Broken dreams

A few months later, in Mahaila, at the office of the director of the Southern Kingdom Magic Academy, Delfin and Xavier concluded their arcane magic training session of the day.

'Your progress is slow; you don't have much talent for conventional magic or arcane magic,' said Delfin.

'We would improve faster if we practiced more often,' replied Xavier, a little annoyed.

'Theory is not a problem, but practice must take place slowly.' If you use arcane magic more than once a week, you could lose control of your desire for power and end up in an arcane frenzy. Never forget it,′ Delfin reminded him.

Xavier was looking at several of Delfin's study papers and books; he understood the most basic things about arcana magic. He stood looking at a diagram; it was not the first time that the master saw him paying attention to that particular spell.

'Seriously, I don't understand you. Of all the arcanic diagrams that might interest you, you seem to be fascinated by that one. Do you want to die?'

'I'm dying anyway,' answered Xavier, looking at his black hands. 'The myasma disease has stopped, but every day the feeling of burning in my chest gets worse. The last time I used fire magic, it just accelerated things. I can feel my body collapsing from the inside.'

'So, you want to die in one last act of nobility?'

'Don't be stupid, Delfin; there is nothing noble in death, nor is there nobility in any of us.'

'Okay. I'll tattoo that diagram on your skin; it's your funeral.'

'By the way, could we make enchanted weapons and armor for our own personal use?' Xavier asked, staring at the papers and books on the table.

'Forget about it; I've focused on learning the arcane magic most suitable for fighting; I only focused on attack and defense; I don't know enough about enchantments; and we would need too many sacrifices anyway.'

Xavier gave a sign that he wanted to say something, but Delfin stopped him.

'I know what you're thinking, but it doesn't work like that. To create enchanted magic objects that are activated by the desire of the one who uses them, it takes a human sacrifice; a single armor or enchanted weapon requires several sacrifices; arcana magic has its rules; you can't use animals for enchantments; they have no will. Animal lives don't stick to the object.'

Someone knocked on the room's door.

'Come in,' Xavier authorized.

One of the servants came into the room, bowing deeply.

'My Tahal, the serpent gods have been looking for you all over the city. They're waiting for you at your office.'

Xavier got up from his chair and followed the servant. About ten minutes later, he arrived at his office. Uruk and Temma were waiting for him; their faces were serious.

'What's going on?' asked Xavier, worried.

'We will talk about it on the way,' replied Uruk.

They climbed into a carriage, and Temma took the place of the coach. That only meant that they would travel to the cave; they had forbidden the locals to approach that area.

'What is wrong with the eggs?' asked Xavier once the carriage started to move.

'The eggs are hatching,' replied Uruk with a tone of concern in his voice.

'Isn't that good?'

'We don't know; it's too soon; it takes years for a larva to be born; this is going way too fast. Besides, we do not know what to do with the problem of the flames of life; the All Father is not around anymore. If the larvae grow that fast too, we won't have flames for them,' Uruk explained.

They exchanged carriages at Benkiran, and even with the fresh horses, it took them almost a day to get to the cave. Most of the eggs were already cracked. Xavier was forced to stay near the entrance of the cave; the heat was too strong for him inside. A few hours later, a sharp and intense screech invaded the cave.

'What's going on?' asked Xavier. He was pretty sure the screech from before came from a young, immature creature.

Xavier saw Uruk emerge from the depths of the cave carrying in his arms a creature of half a meter; it was not a salamander, it was a baby gray dragon. The creature insisted on biting Uruk's scaly arms.

'Dragons? Aren't they supposed to be larvae first?' Xavier asked, confused.

'We don't know what is happening; we are all larvae at first; not only that, we can communicate as soon as we are born; these creatures... they look like dragons, but their minds are simple; they have no coherent thought; they are... like animals,' said Uruk with tears in his eyes.

Xavier approached the creature. It began to sniff him, then looked at him with some confusion, then looked at Uruk and again tried to bite his arms.

'Perhaps without the great father, dragons are like human children and take time to grow up and learn things,' Xavier replied.

'I hope so.' Uruk went back into the cave with the dragon baby in his arms.

A few hours later, more shrieks filled the cave. Uruk, Temma, and Moger saw the little dragons struggle to get out of their eggshells, stretch their bodies, and cry as loudly as their lungs allowed them. So far, five of the six eggs have hatched. One of them had stopped moving.

'Something's wrong.'

Uruk was the first to notice. As he approached the egg, there was no movement. In panic, he used his sharp and hard nails to break and separate the shell without damaging the dragon inside, the little dragon fell out of the shell, was inert, and had died. The other baby dragons approached the corpse and sniffed it for a while. Uruk and the others watched in horror as the little ones devoured the body.

'A dragon wouldn't do that. What is this? What are these things?' asked Uruk with tears in his eyes, looking at Temma. "No dragon would devour another."

'I don't know,' said Temma with his head down. 'The All Father had a great influence on us; I don't know what we are,' he said, looking at his hands. 'And I don't know what they are,' Temma then said, looking at the little dragons.

After they had devoured their stillborn brother, the creatures started crying again.

'They are hungry; I'll go hunt something,' said Moger.

'I will go with you.' Uruk followed Moger out of the cave. Xavier accompanied them on the journey.

Temma stayed in the cave, and the little ones began to want to bite each other. After seeing some bites that he deemed too agresive, he was forced to interfere and stop the fighting.

Meanwhile, Uruk, Moger, and Xavier had climbed the mountains. They were soon attacked by human-sized lizards and scorpions.

'How many of these things are there around here?' asked Xavier, who had never been around the area.

'Way too many,' answered Moger. 'They are also very poisonous, but if you take away the sting and the poison bag from the scorpions and the head from the lizards, you can eat them.'

'We should leave; they are coming.' Uruk threw one of the lizard carcasses to the ground; they loaded the rest on the carriage and went away.

As they climbed into the carriage and departed, Xavier saw a sea of scorpions crawling over the rocks and throwing themselves against the remains of the lizard.

'That's why no one invades the southern kingdom through the mountains. These insects are not strong, but there are too many of them. They kept themselves hidden among the cracks between the rocks. These volcanic mountains are a huge maze; it is easy to get lost or be surrounded by these creatures. No matter how strong you are, numbers have their value. Once they almost catch me, they don't look like it, but those stings can even puncture through my skin, and their poison is not pleasant at all,' Moger had explored the area in his free time.

They went back to the cave; the dragon's offspring threw themselves over the food that Uruk and Temma had brought, and after filling their stomachs, they fell asleep in the comfortable heat of the volcano. Moger and Temma stayed in the cave, and Uruk and Xavier returned to the city.

'What is on your mind, Uruk?' said Xavier to the red-skinned salamander, who looked disturbed.

'What are these things? They look like dragons, but their cries only convey simple emotions. I don't feel any intelligence in them; they remind me of the dragons in human stories; they're just animals.'

'It is possible that they are,' said Xavier. 'The All Father had a great effect on you all; maybe this is what happens when the All Father isn't around. Maybe the stories we read in the books were true; maybe there were dragons like that in the human world before.'

'Beasts without mind, that is what is left of us,' Uruk lamented, weeping.

'Maybe.' Xavier tried to comfort him. 'But remember one thing. A few years ago, I found a group of dying salamanders in Morr's jungle, the survivors of a race betrayed by their allies and a world consumed by chaos. Today, those salamanders are you and your brothers. Once, you thought you were the last of the species, but then you found eggs. Now the eggs have hatched; they weren't what you expected, but we don't know what's going to happen in the future. Don't lose hope.'

Uruk began to cry, and Xavier held him in a hug until he calmed down.

A few days later, Uruk and Moger changed places. Uruk returned to the cave to take care of the newborns with Moger.

'Any change?' asked Xavier, now that he was alone with Temma. Delfin had just left the room.

'No. They wake up, eat, and go back to sleep.'

'Just like human children,' said Xavier, drinking tea.

Two months passed. The salamanders time was divided between taking care of dragon offspring and learning magic from Delfin. The master was able to adapt perfectly to the needs of his students. The salamanders had learned to handle human magic a lot better. Xavier was also learning arcane magic from Delfin; his body was filled with rune and diagram tattoos. Xavier traveled to the cave.

'By the heavens,' he was surprised to see the creatures now measuring more than three meters.

'They grow fast, but only their bodies; they are still as stupid as the first day,' Uruk lamented.

The dragons scratched the walls of the cave, making it wider, and when they got tired of that, they began to fight among themselves.

'That's enough!' cried Temma.

The dragons stopped and bowed their heads, like when a child is reprimanded by his parents.

'At least they obey us if we give simple orders,' explained Temma. 'But feeding them is becoming a hassle.'

'They must learn to hunt by themselves,' said Xavier. 'Can they fly?'

'We don't know yet, but we think so; they shake their wings from time to time; we have not let them out; we do not know where they would go if they flew away or if they would come back to the cave after,' said Moger.

'Ride them,' said Xavier, shrinking his shoulders.

The three brothers looked at each other; it seemed a little denigratory to them to use their brothers as mounts. Finally, after a long discussion, they agreed.

'We have no choice,' Uruk surrendered, lamenting that the creatures lacked greater intelligence than an animal.

Temma was the first to try his luck. He climbed to the shoulder of one of the dragons, who did not object. They came out of the cave, and the creature looked in all directions and finally looked at the sky, as if by instinct it had begun to beat its wings as it emitted a roar to the sky. Temma held to the dragon's neck as strongly as he could, and the dragon began to lift up into the sky. It was the first time Temma was flying, finally seeing the world as his ancestors once did. He saw the southern kingdom from the sky; far away, he could see the dynasty, the kingdoms of Veldat, and part of the south of Orphen. Temma succeeded in guiding the dragon towards the volcanic mountains.

'No, no, you can't eat that.'

Temma managed to get the dragon to exclude the poisonous parts, and after a pair of scorpions and a lizard, it learned to eat by itself. Once his appetite was satisfied, the dragon flew toward the cave without the need for guidance and fell asleep as soon as it got in.

'How was it?' asked Uruk.

'Well, you have to control them, but if they can be guided, it will be easier to feed them.'

'There are four of them left; we are four. While you were outside, we tried some things; they obeyed Xavier just like they obey us, though with a little resistance,' said Moger.

'Xavier won't be able to ride them; it takes a lot of physical strength not to fall,' Temma denied.

'It doesn't matter; I'll wait here,' said Xavier.

Again, Temma climbed on the back of one of the dragons, and Moger and Uruk followed his example. The remaining dragon tried to follow behind his brothers.

'No, you don't. You will stay here and wait.'

The creature raised some objections. Xavier stared at him firmly and emitted a growl imitating Uruk's. The dragon retreated. An hour later, the others returned to the cave; the dragons fell asleep as soon as they got in, while Moger was riding on the one that was waiting for his chance to eat.

Xavier stood looking at Moger as he flew up to the sky on the dragon's back. 'I will ask the artisans to make riding chairs of that size; they will be useful in the future.'