Julia regards Crosomer grimly at this dour statement that the Conclave is a monstrous, dystopian society, especially since she hasn't heard much about it at all. Even Evan’s brief depiction barely gave her context of how it was run, how law enforcement worked, or all the other functions a typical government provided to its denizens.
Or why she should trust them even less than she trusted Crosomer at the moment. “Elaborate,” she states in a single, semi-commanding tone while crossing her arms.
“The Conclave was established for basic governance for a population spread out globally. In the early days…control was limited to big hubs like cities, and local nation-states. Those on the fringe or in geographical isolation tended to adhere to local laws. With the modern Conclave, the plan was to unite mages under a single banner, in a geopolitical system not unlike the current US metric…I believe you call it a representative republic. Each mage ‘zone’ gets a certain number of representatives, plus a static number. Each zone also gets three upper-chamber ‘senators’ that form the upper hierarchy of the Conclave, serving under the Executive Counselor–my prior seat. Legislation has to pass by simple majorities–but with no defined…uh…factions, there was a lot of collective bargaining. In theory, it should encourage cooperation and aiding minority representation in the legislative process.”
He flips through the pages of the ancient book, showing a gathering of all creatures–a squat human, a very tall, thin human, a woman who looked like she had some otherworldly grace and dragon scales and short wings on her back, and also a fox-like creature, and yet another that looked like a wolven humanoid. They all gathered under the banner of a sigil of the arcane, an open hand with small rings on each finger, each one a different color. “Looks utopia-like, doesn’t it?”
“Every utopia that claims it’s one, is usually the opposite,” Julia replies drolly. “So what happened to the whole ‘united under one banner’ thing?”
“It…fell apart, when I was younger.” That lasting bitter note in his voice does sound genuine. Julia catches herself wondering if there was indeed truth to his words, and not just a revisionist historical depiction he was spinning to entrap them.
“Go on. How do you fall into the mix?” she asks quietly.
“During my time in my prior occupation–a company of heroes for hire, I acquired a number of the prerequisite skills,” he sighs and brings a gloved hand to his face. “I was young and naive enough, early on, to think the Conclave had governorship under wraps. To make a long story short, I was invited to take a role as the chancellor, after years of working logistics and research within my previous organization. I had the skills, they needed a winner to lead the mage world, a face that people would recognize."
"I ended up running it for about five years. 1293 to 1298 AD. I put together some good ideas. I wanted to bring magic to the mainstream. For the betterment of all Kin. I thought I could channel this philosophy through enough members of the Conclave, and…it just fell spectacularly short in the face of wanton corruption, and a contemptuous new world order that saw humans as the only beings of consequence.”
“And let me guess. You decided that you had to burn the establishment to the ground. Because that’s how this story usually ends.” Julia would normally tell Angela to hang back. But this might be the only time they’d hear this side of the story from Crosomer. The extreme level of secrecy the Conclave enacted to keep the world unaware of their existence, and every other magical organism, spoke great lengths to what level of control that required. And it's an unhealthy amount.
“First, you can tell what the Conclave is, versus what it isn’t. What I do know is that it is the current, official government of the mages and other magical creatures of the world. And that you were the loser in a five-year civil war, based on Ergath’s book. We aren’t naive, just uninformed. You’re already on thin ice by my count, first by your lackey’s lack of hospitality and combat performance, second by this ‘Val’ we keep hearing about. She sounds like a walking nightmare of a woman who kills people for fun.” Julia glares at Crosomer, and he lets out a bit of a sigh before turning to her and leaving the book open.
“The Conclave was established in the aftermath of the Schism Wars–the draconic civil war four thousand years ago, and after the Outsiders were burnt, beaten back, and otherwise un-made when the last astral gate was dismantled. Dragons naturally kept a lot of the seats, as did the rest of the Kin, but humans had a huge power shift. They picked up several representative seats. The goal was to safeguard the planet against rogue mages and otherworldly forces that the non-magical humans of the world would have no chance against, and keep to the shadows of history.
“Well, that grand old experiment lasted just long enough to start falling apart when I was young. I did a lot of odd jobs for an old friend of mine back then–a true hero of the mage world. And the woman he fought side-by-side with, later. She was a living legend, and a champion of all that is good in this world. Then there was the alchemist, her husband, and the gallant dragon knight. So when the time came to lead the Conclave, I thought I was doing right by them. I wasn’t.” Julia picked up the change in tone the second he mentioned the first two people.
“So what went wrong?” Julia presses on.
“I noticed they kept favoring humans. Kin were being pushed to the margins. I had veto power, so I used it as a rubber stamp, and tried to work behind the scenes to get more sympathetic members to see my point of view. That stamp got used a lot as time went on, and the more I paid attention to what the legislation was intended to do.” Crosomer flips to another page, and traces a finger down a lengthy list. She sees the illustrations.
One word comes to mind:
Control.
“Pacification of tribal wargens to control the Type one plague. Mind shrouds for the Kitsune. Minimum height requirements for several labor-intensive jobs that would have, of course, excluded most dwarven. Oh, and a bonus, dragons had to tithe ten percent of their wealth every year to the coffers of the conclave for a three thousand-year reparation. Every year, on April 15th. The US government squealed in delight when they designated that as tax day,” he adds with vitriol.
He traces his fingers down the smooth lines of handwritten text. “Dragons lost more and more seats on the Conclave over several hundred years. Pushed out by humans. And they weren’t the only ones to lose seats. By the time I entered the fold, humans had a slim majority. I could see which way the tide was turning. So I started pulling every favor I could to enact protective acts for all Kin. It took every favor, every ounce of goodwill I had to pull it off.”
“And this encompassed what, exactly?” Drenar asks. He kept wincing and holding his head–was Alex trying to say something to him internally, and he was keeping it under wraps? Crosomer looked incensed by this.
“Protections for kin. A code of conduct for mages. Rules and regulations on how magic would be integrated with society, and systems of control to prevent any one person or faction from abusing the system to their benefit. I wasn’t exactly popular, but I convinced a lot of people with enough good things that I had a marginal majority.”
“On the eve of the vote, there was a plot against me. I was betrayed, set up with sham charges of running sadistic experiments that resulted in many deaths, and condemned to a mockery of trial, because I dared to move against the real power players of the Conclave, the shadow hands that truly control the mage world’s government. Shame. I knew most of them after patient digging. But I missed just one. I placed trust in the one place I should not have placed it, and it was my downfall. After the fallout, I had to flee. I turned to my former comrades in arms but…even though a few of them believed me, they could do nothing but watch the wheel turn.”
Julia can hear the bitterness in his voice. “I vowed after what the Conclave did to me, that no one else would suffer at their hands. I made a deal with a devil. A mercenary army that I had a small part in building. The Onyx Talons. The Conclave was a governorship suited to handling dissidents with shows of force, but they were under-equipped for a mass rebellion. Fear was supposed to keep the populace in check. But they failed to account for me.”
“The War of the Magi, right? Ergath mentioned it, but it didn't cover the whole war. Just little bits. You almost had it, and then...some battle in the Mythal Vale, where you took a loss you never recovered from." Crosomer nodded softly. “Why did you risk everything for this?”
“Because I believed in the cause, inspired by my friends from years past. All that effort…and I still lost. And it cost me everyone I ever loved or cared about.” Julia feels the emotion is real.
“Well, I had to stew on that for about seven hundred years. They threw me in that Isolation sphere, and buried it. The only thing they left me with was a book that had unlimited pages to chronicle to the end of times, and an ink fountain that would never run dry. It got mighty boring after the first twenty years.” Crosomer shows the look of someone uncomfortable about this admission.
“So, it just…let you continue to exist?”
“It's a form of stasis. Except I was awake, and aware, unable to die from lack of water, food, or air. I just…existed. I never dared to try to…seek an escape by other means. I’d been told that there were…deterrents against that.” Even Drenar winces at the implication. “I ran out of escape plans that had a chance to work. Storytelling worked for a while. Then it was back to planning for my possible return. I figured there might a slight chance someone could dig me up. Maybe."
“How are you not insane from that?” Angela states unrestrainedly. Crosomer lets out an indignant huff before he flips through the pages–to a section of detailed, sketched artwork. Well drawn, even. Landscapes of giant crystalline trees with branches that gleamed with light in the middle of an untouched forest brimming with motes of life, hints of strange creatures observing in the grass. The ink had also changed color to capture the image like a photograph. Julia almost touches that serene image to check if it’s real or not.
"I found sanctuary in another escape--chronicling my life."
There’s more of it. Mountains peaking above fog-touched forests. Fey creatures holding orbs of light, dancing through sprawling meadows under a starry night. Strange, shark-like creatures that swim through the sand like fish would through water. Kin of all kinds, in cities, sitting at taverns, some quiet slices of life, some showing raucous celebration. Crosomer even shows a little melancholy, looking at the book, his gaze softened at the echoes of the past, preserved by his skilled penmanship.
“You…do have quite a talent for it.” It's the quietest admission she's heard from Angela in a long time. The last time she'd heard her talk in that velvety soft tone…was her explaining her scars from her surgery to save her heart when she was five years old.
Up until about a year ago, Julia had never asked why. And she didn't know why she hadn't asked for so long. The impact of her statement isn't lost on Julia, even as Crosomer nods almost imperceptibly.
“Artwork and meditation became my escape for a long time, Angela. Lessons I carelessly piled away when I was younger got another lease on life, and I wrote about my entire life's experience. Every formula, every event, all my historical recollections, all my inferences and theories, every wondrous place I visited with my friends. I figured, if I had eternity…if anyone ever found me in that obsidian coffin, when the power went out, they'd have something positive to contribute to the history of the arcane. My last academic journal.”
His voice is infused with a somber tone, driven by the gulf of so many lifetimes between then, and now. “I did forget some things. Some I couldn't reconstruct, no matter how hard I tried. But if anything survives me, it will be this. Nigel–one of my researchers, volunteered to preserve it digitally. A task he worked tirelessly, and without hesitation. I only wish my research from years past could have been put to good use for the pain I inflicted on the world.”
This man is completely broken. Seven hundred years with no one but himself, and a lifetime of memories. People start to break after weeks in isolation, how he endured this, is…unfathomable. It's shocking when she admits to herself that no one deserves that kind of fate.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
Drenar interrupts that with a tsk sound. “A little late to reminisce, isn't it? Your actions led to dragonkind making a series of decisions that resulted in their near-extinction. You're the man who broke the world.” Julia winces because Drenar has stayed focused and on task. There's a duality to Crosomer that she's not sure how to feel about. But there is no mistake:
Crosomer is still dangerous. And he's doing dangerous things for what he perceives as the right reasons. “You know, I still don't quite get that. How did the dragons pull that feat off? There was a mention of Volkir Menrayas, some kind of dragon sage, but wiping out over a million dragons in a couple of days? It boggles the mind.”
"I think that’s giving me too much credit for other creaky, barely stable geopolitical structures,” Crosomer counters. “The same device I’m using, that you referred to? It started the ball rolling on the death of the dragons. A fact that is known by almost no one. And they used it without understanding it. So when the ‘research’ I’d been working on was pulled, it was easy to blame me–because it wasn’t inaccurate. Only incomplete.”
He flips to a page, and Julia is shocked. It was the same device that they’d seen in the cavern below. The one with the strange slates of interlocking runes.
“I found this with some of my comrades on a chance encounter, during our adventuring days. Me and my mentor tried to translate it, but we came up short at the time. We knew it didn’t fit into draconic origins. It was far older. We theorized it was created by our Forefathers, the Kinsgard, and left this on the planet. Not the outsiders, mind you, something completely different.”
“So, what is it?” Drenar asks.
“It's an engine of souls. A regulator of magic. Or, perhaps a catalyst–the language I’ve partially worked out doesn’t translate literally. What it does is virtually anything. If properly coded and worded. When improperly used, you get the Ascension events, and a couple million dragons vaporized in a poor attempt to get off-world to a new planet to call home. Yeah, that was pretty bad,” he grimaces. “Volkir really screwed up, and he should have known better. Or if he did and gave his warnings as I would, the Conclave went and gave that poisoned research right to the dragons, and let them initiate their extinction.”
Did he just imply the Conclave wanted that to happen? It's a seriously disturbing thought to Julia.
“Well, at least there was one silver lining. There’s been a trickle of dragons coming back, the drakensouls. Maybe if enough of them come back, they can bring some enlightened wisdom back to the masses. The Conclave can’t be that terrible, can it?” Drenar sounds just a little naive when he says that.
Crosomer laughs convulsively at this for a few seconds. Drenar looks warily at Crosomer, as does Julia. “Nah. Sorry kid. You’re too optimistic if you think the Conclave is going to change with the power of hope and friendship. But, you’re partially right, the drakensouls can play a role. I just can’t wait for several thousand years for them to trickle back. I’m bringing them back all at once.”
“And you think that if you take the broken window you shattered, put all the glass pieces in a box, and hand it back and say ‘sorry’, it'll be like it didn’t happen?” Drenar accuses. “And you call me naive.”
“No, that’s just step one. Step two is to get them trained, and get them angry that the Conclave shattered their existence for the better part of a millennium. Step three is to use the containment breach of Veil to incite an overreaction of the Conclave and force them to reveal their ugly iron fist of control. Step four is–”
“Mysterious?”
“Profit?”
“Pretend to be the savior?”
The barrage from Julia, Drenar, and Angela isn’t what he expected, and he scowls at all of them in turn. “Treat this more seriously, please. I’m making a pitch for the future of the mage world, and you’re all treating it like it’s a joke, and not my life’s work!”
“Nah, my turn to call bullcrap. So far, your little field exercise has involved your men threatening to kill me, and my friends, beating my brother bloody, recruiting child soldiers, and experimenting on us like we’re guinea pigs! Our Awakening didn’t happen by chance, did it?” Drenar states accusingly. He was not looking too good either, because Julia could see a tremor in his arm. “Oh, and let’s not forget your minions! Who is Val, by the way? It sounds like she’s got a homicide list a mile long, based on what I’ve heard so far, and you want to keep associating with that element? Why?!”
“I wouldn’t be walking and breathing without her, Rashalda.” His response is as quiet as it is telling. “I’d still be in that sphere, slowly going mad. The world would still be falling apart at the seams. Despite what you may think of her, our end goals are the same. The world has to change, or it's not going to be a happy ending for anyone.”
“Yeah. I really hope your plan involves a lot less bodies hitting the ground,” Drenar states acidly. “Let’s lead off with that, by the way. Because it’s feeling like I might keel over and die right about now.” She could see him holding his chest with one claw. “You didn’t just start awakening kids with drakensouls, you also prematurely triggered Awakenings in half-dragons too. Did you know that?”
“Speaking of which, can you ditch the hood and the gloves? We know you aren't human. So, what are you?” Angela interjects.
“Hey, this is fashionable!" He protests halfheartedly. "Also, no. There are some pragmatic reasons for this. Like the rainstorm," he adds dryly. His body posture indicated otherwise. Julia crosses her arms and cracks a few joints in her neck for emphasis. “Okay. Let’s cut another long story short. Initial experimentation on the artifact was…how does one put this, ill-advised and without proper safety rails in place.”
“Sounds like a bad case of hubris,” Drenar is taking his turn to throw some shade. Crosomer simply grunted and took off the gloves. She’s not exactly surprised to see dark black scales with mottled blue and green scales mixed in on his claws, though the hand is more human than dragon. Muscles rippled beneath the scales. Crosomer slowly lifted the hood off his head.
Julia had seen the illustrations of various dragon species, but here--there was a blend of draconic and a human face. His scales formed a mostly complete formation of onyx-colored scales, with a slight crest of thicker scales coming from his forehead, and a head of feathers that was closely cropped to suggest they’d been trimmed to a style. He has a set of teeth that jutted ever so slightly below the upper portion of his snout. His eyes are distinctly draconic, with a pupil shaped like a cat’s, a vertical slit, and the iris is citrus in color–it isn’t a bad look, but certainly not human.
"Alright, it’s not terrible. This...isn't as bad as you made it out to be, really," Drenar replies in a somewhat sincere response. “So you’re…halfway between human and dragon?”
"Let's just say I activated a rune on it that did not have the intended effect. The translation I had thought was accurate, was merely incomplete," Crosomer offers. "I am grateful that my mistake wasn't fatal."
“Did it do anything else?” Julia asks calmly. He nodded.
“A few peculiarities. But I’ll save that for later.” His gaze wandered back to the limitless notebook, and he brought up a few sketches, near the seeming end of what had to be hundreds, maybe thousands of pages. Each time he flipped to a new page, it seemingly ‘melted’ back to the opposite side, like it was a book on some kind of invisible loop. It was almost mesmerizing. “It’s no accident that you are what you are, Rashalda. But then, given your obliviousness, there’s much you don’t know. Yet.”
“Well, enlighten me, Professor Draconius,” he replies sarcastically. His claws had grown slightly longer, and she could hear the discomfort in his voice. Crosomer remains indifferent. “I’ll bet you also know a lot about Julia and Angela too. And the rest of the people at the school. I’ve got a short list of people I think have Awakened, and I think it’s still a gross under-report.”
“Do you know who your ancestors were?” Crosomer asked quietly.
“No. Any chance I have at answering that question is in a silent plot over on Kings’ Ending,” he says somberly. Crosomer nods quietly.
He got the hint.
“My condolences on their untimely passing. The little I was able to infer, you lived a normal life before the tragedy that struck.” Julia is picking her brain, how does he know so much? Private investigators, public records searches, published news articles, other witnesses, or people in Drenar’s life? “It’s hard to make a comparison, but you do look a little like Alexander Rashalda. The hero of the war. My friend.”
Welp. This just went south even further than I had us figured for, Julia thinks with a grimace. Angela looks wide-eyed at this reveal, and Drenar doesn’t even know how to react. “What did…what did Alex look like, exactly?”
It’s a surprising question from him, after being firmly against Crosomer’s charismatic tongue.
There's a grimace of regret for even having mentioned it. But Crosomer thumbs through what feels like a sea of those crisp, yet weathered pages of the endless tome he'd filled up for centuries. He stops at a simple sketch of several people. All clad in armor and adventuring gear. The one in the middle has dark hair like Drenar, crisp blue eyes, and a smirk as he holds some bauble just out of reach of a mage in a cowl, a shorter man with brown eyes, and a silent scowl of being denied the item. He's tall and athletic, and his posture suggests relaxation and playfulness. He's almost as tall as the woman in a wingtip helmet to his right, clad in brass and silver armor that carries just a tinge of green, and yellowed runes that adorn the gauntlets and greaves. She peers closer.
That can't be his mother. Julia narrows her eyes, the facial features are too emotive, the nose more rounded, and less angular, and her eyes too wide. But she does have the same verdant eyes as Drenar's mom. Drenar seems to inhale a little sharply, taking in the image with wonder.
“Who were they?” He asks quietly.
“I'm the man being heckled by Alex. He was my brother by bond, not by blood. Next to us is Valen, he was the dragon knight. Never met a Valencian red so disciplined and level-headed.” Drenar gasps in shock slightly. Angela does too. Julia peers at that stoic figure with shoulder-length light brown hair, finely chiseled face, and skin showing slight weathering. He's standing with arms crossed behind Alex and the woman in armor. He carries the air of a seasoned veteran and he looks awfully familiar.
“Is that…nah, can't be.” Drenar looks like he's seen a ghost just about. “Laresten?” It’s the first time that Julia is shocked. His fencing instructor for five years? Didn’t he die last year? She peers closer, she’d only seen him a couple of times–was that really him, or just a cosmic coincidence?
“No, that’s Valen. He trained all of us.” Crosomer keeps going through the other figures as if he’s not bothered by this. “The shorter, fiery redhead is Hanna–our mage and alchemical genius. She always had pretty eyes. And tried to set Alex on fire an unprecedented number of times,” he adds in a laugh as if it were a bit of nostalgia when Julia peered at the woman with bright red hair and purple eyes, with an infectious grin and utter delight as she gazes at the person to her right, one arm wrapped around the man with ash blond hair and a calm smile. He was a bearlike and powerful man who stood just a bit taller than her, with a close-cropped mustache and puppy brown eyes.
“That man next to her is Gerard, her husband–beast of man on the battlefield, and quiet and gentle when back at home. What you see here…before it all went to hell…are the Luminaires. Including myself. We were the original team.”
From hero to villain. Julia can’t help but hold a little contempt.
“You missed one,” Angela corrects. She points to the woman next to Alex, and Drenar looks like he’s still hung up on her, too–the family resemblance does look a little uncanny. “Who was she?”
It’s telling when Crosomer doesn’t respond for nearly three seconds, and his fingers linger on the page for too long, tracing the lines of her hair. She can see him wince--this memory is still too painful, even after seven centuries. “The woman who saved the world.” Crosomer gently closes the book after his almost whisper-quiet response, and no one dares to reopen it. The pain in his face is far too real. “Someone better than the rest of us combined. The world didn’t deserve someone that awe-inspiring. And now they’re all gone.”
He neglects to note that isn’t entirely true. But, Julia reasons, he might as well be gone too, in his mind.
Julia doesn’t have long to ponder the thought when Drenar shudders, and grabs his chest again. “Oh, you're having some difficulty, kid?” Crosomer asks in a decidedly mocking tone.
“Well, I’ve been better, all things considered,” He manages to get out. He’s panting as if he’s still trying to fight it, but the fact that the feathery mane is now extending down his back, is telling of how little control he has.
Cripes, even his feather mane is as messy as his normal hair, what’s up with that? I’m gonna buy this kid a comb, I swear! How do you even style feathers, anyway?
That intrusive thought is interrupted by him shuddering and his face contorts in pain. “Yeah you know what, let’s continue this discussion later, I think I’m about to have a bad time.”
Julia realizes that they’re out of time.
He’s Awakening now.