Blood of the Green Dragon
Back in the holler i live on the northside, deep below the steaming mountains. the curling ridges enveloped in its mists. A broken arm of the green mountains where meadows begin to form between the ridges.
Theres two creeks that cross in the bottoms. The water is clear, suprisingly enough. The only running water thats clear in the whole of the moutains east of the great flats
Cold, its so very very cold.
My brother and i played along the creeks as children, to cold to stay in very long. We seemed to always be refreshed and no matter what mood we came, went up the holler laughing as we left.
Many nights we sat around the porch listening to our Granny spin tales of her youth. This woman was not really our Granny, but a woman my family had adopted before my time. She was the one who cured what ailed us, this aged woman with her tonics and herbs. She never seemed to age and was cross to have anyone comment on her enduring apearance. She swore by the two creeks and walked for a drink every day no matter what the weather blew.
It was said by my Grandfather that she came up from the southern peninsula where the land stretches its limb onto the face of the shining sea., and rested here along the ridges of our holler before even his time.
I wonder where they spring from. My brother questioned one day as we collected rocks for the summer dam.
That was the beginning of it, for he fell with a far look in his eyes more and more each day. One day i awoke to find his mind set. He had gathered his tools into a bundle with a fair store of fixin's and turned to the east.
Verandom! i called as he put his foot to the trail. The very bottom of the steaming ridges. Verandom! If you are gone long, i shall venture to answer my own questions. Questions and time are bitter enemies and ought to be dealt with quickly.
Nay, he said, your tale is of a different time, and we will have answers soon enough. my brother..
That was the last i have seen of my kin. His answer would be the years in coming, slowly drifting to our deep glade, Beneath all there ever is upon the warming creeks it floated. Caught in the current where the creeks meet, spinnning as if its labor was the turning of the seasons. Neither stopping nor going, hanging, upon the crux of the two currents. A wooden vessel carved wholly of birch. On its prow a stone as clear as sunlight pressed into a waxen mold. It was three hands long and half as thick, upon the surface a yellow wax lay thick, with Aeriol set in sand revealing the carving of my name.
Eventually i had to split the wood to garner what was inside. A sheath of skins, tanned and scrolled with writing. The first words, questions seek answers and yet are elusive.. The answers breed questions and yet multiply, as uryuoboros turns eternity.
My brothers words, and the start of his tale.
Long i clombed into the hills. There are many paths, adventures I found and learned my better, for only the foolish tread there. Mostly north and south but my path lay east and up, following the trickle from the creek onto high resoviors far from whence I started. The mist steadily increases till ernshrouding everything. There, was where i found the lady. Staring at the calm lake she wore armor. Silver and carved and seemed no wieght to her lithe frame. At a great distance she was even clear in the mist. Steel eyes held a strange look, steady and yet unfolding. She called to me with a look across the lake , her voice true, fell even upon my ears at a great distance. Traveler, come to parley, seek what answers I may have for your senses.
For a day i climbed the faces of the shore to meet her, arriving in my labour on the morning.
What is it that you seek above this imprisonment of kings? She asked, her voice drifting as if a dream from her lips to my ears. My eyes affixed to the emblem she wore, a great sun three quarters above a sea of waves. Eternity in motion it seemed and as i watched, few sweeping red arcs danced above the lines of the deep blue waves.
She questioned me again for my dumbness at her appearance. an angel in wrath, as determined as the wind to come and go along its prescribed place.
Eventually I told of my youth and the currents, the unkown origin of our creeks.
She smiled beautiful, a figure of grace. It lays there just beyond this pass, a place where the earth breathes itself, the very breath of air that first greets the sky. Open and dark from whence it springs, directly below the rising sun, that is where your quest lay.
Then she told of her own tale, not all of it so easy to tale in writing, a warden of kings. Even in the fall and persues its prison time foretold. The questions asked were not so easily answered it seems by all who had ventured thus before me. A graveyard lay beyond of the men come for riches. Even persuing the king of the mist as she. Death was her answer for those unlucky in that quest. She would suffer none to achieve that end save herself, assuring that its cursed hoard brings no ill to the land in her time. How things came to this end drives me still, and now the beggining of something else. But that is yet to come and i may tell you what i must before these score of sheafs is ended and her trail runs cold.
I Mareeshi Anna am the arm of a just death, for that was what the questioned must have as answer in that quest. She told me. Dangerous!, and yet the voice as if made from a melody of children playing in the golden autumn was sweet and peaceful. His Majesties blood i seek, although surely it shall utterly ruin me.
That is my quest, when it is undone and then so shall be my fate.
I travelled then there after my rest, beyond the eastern pass where even the morning sun r ises to level ground. A thick moss beds the trickle as it drops from the mouth of a cave no bigger than i am. It stretches in farther 50 paces to a pool. There i sat with a kol set upon a chain. A rock that burns brother, the lady gave the chain and setting as gift, the kol is plentiful if you look for it.
While sitting at the end of my quest, thoughts came to me of the Lady and her words. Suddenly i heard a splash and watched amazed as a turtle made its way from the very rock itself. Then I understood, this was not verily the end, but another beggining. I swam to the other side, and Lo! it was dry. I camped there that night and lighted the kol again. The tunnel opened and closed, stretched and turned. Two days i wandered down until the change came. The air hung close, and hot. vapours shrouded and seemed to reflect a burning light. My tunnel now grew to a cavern, glowing with the strength of moonlight a red hue. The answer to my question. Both creeks run out of the pool near the eastern pass, one north, and one south. Fed by this very vapor emanating from the cavern which i delve. Yet this vapor has qualities great. It heartens the mood and strengthens the limbs, and so I continued to climb down, and down. There are things in there I will only whisper in the sunlight at noon to only my kin, may it be that i see home again. Not here, not now shall i record the matter, though it may be folly and lost by chance ere i find my end far from home. My brother a creature, ancient is the source. The vapours are breathe, and even fallen kings are wont to have properties that last, even beyond my senses.
Winged and sleek, moving always. Breathing. Fire! Fury! He battles his prison, beats upon the very foundation of the mountains, never despair but fury. Ancient and powerful, and though my part was small his end i witnessed, the collapse of the King of the Mists. Fallen, his ruin brought onto himself.
The Lady Anna I thought then, would be robbed of her quest, and yet i sensed the truth would be known. I made several jars from the clay that lies at the bottom of the great cavern and fired them upon the embers of the dead King's heart. I let the blood into the jars and stoppered them up. These I brought out to the lady, fearing for sure my own demise. So baeutiful and determined, I could niether deny her part nor refuse the death she must surely have wating for me.
She stood waiting at the edge of the pool, weeping for the dead. She stood and asked for my dagger. I gave it to her and she blessed it.
I then told all that occured and she fell silent for a length of time. Waking as if from a dream she asked for the jars, which i freely gave up. She bid me goodbye for three days and asked for my return then.
On my return she gave me the jars saying, the blood has been cured of its poison, death holds sway no longer here. She emptied a portion onto a half glass, about which set stones of varying colours, that seemed to sing as the glass was half filled witha now green liquid.
Mine own blood has transformed it thus, and so it becomes not death or ill, but sight and visions. She spoke slow and was paler than before. Drink, and still seek. Call and recieve answer.
So I did, and not unlike sleeping, awake the visions danced, time was old and very new as I listened to the voices from the winds. I strained to hear and understand but fell short. That is why I must go on, She is moving and I must follow, the jars I bury here in place, unseat the jewel to find the flask.
Quickly my eyes flashed to the stone on the wood. Closely i looked and seemed there were filet of metal bound the jewel to the wood. To strong to stretch or break i finally found where it was bound. Suddenly the lines fell free. As the stone fell, a flask in place rested, secure. i turned to the last scroll, no writing to be found here. It was a map.
The burning! the burning! The singing turned into a roar as I upheld the flask and took a swalllow. Dropping the flask I lay sprawled, clamoring for water. The sun seemed to grow pale and the clouds increased till all about my forest camp the mists grew. The moon came up against the sun, creating a double ring within the mist.
I watched in amazement as i witnessed a tree shake itself slightly. Calling, it was calling, singing, a perfect harmony. The very stones from the river answered bringing a swarm of butterflies, settling onto the majestic tree. The music never stopped and though i could not understand the words, the meaning shone like the point star glistening in the night sky.
What wonders of beauty, made with the dawn.
Anwer of the vale, look for the riddle.
The place primordial upon your first song.
witness the light the glory and honor.
Whence your chorus brought forth the first rain
Gave man to his thirst, and life, life.
So the steps of the deeds of honor, may fail in the night.
the song! the song! your gift is taken.
From the sight of the earliest man, your joy, and life
bring Love to the cursed, an edge to the night.
Gilded flight over steps of wings
the Love it will shine, for the one who is guided by mists
the freedom of the everlasting kiss.
entwined, embraced, while the fading colors fail
along the most ancient of trail.
the steps the heavens prevail, encircling
entwining, a moment of love.
all beneath, the tree named eternity.
For a long while I knew nothing, the memory if that wondrous song enraptured my being, far longer, it seems, than all of the season I had ever known.
The mists assailed my senses and i seemed to wake. Flying now across a foriegn land, a place of water and lakes. Inlets below steep mountains. A shadow in the mists, a sliver of light along this black Loch. Drawing me suddenly I stood in its halls, witnessing a great man, with a smile as wide as the sky.
A king majestic in apearance and countenance. A man, goodly and kind to his subjects, and so they bore a great love for him.
A lady! so fair and beautiful she brought a deep light out of everything she was near. Even the very air seemed to draw to her. She was the essence of kindness, love complete, a gentle understanding.
Even then me dream, if i yet be alive and this not the memory of the land teaching my soul, darkened, a mist encircled this haven. Whispering aroused in mine ears a word a name, a curse.
Gorgan.
Even in my incomplete state, a simple understanding of jealousy and rage. The dragon descended from its hellish lair, the birthplace of malcontent. Its claws ravaging the land as it stalked to the Black Loch. Dropping from mountains on the East, stalking along the ridges to the fair golden meadow and there issuing challenge.
Unheard I see the King make ready, a man to stand up the responsibilities of his stewardship. Riding for justice and death.
His whole life seemed to weave a tapestry around him. Glimpses of his childhood shrouded within the mists. His knowledge of his love much clearer. She was with him and within him and their joy betrayed a duaghter. A babe perfect, as the song, as the first drops of rain that fell from the wondered Anwer that awoke even man from his fell valley.
The emissary of Gorgan issued his curse upon the land, for the very knowledge of beauty and love is even despised from by him, the master ofjealousy, anger and malcontent.
In his glory the King faltered not, riding into the wind, the storm of wrath. Many of the emissaries fell, staining the land lifeless until breaching the very meadow where doom lay.
The battle was fierce and the hordes unmerciful. The gallant men of honor lay fallen, the King wounded began a song as he continued.
Mists, wrapping and calling me, the images broken, i cried with no voice as the pieces swept by as the sand before the wind.
A rippling vision tall and stern, wild hair shedding leaves as the very morning light marveled at his appearance. Stern and fell, his eyes were of truth and his features even and light, bearing some likeness to the little people with thier pointed ears. But here was a giant, shoulders above all else in the theater.
His oath was a chime as his blades unsheathed, spinning and climbing the very face of doom.
It was the last, as the mists encircled me again, I heard his laughter as thunder, his song as rain, joining the battle to the very demon itself. The king of the demons, the Green Dragon.
The mist drew back, hanging at a distance. Slowly I was aware that I was breathing and yet held life. I lay unable to understand, comprehend or even dream. Slowly a dreamy voice called out to me, Aeriol, Aeriol.
Suddenly my eyes were mine again and i witnessed all the butterflies leap onto the wind and vanish. |
