Wolf Awert - Ringwall's Doom

“If only you could talk,” Nill sighed. But humans and dragons are too different. Only the basest, most primitive part of their brains, where emotions were born, where fear cowered, hatred exploded, but also where trust grew; that was the only connection he had managed to forge with this strange creature. Hissing, growling and spitting was a language Nill did not understand. So he closed his eyes and felt his way towards the falundron with his spirit. He sent feelings of warmth, friendship and even love into the dull mind. The falundron felt his touch, pushed and shoved, and when Nill still did not understand, it responded with magic. Nill flew back and was ripped forwards again by the force of the magical band.

The falundron’s magic was not that of the mages.

“It’s as if there is a magic within the magic,” Nill sighed. “How am I to understand that if I can’t get a proper grasp on even the five elements?”

The little lizard’s body was now rocking wildly on its stomping legs. Reflected light danced across the cracked leathery armor, a landscape of ravines and gaps, as though hewn by an ax. Scars and furrowed growths, defiantly holding themselves aloft against an invisible sword, and broken lines that attempted to keep the ruins of barely recognizable shapes. But it was not like that at all. The leathery skin bore the glyphs of an ancient power like a living book. Nill could read them, but not make sense of them. But now they became softer, unfocused, as a magical aura rose from the dragon’s hide.

“How did I never notice before?”

Nill could only shake his head at his own stupidity. Any magical creature ought to be surrounded by an aura, but the falundron had always been bare.

“How do you hide your aura, old friend? If only I knew the secret, no mage could ever find me.”

The aura grew and grew; it was a milky gray, densely woven and seemed to merge with the air in a manner that hid its size. What had Tiriwi said? “Dense auras with no real color are strong, melded and unreadable.” This was the aura of a powerful mage, not the pale shell of an animal.

As Nill stared at the falundron’s aura, an idea began to form in him, so mad and dangerous that he immediately dismissed and tried to forget it. But some ideas are unwilling to be forgotten. With the same stubbornness that was so much a part of him, the idea penetrated his skull, becoming stronger and clearer all the while.

The most powerful sorcerers defeated their enemies by destroying their aura. Anyone who succeeded in shredding or even completely removing their enemy’s aura was left facing a helpless idiot. Nobody knew whether someone who had lost their aura could ever regain magical powers. But such an attack was dangerous and foolhardy, for the stake was one’s own aura.

Nill’s true gift was not his power; instead, he could see auras much more sharply, read them better than other arcanists. He wanted to open up his aura to the falundron. Madness. An attempt born of desperation.

Nill re-established his connection to the swaying dragon. At the same time he inflated his aura until it reached the outer limits of the falundron’s. Gently, searchingly. No more than a shy first kiss. Nill hesitated. He did not want to be misunderstood. But the response came, and it forced him to his knees. The blow made him grab the pulsating wood of the door for support, and he felt with horror how the reality drifted away from him. All that remained was the urgent impatience of the falundron, and a feeling that was somehow connected to time. Everything was bathed in blazing flames. The falundron invaded his aura, a stab of pain shot through his head, followed by a flood of feelings and images. Nill understood the falundron.

There were neither words nor clear thoughts. Instead, he saw scraps of pictures, fleeting impressions and, most of all, emotions. A rush, haste, an almost palpable urgency that seemed to pound to a monotonous rhythm. “Da da dam, da da dam, it is time, it is time, da da dam , not much time, da da dam , not much time, not far now, da da dam .”

The stream of rhythm and fragmented words was endless. Or were they even words? The pounding hooves of a galloping horse? War drums? Da da dam, da da dam! No, they were words! Or not?

And between the hammering blows, the breadth of the world. Glimpses from mountain peaks, all the way to the horizon. Gray water, broken up by clusters of reeds, angry mountains under a coat of ash, throwing rocks and fire into the sky, choking on their own breath. Nill saw earth, burnt by the sun, its crust hard as iron, where no sapling would ever grow. He saw green woods, fertile and good, with branches and twigs woven so densely as to shield them from the world outside. And, again and again, the feeling of haste and fire. The falundron pushed Nill away with a last, painful shove, and became as rigid as ever before. The door shook one last time. The chamber grew silent, and the magical seal wove itself anew. All was as it had always been.

Nill’s legs gave out from under him. He fell to the floor, asleep.

Much later, he awoke again and dragged himself to his own cave. It was unchanged: all it contained was a chest, a pile of quilts and furs that made up his bed, a table, a chair and a jug of water.

“Fitting for a neophyte,” Nill thought, “and just as fitting for an Archmage of Nothing.”

He had not chosen this place on a whim. His cave was one of many small ones that the legendary founders of Ringwall had carved into the mountain, where they had hidden from persecution during the black times. These days, they were far enough away from the lodgings of the other archmages, and deep beneath the surface.

“I ought to rest and do something entirely different for a few days, but I’m running out of time.”

Nill felt the urgency that drove him in a very real sense, and his unrest troubled him. He slowed his breathing, making it deeper and calmer, and attempted to block out the thoughts that danced around in his head like a group of angry apes in order to get some sleep. Unfortunately, in vain.

The apes stayed and chased each other in circles. The falundron, the symbols, Perdis, the amulet, ancient magic, magic of nothing, magic of five elements, Other World, cosmos and thoughts, prophecy, truth (which truth?), fate and time, past, creation, magic of Nothing, ancient magic, magic of elements, Nothing, Nothing, Nill the Nothing, Nill, Nill, me, me, me. Nill punched himself in the head and the shock of pain interrupted the spider’s web of thoughts that sprawled through his mind. He coughed and gasped for air.

“I’ve been down here too long. I have to leave the catacombs. The magic down here will kill me.” He leapt up and hurried to the entrance that separated the Hermits’ Caves from the rest of Ringwall. He knew where and how to tame the chaos in his mind, where he could refresh his energy. The Sanctuary. But in order to get there he would have to leave his quarters and cross Ringwall.

“All the caution in the world won’t matter if I die down here anyway,” he muttered. He left the Hermit’s Caves and climbed the stairs that led to the entrance area of Ringwall. Down the corridor to his left lived Gnarlhand, Archmage of Earth. On the right side, behind the dining chambers and the kitchens, was the Metal lodge, where his old enemy Bar Helis had lived. Before him lay the path to the world outside Ringwall, to sunlight, to the sounds of wind and life. But that was not his goal.

Nill’s path to the Sanctuary led him to the other side of the city, close to the Wood lodge. He stepped through a series of portals and soon found himself standing before the circle of the five magical symbols – the basalt column for Earth, the shimmering, composite crystal of Metal, the gurgling fountain for Water, the tree for Wood and the everlasting torch, representing Fire. His own element, Nothing, was in the center of these five, and all that hinted at its existence were pale colors, fuzzy outlines and a profound feeling of emptiness.