Quest for the Dragon Soul Pt. 05

"Away."

Upon Thierann's words, the leylines of magic rippled and an encircled Maca-Jal and sent the archer careening with enough force to snap his spine when he hit the wall at the opposite end of the council chamber. Odeena the Crone managed to reach her knees despite the torn, bleeding flesh from her wrists and ankles, and focused her concentration upon the leylines of magic and lashed out a spell meant to cut the child of Bailla'Tayne Jeva and Khaln Dharrec in two.

"Both of you burn," Thierann said and Maca-Jal's britches erupted in flame -- but the amorphic child of the porter of the Pneuma Draconis and the Blade bride displaced in time raised its hand and Odeena's spell was directed at Thierann while his will made fire attacked the Crone.

General Dagleon Talveiss yanked the wizard to the side and the sword Eldrath'Zhil shattered Odeena's blade spell but her robes caught fire as Thierann's cast went unimpeded. Thierann was visibly weakened after his display of will over the leylines of magic, the wounds suffered at the hands of the Nekka Adzur still infected with a dark aura. Ziel-Tan, who had managed to snap the tip of the arrow that stuck out from her chest, had stayed away from the magics involved in battling the entity and she had found water and used it as best she could to douse Odeena's burning robes. She then awkwardly undressed the unconscious witch and inspected the burns along her arms and back.

"Dagleon!" Ziel-Tan shouted. "Odeena is badly hurt."

"So is Thierann," Dagleon shouted in hushed tones, his damaged throat straining against the dust filled room. "But we can't let that thing escape."

But before General Dagleon Talveiss could act, the creature from Bailla'Tayne Jeva womb spread its formless arms and shouted and incomprehensible word -- a column of red fire blasted through the ceiling of the sitting chamber of the Seeded Council. Those outside who had taken to the streets to get away from the crumbling underground city witnessed the great tower made of black and white marble and crystal that was the Heliogopol be consumed by red flame and finally explode, showering the city and the entire valley with flaming rubble, sending people scattering from a crushing, burning death.

In the chamber, the flame burned away the excess flesh of the child of Bailla'Tayne Jeva and Khaln Dharrec, revealing the body of a fully grown woman with the purple eyes of the fallen oracle.

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"Stop Khaln," Tiephy requested. The porter of the Pneuma Draconis looked at the former Matron and lowered his sword Ax'Herith as the Dread Lord of Oczeloth ordered the web of deadly limbs protruding from his back to be calm and reformed into his cloak. The blades around his face became fur and he waited.

"Dread Lord, I know what I have done, and I am ready to pay the price for my actions. Khaln, I thank you for fulfilling my vengeance, and for giving me the chance the relive what it was to be human. But that is a life I cannot continue -- do not intervene against whatever judgment is imposed upon me and continue your quest."

'Tiephy, you don't have to d this," Khaln said, suddenly filled with sad rage. "You don't owe the Call anything. You don't owe me or the world anything. We've been forced into roles we never asked for by forces that are oblivious that we ... are ... people. Fuck this world and choose to live."

Tiephy walked over to the young porter of the Pneuma Draconis as the wreck of the barge they had called home for a few weeks began to take on water. "It's Ok, Khaln. There was no way I was going to survive as a Matron of the Call. I ..."

Before Tiephy could continue, her voice stuck in her throat and she coughed while Khaln stared dumbfounded as an ax blade sank into the former Matron's neck. Dark arterial splatter struck his face and his muted voice spoke Tiephy's name as he witnessed a second ax blow sever her head cleanly from her shoulders, triggering a jet of dark blood to shoot upwards. He watched helplessly as Tiephy's head spun in the air before striking the deck of the barge. Her body fell sideways and Khaln stood before the ax wielding Matron Inludidae, once a Daughter of the Vanguard Draconis named Onia, and the last wife of the Dread Lord Ax'Herith.

The other Matrons, Chameleonedae and Tenebrae stood aghast at the Matron Inludidae's actions -- they had never witnessed the death of a sister, let alone at the hand of another sister.

"Why did you do that?" the Dread Lord Oczeloth bellowed, his cloak awakening to its web of deadly limbs.

"Were you just going to let her talk?" the Matron Inludidae asked. "We came to execute her, so she's executed!"

As the Matron Inludidae exchanged with the Dread Lord Oczeloth, Khaln rage simmered from a mild fire to boiling fury as he bound over the headless corpse of the former Matron Sonorous of the Call of Skaelor and, more swiftly than the eye could follow, he had a hand around the Matron Inludidae's neck and the sword Ax'Herith poised above her heart. The pulsing pools of red glows that denoted Khaln's invoking of the Pneuma Draconis were now eruptions of energy that poured from his every pore and coalesced around him to form the shape of a furious dragon.

The Dread Lord Oczeloth stared in wonder as the Pneuma Draconis, the spark of pure, unspoiled magic, became visible for the first time since the inception of all existence -- but his wonder was short lived. The Matron Chameleonedae had opened her great eye and peered towards the East.

"Dread Lord," the Matron Chameleonedae spoke, her every word causing her fluid body to ripple with each word. "There is something rising in the ruins of Melit'Zay. It knows the Pneuma Draconis is manifest -- he must quiet it!"

Then, all stopped their actions as the very fabric of the night seemed to reverberate with the echo of a single word spoken half a world away.

"Arag'nakosh."

Khaln Dharrec screamed once the word was muted and he world became one of emptiness and fire. The flaming energies that formed the figure of a great dragon above him were sucked upwards into a sizzling vortex that pulled them towards the city of Melit'Zay. Khaln felt his very identity be stripped as the vortex sucked the flames the exited his pores, his eyes, his mouth -- red liquid fire leaked from every orifice of his body, leaving him burnt and bleeding as the theft of the Pneuma Draconis stripped him of his immunity to magic and he was now marked with the wounds of his past battles with eldritch forces.

Onia, the Matron Inludidae, stared at the motionless Khaln Dharrec while touching her neck where he had held her. Across her skin, the tattoos that occupied her bald head spread like water down a hill -- they marked dark lines down her face and across her ample bosom and she suddenly scampered to Khaln's body.

"He's barely breathing!" the Matron Inludidae said as she pressed her ears to his dislocated jaw.

"Get away from him!" the Matron Tenebrae ordered as she pushed the other Matron aside.

'What have I done?" the Matron Inludidae whispered as she watched the Matrons Tenebrae and Chameleonedae tend to Khaln's wounds as best they could. She fell to her knees and wondered at all the time she spent craving the desires for flesh, either in battle or in lust, and she ignored the cravings of the heart.

"Onia," the Dread Lord Oczeloth said soothingly as he touched the Matron Inludidae. He noted she was calmer and even shivering. "You saw something in his fire?"

"Just darkness and death. No recreated world, for either the Call or the humans. Whatever took the Pneuma Draconis took away my madness and all I see now is the world -- it hurts."

The Dread Lord nodded and pointed then to his ship. "Get him aboard, quickly. Then prepare to sail south." He turned to the Matron Inludidae and said: "Stay by his side -- you might be his only anchor left to life."

Onia, the Matron Inludidae, nodded as the tattoos stopped swirling across her skin, leaving permanent lines like tears beneath her eyes. She watched the other Matrons carry Khaln over to the Dread Lord Oczeloth's ship and she joined them, wondering what could lie to the south and if it could save Khaln Dharrec.

VIII

General Dagleon Talveiss and Ziel-Tan, formerly of the Qoazti Companion, stared as the scarlet fires surrounding the mysterious child of the former Blade Bride Bailla'Tayne Jeva and Khaln Dharrec, porter of the Pneuma Draconis, burned away all mystery and stood before them a woman of exceptional beauty. Her hair was long and black and cheekbones high and her nose was long and regal while her lips were full and sensuous. She was tall and slender, with smallish breasts but the flared hips of an experienced woman -- as she moved, it was with the weightless gait of a dancer. The fires danced around her until she absorbed them completely.

The newly formed woman smiled at the general and the archer and the silver irises of her purple eyes sparkled while a purple gown materialized around her. It was bound at her neck, exposing her bare back though a mesh of fabric while exposing her toned arms. The dress was cinched at her waist by a silver band and turned to a long skirt ending at her ankles. It was split on her left, exposing her leg till mid thigh.

"Hello mother," the newly born woman said.

"What are you?" Bailla'Tayne Jeva sobbed as she tugged at the umbilical chord that still linked her to her daughter.

"I am what my son made of me," she said simply while touching the chord. The expanse of flesh then withered and fell as ash, making Bailla'Tayne Jeva scream and hold her belly as the same ash fell from between her thighs.

"Your son ... What are you?" Bailla'Tayne Jeva managed to demand through the agony of her womb's destruction.

"Oh ... I have been remiss," the woman said nonchalantly and snapped her fingers -- every person who could move in the sitting chamber of the Seeded Council was suddenly immobilized and their arms were pulled to their side and they were lifted into the air. The woman made a come hither motion and Bailla'Tayne Jeva floated towards her, whimpering as the invisible forces that held her twisted her limbs.

"Oh, you know my son, mother Jeva," the woman said as she poked the former Blade Bride in the stomach. "When he came back from the war with the Call of Skaelor, things were ... tense, between us. So we fucked each other -- it was either that or kill one another.

"The next morning, he found me in the company of some Yarczian ne'er do wells. He was rather distraught and slaughtered them. You would have been proud, general Talveiss. But I was mortally wounded and he ended my life with a dagger. However, because he had touched me -- let's just say I lingered in the spaces between life and death. That's how I caught the attention of something quite old.

"If I served this entity, it promised I would be rewarded with what had been denied me. I was dead, so I didn't have anything to lose. So when I felt the spark of life in you, Jeva, after you fucked my son -- which, by the way, I did much better -- I realized the child could be the anchor I needed to ... reinvent myself. Throw in some ancient magic and here I am. And I now possess the Pneuma Draconis -- Khaln was so careless with it. It was surprisingly simple to coerce it from him once his rage unleashed it."

Bailla'Tayne Jeva listened and the pain in her belly subsided while her anguish turned to rage. "Is he alive, Preya?" the former Blade Bride asked.

"Preya ... my name ... you know it. Good. I suppose part of him may be still breathing -- but not his cock. I wonder, why don't you inquire about my grand daughter?"

"She's dead," Bailla'Tayne Jeva said as she chocked back her tears. "You killed her -- why would I torture myself asking you about her?"

"Guilt?" the creature that was Preya Dharrec resurrected asked. "Guilt and self-pity are people's favorite means of torture. People do love torturing themselves."

"I swear I will kill you," Bailla'Tayne Jeva spat at Preya. She watched as the spittle caught in mid air.

"Did you know Khaln slept with the archer girl?" Preya asked as she pointed to Ziel-Tan. The Qoazti archer heaved as the broken arrow protruding from her chest turned and moved back and forth in her wound. "But she did not get pregnant -- a bit of a barren wasteland down there, I'd say. I hope you weren't planning on a family any time soon, general Talveiss. Or should I call you prince Hexlzard, sovereign of ashes -- for that's all that's left of Whellaneir."

"That's enough," general Dagleon Talveiss rasped at Preya from his position in the air. "You've proven your point -- you see our secrets. Our shames. Why don't you just get on with whatever you have planned?" The general Dagleon Talveiss stared at the sword Eldrath'Zhil that lay on the floor -- it seemed rather harmless so far from his hand.

"But I am, general. My goal is your despair, and once the world drowns in it, then will my master, the Always Forgotten One, the God of no Gods -- then will he appear."

The general grunted as he struggled against the invisible binds that held him immobile in the air -- he watched as Preya walked to Ziel-Tan.

"You," Preya said as she reached up and cupped Ziel-Tan's breast. "Maca-Jal asked that I either deliver you to him or kill the general before your eyes."

Preya pointed at general Dagleon Talveiss and he began to scream as blood dripped from his skin. The general felt every vein in his body rip open and invisible forces reached into him and pulled out his blood. Ziel-Tan sobbed as the general's arms snapped, bones protruding from bloody open wounds.

'Stop it!" Ziel-Tan shouted. " Stop it now, or I swear the gods will ..." Ziel-Tan's words were cut short as her mouth disappeared. The general Dagleon Talveiss remained twisted and motionless as blood dripped from his eyes and mouth and torn limbs.

"The Gods? My husband prayed to the Sil'hazat. He's dead. You archers swear by Tiengal the blind, and they're either dead or enslaved to me. Even my mother's beloved Asteytis has failed her. The gods are cowards -- you'd think they'd intervene but they let something like the Pneuma Draconis exist that can recreate a world without them. My god acts at least."

"And he can be merciful," Preya added. She looked at the destroyed general and he screamed again as his ravaged arms set themselves and the blood that pooled on the floor beneath him ran upwards and reentered his flesh. The open wounds on his arms sewed shut and it looked as thought no pain had befallen him. Even Ziel-Tan's mouth was returned.

As Preya watched her prisoners squirm, Thierann of Gul'Vadesh labored for his breaths as he opened his awareness -- Odeena the Crone was barely conscious and unable to muster any magic; Bailla'Tayne Jeva was distraught but angry, though her power levels were back to normal; there were other mages splayed across the chamber floor, injured or dying. When he focused his awareness on Preya, he winced as he sensed a familiar aura -- Cyphelia's eyes were helping Preya channel the combined power of the Pneuma Draconis and mysterious divine energies that allowed her to exist in this realm. But strangely, for all her power on display, the leylines of magic were calm.

"Disappear," Lord Thierann of Gul'Vadesh whispered -- his widened perception became and expanded act of will that bypassed Preya's magic.

First Ziel-Tan, then the general Dagleon Talveiss popped out of existence with a sigh, followed by other floating prisoners. By the time Preya realized what Thierann was doing, Odeena had dematerialized and only Bailla'Tayne Jeva was left. The former Blade Bride screamed as her body was tugged between Thierann's will to whisk her away while Preya blocked the spell. The former Blade Bride felt like her organs were liquifying and solidifying under the stress of the conflicting magics.

"You're not taking her," Preya said, pointing at Thierann. The old wizard felt thousands of invisible needles try to pierce his skin and break his concentration but the leylines of magic whipped at Preya in the form of a great wind.

Thierann could feel his concentration falter and he screamed Bailla'Tayne Jeva's name -- the Blade Bride found her senses and cast a protection spell. The split second it worked she disappeared.

Preya snarled and unleashed a focused stream of fire from her hands towards the old wizard but he managed a smile as he vanished just as her red flames struck where he once stood.

Preya regained her composure and stared at the lifeless body of the fallen lieutenant Liervel -- his limbs began to snap and crunch as eldritch life was breathed back into his cold lungs. Other rose, lifeless corpses filled with a desire to kill. As her undead army arose, she bent down and picked up the sword Eldrath'Zhil and admired its construction.

Maca-Jal whimpered as Preya approached him. Her indulgent smile frightened him as she touched him and his body began to change to a symphony of snapping, crunching bones.

"We have much to do, Maca-Jal," Preya whispered. "Much to do."

End book one