Quest for the Dragon Soul Pt. 02

"Long enough. Longer than you will live if you travel West."

Khaln nodded turned the horse around and they faced the wind wolf king - the predator snarled and then turned and disappeared in the night, followed by its legion of wind wolves. Khaln pointed the horse westward and rode into the night while Thelczyius wondered if this man was right about the Call of Skaelor betraying them.

III

Khaln had been riding for almost a day and had only progressed a few leagues closer to the port city of Videsh'Achar when his mount came upon a deep drop in the Abaltir river creating a mildly turbulent watering hole with a high, thin waterfall dumping a constant shower of cool fresh water. Khaln patted the horse's neck and dismounted it and lead it slowly down a torturous goat path down the drop in terrain. It reminded him of the care he took not to stray towards one of the Cardinal Roads that were under the watch of the Call's Quieting Angels - man like in shape, their bodies had the appearance of being made of a cloud of ash surrounding a skeleton of pearl white bone, but that they had large wings composed of ascerated blades that could slice steel like wood.

When they reached the bottom of the steep grade, Khaln unhitched the bags of supplies he had collected when he had destroyed his childhood home, letting it burn with the remains of his mother and other Yarczian warriors he had slain, and undid the bindings of the saddle the dead warlord had supplied him. The horse boobed its head excitedly and whinnied and pushed gratefully against Khaln before grazing and drinking from the swirling water. Khaln looked over at the waterfall and suddenly felt heavy and wary of the killing he had been involved with since the battle of Melzay. He had seen more death since the past 3 days then during the battle proper. He touched his black hair and undid the leather buckle and stone needle he used to tighten it behind his head. The locks were matted with grime and blood and he finally smelled the stench of death that clung to him as patches of gilded stag blood and Yarczian flesh stained his shoulders and limbs.

Khaln unhooked the baldric that held his long sword and he undid his belt before removing his armour and arm bands. It was then that he noticed a break in the goat path that cut behind the waterfall to an opening into the rock - retrieving a dagger, Khaln walked the path and crouched to pass beyond the water and he found a vast, cavernous delve behind the wall of water. Mist floated about the grotto and ferocious looking spines of stone pointed downward from the grotto's palate. Sunlight filtered through the shifting wall of water and made the walls of the grotto sparkle in response -although he was struck by the beauty of the grotto, Khaln felt as thought he had just stepped into to maw of one of the dragons of legend.

Khaln dropped his dagger once he walked around the edge of the grotto walls and undid the rest of his clothing and removed his boots. Naked, he walked under the mad rush of cool water, its crushing roar filling his ears and he embraced the sound and the chill the water gave him as it peeled away layers of death and wariness.

Behind him, the shadows had begun to coalesce and a hooded figure stepped out from the darkness and quietly observed the the young man.

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The water had a harrowing ability to amplify and transmit sound seemingly from all directions, and when Khaln heard his name be whispered in the space between the water drops, he froze for a split second before throwing himself from the reassuring water and onto the hard stone of the grotto floor - the sharp protrusions of rock tore at the flesh of his back and shoulders. But he managed to roll and seize the dagger still on the ground and he let it fly into the darkness, missing the silent, motionless figure by the width of a hand. The blade clanged against the rock face at the far end of the grotto.

Khaln instinctively reached for his sword but it was outside with his steed - he opted to throw himself at the dark figure but a momentary flash of green beneath its hood made Khaln dive to his left as ebony tendrils scoured the air where he was. Khaln hissed as the impact with the ground pained his side - he clinched his teeth and scrambled to his feet and, as he was about to lunge a second time, the water mist that floated freely throughout the grotto converged on him and solidified with the density of thick ice but without the cold.

Once Khaln was completely immobilized, the dark stranger stepped forward into the light and peered its glowing green eyes in to his dark grey ones - Khaln strained against the warm ice when he saw the dancing and swirling pools of darkness that somehow formed the feminine silhouette before him. His body twisted mightily while deep pools of red light beneath his skin pulsed but the eldritch ice held fast.

"You really should learn to control that," the hooded figure said in a raspy voice as she touched the transparent ice with a cloud like hand. The ice amplified Khaln's red glow and it filled the grotto. "A condition such as this is sure to shine like a beacon."

"Who are you?" Khaln managed to asked, his chest filling with air at great effort.

"A Matron of the Call - did you think we had forgotten you?"

"Then why did you let so many of us go?"

"To observe what you would do in defeat," the Matron said. "And you have been busy, haven't you?"

Khaln snarled and at the Matron - if he could see her mouth, she would have been smiling.

"You bury your kin and then bed your mother - you then kill the men who were raping her and finally end her life yourself. And then you burn it all in an effort to what? Forget what you had done? But the Yarczians could not forget - and they've heeded the price for their vengeance."

"There is a price to pay for pursuing vengeance against someone who rages for it more than you do," Khaln growled.

"Oh, we saw that, Khaln second-son - I see how you glow with red rage, even now."

The shadowy wraith Matron reached out and touched Khaln's exposed cheek with her slender, inky fingers. But where she touched his skin, waves of red light rippled across his skin like as though she touched a still body of water - Khaln felt his muscles grow invigorated from her dark touch and he heaved his thick chest and shoulder and he managed to shift his weight. The eldritch ice that held him immobile shattered and sprayed the shadow Matron with sharp shards - they passed harmlessly though her wispy form, but she recoiled when Khaln's glowing hand clutched the eldritch fabric of her black cowl.

The Matron roiled away from Khaln, but he managed to wrap an arm around her waist and he lifted her off the ground, but as he was about to slam her to the ground, her body broke apart into filaments of black smoke, leaving Khaln empty handed.

Khaln watched as the Matron reassembled the cloudy filaments of her body and solidified a few paces away from him. The red pulses beneath his skin had quieted and he stood before her as a normal man while he stared at the odd attractiveness of her swirling, inky black form.

"Even mages had trouble catching me - you are more than you know, Khaln second-son," the Matron said. Her green eyes glowed but she remained motionless.

Khaln dropped to one knee and suddenly felt the weight of all that had transpired since the battle of Melzay.

"Are you trying to break me or make me stronger?" Khaln asked.

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"I am the Matron Tenebrae - the suffering of the Call of Skaelor," the Matron said, taking a step towards Khaln. "I corrupt the hope that lingers deep inside."

The shadows from the back of the grotto reached forth and engulfed the entire space while her voice echoed throughout the emptiness.

"I am going to tell you a story," the Matron whispered as she lifted Khaln to his feet. Her touch was cool but her hand was solid - it had no ill effect on him. She knelt before him and she touched his flaccid cock.

"In the beginning, there was the Living Void," the Matron whispered to his ear from the ether while her fingers gently caressed Khaln's manhood. It rose long and hard for her. "From its dreams arose the Dragons - each a facet of the Void and a reflection of the Void in themselves."

Khaln looked down and saw the Matron's glowing green eyes gazing up at him while his cock disappeared in the darkness where her mouth should have been. The Matron said, "But, as they were born of dreams, they were prone to chaos - thus, they warred. Those who died had turned to stone and their corpses had crashed together, piling until the World was created and the petrified dreams of the Void gave rise to a thought."

Khaln sighed as he felt countless lips ply his cock with countless kisses, seemingly peeling away his flesh and clutching his desire. "So the Conscious Void guided half the Dragons to stand before the World and breathe out a single, eternal flame to warm the World. The other half of the Dragons were presented the World as their home."

The Matron placed her hands on Khaln's buttocks and bobbed her head along the length of his shaft - he moaned as he felt a warmth surrounded his limbs before strafing his body and converging on his cock.

"And all was good," the Matron said.

"But the Conscious Void was unaware of what lied outside itself and it was suddenly torn - the Void filled with the War of the Gods," the Matron said as her voice filled the cavern while the darkness she used to pleasure Khaln's cock spread down his shaft and across his crotch.

"It was a violence directed against the emptiness and all space became mired in the blood, sweat, tears, come and shit of the Gods. The Dragons of the World rose to defend it, but the dejection of the Gods found the surface of the World and the races of man were born."

Khaln looked down and the Matron's upper body seemed to melt and its liquid texture had surrounded his hips - in the darkness he could feel his cock be pumped and stroked.

"They contained within them the divinities of the Gods as well as the living emptiness of the Conscious Void. The Void and the Gods came to a compromise: the Gods would watch the races of man act in their stead while the Void, through the touch of the Dragons, granted those races able the powers of Magic. The Magii Domini arose from the races of man to council kings and queens and thus rule from the Shades."

Khaln began to lose all sense self as the expanding darkness leaking from the Matron Tenebrae filled every pore of his skin - his memories became clouded and chaotic as past and future merged. But through the void he could still hear her voice and his orgasm was encroaching on the Matron's hypnotic tone.

"But this World was meant for something else - something that should have flourished if not for the races of man and the betrayal of the Void. We were here first ... we awoke ... we moved slowly ... and now we will reclaim our due."

Khaln latched on to those words like a buoy. Deep within the swirling dark mass of the Matron Tenebrae that wanted to consume him, Khaln felt his orgasm morph into primal fire and a the darkness suddenly ceased to advance.

"You won't have me," Khaln whispered. His cock felt as though it was going to render itself apart as his orgasm bulged and shot into the expanding abyss - but his come burned like the eternal fire of the primal dragons and it burned away the Matron Tenebrae's expanded, dark self. She screamed as she swallowed his load - it did not carry his humanity, but a secret she could not face. The Matron Tenebrae recoiled from Khaln for the second time and her glowing green eyes shimmered as unknown emotions threatened to drown her.

Khaln pushed himself away from the Matron in time to witness her spit out some of his seed she had taken. Her glowing green eyes glared at him with what he could only read as hate - and perhaps fear - until she melted away silently into the shadows at the back of the grotto.

"Do not go to Videsh'Achar," the Matron warned as she vanished in the shadows.

Khaln stood, his crotch and thighs covered in his drying come and ash left over from his contact with the Matron. He back away from the shadows and retreated to the rushing water, hoping it would wash the memory of this encounter with the Matron away.

IV

The Cardinal roads had originated in the central city of Melit'Zay - sister city of Melzay - and stretched out over the continent, following the four cardinal directions. They had been the main routes of commerce and were considered neutral territories in the kingdoms and countries they traversed - the neutrality was maintained by the Cardinal Watchers. But they would allows wars to break out over control of the tributaries of the Main Cardinal roads.

But when the Magii Domini had crumbled under the weight of the Arcane Ailment, all neutrality had fallen away and the Cardinal roads became rife with raiders and highwaymen - and they also served as battlefields. But the ten years of war allowed The Call of Skaelor to arise and when they moved, using the Cardinal roads as their supply lines, they followed the weakened armies of men and defeated them one after the other.

Khaln had returned to the Western Cardinal road for it lead to the port city of Videsh'Achar - his encounter with the Matron Tenebrae was a demonstration that the Call always knew where he was so there was no need to cling to the pastoral roads. But the Cardinal road had known the woes of war: the paved stones were shattered and jutted from the ground as sharp and jagged teeth; the crystal spires that marked distances along the road were crushed and melted; bloated bodies and flies and carrion eaters littered the causeway. If death had been the architect of the roads, the Call of Skaelor paved them with the bloody departed.

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Khaln had travelled for three days when the Cardinal road led to a vast grassland. Tall, swaying blades of grass lined the sides of the amazingly pristine road like sentinels while the sun was slowly dropping below the horizon.

He pondered the Matron's parting words: "Do not go to Videsh'Achar." Obviously, if the Call wanted to stop him, a battalion of Scything Souls or a Quieting Angel would have been enough to foil him. But they had tried to take something from him and found that difficult. So the words were meant to provoke him into turning back or resolutely continuing. Whatever the reasons, they were motivated by curiosity and control. He would answer one and destroy the other - he simply did not know in which order.

As the sun descended beyond the faraway treeline, the moons arose and bathed the Cardinal road in fleeting light that fought as the grasses reflected the light coming off the moons. Much to Khaln's annoyance, his steed reared up on its hind legs and whinnied plaintively - when he patted its neck the horse nodded its head but backed away from the expanding shadow of the rising moons. Khaln dismounted the animal and once it was free of him, the horse turned and ran from the grasslands and back towards the tortured regions of the Cardinal road.

Khaln was going to go after the steed but halted in his tracks - his vision went black for a moment but the vertigo dissipated quickly as a moan arose from the tall grasses. Khaln unsheathed his long, polished battle sword and peered into the darkness. The grass swayed with an odd sensuality he found strangely hypnotic; to retrieve his senses he nicked his forearm.

"Khaln!" a voice cried above the grass and on the wind. It was a voice he recognized - a voice he had silenced only a few days ago.

"Preya," Khaln muttered before launching himself blindly into the sea of grass, insouciant of what might be hiding there. The blades seemed to part magically as he ran - at the same time, Khaln had a gnawing sensation that he was actually following a path being opened for him in order to corral him. Yet he could not turn away from the path or the voice screaming his name.

"Khaln!!"

He burst from the parted grass onto a clearing in the night drenched savannah. Before him stood three women: all were naked. All were his mother.

"No," Khaln snarled. The one to his left was young and beautiful, but her inner thighs were covered in blood and a dripping umbilical cord dangled from between her legs.

"You hurt my body," his young mother said as her head spun around, the snapping of her vertebrae audible on the wind.

"You hurt my spirit," the second version of his mother said, standing directly in front of him - she was as he remembered when he had slipped a knife into her heart. Each beat made a torrent of fresh blood gush from the wound he had branded her with.

"You hurt my soul," the last version of his mother said to his right. She was on the ground, her head leaning back and staring at him wantonly as she had her hands between her legs and used dirt and gravel on her clit while mouthing his name.

Khaln screamed and charged the closest image of his mother, keen on slicing her out of his head. He swung his sword wildly at the young version of Preya - the one he had supposedly harmed during his difficult birth - but she easily sidestepped his sword and smacked it from his grasp. He swung at her, but she blocked his blow and kicked him above his knee, knocking his leg back and forcing him off balance.

While he was struggling with the younger Preya, the one that had been to his right and masturbating lifted herself from her lying position and crab-walked until she was behind Khaln. The young Preya pushed him and he fell into her counterpart's clutches. This Preya wrapped her arms and legs around him and as he struggled, her limbs grew in length and thickness and bound him like chains.

"I never fed you," the third Preya said. "No wonder you are so fucked up."

The Preya Khaln had killed stood over him with a hand covering her wound beneath her breast. "Have a drink, my most hated son," she whispered and removed her hand from the gaping hole in her chest. Blood gushed from the wound and flooded Khaln's face, painting it crimson as he struggled to breathe beneath the torrent.

But as the blood filled his throat and immersed his lungs, Khaln's heart beat at a mad rate and he could feel his anger express a heat that spread to his limbs and the small veins just beneath his bronzed skin erupted with pulses of red light. The blood in his throat evaporated and a cloud of hot, red mist escaped his lips and nostrils.

The three wraith images of Preya scampered away from him and Khaln felt his skin render and his limbs stretched almost infinitely beyond their limits while he reared onto his hind legs. He looked down at his body and his skin was replaced by leathery scales - he howled in delight and anger while he felt his chest filled with crimson fire that he unleashed from his gaping, fanged mouth. The tall grasses surrounding the Cardinal road disintegrated and the earth was left scorched and smoking. His neck felt long and strong and Khaln looked as his arms - they had become great, webbed wings. Khaln exhaled a stream of flame from his nostrils and the great dragon he had become arose into the night above the trees as his powerful wings beat the air. A second exhalation of fire incinerated the wraiths in the form of his mother.

Higher and higher he rose and the stars themselves seemed to tremble at the sight of the mighty dragon that had arose from where Khaln Dharrec, the second-son, had drowned in blood. But the higher he climbed, the more the fire inside him yearned to be free - when he reached the outskirts of the eternal darkness between the stars, his new found hide split open and all the flames he withheld inside consumed him and when they burned out, Khaln was a man again. He tumbled in the darkness - the world beneath him was gone.