The finest sword does not begin with the finest steel. It begins with a heart dedicated to mastering the skill of discipline. A hurried process can result in shattered shards of metal, and careless indifference produces slipshod workmanship. Only precise adherence to time tested standards coupled with exceptional ingredients and a master's genius will free the elements to become a unique masterpiece. The same is true with the flesh and blood that wields the sword. From the Manual of Discipline found in the Library of Vindry-author unknown Following the downfall of the three great Aelfene kingdoms, sorrow and fear flood the world of Aelandra. Pride and the quest for power shreds the idyllic symbiosis between the ancient dragons of light and the Aelfen. Survivors scatter with hopes to preserve their ancient heritage, but dragons fallen into darkness train a Dragon Master with designs to slay all the Aelfen and bring the world of men under their control. Banished from the physical world, dragons of light leave a legacy to craft a weapon to aid men against the encroaching shadows, but time favors the evil Dragon Master and his dragons dedicated to subjugate the kingdoms of men. Can a young man and woman master the keys and find the courage necessary to gather the elements needed?
The Brazen Serpent Chronicles
Dragon KilnBy R. Dennis BairdAuthorHouse
Copyright © 2011 R. Dennis Baird
All right reserved.ISBN: 978-1-4634-2429-9Contents
Eclipse....................................1Brotherhood................................16Winsome Lass...............................32Chara Revealed.............................48Son of the Morning.........................65Children of the Forest.....................81Beneath the Foundation.....................97Hidden Knife...............................112Forgotten World............................128Trust a Snake..............................142Furnace of Life............................158Season for Dreams..........................174Shades of Evening..........................190
Chapter One
Eclipse
A concussive blast ended the vision and hurled the young woman backward against the marble wall. Dazed, she staggered back toward a dark shadow emanating from a small basin on a pedestal in the middle of the room. She waved her arms in front of her, as if lost and trying to find her way through an invasion of mosquitoes.
"What is it Meliandra?" Garrik shouted, as he ran into the room to his wife's side. He pulled her back from the murky specter forming above the basin. With firm resolve, he uttered a power word and flooded the room with light. The burst of luminosity melted the sinister apparition.
"I ... saw it," she said. "It was ... terrible. Darkness. Fear. How could ... death?"
"What did you see?" Garrik could scarcely understand his wife's jagged, almost incoherent mumbling.
Her dilated eyes stared at nothing. To shield them, Meliandra raised her hands, fingers quivering. Garrik cupped her face in his hands and caressed the long braids that framed her countenance. He began to hum a beautiful melody. A few bars into the song the magic of the tones eased Meliandra's anxiety. He led her to a chair and helped her sit. Kneeling in front of her he took her hand in his.
"Taina's in peril. Dearest, I fear our city's lost," she said.
Even as her breathing returned to a more normal cadence, she slumped forward and rested her head on his shoulder. The exertion she had made to use the scry basin had sapped all her strength. Garrik picked her up and carried her to her bed.
* * *
The roar of an immense creature shattered the late afternoon air. Arnor flattened himself into the mud behind a large boulder in the open meadow. The young man had hoped the heavy rain would be enough to cover his scent after he left the cave, but the dragon had returned too soon, and Arnor had managed a scarce five hundred paces from the entrance into its lair. He gripped the hilt of his sword until his knuckles whitened. It would find him.
"Well, there is nothing for it now," he muttered.
He rose to his feet and stepped from behind the boulder. Mud caked his face and arms, and his armor clung to his lanky frame. Holding his sword in his right hand, he used his left hand to wipe his wet hair out of his eyes. Arnor had apprenticed with an old metal smith in Adisabala, and before his death, the old man had given him the armor. The steady rain drummed on the metal spaulders, attached to the shoulders of his breastplate harness. He glanced down on his breastplate and remembered the words of the old smith. Made from the scale of a dragon. Arnor hoped it would be impervious to damage like the tales recounted. He worried a little about his impulse to test it just now, because he could see the shape of a huge creature moving through the trees toward him.
He tensed and took a step forward, thinking to attack the creature just as it cleared the trees and before it entered the open meadow.
"What do you think you are doing?" a voice from behind him shouted.
Before he could move or turn completely around, a tall elegant woman grabbed him by the collar and swung him around to face her. She handled him like a rag doll.
"I asked you a question," she said.
"Koparr, a dragon's coming. You can help me kill it."
Relief flooded Arnor. He and the woman named Koparr had been close friends for as long as he could remember. She was a dragon of light, and in an instant she could assume her true form and help him slay any of these mud crawling dragons that had never experienced the world of light. They were but creatures spawned by the darkness. Koparr had come from outside the physical world with the first dragons.
"Kill it? Kill it? What is wrong with you, boy?"
"When I saw you, I thought you had come to help me. I mean; I've never actually faced a dragon before. Well, you know, other than you, and in combat."
"Help you? I did not even know you were here. And by the way, the dragon coming toward you is not an `it'. She is my sister, Coepor. I was not coming to save you. I was coming to visit her. Maybe she and I should share you for dinner. What have you stolen from her?"
Arnor stammered. The woman's eyes blazed like burnished copper. She twitched and stretched her neck. Shaking her head, particles of light scattered in every direction, as her snout elongated. Thorny protrusions replaced her hair and ringed the crown of her head like a regal tiara. Stretching her wings, and shaking the rain from them, she towered over him. In the gloom of the darkening afternoon, Arnor gazed at her in awe.
"I do not like repeating myself. What did you take?" she rumbled. Her voice remained high and mellow, but echoed as if it started in a deep well.
"Well, there wasn't much there to be honest. Mostly just star charts on parchment and a few scrolls detailing movements of the planets in the night sky. Then I saw this old book. It...."
"A book. A book, you say. You stole my book?" The new voice came from behind Arnor. As he turned, he realized that Coepor had been behind him listening. She looked so much like Koparr that Arnor doubted he could tell the sisters apart except for the nasty scar on the left side of Coepor's visage.
"I didn't think it was worth much," Arnor said, "but I hoped I could get a couple of silver pieces for it in Eventop."
"A couple of silver pieces? A couple of silver pieces? He would sell the Manuel of Discipline for a couple of silver pieces. The combined wisdom of the three kingdoms would be sold for a couple of silver pieces. Of course, it makes sense to me." Coepor lifted her head and bellowed a raucous clamor toward the rain-swollen clouds.
"Sister, calm yourself. He is under my protection." Koparr said. "This is the son of Granor. The boy survived the downfall of Misdara. Before the battle at the gate, I swore an oath to his father to protect him. He is unacquainted with his Aelfene heritage."
Arnor stepped back so he could see both dragons. The underground city of Misdara was a distant memory to him. He could remember his father's smile, but that was about all. He recalled nothing about his mother. Koparr had taught him many things about the Aelfen, but he did not feel akin to the Aelfene world, or the world of men for that matter. For years he wandered the wilderness. Solitude had become his friend in a world turned askew by the treachery of the dragons that had fallen into darkness. He remembered almost nothing of his young life when dragons of light and the Aelfen shared mutual service one to another.
The steady rain drummed on his armor. The dragons appeared oblivious to the downpour. Arnor looked up and studied the two magnificent creatures, as they communed with one another. They looked as if their forms had been chiseled from giant crystals. Arnor knew their communication had risen to a level above vocal speech. Koparr had explained it once, but it was years ago, and Arnor had been too impatient to heed her instruction. At times he fancied that he could hear her words within his head before she spoke to him, but he supposed those instances were idle musings. He tried to imagine what the two sisters were saying to one another. For an instant, he saw a flash of light and angry faces in a sea of confusion. The flash reflected off of armor and swords darkened with blood. When he saw that, he did not want to look into their thoughts anymore.
"Boy, how long are you going to stand looking at the rain as it pummels your face?" Coepor asked. "Follow me. You can replace the book you have stolen."
In a more kindly tone, Koparr said, "Come with us, Arnor."
He sheathed his sword, slung his shield onto his back, and hoisted his traveling pack onto his shoulder. He took a deep breath and fell into step behind the two dragons. He swallowed hard as he apprehensively reentered the cavern.
When he had first entered the cave earlier in the afternoon, he had used a torch to illuminate the dark hole, but this time Coepor extended her talon and touched previously unseen crystals along the roof of the cavern. Gems spilled brilliant light along the passage until it opened into the large chamber where he had discovered the book among a pile of leather scrolls, but the dank chamber of Arnor's memory faded into the radiance of a beautiful multifaceted cavern with adjoining rooms and magnificent furnishings. Arnor could see a room filled with gold and gems, and another with engravings on the walls and a ceiling inlaid with platinum that seemed to flow like rivers of liquid metal. The configurations shifted in motions that replicated the passage of the stars and planets in the night sky.
"Come. Remove your armor and warm yourself by the hearthstone. You must be cold from the rain."
Coepor's kind words surprised him. He watched the two dragons as they transformed into human shape. Within moments two stately women stood before Arnor. They were indistinguishable except for the scar on the left of Coepor's face. Only her mannerisms and commanding presence revealed to Arnor that she was the elder sister.
"We thought it might be more comfortable for you if we assumed a human form. Is this agreeable to you?" Koparr asked.
"Yes, m'lady," he said.
He looked toward Coepor. "I ... I'm sorry I stole your book."
He reached into his rucksack and pulled the book out. With great care he handed it to Coepor.
"It's very valuable, isn't it?" he asked.
"I cannot measure the value unless I see the results it produces in one who reads it, but the book is safe now. You did not realize ..." Coepor said.
"No. Don't make excuses for me," he said. "It was wrong. I've been instructed well. Your sister's a good teacher. I don't want you to think she's failed in her trust."
Coepor smiled and extended her hand to him with a rough cloth.
"Use this to dry yourself, and your armor. You must make sure you take care of your equipment. I have some fine oil you can use to treat the metal and leather."
Arnor took the cloth and wiped his face. The dragon then pointed to a blank section in the cavern wall and the rock facade dissolved like a mist in the morning sun.
"In that room you will find a table and suitable sleeping quarters. This afternoon you were a thief; tonight you will be my guest. Koparr and I have many things to discuss."
She looked at Arnor with a stern eye. "We do not wish to be interrupted."
Arnor looked around the grotto, wondering what other marvels the dragon had hidden with her magic. He crossed the open space and entered the smaller passage into the room that Coepor had exposed to his view. To his amazement he spied the book he had just handed to the dragon laying open on a table in the middle of the room. As he approached the table, a curious looking gem in a candlestick holder began to radiate a soft white light.
He unbuckled his armor. With reverence he dried every piece and rubbed the fine oil Coepor had provided into the leather and coated the metal. In the muted light the polished alloy gleamed, and the scales of the breastplate glistened like burnished bronze. When he completed the task, he mounted it on a wooden rack that stood along the cave wall near the bed. After hanging the armor on the rack, he sat at the table and began to leaf through the book. The adages sparked interest, but the long day began to take its toll.
He could hear the low drone of the sister dragons in the other room. The cave had seemed dank and cold earlier in the day, but now he felt comfortable and safe. A feeling of warmth permeated his chest. He once watched a mother cradling her child along the side of a road. The child laughed and giggled in its mother's arms. Arnor felt safe like that, but his eyelids soon grew heavy, and he crawled into bed under the blankets. He drifted off to sleep, warm and comfortable, but his dreams soon darkened the night, as nightmares from the past shredded his security.
* * *
Meliandra and Garrik sat at the stone table with eighteen representatives of the noble families of Taina. She and her husband were the youngest of the representatives, but their families were among the most respected of the Aelfen. Their parents had followed the first advent of the dragons of light when they arrived in the Crystal Palace of Dragada, the first of the Aelfene Kingdoms. They had spent time in the Crystal Caverns of Misdara, the second and greatest of the kingdoms. Most important they had been among the founding nobles of Taina, city of the Golden Pyramid, the third great Aelfene Kingdom. At the end of the third age, the Age of Instruction, their parents had returned to join the children of light in the eternal world. Meliandra felt bereft of her parents' strength and she knew her husband also felt the empty regret of not having his parents' calming presence.
A tall man dressed in a green tunic stood and addressed the seated nobles. After a traditional welcome, he turned to Meliandra.
"Lady Meliandra, you brought a disquieting tale to the triumvirate yesterday. For this reason we have convened the full council. Can you describe what you saw in the basin?"
"Certainly, Master Timmons." Meliandra stood and looked around the large council table. She paused. A cold look in the eyes of several of the people warned her to be wary. Since the Aelfene Kingdom of Misdara had fallen silent, suspicion and accusations among the royal families had become rampant in Taina. Rather than reporting to the council, she felt as if she were on trial.
"I have seen disturbing things from our past, and the basin showed me intimations of the future of Taina." Meliandra paused and reached for her husband's hand. Garrik remained immobile, but his strong hand comforted her.
She continued, "We are long lived in the physical world, and some here remember the founding of Dragada over two thousand summers ago. We have heard nothing but rumor about Misdara over the fifty years since the scry basins have failed. None of our messengers have returned, and there has been no news from the Crystal City. The cities and kingdoms of men have flourished, but for a millennium they have known nothing more than fragments of our world."
A tall man rose to his feet. He raised his family staff, indicating his desire to speak.
"Lady Meliandra, may I remind you that our scholars presume that men are descended from unfaithful renegades of the Aelfen who have left the principles of light. Whether they are from Misdara, Dragada, or even Taina, we know not. We assume Misdara has been isolated and closed its doors to the world, but it is unthinkable that the noble families there have fallen and their power dissipated. My family has studied the signs for many years. Dragada is still strong, and we are safe here at the base of the Golden Pyramid," the polished man said. His mellifluous smile belied the sharp glint in his eye that conveyed contempt. Meliandra sensed waves of magical emanations that disguised the man's true feelings.
"I shall explain neither how nor why I attempted contact with Misdara." Meliandra said. "Suffice it to say, I saw a vision from the past. Over fifty years ago King Perrik hid his wife Laena and his young daughter Joyus. The basins have not worked properly because unnatural forces dimmed the Eye of Light, and Schadwe, the dragon, fell into darkness and stole it. The king left Misdara and attempted to recover the gem, but Schadwe slew him."
"But, we have heard nothing of this," a woman said.
"This is my vision. The king's son, Paulus, and the great dragon, Nobliskynge, were slain defending the Tree. But the Tree has been hidden. Misdara wallows in darkness. Taina is in peril. We are five decades too late to help Misdara. We must look to the preservation of our city. Darkness stretches toward us. We have little time."
(Continues...)
Excerpted from The Brazen Serpent Chroniclesby R. Dennis Baird Copyright © 2011 by R. Dennis Baird. Excerpted by permission of AuthorHouse. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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