The Lord of Dragons

“There weren’t always dragons in the Valley.”

A haggard old man swayed in his seat, consumed by alcohol and memories. Droplets of spilled beer glistened in his long beard like stars twinkling against the backdrop of a darkened sky.

“The old stories tell of an oasis,” the old man continued. “A jewel of a city surrounded by nothing but fertile ground. Several generations ago–consult the old maps–there’d been no dragons there, no valley either.”

He smashed a feeble and wrinkled fist into an open palm. “A calamity. They say it was a star that fell. They say an old god toppled from heaven.”

Someone in the tavern gave a forlorn hum. No one remembered what the land had been like before the calamity and anything that’d been alive there had been soundly wiped out.

There were tales of it: a star unfixed from the heavens streaking across the sky in an unparalleled blaze, a blue tail of pure fire, the clattering of the heavens alongside splaying bolts of jagged lightning. And it’d been recorded in several locations: livestock balking and fainting at the sight of it, shepherds in the night fields falling to their knees, the incessant yowling of dogs as if possessed.

Something that shouldn’t have fallen had fallen.

“What does a god have to do with a dragon infestation, Old Man?” A bronze-faced man with a pinched nose and dirt-smudged clothing sat hunched over his own table.

“A fallen god brings with him more than mere destruction–he brings with him ancient wisdom. Dragons are the oldest of creatures who still understand the ancient ways. As you know, before man, there were dragons.”

“That’s a myth,” the farmer quickly snorted, massaging his oily temples.

“If you believe it’s a myth, go to the valley now and ask them! You don’t speak their ancient tongue but you can surely try!” The old man’s dry laughter tapered off into a cough as he grinned crookedly. “But the dragons came out of their centuries long hiding because the god brought with him something they want.”

The farmer’s thin and cracked lips trembled as if he wanted to dispute the old man. He was angry, bitter even, that the pollution of the Valley had spread as far as his farm. His crops were wilting, his livestock was dying, the stream near his farm had somehow become poisoned. A farmer had no time for myths when his livelihood was at stake.

“That sounds about right.” A deep voice purred. A young man stood from where he’d been seated in the corner, his dark hood pulled over his head. Only half the tavern acknowledged him. Strangers blowing through the small town didn’t last long and often had boastful stories about things they’d done or places they were going.

“The Valley doesn’t just have an infestation of ancient beasts; it’s an omen–what fell from the sky, the dying land, the dragons emerging–a new era is beginning.”

The farmer’s eyes widened, surprised the young man passing through town had noted how polluted the land was. At the same time, the air was thick with the tavern’s collective thought: Another young upstart spinning grandiose tales. The young man even believed it all to be an omen.

“The Dragon Lord is what some others have called him. He’s regarded as the fallen star by some astrologers and some say stars are just the physical remnants of a god’s soul–bright beyond our comprehension with lifespans that will outlive us one-hundred fold.”

“Bah, fairy tales,” someone hissed. The young man was unperturbed.

“The Dragon Lord is one of the Old Gods and part of the original pantheon that formed the earth. He had a name but it’s been lost to time–I’ve seen texts that refer to him as Mars. This Mars, using his knowledge of the cosmos, bestowed vital knowledge upon mankind. His love of all earthly beings was only surpassed by his vast understanding of the nature of reality. The knowledge he’d given mankind was the unifying theory of everything. Sacred Oneness.”

“Ah, you’re one of those cult members babbling about how everything is connected. And do you also talk to the plants?” Someone was mocking the young man. The young man paid the voice no mind. The old man also ignored the voice, glossy eyes drunkenly fixed on the young man.

“I am no cult member–I only study the ancient texts,” the young man spoke calmly. “This Mars wrote the Book of Beast, Man, and Plant–it’s a descriptive guide on how everything that exists is connected ‘under the eyes of heaven’. Some believe the eyes of heaven to be a sacred location, others believe it is a state of mind. It even details how the gods formed the universe and the nature of infinite history.”

“Infinite history? Oh, you’re definitely one of those babbling cultists!” Someone outside of the young man’s line of sight was cackling at him, slurring their words together as they jeered.

The young man didn’t seem bothered as he continued, “Mars brought this knowledge with him and the dragons know–it’s why they’re gathering where he fell.”

What remained of the lush oasis the old man had been talking about was now a desolate and empty field of decay. The impact of the fallen star had warped the land beyond recognition, creating an smoking crater that constantly reeked of ash and death. The initial impact had occurred generations ago but the resulting earthquakes tore the land asunder for several decades. What remained of the land was jagged, treacherous, smoking with toxic fumes, and crawling day and night with hostile dragons.

Not a soul had ever been there and returned; there was nothing there a man needed to risk his life for anyways.

“I heard,” the bearded old man began, encouraged by the young man’s fantastical tales, “–the dragons gravitated there as if a magnet had been planted in the ground!” He jabbed a long and crooked finger into the air. “50 days and 50 nights they circled the fallen star like a vicious whirlpool and blotted out the sky!”

The young man nodded, “The Dragon Lord is only 1 of 12 scourges, I’ve discovered. 12 scourges and 12 fallen stars all around the world.”

No one seemed impressed by the traveler’s apparent knowledge. Afterall, most of the young travelers that blew through town had no problem trying to dazzle a town of poor country bumpkins with lies.

Someone sniffed then loudly spit. “So what if there’s twelve or a hundred of them! Whatever New Gods are up there have turned their faces away from earth while their fellow gods are running amok–”

“The New Gods haven’t turned their faces,” the young man interrupted calmly.

“What? Don’t be stupid! How could any gods be watching over us while these monsters ravage the land? Since you want to believe in myths so much, answer that!” It was the farmer again.

“The New Gods are here on earth,” the young man replied cooly.

The tavern was silent for a beat before the farmer smashed a wobbly fist into the table. He was drunk but not enough to entertain this winding tale. The farmer stood to leave, rising on shaky knees.

“What I know,” the young man said in a slightly more projected voice, “is that only a god can defeat a god. If the fallen Old Gods have landed here, the New Gods have followed.”

The farmer shoved past the young man. “What do you know? You’re just as ignorant as the rest of us!”

“A god is the only being that could understand a fallen god’s tremendous strength, their motives.”

“Motives? To kill us all,” the farmer growled.

The tavern was struck silent under the weight of their collective fear.

The young man quieted his voice and backed off from the farmer. “The Fallen Ones, the Old Gods, became corrupted and fell. Something made them impure and caused them to lose their place among the heavens. Rather than earth being a target, it might’ve been their only refuge.”

“So the New Gods are going to slay the Old Gods?” It was the Old Man again, blinking quietly as if he was trying to piece the story together.

“Yes and no. The New Gods are going to defeat the Fallen Ones by taming them into submission then reintegrating them back into the heavens. Afterall, that is a god’s place.”

“Back into the heavens? After all these scourges have done, they deserve to be destroyed.”

“Who among you are completely irredeemable? Who among the gods, with all they’ve done for humanity, are irredeemable?”

“...Salty Time is pretty irredeemable.”

The young man paused, taken aback before stuttering, “There is no Salty Tim among the gods. …Or there could be if they deem him worthy.”

A greasy and feeble looking man, presumably Salty Tim, staggered from his corner of the tavern with eyes aglow with hope. “So, I could be favored by the gods?” His teeth were long and yellow, his nails gray and chipped.

The young man, tall and handsome in the tavern’s dim lighting even with his hood pulled up, took a staggering step back. “That…wouldn’t be up to me to decide.”

Someone cleared their throat to clear the air. “Even if it takes a god to defeat a god, why would the New Gods need to descend at all? Just smite them from the heavens then lasso ‘em right up,” a woman with broad shoulders and scarred hands laughed heartily as she wiped her fingers on her lap. Her lips were shiny with the grease from the meager piece of meat she’d been provided.

The young man turned to her, “The New Gods descended to learn about the nature of corruption themselves. In a way, by coming down, they subjected themselves to partial corruption to understand the Fallen Ones.”

The woman bellowed out a hearty laugh. “Why not just watch humans and learn from their folly? There sure is enough folly going around for them to understand corruption without,” her large hands gestured vaguely, “getting involved in this mess down here.”

“Watching isn’t the same as experiencing. Watching isn’t always understanding. If you had to battle a fallen god, would you go in only having watched humans struggle with their daily trifles?”

“...I suppose not.” The woman was boldly resolute as she ended the conversation there.

The Old man rubbed his beard for a while with a pensive look in his eyes. He studied the hooded young man for a beat before asking, “Young stranger, how do you know all this? You sound pretty sure of yourself.”

The young man paused then dropped his head, smiling. Removing his hood, he revealed handsome and noble features. His dark hair spilled over his shoulders like ink, glossy in the dim lighting. A shock of pure white streaked through his long hair on the same side a birthmark resembling a white sunburst contrasted sharply against his olive skin. He was odd-eyed, too–one eye pitch black and gleaming like obsidian with an eye as red as a ruby twinkling alongside his sunburst birthmark.

“I know this,” the young stranger began slowly, “Because the scourges must be brought to an end.” The stranger angled his handsome profile to the side and the blood red outline of a snarling dragon was crawling up the side of his neck like a tattoo, like a cursed mark. “And I’m the god that’s been tasked with defeating him.”