《The Aeon of Dragons》
Rotten Apples
From a tiny flash in the sky, you can see the light of a million worlds.
It was autumn in the land of Hilaboreas. The air had a thick, cool feeling to it, and the sun danced in orange and purple robes as it set into the dusk. Shards of jade and gold flickered across the clouds.
When a storm would approach in this season, the crows and sparrows from the forests sought refuge in the shadow of the castle where the Tyrant Rayos ruled. At least in his domain, there was safety from the twisted, black hearts of the Morlogians. Those orcs, trolls, goblins, and other fiends.
The name of this kingdom dated back to the Fifth Aeon, when it was first called hila, "northern", boreas, "forests", because of how this patch of fertile land hugged the border of the elven forests at the top of Lokar, the known world. Its more ancient name was Lengshu, the land of cold trees, in the language of the Third Aeon. It had several other forgotten names before that, lost to the lips of humans.
Hilaboreas was a petty kingdom, ruled with an iron fist by the Tyrant Rayos, who ascended by slaying a dragon in the nameless wastelands to the northwest. When a human slayed a dragon, it was natural in this Seventh Aeon for him to become a Tyrant, or one who ruled by force. He was getting old now, however, and every human knew their destiny was to return to the ground as dust. This did not stop him from scheming for more power, an insatiable urge. Along with the banquets and music from his court came hushed whispers of a deep dungeon for anybody who crossed him.
There weren''t more than a couple thousand humans who lived in this small kingdom. It was a dangerous and precarious place to be, after all. It was a land situated in a buffer zone between the elven forests and their emerald kingdom Ilfaros, which stretched as far north as any human could fathom, and the ancient human stronghold Paigang to the southeast.
It was an independent kingdom, free from any orc or elf or goblin, free because the Tyrant Rayos ruled with a strong fist, but not just by that alone. When he slayed that dragon he stole its heart to put in a cauldron. That was his hidden power, to have a steady flow of the dragon''s sticky purple blood, straight from its eternal beating heart. What human could ask for anything more?
The humans who tilled this land, who had been here for Aeons, rallied around this strong hero, this dragon slayer. Some for a taste of that purple, what they called the porfuro, which gave humans magic, a sixth sense, but at a massive cost. Too much and it wasted you away, broke your connection to the sacred law of humans, the Bionomnos. Too much and it cursed your bloodlines forever.
Others only wanted protection from the other species that surrounded the kingdom, and others still were there to serve, regardless of the benefits they would receive. These peasants built the Tyrant''s castle with their own hands, busting stone, digging canals, sowing seeds to feed the gentry elite who were chosen among their lot. If they were lucky, they got a seat in the Tyrant''s court, protected by the granite walls. If not, they remained on the outside, left to toil on their ancestral plots, shielded only by the shadow of that castle.
And it was under this long shadow where Jason lived in a small cobblestone cottage with his mother Clio. His father, a mercenary named Hector, was murdered in an orc raid when he was seven years old.
Those nasty, black-hearted orcs fell upon the human camp deep in the southern wastelands, a place called the Treacher, while Hector and seventy-eight other mercenaries were on an expedition in service of the kingdom.
Tyrant Rayos paid out a small sum of silver to the widows of his mercenaries. Fifteen silver rubla, enough to buy the humble cottage where Clio raised her son Jason, who would grow up without his father. It was just enough for the apple orchard and a garden, too. The harvest paid their daily expenses, but they scraped by, with debts at the end of the year.The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.
Jason was picking a basket of pink apples with his mother when he saw the fiery purple flash in the sky.
"What was that?" Jason asked. "On the horizon there, to the west where the sun sets. That flash, did you see it?"
Clio shook her head. She was knelt tending to the rosemary bush when her son jumped with excitement. "Tell me it''s not this game again," she said. "A sign of the sky people, was it? If only it were true, lad. Your head is in the clouds even when you''re in the garden."
"It was a purple flash," Jason said. "I swear on it. I have to go after it, whatever it is, I have to find it."
"A young man of two minds you are," Clio said. "Your head''s either up there dreaming about the sky people, or down in the ground, digging in dirt to find some secret past, and for what? What about the now, son? What about what we have to do today? Our taxes are due in a month, and we haven''t a silver rubla to spare. The garden will get us through the winter, I hope, but there''s still canning to do."
The sky people were part of a mythical story, passed down through the Aeons, of a small group of humans with "fire orange eyes and hair" who broke away from Lokar on steel ships that could ascend to the heavens. It was the sort of myth that became legend, that became stories, that became rumors and children''s tales.
Jason believed in the sky people. Only because he trusted and loved his father. The last memory he had of his father Hector, before he left on that deadly expedition, was the story he told him at his bedside. He was seven years old when he heard it. "A wandering merchant said they''d come back to Lokar again," Hector told the young Jason by candlelight. "Their eyes are bright like fire. They live up there, by the stars. At night, you can see their cities move. And their ships burn bright when they return."
Jason kept this story close to his heart. Every night he watched the dark sky and saw the moving lights. Most people said that was nature, part of the heavens, impossible for them to be some lost humans up there.
But that didn''t matter to Jason. He believed his father. Now he was nineteen and he wanted to know the truth. He watched the skies closely, and any time he saw something strange light up the sky, he had to go check it out.
"I''ll clean up the weeds and pick the apples when I get back," Jason said. "I promise, mum. Trust that I''ll have the silver when taxes come due, too. You have my word. I''ll be back soon enough."
"Don''t go too far," Clio said, with a loving smile. She knew that she couldn''t stop her boy. There would be a day when she had to let him go, to fly on his own. It''s just that she didn''t want that day to be today. "Take an apple before you go."
Clio stood up and brushed the garden''s soil from her linen. She reached up and picked a low-hanging apple. It glistened with a pink shine. She handed it to her son, crossed her arms, and smiled.
"I won''t be long," Jason said. "Just to the edge of the wood."
With that, Jason hurried out the side gate of the orchard, to the dusty path that curled into the untamed forest. He took a bite of the pink apple and he felt a tickle on his lips. He looked down and the apple was rotted with a hole on its side. A big worm poked its head out of the pink fruit. It didn''t look like a normal worm, though. It was big as a baby snake. Its tongue flickered like a serpent, too.
Jason paused in front of the cottage and looked closer at the apple and this strange worm. The more he looked at it, the more it did look like a baby snake. He remembered a folk tale about biting into the apple and seeing a serpent. It was an omen, a portent they called satanous, which brought forbidden knowledge of the past, present, and future.
The elders said that this knowledge was steeped in misery, death, and despair. For once you unlock a long-held secret, there''s no putting it back.
"That was just a folk tale," Jason mused. But he was nevertheless encouraged. He felt deep down that this flash in the sky would lead to something big. He closed his eyes and vision swelled up in his mind''s eye. Terrible images of goblins, direwolves, orcs, giant bear, and vampires. Green and black dragons. Deserts and swamps that cascaded to the horizon without any end. And a beautiful girl with fiery eyes, who held a dagger pointed up to the stars.
Jason took one more bite of the fresh side of the pink apple, tossed it to the dirt, and set foot into the forest. His adventure was about to begin.
Arrows & Fire
Clio wanted to open her arms and call Jason over for a hug, but before she could, he was already off beyond the garden''s gate.
"I''ll be back soon enough, mum," Jason hollered without turning around. He thought about the flash of light he saw on the horizon just before. It was different than any other he had seen. There was a pinkish-red streak and what looked like a flame that exploded as it sped through the sky.
"Whatever it was, it was big," Jason thought. "Not like any skyrock I''ve seen."
A small part of Jason held out hope that the flash was a sign from the sky people. He thought back to the stories that his father Hector told him, that he picked up in his travels as a mercenary for the Tyrant Rayos, in the pubs of the greater kingdoms in the south and east, where tales of the sky people were passed on by the wanderers. These stories spoke of relics of great metal ships that took humans to the stars, in an Aeon now forgotten, and that the lights that circled the night above Lokar were those same ships of the sky people.
There were even tales of sky people who had come back to visit Lokar throughout the Aeons. These were stories that passed from lip to ear across Lokar. It was said that the sky people had small and frail bodies, big smooth heads, and black empty eyes. They spoke Glossar, like the humans on Lokar, but in a way that made it seem like a strange and lost dialect - and they knew nothing about the Bionomnos, the law that all humans found rest, solace, and wisdom in.
It was a chilly evening, in that liminal season that rested between summer and winter. Dusk had fallen, and the purple-faced skies seemed to blow the brisk winds through the forest. It was the weather that Jason loved when he went on his explorations. It wasn''t too hot, it wasn''t too cold. Summer''s oppressive heat was behind them, and winter''s cold death grip was still a couple months off. This was also why Clio was preoccupied with the garden, because it wouldn''t be too long before the frost and freeze would come.
Jason saw the flash in the northwest, so that''s where he headed off to, through the fields of corn and the patches of pine, evergreen, and birch trees that marked the edge of the wilder forests to the north - where elves, goblins, direwolves, and other creatures roamed.
"If I can find this skyrock, then it could change everything," Jason said to himself. "Mum can get her surgery and relax for the rest of her days. I can make my own way. Have a family, it''s what mum wants, anyway."
A legitimate sky rock could sell for ten rubla to a merchant wandering in from the eastern lands. Who knew what they did with them, but some said that the Draco took particular interest in sky rocks, as did certain trolls. That sort of coin could fill the pantry and pay the taxman with plenty to spare for Clio''s surgery and for Jason to buy a wife.
The flash could''ve been something more, a ship from the sky people, and with that fancy of his imagination, Jason smiled and continued on the path that curled into the woods.
It wasn''t long before the scattered patches of birch trees gave way to thicker lots of evergreen, hemlock, spruce, and pine. They smelled magical, but it was a scent that hid dangers behind them. Jason knew the further he trudged along into this wood, the closer he''d be to creatures and dark races that he''d rather not meet. There was a reason why this forest marked a buffer zone between the wilds of the north, where elves hunted and the Morlogian races haunted.
Eventually, he reached the shores of the Lake of the Dead Hills. This was as far north as humans from the kingdom of Hilaboreas would normally go. There were exceptions, of course, like when the elven council would call for the Tyrant Rayos to meet for diplomatic reasons. This happened every five years or so, and the humans traveled in an entourage with the elves themselves, as a means of protection against the chance of a goblin raid or pack of direwolves.
The lake was serene this evening. Jason picked up a smooth, round rock, and tossed it at the water. It skipped along nine or ten steps before plunging into the lake''s depths. Jason never understood why they called it the Lake of the Dead Hills. It was an old name. Very old, said to have been passed down from the First Aeon.
Jason skipped another couple rocks. Dusk quickly snuffed out the last remains of sunlight, and it rapidly grew darker. He had a choice to make now. Go further into the woods and find whatever fell from the sky. Or turn back. He picked up another smooth rock, that looked like a small discus, the kind that were used in the annual Biolympus Games. He rubbed his thumb up and down the back of the rock, pulled his arm back, and flicked it out onto the lake''s placid surface. It didn''t skip once. It fell as soon as it hit the water.
"Damn rock," Jason said. "Or maybe it was me."
At that moment, a bright red salamander the size of Jason''s palm stepped up onto his leg. This was an ember species, which had a venom that if it touched the skin, would burn and eat the flesh. Humans had no antidote, and not even the elves or orcs were immune. The salamander looked up and blinked at Jason. It took two more slow steps up his leg, paused, and opened its mouth. It stuck its black, glistening tongue out, covered in its dark oils.
Jason stood still as a statue. One wrong move and it could be the end of things. Even a drop of that oily venom could be the end of him if it touched his skin. The salamander''s bright red legs stepped forward again. It was up to Jason''s knee now. This is where he could take his chance. Jason shot his hand down, grabbed hold of the salamander''s tail, and flung him off to the lake. When the salamander hit the water, a bit of steam came up from the surface.Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.
A close call. These woods were filled with these sort of menacing creatures. Jason looked around to make sure there weren''t any others, and when he turned his head, he caught a glimpse of a curl of black smoke rising up above the tree line. "That''s it. There''s the crash!"
It wasn''t too far away. Maybe ten minutes by foot, if he started now and ran as fast as he could. The excitement of finding whatever it was that crashed down from the sky put fire under his step and he kicked off running. He ran around the eastern curve of the lake, into the thick pine and evergreen woods, without a path or markers to guide him. Before he knew it, he was standing within a stone''s throw of the crash site.
The first thing Jason noticed, as he got closer to the crash, was that the trees were damaged. Some were burnt, others had fallen, and many more were busted up around the area of the black smoke. The second thing that hit him was the smell. It was a horrible odor, like getting punched in the nose, and it got stronger the closer he stepped to the crash. He never smelled anything like it before, but it reminded him of a mix between rotten eggs and burning hair.
This didn''t put Jason off from exploring the crash site. What excited Jason the most, as he crept through the woods and got closer to the burning, was the prospect that this would prove that there was life in the stars, and that they had come for a visit.
The closer he got, it became clear that this wasn''t some sky rock. It was much bigger and it looked to be made by human hands. There was more damage to the trees around this area than he initially noticed. Some were on fire, many more had fallen to the ground, and more still had broken in half, singed and smoking from the impact.
He came closer and closer to the crash site, following the pillows of black smoke that surged into the dark sky, and followed the light of a fire that was burning on the ground. That''s when he finally saw it. He laid eyes on the fire, and it became immediately clear that this wasn''t a natural, normal fire. There were reds and purples in the fire and the smoke was an unreal shade of black, like it came from the depths of Lokar itself, hidden from all light.
The black smoke from this crash choked Jason''s lungs the closer he got to it. It was raging fast and strong, pluming up into the air like the burning puffs of a dragon that slept deep in a cave. Jason walked slower now, covering his face with his arm, breathing as little as he could. He was close enough now to see for certain that this wasn''t a sky rock. It was a ship, made of metal. A ship that crashed down from the stars.
He leaned against the trunk of a tree, turned away from the crash site, and tried to catch his breath. Just as he turned his neck to do so, a whizzing sound cut through the air, and he heard a loud thud. He looked up and an arrow''s shaft stuck out from the trunk of the pine tree, not more than two finger''s width away from his head. Then there was another whizzing sound. It ripped right by his ear, almost clipping it.
Adrenaline shot through his veins and he ducked down. He looked around but couldn''t see anything. The forest was an impenetrable black, besides the light cast from the strange fire that raged at the crash site. And it was as dead quiet as it was dark, except for a soft wind that blew through the leaves, and the crackling fire behind him.
Jason crept backwards, kneeling down, taking care not to expose himself to whoever it was that shot the arrows. He took a closer look at the arrow shaft and saw that it was notched in the elven way. He knew he was in trouble now. He had two choices. He could run or fight. Both were losing choices.
He didn''t expect there to find an elf this close to the kingdom. They weren''t meant to in this area. It was a buffer zone between Hilaboreas and Ilfaros. A place where travel was protected by both kingdoms. Attacks, raids, or pillaging was forbidden, as agreed upon by both elven and human leaders. If a human went any further north, however, into the marked territory of Ilfaros, then they would be open game, and the laws of the Bionomnos would not apply there. A human would never travel alone that far north, and if they did, they would bring weapons and armor worthy of the task.
Jason brought none of that, so fighting was not an option. It was almost guaranteed that the elf who spotted him was armed not just with a bow and arrow, but also an elven short sword, the khalas, and was wearing protective leathers.
Outrunning the elf? No human could do it. It''s why the Biolympus Games had two divisions, human and elf, and though the two races celebrated them together for diplomatic reasons, the two races didn''t compete. Not just that, but even if Jason could get a head start and run as fast as he could, the woods were the domain of the elf, who could stalk and hunt down their target with the skill of a mountain lion.
Another arrow whizzed through the air, and now stuck out from the pine tree''s trunk. It was matched with a peel of laughter. The elf was toying with Jason now. He had to make a decision. Fast.
He was just about to stand up and dart off into the dark wood, hoping for the best, but he couldn''t. What would be the point? If he died, which was almost certain at this point, there would be no way he could tell his people back in the kingdom of what he had seen, that there were sky people indeed, and that they had crashed in the woods. Jason knew that this wasn''t some sky rock. It was a ship. A ship from the stars. He needed to see it closer. At the very least, he wanted to see the truth before he was taken from Lokar, and sent to the world beyond. With that conviction, he stood up and dashed towards the crash site.
Another arrow slammed into the pine tree next to him. Jason ran with the wind. There was an arrow, and then another, they cut through the branches that hung by his head as he dashed towards the crash site. He didn''t look back. He ran forward, covering his face so he didn''t choke on the ink black smoke, and that''s when he saw it up close.
The ship was bigger than an elephant. Its outer skin was shiny and white, with some foreign and exotic writing scribbled across. The purple and red fire burned bright, but only from part of the ship. Some of it was untouched by the flame. Jason reached down to touch the ship. It scalded his fingers, which rippled with blisters at the touch.
The arrows stopped coming for now. Jason knew he had to run. He had seen the truth. It was time to go tell it. He turned his back to the ship and faced forward to head back home, but right in front of him stood the elf.
"Don''t make a move," the elf said. "Stay right there. Put your hands up. Don''t move, whatever you do, or you''re dead."
Jason did what he was told. He had no other choice. The elf had drawn a bow, aiming it right at his guts. If he moved, he was done. He knew that. But from the purple and red flames that flickered, Jason could make out a strange part of this elf''s face.