one of the temple's master staff makers.
This would be different. Shylldra would have to do this next part herself.
She felt the soul inside the staff shifting nervously, and she forced herself to calm it with her own power. It helped, to have something else to be strong for. Calming the soul within her staff let her ignore her own misgivings and fear.
Maia protects, she reminded herself. We are closest to her when we protect as well. And forgive me, goddess, but today I need to be as close to you as I can be.
She took a deep breath. There was no point in making it drag on longer.
“Sacred Maia,” she said, her eyes rooted to the floor as she recited the words she'd been rehearsing for the past three weeks. “I call to you in this room of death because I wish to bring forth life. I call to you that I may suffer through the moment of blood and pain that comes before the birth. I call to you and ask the right to take one life, so many others might survive. I call to you and ask the chance to harm, in order to protect. I call to you that I may step forward as your servant, and bring your blessings to many. I call to you, Sacred Maia, and beg.”
The prayer echoed eerily between the walls of the Hall of Sorrows. Shylldra waited with her head bowed, waiting in silence. She was to wait no less than fifty seven heartbeats, and if Maia had not answered she was to repeat the prayer again. If in three days Maia had not answered she would be given a bag of coins and sent away from the temple, for Maia had not chosen her worthy.
The thought almost made her panic, but she forced it down and focused. She'd lost count of her heartbeats by then so she started over, one and two and three until she was finally sure she had reached fifty seven.
“Sacred Maia, I call to you in this room of death because...”
Again, silence. Fifty five, fifty six, fifty seven.
“Sacred Maia, I call to you in this room of...”
Fifty six, fifty seven.
“Sacred Maia, I call to you in this...”
Fifty six, fifty seven.
“Sacred Maia...”
The time wore on and she lost count of how many times she'd repeated the prayer. Her world had become nothing but her heartbeat, pounding louder and louder in her chest, over and over again. All that mattered was the moment the beats added up again to fifty four, fifty five, fifty six, fifty seven.
“Sacred Maia...”
Her mouth was dry, and the muscles of her legs screamed at her for kneeling so long. She had to work hard to say the prayer now, her dry lips and parched throat rebelled at every repetition. Worse, the words were slowly losing their meaning, becoming mindless noise. Shylldra was terrified what that could mean. Would words mouthed numbly by rote, barely audible from cracking lips, mumbled sounds that meant nothing to the speaker ever really reach the ears of Maia?
Fifty six, fifty seven.
She forced herself to say the prayer again, to enunciate each word, to remember the meaning to each one, to focus on the meaning to the prayer. Again, silence, and she counted out the pounding of her heart. One, two...
How long had she been here? Had her first day passed? How many times had she called out to Maia? It seemed impossible the goddess would answer after so long. Her third day would be over any time now, she was sure, and she would walk from the temple in disgrace.
Fifty two, she thought miserably, dreading having to say the prayer again. Fifty three, fifty four...
Scratch.
The tiny scraping sound came from one of the natural tunnels in front of her and she paused, almost not daring to hope that Maia had sent an answer at last. But out of one of the tunnels an awkward pink form stumbled. The protoceretops lamb was a tiny, harmless thing, the length of Shylldra's forearm. Its beak was round and blunted, its neck shielding crest smooth and shiny. It hobbled over to her on unsteady legs, walking up to the golden bowl and laying down on its side, exposing its neck. Relief washed over her just before the dread.
Now it was time for the hard part.
She reached for the longest, straightest knife among the ones arranged before her and clutched the gilded handle in both hands. Tears in her eyes, she plunged it down into the dinosaur lamb's neck. It squealed pitifully as she stabbed it, and when the blood began to flow she almost couldn't bring herself to lift the lamb up and hold it over the bowl. It shook and squealed as its blood filled the bowl, until finally it lay still.
Then it was time for the other knives. This one to sever the head. This one to carve the flesh off the skull. This one to scoop out brain and eyes. This one to split the body from stomach to groin. This one to remove the skin. And each and every one felt like carving into her own flesh. Tears poured down her cheeks as she butchered the lamb's carcass.
Maia is the mother of all, she reminded herself, clinging to the old mantra to avoid retching or throwing her work down in horror and fleeing the room. Mothers bring life, and the cost is pain and blood. Maia is the mother of all. Mothers bring life, and the cost is...
Finally the butchering was done. The meat, organs, and bones except for the skull were laid down beside the bowl. The skull she took in her hands, and picked up the very last knife. This one she used to etch the sacred markings on the bone, on the inside top of the braincase and the back of the frill. And when the markings were etched, she raised the skull over her head and bowed to it.
“Thank you,” she said. “Your sacrifice will save the lives of many.”
With that she plunged the skull into the bowl of blood. There was a rush of air, as if wind blew in the underground chamber. She felt the life within the blood, the power of the lamb's existence, pulse and swirl through the hot red liquid until it finally coalesced around the skull. Blood burned into the sacred markings, bringing the life with it, the bowl vibrating with the power until at last a blue glow from deep within the ichor told her it was done. She lifted the protoceretops skull from the bowl with bloody hands, and pressed it down over the maiasaur skull on her staff. It clicked into place, bone sealing on bone, and she let out a sigh of relief as the lamb's power flooded her staff alongside the soul of the baby Maiasaur. But it was a distant power, hesitant to come when she called, because the ritual wasn't complete yet.
Carefully she lifted the meat and organs of the lamb and dropped them into bowl of blood. She stirred it with the bones, and brought the bowl up to her lips.
A few minutes later, barely aware of her own actions, she stumbled towards the door. She burst from the Hall of Sorrows, the light burning her eyes as she drank in the warm yellows golds and oranges of the temple hallway, the jewel studded murals and the beautiful reliefs, the cheerfully flickering torches. From outside now she could hear the honking calls of the temple maiasaurs, grazing in the watered steps of the temple grounds.
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Yes, she thought incoherently. Life. Warmth and life through blood and death and pain.
She suddenly discovered she didn't have the strength to stand up anymore. She tumbled towards the hard marble of the temple hallway, but hands all around her grabbed and held her. Hands in white robes with golden trim. She noticed idly she was getting the white robes all bloody.
“Easy sister,” a calming voice said. “Easy now. Maia chose you worthy for the test, and you have passed.”
“I killed...” she mumbled. “There was blood...”
“Yes,” the priestesses around her said. “Through pain and blood we all pass, and from pain and blood we are born. Welcome back, Acolyte.”
“How...how long?” she asked. “How many days?”
“Child,” a priestess said, smiling despite the blood. “You were only in there for one and one half hours.”
She tried to say something in response, to blurt out some noise of surprise, but the world swam around her and she slipped finally into unconsciousness.
Dalluth
Up until the point he started eating bugs it had all been going so well.
Dalluth had spent the past three weeks making the boots and gloves. He'd stalked the little brown and green reptiles through the palm forest. Drepanosaurus. He'd had to look up the name. Not easy in his tiny little village, so far from the capital's great libraries, but as an apprentice infuser he'd had to learn to read and the mayor had a few scrolls about the things that lived around the city. Sadly they were lizards, not true dinosaurs, but it would have to do.
The drepanosaurs were a little longer than his forearm. Not the sort of thing he'd always imagined his masterwork being made from. But—and this had been the important part—they lived in trees. Scampering through the branches as well or better than the monkeys. It had taken a few very carefully set traps, but he'd captured four of them.
Then he'd made the gloves from tough old leather, setting bone carved hooks in the fingers. Once that was done he'd carefully slaughtered the four drepanosaurs one by one, etching the runes he'd devised into their skulls and letting the blood fill them. He'd done it a thousand times with other creatures. Most people didn't even realize how much etched and infused bone they had lying around. By capturing the essence of the dinosaur in its bone all kinds of effects could be created. Any creature would work, and many different kinds were used, but dinosaurs were the best.
But to Dalluth's mind the magic of the infusion had become too common. So common it had become ordinary. Every day people used things like a simple pelvis forming an extra strong support on a wagon to a shovel bearing an infused jaw for strength and power and no one thought twice about them. But there were other things infusion could do, beautiful insane things that reminded anyone who looked at them that infusion was man's dalliance with the powers of the gods, that the things which could be made were truly magical...
Not that Dalluth ever got to do things like that. Even Master Brank didn't get to do things like that. In the village it was all making tools out of casae, the fat lizards most of the village farmed for meat. There were fresh bones and blood every slaughtering day, and Dalluth spent most of his time helping Master Brank turn them into axles that wouldn't break or making fine tools out of their teeth and jawbones.
As long as Dalluth had lived in the village there had only been two jobs more interesting than that. The first was from a traveler who wanted a diplocaulus figurehead for a canoe he meant to buy, to make his trip up the river easier and the boat more handy in the water. Dalluth had actually gotten to do the basic runes on the shovel headed amphibian's skull, with master Brank finishing. The traveler seemed satisfied, but Dalluth had never gotten to see how well the figurehead had worked.
The second was more recent. Three years ago a boy from the village with a little talent at sword fighting (Dalluth couldn't remember his name) had decided to go try his luck in the arena. He'd paid for some leather armor with skull pauldrons and a bone sword, all etched to increase battle prowess and ferocity. He'd had to do with eoraptor bones since the three foot hunters (even smaller than the fat, barely mobile Casae) were the largest predators normally seen in the village, but he'd been satisfied with that. At least it was a true dinosaur.
Dalluth had been eager to work on the sword, or at least the armor, but Master Brank told him it was too serious for an apprentice. Someone's life could depend on the work after all. So Dalluth had watched with envy as the carved bone sword was dipped into the blood and came out with red, gleaming runes...completely untouched by Dalluth. The pauldrons were the same. Dalluth got to stitch the boiled leather for the armor but it wasn't the same as getting to taste the power of the soul's infusion.
And then of course the idiot had gone to the capital and gotten himself killed in his third fight, facing a twenty year veteran wielding a club with infused stegosaurus spikes. Dalluth thought that was incredibly unfair. If the customer was going to get killed anyway Dalluth couldn't see why he shouldn't have tried to help infuse the sword and armor.
But once Dalluth completed his masterwork it would all be different. He was almost sixteen: it wasn't too early to end his apprenticeship. And once he did he would go to the capital. Yes he'd have to start out with boring jobs, but he could experiment with a few things to catch a noble's eye.
Someday, Dalluth was going to make wonders.
But first he had to make Master Infuser. And his boots and gloves would do it. All they had to do was work. And as he stitched closed the last infused skull and felt the drepanosaur's spirit flood through the leather, he was certain they would.
“Master Brank!” he called out. “Master Brank, look what I've made!”
He brought his gloves and boots across the one room work shop and showed them to the thickset old man.
“Ahh I see you've been trying for your masterwork!” Master Brank said, looking at them. “Hmm...metal is fine, but this leather...”
“Mammal hide,” Dalluth said. “I don't remember which, but I got it from the unreactive bin. It shouldn't interfere with the infusion.”
“Good. Good.” Master Brank said thoughtfully. “I see they are for climbing trees. Well we'll have to see. Are you prepared to demonstrate them?”
“I am!” Dalluth said confidently. I could be on my way to the capital tonight.
“Then let us see,” Master Brank said. Dalluth eagerly pulled on the boots and threw out the gloves.
The village was on the main road but it was nestled into a cleared off section of the palm forest that covered so much of the empire. This meant Dalluth had lots of trees to choose from so he picked a tall straight palm close to the workshop. Pressing the hooks to the bark, he scurried up the side.
Faster than he'd ever believed.
It's working! He thought. The infused spirits of the drepanosuars, captured through the skulls on the backs of the hand on the gloves and above the toes of the boots, had granted him the reptile's climbing powers. He scurried up the tree until he reached the fronds at the top, and only then did he take the time to look around. Master Brank stood at the bottom, arms crossed, not looking quite convinced. That annoyed Dalluth a little. But all around Master Brank were villagers who'd come to watch, and they didn't need any convincing. They clapped and cheered at the spectacle. Dalluth waved back, a huge dopey grin on his face.
When the dragonfly landed on the frond beside him it was the most natural thing in the world to reach out and grab it. The insect was over two feet long so it was almost like holding the leg of a cooked bird as he brought the struggling thing to his mouth and bit down. Green innards ran down his chin as he devoured it, wings still flapping as he pushed them past his lips, crunching between his teeth as he ground the struggling insect down. Finally the last of the huge bug disappeared down his throat.
And the he realized what he'd just done.
In that horrifying moment of realization his body rebelled. Sweat poured down his forehead and his skin felt wAxey, like he didn't fit in his own body. Dalluth wretched, a body shuddering heave that brought up a green soup of shattered wing and still twitching legs. As the splatter plummeted towards the ground he lost his grip on the tree, as if his own hands had thrown him off the bark, and he plummeted towards the ground.
Dalluth sat at the foot of the tree, trying to get his bearings. He was dizzy, and didn't remember landing, and there were bruises on his arms and shins, but nothing seemed to be broken. The cloth shirt and pants he'd been wearing hadn't fared nearly so well. Something seemed to have shredded it to rags on the way down.
I feel awful.
I could use another dragonfly.
No!
Scrabbling in the dirt, Dalluth hastily tore off the boots and the gloves and threw them aside.
“Looks like you're alright boy,” Master Brank said, standing over him. “If you need to heave up again, don't be shy.”
Dalluth just spat sullenly in the dirt. Now that he'd had time process what happened the humiliation was starting to boil up inside him. He wanted to go lock himself in his bedroom but he knew he couldn't. Not before Master Brank was done tearing out his soul. In front of the whole village no less.
“Now tell me what happened,” Master Brank said. “Do you know?”
“I know,” Dalluth grumbled.
“Then what?” Brank pressed.
“I didn't infuse essence,” Dalluth said. “I infused soul.”
“No,” Brank said. “You infused soul badly. Now what's the difference?”
“Life is the tree,” Dalluth recited. “Essence is the stem, soul is the apple. Or did you want life is the ground, essence is the vine, soul is the fruit? I know all the stupid metaphors.”
“Don't take that tone with me!” Brank snapped. “I'd smack you if you hadn't just hit your head. Now tell me exactly what you did.”
“I didn't realize I was infusing soul,” Dalluth said. “I only carved symbols to contain essence. The soul I captured leaked out into me. Started taking control.”
“More than that,” Master Brank said. “If your essence runes had been perfect none of the soul could have been captured. There was a flaw in your carving somewhere.”
“Yes,” Daluth said bitterly. “If I'd known I'd have carved it for soul.”
“Then you'd be dead,” Master Brank said. “Lost to the creature. If that little scrap of soul had you eating bugs you'd never control a fully souled infusion.”
Dalluth didn't say anything. He still couldn't bring himself to look at Master Brank.
There were a lot of infusers, even Master infusers, who wouldn't infuse with the animal's true soul. The essence gave most of the same properties for simple work. Master Brank would only infuse the soul of tame, calm animals. Because infusing soul was dangerous. It created a fight between user and infusion that could end in madness or death.
But if you wanted to create wonders you had to infuse soul. The greatest powers, the greatest abilities, the greatest anything infusers could create required it. And Dalluth was determined to create wonders.
“Leave infusing souls to the priests,” Master Brank said. “And to the mad fools who make the legions’ weapons. Essence is good enough, boy. If you'd been more careful, if you'd stuck to essence, I'd be calling you Master Dalluth right now.”
Dalluth closed his eyes. He knew the old man meant to be encouraging, but confirmation of how close he'd come to succeeding was a dagger made of ice plunging into his heart.
“Now listen up,” Master Brank said. “I'm leaving the workshop in your hands for a few days. I'm just going to be in the capital for a few weeks, don't worry. But you'll be in charge while I'm gone, and then we'll discuss your masterwork again. Can you handle that?”
“Yes!” Dalluth said, trying to sound as eager as he would have been the day before to hear he'd have the shop to himself. It was a wonderful step, but not what he'd been hoping the day would bring.
It didn't matter. He was determined to produce a masterwork before the year ended. No, before Master Brank returned.
He'd show everyone what he was really capable of.
A QUICK NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR:
Hi folks, and welcome to my very first chapter of my very SECOND story on Royal Road! I hope you enjoyed it, and I hope you'll keep with me as we move forward in this world of magic and prehistoric beasts! Please consider dropping a review, and checking out my other story "Farbeast Chronicle" which ought to be up soon if it isn't already, and maybe if you REALLY liked it drop by my Patreon for up to ten chapters ahead on everything I'm putting out (link below.)
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