City of Demons

There weren’t always dragons in the Valley.

At least that’s what my grandmother used to tell me.

The Valley was once a place of glamor and riches, she’d say, where the most beautiful and wealthy made their home. It was a place where paupers could become royalty and royalty could become paupers. Countless would flock to the Valley to try and make their fortune, and the few who did, well… the few who did deserved all our pity.

She would use it as a lesson about the price of vanity and blind ambition.

She was a good storyteller, my grandmother, animated and confident in her folklore. Yet, even so, I always had a difficult time imagining the Valley as anything other than what it has become: a place of fire and ruin. I was born almost 100 years after the turning of the Second Age, long after the fall of the Free People. I have never known the Valley to be without dragons.

My village is nestled on the far westside of the mountains that border the Valley, where the slopes fall into the Great Sea. It is over a half day’s journey to the crest of the Valley’s edge, which on quiet nights feels almost far enough to offer the illusion of safety. A warm breeze will sweep over the surface of the waters and clear away the haze of smoke that constantly lingers over the streets of our community, and for just a moment, the tightness in my shoulders will ease as I breathe in the fresh, salty air.

It is only ever for a moment, however. Time rarely passes for long before a speck of ash will float down onto my arm, or I hear rumblings in the distance that immediately snap me back into my current reality and return the tension to my body. I do not have the luxury of illusion. Every wisp of smoke and stray speck of ash is a stark reminder of the hard truth of my situation: I am not, nor have I ever been, truly safe.

Dragons had come to the Valley in the mid-first century of the Second Age, almost five decades before my birth. The Free People had turned on one another, fighting petty wars and spilling innocent blood in their lust for wealth and power. In that time, the world became hot and inhospitable, and the Sea rose up angrily to swallow countless kingdoms and villages into its depths. Fires raged across our lands, destroying the forests and forcing our people to flee to the edges of the Great Sea for sanctuary. The world entered into an era of drought and famine, and having done nothing to stop it, the Free People turned their once fruited plains into a barren desert.

It was in this fiery hellscape that the first dragons were reborn, although no one is quite sure how it happened. Until that day, dragons had not been seen in the world for millennia, fading away into myth and legend. Many theorized that dragons had mostly died out when the world was covered with ice, and that the few that survived were later hunted to extinction by the knights and conquerors of old.

The mystery of their return, however, has as many explanations as there are stars in the sky. Some say the combination of fire and scorching temperatures allowed eggs long lost to the wilderness to finally hatch. Others believe that some god or another sent monstrous demons to our world as retribution for our immorality. Others still, in private corners and hushed tones, whisper about the breakthrough of magic in the Second Age; that the greed of the Free People and their squandering of the natural world had unleashed a power that had hitherto remained hidden and undisturbed, materializing their incessant lust for wealth into monstrous form.

Personally, it is this theory I find most plausible.

Magic has always had a hold in this world, although for many years it was found only on the margins of civilization. My grandmother told countless stories about Druid rituals in the East, and island priests who could summon spirits. She’d spend long nights gazing at the fire, speaking solemnly of the potions of indigenous tribes and modern healers dancing underneath the light of the moon. There is magic in every corner of the world, she’d say, but despite her descriptions of the different cultures and ceremonies of those who yielded it, her stories would always end the same: keepers of magic were always conquered, slaughtered, or banished to the third world. If my grandmother’s stories taught me anything, it is that those in power are often unkind to anything they don’t understand.

Regardless of cause, the reemergence of dragons incited further chaos in every settlement known to humankind, which had reached a tipping point of imbalance between the wealthy and the poor. If there is magic in every corner of the world, it would stand to reason that dragons had been reborn in every corner of the world, and as news of their existence spread, the remaining resources of the earth were hoarded. Markets ran empty, the honest turned to acts of crime and violence in their attempts to survive, and the wealthiest among each nation shut their gates and deafened themselves to the pleading of the poor outside them.

What I know now that was not known then, however, is that dragons are creatures fueled by avarice. They can sense hordes of wealth the way sharks sense blood in the water, whatever form that wealth may take. They are drawn to it, hunger after it, and kill mercilessly to feed on it. They thrive in wealth’s abundance and mate ceaselessly in its presence so their colony may expand and hunt for more.

It was this greed that first drew dragons to the Valley. The scent of its riches beckoned them like moth to a flame the moment they had been reborn from the fire. They tore through the countryside wreaking devastation, and in the wake of their carnage, nested themselves atop the Valley’s wealth. They slaughtered its inhabitants, and took its most elite hostage as their prisoners, for dragons can’t resist abducting people of inherent status to add to their treasure. In a matter of days, what was once called the City of Angels had transformed into a ruin of demons, and all that had once represented safety, power, and security had unknowingly invited its own calamity.

Or again, that is at least the account that my grandmother used to give me. I’ve never truly concerned myself with reasons of why or how. My only concern is that as of right now, today, there are dragons in the Valley, and I carry the burden of keeping them there.

I suppose I am past due for an introduction. My name is Yanis. In my village I am known as the apothecary’s child, who one may typically find wandering the wilderness in search of herbs and fungi for my mother to use in her remedies. I grew up exploring the underbrush with my grandmother while my mother ran our family shop of medicines and salves. My grandmother was well-versed in various forms of healing. For the more open-minded or desperate in the community, she could perform all types of mystical and intangible healing that seemed beyond logic, but for the most part, she dealt in traditional remedies that our community could understand and purchase from our apothecary. So, we often needed rare plant life that could only be found in far places beyond our village borders to make them.

If I’m being honest with you though, our tendency to disappear into the surrounding wilderness was strategic. It allowed us to travel back and forth from the Valley unnoticed, given that anyone who saw us emerging from the trees leading that direction would assume we had just finished searching for a fresh supply of primrose, mugwort, or enchanted mushrooms. It was for everyone’s best interest that they continued to believe that.

I was thirteen when my grandmother first took me with her on a journey to the Valley’s edge. When I began the changes of adolescence, I started to show all the signs that I would be like grandmother. My mother had not inherited my grandmother’s abilities, but recessive genes will always show themselves in the most unlikely of places on the family tree. My grandmother was a keeper of magic, descended from a long lineage that had produced a small handful of keepers over our ancestral history. I was the closest relation to a fellow keeper that the lineage had seen in quite some time.

I think about that first journey with my grandmother quite often, now that I must make them regularly on my own. As soon as she glimpsed the signs, my grandmother began to feverishly teach me everything she knew so I could carry on the task she’d started years before. My mother could grind herbs and mix salves with brilliant expertise, but until I came along, my grandmother had long feared for what would become of our village once she had breathed her last. Despite my mother’s talent for pharmacy, her remedies certainly wouldn’t be enough to heal what would come after.

The spell my grandmother began casting at the Valley’s edge really isn’t all that complex, but it is draining and time-consuming, and it must be done at least once every seven days to be effective. Twice, if I can muster the energy, which is rare since I am typically ill for three days afterward. Last time, it was four. I’m fairly certain everyone in my village thinks I am either dying or a drunk.

Today’s journey is difficult. I still feel weak and exhausted from the last incantation, but the extra day of sickness has set me behind schedule, and the spell needs to be recast. Waiting another day to regain my strength would put the whole village at risk.

We have done well for ourselves these past few years, my village, and abundance and good fortune have eased the burden of survival just enough to begin enjoying simple pleasures and hoping for our escape. Unfortunately, the dragons in the Valley have done well for themselves too. Our region was once home to some of the richest leaders of the Free People, and their wealth and prosperity has bred the largest colony of dragons for over 2,000 miles. We are one of the last remaining villages in the area, and we find ourselves in a sick and hopeless fight for survival. Like I said, dragons are persistent and merciless in their hunt for wealth and riches, and even more so their hunt for flesh. The larger the colony, the less significant that wealth and flesh has to be to attract their attention.

My village has survived these years mostly by bartering and ridding ourselves of anything we could spare that is considered valuable in the modern world. One of the saddest stories my grandmother used to tell was how hard she wept when she had to plunge her wedding ring into the sea. It was the last remaining item she had that my grandfather had given her, but the village couldn’t risk housing anything with jewels.

It is a cruel irony that our strategy for survival has worked, assisted by my grandmother’s spell, because it has also been putting us in increasing danger for the last decade. A village of our size with a proximity to a colony of dragons that has grown so large must maintain a delicate balance of simple living and shared resources as not to draw their insatiable eyes. It was easy in our early days, when our village was a small sanctuary for refugees banding together for survival. Today, our community is harder to conceal.

Survival by its very nature pushes us toward advancement and reproduction until we don’t have to worry about survival anymore, and my grandmother realized too late that our village had grown large and secure enough to attract the colony’s attention. We could no longer remain hidden by chance alone. She began casting the protection spell thirteen years ago, keeping the scent of our people and prosperity from wafting down into the Valley. Only the village elders knew of her actions. Even in a community like ours, keepers of magic have never been well received.

I think my grandmother always knew that she wouldn’t live to see The Evacuation to safety. Despite her efforts, it would still take years to gather the resources needed for our people to escape across the Great Sea, which was our best and only hope of survival. The spell demands much of the caster, and from the moment she began performing it, the spell drained more and more of the life out of her with each passing year. Plus, the more resources we gathered for our escape, the stronger it needed to be.

I wasn’t prepared to take over the casting when my grandmother died, and the fear of that knowledge was the last look to ever pass across her face. It is a look that haunts me on every journey I make to the Valley, and today is no different. I left before dawn to make my way to the Valley’s edge, and for every hour that I have been alone with my thoughts, I have pictured the look in my grandmother’s eyes when she breathed her last.

The air is still and silent today as I make my journey, and the weather has been fair. But as I make my way through the underbrush, I can’t help but wonder if I too will live long enough to see The Evacuation come to pass. My weakness and exhaustion grow with each casting, and today I feel an ache in every muscle of my body. It is, however, a thought I have no business having; if I do not live to see the plan realized, neither will the village. All of my grandmother’s efforts will have been in vain.

As the edge of the Valley comes into view, I push the thought away and drop my bag of elements on the familiar overlook where we perform our incantation. I stand for just a moment looking out into the Valley, but the air is never clear enough to see much into the distance. I kneel down onto the scorched grass and begin to arrange the necessary objects into their proper positions, the familiar tension rising in my shoulders. I have watched my grandmother do this a thousand times in this exact spot, but I still find myself worrying that I haven’t done it quite right. It is still early in the day, but it is already stifling hot and the air smells heavily of Sulphur. The smoke is so thick that it is hard to breathe.

At this precise spot on the overlook, the air is also thick with magic. I began to sense its energy the moment I reached my grandmother’s casting location, vibrating through the smoke. Keepers can feel when a place has known magic, and this particular place has known large amounts of it. Each time I come to the Valley’s edge, I feel it passing through my body, like waves through the porous rocks of the Sea. It washes through me, flowing far in each direction as it creates our protective barrier. Today, however, I also sense that it is far weaker than the last time I arrived six days ago. I’m later than I thought.

I hastily finish placing my items, nervously forgetting if the besom is supposed to point to the East or West based on the current phase of the moon and struggling to light my bundle of sage with shaking hands. I can feel the magic dwindling quickly around me as I work, receding like the tide. With each passing moment, we are becoming increasingly exposed. I need to start. I can’t allow the barrier to become weak enough to let our scent through.

I frantically check the boxes off in my head: the tourmaline is in place, the circle is cleansed, I’ve placed the besom in what I’m almost positive is the right direction. My knees groan as I stand to my feet and raise my arms above my head. They’re trembling with both exhaustion and fear, and the suffocating sensation of inadequacy. I take a deep inhale to begin the incantation and the smoke and ash sends me into a coughing fit. My eyes begin to water as I collect myself and inhale once more, until there is burning in my lungs. The spell must be stronger this time, and I need to cast it with all of the strength and force I can summon.

I begin to recite the incantation, but the moment the first syllable leaves my lips, it is drowned out by a horrific screech. The words die in my throat and I immediately feel the color drain from my face. I’ve heard this screech before but never this close. A dragon has caught scent of prey.

I’m paralyzed with fear, trying to decipher how far the dragon must be and if I have enough time to finish the spell. In a moment, I see both my grandmother’s dying look of fear once more and the first fireball erupting like a bomb in front of me. I’m too late.

I don’t have time to gather my items, so I start dashing back through the trees, adrenaline coursing through my body. There is a boulder settled to the right of a large Oak up ahead; my grandmother once pointed it out to me as a landmark, but I’ve always kept it in my awareness as a hiding spot. If I can reach the stone, I may just be protected from the flames I know will follow me.

Just as I reach the stone and dive behind it, a second screech crests the top of the Valley, and I feel a consuming wave of heat. The Oak beside me bursts into flame, and I watch a torrent of fire rain down onto the trees and underbrush spreading out in front of me. I turn around in time to see a great shadow soar above the trees overhead, obscured by smoke and burning foliage. My heart drops into my sour stomach as I realize the dragon has breached our perimeter. If dragons are like sharks in the water, this one has entered an ocean running red with our blood.

Horrified, I watch the shadow head straight in the direction of my village, spouting flames into the trees below. It will take me hours to reach home, long after the dragon’s wings have carried it there, but I do not stop to think about the logistics. Dread grips my body at all sides, and with all sense of exhaustion forgotten, I turn my back on San Fernando and run as fast as my legs will carry me back toward where my village sits on the banks of Old Malibu.

I do not know if I will want to see what awaits me when I get there.