19

It was a darkness so complete that Miraveh could not see her hand before her face. The pain in her shoulder from the harpy's claws remained, proving, at least, that she was not dead. She could feel nothing else. Her hand reached out, tentative and halting, but she could not find a wall. She was wrong. She could feel something. Two things.

Her body felt warm, as though in the presence of a fire stacked high and blazing, but she could see no flames. The other feeling was far more intense. Her sense of magic had become overwhelmed. Almost to the point of pain. It clouded her mind with a sense of flame and the power of the Sun itself. Beyond that, beyond the magical energy that pressed upon her, she could feel no other magic. Not that of Sialira, nor of the harpies that had surrounded them.

"The Seeker awakens. At last." A voice that sounded like a hiss amplified by rolling thunder assaulted her ears. So deep and loud, it reverberated within her chest. "Do not fear. You are safe."

The dragon. She could think of nothing and no-one else it could be. The sense of the creature surrounded her, weighed upon her and penetrated into her very soul. She remembered Sialira's words, that dragon's held an aura, an air about them that instilled great fear in those without magic and she could very well believe it. She feared and, were anyone here to see it, she would not hide how afraid she felt.

"You ... you're the dragon." She tried to step back, but it felt as though the darkness had a body of its own, shifting with her. "You conquered Jukunashar. Why am I here?"

"I was old before the bones of the world were forged." The rumbling, hissing voice of the dragon surrounded her. "When the soil and the mountains and the seas and the rivers were created, I chose my perch and retained it for millennia. I saw the rise and fall of civilisations and grew weary. When the Slumber came, I diminished from this world gladly, but when I awoke, I took back my perch. It is mine. It has always been mine and always shall be."

Turning in a circle, Miraveh tried to find even the tiniest sliver of light. Anything that could indicate where she was. She considered that the darkness was some kind of spell, cast by the dragon, and attempted to choke the creature's magic. If only for a second.

It felt as though something struck her, not with anything physical, but magical. Like a hand swatting away a fly. It shook her mind and she felt her stomach roil as she tried to keep her feet. The dragon had responded to her attempt at suppressing its magic with a warning. She did not doubt that if she tried it again, the punishment would prove far more severe.

"What do you want of me? Where are my allies ... my friends?" The darkness did nothing to help her recover from the dragon's magical berating. Her balance felt off, as though she could not tell which way was up. "We were passing you by. We had no intention of encroaching upon your territory."

"And almost died for your efforts despite your well-founded caution." Something did shift, then. The darkness, the sense of the dragon's magic. As though the dragon tried to adjust itself. "I sensed your potential as soon as I awoke. Yours and several others. It would appear this age has birthed more than a few with great potential. I observed your progress with interest. Tell me, why do you not embrace your magic?"

"Because I don't want to. I need no other reason than that." Miraveh began to feel more than a little annoyed. If the dragon intended eating her, she wished it would do so and put aside this interrogation. "Just because someone has the potential to be a great smith, does not mean they must take up a hammer."

Silence fell upon her and it felt as though the dragon had lost interest in her. In the pause in the conversation, she attempted to sense the presence of Sialira, or anyone, anything else that held magic within them, but the sheer power of the dragon drowned out every other magical presence. She could feel nothing and no-one else beyond the massive magical strength of the dragon.

Except for one thing. She had almost forgotten it with the attack of the harpies. The necklace that she had found. It sat within the inside pocket of her leather outer-armour, wrapped in her dirty kerchief, and she could feel it, barely, pulsing in tune with her own magic. The sense of ancient times, brittle and dusty, emanated from the necklace and her hand moved towards it.

"I would not attempt to use the trinket, were I you." The dragon almost sounded amused as it, somehow, anticipated her thoughts. "To use a relic such as that, you would need training, or suffer the most dire of consequences. Oh, but once you could use its power in conjunction with your own. Why, you could break the world in two."

Miraveh's hand dropped, clasping the other behind her back like a child caught taking food from the pantry. Pain from her shoulder sparked up and down her arm, reminding her of her injury and showing how foolish the gesture was. The darkness was total. She doubted even the dragon, wherever it was, could see anything in this blanket of pure black. At least, she hoped as much.

Then, she saw a light. Two lights. They flared up in the darkness and Miraveh tried, once again, to step back until she realised what she saw. Eyes. Two enormous golden eyes with thin, black, cat-like pupil. The eyes stared at Miraveh and she tried to imagine how great a creature must be to have eyes so large. She needn't have tried.

A rippling sound came to her and the darkness fell away, replaced by blinding sunlight. She shielded her eyes but she knew it would be several moments before she could see again. The dragon had covered her with something, only revealing what lay beyond that blanket at its whim. Blinking several times, she frowned as she tried to adjust to the light and, once her eyes began to settle from the assault of the sunlight, she saw the dragon in all its glory.

Wings outstretched, long neck held aloft, high above her, she could tell that she had underestimated its size by a great margin. The dragon was immense, its wings shadowing great swathes of the city that had now come into Miraveh's sight. Jukunashar. And the dragon sat upon the remains of the city-state's castle. Now nothing more than rubble beneath the dragon's belly.

Fearing she could never take her eyes from the towering, terrifying, but beautiful creature, Miraveh looked around at the city below her. And saw people. Hundreds, thousands of people. From what she had heard, the rumours and the gossip, she had thought the entire population had become nothing but food for the dragon, but she could see them, going about their days as though an enormous dragon were not gazing down upon them from above.

"But ... I thought ..." Confusion filled her mind, almost pushing aside the sense of the dragon's power. She had thought dragons were destroyers, foul creatures that were the enemies of all humankind. "Do you have them under a spell?"

"Why would I?" The dragon folded its wings along its body and then lay down upon the remains of the castle. "I have my perch. That is all I cared about. What you humans and elves, goblins and demon-children do is of no concern of mine."

"Then, why am I here? The harpies were about to kill me." She looked again, down towards the city. "And where are my companions? Am I the only one to survive?"

The dragon snorted, laying its long neck along the ground until it rested around twenty feet from where Miraveh stood. She could feel the hot breath expelled through the dragon's nostrils as it appeared the dragon studied her. If the dragon did not care about humans, then were it not the dragon that saved her? If it didn't, who had? Once again, with no answers forthcoming, Miraveh began to feel anger rise within her. No matter who held back the information she needed, she despised it when she couldn't get the answers she wanted.

"You have piqued my interest. That is why you are here. I saved you from the harpies because I wish to observe what becomes of you, for good or ill." The dragon's tail whipped out and it took a while before Miraveh realised the dragon was pointing with it. "I know how you humans can be about your pets. They survive, also. Somewhere down there. Go to them, if you must, but we will speak again."

Miraveh shuffled her feet, looking around her as the dragon folded its neck and head around its body. She felt certain that the dragon had dismissed her, even though, only seconds before, she had felt as though she almost commanded its interest. It came as a surprise that the great, ancient creature could act in such a fickle manner.

With nothing else to do, she began to search for a way down from the remains of the castle to the city below. All the while, she continued to glance back towards the dragon who, even now, she could still see rising above the rock face upon where the castle of Jukunashar had once sat. Two things continued to turn in her mind, however. Before the dragon had lost interest in her.

The thought that the necklace inside her leather armour could give her enough power to break the world, and the idea that the dragon wanted to observe her actions for good or ill. Truth of the gods, she didn't know whether she was all that good and, if she wasn't good, what was she?

-+-

The city of Jukunashar stood in stark contrast to the filth and deprivation she had witnessed in Kubsa Falls. As she wandered through the streets, she didn't see the squalor she had expected, nor the fear of the dragon that Sialira had told her about. There were fewer people than would normally inhabit a city of this size, no doubt due to the exodus upon the arrival of the dragon, but they looked well and as happy as city dwellers were want to be.

Every so often, however, she spied a burned out building, or scorch marks upon the ground. These, she surmised, were almost certainly the work of the dragon, staking its claim upon the surroundings of its perch. Even here, as she looked back and up to where the city's castle once stood, she could still see the massive form of the dragon and wondered how she would have reacted upon seeing a myth come to life before her eyes.

Then again, she would have had to have seen it with eyes that had not witnessed a god attempting to force themselves upon the world. After seeing something like that, everything else had a veil of mundanity upon it that could cloud any sense of awe and wonder. Even before that, she had witnessed things she doubted she could explain to others in simple terms.

Here she was, walking through a city with a dragon nesting above. The world had changed. The people acted as though nothing was wrong, going about their business without even second glances towards the dragon's perch. It all seemed so normal and undisturbed. She listened, too, to the conversations of the people that she passed. Eavesdropping upon daily lives.

Few mentioned the dragon and, if they did, only to muse about whether it intended staying forever. No fear. No wonder. The presence of the creature only another part of their routine. She heard other things, too. Snippets of conversations that gave her an idea of where she could look for her companions and, after asking a number of people, she soon found herself directed towards something that had an all-too familiar feel.

It looked almost exactly like the tower of the Coven of Scales. Tall, cylindrical, with a top-most platform where Witches could observe all around them. The Coven House filled a large area of the city, with a wall of its own that rivalled that of the city itself. Again, she saw scorch marks upon the surface of that wall. Portions of it looked freshly repaired, where the large stones had become smashed.

As she circled around towards the main gates of the Coven House, she saw more evidence that the Witches had come under attack, but, as she made closer observations, she began to wonder whether the dragon had caused this damage at all. At one point, she passed a burned and broken siege engine, workers taking it apart and putting the pieces into a number of horse-drawn carts.

Upon reaching the main gates, she found that they, too, were burned and damaged, but that was not the most strange thing she saw. Guards stood at either side of the open gates. Burly men and women, heavily armed and armoured. They had a look of experienced warriors about them and Miraveh's hand fell to where her sword hilt should have sat, only realising now that she no longer had her sword at her waist.

"State your business." One guard stepped forward, plated armour covered with scratches and dints. She looked down her nose at Miraveh as two other guards came to stand behind her. "The Coven is not accepting pleas this day."

"I am Miraveh Arachild, of Donsa village in Alsurna region." At mention of her name, Miraveh saw the two other guards exchange glances. "I believe my companions may be here. Sialira, Witch of the Coven of Scales, and Daras a ... gambler."

The female guard tilted her head and waved a hand behind her, sending one of the other guards scurrying through the gates at some speed, his armour clanking as he ran. Another guard took up his position at the flank of the woman, even as she continued to glare at Miraveh. Even had she her sword, Miraveh would think twice about engaging the woman in battle.

Again, the woman looked Miraveh up and down and, despite Alran teaching her to never break eye contact, her eyes flickered down. She could understand why the guard looked at her with distaste. Dried harpy blood, and her own, covered her leather outer-armour. She lifted a hand to her face and felt the dirt and dry blood upon it. Her hair felt lank and lifeless and, as she pulled a strand before her nose, stank. She couldn't blame the guard's look of distaste at all.

"You should have said you were an ally of Yusuvur of the Green Fields." A tall woman had appeared. Beautiful, auburn haired, dark of skin and graceful. She held her hands clasped at the waist of her floor-length dress as she, too, looked Miraveh up and down. "Her name holds prestige throughout the world, while yours causes more than a little conversation. Come."

Without waiting to see whether Miraveh followed, the woman turned and appeared to glide away, back into the Coven House grounds. A Witch, Miraveh mused. Forgetting the sense of magic around her, they all had that arrogance about them. That certainty of their superiority to everyone, expecting the little people to follow without dissent. The female guard smirked at Miraveh and jerked her head, urging Miraveh to enter the gates.

The gates to the tower of the Coven of Scales had never any need to have guards. In fact, Miraveh couldn't remember any of the Coven Houses she had visited having guards or warriors of any kind. Either the Witches of this Coven had a different way of doing things than those in the north and west, or something had prompted this use of armed protectors. As Miraveh saw the signs of months-old destruction, she could see why.

"You haven't said whether my companions are here." Miraveh did not run, but her strides soon brought her to the side of the Witch, who didn't even turn her head to acknowledge her. "Sialira of the Coven of Scales and Daras, a gambler. If they aren't, I shall look elsewhere and not waste your time or mine."

"Your tutor and the thief are here. Yes, we know he is a thief. For one of his profession, he appears more than happy to tell anyone that will listen." That little piece of information confirmed that the Witch spoke the truth. Only someone who had met Daras could sound both confused and amused by the man. "You, however, are seeing no-one until you make yourself presentable. You stink of death."

"Yes, I expect you've seen and smelled enough of that." As they moved through the outbuildings of the Coven House grounds, they had reached a courtyard, where Miraveh could see signs of a number of funeral pyres. "The return of magic has brought more than a few problems. It must have been terrifying. When the dragon came. Your fellow Witches must have put up a great fight against it."

"The dragon?" The Witch stopped, the loose, long curls of her auburn hair bouncing against her back. She narrowed her eyes towards Miraveh, as though surprised she would think that. "The dragon did not kill our brothers and sisters. It was the Hunters O' The Dark. Here, this is where our stablehands bathe. We will send for you soon."

With a curt wave of the hand, the Witch pointed towards a small hut to the side and then spun on her heel, beginning to walk away without another word. Miraveh would never get used to the way Witches treated everyone as lesser than themselves. They always had, even before magic had returned. They spoke and expected others to do as they were told without question.

Before Miraveh could even start to say another word, the Witch had gone, disappeared around a corner without a by-your-leave. Miraveh hadn't even learned the woman's name, though she doubted she would stay long enough for a need to use it, anyway. As soon as she could, Miraveh wanted to leave and continue her journey.

Inside the hut, she found and empty wooden tub, with a metal water pump poking over the rim, and little else within the space other than a rickety wooden chair. She found a cork atop the pump and plugged the hole in the bottom of the tub before she began to move the lever, soon sending water cascading into the tub. Clean, pure water, much like that where the harpies had attacked.

A flash of that battle crossed her mind. Of the Hunter O' The Dark falling from the sky, begging for aid. She had fought the harpy, not for him, but for Sialira and Daras. Even now, the thought of that dying Hunter made only a bare impression upon her recollections. He probably deserved every bit of pain the harpies had wrought upon him. For certain, he was most likely filling the bellies of the surviving harpies even now and good riddance to him

The only thing that made her think of him was that she had sensed the magic about him. She hadn't thought much of it at the time. What with the presence of the dragon, of Sialira and the harpies, Miraveh's ability to sense magic had come close to becoming overwhelmed. Yet, she remembered now. The Hunter, the Karline, did not have anywhere near the power that his compatriot had. The one where she had first learned how to suppress her own magic.

As she undressed, dropping her clothing and armour upon the battered chair, the necklace fell to the floor, the kerchief falling away. Miraveh crouched down, ready to pick it up, but she stopped. She had stopped before, too, and Sialira had refused to touch it. The words of the dragon returned to her and she almost touched the necklace in spite of the dragon's warning. With a shake of the head, she used the kerchief to pick up the necklace and put it to the side.

She did not want her magic at all, let alone power enough to break the world.