Chapter Two
NA JAO
THE DAUNTING SANNARKA PEAK bordered the Angavo Cliff to the west and was only accessible through a zigzagging defile hidden deep in the recesses of the bluff. After passing through the narrow confines of the gap, it took two arduous days of climbing the steep, shale covered inclines before the travelers reached their destination. Sheets of silent rain swept over the rims and ridges, beating down upon them and sending rivulets of sediment and water rushing across the ground. Mists saturated the sky above the valleys and forests and winding river gorges, suffusing any cloud visions that might wander the horizon. Only a Mischanter or boundary warrior could have found his way through this rugged terrain, where cryptic markings scratched onto giant boulders and cliff rocks showed the way up through treacherous fog ledges and into the breathtaking world above the clouds. Once there, the heavens presented a brilliant vista at the threshold of what Javari and Yano called the selap kori, ‘the possessed doorway.’
That night they camped under a wind polished overhang and feasted on links of dried meat the boundary warriors carried with them. They managed a small fire from the deadwood stored there, this being the last refuge before they passed into the spelled passages of Darkwall. Thunder rumbled and rain smashed the great cliffs below as they conversed around the flames, their voices barely louder than the storm. It wasn’t long before the discussion turned to the tale of the fallen mage, Maershyl, and his Mischanter protégé from the Na Jao, Haedeus.
“It is important to understand,” emphasized Manuuwan, “that together they conceived the blood magic which debases soul-catching and shapeshifting, the revered sorceries of Shamans and Mischanters.”
Removing the shrunken head from its leather pouch, he held it up in the firelight. “The sacrifices of the prophet himself have endeavored to disrupt a profound realization of that blood magic, the dark divinity known as the Prophecy of the Sacred Flesh.” The soul-catcher then reached up and placed the amulet on a sill of curved granite overlooking them.
“Is it true, Topengorang,” he continued, “that your kind, the Paladins, have maintained a special relationship with the Sorers?”
“It is true.”
“Will you tell us, then,” he asked, “how Haedeus came to serve as a priest of the Cathonian Church? Only bits and pieces are known to us, for the witches at Mission’s Cross will speak little of the matter.”
“Very well,” agreed Elandon.
So he recounted the age-old tale, which required Manuuwan to translate for Javari and Yano at certain points. Naturally, they already knew that the infamous Na Jao Mischanter had somehow traversed the Darkwall boundary and arrived at the doorstep of Mission’s Cross, where he became a gifted and favored student of both the Sorers and dark sisters. What fascinated them, however, was hearing about how Haedeus had traveled to the harbor city of Cyril Pindor on the island of Saorsa to serve as an acolyte at the Mission of Light, and how in the years that followed―by way of unprecedented decrees of the Church―he had been ordained by the dark sisters as a Deacon and later as an Adelphi Priest.
“But how did he manage to woo both factions of priestesses?” asked Manuuwan.
“That is a matter of conjecture,” Elandon replied. “He was both cunning and charismatic, and diligently studied the divine birth doctrine of the Church. The Sisterhood steadfastly maintains that Haedeus earned his unique path to priesthood. What they denied or attempted to cover-up over time is that he brought them the necromantic blood magic of the Na Jao, and masterminded the slaying of the Sea Kings and the fall of Ein Castle to the Shadowkind―acts which ushered the theocracy of the Cathonian Church into prominence.”
“Hence the Mischanter Priest became such a sinister force within the Church,” interjected the soul-catcher, “that the Mages of Awen had him assassinated.”
“That is what the Sisterhood wishes to believe,” replied Elandon. “The Crusades, the bloody Holy War, the Fourth War of the Hordes, he influenced the ambiguous roles of the dark sisters in all those conflicts. But Haedeus was killed in a bold act by a lone mage when it was discovered that he had betrayed the Sea Kings. It is not a certainty that his death was actually sanctioned by the Awen.”
“What of his renowned curse?”
“I’m afraid that is another tale altogether,” Elandon sighed, “one of considerable complexity. Let’s just say that the curse of the Mischanter Priest on the mages and their followers became a grisly license of mayhem for the dark sisters. But his remains were in fact preserved by the Sisterhood, for I have seen them myself. And there are many credible accounts of him having risen from the dead.”
“The boundary warriors believe that Haedeus was an envoy,” stated Manuuwan. “Through him, the fallen mage leveled his vengeance upon the Sea Kings and the Mages of Awen.”
Elandon’s witch-eye glimmered. Suddenly, the peculiar and troubling legacy of the Mischanter Priest took on a new significance.
Was the Sisterhood played, or did they play along?
“Yet there is more to it than Maershyl’s revenge for being banished,” Elandon reasoned, “or the willingness of Haedeus to be his agent of reprisal.”
“Alas,” replied the soul-catcher, “much more, which you must witness firsthand. The second serpent vision will guide you. A Bayang Penari finds his own truth about the Na Jao and why the forces of the boundary bind it. Darkwall and its spells are a primeval mystery. But what you will perceive of that mystery, I cannot say.”
“Puta Hantu,” whispered Yano.
Quietly, Javari echoed his comrade. “Puta Hantu,” he said, “Terrible Spirit.”
“What they are telling you,” offered Manuuwan, “is that along with the age-old evil of the Na Jao there lurks another threat, that of the fallen mage and his sordid intrigues of black sorcery. But this man, who you call Maershyl the Traitor, ceased being a mere mage―or a human being for that matter, long ago. He is now Puta Hantu, and he will sense your presence.”
Elandon adjusted his mask as refracted light from the crystal orb flickered with the flames of the dying fire. “I am prepared to pass into the heart of darkness,” he declared. “It is what I came here to do.”
The soul-catcher smiled. “The selap kori awaits you, Topengorang.”
♦♦♦
After the discussion of Maershyl and Haedeus the talk died down, for the weariness of climbing had set into their bones. Before long each found a place beside the smoldering embers; the soul-catcher and boundary warriors wrapped in their boar skins and Elandon in his cloak. Sleep took them quickly, but they did not rest through the night.
Sometime before dawn they jerked awake to ear-piercing crackles and sizzling flashes as bolts of eerie and unnatural lightning surrounded their hollow. In a near impossible leap from the narrow ledges above a fearsome, hellish figure descended to stand before them, spiked braids of hair rippling like quills in the streaming updrafts, coruscating spear raised to the sky. Long curved horns protruded from his temples and emerging from his eyes were snakeheads, hissing and spitting venom. A mouth of predatory yellow teeth gaped open as he charged forward and issued a war cry.
“There is nothing here for you but death, snake-man,” shouted Manuuwan, reaching for the shrunken head amulet.
Yano and Javari grabbed their weapons and Elandon drew his sword, but they had all been caught unawares and none were quick enough. The hulking snake-man knocked the amulet aside and grasped Manuuwan by the throat with one hand, lifting him into the air. He brutally dragged the soul-catcher away as the snakehead eyes uncoiled and snapped their fangs, spurting globules of searing venom in every direction. The lightning spear was left wedged into the shelf-rock of the overhang, charges of white hot fire exploding across the opening. Manuuwan had been captured by a Nao Jao Mischanter―one possessed of haunting blood magic who had somehow come through the Darkwall boundary―and they were now trapped inside the refuge, unable to follow.
The magic of the lightning spear is elemental, Elandon. It is not necromancy.
Similar to his experience at the bushmaster’s lair, the setting before him began to slow down drastically. The clarity of the Second Sight galvanized his perceptions in crystalline vision. Despite the exigent circumstance, the sense of it was enthralling. Yet what Elandon saw was both troubling and alarming, for the lightning spear was clearly a talismanic implement, comparable to something forged by the Mages of Awen―like the quarterstaff of the Paladins. The sigils and symbols carved into it were unmistakable, and set into the mount of the broad spearhead was what appeared to be a smaller version of the sky pentacle itself, interlaced triangles of white gold inlaid with a cross hewn of petrified wood and imbedded with star stones. In this rendering, however, the star cross was entwined by a tiny black worm, shimmering with incandescent light.
Elandon took a deep breath and distanced himself from the immediate surroundings, focusing instead on the vibrational forces of light and sound resonating from the lightning spear. A long time had passed since he attempted such a thing, but the essential skill was still within his grasp, for he felt the sensation of inner calm washing over him. As he joined the flow of universal consciousness known as Spirit and harmonized with the elemental force of the sky, he further removed himself from the present measures of space and time. Instead of exerting his own will upon the situation, Elandon intuitively knew to simply surrender and allow the old magic of creation to find its way within him. Beginning with the smaller bursts and strings of electric fire and then graduating to the larger discharges, the bolts and flashes of lightning were drawn one by one into his witch-eye, until he had completely quelled the explosive spear.
By this time, however, the morning sun had risen in the sky. The boundary warriors decided that Javari would set out after Manuuwan and the snake-man, and Yano would stay behind to administer the second serpent vision. They reminded Elandon that he could not pass through the boundary or survive the Na Jao otherwise. Javari immediately gathered his weapons and departed, while Yano placed the shrunken head amulet back into its protective leather and began rummaging through the soul-catcher’s medicine pouch, which had been left behind.
In the meantime, the lightning spear had cooled off and Elandon decided to examine it more closely. But just as he went to dislodge it from the shelf-rock, Yano arose and grabbed him by the arm.
“Ndak,” Topengorang!” he scolded, “No!” Pointing directly at the pentacle in the mount of the spearhead, he stammered. “How saying, Ulat . . . worm . . . is Menaungi, Shadowkind!” Yano touched his eyes, ears, nose, mouth, as well as his genitals and backside, and shook his head from side to side. “No worm inside!” he warned.
It is the larva of a serpentine, a parasite.
While he understood the cautions being given, Elandon was uncertain of the implications of this foul talismanic design—one which was ancient and powerful and commanded the elemental force of the sky, but posed unsettling questions about other arcane powers it might invoke. Perhaps Manuuwan knew the answers, but he had been carried away by the frightening and formidable wielder of the spear. Elandon contemplated these disturbing developments as he watched Yano rekindle the previous night’s fire; when the coals were hot enough, the boundary warrior took the spear and thrust it down into the flames, holding it there until the black worm sizzled away.
♦♦♦
Elandon washed the stale cake down with water but the mold tinged after-taste of mushrooms lingered. Yano had made himself understood. It was time for the second serpent vision, the final test of a boundary warrior. He had removed the small, flat cake from the soul-catcher’s medicine pouch and smiled as he placed it in Elandon’s hand.
“Time to meet dragon, Topengorang,” he said, “join Bayang Penari.”
Yano led them down a rock-strewn spill and switchback path that turned out to be little more than a stone’s throw from the refuge. The trail ended at an alcove in the steep cliffs, an astounding and mystifying locus in the mountain where myriad faces of death had fossilized into the rising shoulders of stone and looked down upon them, as if in warning. The niche had been carved through time by a small stream that fell in steps from above, and mortared into the base of the converging scarps was an arched, man-made entrance of intricate brickwork.
“Selap kori,” said Yano. “Welcome.”
As they stood before the possessed doorway, dark wafting breezes and faint, cloistered echoes arose from the depths to greet them. The stream’s steady gurgles and trickles mingled with the sounds and cast a damp mist into the air. Elandon thought of the soul-catcher and wondered if he and the snake-man―and Javari who followed them, had passed through. Concerned for what might happen to his friend, he gestured toward the entry.
“Manuuwan,” he said, “and the snake-man, did they come this way?”
Yano pointed at the ground. There, imprinted in the moist dirt before them, were a number of large bear tracks, several with all five toe and claw marks visible. Elandon had been too mesmerized by the ominous fossil faces to notice. “Not worry, Topengorang,” said the boundary warrior, ”Koda find them.”
Feeling the mushroom cake beginning to quicken within him, Elandon stepped through the archway, a pace behind Yano. Beyond the waterfall that flowed with jeweled daylight from above loomed the dark and gaping maw of an underpass in the Sannarka Peak. Before they plunged into the blackness, Yano produced a candle of pine resin and sparked it to life. He raised it into the entry of the tunnel and the wavering flame revealed cavernous outcroppings filled with bats roosting amidst the stalactites. Resting in a crevice along the near wall was a torch that Yano lit with the candle, chasing back the darkness.
Lowering the torch into the tunnel, he beckoned. “Come Topengorang.”
Elandon followed the boundary warrior into the passage, the torch scattering bursts of glittering light across the stalactites and mica-layered rocks. They swooped quickly downward past thrusts of boulders and jagged, confused obstructions materializing like shadowy mammoths in the dark. The tunnel led to a large, lower cavern where dim light penetrated from openings along the far rim, and a circle of stone pedestals surrounding an immense oblong shape arose before them. Off to one side a shallow pit held a bowl of oil, which Yano ignited with the torch.
The sudden eruption of flames revealed what Elandon immediately recognized as a remarkable shrine. There were ten moss-entangled pedestals and upon nine of them rested a shrunken head of the Cathonian prophet, Davada Cruz; each set of crimson eyes was hauntingly captured in the lambent light. The tenth pedestal was empty and most certainly awaited the head the soul-catcher had just shrunken, the one Yano carried with him.
One for each of his lifetimes.
In the center was a monstrous fanged skull, one both ferocious and at the same time, gentle somehow. Elandon wondered how such a paradoxical countenance could emanate from mere bone and considered that his perceptions were perhaps altered; yet despite the effects of the mushroom cake, he was quite lucid. The dragon head was at least five times his size and while the caves of its eye-sockets stared emptily, they still seemed to possess vision; in this same way, the hollow jaw appeared poised and ready to speak. Pondering these contradictions, Elandon noted the rippling vertebrae connected to the colossal skull, which led to a crater of marled stone containing the large ceramic shape of a lone, cracked egg. Although he didn’t understand it, there was sadness, sacrifice and deep wisdom present in this sanctified nativity.
Yano motioned for him to enter. “Go inside, Topengorang,” he said, pointing to a hollow curl of jawbone that formed a natural bench. “Sit on dragon bone.”
As Elandon stepped inside the shadowy grotto of the skull, the hair on the back of his neck stood up and he was acutely aware that many had come before him to take their place on the dragon bone seat. Just as with his predecessors, the medicine cloud and the catching of his soul had served to prepare him for this moment. As impossible as is had seemed to stand between the worlds of the living and the dead and overcome his burden of shame, he had done it; his perceptions had been profoundly altered and now, the prospect of melding his sentience with a long dead dragon piqued his curiosity. He was ready for the vision, which occurred almost at once.
You have learned much of the history, Lan.
The voice was female and Lan was a name used only by his mother. In fact, Elandon had been a dedicated student. He was fascinated by the histories recorded in the annals of the Sea Kings, especially the lore they had extracted from the Fair Folk, much of it translated from the oral traditions of storytelling dating back to the Age of Fairie. Yet older even than the Fair Folk were the dragons, and the tales of their existence were laden with archaic allegory upon which the great lore masters did not all agree. Nonetheless, as a young man encouraged by his mother to be patient and allow the fantastical accounts to work symbolically within his consciousness, Elandon had faithfully waded through the writings.
The recollections surfaced spontaneously, their essences distilled by the synergy of the spells and presences around him. Seated within the primordial skull and surrounded by the shrunken heads of the prophet, the smoky aroma of pine resin rising from the fire pit and the mushroom cake heightening his senses, the interpretive perplexities of the historians were shed like serpent skins and the wondrous dragon lore took on a new and transcendent meaning.
I am the Golden Dragon and this is my hatchling.
Alas, the saga of the Golden Dragon and its lost mate, the Black Dragon, was a creation parable involving the rebel spirit beings of Nèahm and their leader, Diuul, who came to inhabit and corrupt Nios Isle with the secrets of dark energy―secrets stolen from the celestial constructs that comprised the fabric of the One Dream. Elandon was also familiar with the lore pertaining to the origins of the Shadowkind and this tale was at the center of it all.
Come and meet us by the Naleotra.
Perhaps it was a hallucination but it did not feel that way. The Naleotra was a remote lake located within the confines of the upper Sannarka Peak on the Na Jao side of Darkwall. Elandon became aware of effortlessly moving through branching caverns and spacious corridors until he emerged into the brilliant sunlight of the day; somehow, he knew the way through the spelled passages. A rocky trail wound down the slate ridges and into the misty green forest bordering the lake. Just before the trees opened onto the shores and the calm expanse of shimmering water, the Golden Dragon spoke again.
You must bathe with the nymphs, Lan. Be cleansed and renewed. Then you will be ready.
There were deep pools around the boulders along the shoreline filled with the rains from the night before, and it was at one of these that a beautiful young woman, a single fern leaf woven into the long locks of her golden hair, beckoned to him. No clothing adorned her slender, sylph-like figure and her skin was bronzed by the sun; she possessed the alluring, ethereal beauty attributed to the female gender of the Fair Folk, yet was unlike any of those women he had ever seen.
Lay aside your cloak and mask, she instructed, stepping into the water, and your clothing and armor.
Somehow, her voice and that of the Golden Dragon were one in the same. Still, Elandon drew back. “I can wash myself,” he said.
I know, she replied, holding out her hand. Allow me to do it for you.
Although Elandon took off his mask for no one, his witch-eye reflected the glow of the Naleotra in silvery flashes and he was moved to make an exception. He disrobed and stepped into the water; it was colder than expected and he began to shiver. She took his arm and brought him around to stand facing her, then cupped water with her hands and gently poured it over him as he acclimated to the temperature. He then submerged himself in the pool as she produced a chunk of soap and began to bathe him.
She washed his arms and chest, and then moved behind him to scrub his shoulders and back. Sit there, she commanded, motioning to a nearby rock. He sat down while she washed his feet and legs and carefully bathed his genitals. Even in the cool water, Elandon began to feel the pulse of arousal, yet it was not excitement or provocation that marked the smile she gave him, but rather extraordinary compassion and understanding.
This is your rejuvenation, she said, as she began washing his matted hair and gently lathering his scarred neck and disfigured face. Remember, there is no shame.
Meanwhile in a shallow pool nearby, two more nymphs wearing only fern leaves in their tresses had appeared with another chunk of soap. They were vigorously washing his wool cloak, under-tunic and trousers―and to Elandon’s alarm, his leathered armor. It occurred to him to protest, but it was already too late.
“I wish they hadn’t done that,” he said, submerging again to rinse off. “Those leathers are oiled.”
It will be all right, she smiled again. You’ll see.
Then, to Elandon’s surprise―although by now nothing should have surprised him―she held in her hands a scissor and a razor of the obsidian variety. Kneeling before him in the water she set about grooming him, first clipping his tangled hair short, and then shaving the places on his face and neck where his beard grew, scraping them smooth with the finely honed edge.
When she had finished, she gently pushed him down into the water one last time and then said, Arise Lan, go forth and meet your vision. My sisters and I will bring your weapons and garments.
Oh, it felt good to be so clean. Exhilarating! But there was more to it than that. As Elandon stood, water streamed from him and the physical sensation of the suffering years, the years of despair and remorse and death that sickened his body as well as his mind, flowed away. He stepped from the pool and the filth of self-loathing that had been so tenderly washed from him, was left behind. In the care of the beautiful nymph, Elandon had been innocently reawakened to an essential aspect of his being; he was indeed rejuvenated, fully in possession of himself, cleansed and renewed.
♦♦♦
The Golden Dragon stood in the forest beside her hatchling, head turned to watch Elandon’s approach. Her great eyes sparkled like rainbows and the air between them was suddenly suffused in prismatic regard, as witch-eyed man and mythical beast beheld one another. Softly, the cosmic mysteries of her existence called to him and he was filled with a remarkable sense of wonder. In a gesture of welcome, she curved her sinewy neck down and there on the path before him was her great serpent face, breath warm and slightly phosphorous-tinged.
We are well met, Lan! Your clothing and armor have been made ready.
On a large boulder lay his things, clean and neatly folded. He was delighted to find his leathers had been treated and restored with a supple loam that smelled like the humus of the rainforest, and were in fact more flexible than before. While it seemed strange and surreal to dress himself before this fabled creature of ancient history and hold discourse, Elandon yearned to make sense of the moment.
“Are we really here, or are we in the caverns below?” he ventured, pulling on his boots and marveling still at how refreshed he felt.
We are in both places, each of which is real.
“Do you mean like what the soul-catcher refers to as a dual expression of reality,” said Elandon, as he secured his dagger and strapped his sword across his shoulders, “a world within a world?”
A dragon calls it a dream within a dream.
“So we are dreaming?”
We ARE a dream, Lan! All awareness, perception and reality flows from the One Dream of the Ceann. We are the sensorium of the Gods. They experience themselves through us, through all their creations.
Elandon was thoughtful for a moment. “The historical tomes deem such interpretations as allegory.”
History reckons the same for dragons. Trust what you see before you. The Second Sight, Naguia, even the medicine cloud . . . these are clarified and merged within your witch-eye, which illuminates your unique destiny. You must now learn to navigate the dreamscape, the demesne of the dragons, for the amalgamation of your crystalline vision to be complete.
“Very well, then,” repled Elandon. “I am at your service.”
Elandon’s attention was drawn to the hatchling. The cracked egg was golden like its mother but now appeared much larger than his view of it from the dragon bone seat. Reading his thoughts, the Golden Dragon answered his unspoken question.
It grows, she said. The spells of the Darkwall boundary are death dreams embodied within the hatchling and linked to its father, the Black Dragon of Nios Isle, who was long ago possessed by the evil one, Diuul. As the Shadowkind grow, so too does the egg.
“Why must the spells be reinforced?”
During his first lifetime, the prophet realized the blood magic of the Na Jao that incarnated him was being utilized by the dark sisters and their Mischanter Priest to augment the powers of the Shadowkind. He foresaw the wisdom of using their necromancy against them by reinforcing the spells of the Darkwall boundary with his sacred flesh.
“I wish to possess a greater understanding . . .” Elandon paused, realizing he was unsure how to address the great dragon.
You may call me Almyath. The dreamscape will reveal what you must comprehend to follow your path. But rest assured, Lan, much of it is already known to you.
Renyo’s familiar caws abruptly filled the air and the raven gracefully winged down from the sky to settle upon the branch of a nearby tree. He looked back and forth from Elandon to the Golden Dragon, as if in anticipation of what would follow.
We begin with the raven and the wolf.
♦♦♦
The One Dream is the consciousness of the universe and exists as pure potential, the limitless symmetry of light and dark energy. For anything to manifest into reality requires fluctuation within the One Dream, which is consummated by every living thing innumerable times each day, thus casting the world into being. The degree and intention of those fluctuations determine the properties and relationships of the dreamscape. We all share and individuate the One Dream, but some come to channel its power and still others learn to navigate its mystic peripheries.
Breathe Lan. Your mantra is ‘Naleotra.’ Remember the feeling of being cleansed and renewed, and with each inhale and exhale, breathe the mantra―the memory, the profound sensation of self-possession. Bring your mind, body and soul into synchrony and you will merge with the dreamscape.
With her hypnotic voice, Almyath ushered him into the architecture of incorporeality, where greater truths were absorbed rather than contemplated. Elandon perceived the dynamics of fluctuation within the One Dream; the infinite matrix of geometric relationships, the vectors, angles and shapes, the lines of energy that render every point at the center of the cosmos. He understood how this ever shifting equipoise interrelated with the elemental forces and could be summoned with talismans and channeled through geomantic structures, such as the Ring of Ardhath, located at flux points in the ley lines of the land. He sensed how these currents of consciousness manifested as the Second Sight, the power of the Spirit, the old magic of creation, and Naguia, and how they could be influenced and directed, allowing the initiated to move through time and space. Moreover, Elandon realized it was within the web of the dreamscape that shapeshifting occurred, and that this bounding―becoming one with a spirit totem―was instigated by the animal.
Renyo appeared and together they set out across the matrix. When they emerged at a point known to the raven, the bounding with the black bird was complete; all at once he was flying through dazzling blue skies. However, he knew right away these were not the firmaments over southern Dramhail but rather those above the island of Saorsa, for he recognized the three soaring peaks of the Cairn Mountains looming in the distance. Stormwatch, Heaven’s Rim and Tor’s Gate marked the region known as Valaria, the rarified domain of the Fair Folk―the Elves, Gnomes and Dwarves. On a ridge in the distance stood an enormous black wolf, a majestic canine he somehow knew to be named Issa, whose lone howl echoed off the granite cliffs. Through Renyo’s keen eyes he observed the endeavors of the land below, which comprised the vast territory of the wolf and its family of packs. Great herds roamed the forests near the streams and rivers, animals crept and insects swarmed amidst stands of enormous trees and stretches of grasslands, and lizards and snakes slithered from hollows to warm in the sun. In the sky nearby hawks and eagles soared in the updrafts, warily observing the raven as they hunted and carried food back to nests where young ones waited. Elandon perceived a fragile and reckless order to this venerated place, and to the fateful connection with Issa and Renyo that would soon lead him here.
The ancient guardians await you.
Back into the dreamscape they came, this time materializing through a dim vortex of currents that required exerting a more concerted effort to fly. Instinctively, the raven tacked a course against the subtle but forceful entropic winds that swirled around volcanic Nios Isle, an afflux of dark energy that also manifested in the tides and drew unsuspecting creatures into its clutch. Buried beneath a preternatural mass of stone and debris said to have been wrought from the surrounding mountainsides by the legendary Jöhunn of Boreal in the Age of Darkness, the volcano was active once more; hot gasses and fragments of sizzling magma spewed forth, tumbling aside boulders around the mouth of the great crater.
The seal of the icelandic Goliaths has been broken. The Black Dragon stirs.
The raven tilted its wings to the northeast and they crossed the troubled waters to Dramhail Island and the Na Jao jungle, where the sacred practice of soul-catching had been grafted into blood magic. The time of the tribes had passed long ago and now there were crude huts filled with the ghostly, glowing shapes of spirit children being held captive while the bodies that once hosted them, sick with bushmaster venom and laying side by side in stilted longhouses nearby, endured the invasion of the various serpentine larvae that slowly mutated them into either Horks or Trolls. Once the gruesome transformation was complete, the hollowed out gourds of blood given to the spirit children to sustain them was withheld and they perished.
The tribes of the Na Jao have been lost to the Shadowkind. The same must not happen to the tribes of the Ungorath.
All were not subject to transmutation however, as some of the captured tribespeople were held as slaves to build weapons and war machines and the great longboats that transported the legions of Shadowkind. Young women and boys were chosen and kept to pleasure both the Mischanters and the powerful warlords―the Horks and Trolls bearing the rebel spirit beings of Nèahm―to which the soldiering hordes were blood-bonded. Aging slaves of both sexes were left to tend the paddies, build and hone tools, and heat the trees to produce tar for sealing the ships. Amidst the horror and squalor of this imperial enterprise stood the resplendent jungle and the walled estates of the Mischanters and warlords, surrounded by parapets and guard towers and fields with siege engines and troops drilling for battle, as well as rows of thatched roof barracks. Conspicuously situated between the outbuildings and the estates was a Cathonian Chapterhouse bearing the black ankh of the Adelphi priestesses. The stronghold was centered by a slate gray citadel, an archaic edifice shrouded by vortices of dark energy, deviant and foreboding. The stone structure stood empty save for a lone occupant, a powerful being that was once Maershyl the traitor, a fallen Mage of the Awen, whose black arts had allowed him to transcend mortality and become the malevolent entity known as Puta Hantu.
It is known as Erang Kastil, the dark palace.
Suddenly the shadow-limned forces surrounding the citadel began to coagulate. A foul vapor resembling a human hand formed in the sky above the stronghold and pointed its long, swirling index finger directly at the raven. Renyo sensed the threat and quickly retreated into the dreamscape; yet even there, the corruption of dark energy could be felt, its malice seething and insatiable.
Puta Hantu, the Terrible Spirit.
♦♦♦
Elandon suddenly came back to his presence on the dragon bone seat inside the passages of Darkwall. The fire pit was still burning but time had passed and the effects of the mushroom cake had worn off. Still, he was bathed and groomed and his leathers were clean and supple; the second serpent vision was over and it had been more than a mere hallucination. In order to enter the dreamscape and become one with Renyo, and to see into the heart of darkness that was the terrible Na Jao, it had been necessary for him to again pass through the blackness of his past, to dance with the last of the shadows that haunted him, and finish what began in the medicine cloud: the reclaiming of his identity. Now, his thoughts were clarified and he better understood what becoming a Bayang Penari meant for him.
Your gift of crystalline vision has been fully catalyzed, Lan.
Yano was nowhere to be found and from the openings on the far side of the cavern leading to the Naleotra and the jungle beyond, Tongo’s calls could be heard. Elandon recognized the urgency in the voice and went to find the lemur. Along the trail to the lake the animal appeared, frantically motioning for Elandon to climb with him to the upper reaches of a great hickory tree. From this lofty vantage point, Elandon’s witch-eye detected a horde of Horks and Trolls gathering in the broad valley at the base of the Sannarka Peak, led by an enormous warlord, the largest Troll he had ever seen.
He is the one called Chenghist. He comes for you.
Elandon suddenly realized the Na Jao Mischanter with the lightening spear had been sent ahead to find him and flush him out, and that Manuuwan had been an unexpected trophy the snake-man couldn’t resist. He estimated the Sannarka Peak to be at least a three day march from the stronghold, meaning that his totemic encounter with Puta Hantu could not have been what alerted the Shadowkind to his presence. They already knew he was here, which suggested that word of his quest to pass through the Darkwall boundary had been leaked by the dark sisters at Mission’s Cross. While the intrigue of the Sisterhood seemed to follow him everywhere, what he now observed approaching through the Na Jao jungle posed a direct threat on his life.
Just as Elandon leaped down from the tree, the undergrowth heaved apart and a roaring Koda barged past, only to rise up on his haunches to the branch where Tongo was now perched and greet the lemur with a touching of noses. Manuuwan then appeared carrying the severed head of the snake-man by one of its curved horns. A step behind him was Javari with the decapitated body, viciously mauled and bloodied by bear claws and deep bites, draped across his shoulders. Moments later, Yano came through the forest from the opposite direction followed by an entire pride of lions, perhaps twenty in all, stalking through the trees.
“We need a long pole, Topengorang,” urged Manuuwan, who appeared none the worse for wear, all things considered. His sly smile hinted at part of what was to be done. Elandon nodded and took his dagger to a sturdy branch that had fallen to the ground nearby, stripping the bark and sharpening both ends into points.
Meanwhile, Yano retrieved the soul-catcher’s medicine pouch and Javari took the snake-man’s mauled body to the lake, immersing it in one of the pools. Manuuwan then mixed the bone softening paste and stirred it into the water. He and Javari left the corpse to soak in the froth and came back up the path just as Elandon and Yano impaled the head of the Na Jao Mischanter onto the pole and sunk it into the ground.
As the soul-catcher and the boundary warriors retreated to the spelled passages, shrill whistles by Javari summoned whip-tailed wyverns that came one by one to land upon the rocky ledges and overhangs, while Manuuwan pitched thin squeals up into the stalactites and the faint fluttering of bat wings spread through the caverns. The soul-catcher then descended to the shrine, where he took his place on the dragon bone seat with the freshly prepared amulet of Davada Cruz in hand. He appeared to go into trance by softly chanting to himself, and all at once the crimson eyes lit up, charged with power drawn forth from the dreamscape. Manuuwan arose and placed the head on the empty pedestal as the eyes in the other shrunken heads burst into radiance, encircling the massive dragon skull and its cracked egg in a latticework of crimson light.
“The spells have been reinforced,” he announced. “When the warlord Chenghist and his army from the Na Jao arrive, the death dreams will be waiting.”
♦♦♦
Copyright © Shawn Quinlivan, 2018. Shawn Quinlivan asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work. All original images used by permission. Digital artistry by Shawn Quinlivan.
