RavensDagger

  Chapter Nine - A History

  51st Day of Spring - Year 1758 of the Goldehe shores of Yellowfield, the Sapphire O, Draya Calyrex

  Magus Maldrak watched as the small boat usually carried in the middle of the Geidings's main deck was hoisted up. It was doh a set of four pulleys on a small cargo e currently deployed from the tre of the ship.

  A delicate bit of work, but nothing the crew couldn't handle.

  With a few final 'heave-hos' the boat was lifted out of the water with a spsh, and then it slowly rose up and up while the crew onboard tried not to rock the boat too much.

  O was even with the edge of the ship, a few men stepped up and held it steady so that the young woman aboard could climb off.

  "I thought myself used to seafaring by now," Magus Suffragus Nocthorn pined as she disembarked and adjusted her robes. "But that small boat? Something about it makes me quite ill."

  "Be thankful that the waters are calm at the moment," Maldrak said, though he couldn't resist a small smile. "How was the voyage otherwise?"

  The boat was kept in pce, hanging off the Geidings's side. There was no point in stowing it when it may well be needed by nightfall.

  "Well enough. The fog along the shore is so thick as to be imperable," she said. "I 't imagine navigating these shores without a lighthouse."

  "Indeed," he said. "But that's only an issue in the ms. By this afternoon it will lift. And it's not an issue year-round." Already, the fog was thinning in some pces, enough that he could make out the distant buildings of the vilge along the shore's edge.

  "Fihen," she said befng back. "Do you expect the three to make it back?"

  "I believe so. Assuming there's nothing too daunting for them to bat, thehey should make it ba due time," he said.

  "I'd worry more about a peasant taking them apart. Some are quite suspicious of clockwork and artifice they don't uand. Or they might take them to be resold."

  "A possibility, under normal circumstances. But these aren't those," he said.

  "I suppose not," Nocthorn replied. "What will have happeo the average peasant on the mainnd?

  Magus Maldrak rubbed at his . "There was an i some twenty-odd years ago, in 1737 on the Vermil Isles. Are you familiar with it?"

  Nocthorated for a moment, then shook her head. "I believe that's an isnd to the east of Draya Calyrex, but otherwise, no, I'm not certain what event you speak of."

  "That's fine. I was deployed to the isle at the time as part of a group of mages and knights sent to iigate the location, on behalf of the Avaris Myra Academy. At the time I held the same rank as you, in fact. It's where I met my wife... in any case, the isnd is not terribly hy. Some pearl farms in the reefs around it, some rather rge crustas, but little of true note."

  "But you spoke of an i," she tinued.

  "Indeed. A dragon whelp by the name of Lazuryth the Lazuli cimed the isle as its own. A small demesne for a small dragon. Nothing toe, though fortunately not ahat is very on. The dragon installed itself upon the isle and demaribute from the locals. It did as dragons do, and promoted some that it favoured above the others."

  "Like in the mainnd," Nocthorn nodded.

  "Let's step inside. I tire a little of the chill air, and I believe that after some warm tea, I may just retire for some true rest," he said before leading the young woman towards the interior of the ship. As he walked he tinued his history lesson. "Lazuryth, being a young dragon, had yet to decide much about itself, but it had great ambitions."

  Nocthorn snorted indelicately. "A dragon whelp with ambition?"

  "Yes, very funny," he said. "But it's worth noting that it decided to y several eggs. This is, without creating a hoard of any real substance. Pearls of all sorts were featured, as well as some artefacts, but its hoard was still small, and its realy extended across the isle. It failed to ceive its first egg."

  "The dragon died in the ying stage?" Nocthorn asked. "I've read about such a thing. The unbg would have been worth a fortune."

  "Oh, it was," he said. "Even split amongst all the fellows who retrieved it... ah, but that isn't what I wish to highlight. Rather, it's the impact of the dragon's untimely demise oizens of the Vermil Isles. Lazuryth the Lazuli had occupied the isnd for a st half-decade, but its bodily waste had been put to use iilizing the crops, and its draic essence was emp eadividual on the isnd save for some few of the noble css whom the dragon o travel to and uh outside of its demesne."

  Nocthorn nodded aloually, they found themselves in his office. He summoned water from the air into a kettle, and lit the entment woven into its artifice to begin the process of boiling water for tea.

  Maldrak sat across from Nocthron while the water warmed. "The citizens of the isle worshiped the dragon, as most are wont to do when a benevolent creature such as that appears and empowers them. Its waste made their food grow faster, and made it more patable. They grew stronger, not just in stature and muscuture, but in magic as well."

  "Dragon affinity magic."

  He nodded and made a dismissive wave. She knew all about that, and he wouldn't dwell on it. "The issue is, of course, that such power is tied to a dragon. To some degree. On the dragon's death, the essence corrupts. When we arrived on the isnd it was to find... chaos. People were eating dirt. Some fought to the death over the st remaining dragon dung. Others had taken their lives or that of their children. Nay-sayers were cast into the o. The magic that they wielded was no longer so easy to trol."

  "You tron affinity magic without worshipping a dragon," Nocthorn said.

  "You are a wizard, so I imagine you've spent little time with a clergyman of a dragon's cult. I'll five your ck of knowledge because you are correct, but only teically so."

  Maldrak leaned forwards. The tea was ready. He poured the tea through a strainer into two cups, then he opened a small jar of honey and used a small silver stick to pie out of the jar and into his cup.

  "Ah, yes, as I was saying," he tinued after his first draw. "There is... a certaial impact to using draic magics that isn't represented in wizardly magics. I don't know the exact feeling, though I've heard it described as revereo the source of the magic. When a dragohere is a... snap? A breaking of bonds."

  "And that drives people mad," Nocthorn said.

  "It weakens them suddenly, and by the same token, frees them from the straints the dragon might have pced upon the use of their own essehat is a metaphysical application of the magic. I have a book or two on the subject here for your ter perusal. Suffice to say that a caster will suddenly find themselves weakened, and able to draw signifitly deeper from the well of magic they have. At the same time, the ck of straints means that any favorable mutation the draic essence might have imparted... grows in an untrolled manner."

  Nocthorn nodded over her mug. "I've heard of this as well."

  "Good, good. The death of a dragon is the trigger to all of those who had that dragon's favour not only finding their mind disquieted, disc their god dead, and their personal power lurched away from their grasp and trol, but also being struck by a cerous illness from which there may be no cure."

  "And the people of the mainnd..." Nocthorn said.

  "Have worshipped their dragon lords feions untold," he said. "What I saw on the Vermil Isles was disquieting, but it passed after a few months of turmoil. The survivors were healed as best we could, and work and life resumed. Some of the emp even remained. But nearly a third of the isnd's popution was wiped out. A popution who had only been under draifluence for a short time, and from a whelp of a dragon no less."

  "What will we see once we step foot on nd?" she asked.

  Maldrak set his cup down. It cttered very faintly onto its saucer. "I'm quite tired, I'm afraid. This impromptu history will have to e to an end early."

  ***