The Written (25 page)

The mage soon found himself in
the great hall where he had been hauled to only a day before. The
sound of Sirens working and talking was a roar. A few dragons
perched in their nests high up on the walls, their greens, blues,
and reds sparkling in the daylight that streamed through the holes
in the roof. Everywhere around him tables had been brought in and
assembled and covered with scrolls, maps, books, and tomes.
Hundreds of busy scribes pored over them. Men and women in white
tunics and robes dashed around with parchment clenched in their
fists and eagerly ran from table to table. Farden had never seen
such madness. A white and yellow dragon flapped into the hall
through the huge window and hovered high above them near the
ceiling. It spun into a slow spiralling descent and came to rest
gently beside the mage, who stood eating and holding his plate in
one hand. Farden watched the dragon fold its wings and bow its
head. It then closed its eyes and spoke with a low gentle
voice.

‘Well met and good wishes,
Farden, I am Brightshow, partner of Lakkin. The Old Dragon, in all
his wisdom, has sent for every scribe and scholar in the city to
come and search through every historical account we can find. Some
of the older dragons have leant their tearbooks to be scrutinised,
in the hope that we can find this dark elf well of yours,’ she
said. Her flanks glittered with her white and gold-yellow
colouring.

The mage bowed back. ‘Good to
meet you Brightshow, I take it Farfallen isn’t worried about
keeping this matter a secret then? What if there are spies amongst
these people?’

‘Farfallen has seen to that my
good mage, some of our dragons have spent years honing their skills
at reading the hearts and minds of men. Those ones above us, you
see? They watch over these men and the soldiers, making sure that
they are all as loyal as they should be,’ Brightshow pointed to the
three dragons perched above them with a claw, and Farden shook his
head with a smile.

‘You dragons never cease to
amaze me,’ he confessed.

‘We are an ancient race blessed
by the gods Farden, but it is you men who will inherit Emaneska
when we are gone.’ She smiled and stretched a patchy wing. ‘But not
yet,’ added the dragon.

Farden smiled politely. ‘So,’
he said, as he finished off the last of his meal. ‘What now?’

‘For now we let the scholars do
their work, and we can get you a hawk to send a message to the Arka
with all speed. Unless, of course, you can read dragonscript and
feel like helping?’ Brightshow smiled.

‘Hah, not me, I can barely read
my own writing.’ Farden laughed.

‘Then allow me to fetch one of
the scribes to get a messenger bird ready for you,’ she beckoned to
a few soldiers near to them and the armoured men clattered off into
the corridors to do the dragon’s bidding.

Farden watched the hustle and
bustle of the great hall with amazement. At the end of every desk
and table piles of useless and unhelpful scrolls were slowly
growing. Pages and parchments covered every surface and rustled
like the sound of a forest during a gale. Every scholar was hard at
work, and even some of the soldiers were trying to make sense of
the spidery dragonscript lettering covering the thousands and
thousands of pages. Somewhere in the forest of tables and scrolls,
was Farfallen’s tearbook, slowly revealing its lost knowledge, the
mage hoped. A splash of colour caught his eyes.

Decorating the smooth granite
walls between the dragon nests and the many archways and corridors
leading from the hall were little frescoes and wall paintings that
were dotted around the hall at ground level. Farden wondered how he
hadn’t noticed them the first time. Most were faded with age and
sunlight, but some were still perfectly coloured, beautifully
chiselled and painted murals depicting great battles,
heroic-looking dragons, strange ancient beasts, some of which
Farden had never seen before, and great landscapes of ice and snow
that seemed as real as looking out of a window.

The mage left his plate on a
nearby stool and made his way through the few tables between him
and the nearest painting and ran his hands over its cold dusty
surface. Huge grey and brown beasts moved across a frozen
landscape, tusks and long trunks towering over the tiny specks of
men at their huge feet. Farden had remembered seeing such creatures
during a voyage to the south long ago. The men in that foreign land
had called them bastions, and their feet had shaken the ground like
thunder.

In the next painting
sabre-cats, long wingless worms, daemons, giant manticores, and
huge rats were locked in an eternal battle, frozen with faces
snarling and claws reaching, while in yet another Farden saw
gryphons, titans, minotaurs, and even more dragons. They were
swarming across a field and battling against gangly grey men-like
creatures with long black swords. As he walked the beautiful epic
scenes seemed to fade and grow older, illimitable years stretched
over rock. Durnus would have given anything to study these
pictures. Brightshow rejoined him and stared over the mage’s
shoulder.

‘It’s been a long time since I
talked with a gryphon,’ said Farden.

‘There are still some, in the
northern wastes, or in the east I hear, but like most of the others
on these walls they have long abandoned Emaneska.’ A hint of
wistfulness had crept into the dragon’s voice.

Farden pointed at a picture of
a long sea serpent with horns and ridges of spikes sprouting from
its head. It was blue in colour, like the waves, and covered in
barnacles. In the mural its gigantic tail was drowning a boatfull
of the same tall grey men, and there was a hungry look in its row
of eyes. ‘I saw one of these once in the Bern sea. It sunk a ship
in seconds and then just disappeared under the waves,’ he said.

‘Leviathans. Good meat if you
can get at them. Now these are, or were, phoenixes, distant cousin
to the dragon. They were the first of us all to learn how to breath
and live with fire, but the dark elves hunted them all down in the
name of sport.’ Brightshow showed him a flock of red and orange
bird-like creatures. This mural seemed to be one of the older ones,
and the bright fiery colours of their wings had dimmed long ago,
but Farden could still see flames trailing through the sky in their
wake.

The mage contemplated the
history of the world spread out on the wall before him, picture by
picture, one mural at a time. After one short walk along the wall
Farden had travelled at least two thousand years back in time, long
before the ice had started to creep across the lands and while
simple man was just a nomadic and pathetic race. Unlike the Sirens
the Arka had always hid their histories in libraries and temples,
away from the commoner and only for the enjoyment of scholars and
the education of the upper classes. But here in front of him he
could see the old days, the great days of magick and monsters,
where the elves ruled and the Arka were no more than an idea in the
back of somebody’s mind. Brightshow was right: men would inherit
the earth, but only long after the last of these ancient creatures
had left or died.

Suddenly Farden was filled with
a deep sadness. The world he now knew seemed like a faded painting,
a consolation prize, a leftover from a greatness and power that had
now faded and been lost. His fingers traced the chiselled grooves
of the mural thoughtfully and tried to imagine the older days. The
dragon broke his silence.

‘Nothing has changed Farden,’
said Brightshow in a soft voice. He could barely hear her over the
roar of activity in the hall. ‘In another thousand years it will
all have changed again, and another like you will be standing here
looking at pictures of ancient men and lost dragons. The world
moves on. It is the way of things.’ Farden nodded, vaguely
recalling Farfallen saying something very similar. Emaneska had
been here longer than anyone could remember, and it would still be
here a thousand years from now. Farden wondered idly if anyone
would ever paint a picture of him on a wall, and why. Shadows
clouded his mind.

‘Come, let us send your
message.’ Brightshow put a huge paw surprisingly gently on his
shoulder and nodded towards a large doorway across the hall. Farden
shook himself from his trance and smiled briefly.

They walked out of the hall and
up a spiralling set of lofty stairs that led into a tall pinnacle
of rock high above the busy hall. Light and snow streamed into the
room through long windows carved into the rock. Their ledges were
wide and strewn with comfy-looking pillows. Brightshow barely
fitted into the small space, so she crouched by the bigger
stairwell murmuring uncomfortably. Arranged in a big circle were
about a score of cages on high stilts. Birds of prey, all shapes
and types, preened and screeched between themselves. They wore
little leather hoods with bells on that covered their eyes and kept
them calm. Feathers covered the stone floor, and so did little
patches of white mess here and there. Farden wrinkled his nose at
the smell.

A greying Siren with a
wide-gapped grin emerged from behind a tall desk at the back of the
room. He looked Farden up and down and tried a lopsided smile.
Farden wondered how long he had been left alone, but smiled warmly,
and bowed back. His wispy grey hair was like a wild shrub and
seemed to explode in all directions. He never seemed to stop
moving, not even for a second. He nodded to Brightshow. ‘Well met,
friends! The guards said you might be coming up to my office, so I
have prepared a hawk for you,’ said the greying Siren. He seemed
very excitable and rushed back and forth with a hobbling gait. He
beckoned Farden to follow, and he did. He shooed a few tame
sparrows that were perched on a table, and the small birds jumped
into the air with annoyed chirping. The old man grabbed a small
piece of parchment and a long hawk-feather quill from his cluttered
desk, handing it to Farden and tapping the top of the table.

‘It’s been a while since we
sent a message to your kind, sire. Been a long time indeed.’ The
man’s eyes constantly flicked about the room.

Brightshow nodded and looked at
the hooded birds of prey in the cages. They had become quiet and
shuffled nervously as they caught her reptilian scent on the
breeze.

The mage voiced a question. ‘Is
there a quickdoor in Hjaussfen?’

With a vigourous nod the old
Siren pointed out of the window and to somewhere beyond the rocky
foothills. ‘Down by the south docks, there’s an old one. But I hear
it still works.’

‘That is, if you don’t want to
fly.’ Brightshow smirked, revealing rows of pointy teeth.

‘Maybe one day.’ Farden
returned the smile. He spread the small bit of rough paper between
finger and thumb and dipped the quill. He scratched a brief message
in red ink and tiny letters. It stained his fingers as he
wrote.

Arkmages,

Safe and well in the north,
Sirens peaceful, searching for the well now, returning today or
tomorrow by quickdoor with news. Beware spies in midst, Sarunn was
destroyed by a dark sorcerer and all hands were lost. Trust no
one.

Farden.

There was no time for ceremony
or formality in the message, thought Farden. The Arkmages would
understand and hopefully get the quickdoor ready for his arrival.
Farden purposefully left out the bit about Farfallen still being
alive, as he had decided to tell Vice in private rather than in
front of the entire council. He didn’t want his friend’s reputation
to be tarnished.

‘These birds will get your
message there fast, sire, have no worries. They’re a lot faster
than your southern hawks I can tell you that,’ the grey Siren
winked at him. His scales hung from his jaw line like dark brown
lichen on a tree.

‘Is that so?’ Farden humoured
the funny old man.

He nodded quickly. ‘They’re fed
on a strict diet of rabbit meat and lightning, makes them fast you
see,’ The Siren grinned at his own little joke. The mage handed him
the scrap of parchment and with a deft little movement the grey man
coiled it up into a small tube and twisted the ends tightly. He
dipped each end in a pot of green wax that bubbled above a nearby
candle. Each end of the scroll was stamped with an ivory signet
ring on his finger, in the shape of a feathered wing, and then he
whistled piercingly to his birds. Like an arthritic hunting cat he
prowled along the front of the cages and looked for one bird in
particular. He stopped when he came to a very still and composed
hawk that was calmly preening its feathers.

‘Aha, here she is, finest and
fastest of the lot.’ Without any gloves or braces at all the man
thrust his skinny arm into the wooden enclosure and reached for his
bird. The bell on her hood jangled as she latched onto the scaly
arm with her talons and flapped her wings for balance. Her plumage
was a soft russet brown flecked with dark spots, with snowy white
feathers on her underside that shone in the daylight.

‘Come here then, come on.’ He
talked softly to the hawk and brought her out into the light. ‘If
you don’t mind I have to face her away from you madam, in case she
get scared,’ said the man to Brightshow, and she simply smiled and
nodded.

Farden looked at the proud bird
of prey that was perched so gently on the old man’s arm despite her
razor-sharp talons. The hawk sat tall and still while the man took
off her hood and then she shrugged her wings and looked around. Her
deep yellow eyes blinked in the sunlight, and then she stared at
the mage with an indifferent look. Two long feathers like that of a
heron stood out behind her head, and when she spread her wings, the
mage could see the long dark pinion feathers shaking as if she were
eager to get going already.

With a slender piece of twine
the old man fastened the waxy scroll to the birds yellow leg and
wrapped it over and over in a criss-cross pattern until it was
secured safely. The man made sure that the scroll was tight enough
yet not causing the hawk any trouble.