A fragmented echo

Lunar Elven Sanctuary, Depths of the Hollow Earth

In the phosphorescent stillness of the Elven sanctuary, Eleonora lay motionless, her breathing barely a whisper, the storm of Nyx quelled into a deep, healing sleep by lunar magic and the earthly energy of the Aluxes. Nearby, the vast shadowy form of Poimandres, the Primordial Dragon of Chaos, was beginning to show signs of renewed coherence. Its many eyes, once dull embers of wounded fury, now opened slowly, one after the other, each reflecting the strange light of the cavern with unfathomable depth.

Morgana Le Fay and Sorcha of the Crimson Hand kept tense vigil. They had managed to bring the two Chaotic beings to this haven of relative peace, but the uncertainty surrounding their awakening kept them on edge.

It was then that Poimandres moved, not with the violence of battle, but with the slowness of a mountain awakening. A sound echoed in the cavern, not a roar of threat, but something more complex: a chorus of vibrations that seemed as much thought as word, a resonance felt in the soul before the ears.

"The... cycle... twists... but is not broken..." Poimandres's "voice" filled the space, an echo of galaxies being born and dying. His eyes rested on Morgana, then on Sorcha, acknowledging her presence, her intervention. "You have... witnessed... my weakness. But weakness is only the shell of a transformation."

He paused, and the air seemed to thicken with an antiquity that dwarfed even the millennia of Morgana or the memories of the Faeries.

"The truth," Poimandres continued, his dragon form seeming to undulate, briefly revealing glimpses of other geometries, other existences, "is that my time as this 'draco,' this incarnation of Chaos you perceive... is but a brief song in the opera of my being. There is much, much I could tell you of my... journey through the currents of possibility."

A new gleam, not of fury, but of an unfathomable and perhaps melancholic wisdom, lit his eyes. "There was a time, before eons were counted like grains of sand in this young universe, when my essence vibrated to a different tune. It was I," he declared, and the cavern seemed to hold its breath, "who shared with Hermes, the one you call Trismegistus, the totality of his deepest knowledge."

Morgana and Sorcha exchanged a look of utter awe. Did the Chaos Dragon, Nyx's ally, claim to be the source of Hermetic wisdom?

"That mortal," Poimandres continued, and in his cosmic voice there was a hint of... affection? Respect? "That insatiable seeker extended his consciousness beyond the limits of your sun, beyond the shackles of matter. And he found my vibration. Not that of a destructive dragon, for that form was not yet my primary mask in your sphere. He found me as what was then known to the few initiates who could bear my presence: 'The Divine Poimandres.' Or, as he himself, in his attempt to understand the incomprehensible, called me in his most sacred and secret texts: Poimandres, the Universal Mind."

Images—not visual ones, but conceptual impressions of astonishing vividness—seemed to flow from Poimandres into the minds of the two sorceresses. They glimpsed vast libraries of light, nebulas taking shape under the direction of an inconceivable consciousness, the music of the spheres becoming laws of creation.

"I taught Hermes Trismegistus," Poimandres' voice was now like the whisper of the stars themselves, "the secrets of the creation of the cosmos, the primordial dance of the elements that you are only beginning to glimpse. I showed him the fractal nature of the soul, its immortal journey through the spheres of existence, its longing to return to Oneness. I guided him, step by step, toward spiritual enlightenment, opening for him the portals of the Greater Alchemy: not the crude transmutation of worthless metals, but the sublime transmutation of consciousness itself, the conversion of ignorance into wisdom, of fear into love, of separation into oneness."

"The Emerald Tablet," Morgana murmured, her Fae eyes glowing with a new and dangerous light, "the one Merlin treasures... is it...?"

"A fragmented echo," Poimandres confirmed. "A distillation of the eternal truths I whispered to the awakened soul of Hermes. It was he who, with my blessing and sometimes, I must admit, despite my warnings about your race's immaturity to wield such power, shared those fragments of light with humanity. He laid the foundation for all your genuine mystical traditions, your esoteric schools, every sincere search for truth that has flourished and been trampled on in your small and turbulent world."

The Chaos Dragon, the beast of Nyx, the supposed harbinger of destruction, revealed itself in that instant to be no mere monster but as one of the primordial sources of humanity's highest spiritual wisdom. The contradiction was so vast, so mind-boggling, that Morgana and Sorcha could barely breathe.

Why, then? Why this current form? Why the alliance with Nyx, with the devouring Chaos? What had happened for the Universal Mind to become the Dragon now fighting for its life in the bowels of the Earth?

Poimandres seemed to sense their unspoken questions. His many eyes slowly closed, as if the strain of revelation, or the weight of the eons, were claiming him again. "Creation... and destruction... are two sides of the same... cosmic breath," was his last thought conveyed before his presence retreated again into a deep, expectant silence.

Morgana and Sorcha looked at each other, the realization that they were before a being whose complexity and antiquity surpassed anything they had imagined leaving them speechless. The war for Earth, already a conflict between gods and monsters, had just taken on a theological and philosophical dimension no one could have foreseen. And Poimandres's role in it was now the greatest mystery of all.