Libra

Gladekeeper’s Call - The Dream and the Cure

“Where is he now?”
“Searching. Where else?”

Even young, the precocious scholar sought to learn about the ages of dragonkind, the history, the gods, their lands, the flights; the battles, the armistices, the cunning forays, the reticent retreats, the conflicts that dominated the world of the Exalted; the cultures, their treasures and many ways. But the reason for these learnings, had one purpose. There was so much more than the legends told, that facts revealed, philosophies perused, prophecies foretold. To discern the shifting webs of connections, like lines within the constellations, to understand the balances between them all. That was how the star-flanked Guardian had received the name Libra, in his home in the Light Lands.

There was only one form of knowledge he lacked. There had been something strange, that had approached the world, been driven back, then called forth, driven back again, but not destroyed.

Did it have a continued presence in Sornieth? Were the rumors of the controlled mere boogeymen for hatchlings, or was the darkest prophecy the final fate of this or any age - or any world?

*Something was coming. A nothing-something, coldness worse than ice, a sickness beyond plague, stillness that no wind can rouse, lifelessness no seed can mend, darkness no shadow can bear nor light can pierce, an abscess, an absence, that made all magic, all being, its food*.

The Hewn City and its mysteries, were his alone. In his Search’s tightening gyre, he sought and found the words, in faded glyphs, and was alone no longer.

...darkness no shadow can bear nor light can pierce…found in the darkness between the galaxies…

He left the city and took something with him. Thence was driven forth, by those who no longer saw the stars when they looked at him, but only the hungry nothingness between them. Bereft of mate and child and friend, save two who journeyed with him in willing exile North from Light’s domain.

“See that he does not return,” said one who watched from his tower, afraid of the contagion that still hid inside his boundaries, unknown.

———-

“The Nothing comes.” The Nameless spoke, “and I will fight.” Four mirrors by her side, waiting, eager for the hunt and rending.

“Wait,” said the dark fae mage, fire-winged Tok. “Is this our Enemy come to us? So soon the battle?” Opha, See for us!”

Ophanim the Many-Eyed spoke, his words carrying from the promontory. “Three come, one healer, one defender, and one in need of healing and defense that none can give. Kyril, you are needed!”

The young Ridgeback sailed forward to meet the threat, and to all but the Nameless his circuit pattern glowed with Lightning’s Gift. Amazed, to see his fearful dream alive and walking. He could see it within the strange Guardian’s body, bright stars limning the space between where coiled the Nemesis.

The starred Guardian hissed in pain, slumped between his companions, great wings pulled tight around him. A red nebula through which, like in the heavens, they could see the stars burning, and the hunger burning hotter still.

Libra, head low, gazed at the ones that gathered around him like an army blocking his way. Dark and fierce, and frightening, implacable each one. His end, he knew was here, and near. “I sought to know it, I fight it, yet it consumes me. End this, for I have become a monster.”

“Are you a monster then?” A blood red Guardian with arcane eyes, and another, the Many-Eyed, came to flank the stranger’s friends on either side. “I have fought many such, and become one myself, yet I am here.” The other dragon pushed his muzzle close as if to confirm. A deformed jaw, in truth a simple trick of coloration. Appearance as illusion.

Libra would have answered, except as he swung his head, heavy with exhaustion, he caught the gaze of one afraid. One who knew, had seen what he had.

“I am so sorry,” said Kyril, as cascades of lightning poured from him, enveloping the Nemesis, exactly as he had seen it in the dream that had first visited him in Stormcatcher’s realm. Libra, too shocked with pain to utter sound, but stricken body showed too well.

———

The peculiar monotone filled the dappled glade, the tok-tokking of two Fae in conversation. One, long-known to him and dear, the Iris-sheened, the other black and fire-winged, who flitted back and forth, fluttering their crests at the dragon’s newly-opened eyes. “Awake, yes!”

“I know,” said a tired voice at Libra’s side, and the young Ridgeback Kyril stretched, then pushed a flat basket of fish before Libra’s face, as once a mirror had done for him. “And you are right, little doctors. The Nemesis can be healed. The Shade can be cleansed from the body. Now it remains to be seen if it can be cleansed from the pockets of its contagion in our lands.” He turned back to the starred Guardian.

“Welcome, stranger-no-longer, to the lair of the Called, among the folk to whom you have given hope.”





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