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Story Listen now. This tale I will tell. Long ago, in a time so far removed from the life of this storyteller that the passing of an age is but a mote in the flow of ages, the Dragons ruled Evermoor. Lordly they were; tall, strong of wing and red-goldened scale, and wise. Their race, born in the Striving which bound Daemos and clove the Moors, raised by the Song of Making to be his Ward and Sealguard, basked in the light and knowledge of their Creator, and knew dominion over His lands and the creatures He had sung. Among those other creatures raised by the Song there was one: pale, fur-covered, furtive forest-dweller, and climber of trees. This one the great Dragons watched, but did not hunt as they did all other creatures by right of need. This one, like the Dragons, sang the Song, and had within the potential for Making. This weak, fern-eating creature was also of the Creator. And so the Dragons hunted when the hunger took them, but Humanity they watched as the ages passed. It might be said, looking back, that in this the Dragons were less than wise. But they were true. They lived and warded the seals, and Daemos caged could not come against the world. In the forest the Humans ran, naked and afraid. In time the veil of ignorance and bestiality lifted from the humans, and they came forth from the forest into the broad lands near the mountains of Dragonhome. Time had stripped them of their fur, and straightened their backs. Nor had the long stretch of ages left the Dragons unmarked. Among them were many who still sang the Song of Making, and remembered the light of the Creator, but many also had forgotten, or chose not to remember, who they were. There had been young, and the young did not always come to the singing, or follow the ways, and so the race declined. Among those who remembered, the wisest was Greyl, the Decaena, who was called DragonMother. Sung by the Creator in the Making she was the oldest living creature in Evermoor. Now Greyl saw that among the young Dragons was one called Glymmyth. This Glymmyth hated the humans for their taking of game, and for their planting and digging and building which drove the creatures from the woodland, and the birds from the skies. At the Dragonmoot he spoke against them, urging the Kin to take back the lands, and assert the ancient dominion over all creatures which was theirs by right. Along with others of his kind who did not remember the Song he began to come against the humans in their holds and on their farms, under the sun and in the dark of night, and though Greyl forbade them, and tried to awaken the Song in them, they would not listen to her. The Humans had changed much, though how much Glymmyth, ever arrogant and hasty, did not see. No longer the weak tree climbers and eaters of leaf and fern, they would not easily be moved from what they held dear. They defended themselves, with fire and spear, bow and blade, and even came against the Dragons in their Home in the hills. They died by the thousands in fire and claw, and under wing, but still they came. There were so many of them. And Greyl, eldest of a race slow to fear or despair, wept. We are dying, she thought. Who will ward the seals if we are gone? She called to the Creator, but He did not answer. She raised her voice, but the Song would not come. Broken, turning from the smoke and blood, she climbed to the cavern of Sha'Dnae, the Birthing Hold, curled herself up, and went to sleep. Thus did Greyl, alone among her kind, survive the Dragon War of which humans yet sing, though they do not recognize it in their lays and ancient poems. After a time Greyl awoke from her sleep, and though she sought the DragonKin across the whole of Evermoor she did not find a single member of her race alive. Returning at last to Sha'Dnae, she took herself to her bed, and waited for death to claim her too. As she lay that same night a light bloomed in her dreams, and in that light she heard the Song, and remembered joy. A last gift, she thought, in her dream. The next morning at sunrise Greyl awakened, and knew that a creature approached the Birthing Hold. It was this which awakened her, for Dragons cannot easily be approached unaware. Carefully she edged to the cavern's mouth, and there standing in the rough scrabble on the slope outside was a human. So it comes, she thought, death to me as to all my kind by the hand we aroused. And she thought that there was something of the Song in that, and did what no Dragon ever had done before: she lay down, and stretching the huge rippling muscles of her neck, bared herself to the blade. But the man carried no blade. Kneeling to look into her golden eyes, he spoke softly. "I know your name, Greyl, and I know the Song. I am not here for the blood of the last Dragon in Evermoor." Greyl was surprised. To know a true name was to have power over the thing named. To know Greyl's name was to know a word of the Song as the Creator sang it, for he had sung her as surely as he had sung the first human, dead now a million years. "How do you come by my name, human? It is not written." Her voice was a rolling musical rumble which filled the cavern and spilled over the man on the hill with the force of eternity. The man did not flinch, but stood and faced her. "I am Braeth, Druid of the Garn Hegemon. At the foot of this mountain I made the sacrifices for my people. At the foot of this hill I spoke the words, and called on the Creator to give us victory. On this mountain I watched the DragonKin fall, and the larger part of my people fall with them. But there was one of your kind who did not die right away. He was very strong, and a thousand men broke upon him ere he fell. As he lay in the gravel at the foot of the slope I came to him, and he spoke to me. 'Seek Greyl,' he said, 'and tell her this. My name is Glymmyth, and I am of you. I die, but I remember the Song. You must live, so that we may live, so that Daemos remains chained. I remember.' These were his words, and then he died." Finished, the man sat down on the hard ground, watching her. Greyl drew back, raising her head from the rocky soil, and came to rest sitting, like the man. "This news is bittersweet, human, yet I thank you. It is good to know that Glymmyth came to the Song at his end. But I fear his wish is for nought, and that you and your people will know the face of Daemos once again. The kin are dead, and I am without the will to survive them long. Even should I live, the seals will weaken and eventually they will crumble. One is not ward enough." At this the Druid was startled. "That would be ill indeed, DragonMother. But need it be so? Will there be no more of you? We had believed that you do not mate, as we do, male to female, but are born of the Echo of the Song, in a way we do not understand. Is this not so?" Another surprise! Greyl shook her head. For a Dragon, especially one of the Sung, to be surprised by anything at all was rare enough, but twice in one day was enough to mark the passing of an Age, and the beginning of something new. "You knew much more than we thought. I see now the depth of Glymmyth's folly. Clearly the Creator has meant more for you than we ever perceived, though the Song is rare enough among the world's creatures that we should have suspected. We did not think you were of the First; you were as beasts when you were sung." At this the Druid felt a stab of pride, and drew himself to his feet to speak. "We are of Evermoor, Dragon. You are in it. The Creator sang you into it as you are to ward the seals, but with us he planted a seed only, to develop as it would, for ill or not. This we know." At that the man, realizing to whom he spoke, looked down as if embarrased. Greyl was not amused. "What you know?" She drew herself up to her full height and let her huge wings fall partially open. "You know more than I thought, Druid of the Garn Hegamon, but less than you need to know. I was sung at the beginning, and have lived a thousand thousands of years. I have stood on this mountain as the wind carved it, and watched the rock change and the mountain grow less. I have seen a hundred generations of your people sprout and wither on the plain below as the grass sprouts in the rain, and withers in the next day's sun." Greyl threw her head back, no longer talking to the man at all, but crying as if to plead with the Creator somewhere above the bowl of blue sky. "I am Greyl, the Decaena, the DragonMother! I alone Ward the Seals! I alone keep the oath we made to you in the singing! They are all gone: Kelaena, Janobeth, Cerelinae, the words of your Song have died! Is this what we were made for? To come to this?" Braeth had stepped back a full two paces as Greyl sank slowly down once again, repeating her last words over and over. And in those words the Druid sensed a depth of sorrow beyond any that he could ever know. It was the sorrow of the wind for the passing of the rain; the sorrow of the mountain when the river changes course; the grief of a God when creation goes awry. Greyl was weeping again, in great convulsive sobs which shook the ground beneath his feet. So it was done. There would be no more Dragons. The seals would crumble. Daemos would be free. With one last look at the massive shape huddled on the floor of the cave Braeth turned and started down the hill. "Wait, human." The words froze Braeth in his tracks, seeming to come as they did from directly behind him. He realized that the ground was no longer shaking. He turned, and gasped. Not two paces from his nose the ancient dragon's great golden eyes stared at him levelly. There was no trace in them of the emotions he had witnessed, though he could not honestly say whether they had shown any before. This was the first pair of dragon eyes he had ever looked into. He looked up the hill. It was a good ten paces to the mouth of the cave. How had she moved so silently? "I see there are some other things you do not know about us." Now Greyl did seem amused. "I thought you witless with grief, DragonMother," Braeth said, then winced as he said it. "I was going to inform the Druidic Council that we must prepare to face Daemos." Greyl laughed. "Face Daemos?", she asked scornfully, then softened. "You cannot face Daemos, Braeth the Druid. Even with my wits about me I could no more face him than you could hack this mountain down with your teeth. If he but glanced at me with the desire that I cease to be, I would cease to be." "Has he so much power?", the Druid asked. Greyl sighed. "You are young. He has much power, but the Creator has greater. And even so neither would use it so freely. There are limits bound into the fabric of creation. Too much of power from outside the Song corrupts the Making, and Daemos is of the Making as we are. Should it cease he would cease. Still, he is not to be faced. He is a horror beyond imagining. He is the blasted, withered heath of every black soul ever conceived, given rotten, decaying form and allowed to live." She turned and glided up the hill toward the cave. Somehow, Braeth knew he was expected to follow her there. "This is the Birthing Hold," Greyl said, entering the cavern, "it is the place where we come to lay our eggs when the Creator favors us with young, and it is here that we watch over them until they hatch." Braeth looked thoughtful for a moment. "When the Creator… then we were right." "You were right." The dragon sat back once again and surveyed the Druid standing before her. "My kind were not gifted with the ability to increase our numbers", she paused for a moment before continuing, "as you humans were. From time to time a female will hear the Song in a special way. It is not easy to describe. Sometimes it comes when awake, sometimes when dreaming. In all cases she knows immediately what has happened, and comes here to await the laying. Our young are literally given by God. Once the egg is layed it remains here for nine years, after which time the young one is removed from the egg. It is a time of great joy for us." At the word "us" Greyl's voice faltered, and she let her eyes drop to the floor. Not wishing her to sink into her grief again, at least not with him in the cave, Braeth spoke quickly. "Then, as long as you live there is a chance. Daemos need not win. If only the Creator favors you…" "If only!" Greyl broke in harshly. "You see how he has favored us." She stopped abruptly, but Braeth remained silent. "Aldeseh, I am sorry," she said then, so softly it was less than a roar to his ears, "this is very hard." She was not speaking to him, the Druid knew. It was the Creator's name, Aldeseh, but it was not spoken. Looking into his face again, she continued, the harshness gone from her voice. "If I live, there may come a time when I am so favored. If I live. It is not only a matter of my will. I was griefstricken before, but I know my duty. I will not die willingly now. But I am one alone in a new world. A human world. As you saw, and as you can still see in the carnage outside, I can be killed. Who will guarantee that the humans will let me live long enough to breed?" Braeth dropped to one knee before her, extending his arms before him, palms up. The Oathtaker's Supplication. "I will, Dragonmother, I and my order. However long it takes, this shall be our charge and our only care. You must increase, so that the seals may be properly warded again. I cannot believe that the Creator means Daemos to be free. He must favor you. He must!" "The Creator", Greyl intoned as if instructing a young Dragon, "must do exactly as he pleases, and no more. Still, I begin to feel the same hope. This must be his plan, but it cannot be part of the singing that Daemos be freed." The great dragon paced the width of the chamber, muttering, "He is needed for the balance, yes? But should he come here, would not the balance be undone?" She turned, slowly blinked her great eyes, and looked directly into his. "Very well then, Druid Braeth of the Garn Hegemon, I accept your oath and fealty. I will remain, but this place, once you leave it, I will ward. None will come here save yourself, and those directly of your blood by descent of the father. My presence will I ward as well. None will see me when I leave here, which I will not often do, save yourself and those directly of your blood by descent of the father." Braeth nodded his agreement. "Mother Dragon", he asked, "how will we know when the time has come, and the nine years are commenced? For at that time we will surely need to increase our vigilance." "You will know", Greyl replied, "when you know. Keep the oath, and the Right will pass to the son. There will come a son of your line, sometime in the future, to whom I will make known the time when I know it myself. Meanwhile be vigilent, and think not that your vigilence is needed only when that time arrives. Lose me, and you lose all hope as well as if the egg were crushed as soon as it was laid." At this she turned and withdrew deeper into the cave. Braeth felt a tingling on the surface of his skin and knew that already she wove her wards about the cavern. He spoke in the direction she had gone. "I am Braeth, of the Garn Hegemon, and I say to you that vigilence will be ours, even unto the fiftieth son of my sons, until the day comes." With that he turned, and began to stride back down the mountain toward the town. The next year, Braeth's wife gave birth to a son. The boy grew strong, and the father went on to live a long life in service to the Druids and their secret responsibility to Greyl. He told noone in the Hegemon, not even the Archdruid Geheredd. When the time came he would pass the knowledge of the mountain and the creature who dwelt there to Branegh, his son, who would also be a Druid some day. If she were somehow discovered he would deal with it then. In later years Braeth often visited Greyl. She taught him much ancient knowledge, most of which he accumulated in scrolls carefully copied in his fine hand and stored in an earthen jar he kept. She told him of Darkmoor, the dark side of creation which was severed from Evermoor in the Forge of Life, when the Song of Making was sung. She told him of the evil there, of Daemos and the vile spawn of his dreams of power: daemons and beasts of the Dark more evil by far than he could imagine. The seals would weaken, she had warned him, and during one visit, when Braeth was nearly seventy years old, she explained what would happen as they did. The barrier between the two halves of creation would begin to become porous, allowing congress between them. At first only the most powerful of the daemons would be able to cross. As the seals deteriorated further the weaker Spawn of Daemos would cross, until ultimately the breaking of the seals would allow the Dark One himself to come over. Braeth left that meeting shaken to his core, and spent the rest of his life waiting anxiously for some sign from Greyl on the one hand, and the appearance of the DarkSpawn on the other. Neither happened, and Braeth the Druid died peacefully in his ninetieth year. Before he did he kept faith with Greyl, and Branegh the Druid took up the watch. Years passed, and much was forgotten, but the watch was kept. And so it came to pass that in the hundredth year after Greyl warded the cavern of Sha'Dnae and went into hiding, Andric, son of Baleric, son of Aeoric, son of Branegh, son of Braeth convened the Council of the Druids of Garn Hegemon to inform them that something momentous had happened. At first all present assumed that he had news of another battle with the DarkSpawn, perhaps even a victory. The holiday of Eventide was approaching, and the people needed some tidings other than the dismal reports of daemons and other nameless things ravaging townships far and wide. It had been nearly ten years since the first of these evil creatures began appearing in the world, and humanity's attempt to repulse them had not gone well. The Druids present around the great oaken table grew silent, however, and increasingly astonished, as Andric revealed to them the meeting of his ancestor Braeth with the DragonMother Greyl after the last battle of the Dragon War. Eyes narrowed when he described the watch that his family had kept, son to son, for five generations. Some demanded to know why the Council had not been informed earlier. Others were silent still. Of these one, the Druid Cardmon, seemed poised on the edge of his seat, waiting for the rest of the tale with an almost feverish alertness. And the tale was told. The Druids then relearned that which had been forgotten: the origin of the DarkSpawn, and the role of the Dragons in Warding the Seals which bound Daemos, and which were now crumbling. At last, with the history behind him, Andric revealed his most important news. "My brothers", he said, "last night Greyl came to me." There were gasps of astonishment around the table. He waited for these to subside before continuing. "I do not know if she was really there. It seemed so very peculiar, but the message she gave to me was clear: Brothers, there is an egg! In nine years there will be a young Dragon, if we do not fail. With two the seals will strengthen, and there will be more. We need only hold off the Dark for a few more generations and all may be saved." With this the Council erupted in debate. What could be done to safeguard the egg, and the youngling when it hatched? Will the Daemons and Spawn know of its birth? The Druids debated long into the night. None noticed when Cardmon, a satisfied look on his face, slipped out the door and into the night without taking leave. If they had known the truth, if they had only known, the other Druids present that night would have fallen on him and ripped him to pieces. But they did not know the truth. They did not know how much the seals had really weakened. Cardmon, Druid of Garn Hegemon, of a distinguished line of Druids, had been corrupted. On some dark night in his past, when despair, or pride, or anger weakened his soul, Daemos had reached out through the cracks and gaps in his prison and made Cardmon his Priest. The first Priest of Daemos in Evermoor. Noone knows what promises he used to extract loyalty from this doomed soul, but they certainly included some grant of dominion over the worlds, once they were reunited under Daemos. Whatever was promised, in return Cardmon became the Hand of Daemos in Evermoor. For years he had served faithfully, even reverently, as the eyes and ears of the Dark among the Council of Druids. And now what would be perhaps his greatest moment of service had arrived. Retreating to his small, stone house Cardmon drew the shades and locked the door. Moving to a small cupboard he quickly mumbled a few phrases and felt the familiar tingle of a ward dissolving. He opened the cupboard door and removed two tallow candles of a sickly, mottled yellow color, a piece of chalkstone, and a slate with deeply inscribed symbols. Using the chalkstone he inscribed the symbols from the slate onto the floor, then placed the candles at specific points on the symbols and mumbled again. The candles flared to life, then settled back to a weak flickering glow. Nodding his head, Cardmon began to pray. After some time he paused, as if listening, then stiffened and gave an ecstatic gasp. The candles went out, and darkness swept in. High in the mountains of Dragonhome, in the cavern known for a million years as Sha'Dnae, Greyl awakened from a deep slumber. For the first time in more than a hundred years she awakened with hope, and a deep sense of satisfaction. The satisfaction and contentment she had felt before. Any dragon mother felt these things when favored with an egg, and she was the Decaena, oldest Dragonmother of them all. But the contentment had a rough edge this waking. What had roused her? The egg was there, she confirmed, nestled on the bed of bracken and leaf she had gathered after hearing the Song two days ago. The egg. The world's hope. Her hope. She wanted to surround it with her body, protect it, but she knew it could not yet stand her warmth; the warmth of her deep fires. Contented to watch over it, she settled her head down on her forelegs. Suddenly there was a feeling of a crackling in the air around her, the kind of feeling a large summer storm might bring with it, only of much greater intensity. It grew until it almost pained her - pained her! - before subsiding. Leaping up she whirled around. The cave was empty. Stalking to the entrance she peered out. The wards she placed lent a shimmer to the moonlit scene outside. Still, the slope was empty and silent. The crackling feeling came again, the shimmering of the wards shifted and jumped, the very air of the cavern charged with… something... something… it subsided again. It was almost as if something was trying… trying repeatedly to… to break the wards! The egg! With the speed that only a dragon can muster she turned and hurled herself toward the rear of the cavern. Even as she moved she knew that it was too late, and despair washed over her. Daemos had fooled her. Her! Eldest of the DragonKin! The crackling rose again, and she could almost hear a high-pitched whine which built to a shuddering crescendo before it crashed to silence, taking her wards with it. She was now less than ten paces from the egg. In the air next to the prescious vessel a bright line appeared, then extended into a rectangle of blinding light, so bright it hurt. For an instant it blotted out her vision completely, but only for an instant before she could narrow the irises of her great eyes enough to withstand it. As her vision cleared the noticed the shadows moving across the rectangle of light, and then the eyes in the dark, pale and glowing green. She heard the grunts and smelled a charnel stench well before she felt the first tentative prick of a blade. Summoning fire she roared, hoping against hope to avoid harming the egg. The battle continued for some time, the cavern filled with roaring flame and clashing steel, as she whirled from side to side, scorching every moving thing before her even as she looked, always looked, to gain sight of the egg. Eventually it was over. The cavern floor was strewn with corpses, of what creature she did not know and did not care to take time to find out. Blood ran from a dozen wounds in Greyl's scaly hide. The stench was overpowering, and she closed down her nostrils as she sometimes did when the wind blew the dust of the plain hard against the hills. Standing for a moment she wheezed for breath, then remembered. The egg! She frantically pushed through the piled bodies to the rear of the cave, shoving the dead DarkSpawn aside from the now-scattered bed she had made. The egg was gone! Doom, war, hate, death, despair! Agony! It was gone. The servants of Daemos had taken it. Outside, down the slope at the foot of the mountain, where the grasses of the plains washed up against the scree from the hill, three herdsman threw themselves to the dirt and covered their heads as a tremendous wailing roar cascaded off the mountain and went rolling over the fields towards the town where men lay sleeping, unaware that their world had just rocked on its foundations. Lights winked into being on the plain, farmers and herdsman awakened by the griefcry of Greyl, and in the town. But one small, stone house there remained dark. Sitting on the hard floor, heedless of the scattered droppings of wax, and the remnants of the chalkstone, Cardmon laughed softly to himself. It was done! Great Daemos had heard his servant and acted. Now the glory he deserved would be his. Now he would have the power his weak Brother Druids never dreamed of. Fools! Children! He, Cardmon would show them the way. The egg was safely hidden. In two years the Hour of Conjunction would approach for the first time in more than six decades, the hour when the three moons of Evermoor aligned, and the boundaries placed between the worlds weakened. With the Wardseals of Daemos' prison already crumbling it would be possible then for his most faithful, yes even loving!, servant to open the Portal, and admit the greatest of lords to Evermoor. All that would be needed were the symbols and the words. And the blood of an Unborn Dragon. Yes, the egg was safely hidden. They would never find it in time. Never. This story may not be reprinted either whole or in part without the express,
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