Read on for "Rising Darkness", one of the ten stories included in Initiation:
A loud crash and the sound of tearing hide filled the air. When Orlean turned, he saw one of the younger dragons with a foot inside a tent, looking confused and out of place. The Sky Lord on its back flushed and mumbled an apology to the distraught tent owners.
Orlean sighed. These young dragons were
sometimes more of a hazard than they were worth. They broke things, got in the
way, and occasionally stepped on people. And their Sky Lords weren’t any
better. Young Kin, hardly out of diapers, did not make the most effective Sky
Lords, but they seemed to be the only ones connecting to any of the hatchlings.
An older Sky Lord hadn’t been bound to a dragon in more than twenty years.
It was shame, at least in Orlean’s mind.
He was of the firm opinion that the younger Sky Lords should train until their
thirtieth year before bonding to a dragon. But it wasn’t his decision. Sky
Lords bonded to the dragon that matched the tattoo emblazoned on their
abdomens. Age had nothing to do with it. If the dragon never hatched, the Sky
Lord was never chosen. And a great talent was wasted.
As a gust of wind warned him of the
approach of his own bonded dragon, he considered sending the free Sky Lords up
into the mountains. There were plenty of wild dragons up there. Perhaps wild
dragons could bond to the free Sky Lords and fill the ranks of the Lords once
more. This wasn’t the first time he’d has such a thought. But it was the first
time he’d seriously considered it.
His dragon thudded to the ground and
rumbled over to his side, knocking over a stack of supplies with a long and
flexible tail. Orlean flinched but said nothing. It’s not like the dragon could
understand him anyway. They were stupid beasts, entirely lacking in basic
communication skills. Oh, they were loyal enough, but stupid. Yelling at the
poor beast wouldn’t accomplish anything.
Orlean reached out and brushed a hand
over grey scales. His dragon wasn’t the prettiest of the Tribes, but the large
male was certainly the strongest. And the beast had served him well over the
years. As First Sky Lord of the First Tribe, Orlean and his dragon were
responsible for patrolling the boundaries of the Wastes and ensuring that their
way of life remained pure and untouched. But this was a difficult thing to do
as he and his dragon grew older. These young pups just didn’t have the
experience to be of any real help.
With those thoughts foremost in his
mind, Orlean climbed onto his dragon’s back and urged the beast into the air.
***
The morning flew by as Orlean soared on the back of his dragon. Powerful wings sliced through the air and muscles bunched and coiled beneath his body. Orlean shifted his weight with the thrusts of the dragon to minimize the strain on the beast’s wings. He wasn’t the only one getting older.
As the sun rose overhead, Orlean rotated
his shoulders to relieve the tension building there. At just over sixty years
old, he wasn’t as young as he used to be. He was just waiting for the day when
one Sky Lord was qualified enough to do this job. Then he could retire and
spend his days carving dragons out of old bones. A much more respectable thing
for an elderly man to do.
They were about to turn back for the day
when something caught his eye. There, on the eastern horizon, was a strange
form that appeared dark and twisted. At first he thought it was nothing more
than a wisp of cloud. But it was moving too fast, and against the wind. No, it
wasn’t a cloud.
A shift of his legs and a low clicking
sound told his dragon to move toward it. Some instinct told him to turn back,
to seek help, but he couldn’t do that until he knew what this thing was. Never
one to run from any threat, Orlean and his dragon moved ever forward, ever
closer to the wisp of cloud that was no cloud.
They drew closer to the darkness and it
grew colder. It never grew cold in the Wastes. With the sun beating down and
the mountains to trap the heat, the Wastes were always warm enough to bake a
man if he wasn’t careful. The heat could kill, but it was never cold, not here.
Despite this well-known fact, Orlean shivered though his thin leather breeches
and short tunic.
Closer still and the sun itself seemed
to dim. Orlean glanced up, but there were no clouds to block the sun’s rays. It
was simply darker than it had been. He’d never seen anything like it, and it
filled his heart with a cold dread.
But he still didn’t have anything to
report. So on he went, urging his dragon forward. The dragon balked as they
continued into the darkness, but Orlean refused to turn back. He couldn’t
return to his Tribe with the news that there was a dark cloud in the east. He
needed something more concrete. He needed information.
And the only way to get that information
was to keep moving forward. So when the dragon balked again, Orlean dug his
heels into the soft flesh behind the forelegs of the beast. They were going,
trepidation or no trepidation. There was no other option. Not yet.
The air grew thick and it became
difficult to breathe. His dragon had to fight to stay airborne. The very air
they both inhaled turned into a toxic fume and Sky Lord and dragon slowly
drifted downward. Orlean might have tried to keep his dragon in the air, but
his head felt heavy. He leaned forward until his forehead rested on the
dragon’s powerful neck. His eyes drifted closed as the air turned to black
smoke.
Molten flame tore up his nose and down his throat, pooling in his lungs. His chest burned for an instant before he coughed and the flames ripped back up his throat, scorching his mouth and nose. Pain consumed him, filled his every sense, until nothing else existed. He vomited and it was like coughing up liquid fire.
***
Molten flame tore up his nose and down his throat, pooling in his lungs. His chest burned for an instant before he coughed and the flames ripped back up his throat, scorching his mouth and nose. Pain consumed him, filled his every sense, until nothing else existed. He vomited and it was like coughing up liquid fire.
It was some time before he heard the sounds.
Something scraping against bone. Tearing flesh. A tongue lapping at some
unidentified liquid. A moment later he could detect the metallic scent of blood
and something more putrid. Someone or something was leaking fluid from the
intestines. Maybe the bowels. Orlean panicked, thinking that smell came from
his own bowels.
He struggled to move, to search his body
for wounds, but his arms were weighed down by something heavy. He pulled
against the bonds that held him as his eyes flew open.
The first thing he saw was his dragon.
The poor thing was lying on its side, wings twisted at what might have been a
painful angle. Except that this dragon would never feel pain again. The
dragon’s head was thrown back and Orlean could clearly see the large eyes, dull
with death. Those eyes would never shine again.
Orlean tried to rise, tried to go to his
dragon, but he was held back. He moved his head from side to side and his eyes
widened. Thick chains were wrapped around his wrists. The chains were attached
to spikes which had been driven into the hard earth. A quick glance down
revealed his ankles similarly bound. He pulled on the chains, but he was well
and truly caught.
A low growl came from the dragon and
Orlean turned his head, hoping the dragon was alive but knowing it was not. He
could sense the emptiness on his belly, knew instinctively that the tattoo had
faded as it always did when a Sky Lord’s dragon was killed. The dragon was dead
and could not have growled.
But the growl had come from somewhere.
Orlean’s breath caught as something large and thin moved behind the dragon’s
corpse. A pair of wings, thinner and finer than a dragon’s, rose up from behind
the dragon and snapped through the air. A serpentine head appeared and Orlean
jumped. It looked like a dragon, but not any dragon he’d ever seen. Its fangs
were too long for a dragon and they dripped with what he assumed was poison.
Dragons were not poisonous. As it moved around the dragon’s dead body, Orlean
noted that its long and thin form, almost like a snake, was as long as a dragon
but not half so wide. It had legs, but it moved across the dusty Wastes with
powerful thrusts of its snake-like body. The legs ended in sharp claws, so
Orlean could only assume they were used for ripping and tearing into enemies in
battle.
The thing was covered in blood and gore.
Its fangs dripped with it and Orlean realized it had been feasting on the
dragon’s flesh. Orlean felt gorge rise in his throat as the thing slithered
toward him.
“What do you think of my pet?” came a
deep voice from somewhere behind him.
Orlean craned his neck back in an
attempt to locate the voice. All he saw was a dark mist. Soon this mist became
thick enough to be a cloud. And eventually this cloud became a man. The man was
cloaked in black silk, his hair just as dark as the slippery fabric, but it was
his eyes that held Orlean’s attention. Those eyes had no whites. They were
simply darkness. Or the darkness that darkness fears.
Staring into those eyes, Orlean felt his
chest grow tight. As the man moved forward, Orlean couldn’t resist the urge to
flinch away. Something about the man with skin as pale as moonlight caused his
body to tremble. Orlean closed his eyes and tried to summon some vestige of
magick, something to defend himself, but all he felt was emptiness.
“Oh, it’s well and truly gone,” the dark
figure said. “Your dragon is dead and with it your magicks. You’re mine now.
Whether you live or join your dragon in death is up to me.”
Orlean heard the subtle growl of the
creature as it slithered around the dragon’s corpse but he refused to open his
eyes. “Who are you?” There might have been better questions but none came
immediately to mind.
The hiss of fabric and the brush of silk
against his cheek let Orlean know that the man was hunched down beside him. Or
perhaps kneeling. “I am Darcet. But you will learn to address me as Master.”
Now Orlean did summon his courage and
opened his eyes, gazing into the overwhelming darkness. His heart constricted,
but he managed to keep his voice relatively steady. “I am Kin. We have no
master.”
A disturbing smile crossed the man’s
face. “You will learn.”
Orlean squeezed his eyes shut and was rewarded with a blinding pain across his abdomen. His eyes snapped open as the flame withdrew, leaving his body in peace. But his mind … nothing could leave his mind in peace.
***
Orlean squeezed his eyes shut and was rewarded with a blinding pain across his abdomen. His eyes snapped open as the flame withdrew, leaving his body in peace. But his mind … nothing could leave his mind in peace.
He was lying naked on an altar of black
stone in a tower of metal and obsidian. Or what appeared to be obsidian. The
chains bit into his wrists and ankles, holding him in place. His torso was a
mass of cuts, burns, and bruises. All a result of trying to hide, trying to
close his eyes against the images he could not escape.
All around the altar were obsidian
globes, and each globe glowed with a series of images. The pictures were so
clear he might have been watching the events in person. He might as well have
been, for the globes channeled both sight and sound.
The visions tore at his heart. He could
see dragons and their Sky Lords tangling with what Darcet had called wyverns. The dragons were most assuredly
losing. They might be larger and stronger, but they were also slower. And the
wyverns had a sly intelligence that the dragons just couldn’t match. The
dragons might have magick, magick that was channeled through their Sky Lords,
but the wyverns seemed to repel every bit of magick thrown at them. The magic
didn’t even touch the serpentine beasts. It was as if any magick was nulled
when it came within just a few feet of the writhing wyverns.
Other globes showed images of shamans,
those among the Kin who could wield magick without dragons, being slaughtered
by the dozens. Their magicks were as ineffective as those the Sky Lords
commanded. Orlean could see the tattoos of his own Tribe, the First Tribe, and
knew his friends and family would not survive the attack. But it was more than
that. The tattoos of other Tribes came to his eyes and he knew that all the Kin
were a part of this. This man who controlled the wyverns was destroying all his
people, not simply one Tribe.
“Why?” he finally gasped, desperate for
an answer.
Darcet’s voice floated through the air.
“Why? Why you? Or why them?”
Orlean craned his neck but could see
only smoke and mist in the darkened chamber. “Why … us?” he asked the mist.
The darkness grew darker as Darcet took
on his man-shape again. He strode forward with a hiss a silk and came to stand
beside Orlean’s bound body. “You are Kin.” White hands stroked over Orlean’s
sun-kissed flesh as Darcet licked his lips.
“But why?” He tried to ignore the hands
that touched him and refused to look at Darcet’s face. The man was too
beautiful to be evil, yet evil he certainly was. To look was to lose his mind,
and Orlean knew it.
Darcet drew back his lips in a
frightening snarl. “You ask that? You who are chosen by the Light, favored by
my brilliant sister?”
A gloved hand rose in front of Orlean’s
eyes. As that hand grew and twisted, Orlean let out his first real scream.
Collapsing back against the stone, Orlean tried to breathe through the pain. But his throat was a bloody mass and his chest was nothing more than a gaping hole. His still-beating heart lay on the cold stone altar somewhere near his feet. Orlean thought that he could still hear it throbbing and beating, echoing through his ears, but he knew it was nothing more than his own vivid imagination.
***
Collapsing back against the stone, Orlean tried to breathe through the pain. But his throat was a bloody mass and his chest was nothing more than a gaping hole. His still-beating heart lay on the cold stone altar somewhere near his feet. Orlean thought that he could still hear it throbbing and beating, echoing through his ears, but he knew it was nothing more than his own vivid imagination.
He hurt, but it was in a detached sort
of way. It should hurt more. But then there were the waves of pleasure that
tightened his body in ways a man his age rarely experienced. The pleasure
distracted him from the pain, gave him something to focus on. Even something to
look forward to. Before long he was just waiting for the pain, wishing for the
pain, because he knew it would be closely followed by the intense pleasure that
would wash over his body and give him sweet relief.
Darcet stood over him, and Orlean knew,
he simply knew, that this man’s magick was the source of both the pleasure and
the pain. And it was that same magick that kept him alive without a heart to
sustain him. At first Orlean let his being fill with hatred, but this hatred
faded to mere resentment. Candlemarks passed and even the resentment faded,
leaving behind only the purest desire.
As Orlean writhed and gasped, Darcet
spoke to him in a soft voice. The tone was as musical as it was soothing.
Darcet spoke of the wyverns and how he himself had formed them from the dead
bodies of both dragons and a sea serpent called a muradeen. He spoke of his sister, a woman named Crystal, a woman as
good as he was evil. He spoke of the dragons that he hated for their brilliant
perfection. He spoke of elves, distant ancestors of the Kin and how they could
not be corrupted.
Through all these words, Orlean began to
understand. Corruption. That’s what this was all about. Corruption and power.
Darcet wanted to corrupt the servants of the Light, to turn them into his own
minions. But his plans hadn’t seen much success. He’d wanted to corrupt the
elves, turn them to his purposes, but the elves simply died. They could not be
turned. So Darcet had decided to corrupt those most closely related to elves.
The Kin. Part elf, part man, but evolved to their own species, they were as
close to elves as you could get without resorting to half-breeds.
And then there were the dragons. For
whatever reason, Darcet saw the dragons as a threat. So he’d given his wyverns
orders to destroy the dragons at all costs. Those images still played in the
dark crystals surrounding the altar, though the images were fewer than they had
been. There were fewer and fewer dragons gliding over the Wastes and none
survived once they were found by the wyverns. Orlean guessed that in less than
two days’ time, all dragons would be gone.
Except perhaps for the wild dragons.
They were larger and faster than the bound dragons. Whenever a wyvern came near
one, the dragon managed to escape, fleeing into the great Southern Range. But
not once did the wild dragons try to fight, try to come to the aid of their
bound brethren. They simply fled the Wastes, winging to the north.
Stupid
beasts, Orlean thought to himself. He supposed it
was too much to expect that the wild dragons might do something to stop this … genocide, Orlean realized. The wyverns
were exterminating any dragon they could find. It was genocide. There was no
word that better described the extermination of the great beasts.
Another wave of pleasure had Orlean
looking away from the globes and into Darcet’s dark eyes. Those eyes seemed to
sparkle now, and Orlean shivered. Those unnatural eyes framed by the delicate
features of Darcet’s face were terrifying. A hand came into view and danced
with black flame. Placing that hand in the gaping hole of Orlean’s chest,
Darcet smiled gently.
Black flame glittered and shone from
Orlean’s chest and the bound man screamed. His flesh was torn asunder by claws
as his bones turned to ash. Air could no longer reach his lungs and his vision
was blurred by thick smoke. And though it all he could only wait for the pain
to end and the pleasure to begin.
And so it did, but it was different this
time. A gentle breeze brought air to his seared lungs as cool water soothed his
flesh. He was whole, or as whole as he had been before the flame had danced
through his body. Ice was plunged into his chest, but it was so much better
than the black flame and its unending pain. He would worship anything that
promised such sweet relief.
Darcet chuckled, but Orlean didn’t care.
He cared for nothing but the cool peace he felt now. As his vision cleared, he
looked down at his own body and could not recognize it. The flesh was charred
and blackened, the limbs broken and twisted. The bonds had fallen away but he
still did not move.
The hole in his chest was still there,
but from it glittered a frightening black light. Orlean glanced at Darcet in
confusion.
The man smiled and stroked a gentle hand
around the ragged edges of the gaping hole. “Your heart is mine. Your body is
mine. Your soul is mine.” Darcet leaned closer and laid a kiss on Orlean’s torn
lips. “You will live as I bid. Defy me and …”
Pain ripped through Orlean’s body and a
twisted cry came from his lips.
“But serve me well and …”
The pain disappeared, swallowed by the
soothing pleasure that tightened Orlean’s body and left him gasping for more.
Darcet awaited an answer, but still Orlean hesitated. Until another bolt of
pain racked his aching body.
Orlean did the only thing he could.
Putting his friends and family from his mind, Orlean rolled toward Darcet and
allowed himself to fall from the altar. Once at Darcet’s feet, Orlean forced
his twisted body into a kneeling position. His own clawed hands were awkward
and gouged the stone beneath his feet. Finally, he bowed his head, putting
himself willingly at Darcet’s mercy.
Darcet trailed a hand along Orlean’s
jaw, raising the ruined face to better see it. “Will you serve?”
“I will.” Those words came uneasily to
his lips, but they did come.
“Will you tame the shamans and Sky
Lords?”
“I will.” The answers were coming with
greater speed now.
“And will you rule the Wastes in my
name?”
“I will.” His hesitation disappeared and
with it, the last of what made him Orlean.
A truly happy smile lit Darcet’s face.
“Then rise, my dear Rider. Rise and do to some of the others what I have done
to you. Build my numbers. Increase my strength. Kill the dragons, convert or
sacrifice the Sky Lords and shamans, and rule the Wastes as I would.”
The Rider stood with some difficulty,
eventually finding his feet but still keeping his head bowed out of respect.
“With pleasure.” And it was no lie.
Darcet laughed again and the sound of
shattering glass filled the night air. His body became nothing but smoke and
even this eventually drifted off, leaving only his laughter echoing through the
dark tower. That and a dark wyvern that coiled and twisted, awaiting the
Rider’s orders.
The
Rider ran a hand over the slick scales and smiled.
