Spear of Destiny: Chapter 8

All of the lava flows in this mountain range emptied into the antechamber of Lahati's Tomb. Directly across from us was a black glass bridge that arched over the lake of fire far below. As we entered, I looked to my left and saw the small door I'd used to enter this place the first time: a door that led to a small portal room. That portal would warp us back to the main draconic graveyard that lay under Krivan Pass, not that far from Myszno's capital city, Karhad.

My head jerked back as Karalti gasped, pointing at the billowing, darkly luminous figure who waited for us in the middle of the bridge. “Look!”

Lahati the Chrysanthemum Queen looked just like she had the last time I’d been here. Her slender, dignified humanoid form towered over the pair of us. She was nearly seven feet tall, made larger by the rippling shadows of her floor-length hair and long gown. They blew out from her like a candle flame, trailing smoky coils of darkness into the air. Her eyes were blazing white, bright pin-points burning through the curtain of shadow. They were kind... and sad.

“My sweet daughter.” Lahati’s voice was louder here, clearer. It brushed over our skin with a faint chill that defied the roaring heat billowed up from beneath our feet. “I know you both suffered to come here. I beg you to forgive my weakness... the passage to my tomb was made to weed out Aesari and human plunderers, and challenge those Solonkratsu who seek me or Matir. But it was not meant to be so severe.”

“You saw all that?” I said. “Then you had to have known about the Dragonrot. Why didn't you warn us?”

“See it? Hector, I am dead. I see nothing but the slithering progress of time, and hear nothing unless someone calls to me over the chorus produced by the Caul of Souls.”

“It has a sound?” Karalti asked.

Lahati turned her head to her, the shadows of her face rippling like flames. “Yes. Millions of souls calling, singing, laughing. Since I last saw you, Herald, the chorus has become so much louder.”

I took a step forward. “If you pass on, does that mean that you’ll… that you’ll be gone? Like, really gone.”

Lahati cocked her head, as if puzzled. “Will I be destroyed? No, Herald, of course not. The Caul does not destroy the souls of the dead. Who told you that?”

“Violetta and the vampire who tried to turn me… they told me that the Caul eats people's souls after death.”

“Ahh…” The shade made a derisive sound. “That is nothing but Trauvin lies. Come, Paragons. Walk with me, and I will tell you what I know.”

Karalti pressed forward ahead of me, thrumming with nerves. I followed, and Lahati turned and swept toward the great five-petaled portal at the end of the antechamber.

“When the Nine were contemplating solutions to the Drachan, Veela, the Mother of all life in Archemi, asked a question of the world,” Lahati said, trailing darkness like a bridal train as she led the way to her tomb. “She asked: ‘Would you be willing, in death, to stand guard against the Drachan and the Rostori and the other creatures of the Void for a term equal to the years you lived, before you move on to rejoin the planet and be reborn?’ And the world, devastated by the Drachan, said yes. The Caul is merely a station after death, Herald. Souls join it for a time, lend their strength to the magic, and once they have served their span, they move on. Unharmed. The Trauvin are the only eaters of souls in this world. Not even Rusolka the Mad would do such a thing.”

“Good to know.” A weight I hadn't realized I'd been carrying slid from my shoulders. “I wonder if we’re doing the right thing. Bringing back the Warsingers, opening the Dragon Gates. Sometimes, I feel really sure about it. But other times, I wonder. Like, what if we’re actually just playing into Ororgael’s hands? Or the Drachan’s?”

“Those are valid questions,” the ancient queen replied. “When the Caul was created, we knew that it was little more than a stop-gap measure against chaos. We hoped that if the Caul was ever unmade, it would happen only when the world was better prepared to face them. You, as the Sixth Paragon, must decide if the world is ready.”

“I don't know if it is, grandmother,” Karalti said. “There’s so much we don’t know, and so much we lost. There are hardly any dragons left. Me and Hector have been all over the place, rediscovering ancient technology that we don't have any more. Like the Warsingers.”

“But there is also much that has been gained. We did not have great nation-states when the Drachan invaded. The Solonkratsu were numerous, but we were also quite arrogant. The Mao’sak’ruwad, the empire of the Cat People, was decadent and disorganized, split between bickering Priest-Queens who refused to cooperate with one another. The Aesari had powerful magics, but they were a species who lived in the present, with no native perspective on the past or the future. It was the Drachan’s slaves who were the first to rebel, and those slaves – humankind – have spread across the continent and the world since then. It is not just force of arms that will defeat the Drachan. It is the will, ingenuity, and determination of the world to survive that will shape the result of the battle.”

Karalti glanced at me. “I guess. But there’s a lot of evil humans, too.”

“Of course there are.” The pair of doors that led into Lahati's burial chamber parted in front of her. “There is something you must understand about the nature of evil, my daughter. Evil is very dull. The only forms of creativity that evil can manifest are cunning and deception. This is because all evil beings, whether they be human or Drachan, have exactly the same boring, repetitious desires. Consumption, power, wealth, attention, love, admiration, sex, safety... primitive, animal needs they pursue with single-minded boorishness at the expense of other living things. Why do you think they pursue these things, Karalti?”

“Because they're frightened?” Karalti said, uncertainly.

Lahati nodded. “Indeed.”

“The Drachan don't seem scared of much,” I said. “None of the Void enemies we've fought even seem capable of fear.”

“They are the embodiment of fear,” Lahati replied softly. “The fear of oblivion. Of meaninglessness. Of pointlessness. In their terror of the vast, unknown universe, they attack it. They revile life, because it terrifies them to think that there is something with meaning, when they themselves have none.”

She led us through a narrow obsidian tunnel, barely big enough for Karalti and I to walk alongside each other. It was pitch dark, like walking into a wall of black velvet. But as we emerged, a soft ambient glow filled the room, reflected off an enormous lake of clear crystal as smooth as still water. Karalti pattered out on bare feet, her mouth hanging open, as Lahati's shade drifted to the center of the room and submerged... through the crystal, down into the dark, still form that lay curled beneath it like a fly in amber.

Karalti let out a cry and sunk down to her hands and knees, gazing down at the body of her ancestress. Lahati the Chrysanthemum Queen, ruler of the ancient dragon city of Hava Sahasi, was still beautiful in death. Unlike Karalti, most of her scales were a true jet black, save for a large starburst patch of white that bloomed from between her shoulders and out along her wings. Her long sweeping horns and fine, elegant foreclaws were ringed with fine jewelry. Her elegant muzzle was sunken, but her eyes were closed, her expression peaceful.

I unequipped my shoes out of instinctive respect before joining Karalti. I rested a steadying hand on her shoulder.

“Blood of my blood. Child of my daughter's daughter.” Lahati's voice now came from all directions, curling from the air of the room. “You are everything I could have dreamed of, a flower who has bloomed from a queen the Void has tried so very hard to control and destroy. But you bear a great burden. There are not many of us left, Karalti. So many dragons died in the Drachan War, and the ones who lived were enslaved by the Aesari and killed for the mana in their blood. That we survived at all is a miracle that we owe to the other races of Archemi, the humans and Prrupt'meew who rose up against the Aesari and toppled them. There are many more Solonkratsu alive on Daun, where the only other Queen of my bloodline lives, but she is too far away to hear my voice. The other Queens I know are enslaved, like your mother, or live in savage tribes in wild, remote places. As far as I know, you are the only free Solonkratsu Queen in all of Artana.”

Karalti bowed her head. “Yes.”

“If we are to survive, you must free your kin from their chains,” Lahati continued. “And to do that, you must be able to command them as their Queen. My last act in this world will be to give you the bloodgift your mother cannot. I did not have my body entombed like this out of vanity. I wanted it preserved in case it was needed by future generations of my kind. Take your true form, daughter. And you, Herald: stand back, or take your place between her wings.”

Karalti looked up to the ceiling and closed her eyes, concentrating. Her pale skin split with veins of opalescent light, which spread out to cover her as she smoothly shifted back into her natural draconic shape. Archemi's dragons stood on their back feet, their tails stiffened for balance, their hand-like foreclaws held off the ground. When she was back to her full size, she crouched down and extended her wing to me. I climbed up half way, then used her wingclaw to boost myself into a Jump, landing between her shoulders like a cricket.

Lahati's body didn't move, but as we watched, she began to bleed black smoke into the crystal that surrounded her. It billowed through the glass like ink, pouring from between her scales. More and more of it came, until the clear crystal turned dark... and then liquified. It pushed the limp body to the surface, exposing the arch of Lahati's ribcage and the underside of one wing.

“The bloodgift is normally given by a mother to her queen daughter by mouth,” Lahati said, her voice coiling around my ears like a cool breeze. “The wyrmling bites her mother's tongue, and the blood carries the Words of Power into her daughter's body. My tongue no longer has any blood in it, Karalti. Only the core of me still has any to give. You will need to pierce the great vein beneath my wing with your fangs and draw blood from there.”

Even though I was kinda-sorta undead, I still would’ve hesitated at the idea of drinking the five-thousand-year-old blood out of my dead grandma, but Karalti was a predator and a scavenger with instincts that were decidedly not human. She showed no sign of revulsion as she nuzzled under Lahati's stiff wing with the point of her snout. I felt her draw a deep breath before she snapped forward, bearing the immense crushing pressure of her jaws on the other dragon's skin. The ancient queen's scales popped under her teeth, bending, and then snapping.

“This is not the only gift I give you, my daughter,” the spectral voice breathed. “To you and your Bonded, the chosen of my true mate, I bequeath all the treasures of my tomb and the Solonkratsu who are your ancestors. You may take the mana that lies in the caves all around my resting place. You may take the gold and aurum and other treasures. The warriors who fell in these ancient wars have long since served their time in the Caul of Souls and moved on. They have no more need of their grave goods. The remaining wealth of Hava Sahasi is yours, and I wish for you both to use it and enrich the land once more.”

“I... thank you.” I sat down on Karalti's neck, stroking it as she burrowed under Lahati's wing. The Hall of Heroes that she was talking about had hundreds of biers like the ones outside. The cash alone was probably worth hundreds of thousands of gold Olbia... and the artifacts, magical knowledge, weapons and armor was potentially priceless. “Thank you so much, for all of this.”

“I did not sacrifice everything, only to see the Deceivers sweep Archemi and destroy the world my lover died to preserve,” Lahati said fiercely. “To see my great-granddaughter, Usta, enslaved to the human warmonger who serves them. I sense in you both an incredible spirit, a powerful will to fight. It is my honor to give these gifts to you. I believe in your vision, Herald. I believe your Triad will drive the Drachan back to the Void that spawned them.”

The sharp scent of mana cut the air: mana laced with a dense, rose-like perfume. I felt Karalti swallow, her long neck rippling under my hands. Then she stood up, panting, her muzzle coated in a glaze of dark blue dragon's blood. Her scales heated, lifting under my hands, and the veins of shimmering color between them intensified.

[Karalti the Black Opal Queen has gained a new Path: Path of Royalty.]

[New information has been added to your mount's character data.]

[Quest Completed: The Path of Royalty.]

[You gain 1576 EXP! Karalti gains 4 Bonus Lexica!]

[Karalti is Level 16!]

The heat and opalescent light spread over Karalti's body, briefly filling the cavern with light. When it passed, she was a couple of feet longer, about two-thirds the size of Lahati. The muscles of her back were thicker, her tail longer, the fins along the flattened edges of it longer and more aerodynamic. The saddle, thanks to the virtual reality wizardry that made equippable clothes and armor fit any player who wore them, resized to fit. Karalti stretched her wings and craned her neck, looking back at her body in wonder.

“You are a glorious Queen, Karalti,” Lahati sighed. “The Nine have mercy on any male who seeks to catch you in the sky. I fear the shackled dragons of Ilia may not be up to the task.”

“Then they'll have to train until they're good enough, won’t they?” Karalti snorted and tossed her head, but even the thought of it made her - and me - vaguely uncomfortable. It had always been an unspoken tension between us. Karalti had gone into heat once already, while in human form, and it had ended... awkwardly. The next time she was compelled to mate, it was possible that there would be other dragons around. Male dragons. And I wasn't sure how I felt about that.

“Can you give us any advice about the Dragon Gates?” I asked. “You helped create them. What should we know about them?”

“By opening the Gates, you awaken the god entombed within,” Lahati replied. Her voice was becoming wispier, more distant. “Each opened Gate will destabilize the Caul, but as the sleeping god gathers their strength, they will help control the collapse. The magical architecture was designed to withstand the collapse of up to three of the Dragon Gates, other than Veles'.”

“What’s special about his Gate?”

“He must be the last to awaken. The Lord of Time’s power is the keystone of the Caul, and if his Gate were to open first, the result would be catastrophic. That is why we sacrificed Hava Sahasi to raise The Gate of Endless Longing above the dome of the sky, beyond the reach of man or dragon.”

“What if...” Karalti trailed off, anxiously tossing her head. “What if one of the gods died? As in... really died?”

“My soul shudders to think,” Lahati said. “But only the most powerful of the Architects could be capable of such a thing. I do not know the means... a god's death is not the same as a mortal's. Darkness would not cease to exist if Matir were to truly perish. The Darkness would generate a new godling, who would rise as they assumed their mantle. Perhaps a mortal would ascend, or perhaps they would form from the night sky. It is unknown.”

“But once the first Dragon Gate has been opened, the Drachan can get out, right?” I said. “So we have to time it right.”

“The Drachan will stir to full wakefulness once the first Dragon Gate has been opened. But they are weakened from eons of forced confinement, and the magic of the Caul of Souls is powerful,” Lahati said. “I cannot predict what will occur. I can tell you that it is not only the Drachan themselves who are sealed in Rhorhon. They were bound with their alien servants. The legions of the Void, demons, and the Rostori.”

I drew a deep, steadying breath. “Alright. Thanks for that… and thank you for everything you've done for us, Your Majesty. I can say with absolute, one-hundred percent certainty that you are the coolest dead lady ever.”

“Hector!” Karalti hissed, flattening all seven horns against her skull.

Soft, ghostly laughter echoed around us. “If only the ancient Paragons had been able to preserve such a sense of humor. Siva Nandini, Altair of the Broken Chains, Grigori Skyrr, Catherine of Annecy... all so serious, they were. Treasure this one, my daughter. He is perhaps the second man in history who has made me laugh.”

“Wait!” Karalti took an urgent step forward as the cavern exhaled and the softly glowing lights flickered. “Lahati, grandmother... there's so much I don't know! About my mother, about our people-”

“You will, child.” A wraithlike nimbus began to rise from the silent corpse of the ancient queen, the shadowy form of a great dragon. Lahati's head was almost as long as Karalti's entire torso, dwarfing her as smoke coiled around her long, narrow wings, her graceful neck and elegant, wedge-shaped head. “Trust in the song written into your flesh and blood. Listen to it, grow in wisdom... and you will discover all you must know. You are the Black Opal Queen. Stand tall, knowing that a thousand mothers watch you from that place of stillness beyond the living world. We will always be there for you, and if it is your fate to pass over, we will receive you with open arms and warm wings.”

Karalti let out a mournful cry as Lahati's wraith blew apart and faded. The hairs on my arms rose as her presence left the room, leaving it echoing and empty. The crystal floor hummed, turning a milky, opaque grey as the body in front of us began to dissolve. As we watched, her body disintegrated into the substance, which hardened once more and set like glass. All of the jewelry Lahati had been wearing was left on the hard surface, glittering on the dragon-shaped shadow her body had left behind.

As Karalti's tail and wings drooped, I sat down at the very front of the saddle and wrapped my arms and legs around the base of her neck, hugging her tight. She shivered and jerked, at first... but as the minutes passed, her muscles relaxed.

“What an incredible will she had,” Karalti said quietly. “To have waited here for so long, and yet retained so much of herself.”

Karalti's voice startled me a little. She sounded so... mature.

A HUD alert shook me out of my reverie. I called it over, and as Navigail read out the notifications, my eyebrows climbed up toward my hairline.

[You have made progress on a Main Quest: Darkness Shines on Light Places (1/4) complete!]

[You have a new Quest: Darkness Shines on Light Places (2/4).]

[You gain 1000 EXP!]

[You are Level 26!]

“Yeah. And wow.” I pulled my helmet off and rubbed my head. “When did I even get this quest? It must have been back at the Eyrie.”

“Huh?” Karalti shook herself out of her reverie. “Which quest?”

“Darkness Shines on Light Places. I'll have the HUD read it out to us,” I said. “It's an important one.”

Quest Update: Darkness Shines on Light Places (2/4)

During your time at the Eyrie, the bastion of the dragon knights of St. Grigori, you discovered a dark secret at the heart of the Order. The dragons and many of the knights in the order are bound by some kind of magical enslavement, a geas stretching back hundreds, or maybe even thousands of years. It binds the dragons and their bonded riders to the will of the current Knight-Commander.

The Solonkratsu, Archemi's native dragons, are a hive species. It is this hive-forming impulse that the Geas on the Order perverts - instead of allowing the dragons to form families, communities, and centers of art and culture, the magic compels them to be docile mounts in service to human agendas, with no room for argument or independence.

Your Queen dragon, Karalti, has gained access to the Path of Royalty – but to free the dragons of Ilia, Karalti's status as a queen is not enough. You must get to the root of the problem, the Geas itself. The answers lay in the fallen Aesari city of Cham Garai. Now that you possess Lahati's blessing and the Pearl of Glorious Dawn, the way will be open to you - but are you strong enough to face what lies within?

This is a special quest (Mark of Matir).

This is a sequential quest (2 of 4)

Difficulty: Level 40-45

Rewards: 1500 EXP, Fame/Infamy, Unknown unique rewards.

[Do you wish to continue this quest?]

I squeezed Karalti with my legs, and nodded. “Yeah.”

[Quest accepted!]

The quest marker turned green, and then joined the queue of active quests waiting in the holographic window. I closed it down, and sighed.

“Yeesh. Level 40 is a lot closer than it was back then, but it's still pretty far away.” I said. “We need a shit ton of EXP to take on the Eyrie.”

“How much?”

I bought up the ArchemiPedia. The reference wiki was brain-to- virtual interface, like the rest of the menu software. All I had to do was think 'Dark Dragoon Experience Table', and I was able to see how much EXP I needed to get from Level 26 to Level 40. I could do the same for Karalti. She needed a lot more EXP than I did to reach the same level, meaning she was typically ten levels behind me. “We have to nearly double what we have now. I need a bit over thirty-eight thousand to hit Level 40. You need about thirty-nine thousand points to reach Level 20.”

“We can do it,” Karalti said firmly. “We have lots of quests to do, and there's heaps of monsters in the Endlar. All we have to do is fight and train together, like we always have.”

“You bet your ass we will.” I clapped her neck and stood on the saddle. “Let's work out a training regime at home: I'll delegate everything I can, and we can train up.”

“Yeah!” Karalti tossed her head up and down, huffing a cloud of steam toward the ceiling. “We should pick up the treasure here and go. Suri, Vash, Istvan... they're all worried about us.”

“Don't rush yourself if you like… need to stay here a while longer.” I said. “We've been gone from Karhad for nearly four days. Another half an hour to say goodbye to Lahati isn't gonna make a difference.”

“It's okay. I don't need to stay.” Karalti rumbled, squatting down to paw at the scattered jewelry on the surface of the crystal lake. “Can you help me pick this up? Between your inventory and mine, we should be able to take a lot of what we found here home. Istvan'll be happy to see gold in the treasury.”

“He sure will.” I rolled my shoulders, and slid down her flank to dismount. “I can't believe she bequeathed everything to us. There's got to be a million olbia's worth of treasure in the Vault of Heroes. There's probably over fifty grand's worth just in here. Not to mention the mana.”

“I can,” Karalti said. “Believe it, that is. Lahati told us why. I'm her hope for the future. We both are... because if the Drachan get out of their prison and win, none of this gold will mean anything. There won't be a world to spend it in.”

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