Elemental Awakening

Chapter Ten

Ashfoot was greeted at the receiving area to the Dragon Maw. Fa bowed in respect for the Cactus Paw elder and spiritual leader. “This place is heavy. That thing has been chewing away at your people.” Plainly without a word from the residents she surmised the evening.

Fa stood agape, taking a moment to regain composure he affirmed her analysis. “Ah, that is to say yes, Shaman. I understand that this was how the attacks started in the Cactus Paw itself?”

Curtly she nodded. “Yes but we don’t have much time to prepare. I’m going to work with your queens and their fount of knowledge to create wards and protection spells for our tribes and people until we can strike the beast ourselves.”

“Yes ma’am I will escort you to the Queen chamber after I show you to your accommodations.”

“No. I will see the Queens now. I will need to leave again right away. Aven the Bintain will speak with your mate to accommodate the younglings training while I work with the Queens.” Ashfoot dismissed the opportunity to refresh herself and gestured for Fa to lead her immediately on her task.

“I see, hmm I let Hino know to send Star immediately, Bintain if you would make yourself comfortable, she will be here shortly.” Fa signaled to one of the concierge in the reception to attend to Avensong as she waited for Star. “This is Joseph he will get you food and drink while you wait.” He then led the feisty old lady along the tunnels to the Queen’s chamber.

Ashfoot kept up with the long legged Fa as best she could. The once vibrant old lady was having to rely on her walking stick more and more, after a night of flying in a cramped position to accommodate the rider and her daughter in law she was stiff. She needed rest like she needed breath in her lungs, but that would have to wait. Her thoughts were of the impending darkness that was on the horizon. Eternally getting closer, yet always unreadable. She strode as much as she could with the young man, and noticed when he slowed to match her steps, she won’t tell him but she sighed gratefully, and the sideways smile on his face told her that the message was read. The further along the tunnels that they trekked the steeper the climb, the queens’ chamber was located in the peaks of the mountain with their perches overlooking the caldera of the volcano.

Soft sunlight poured into the chamber that a massive queen rested in. she raised her head enough to acknowledge Ashfoot. Her eyes were liquid metal pupil less and giving off a soft light. Her scales were a color that couldn’t quite be pinpointed, they shifted in the light, and didn’t stop on one shade in particular, but all colors. Her rider stepped forward, the first thing that Ashfoot noticed about her was that she was very young, maybe twenty winters, her face though looked as though she has seen the birth of the universe.

“My queen is Claudagh, and I am Chime. Shaman we have much to discuss. And much to apologize for. We had no way of knowing that we would be able to create this…” her face creased in thought trying to find a word. “Abomination.”

Ashfoot looked from Chime to Claudagh and walk directly to the stately queen dragon. “May I?” she paused a mere breath from her massive head, from this distance she could see that even in dim light that her scales still cycled through different colors. Claudagh pressed her nose into Ashfoot’s outstretched hand and pulled her into the pools of iron that were her eyes. She looked into Ashfoot and through her and past her and directly at her all in the same instant. Judging her, and pitying her, and giving her something like pride. Ripples played across Claudagh’s eyes, Ashfoot fell into a depth and through time, this dragon was more than some mere queen, her mind and soul have traveled through time partnering with many humans through the ages.

Ashfoot could see how Chime was pulled into Claudagh’s mind and was able to access ever trace of knowledge that either have gleaned. She could see the strong network that they shared and constantly reinforced. They shared memories with Ashfoot that came from far beyond human history, before the dragons needed people, when the blue moon first struck a blow to the dragons of the worlds. The dreaming world once hosted dragons, they were banished to the waking world never to cross the veil again. Once they were able to visit between the worlds, were dignitaries and mighty vanquishers, before the blue moon encroached upon the sky. Claudagh wasn’t quite sure when that celestial body was first seen, she was sure that when it was seen that sickness and hunger followed. Humans were in their infancy of creation and their intelligence was laughable, but they were dying by the thousands, and the Dragons knew that they would be crucial to the shaping of the world later.

As though the very fabric of time was painted on water and being pulled across a frame Ashfoot watched the world change. A world she had no words for, it looked very much like hers, but it was different. The ocean was dark, and the sky was clear, she could see the heavens and stars. They were not her stars, the constellations were all wrong. Then the ocean was foamy and green, and the sky felt like a void ready to swallow her. Her feet were sinking into sand, she could feel it, without thought she bent down to scoop up a handful and watch the grains fall between her fingers. It felt like she was letting go of time, like she was letting her life slip between her fingers. “Don’t dwell on it for too long shaman. We have something specific to show you.” When she looked up Chime was standing with a glowing woman. She was wearing a tunic dress that brushed her toes, and just like Claudagh’s scales it was colorless, yet colorful. Her hair was the steel of the queen dragon’s eyes, but her eyes were grey, and human. Ashfoot moved with ease, and followed Chime and her queen.

“We are ghosts in your own mind aren’t we?” Ashfoot asked bewildered.

“Yes, but not quiet. This isn’t my memory, it’s more akin to the memory of the earth. The world that we live in.” Claudagh’s Human voice was clear and melodic, it made her entire persona regal and elegant.  

The three women walked along the beach in the night listening to the waves crash at their feet and the wind pass through the grass outside the reach of the hungry water. The sky was beginning to brighten with the rays of the sun. With the light of the morning sun came warmth, without the breeze that was ruffling the grass, even Ashfoot accustomed to the dessert would be uncomfortable. In the distance was a rock outcropping jutting into the surf, she assumed that it was their destination, but the three women did not hurry to reach it. As Ashfoot was looking around she observed strange creatures in the waters large and toothy, they would break the surface then duck back down. In the horizon to the left of them there were large creatures that grazed on the succulent grass and brush. Ashfoot looked back to the ocean and the creatures were no longer large or formidable, they were sleek and playful bouncing out of the water and diving through the waves. The prairie no longer hosted giant herbivores but cattle and sheep as the hills rolled by structures could be seen and beings not quite human were visible.  

“Who are they?” Ashfoot pointed to the beings.

“They are us.” Claudagh replied. “Not you and I, but what the dragons were before we needed human to share our minds. Once we could shift and change our forms as I have now. This world the dreaming world as you call it is our home.” The group kept walking to the rocks, as they did the rocks began to change and take on the form of a city. Buildings began to grow up around it. The buildings grew taller with each step, the architecture grew more complicated. “This is the city that we created. This is the home to all of our knowledge, now just a memory.” The towers rose and spun dragons flew in and out of structures as though they weren’t there, lights and sounds emanated from the city. Beings walked and carts rolled without anyone pushing or pulling them. Then larger carts, funny boxes on wheels with people, or dragons rather rolled past. The carts hummed a funny noise and were brightly colored, with fantastic designs painted or imprinted across them. Like the Gold city in the south from the Cactus Paw the streets were stone, only in this remembered city they stones were glossy and clean, free of any dirt that travelers may have brought with them.

“Why are we here?”

“You will see what we have found” the hesitation wasn’t supposed to be noticed, but Ashfoot was very observant so Claudagh shook her head, “Nay what we called. We brought attention to ourselves from a great entity. We were on our way to becoming Gods, when we were noticed.” She sighed as they walked up the street in the middle of the city to the great building in to center of the city. Grey with gold and red accents pillars supported a huge egg like dome that extended past the center cylindrical building in the center. The dome blocked to sun for all the surrounding buildings on this side of it. The enormous doors of the building opened inward inviting the party inside, as the women crossed the threshold everything went quiet and all movement ceased. It was as if time had frozen, Ashfoot should have realized that this was only a phantom, but she had forgotten.

It was metal and glowing, and humming, and spinning. Words were difficult to find to describe it, but the device was in the center of the room. It was clear that the great grey building was built around the device, it reached right up to the dome and spread out over the celling. A central support gave the entire object shape, spear head like in shape it slowly spun. As one cutting edge of the spear head passed in front of the party heat washed over them. “If everything is standing still how is this still moving?” Ashfoot asked.

“This is why we are here. This is our beacon. This creates the light to call all dragons home. You cannot hear it but all dragons can. As far as we may travel it calls us back.” Claudagh gazed up at the device in appreciation. “We weren’t the only beings that could hear it though. When I was in shell and the sun left the sky the blue moon crested with our own white moon. We had no way of knowing what it was, or why it was there. We didn’t know if it was a great vessel that carried a race of beings or if it would crush our civilization. Us dragons though, we used to be optimistic and we hoped for the best. Our brilliant minds set to working out what exactly it was.”

The room began to darken as Claudagh continued. “As each scholar probed into the mater they went mad. We began to lose contact with their minds, they began to fracture and behave erratically, and they could no longer shift from man form to Dragon. Eventually their man forms began to wither and deform. Our medicine could not reverse the change that came over them. Everything happened slowly though, so slow, at first we thought it was plague from the humans that were growing and learning. We would watch them every now and then we would walk among them, but they never knew who or what we were.” Claudagh began leading the party around the room to another door way.

“This celestial body seemed innocuous. How could something so far away affect us here? It was five generations before we could point out that it was in fact the moon affecting us. We began to decline, more of our children could not change form, and more of our elders began to descend into madness. We had to stop it before we were lost forever.” As they came into the next room Ashfoot could see that there were pictures lining the walls of the chamber, they had to be some kind of construct though. The pictures were moving, and flickering. Like water or glass they showed perfect detail of faces and people. “Our predecessors. The dragons that built the city.” Claudagh indicated the faces that were transitioning from humanlike to dragon.

“What did your people do when you figured out that it was the moon?” Ashfoot needed to ask.

“We sent an attack, we cultivated a weapon and fired upon to moon.” The queen pointed to the picture at the end of the room that was showing a great metal tube like construction then an explosion, then the blue moon fragmenting and reconstituting, then a window with in to picture passing over the dragon city. “This is our attack, and this is the retribution that the Moon laid on us. The portal, the vale between worlds passed over us and kept us here. But not all of my brethren. We had many of us that were in human settlements, and their man form was taken from them when the city was sent to the Abysmal Plane. In the middle of the human towns and villages men seemed to turn to dragon and we were wiped out. All those that were left behind were hunted down and slain.”

“If mankind was in dreaming world how did we get to the waking world? I know that the elementals get here their own way, but what about the first men?”

“Some of them were in the city with us. Others your ancestors were in their own settlement away from us, but they supplied the materials for the weapon.” Claudagh paused and grimaced wrecking the once still perfection that her face had kept to this point. “Because they helped us, the Moon cursed us to forever need human kind. Our first clutches born in the waking world died within weeks all with the same mind sickness that was killing our elders. By accident one of the human children were in the clutch-room during a hatching and he imprinted one of the draglets. The human child and the welpling were forever bonded, sharing memories and experiences. Further clutches were saved because of this, but we became parasites needing a human mind to host our own, to keep us from fracturing and descending to madness.” Claudagh finished the recounting and the ghost world dissolved around the three women and Ashfoot was once again standing in front of the imposing queen with her hand on her smooth supple nose. She backed up astonished.  

Ashfoot, sat on the plush carpets in front of the queen, Chime looked on in sympathy. “What do we do from here?” She was resolved, just needing an idea how to approach the problem.

“We need to neutralize Lochsear.” Chime flatly stated, she was relying on the strategy history that Claudagh had amassed in her many reincarnations. “It has taken many thousand years for the Blue Moon to be able to contact a human, it is unknown if it has only come to this decision, or if it had to regain strength after we attacked, or if it was waiting for a suitable host.”

“Yes, that will be a good, and points to consider before we act.” Ashfoot sighed “We cannot keep up this level of defense. Our nomads grow restless, they need the range and the herds have already been culled dangerously low. The outlying villages are weak, and have no way of combatting this threat.”

Appraising all the information Claudagh huffed then Chime spoke under the great queen’s control. “We will take your nomads. We have two calderas with grazing land and a separate settlement from the Maw. We will work with you on protection runes for the other villages. This will have to suffice until we find a way to destroy Lochsear. I tried to kill him once already as Leaf relayed to you.” Chime relaxed after Claudagh released her.

“She usually doesn’t feel the need to do that. We shall begin the runes once you have rested. We have been in conference for some time already.” Chimed lovingly gazed upon her Queen.

Ashfoot suffered to be fettered to by the youth of the Dragon clan and napped in the guest chambers after a meal and quick rinsing. In the meantime Avensong was creating a training plan with the instructors of the draglets and young riders.

…

“You will first have to create teams with these youth. Don’t worry about siblings, once you state the teams, no more than five, they will create their own bonds. Let them decide on who the leader of the team will be, if you appoint one they will likely argue and vie for control, it has to be a general respect from the others that brings the leader out.” Ashfoot began by laying out how she trained her warriors and integrated them. Train them on the ground first, then when they take wing let them train you on the new axis. You said that the dragons already have the memory of flight?”

“Ah yes Bintain our dragons have the memories of their mothers when they hatch. Well most of them, some draglets are born with just enough memory to survive, others have everything just a new personality.” Fa answered.

Star added “So far we have the draglets broken into two classes, we will begin separating them into teams tomorrow. How do you suggest we handle Dragon Maw youth? Only a handful imprinted draglets.”

“Try to place one Dragon Maw youth in every team. The four Cactus Paw youth will help support the Dragon Maw in learning the tactics, and they in turn will support the Cactus Paw youth in your flight and integration training. I speculate at least one in every three teams that has a Dragon Maw youth will make that youth the team leader.” Avensong wrapped up the morning’s discussion as they received the midday meal. Conversation dissolved into family and the Elementals.

A spread of fruit cheese and bread was brought to Fa, Star, and Avensong. The rest of the training instructors joined them and let the youth have the rest of the day off. For a time every one munched their food in silence. All present were tired from a restless night of visions and terrible dreams. This night they would drink the leach flower tea to avoid the intensity of the attack.

“Bintain your new son by marriage is the Fire Elemental is he not?” Fa tried to begin conversation.

“Yes, the very same. You have been told of him yes?” Avensong beamed. She had pride in his training and his ability. Dankiyet was happy with him.

“Green. Why green?” one of the other instructors asked. A quiet man with sandy hair and aged leather brown eyes. He had a scar on his right cheek, and a flat mouth.

Avensong shrugged. “There is no telling. It may be because he is male, or it may be because he lived through trauma in his dreaming life.”

The man grunted in response as he took a bite of sharp goat cheese.

As the diners finished their meals they moved plates out of the way and began hashing out team lists and living arrangements. The settlement in the south caldera would be the new training area. The homes that were built there would house the students. They planned that each team would have their own home this would give each student their own room for privacy and mixed genders in the teams. Avensong was invited to stay with the Dragon clan for a week or two to help start up the new dragon rider’s school.

“I will have to return to the Cactus Paw for a few days to prepare for my absence. The council expects me back tomorrow. My recommendation as of now is to start the war games. I will send word through Leaf for my return.” Avensong declined the request for the time being. Ashfoot was finishing plans and arrangements with Claudagh and Chime as she was advising on the training plan.

The Cactus Paw women met once more in the Perch entrance that evening they discussed the plan upon addressing the council at home while they waited for their dragon.

“No.” Avensong said before Ashfoot could even begin.

“The Tribe needs to relocate to the Dragon Maw.” Ashfoot replied.

“The council has yet to vote on this. We cannot relocate every member of this tribe to the Dragon Maw. That is a three week journey without having to move all supplies and new mothers! It cannot be done. The nomads have all burden animals and the dragons have lost an entire wing.” Avensong shoved her hand through her hair and looked to her husband’s mother. “You are going to push this at the meeting tonight aren’t you?”

…

Once the women arrived back in the Cactus Paw they refreshed and consumed a light meal, then met with the rest of the council. There would be much talk between the Dragon clan and the Cactus Paw to come. The suggestion that the Great Queen provided was that the Cactus Paw people all of them not just the nomads move into the complexes within the Dragon Maw mountain range. Immediately this suggestion sparked outrage and backlash.

“Our people do not need the dragons!” Cafune righteously cried out.

“If we don’t the next attack will kill all of us.” Ashfoot responded

“Your Nomads are at the greatest risk.” Avensong tried to reason with the nomad matron.

“No one wants to be caged, people will make their own decisions. Why don’t we announce what the Dragon Clan has offered us and let the people decide. If the majority like the decision, then they will move to the Dragon Maw, if not then we will not have a population to serve.” Magrotin the voice of sensibility in this mater had the most to lose, the farm had just been planted and all seedlings would be lost if the tribe uprooted all.

“Cafune, I’m sorry Matron but you have been out voted. We will announce it to the people in the morning. We will send word to the Dragon Clan through Set and Leaf.” Tariel concluded.

“How is any of this fair? I got voted out by ONE family! Of course they would go to the dragons for aid!” Cafune’s indignation was palpable, and completely understandable.

“I didn’t want to be the farm magnate! I took the position because he people wanted me too. I will step down as soon as the announcement is made. We won’t have a farm to care for in either case.” Magrotin stood up and left the room wounded by the Matron’s harsh words.

Ashfoot sighed “Dankiyet is ready to take the mantle as well, I am growing week, and no longer am able to see. I am little better than a folk healer.” Her resignation was clear to the rest.

Vehemently Avensong spat out “I will not be bullied. You will have me until I am voted out!” she continued to stare down the Nomad Matron until the younger woman left the council chambers.

Silence filled the space between Tariel and Avensong for some time until he cleared his throat. “I will take care of the message. I’ll also make the arrangement for a tribe meeting.”

“Yes” she soberly replied. Then made to leave the room to find her husband who was so wounded by the bitterness of the Matron. The meeting was over as far as the council members were concerned. Tomorrow would be a long day with lots of questions. Her people would persevere though, they were a hardy group if anything.