Fire and Mist

There weren’t always dragons in the valley.

In fact, until three years ago, even the thought of dragons in Eirene would’ve been laughed off as absurd. No one was laughing anymore. The Immortus was dead and dragons roamed freely in the realm.

How The Immortus met his untimely demise was anyone’s guess. His death sent shockwaves through the entire kingdom. In fact, it weighed just a little heavier on the citizen’s heads than the dragons. This isn’t to say that the Eireneans weren’t concerned; far from it. They had at considerable cost excavated many tons of stone from the quarry to erect a massive wall around the kingdom effectively cutting them off from the rest of the settlements. A wall that many noted would hardly stand up against massive creatures whose very footsteps rumbled the ground for miles and who stood taller than the Twilight Tower.

A towering structure standing six-hundred feet, the Twilight Tower had been designed and commissioned over six thousand years prior by Caleb, the Immortus himself. Built as a testament to man’s ingenuity and a tribute to the gods, the Tower was considered a marvel the world over. It was a point of pride to all Eireneans and drew awe from all the other settlements that couldn't or wouldn’t dare to build such an impossible structure.

At the very top of this structure stood theTwilight Spire and the observatory. Caleb meant for citizens to ascend to the top and “touch the heavens”. It of course fell well short of such a feat, but those who braved the several thousand steps or the perilous pulley system to the apex and saw the entire empire, left feeling as if they had indeed communed with the Elementals themselves.

One floor beneath the spire was a little used room, barely noticed by the citizenry. To most it seemed to be nothing more than a hole in the side of the building, and to a degree this wasn’t far from the truth. But, inside this hole one would find a not uncomfortable bed, a pot, a mirror, a desk with accompanying chair and a lantern.

This was Sky Prison. Having housed only six prisoners in its entire history, Sky Prison was used to incarcerate political prisoners and heretics. It had no bars like a typical prison as there was no need. The only way up was by way of the pulley and the only ways down were either by the same pulley or plummeting hundreds of feet to the cobblestone below. The opening, Caleb had proclaimed, would also serve as a way for the guilty to repent to the gods and ask for mercy. None had repented and only one had ever made it out alive.

Occupying Sky Prison was its first prisoner in well over two hundred years. Inara Mist was also its most eccentric and of the residents of Eirene, she was the most concerned with the death of The Immortus. She was the only apprentice he’d deemed worthy of life extension and possible promotion to Immortus and a settlement of her own. She was also the only person present when he met his end.

That wasn’t the reason she was a prisoner. Public drunkenness and partaking in the dark arts were her official charges. Neither offense on its own would have sent her to Sky Prison, but used in conjunction the king had no choice but to place her in confinement.

By most standards he was more than fair. Many had questioned whether she should not have been exiled, doomed to walk The Between until she succumbed to the dangers of that dark realm. The king however understood the state she was in and knew she had no ill intentions. He could not, however, overlook one of his subjects raising an army of the undead.

Inara didn’t disagree with the punishment, but she did argue against the charge. This “army”, she argued, consisted of a mere three risen and while they did hunt for human flesh, the lumbering trio shambled at a snail’s pace and were quickly put down. By herself, she was quick to note at her trial.

The king and the court were unimpressed. The king countered, that while technically true, that only three deceased roamed the land, for three days the cemetery was haunted by the moans and banging of those trapped in their tombs. Not to mention, he added, the utter chaos that erupted at the markets as people fled from the flopping of recently caught fish and the march of beheaded fowl.

“My mother was in hysterics”, Head Justice Cantos shouted. She looked at Inara with wide eyes, probably disturbed by her lack of remorse. “She thought a demon had cursed the lands.” Cantos’ eyes narrowed. “Which isn’t far from the truth.

Inara thought that this lack of impartiality was unjust, but she kept that to herself. Instead, she merely locked eyes with the judge and said, “It would have all been worth it if I could have brought The Immortus back.”

The courthouse filled with murmurs and the Justice slowly shook her head. “Insufferable”, was all she could manage to say.

Inara started weeping, surprising everyone. The court watched as she covered her face with her hands and her shoulders bounced in sorrow. Cantos looked annoyed. “Are we to believe that these false tears are of remorse?”

Inara looked up, with tears streaming down her face. She swept her dark, coily hair from before her eyes so the judge could see her growing sneer. “No. I wouldn’t bring myself down to lying for your pity.”

In truth, Inara was crying in grief. She missed her mentor and friend. “Insufferable”, was a word he often called her. Sometimes in jest but often in exasperation. The judge had used the word in contempt and perhaps to wound, but instead it merely sent Inara back into the depression that had caused all this mess.

It had been the third anniversary of Caleb’s passing. In her grief, Inara had ordered several casks from the vintner. Over the next few days she imbibed enough liters of wine to incapacitate several large men. She slept in the Immortus’ chambers at night in an attempt to feel close to him. During the day, continuing the previous night’s drunk, she would peruse through texts, tomes, and notes. Eventually she stumbled upon his more arcane papers. Intrigued, she read more and more until she discovered several loose blank pages. These sheets were incredibly hard and stiff compared to the rest of the bound pages. Confused, she was about to put them down when their strange scent caught her nose. She sniffed them and immediately knew what they were.

Back when she was a child and actually had friends, Inara loved to pass secret notes to them in invisible ink. Like most invisible inks the message could only be revealed by exposure to heat. But Caleb had gifted her a bottle of his own special making. This concoction could make the ink invisible again by blowing cool breath on it.

Inara jumped up and despite the alcohol attempting to topple her to the ground, she brought the pages over to Caleb’s fireplace. She brought the first page near the flame, careful not to let it be consumed. She giggled in delight as the first words revealed themselves. She put page after page near the flame until all had been revealed. She set them down on The Immortus’ large desk and read them.

It was titled “The Dark Letters”. It was a collection of dark arts practices from several realms. Some she had never even heard of. The first several pages were nothing more than warnings in various dialects cautioning the reader of the dire consequences of attempting anything in the pages ahead.

“Using these texts as anything other than reference will lead to sure peril and possible DAMNATION.” It was written in Caleb’s handwriting. Inara continued on.

There were passages on conjuring, demon pairing, exorcisms after demon pairing (which Inara noted seemed to always end in the death of the paired) , pyromancy, pyrokinesis, and on and on. She absorbed it all gleefully. She had not yet risen to the level where Caleb would have taught her any of this. She felt guilty yet exhilarated. She stopped when she came to the section on resurrection. More warnings on this page about the need for precision and the possibility of creating what the text called, “zombies”. Again Inara pressed on.

The text itself was a collection of texts translated from other sources. Most were merely rites one had to perform to pass peacefully into the afterlife. As her blurry eyes and wine soaked brain struggled to keep up, Inara found what she had subconsciously been looking for. Amidst all the rites and rituals of departure she saw a title: Liber Mortuorum.

According to the text, “The Book of the Dead” contained the only known confirmed ritual for resurrecting the deceased. The ritual itself was simple. It required no more than a few readily available herbs and to read the incantation exactly as printed. The only part that made Inara pause was the blood. Not only the blood, as Inara was aware of many spells that required it. It was the sheer amount. “Half a body’s worth”, read the instructions. She imagined the life pouring out of her and being unable to stop it. The hesitation was momentary and Inara knew he was worth the risk. So as Inara’s mind dropped from drunkenness back to euphoria she had what she thought was an epiphany. She was going to bring The Immortus back.

What went wrong, she couldn’t say. Every instruction had been followed. She gathered the herbs and made sure she read the words exactly. She even drained what amounted to just over two liters of her own blood over two days. As she poured, there appeared a swirling darkness followed by a massive explosion. She was knocked unconscious. When she came to, she heard the horrified screams of the villagers.

And so she was charged. The king had wanted to take mercy on her and give a few short years. Unfortunately, as someone whom The Immortus had granted, Life times ten plus twenty, it was deemed too lenient for one who would live so unusually long. The debate over her sentencing was lively, the math being the hardest part.

Most agreed it should be one lifetime, but how to account for that lifetime was something only The Immortus would know. Inara was quite active like most women her age when she was apprenticed. However she had been an apprentice for seventy years at the time of the chaos. If they went by the age of her at the time of apprenticeship, then she would have had more or less fifty years ahead of her. But then there was the drinking, which they all agreed had probably taken off at least a decade. So as Inara woke that morning, her thirtieth morning in prison, she still did not know how long she would have to spend there.

The morning sun slowly filled her room, its tendrils reaching out to kiss her dark skin. Its brightness pressed against her eyelids and she turned around and grumbled. She was just about to give the sun her daily cussing out when she felt a gust of wind and the room suddenly became dark. “Thank gods”, she said. Then, she was struck by how odd that seemed. Then she heard the screams.

“What now?”

She jumped up and was met by the strangest, most horrifying sight she’d ever seen. A giant eye floated just outside the open wall of her prison. It had a long, slitted pupil like a cat’s with an iris that alternated between vibrant blues and bright orange. Inara screamed.

The eye pulled away and she saw that it had a partner and that they were attached to a face. A face that seemed almost reptilian with deep ridges in its skin and a small tuft of hair at the cranium. As the creature revealed more of itself, Inara was in disbelief at the size of it. Its skin was a deep brown mottled with bits of orange and purple. What looked like arms, led to massive wings that looked like sails made of leather stretched drum tight.

Inara stumbled back to her bed and struggled to find the words to describe what she was seeing. From far below on the street, a woman as if reading her mind shouted, “Dragon!”

The screaming in her ears was driving her mad. She realized after several seconds that it was she who was still screaming. She stopped. It wasn’t doing any good after all. She continued to just stare at this dragon realizing that this was it. She was going to die. She only hoped the fire was hot enough to kill her quickly. Burning to death seemed a horrible way to go.

The dragon opened its mouth and Inara clamped her eyes shut, bracing for the inevitable.

“Praise the gods! Your tiny voices are so shrill!”

Inara opened one eye. It spoke?

She opened her other eye and slowly stood. It didn’t speak.

Thinking her confinement had somehow, without her realizing it, driven her crazy, Inara rubbed her eyes. I have lost my mind.

Then, impossibly, the dragon cleared its throat.

“Hello.”