The Second Carpenter

XXIII

XXIII_I_Dum_Deus_Calculat_Fit_Mundus

Veron sat by the edge of the precipice edge of the jungle about five kilometeres south of the Dragon's Keep. He unfastned his harp from his back and started playing it. Loudly. Very loudly. But the tune was nonetheless soothing. Thus he began to play the harp, and thus the forest crumbled. All the animals who heard it sang along with the instrument. And marched northward. Birds flew; while quadrupeds entered the underground tunnels that reach the foot of the precipice.

"All I need you to do is create distraction." Veron said, still platying the harp. "If any of you dies, I'm truly sorry."

He waited and watched. Waited until the castle's gaurds were out. Waited until the dragons landed south of the bridge. Then he flew to the castle. The highest keep. He entered Stan's room, pulled away the bust in the alcove vicinal to the bed and breathed fire to melt the wicket of the hatch. Only dragon fire could do that; and all the dragons were loyal to Stan; so, he would have had no reason to worry. Stan, after all, never knew that Veron was a dragonborn.

He squeezed his way through the hatch into a cave-like space. There was a large crystal in the middle with pulsating light, menacing purple clouds surrounding it, and grotesque veins connecting it to the small holes in the cave-like chamber.

"The Soulstone . . . Stan shouldn't be able to control it from afar. If only its vision had reached me sooner . . ." Veron took out his knife, made it smolder with dragon fire, then shoved it into the stone. The stone screamed and shuddered, and Veron felt his blood throbbing in his temples.

"This should free them now," he thought outloud, "but it is too late for them. After so many years, the enslavement must have burrowed so deep into their minds that even by removing the source, the effect may remain. If only I'd known this before being banished. But it is better for them to die than remain eternal slaves."

For that is indeed what happened. Once disconnected from that which had enslaved them, the dragons first screamed and roard in pain, then in confusion, then in terror then in sorrow, and then died. Just dropped and died.

Veron coughed violently from the purple clouds that had still not totally vanished, then left the cave-like chamber, then the room and entered the wide corridor.

"You monster!" Leksi screamed from the eastern end of the corridor. Veron did not know her name, naturally, for he had only seen her face in a vague vision that he had almost forgotten.

"You fucking monster!" Leksi screamed yet again, now ten paces away from him."

"I already know that you'll burn; but there's a chance that I'm not the one who will do it to you. Please don't make me. I would like to prevent unnecessary damage as much as I-Wait, what are you doing?" Veron stammered at the sight of the enraged woman positioning her arms in a familiar pose and chanting what was necessary to summon a minion. "Stop!" Veron yelled, "Don't do that! I'm begging you! I'm done here; I'll just leave!"

"Too late, you piece of shit!"

A blue light flashed the corridor and a large, powerfully built, and very grotesque minion unlike any known creature appeared in front of Leksi the who-knows-who.

"Since when have you been able to do that?!" Azalea, who had appeared from the southern branch of the corridor, exclaimed with wide-opened eyes.

"I was wrong." Veron said with a hateful voice. "It is definitely me who will do it to you."

Veron approached the roaring minion and it immediately calmed down at his sight - even though it had no eyes - and crouched.

"I'm sorry you had to come here and be imprisoned thus." Veron said in a quivering voice as though he was about to cry, and hugged the creature's large head. "You are locked here; but there is a place where your kind is abundant. Go there and be free."