Kiano headed for the hills without understanding why. Julian had shown nothing but kindness to him all this time… It was not like he had done anything wrong, either. So why did he have to flee like this? But he knew perfectly well that Derrick wouldn’t tell him to step on it if he didn’t mean it.
Something must have gone astray at the gathering, he reasoned, something that made Derrick act the way he did. He wet his lips. Did the elves perhaps detect him wandering about in front of the gate and think he was some kind of spy? That would be a plausible reason, he imagined, but the size of the Elvish army threw him off. There were hundreds of them!
He looked up at the azure sky as Artam let out a deafening caw to guide him to the outcrop that led to the underwater passage. He peeked over his shoulder for a second, then turned rightwards and strayed away from the cliff path.
The Elvish guards were closing in at a rate of knots! He tripped as he reached the outcrop that was supposed to lead to the sirens’ lair, but it was nothing but a slab of jagged rock this time. Artam cawed again to warn him and urged him to hurry. He bit his lower lip and squinted.
How did the light elf summon the hidden aperture again? He racked his brain until he remembered how, and he pushed the first rock that felt soft against his bare skin. It worked…!
He slid in through the narrow opening and into the darkness ahead. There was no time to waste. He broke into a run once more and could see nothing but the glowing corals. Then he heard them; halfway through this bone-chilling passage, he heard those hushed whispers again. He thought it was a product of his distressed mind the first time he entered this place, but now it was clear that the whispers were real.
The strange din came from all directions and muddled his mind. He broke off and looked around the odious lair. It was the same thing all over again. The chilling words repeated in a vicious loop, causing him to lose his mind. Where did the whispers come from? Why did they repeat the same words time and time again? Something about Jewarta? It was barely audible, though. What was it again? He gulped hard.
The whispers wouldn’t fade away! They were maddening! Wheezing, he let his darting eyes land on something in the darkness where a shadowy figure moved about. The whispers perished, just like that. The spectral figure came forth from the blackness and showed herself to him.
Her striking features were otherworldly. He was rooted to the spot. She let her tanned, slender fingers caress his hardened face, then bore her bewitching eyes into his glazed ones. He saw, for a fraction of a second, her true, hideous shape as she beamed uncannily.
He pushed her hand away and backed away, only to collide with the wet walls made of red granite.
“What a pity,” the siren said. “What a pity I can’t have you.”
He turned his face away as she tried to brush his wavy hair away from his hazel eyes, unbothered by his distorted face in the wake of seeing her true shape. As her dark and slender arm hung mid-air, her alluring face turned dark and rotten, and she grabbed his throat and had him in a chokehold.
He fought to break free from her tight grip. Despite looking frail on the surface, the siren possessed inhumane strength and would undoubtedly crush him into lumps of flesh if she so desired this second. But she did not.
“She tells me to hide you, a scrawny thing like you, so tell me, sorcerer, what’s so special about you?”
“I- I do- don’t—”
She let go. Her icy gaze fixed on the other side of the passage as a clamour broke out. He retched, trying to breathe, but the siren forcefully dragged him into the shadows and covered his eyes and mouth. He tried to fight her off, but she whispered something – something foreign and indiscernible – and he collapsed to the ground, and she did too.
But he could still feel her hands on him; she was perfectly fine, yet he was the only one whose senses were altered, whose mind was numbed and limbs crippled. It felt like he had become paralysed.
The footfalls grew louder only to stop abruptly somewhere to their left. Several minutes passed like this, although they felt like hours or even ages. He was in a state of oblivion, caught between a disturbing dream and the grim reality.
His bony fingers were the first ones to awaken from this curious state. When he finally regained his failing sight and gift of speech, the strange clamour that had arrested him and the enticing siren was long gone.
The immortal creature let him go, or rather, shoved him to the ground. It then did a runner like a scalded cat. He leapt to his feet and caught her short, right as she was about to merge with the darkness.
She looked at him as if he were mad. He had to admit it was somewhat true. Sirens were dangerous beings, and most would refrain from disturbing such an immortal soul, who, for some odd reason, decided not to rip him into pieces and eat him alive. But it was this exact insight that caused Kiano to stop the siren dead in her tracks.
“Who- who told you to help me?”
The siren smirked. “Oh, you must not know. How strange, she was so desperate too…”
“Tell- tell me who she is, the one who told you to—”
“Why don’t you ask her yourself? She’s waiting for you at the end of this passage.”
Kiano scowled. “What?” And as soon as he looked away, the siren perished. “There’s nothing but the raging billows at the end of this…place?”
He looked around in vain. She was gone. In the end, his glassy eyes returned to the narrow aperture, which was filled with salty water from the stormy sea several feet above the outcrop.
Someone waited for him? But why did the siren save him because someone told it to? Nothing made sense! Yet something told him that his sudden departure from Druasdûr had to do with this person – this person who told the siren to spare his life and conceal him from the Elvish guards.
The black dragon once again haunted his thoughts. This time, however, he didn’t feel a twinge of pain in his ears or his lurching heart. Something else happened. He stared down and distorted his face.
An amber glow emancipated from his palms and lit up his surroundings. Surprised, he curled his hands into a fist, and everything became dark again. Scared out of his wits, he broke into a run at breakneck speed.
After crossing the aperture to the raging sea, he noticed he was no longer underwater. Before him were untold thickets and trees. He shoved everything aside until his path was cleared and his vision restored.
Yet he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Lordôm!?
He looked over his shoulder, ready to return to the sirens’ lair when the narrow opening went up in smoke right before his eyes. It turned to dust. He backed away unwittingly, baffled, and lost his balance. The firm ground scratched his hands as he fell on his buttocks and held his breath at the spectacle in front of him.
The coal-black fortress cast its menacing shadow over him and let its presence be known. How did he end up in Lordôm again? He averted his gaze only for a second, bleak thoughts muddled his mind. He flinched and twisted his head. An airy voice appeared out of nowhere on his right.
“Take it easy, young man, we’ve met before.”
The tree that had brought him here several days ago suddenly reappeared before his darting eyes, then shifted shape and became a person. He didn’t recall the familiar face at first, but then he noticed the stranger was slouching forward. It was the hunchback! But- but how?
He had witnessed the tree gobble up the stranger with his own eyes! It wasn’t a hallucination! But how come the hunchback was now here and unharmed at that? It was like seeing a dead person come alive when you least expected it.
“I know what you’re thinking, and I see how confused you are, so let me ease your mind. My name is Waldor. Some know me as Waldron the Great, but most just know me by Waldor. That tree you just saw is my kindred spirit. Mind you, it has a special gift of showing what its master wants you to see. You’ve not gone mad, not yet. I never entered Lordôm with you.”
“What are—I mean, who are you?”
The siren’s words lingered in his mind on an endless loop. Was this the person who waited for him all along, the one whom the siren heeded rather than defied? And, as if the hunchback could read his mind, he said, “I’m not the one you look for, fella, but I’m here to take you to her.”
“Her?”
“Your mother, the Mother of All Critters.”
He gulped hard. “I don’t understand, why am I back in Lordôm?”
“You’ll know in no time, if you follow me and keep quiet, that is,” Waldor said and added as he turned his back to Kiano and faced the grim dungeon. “You shouldn’t think too hard about this, not here, not now. The fahltyrs will be released soon. We should beat it before the drums roll.”
You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.
Kiano looked around himself in the dark as Waldor said this. He could almost hear the blood-curdling screams of those hideous creatures and feel their icy breaths on his bare neck. He observed the hunchback advance, and his heart became fraught with fright for a good reason.
Drawing a deep breath, he quickly jumped up and followed Waldor through the towering trees, bottomless potholes, and thorny bushes until they reached the gate of the dungeon he had escaped from just days before.
He scratched the side of his head in distress as the trolls sneered upon seeing him. He hesitated. What was he doing here? He stepped back. Waldor turned around in the bailey, inches from the gate and observed him.
Kiano, with compressed lips, cast a glance to his right, where the roaring bridge could be heard far and wide. But not for long. The roll of drums arrested him and he peeked up at the parapet wall to see the trolls get ready to release the fahltyrs. He backed away again, more determined than previously.
Waldor, alerted this time, stepped towards him and asked what he was doing. But Kiano didn’t respond. His eyes wandered up to the nocturnal sky and landed on the invisible creature hovering above him, whose presence was so intense that he got chills all over his body. Out of the blue, the trolls threw away their drums and horns and aimed their bows at him – threatening to shoot if he didn’t do as they wanted him to. He gulped hard and shook his head.
“You better get in here, kid,” Waldor said. “You wouldn’t want to enrage your mother, would you?”
“Mother—?” he repeated, flabbergasted. “What does the Queen want from someone like me?”
“Are you asking because you don’t know?” Waldor began with a sneer. “Or are you putting on an act?”
“I…” Deep down in his heart, he knew what she wanted. But it was only when he heard the whispers in the sirens’ lair that he became certain. She wanted him to claim Jewarta. But why him? He was raised as a human.
So why was she so adamant about making him part of her great scheme? He snapped back to reality and recoiled as Waldor took the first of several steps towards him, and a hail of arrows descended from the parapet walls. His eyes became as wide as the Seven Seas.
“We’re wasting time, Kiano! Get back here! Do you think the fahltyrs will let you go just because she tells them to? You’ve seen them yourself – how they only reacted to the dripping blood in your veins and that sweet scent oozing from your tender flesh! Even the Almighty can’t stop them!”
He backed away as Waldor reached out for him. His eyes returned to the night sky. If you want me, he thought, then you’d better try harder – I won’t be your puppet without putting up a fight first!
With these thoughts in his mind, he did a runner and dashed towards the raging moat as the fahltyrs leapt forward from their hideouts and pursued him. The Queen chased him too, even if he couldn’t physically see her. Her ethereal presence… It felt like her soul and his own were intertwined, and there was no escape from her blazing dragon eyes.
Kiano shook the dismal thoughts off his mind before they ate his heart out and crippled him. He had to outrun the creatures and reach the other side of the bridge! But it was easier said than done. The serpents dwelling in the moat growled and breathed boiling water at him from all sides, determined to either slow him down or take his life trying to stop him.
The piping hot water etched through his thin skin like poison and scorched him. He kept running despite this and made his intentions clear to the one who brought him here and now demanded his loyalty. He was not like those beasts who slayed his mum, Kalani. He would never be like those brutes, although they shared the same blood and came from the same womb!
The patches of fog cleared; he could now see the barren land beyond the Salkire, which split Lordôm from Jewarta and Freyskul. He picked up the pace, as did the black dragon in the brightening sky, as he neared the end of the bridge, where the beasts stopped dead and hysterically screamed at him at the top of their lungs.
The dragon, however, kept flying without slowing down. She continued to pursue him several miles beyond the bridge. He gritted his teeth and grunted. Why was she so persistent!?
By the time he came to a forced standstill and tried to catch his breath, the Queen was no longer following him. She had disappeared as quickly as she had appeared out of nowhere. But why? After chasing him relentlessly, why would she simply throw in the towel now?
As he frantically tried to locate her in the sky, he heard a familiar caw from afar on the southwest border. It was Artam! A smile curled up on his lips unwittingly. The raven returned to his true shape in mid-air and descended right in front of him. He was about to ask the raven guy how he found him when the other almost punched him across the cheek, fit to be tied, then held his face with both hands, and the stern look on his face softened instantly.
“Do you know how worried I—hey, why do you look so pale? And what’s up with those scars?” Artam stared down at his pale arm that was riddled with burns. He sighed. Where would he even begin? It was no use trying to explain what he could hardly wrap around his head himself, so he changed the subject and stepped back to break free from the other, who seemed worried sick.
“How did you know I was here?”
“That… I can’t tell you right now; she’ll hear us. I know a safe place where we can talk without being disturbed. Hold tight, don’t look down.”
Artam slung his wounded arm around his own neck and let his massive wings take them both away from the border. They were heading towards Jewarta. Kiano looked over his shoulder to find the dragon, but he didn’t see a thing. Where in the whole world was she?
When he returned his eyes to the narrow ground below, he noticed they were approaching a small settlement on the outskirts of Jewarta with no one around, although the sun had risen several hours ago. After circling the same settlement for the third time, Artam finally flew down, and their feet touched the chilled ground.
They landed in front of a shack surrounded by a wooden fence, but it was in complete ruins. The door was destroyed and a part of the hut was burned to the ground. Even the windows were shattered into pieces. What had happened here? But what disturbed him, really, was the bizarre flag made of burnt attires sewn together in an uncanny pattern, and it danced to the moaning wind in the front yard. On closer inspection, he noticed there was old blood on the bizarre flag.
Artam turned his face away as Kiano glanced at him. There was something off about the raven guy. His eyes had become teary in mere seconds. But before he could ask anything, Artam muttered something about not being in plain sight for too long.
The sorcerer then ushered him in through the destroyed fence. The inside of the shack was not in any better condition. Everything was in ruins. He doubted people even lived here due to how dilapidated it was; moulds riddled every inch of the ceiling and the peeling, burned-down walls.
He coughed inadvertently and noticed out of the corner of his eyes that Artam was heading up the creaking stairs to their left. The entire staircase was in such poor condition that he wondered how it was even sturdy enough to hold the raven guy’s weight without collapsing entirely.
He followed Artam up to the second floor and entered what looked like a tiny chamber with only room for a small bed and nothing else. He was about to ask what they were doing here when Artam turned to face him. It was then that he saw tears trickling down the sorcerer’s flushed cheeks.
“Why are you—what’s this place?”
“You asked me how I found you, but I don’t know where to begin, Kiano.”
“What’re you talking about?”
“I eavesdropped on the council, I shouldn’t have, but I did, anyway. Kiano, they… The council think you’re it.”
“It? What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I… I really don’t understand what’s going on myself, but I clearly heard them say it. They think you’re possessed by the dragon.”
Kiano smirked, unbeknownst to himself. “Dragon, what- what dragon? Are you being—listen, I saw the Queen with my own eyes, and I’m sure you saw her too before you found me at the border. She’s the only dragon there will ever be!”
“I know this sounds crazy, but hear me out first before you say anything, okay? I- I didn’t expect to find you in Lordôm when I first noticed that you were missing, but then… then I found you here, of all places, and I found her too, our mother, following you to the end of the Salkire, then returning to Hezakhal as soon as I met her eyes.”
“What’re you getting at? She was clearly trying to kill me!”
“Kiano,” Artam said, shaking his head. “No, she wasn’t, you know that, too. She was there to keep you safe from the beasts, from the water dragons, from the wizards of Mahgrad – even from me.”
“Don’t tell me you… you believe in this drivel?”
“I don’t know what to think anymore. It’s just… I know what I saw, and, to me, it looked like she was protecting you.”
“There has to be a mistake, I’m sure,” he said.
“What if there isn’t?” Artam replied. “What if it’s true, all of this, and there’s no mistake?”
Kiano dropped his head and averted his eyes. What did Artam expect him to say? He wasn’t even raised as a sorcerer. He didn’t harbour the same resentment towards the humans as his kinfolk did. Why would the Queen conceive him as a dragon? He couldn’t make sense of it, no matter how much he tried.
But if it was true, if he was truly what the council believed he was, then what was he supposed to do? The last thing he wanted was to bring carnage to this vast land and spill blood for a cause he didn’t share. He bore his eyes into Artam’s as these thoughts crossed his mind and wondered which side Artam stood on. Did he wish to spill innocent blood and claim Jewarta, too?
“I know we can’t escape our fates,” Artam said as if he had heard Kiano’s doubts. “But we have a will of our own no matter what and a chance to make our own decisions.”
“You’re—?”
“I don’t know ‘bout you, but I don’t want to see more blood, Kiano, I’ve seen enough of it already. And if you’re what they think you are, then we can change the direction of our destinies.”
“But I don’t know how. I don’t even know if what they say about me is true…”
Artam looked up at the ceiling as tears pressed into his eyes once again. He was desperate to keep them at bay this time around.
“This place was once my home, but as you can see, it’s no more. I lost my mum, my only kin, to the wicked humans who saw her as nothing but a foe. She told me to claim the heads of the guild and make Jewarta ours again. And I promised her I would.”
“What about now? Do you still want to keep your promise to her?”
Artam shook his head. ”There are humans out there who want to help us. People like the late Crown Prince, whom the Queen brutally slayed. We can get Jewarta back, Kiano. We really can, but not through a bloodbath, not through becoming those we resent. Even if our entire race does, we two shouldn’t become monsters like the ones who massacred our family.”
“But what about the council? They are chasing me because they think I’m the dragon. You said it yourself: I’m a threat to the allied kingdoms.”
“You’re not, I know that, and so do Derrick, Gavon, Arigir, and Julian! They’re on our side, Kiano, and if we can persuade the council and the rest of the kingdoms, then we stand a chance!”
“Julian?” he repeated. “But he was—”
“He purposely slowed down the Elvish guards by leading them off course, then he noticed me and cast an Elven-whisper so that a portal showed up in the air and brought me to the Great Forests of Secrets.”
“I don’t—but how are we going to persuade the wizards? They won’t be easily convinced, will they?”
“We don’t persuade with words,” Artam responded. “We show them our loyalty.”
Kiano frowned. Artam was speaking in riddles at this point. What was he getting at? Then, like a bolt out of the blue, Artam finally revealed his intentions, and while he knew this guy was smart and pretty mature for his age, he never realised just how intelligent he was until that point in time. Kiano was flabbergasted. The guy’s absurd yet brilliant statement caught him off guard. But it wouldn’t be easy.
“We defeat the Queen and bring her head to the council.”
“You’re really… You think we stand a chance?”
Artam nodded. “If you’re the dragon, then absolutely.”
“But what if the mages turn against you and your plan backfires? What about your promise to your mum?”
Artam didn’t wait too long to answer: “Then I’ll just keep the other part of my promise and claim the wizards’ heads until the entire guild is no more and Belzcakir, along with the entire Kingdom of Gartâr, falls.”
“And if I’m not what you think I am, what then?”
“We’ll cross that bridge when we get there,” Artam said, beaming wide yet with a hint of sombreness. “So, what do you say?”