Stone Grown Secrets

There weren’t always Gorgons in the Diadema Maze ...

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Part Five of Ersoa’s Awakening

There weren’t always Gorgons in the Diadema Maze. Revordrea knew that waking from the Queller’s spell was the closest she would ever feel to being returned from stone. When she stirred out of slumber, the century weighed on her body.

“So, this is how the Giants felt,” she thought.

As the history is sung, the Gorgons learned their stonework from Gaea herself. Her grandmother, Medusa, discovered the Giants encased in stone, betrayed by their own mother, and freed them. The Giants and Gorgons were the first allies to join the Dragons in Miravale.

The first touch Revordrea knew after the Quelling was her serpents reaching out and finding Mimurda’s. It was a long, painful, labor — coming back to life. The next comfort she knew again was Thera’s Everlasting Flame, warming her coiled tail. Then, there was Zunia, whispering in Revordrea’s thoughts, “Sister, we are alive.” And finally, Dastrama, most skilled at stonework among them, brought soothing tremors to the surrounding rock walls, opening a narrow tunnel for escape.

She did not know why they were awoken.

Only the King with Scales of Amber, most feared among the quelled, joined them in freedom from the spell. On their escape to the surface, they discovered the young thunder of Dragons, bred captive below the mountain, in servitude of the Queller and his traitorous Minotaur guards.

But before they rescued Viori and helped him free his distant kin, before she became the Queen with Eyes of Stone, before their mother whispered her final order, Revordrea faced Miravale’s oldest Serratae, and he gave her a message from Time itself.

“You must find the Seer. He will free us all.”

“Not all,” she thought as she turned him to stone, irreversible.

It was the kindest death she could give and the last time her eyes passed the Final Judgment.

Now, gazing blindly into the smoking valley where the Tree Elk once roamed, she thought of alliances and how much more difficult they were to shatter than mold.

“We must save the Seer,” Revordrea decided in a hushed tone.

It was too late to stop Mimurda and the Dragons in their rampage. Revoking permission to burn the valley would turn them bitter, begrudging. She could hope they may spare the Seer if he was found alongside the Druid in the valley. But what if he went astray? What if the Dragons or worse, Mimurda, grew hungry? No, in this moment, they were beyond reason.

*

The last day she had seen such a determined force was on the march to The Battle That Never Happened. Before the Quelling, the sisters inhabited the Ouroboros Cliffs that encircled the Gapemouth Inlet in Miravale’s west. They journeyed across the realm for the same reason as the Giants and their like-natured allies: destroy the Mages.

Those humans, if they could even be called that, had been disturbing the balance of their world ever since they first emerged from Ingress Lake. It was the Mages who turned Miravale, once a sanctuary for magical beings, into a prison realm. Trapped by the curse of their own making, they annihilated whole kingdoms to stake claim on their new world.

They brought the disease of corruption with them, hoarded the vitality from Caeli, and molded Miravale to their liking. Most unforgivable, they murdered the Immortal Thunder. Viori, once the last known Dragon in Miravale, was determined to avenge his kin and finally discover the truth of Ersoa’s disappearance. With Viori as their war chief, they were emboldened in their purpose: return Miravale to the rule of the Caeli and eradicate the Mages.

Like the lone Dragon, Revordrea wanted vengeance. Their mother and fourteen aunts had too long been missing from their kingdom. Revordrea was certain it was an atrocity of the Mages’ doing. Even if she had to torture every last one of them on that battle field, she would get answers. And on that day, she knew her sisters, especially Mimurda, the most beastly of their clutch, would join her in the undertaking.

The day of the Quelling one hundred and twenty six years ago, they followed the Minotaur foot soldiers on the marching path through the valley where the Tree Elk roam. The approaching flanks of the Giants and their Behemoths, oldest allies of the Dragons, sent quakes through the mantle.

Revordrea was not skilled at forethought until it became the only vision she had. Back then, she did not anticipate the trap, even when they slithered into the gaping jaws of the empty forest that would one day be called the Ash Wood.

No Centaurs, no Pegasi, no Fairies, no other enemies awaited opposition other than a single Mage and four Druids. Those in the front lines were too unnerved to understand the unfoldings. They were prepared to face an army larger than the combination of all their battles past. They were ready for carnage, clashing, fearsome feats. Yet, they did not expect this would be The Battle That Never Happened.

Hiding in the rear formation, the Gorgon sisters were not in eyeline of The Five. If Revordrea realized the Druids’ moral dysfunction sooner, they would have instantly turned them to stone. The capability of rendering their enemy suddenly useless was what made the Gorgons an obvious target. It was the very reason for their careful concealment.

As the march slowed and Viori soared overhead, Revordrea, the Eyes of Final Judgement, felt an overwhelming dread stir in her gut. She wouldn’t realize it until the darkness of their imprisonment, but it was the very moment that birthed her Mind’s Eye Intuition: The trees, all of them, began to wilt.

“Dormi,” the voice whispered, piercing crisply through the air.

As Revordrea’s serpentine body slackened, unraveled, and she watched the mountain of amber scales descend from the heavens, the rest of Viori’s army fell with them … all but two.

*

“Why can we not tell them about the Seer?” Thera whispered, the glow of her Everlasting Flame burning in her throat.

“It is not the Seer I fear will anger them. It is the source of the information,” Revordrea’s serpents divulged to Thera’s, so hushed that only Zunia could hear.

Zunia froze, heart thrumming in her chest. The Dragons and Serratae despised each other; It was a mark in history. But this specific history had left scars on her own memories. She thought of the last time she turned a woman to stone, how it was kinder than letting her live in a world where Dragons roam.

She gazed carefully at Dastrama while the others were distracted. How closely her long distant sister guarded the captive Satyr, placing her body between him and the cave opening where Mimurda and Viori could re-appear at any moment. She was the only who could truly understand her fear.

“Dastrama, the Wandering Gargoyle our people once called you,” Revordrea sighed as if in disappointment for a friend leaving too soon. “It is time that you wander some more.”

“What is your meaning, Sister …” Dastrama hesitated, glancing quickly back at Zunia and then to Revordrea again. “Queen,” she corrected herself.

Thera settled in the bench beside Revordrea’s throne, the ornate seat Dastrama had crafted for their queen the first day of their freedom: a show of her loyalty. Thera reached carefully to hold Revordrea’s hand with trembling fingers, not to show support, but to calm her own nerves. Their time wandering the Diadema Maze had once turned all dastardly. Thera had much to fear in this new world, yet the strongest was losing her sisters to each other.

“If there is a chance we can save the Seer, we must try,” Revordrea hissed cautiously as if wary of the Dragons’ swift return.

“What if this fails?” Zunia whispered in Revordrea’s mind.

Revordrea gasped only slightly, catching herself before wholly reeling. It was the first time Zunia had interjected since they surfaced. She tensed as an unwanted suspicion arose.

“If Viori discovers we conspired secretly with a Mage, will he trust us?” Zunia whispered in her mind again.

“We must give them reasons to need us, not just trust us,” Revordrea answered.

Thera looked about the cave awkwardly, holding her hand over her throat. Revordrea promised she would wait to tell the others about the gift of Everlasting Flame until the nests were complete. Certainly, she was talking about something else.

“So, you wish me to go down into the burning woodland to try and rescue this Seer?” Dastrama asked.

Revordrea couldn’t see it, and Thera was too concerned about hiding her own secrets to notice the flicker in the Satyr’s gaze. His head was still the only part freed from Dastrama’s curse of stone, yet Zunia recognized the panic of longing well enough to know he would follow her into the blaze without hesitation.

Yet, Revordrea would not allow it, Dastrama knew, for the same reason she did not announce her previous departure. Although their queen did not know exactly why, her awakened Mind’s Eye did not wholly trust her.

“Of course,” Dastrama agreed, reaching to grab Revordrea’s cold hand.

Her serpents kissed her cheek as she knelt before the queen, and she wondered if Revordrea had ever forgiven herself from taking the most precious part of her life all those years ago.

“I will protect him,” Zunia whispered in Dastrama’s mind.

Dastrama nodded so slightly, it could be mistaken for a bowed head, and then she reached for Thera’s hand.

“Kindest sister, grant me your Everlasting Flame to guide me through the stone? My last journey was so dark and dreadful,” Dastrama tested.

Thera looked to Revordrea, who sensed from her silence that she wasn’t certain how to respond.

“Thera must reserve the Everlasting Flame,” Revordrea explained.

So it was true. Thera was either ready to bear her own clutch, or she planned to give the Everlasting Flame to the Dragons, turning the first hatched beneath the sunrise in centuries immortal. Just like Viori. Just like the Gorgons.

Before departing, Dastrama gave the Satyr a look that said, “Don’t do anything foolish.” He winked as if to say, “You first.” Zunia rolled her eyes at their failing ploy, suspecting that even their blind queen could see their saccharine love.

And she did. It was the only reason Dastrama would doubtlessly return. As the soothing tremors rolled behind her throne, Revordrea thought of the day she awoke, feeling like the Giants, as if she were lodged halfway in the past, halfway in a future she couldn’t reach. Strange it was, how strong Dastrama was then, even after more than a century of slumber.

She gripped the stone-worked throne and thought of the tunnels. Before she rendered her own gaze useless, she once observed the Diadema Maze through the wondrous glow of Thera’s Everlasting Flame, the only thing that gave them life in that hellish place.

She wondered what kind of Mage as skilled as Gaea herself could have constructed such a maze. But tremors like Dastrama’s stone-working rolled through her chest when she wondered: What if it wasn’t a Mage?

“He has secrets,” Zunia whispered in Revordrea’s mind, warning her of the stone imprisoned Satyr.

“Don’t we all,” Revordrea thought, wondering if the Merfolk still sang about the tragedy that befell their princess all those years ago.

to be continued ...

***

Hello, wanderer!

If you liked this story, you may enjoy my daily series The Key Between Stranger Realms.

xoxo,

for now,

-your friend, lost in thought