Master of Dragons

Epilogue

Sevekai had no idea how long he’d been on the cusp of it. He didn’t know where he was, nor how far he had travelled since leaving the Arluii behind. In the beginning he had tried to remember. He had vague memories of going south, heading down into the lowlands until the trees blotted the sky. Measuring time, though, no longer seemed like something he should concern himself with. The rhythm of the forest was less exact: languorous, shackled to a lower, more eternal measure.

His crow perched on a branch above him, its black eye glinting. It seldom left him now. The others, the ones that had made their way to the forest as he had done, they all had their companions too: Aismarr had a lean hunting dog, as skinny as bones; Elieth had a hawk; Ophiel had a fox that slunk timorously in the shadows. They came and went, these creatures of the wood, but never departed for long. They were like echoes of thoughts lingering under the eaves.

Sevekai watched the others. They bore the same dreamy expression. They had renounced the old passions. None of them hated or loved any more; it was like being half-asleep.

A few of them, he knew, were kin from Naggaroth; just a couple, skulking amid the briars like thieves. They came into the centre of the circle only slowly, just as he had done at the beginning, unable to entirely forswear the hatreds they had been born into.

The forest worked on them, though, just as it did the others. They gradually lost their pale mien and took on a healthier blush. Their tattoos faded somehow. Their oil-slick hair seemed lighter under the green glow of the canopy.

The rest had the healthy light of Ulthuan in their eyes. He didn’t know where they had all come from. Neither did they — the old life drifted out of mind and memory so quickly. Some of them had taken on new names. Sevekai, for the moment, clung to his. It seemed important. He didn’t know how long he would feel that way.

He didn’t even want to hurt them. That was novel.

None of them had penetrated far into the heart of the wood. They lingered on the edge where the light still shafted down between the branches. They heard creaks and snaps from the deep core, buried in arboreal gloom. They heard night-noises — squeals and rustles, low groans that were almost elf-like, though distorted and alien.

What is this place?

He asked that question less often as time went on. At first he had been consumed by it, desperate to know what was slowly altering his mind. He would look at a leaf in the sunlight, seeing its veins standing dark against the translucence, staring at it in fascination. He would breathe deep of the musty soil aroma. He would hear the brush of the branches as the moons wheeled above him.

He never thought of escape. Where would he go?

The wood called them. All of them heard it. Soon they would have to enter, ducking under the curved and twisted branches and stooping into the shadows. He had dreams of what lay in there, waiting for them, though he never remembered them once the sun was up.

Aismarr smiled at him. She was standing a few yards away, her smock stained green and her cheeks ruddy. Sevekai liked the way her hair fell about her face — tangled, flecked with dirt, half-plaited.

‘I dreamed of dragons,’ she told him.

Sevekai remembered a dragon, though only vaguely. ‘Oh? What did it tell you?’

‘Their souls are broken,’ Aismarr said, sadly. ‘Someone has died, someone they loved.’

Sevekai remembered Drutheira then. Of all of them, she was the one he still remembered. He hadn’t ever loved her. There had been passion, of a sort, but that was part of the old pattern. Here things were simpler — more direct, more honest. He wondered where she was.

‘Then is it time?’ he asked. He knew that something would have to change. Some signal would be given and then the deep wood would beckon.

Aismarr frowned. Her hunting dog slunk around her calves, snagging at her smock.

‘No.’ She glanced over to her left, to where the path ran down like a river into the heart of the forest.

Sevekai followed her gaze. He didn’t think it was time either, not yet.

‘This is the start,’ he said, not really knowing where the words came from. ‘The dragonsoul is gone; others will follow. The world must change.’

Aismarr looked at him with shining eyes.

‘And then will we enter?’ she asked.

Sevekai couldn’t take his eyes off the trees. They called to him, though silently, and with neither malice nor affection.

‘When the word is given,’ he said.

‘And what then?’

Sevekai looked back at her. He no longer saw an asur standing before him, just a kindred soul. All of them were kindred souls now.

‘Rebirth,’ he said, smiling.