Sword of Living Fire (The Sword of the Dragon Origins -a short story)

Note to the reader: This story takes place prior to the events of The Swordmaster’s Glory and Shards in Belial.

“The creature that I am must die, if the power of the Wizards in Subterran is ever going to be overthrown.” The white dragon’s voice resonated across the vast city of the underworld, as he stood upon the steps of the High Temple. In the great city beyond rose the great pyramids that had long ago brought him and his fellow prophets to this planet. Their golden surfaces glittered beneath the blue and white glow of hundreds of portals. The portals stood throughout the city, and some hovered above it. Their warm light a constant reminder that paths to other worlds, other planets, were protected in this hidden realm. 

A thousand humans crowded the floor of the cavern in front of him and the temple. Tears glistened in many eyes, and men held their womenfolk close. “Do not fear, my people,” the dragon shouted. “We prophets came here for a purpose. And I believe that what I am about to sacrifice and accomplish is necessary to fulfilling that purpose. You have trusted us to protect you here. Thou hast been safe in this place.”

Someone shouted and the dragon turned as a man in white armor stepped forward to the base of the steps. “We have the right to understand what you intend to do, and how that will endanger us.”

A calm murmur of agreement passed through the crowd. 

Beside the white dragon stood another. A larger white dragon, this one a true albino with pink eyes. It stepped forward beside him. “Thy fears are invalid,” the albino said. “For we would never abandon you to the machinations of the wizards. But neither will we leave with you. For this world of Osira will need us now more than ever before.”

“Then what is to become of us?” someone shouted from the crowd. 

A form as large as the albino dragon shimmered in front of the temple. His form looked indistinct, and truly invisible. The air rippled around him like water upon a flowing river. “You will return. All of you. To the world from whence you came. And we shll seal the portal behind you. Thy journey will be safe, and the wizards will never reach you there. For the paths through the stars are lost to the Trantureen.”

“Indeed,” the first dragon thundered. “The paths to the stars belong here in perpetuity. And if the wizards find a way into this place, which I believe they someday will, we will prevent them from embarking to the worlds beyond this one. This world is perfect for our purposes, even though it must pay a dark and heavy price. For it is our judgment that Subterran becomes the wizard’s prison. It will contain them far more effectively than any other world could. They could conquer the whole of it and still never escape. Subterran is a natural prison, of which its inhabitants are deeply ignorant.”

Murmurs passed again through the crowd and eyes filled with hope again, and wonder, as they gazed up at the prophets. The blue-eyed dragon drew a circle in the air with his claws. Blue light trailed from his claw tips and another portal spun into existence. It was twice the height of a man and just as broad. Round like a pool of blue water standing upon its side. “Now thou must leave us,” he said, and tears glistened in his great eyes as he nodded his horned head towards the crowd. 

Silently the people ascended the stone steps and filed into the portal. Not a single one passed the prophets without a bow, without a tear, without a farewell. When the last human was swallowed by the portal, the blue-eyed dragon turned to the albino and their invisible companion. “You will remain in this world with me?” he asked. 

The albino sighed heavily, then bowed his head. “Thou art are the wisest and strongest of us all. Do you believe we could leave Subterran at this time, without this world falling apart?”

“This world will fall apart. Even though we remain,” the invisible one said. “But I have no interest in the squabbles of wizards. My mountain sanctuary shall become a refuge. There I shall provide a new life for the orphans that this war will multiply upon the lands. As for you, Albino, thy path has always been set to protect your own lands in Emperia. Or would you abandon them now?”

“The Creator will only allow us to do so much,” the albino growled. “I would use these powers He has given me to eradicate the Trantureen scourge, if I could.”

“But you cannot, my old friend,” the blue-eyed dragon said. “For then the hearts of men and the good creatures of subterranean would not face the tests, the temptations which will now come upon them. Such trials will prove the hearts that are pure and those which are not.” He turned and snapped his claws at the portal’s edge. Immediately the light began to fizzle out. With a final zap of electricity, it vanished. “Come my friends,” he said. “This is the thing that I must do. And it is the only way to ensure the eventual downfall of the wizards in Subterran.”

He opened the great doors to the temple and walked inside the building which had been chiseled elaborately into the heart of the stony earth. Walls of stone painted white and gold, and an altar at the head of an enormous sanctuary. They were deep underground. Deeper than the Wizards could hope to dig, and only the portals offered easy access to this hidden realm. He climbed a broad stair higher inside the temple and opened a pair of doors.

The open doors revealed an empty chamber without windows or adornments of any kind. The walls were lined with black stone. He stood in the midst of the chamber and turned to face his two friends. “As a phoenix sacrifice,” he said in a low, rumbling voice, and he closed his eyes in prayer. Spreading his clawed hands, he looked upward. “I pray thee. I pray thee. Bless this work that I must do. Use it to bless all of mankind. To deliver them from the evils that have been unleashed on this world. Look at my heart and know my intent. If there is any wickedness in me, then let this be my end. But if it is not, then bless the work of my hands. May this crafting turn for the good of all Subterran that they may live in peace, in your light once again.”

The chamber walls had been piled with timber as thick as trees, and as dry as a desert. The blue-eyed dragon inhaled deeply, then he spewed white hot flames from his maw. The wood crackled as the flames caught upon them, and the fire rose all around him, turning the room into one undeniable furnace.

“Seal me in,” the blue-eyed dragon roared, even as his white scales began to smolder and turn gray. 

“My friend, perhaps this is not so wise,” Albino roared back. 

But beside him Ulion the invisible one laughed, and he struck the great doors, sealing them shut. 

Albino turned on the invisible one. “How dare you!”

“How dare I?” Ulion said. “How dare you. For this is not thine destiny, but it is tied to all our futures. And without his sacrifice no victory can be had.”

The screams of the dragon within the chamber were muffled at first. But they escalated quickly and the gap where the doors joined turned molten red. Through the agonized screams a voice suddenly shouted, “It is enough! No more, no more.”

Albino reached his claws toward the door, intending to rip them aside. But Ulion beat him to it. The invisible one tore the doors off their hinges, then threw them back into the temple. As the doors clattered to the marble floor far below, Ulion grunted in the blast. A furnace like heat emanated from the chamber. 

Albino shoved past the invisible one and stood in the entrance. A heap of burned dragon scales covered the center of the floor, smoke and flames rising from them. But the smoke was dying, vanishing. The flames burned with a pure white, unlike any other flame. They roiled along the walls of the room and a voice spoke as if from the air, but the words were unintelligible. Albino shifted upon his feet. 

From the remnants of dragon scales upon the floor an old man rose like a phoenix through the fire. His naked flesh ran with his blood and his skin had all but burned away, exposing his muscle and tendons. 

Albino growled against the incredible heat of the white fire as he strode forward and looked down upon the man. “My friend, what have you wrought?” He reached out, wrapping his claws gently around the man’s body. His own scales pulsed with light, then brightly glowed, and the power of his dragon blood poured into the process. 

The old man trembled, his blue eyes squinting, his face contorting with pain. But then his flesh turned pink, and his skin grew back over his body until he was unscarred and beautiful with wrinkled flesh. 

“You will never regain your dragon form, Patient,” Albino said. 

“All is as it needed to be,” Patient said. His bearded face smiled up at the great white dragon. His blue eyes were all that remained of his familiar dragon form. “Stand back, my friends, and let me finish what I have started. Living fire has never been separated from a prophet before, and it will never be found if it leaves this place now.”

A wave of dizziness struck Albino. He stumbled, but Ulion’s invisible fingers wrapped around his chest and pulled him upright again. “To heal a mortal is one thing, Ulion rumbled. “But to heal one such as Patient I think requires more than you remembered it would. That was not altogether a safe decision.”

“You mock me with thy words, Ulion,” Albino said. But he almost chuckled as he said, “Come now, and let us see this thing through.”

Patient reached his hand to the stone floor and began to trace two forms into it. The form of a sword and of a large skeleton key. The molten remains of his dragon scales lay heaped about him like autumn leaves, and he swept them towards the mold that he had formed with his hand. But they burned his flesh and tears burned down his cheeks.

Albino reached out again as the tears flowed from the old man’s eyes. Ulion held Albino and infused him with warmth and light as he placed his claws on Patient’s back. The life in his dragon blood flowed healing into the old man’s flesh again. 

As Patient’s flesh healed, the tremendous heat continued to assault the old man, forcing Albino to pour more and more of his healing energy into his friend. If it had not been for Ulion’s support Albino would have fainted. The work exhausted him more than any he had ever performed. At last Patient stood on shaky legs and stared down at the sword and the key. They looked like melted diamonds. 

“We haven’t much time.” Patient gasped and he looked almost desperately at Albino and the invisible one. The fire must be quenched. And not with water. You know what must be done.”

Albino tried to stand strong again. He extended his claw towards his other wrist and prepared to open the vein. But Ulion shoved him hard against the wall. 

“Thou fool,” Ulion declared. “Already, this effort has weakened you, weakened you both. Thy only hope in accomplishing this thing now rests with me.” What sounded like anger turned into laughter, and one of his great shimmering arms appeared over the middle of the chamber’s floor. A long dark claw materialized from his other hand, and he cut his own flesh deeply. His laughter continued as red blood spilled from his partially visible arm. The stream of it fell upon the forms of sword and the key, sizzling upon the scalding remains of dragon scales. 

Steam hissed from the sword’s form, then filled the room. As more blood spurted upon the floor Ulion’s laughter rose again, as if mocking the idea that his power had any limit. The air cooled significantly and after a time Ulion’s arm closed its own wound, and he retreated invisible through the door. “It is done then. And once again my task remains. I pray that your wisdom in this matter will lead to the salvation of this world, as you hope.” He growled again, and then his footfalls descended the stairs into the heart of the temple. The great doors thudded shut as he departed. 

Patient dropped to his knees, blood running from multiple points along his body. Where his flesh had been seared again, spatters of Ulion’s blood lay upon his skin. 

Albino reached out and healed him one last time. “What will you do now, my friend? You no longer have your powers.”

Patient smiled up at him, standing steadily on his bare feet. “Has thy confidence in me diminished over so simple a thing? It was in the Creator’s will that I do this thing, and I already have a lovely situation prepared for me in the mountains. I will not be as helpless as you think. My knowledge and longevity of life remain to me. And now?” He gazed down at the sword and the key. “We have more work to do. Come, my friend.” He lifted the sword and the key from their forms. Both were rough in appearance, still comprised of broken dragon scales.

Patient descended the temple’s interior stair with careful and slow steps. Albino glanced back a few times at the chamber in which the old man had burned away his dragon self. The flames still burned within, though it seemed contained now along the walls. As they reached the bottom of the stairs, Patient glanced up at the Albino. “It is a wondrous thing, is it not, my friend?”

“Beautiful, yes,” Albino agreed. “But can it truly be contained within these vessels? And can it truly be understood?”

“I am the only one who will ever really understand it,” Patient said softly. 

And his words drew Albino’s gaze back to the old man. 

“It is living fire,” Patient said. “Birthed of my essence, gifted by the powers the Creator gave me. It knows no evil thought, or unholy alliance. It is the best and most fearsome part of my nature.” He walked down the long chamber that comprised the sanctuary, and at its back he opened a stone door barely large enough for the dragon to squeeze through. Despite its size and weight, the door swung with silent ease. 

Albino splashed the nearby walls with flames, and a dozen torches ignited. The stone walled room was bare except for a tall furnace at its back, and an anvil as large as a man at its center. 

The anvil stood as high as Patient’s chest. He laid the sword and the key upon it. Then he reached down and drew a silvery hammer from beneath it, holding it towards Albino. “Your skill in this regard is far greater than mine.” 

Albino nodded. He half closed his eyes as his body shrank, his scales exchanging for human flesh. He took on the form of a tall white-haired man with pink eyes. He stood forth, took the hammer in one hand, and the sword in his other. The clang of metal upon metal rang through the temple. The hours stretched uncounted as he worked. 

His eyes never left the sword. It shaped to his will without ever reentering the furnace. Its blade, handle, and cross guard looked more like crystal than any other material. And flames of white and red played inside of its newly shaped surface. The long blade began to glow. He did not know how many days had passed when he raised the sword in his hand and gave it back to Patient. 

Armor grew like dragon scales over Patient’s body, as soon as his hands clasped the sword. Fire wreathed him in majestic brightness, and a helm grew over his head. “We must find one man who is worthy of wielding this.” Patient spoke barely above a whisper. 

“There is no such man at present,” Albino said. “Yet I foresee that if we wait he will be revealed to us. In the meantime, it must be kept safe.”

“Show me the key,” Patient said as he pointed to the anvil. 

Albino lifted the flaming key in his fingers and held it up for the old man to see. 

“We will fashion a lock upon the room upstairs,” Patient said. “For my power will always burn there, channeling to this sword. You, my friend, will work with Ulion to make a pedestal outside of the temple. Upon it the key will be placed with a shield to guard it against impure intent,” Albino said. “As it was long ago in our homeland, so we will make it now.”

When they left the forge, Patient clothed himself in a white shepherd’s robe, remarking on how appropriate it would be in his new surroundings. Albino grew back into the form he was most accustomed to, and his claws clacked upon the stones. 

The sword was belted to Patient’s side, and he smiled as he patted its pommel. “You see my friend. It is not so great a sacrifice that I have made. For a short time of intense pain I have gained an ordinary life, and the powers that I have used for good will now benefit far more people than I could ever have touched on my own.”

“You will still live a long life, my friend,” Albino chuckled. “Thou art not quite like these mortal men.”

“There is some truth to that,” Patient said, and he smiled up at the great white dragon. “Yet there is also less truth to it than you perceive. I cannot explain it to thee now, but I know that what we have done today will change everything for the better. This is the beginning of the end for the wizard Trantureen.”