Rise of the Darkness

Prologue

Anyle

Ten Thousand Years Ago

Black ink flowed down my claw, down my finger and paw, dripping on the floor. More ink painted the bottoms of my feet then the wall, but I could not stop to care. I do not have enough time to finish what I started, let alone worry about a little ink.

No one had seen what I saw. No one would listen to a mute spirit dragon, one who could stand up to the now dead Grusa-kal and make him share his deepest secret. I know I lost all respect I had toiled for decades to build. No one wants to believe what I saw.

Another Wyrmic symbol, inked onto the cave wall. The Joining symbol. The need to record what really happened. It drives me. And I could not let anyone know of this record.

A dip of my claw in the ink pot. More ink drips down and to the floor. Another symbol. Meanings could be lost with this record in Wyrmic, but not enough time exists for me to document everything within the grammatical confines of Draconian, let alone spell every word out. Soon others will ask me to leave Ilugi, leave the region. If they discover this cave before the opening collapses to my magic, I must rely on other spirits donating their Time to me after death, and on the intactness of my memory. A plan too risky to depend on.

Heartache made me hesitate for a moment, but urgency pushed me on. The conjuring symbol. Ink drying up on my claw makes the marks thin and lighter than the rest nearby. But I do not retrace them. So many great dragons, now dead. Even young hatchlings, not yet morphed, died in what many are calling the Curse. The consequence of the Joining.

Circles. I could never draw a circle right. Yet I must, I must make sure every Wyrmic symbol could be read by those who need this information. Halfway into this circle, the ink completely dried out on my claw. A quick dip and I continue. Circle with a line. A diagonal with two more lines. A compound symbol. All kill. All conjurers killed.

So much to say, so little time. Already many symbols decorated the wall. An account of my observations and theories of why the Joining did not fully complete and why the Curse happened. A history that will be, literally and figuratively, buried.

Inverse magic. It had to be the reason. Magic can kill when it Turns, but to kill off hundreds of thousands of dragons? Tamed magic lashing out makes no sense. I refuse to call the inverse what others call it, though I understand their reasoning. Inverse magic, in the wrong hands, could be used to cause great suffering, suffering that dragon kind swears to prevent.

I hate the other name, yet in Wyrmic it has no other appellation. A crescent shape with an elongated end. My claw threatened to shake as the ink traced the symbol others see as evil. Followed by the symbol for the curse. Those four symbols combine mean "conjurer, all kill, curse, corrupt magic." The part of what I saw that others want to forget.

I must go on. There is more yet to record. A dip into the ink beginning to dry in the pot. A pull on my magic and the moisture from the air remoistens the vital substance. Time lost.

Despair. A non-literal idea symbol. More symbols like that. Confusion, hidden. Symbols that surround the dragon symbol I draw now. No one knows what happened, not truly. Not even me. We grieve over those that died, despair over the mass killing of our strongest magic users. There are rumblings that our only course of action now is to hide, completely vanish from human eyes. Wait for things to improve, a sign that the shadows of our failure have lifted.

Footsteps echo from behind. My mouth moves as if to utter a curse. All this effort, to make sure this information is not lost, wasted if found too early. In a panic I think of a spell, one to collapse the entrance. If no one sees, I might just get away with it. Still more time wasted.

Already lit by magic, the wall of symbols stares back at me. My claw traces out another symbol, one that has never been used. Again, my paw shakes. Another compound symbol, one of my making. A piece of information that must not be lost. A theory of how the Curse acted upon the conjurers. A piece of information that must be passed to whomever holds the future of my kind in their paws, be in a year, a decade, or a century from now.

An elongated crescent shape, the top point extending into a spiral. A phrase that refuses to sound itself in my mind but must be inked onto the wall.

More footsteps. I realize if the cave is found, I must fight and kill to defend this record. Fight to my death if necessary. Even unfinished, this is to important. It cannot be erased.

A shaft of light hits the wall, illuminating a symbol from earlier, the gathering of Elders symbol. The reference to when I stood up to Grusa-kal. I turn to the invader. Dragon kind will come to depend on these symbols. It justifies what is to come.