The Ballad Of A Semi-Benevolent Dragon

Interlude 13 (Part 2): The Blood Thorn (Part 2)

Caelera wandered.

When Mother Tree fell and the golden age of the elves and dryads came crashing down, she wandered. So many of her kind had fallen. The days when a call to arms would have summoned a forest of golden spears and gilded shields that stretched to the horizon had passed. They had passed before the beating of titan wings and the scorching heat of dragon fire.

The Second Age gave way to the Third, and the seas rose to swallow the world.

In a way, it was a mercy. The scorched wastes that marked the end of Mother Tree's dream vanished, and the endless forests gave way to an ocean that spared only the high places of the world. But still Caelera wandered. And when her feet could no longer carry her across the world, she sailed the ocean instead, first on a crudely made raft and then on a ship purchased from some enterprising elves. Those elves were young. They did not know Mother Tree. They had not seen the gods with their own eyes. The only world they had ever known was one where the ocean stretched from horizon to horizon.

She sailed for centuries in search of a home she had already lost and friends who had already passed. Of the great elves of the Second Age, the ones who were old enough to remember when the power of the gods still shaped the land, she was the last. The others had either perished defending Mother Tree or had faded from the grief of failing to defend her. She alone remained, and she suspected that had a great deal to do with her old friend's last gift. There was power in Blood-Root's heart-wood. When an elf lost the dryad they had pledged themselves to, they were supposed to weaken until they could find another to bond with, and even that often failed. Death became less a possibility and more an inevitability.

And yet, Caelera remained. She would serve no other dryad. How could she? Even the greatest of Mother Tree's daughters was only a pale shadow of her, and the greatest of those daughters had fallen alongside Mother Tree. Those that remained were either traitors who had refused to aid her or mere children who could hardly even be called shadows of her. Caelera would not pledge herself to them. Better to fade as the others had. Better to die keeping the oaths she had made in the days when her people had been mighty and Mother Tree's boughs had seemed so great they could shelter the world.

The power that should have leaked from her body like a sieve instead clung to her stubbornly. Of all the elves still in the world, she might be the greatest. Perhaps she could have fought to rule her people. If Blood-Root were still alive, she might well have tried. But her friend was dead, and who would follow her, given the fate of those who had fought alongside her? The dragons remained, and there were none left who could stand against them. True, many of them had fallen in battle, but even so, who was left that could stand against the likes of Ashheart or Doomwing? Perhaps the great titans of the deeps, but they cared little for the squabbles of those who ruled the air or dwelt on land.

In time, her grief dulled. It went from a sword of bitter steel to a rusty dagger. She was still lost, but there was a chance she might be found. And then she heard the whispers of those who sought the sky. She dismissed them as foolishness at first. What business did elves or dwarves have with the sky? What dryad would abandon the embrace of the earth in favour of the wind and clouds? But then she saw it: the city that dwelt in the clouds, a city shared by elves and dwarves, a city built around a dryad who dared to dream of the sky.

What could she do but go?

They were fools, all of them. She saw that quickly, but there was a hint of greatness beneath their foolishness, and she could almost hear the voices of her old friend and Mother Tree. They would have been impressed, if perhaps a little puzzled at the decision to leave the ground behind. In the end, she stayed because the dream moved her. It was not her dream. Her dream had died. But there was something about their shared pursuit of it that moved her. Mother Tree might be dead, but some shadow of the unified world she'd sought remained. Who could have imagined elves and dwarves working together? Who could have imagined dryads befriending dragons after the end of the Second Age?

More and more elves and dwarves sought the sky, and more dryads reached for the clouds.

Caelera almost dared to believe again.

She should have known better.

The gods were dead. Mother Tree was dead. Hope was dead.

And from the depths of the ocean came the Lord of the Tides, and with him, the end of those who'd sought the skies.

She witnessed the end of the Third Age. She saw the sky-seekers give their lives in the desperate battle against the twisted offspring of a dragon and a leviathan. Their sacrifice was noble. It was heroic. It paved the way for the victory that followed. But it was still a sacrifice. And the elves, dwarves, and dryads were still dead.

But the Lord of the Tides fell. She saw him brought down by the dragons. In his death throes he sought to slay them as well, but he failed. Oh, the dragons were grievously wounded, but they were victorious. And whatever dim, dwindling thoughts she might have had of vengeance vanished. Doomwing and the others had grown mightier but also more skilled and cunning. They had faced the greatest of the lords of the deep, and they had won despite the Lord of the Tides flooding the world and blanketing it in endless storms.

The seas receded. The land was revealed. And the first streaks of white appeared in her hair.

She almost smiled. Death, so long put off, was growing closer. A lesser elf might have been scared, but Caelera was the last of the great elves. She had been born in the dwindling days of the First Age, and she had seen the glories and horrors of the Second Age. The passing of the Third Age was merely another milestone, another brick in the wall that was her life. Still, there were times when she wondered about the Lord of the Tides. He must have been born in the First Age. Had Mother Tree known about him? Almost certainly. For how could such a being evade her notice? She had most likely ignored him, perhaps out of mercy or some misplaced sense of compassion. Had she known what he would do later, would she have slain him then? Strangled him in his cradle before he could become a Catastrophe?

No.

Mother Tree's mercy and compassion had defined her. The dryad had once told her, near the end of the Second Age, that she had always suspected that Doomwing would oppose her but had hoped to persuade him. Mother Tree had loved the dragon like a son, and she had not been able to bring herself to ambush and slay him as she had slain the traitorous elder dragons whose deaths had first shown her the path forward. When Mother Tree had first allowed her ambitions to take root, Doomwing had been much younger and weaker. It would have been simple enough for Mother Tree to summon him and then strike him down. But she had not. Could not. Because she was Mother Tree, and that was both the best of things and the worst.

In the early days of the Fourth Age, Caelera wandered again. She saw many things. Life spread across the land once again, and her people's numbers increased. But their dreams were the dreams of long ago, of the firm ground beneath them and forests stretching far and wide. None dreamed of the sky, not even the few that had survived the fall of the sky cities. Perhaps the pain was still too fresh, or perhaps they had learned that the sky was best left to those with scales and claws and fire. The ground was where elves belonged, there with the trees and the dryads and the lumbering tree-folk.

It was during her wanderings that she met him. He was a vampire, and his name was Aurelian.

Caelera had heard about vampires. There had been whispers of them during the Third Age: humans who had transformed into something else after a failed ritual. Whether or not the rumours of their origins were true, there were several facts that she had confirmed. They drank blood to survive, and they could not endure sunlight. In exchange, however, they were far stronger than normal humans, and ageing did not seem to be a problem for them. Of course, it was difficult to determine if they were truly free from the shackles of time. A single Age was not nearly long enough to be sure.

From what she'd heard, vampires were a capricious lot, often given to cruelty, hedonism, and greed. It was as though the change from human to vampire had amplified their worst traits, alongside their strength. She had paid little attention to them in the past. Although her strength had begun to dwindle, few vampires posed a threat to her, and they seemed mostly content to dwell only in the homeland they had claimed for themselves after the waters of the world had receded. She had encountered a few outside of those lands, but those had been young vampires, lacking both the strength and wisdom of their elders.

It was during her wanderings in the lands adjacent to the vampire homeland that she met Aurelian. She had come across a number of settlements where vampires lived alongside humans, dwarves, orcs, goblins, and beast-folk. There were even a few elves amongst them. It was the first time she'd encountered such mixed settlements since the days of Mother Tree. At first she'd wondered if the vampires had simply enslaved the others. It would have been typical of their lot, and it would match the rumours and stories she'd heard.

But to her surprise, although the vampires ruled over the other groups there was a sort of... benevolence there, along with opportunities for the others to rise to leadership positions through merit and loyalty. She watched for years, skulking in the shadows, wondering if the peace she saw was little more than a facade. Eventually, she was forced to accept that it was real, that the prosperity and contentment she saw were not simply pleasant illusions that disguised a cruel and callous truth. It made her wonder if perhaps Mother Tree's dream was not yet dead.

She sought out Aurelian.

He was not what she expected.

He had no grand designs, no great dream. Instead, he was simply a man turned vampire who was trying to create something that could last. He spoke to her of the origins of the vampires, of the Original Progenitor from whom they were all descended and the Five Progenitors that followed who formed the foundation of what passed for nobility amongst the vampires. Aurelian was one of those Five Progenitors, and he had been scholar before being turned into a vampire. He had been born during the Third Age, and he had studied the history of the world as best he could.

Where the other vampires revelled in their new power and prestige, Aurelian saw the beginnings of their downfall. Like the astral parasites that made them what they were, vampires had not built their own society, so much as they had infected human society and twisted it to their own ends. Their homeland was an empire, one carved in the image of previous human kingdoms but instead of gold, it was blood that served as currency. Everything the vampires did was designed to further their own expansion and growing power, regardless of the cost in suffering. Anyone who was not a vampire was merely a tool to be used or a resource to be consumed. Humans were the most useful since they could easily be turned into more vampires while also serving as food. Other species were less useful, either because they couldn't be turned or because they were less suitable as food. As a result, the vampires either exterminated them or treated them as livestock.

Aurelian did not claim to be a good man, but he wanted to believe he wasn't a terrible one. Moreover, he could foresee how the insatiable hunger and growing madness of the vampires would end. Either those they ruled over would eventually rebel and overthrow them, or they would grow so mighty that in their hubris they would challenge the true powers of the world. An empire of vampires was a powerful force, to be sure, but how could it hope to stand against the dragons who had felled Mother Tree or the titans of the deep who had helped flood the world?

As one of the Five Progenitors, Aurelian did not want his people to be destroyed. Instead, he wanted his people to endure long into the future. It was his Blood Ascension that showed him the path forward. In the battle for control over his body, he and his astral parasite had come to an accord. They had become partners instead of adversaries, and they were far stronger for it. Aurelian had no fear of the sun, and even astral, holy, and light magic could do little to harm him. His natural talent in formations and magical script had combined with his growing blood magic to reach new heights that he could not possibly have reached on his own.

If he and his astral parasite could achieve partnership and symbiosis, then why not try to do the same on a larger scale? Why not establish a proper empire, one where vampires ruled but where all could prosper alongside them? They would not have to fear being overthrown then, and if they could temper their worst impulses and rule wisely, they could avoid drawing the ire of those they could not hope to defeat. Of course, he was not so foolish as to reveal his ideas to the other Progenitors yet. Of the Five Progenitors, none of the others were benevolent in the way he was. However, the Original Progenitor who ruled over all of them was not a fool. If Aurelian could present enough evidence, then it might be possible to sway him. Aurelian's plan was to rule his own domain as he saw fit and then present the results to the Original Progenitor.

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It was, perhaps, naive, but it was the only option Aurelian had. The Original Progenitor was too strong to be overthrown, and even amongst the Five Progenitors, Aurelian was not the greatest although he was far from the least. If he could unite the Five Progenitors, there was a chance they could overthrow their creator, but there was no guarantee he could do that, and even if he did, he did not trust the other four to follow in his footsteps yet.

As the white in Caelera's hair grew ever more prevalent, she decided to stay. She wanted to see with her own eyes how far Aurelian could get, and if her meagre advice and wisdom could help him, then so be it. It was during those early days that she met Sergio and Jarn.

Sergio was a young vampire who had grown up under Aurelian's rule. To Aurelian, he was an example of what vampires should aspire to be in the future: intelligent and cunning but not lacking in kindness or wisdom. Despite his youth, he was clearly being trained to serve as Aurelian's second in command in the future, and the fact that none of the older vampires under Aurelian's rule had any objections spoke volumes of his ability.

Jarn was a dwarf... and a survivor from one of the sky cities. Caelera was surprised to meet him. Almost all of the sky dwarves had perished in battle at the end of the Third Age, and those that had survived that cataclysm had either returned to their mountain-dwelling roots or had lost themselves to grief in a manner not unlike the elves following the death of Mother Tree. Jarn was one of only a handful that remained who still dreamed of the sky. Unable to give up that dream, he had wandered the world in search of others who still shared it. He had not found many, and even together, they were too few to start again. Now, in the dwindling of his years, he had found another dream: to help Aurelian achieve his goals. If Jarn could not live long enough to see dwarves roam the skies once more, then perhaps those dwarves who lived alongside others in Aurelian's domain could. At the very least, they had a better chance of reclaiming the skies than the dwarves who had returned to the mountains, content to live deep beneath the earth in halls of carven stone, far from the open skies Jarn and his kinsmen had once enjoyed.

For centuries the four of them: Aurelian, Sergio, Jarn, and Caelera worked together. Year by year, season by season, Aurelian's domain grew more prosperous. The Original Progenitor took notice, and though he would not yet commit to any major shift in the vampire empire's direction, Aurelian left each meeting with him more hopeful than before. Of the Five Progenitors, Aurelian had grown to become the most trusted, the one the Original Progenitor turned to when he needed wise and honest counsel.

And then the Original Progenitor died.

Although Aurelian did not know who was responsible, he was certain that it was one of the other Progenitors. The vampire empire did not disintegrate. Instead, it split into five factions, with each Progenitor ruling over their own domain. Since each of the Progenitors suspected the others, individual meetings did not take place. Instead, they only met as a group in the empire's former capital, bringing their own forces and relying on the uncertainty to prevent any mishaps. After all, whoever had slain the Original Progenitor must be powerful but could they face the other four and win?

Still, Aurelian was not foolish enough to think that such an unstable peace could last. Whoever was responsible would eventually find a way to either isolate the others and eliminate them one by one or find a way to win their allegiance. Yet this also presented Aurelian with an opportunity. If he could defeat whoever had slain the Original Progenitor and then either defeat the other Progenitors or win them over, then he could achieve his dream. But Aurelian was not a master warrior. He was a scholar. So what he needed was a way to even the odds, something to bridge the gap.

He needed a weapon.

And Caelera had something that could serve as the core of a powerful weapon indeed.

It was Blood-Root's heart-wood. He had been amongst the greatest of the tree-folk, and although many years had passed, the power that dwelt in his heart-wood was still mighty indeed. Jarn too had a treasure he could use to forge a weapon: a shard of heart-iron from the First Age. Caelera had been truly shocked that the dwarf possessed such a treasure. Heart-iron was special - a metal born from the very heart of a mountain. Most of the time, a mountain's heart was a gemstone of tremendous worth and power. But sometimes, only rarely, was it metal. Such heart-iron was a wonder metal, possessing unmatched physical and magical strength.

Jarn's shard had come from a mountain that was destroyed when the Broken God laid siege to the long-lost dwarf homeland. An ancestor of his had fled with it, and his family had held on to it throughout the Second and Third Ages. His predecessors had lacked the ability to work it - for only the greatest of dwarf smith's possessed sufficient skill - but Jarn had, at last, in the very twilight of his life, attained that skill. With the sky no longer within reach, he wanted to use it to help Aurelian. In exchange, the vampire would honour and care for the dwarves under his rule, and help them seek the sky again.

To the heart-wood and heart-iron, Aurelian would add his own heart's blood. Three hearts to make one weapon - a weapon the equal or better than any in the world.

The three of them laboured together for decades, first experimenting with lesser materials before finally committing once they fully understood how best to combine the true treasures at their disposal. During this time, Aurelian formed an alliance of sorts with one of the other Progenitors named Verus. Although Verus lacked Aurelian's benevolence, he had begun to adopt some of his reforms in a bid to improve his own domain. Upon seeing improvements, he had sought further counsel from Aurelian.

Verus was both the most skilled blood mage in the world and a necromancer of terrible power. Although Aurelian did not fully trust him, he was well aware of his need to either persuade or defeat his fellow Progenitors. Verus was reasonable enough to be persuaded, and his seeking of Aurelian's counsel boded well. Moreover, if it came to battle, then Verus would be a potent ally indeed.

The forging of the weapon was not something to be done in a day or two. It would take years, and it would involve many steps. The first steps had to be performed together, for the heart-wood, heart-iron, and heart's blood had to be combined. It would be up to Aurelian to instil the power of a Progenitor into the weapon, and it would fall to Jarn to draw out the full power of the heart-iron, heart-iron that came from a mountain that had withstood the fury of the Broken God, if only for a moment. The last step of all would belong to Caelera, for only when the weapon's form and function were decided could she awaken the last of her old friend's power and weave her songs into the very fabric of the weapon.

As for the weapon itself, they had all agreed that it should be a spear, for a spear had been the weapon her old friend had favoured when facing the mightiest of foes, and it was a spear that had felled the Broken God. Such memories carried power, and that power was not small either.

Jarn was the first to give the spear a name. He named it Gurthangir. In the language of his people, that meant Blood-Thorn, a fitting name for a spear that would be wielded by a vampire and whose core included Blood-Root's heart-wood.

Caelera gave the spear a second name, this time in the language of her people. That name meant 'The Spear That Sings Death', and it was a fitting name indeed. For when she was done, the spear would hold all the songs she could sing, and when it sang, only death would await its foes.

Aurelian would wait until the spear was complete before bestowing its third and final name.

At least, that had been the plan.

In the end, however, he never got to name it.

As Caelera laboured in seclusion to finish the spear, a great council of the Five Progenitors was called. Aurelian had no choice but to attend or risk losing control of the situation completely. His alliance with Verus had deepened, and he was confident that he could either keep the situation stable or tilt it in his favour with Verus's aid. Sergio went with him, as did many of his most powerful and loyal followers.

But Aurelian never returned.

Instead, it was Sergio alone who returned.

The truth had been revealed at the council. Verus had been the one who had slain the Original Progenitor, and he had secretly formed ties with not only Aurelian but all of the other Progenitors as well. At the council he had finally turned on them... and slain all of them himself.

Sergio had wanted to die at Aurelian's side, but Aurelian had ordered him to flee, to return to his territory and prepare. Verus would not be far behind, and with the other Progenitors dead, there was no vampire in the world that could withstand him. But Aurelian's domain was prosperous and rich. If Sergio was willing to turn traitor and hand it over to Verus, there was a chance he would be spared. After all, not even Verus could rule everything personally. He would need able administrators, and Sergio had proven himself a capable second-in-command.

Sergio was not nearly powerful enough to face Verus. He had no idea how the other vampire had grown strong enough to not only challenge but also defeat the other Progenitors, but if he could live... if he could learn how Verus had acquired that power and acquire it himself, then there was a chance, meagre though it was, that he could strike Verus down. It would take centuries. He would have to win Verus's trust and appear loyal, but he was a vampire. He had time.

As for the spear...

They could conceal its true nature. When weaving his power into it, Aurelian had taken steps to ensure the spear's true nature could be hidden if necessary. After all, if he walked into a meeting carrying a weapon of such obvious power, then the other Progenitors would immediately be wary. Only if he could hide what it was could he bring it with him. It would have been the perfect plan if Verus had not sprung his trap.

The spear was meant for a Blood Ascension vampire, and Sergio had not yet taken that step, never mind the steps Verus had taken to increase his power beyond even that level. The spear could stay with Sergio until he was ready to draw out its full strength, and when he did, it would be to avenge Aurelian. In the meantime, it would appear to be a weapon of excellent quality, but not a weapon so mighty that even Verus would be wary of it.

After hearing Sergio's plan, Caelera could only complete her work and weep bitter tears. The dream had died again, and she doubted she'd live long enough to see another attempt. Sergio counselled her and Jarn to flee. Verus might tolerate some of the changes Aurelian had made, but now that he had revealed his true nature, he would likely purge anyone who could resist. Jarn insisted on staying. His kinsmen and followers would leave, but he would remain. Sergio would need to prove his loyalty somehow, and allowing so many dwarves to escape would not please Verus. Jarn was old. There were few years left to him. Aurelian had been his friend, and Sergio was like a nephew to him. Let Sergio take his head and offer it to Verus to prove his loyalty and desire to serve. Let his death, which was swiftly approaching anyway, play some part in allowing Sergio to live and, perhaps, avenge Aurelian.

And so it came to be that Caelera fled the domain where she had lived for centuries.

It was only at the end of the Fourth Age that she would return to the homeland of the vampires. By then, Sergio would be dead, but he and Aurelian would be avenged.

How ironic that their vengeance would be brought about by the very person who had slain Mother Tree.

Doomwing.

She wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry. In the end, as Doomwing tore the sky asunder and laid waste to not only Verus - the Fourth Catastrophe - but also the vampire homeland, she decided to do both.

Doomwing's magic had felled Mother Tree. It was almost an honour for her to be felled by it too.

And so passed Caelera, the last remaining elf to have seen the gods and the glory of the First Age.

As for Gurthangir, the Blood-Thorn, the Spear That Sings Death... she would likely have laughed and cried again if she knew that the one Sergio had chosen to pass it on to was Marcus, one of Verus's sons who would go on to become one of Doomwing's closest friends. And then perhaps she might have smiled a wistful but bitter smile upon learning that Marcus's dream wasn't all that different from Aurelian's.