to be the grandmother of all dragonkind, a gigantic being whose bulk massed high above her servants. She loomed enormous even in the vast hall that served as her home. In distant sconces, oil lamps flickered, but both the dragon and the woman needed little natural light to navigate the gloom. A faint scent of spice hung on the air, perhaps as an artifact of the making of the oil, perhaps to sweeten the air; the woman didn’t know.
At last the dragon opened eyes the size of palace windows and blinked. She stretched, and lowered her head as she yawned, displaying ivory teeth the size of flashers, the giant two-handed scimitars used in Great Kesh. Her skin was the reason for the absence of more illumination, for it consisted of gems, fused over plates once golden in color. Brighter illumination caused a riot of rainbow light throughout the hall and while capable of arts beyond most human understanding, the dragon found the constantly dancing reflections gave her a headache.
The woman had met dragons before, though nothing quite like this one, and while little could impress her, she conceded to herself that this was indeed an impressive-looking being. They had ‘spoken’ to each other using magic arts, but this was their first true meeting in the flesh. Despite attempts at keeping the identity of this creature hidden over the last half century, legends of the ‘great jeweled dragon’ had already surfaced in various parts of the Kingdom.
But the woman knew this was no true dragon, despite being the get of dragons at birth. The spirit of the original dragon had perished in the great battle that had climaxed in this very hall almost fifty years before. Inhabiting the vessel that had once known the mind of Ryath, daughter of Rhuagh – perhaps the greatest of all golden dragons – was a consciousness alien and ancient: the Oracle of Aal.
A great rumbling voice issued from within the throat of the creature. ‘Greetings, Miranda. How fare you?’
The woman nodded as she said, ‘I am well. The travel from the statue at Malac’s Cross is disorienting.’
‘It was designed to be so. Only those with a certain gift may trigger it, and I wish to ensure that whatever talents they possess, they are vague about the true location of this hall.’
Miranda nodded in agreement. ‘Understood. How fare you?’
‘Time grows short. The heat tires me and I sleep more each day. Soon I shall enter the birth sleep and then shall I end this phase of existence.’
‘Time grows short indeed. How much longer will we have your guidance?’
‘Already the future grows clouded and dim to me. My daughter will not have the gift for the first twenty years of her life, so soon, for five years of my birth sleep and twenty years of my daughter’s infancy, you will be as you were before I came to this world. There is more.’
‘What?’
‘Much of what I should see I cannot, which means only that my own future is involved; for to all creatures, even me, knowledge of their own future is denied.’
The Oracle of Aal was considered the oldest being in the universe, ancient when the Valheru rose to challenge the gods during the Chaos Wars. Thinking of that, Miranda turned to look at a dais behind the oracle. Willing a shift in her perception, the woman saw the stone flick into existence. A fey green in color, it pulsed with an inner light. She stared at its hypnotic rhythms for a moment, then said, ‘Are they stirring again?’
‘They are always stirring,’ said the oracle. ‘Now they move with more vigor. Somehow they still have influence with those outside who are receptive to their call.’
‘They’ were the Valheru, the ancient beings known as the Dragon Lords to most inhabitants of the world. Trapped by forces even beyond their own ability to understand, they were bound in the stone by a mysterious agent. From the stone rose a golden sword with an ivory pommel. The woman named Miranda knew that a half century before, a great battle had raged in the city above, called Sethanon, and in this chamber a battle of equal proportion took place. The strange half-man, half-Valheru Tomas, inheritor of the mantle and power of Ashen-Shugar, the Ruler of the Eagles’ Reaches, battled a creature of spirit in the form of his ancient kinsman Draken-Koren, the Lord of Tigers. At that time, Pug of Stardock, magician of two worlds, and Macros the Black, sorcerer nonpareil, battled to hold closed a tear between two universes, aided by two Tsurani Great Ones, magicians from the world of Kelewan. And the dragon, Ryath, battled a Dread Lord, a creature from an alien space-time, whose very touch drained life.
In the end, the Valheru had been trapped within the stone, the Dread Lord vanquished at the cost of Ryath’s life, and all the forces supporting the false prophet Murmandamus vanquished. Not one soldier on either side, in the Kingdom or serving the moredhel chieftain, knew what the war had been about. No one among the highest-ranking chieftains of the Nations of the North – as the dark elves and goblins were called – knew that Murmandamus had been a Pantathian serpent priest magically transformed to resemble their legendary leader. Only the King’s family and a few trusted friends knew of the Lifestone and the presence of the Oracle.
And now the primary defender of the Lifestone, the magic and physical entity of the oracle dragon, was dying.
‘How will this change take place?’ asked Miranda.
The dragon lifted her head and nodded slightly to the right, where six robed figures stood speaking softly to one another. ‘These, my husband servants, they are already making their transformation.’
The figures removed their hoods and Miranda could see faces that were little more than those of boys. The dragon continued, ‘When the heat began to rise, I made the call, and youths from around the area, those with a certain gift, answered. They wandered from their homes and came to Malac’s Cross, to where the statue stands, and then I brought them here. Those that were lacking the true gifts needed were sent away, and thought only that they had been dreaming. Those who chose to stay were allowed to test, and those who failed were also sent away, with little memory of their time here. But these six are the first of the youths who have proven worthy to stand at my daughter’s side.’
Six elderly men came to stand next to the six youths. ‘These, who are their teachers, will join with me to create that which will be my daughter, and when they are done, these bodies will die. Then will the remaining spirit and knowledge enter these six young men.’ To another group on the other side of the hall the dragon motioned, and another six older men came forth. ‘I hope more of the young who have come to us prove worthy, for those who have no successor when it comes time to die … their knowledge is lost forever.’
Miranda said, ‘Only twelve of you?’
‘Had Pug not fetched us from our dying world, there would be none of us. And should a thirteenth worthy child come to us before the birthing, he, too, can become one with us. If a girl child comes, then another daughter, to serve with the first daughter. We may yet grow in number, we of the Aal.’
Miranda hid her impatience. She had other concerns at present. ‘Then you birth your daughter?’
‘Then my spirit joins with the spirits of my husband servants and we meld entirely, all memory and feeling, all pain and joy, to one consciousness, and that is split again, and those boys will be our sons, and my daughter shall be formed.’
‘The new Oracle?’
‘She shall be.’
‘And what body will she inhabit? I see no young girl here.’
‘This dragon’s body is magic; it is strong beyond any that the Oracle has used since our oldest memory.
