Falon of the Tower

Nadia walked straight toward the creature her sword drawn. From somewhere a soft wind whistled out of the west cool and fresh. Dak Lu stood trying to wave Nadia away. Tonek half stepped out, but thought better of it seeing that she was in the trance once more.

“Hello Nadia,” the voice was soft and sultry, carrying a grace of manners and upbringing. Nadia stopped confused. The dragons eyes opened slowly blinking once. “I see you’ve brought my new sword.” Nadia blanched her face turning white as the dragon raised her head cocking its head to one side. “You were ever so easy a tool.” Still filled with a syrupy seductiveness which suddenly seemed laced with poison.

Nadia raised the sword charging at the dragons head wildly. With a sweep of her massive claw Varn knocked her to the ground sending the sword spinning. Nadia was crushed beneath the massive foot…

The long reptilian tongue slid slowly around her mouth and then slid down to where the sword lay glowing. A bright blue light flared filling the room with the smell of burning flesh. Varn snapped her tongue back in her head her laughter shaking the room as she caught the sword with her claw and set it carefully on a rack at the back. Magical lights flashed and sparked from every weapon hung there an angry chattering of inantimate anger. Varn laughed once more then turned towards the mirror to admire here appearance. Just as she was done she flicked her tongue out and turned away disgusted at the blackened sight. It was not until Tonek was certain that Varn had drifted back into her seductive dreams that Tonek backed away from the mirror and slipped down into the hall.

He stumbled as he went hurriedly looking back where the beast lay sleeping. It was not until he got to the gatekeeper that he relaxed. “Good day to you sir,” he bowed as he went past only to crash into the magic barrier.

“What have you to declare as you go out?” The man eyed him suspiciously.

Tonek blanched, “I haven’t,” he stopped reaching his hand into his pocket, “only this.” The gatekeeper regarded it a long moment, “hmmph, ancient token of luck, humbug, all they are is humbug.” He stopped looking from Tonek towards the dragons lair, “than again…”

Tonek felt the blast of fire before he heard the dragons roar and ran past the gate at full tilt not stopping until he had reached the dell.

“Don’t look at me like that, you are covered in precious stones worth a dozen kings, all of them have been lying on a dragon for the past three hundred years,” the gatekeeper pointed obstinately, “they’re not merely magical, they are practically magic itself by this time.” Oblivious to the dragons angry roars the man scurried about her body counting each and every gem insisting at times that he be allowed to climb up at times to inspect closely.

In the village of Tan a hand of cards was about to be won. A young man stared at the sizeable pile in front of him and then across the table. It was down to two of them. All night they had traded hands. “That’s every penny you have James,” the man’s voice was hard, “you can’t afford to play this hand out, let it go son.”

James licked his lips cautiously, he had watched this man all night, just this pot and he would have cleaned the man out. “Call show your cards.” He leaned forward his brow damp and his fingers shaking as he pushed everything he had in front of him out.

The man snorted and dropped his hand. “Set of dragons—yours?”

James dropped his cards in a heap, and stumbled away from the table.

“Magic swords and a knave.” Tonek noted “almost as if he had been seduced into that one.” He looked directly at the winner, “it seems this chair is vacant, may I?”

The lair of Varn had fouled over the years; the stench filtering from her massive body and gradually filling the room. But even her stench is easily wiped from the gleaming horde that was her bedspread; as if the stench is a film of timelessness luring onward a thousand victims to try and win the unsullied wealth. Varn had laid dormat in this hole for century upon century, but her treasure had only grown.

      Tonek felt a cold chill as they ascended the final step and came level with the lair. Not far from the entrance she had chosen the atrium as he abode. There she lay covered in a sprinkling of diamonds and rubys sent flying by a sweep of her tail.

Dak Lu Slipped into the shadows drawing his bow and waiting for an opening. Tonek stepped behind a mirror facing the creature, almost as if it was meant to flatter the beast. His shoe hit something hard, he bent and picked it up.

      He hung back as Dak Lu and Nadia scrambled up the side of the mountain. The entrance to Brune was already clearly visible. It was dusty and filled with weather worn cracks and holes, but the way was unhindered. The wooden door had long since fallen to the ground, but the arch decorated in ancient runes, but ones still readable in these days was intact.

“Welcome to Brune, Mountain of Welcome” Tonek read as he caught up to his friends. Fully forty feet high the arch loomed above them and did indeed seem to welcome them in.

“Declaration of valuables?” The voice was scratchy but the tone was firm. A man whose flowing white hair tumbled about his face and down to his waist sat on the rock just inside the gate. He gave them all a toothless grin as they stared at him.

“Valuables, declaration of valuables.”

The three friends approached but said nothing transfixed by this figure from another age.

“Come come, I can feel it on your after all these ages.” The man waved his pen, “can’t come through unless you declare, the magic won’t let it!”

“We haven’t any,” Tonek said, “we came seeking treasure, not bringing it.”

“Don’t be a fool, don’t be a fool,” the man replied leaping from the rock. “Can’t fight Varn without magic, can’t fight him at all!”

“Did Varn declared his valuables?” Dak Lu asked sarcastically, “or wasn’t the magic enough to stop him.”

The little man cocked his head to one side his bent frame, “Varn, Varn, declaration of valuables,” he shook his head and scrambled to the wall tapping and scratching, after a long moment a rock gave way and he began to scrabble through scrolls. He stopped after a long moment shaking his head, “Varn declared, yes Varn declared.” He moved slowing inward shuffling a stick he seized from the ground in front of him. Suddenly a light flared blue in front of him. He stopped and pulled the stick back and hurled it forward with more strength than any of them suspected he had. A shimmering blue curtain shook the space in front of them and caused the walls to quake. Dust tumbled from a thousand crevices in the wall in every direction. Runes innumberable dotted the passageway. “Varn’s declaration of valuables.” The man looked sorrowful, “seemed almost to like how long it took, burned the whole damn list into the wall.” He shook his head.

“Declare your magical valuables!.”

Nadia drew her sword, “I do not know its name.”

The man glared at her, “Magic, magic, not to be trifled with, mortals always messing with things they don’t understand.” He peered at the blade for a second writing the name in his ledger. “Next!”

“Do you know its name?” Nadia asked, “tell me.”

The record keeper glared at her, “Against regulations, the appraiser would have a fit.”

Tonek laughed dangling the amulet he had found in the cave in front of the man, “and this?”

“A Tarning stone! A charm of infinite good fortune” The man danced with excitement, “our first.”

“Just as I thought,” Tonek nodded. He stepped through the barrier the magic satisfied by their declarations.

“Half a moment,” Nadia complained, “how come you told him what he had found?”

The little man stuck his nose in the air and sat down again on his perch, “merely lucky, merely lucky.”

      A blaze of heat and light blew past Tonek’s shoulder. He whirled to find a cloaked figure blocking the exit. Nadia leaped aboard the crypt her sword blazing with a blue light. Tonek ran towards her side not quick enough to stop the bolt of energy that screamed from the Mage’s staff. Nadia’s sword flared consuming the energy. The Mage swore loudly stumbling over himself as he fled the dell.

“That is no ordinary weapon,” Tonek noted, “that bolt could have killed you.”

Nadia nodded, “do you doubt now the sword?” Her face held an unusual smug pride Tonek was unused to, he said nothing.

The dell was quiet and peaceful when they emerged. The Mage had been pierced by Dak Lu’s arrow and had not escaped. Dak Lu stood from where he bent over the man’s body.

“How did you frighten him?” Dak Lu’s eyes were wide, “this is a Wizard of Fox, he could fry you with a look. I saw it done.”

Nadia held up the sword, “let us kill a dragon.”

The mountain of Brune is not great among its brothers. Its peaks are barely crested with snow, and its side have not the dark sheerness of those that surround it. A thousand years, and a thousand years before it was an unpresuming peak. Then it had been one of many strongholds, an afterthought given to a relative who was not powerful enough for his father’s true inheritance, and not adventureous to seek his own fortune in the world. Yet, as time went by and the mountains fortunes changed, with veins running dry, and roads being placed, and wars being lost and won and lost again. First one mountain fell, than another until the kingdom of Barnuer, long since lost to all knowledge, was simply Brune. There the veins had run deeper, and not dried, the merchants passed by her gates, and the kings of many nations took council behind their walls. Then Varn.

No minor Wyrm in the world he was old and powerful beyond even his years. His treasure taken from a thousand regions began and finally ended in Brune. It was said that he lived now in a silent golden casket that he had forged himself over a thousand years. No one came out of his lair that went in, and fewer by far went in.

Tonek had heard many of these tales, and cared for few of them. He was one who believed dragons were not nearly as powerful as one was led to believe, nor by the same degree, so rich. It was many long years since anyone had heard of a dragon doing anything but sleeping, or dying.

      The dell was like a large bowl with gradually sloping center which culminated in steep sheer sides. Nadia walked down nearly into the center and began moving among the crypts which dotted the landscape. The people buried here seemed almost random. Kings and paupers, merchants and thieves, bakers and soldiers. Each grave was in no way greater for rank or normal privilege, as though all who earned their plot did so in a way which transcended their rank and station. Nadia stopped. The crypt she stood by bore the symbol of a carpenter.

“This is the one.” Tonek brushed aside the dust around the name even though he could not read it. “This was your vision,” he said, “what is the carpenters name?”

“Varnor,” she breathed the name so lightly Tonek thought it could have been the wind speaking, “Varnor lend me your sword.”

For a long moment there was silence, and the sun crept behind a cloud. Tonek shook his head and turned away looking toward the rim of the bowl. Then a wind blew and crept over the grass and under their cloaks and as Nadia gave a sigh into the stone. There was a crack loud enough to shake the dell, and a soft gravelly sound as a door opened at their feet. Nadia descended with Tonek following cautiously glancing frequently over his shoulder.

At the bottom a long plain crypt with only the same markings as the gravestone sat in the center. On the far wall there was a row of possessions, most decaying with the weight of time. In the center was a sword, dusty, but bearing none of the rust or mildew that haunted this place. Nadia sprung forward and took it from the wall. As she did so a faint gleam flashed from the blade. Tonek smiled and turned away allowing Nadia to revel in the moment. His eyes fell on a dusty shine on the ledge. He went towards it, and picked it up, it was an amulet.

      The way up the from the city to the Hills below Brune was bare and rocky. When the sun had just only broke over the hill the three were already deep within the broken ravines running back down toward the city. Nadia walked in front her body reaching forward with every sense that was in them seeking out her treasure. Tonek walked behind paying little attention to the landscape. He knew that if it was a true vision she needed to let it run its course to find the sword. There were other problems that preoccupied him. A dragon that needed to be killed, needed finding. The problem of dividing the treasure without killing each other in mass greed. The difficulty of other parties looting the horde. And presently the question of who might have heard of the vision and seek to profit themselves by the knowledge. This question he left mostly to Dak Lu who slunk behind his face turning constantly from side to side searching for the source of some illusive presence.

The first hint of trouble was just as they were about to begin the narrow pass into the hills themselves. As they approached three men stood up drunkenly and advanced toward them in a kind of dazed rage. Nadia drew her sword as soon as she saw them and waited. Tonek notched an arrow to his bow while Dak Lu merely took a step forward placing himself in the middle of the group.

    Tonek stood up exhaling deeply while Nadia and Dak Lu watched confused and astounded.

Tonek laughed when he saw their faces, “I knew a wizard once, that was a scrying stone. A powerful one at that. He sought one all his life that could do such, but that one had been reversed. We are dealing with no ordinary Mage if he can possess men, even so simple, from such a distance.”

Dak Lu looked back towards the city they had just come from. “Perhaps he is not so very far away.”

Tonek shook his head, “he would not have bothered to delay us with such a minor danger. He would have engaged us himself. We should hurry.”

Nadia had already turned back toward the Dell and was leaning into the wind that blew out of the pass. She moved forward under the arch that covered the pass beneath the unreadable Runes whose language had long since died.

Dak Lu and Tonek followed their weapons already drawn.

The way up the from the city to the Hills below Brune was bare and rocky. When the sun had just only broke over the hill the three were already deep within the broken ravines running back down toward the city. Nadia walked in front her body reaching forward with every sense that was in them seeking out her treasure. Tonek walked behind paying little attention to the landscape. He knew that if it was a true vision she needed to let it run its course to find the sword. There were other problems that preoccupied him. A dragon that needed to be killed, needed finding. The problem of dividing the treasure without killing each other in mass greed. The difficulty of other parties looting the horde. And presently the question of who might have heard of the vision and seek to profit themselves by the knowledge. This question he left mostly to Dak Lu who slunk behind his face turning constantly from side to side searching for the source of some illusive presence.

The first hint of trouble was just as they were about to begin the narrow pass into the hills themselves. As they approached three men stood up drunkenly and advanced toward them in a kind of dazed rage. Nadia drew her sword as soon as she saw them and waited. Tonek notched an arrow to his bow while Dak Lu merely took a step forward placing himself in the middle of the group.

The three did not hesitate even as they saw the weapons charging drunkenly waving broken bottles and rusty weapons. Tonek struck first letting loose an arrow into the shoulder of the one on the right. He stumbled and clutched the shoulder still moving toward them. Nadia stepped forward easily knocking aside the axe that swung at her head. The man grunted and fell forward only to find the point of her sword. The center man was nearly a foot taller than the others and carried and enormous club in his hands charging straight for Dak Lu. Dak Lu made no movements as he waited his eyes fixed immovably on his attackers. As he came just close enough to strike Dak Lu dropped to the ground beneath the club and thrust his knife upward into the mans chest. Nadia wiped her sword on the grass and approached the wounded man pulling the arrow from his shoulder. She grabbed him by the hair, “what possessed you to attack us?” She demanded shaking him, “why defend the cairn?” The mans eyes glazed over and rolled up in his head.

“Leave him,” Tonek said, “there is sorcery in this, they were mad, all of them.” He pointed to their campfire in the center a blue smoke rose to the sky filtering away to the south, back where they had come from. “They had stolen something foolish from the cairn, something that was used to possess them.”

Dak Lu moved to the fire and began to poke among the embers. “We have no time, this means there is pursuit from behind and every chance of something nasty ahead. Besides, they could pull you just the same as they did them.”

“With this?” Dak Lu held aloft the shining amulet from the pile of gold he had found still burning with a blue light. He tossed it into the fire as the light flared and went up in a great cloud of smoke. “I’ll leave the rest for the carrion who pursue us, should slow them down at least.” Hoisting the open sack into his arm he spun it around and around releasing it into the air as he dance along the path. Tonek laughed at the sight, but Nadia pressed forward toward the cairn. The vision was drawing her in.

Tonek rolled the shimmering stone about in his hand then let it drop suddenly to the ground with a cry. Drawing a handful of ashes from the fire he cast them about the stone shrouding it in a cloud. He cried a word neither Nadia, nor Dak Lu could comprehend and the dust hung immobile in the air. Seizing a large rock from the perimeter of the fire he drew it above his head and brought it down on the stone with grunt. There was a blue flash and the ashes fell to the ground. The once shimmering stone lay in fragments

When the world was yet young and time had taken its first steps or said that first word there was the Taur. Not the first, but not the last in the line of that which was made. But when all things that were to be made were, and the world moved onward there were stones. Of these stones many tales are told: how they were made and who found them. The doom that was placed upon them, and the power of the one who doomed them. Let it be said at this time only that they are mighty stone impregnated with power that even the ancients were loathe to tangle unless the greatest need should arise. They were fate stones.

Destiny is much written of and little understood. Fates are not like curses or blessings, those are that which has been placed upon us. Blessing are given and curses are uttered, but fates merely are. Fate stones do not do anything: they tell. Like the child catching their parents at stealing fate stones utter the truth blindly to any who is there to hear. That is why in many places they are called truth stones. Come therefore and listen to the tale of two of these stones–sister stones. The tale of Satireo (Sa-tir-eo)–Truths which are.

“What sort of a proposition?” They were seated around a small circle stone table. Nadia reclined on her bench facing the door while the short man, whose name was Tonek, and the man in the tattered clothes sat across from her.

“A hunting proposition.” Nadia took a sip of her wine then swirled it around again in a circle.

“Profitable?” Tonek asked, slicing his meat slowly, and then eating it with a fluid ease that spoke of well trained breed.

“Always,” she shook her glass at him spilling a few drops on the table, ” and don’t lecture me about that voyage to the East Isles. That wasn’t my fault.

Tonek smiled, “a small miscalculation, and as always with such, a costly one.”

“Yes, well, there is no calculation involved here.” Nadia replied, her face drawing almost into a pout, ” it is simply ten times anything else we’ve ever attempted.”

Tonek frowned, “ten?”

“Are we kidnapping a monarch?” The tattered man asked, “or merely taking his treasury?”

“No Dak Lu,” Nadia shook her head, “I told you, we are hunting.”

“Unicorn horns, Lizard tongues, or Spider juices?” Tonek asked wiping his face on his napkin delicately “all of them preposterous, unless you have found some Nightskin plants,” he frowned, “actually cultivating plants would be more profitable in the long run, and less dangerous.”

“Dragon horde.” Nadia sat back a smug smile on her face.

Neither man spoke for a very long moment. Finally Dak Lu turned to Tonek, “do you think a wizard could cure her? I know she won’t go near a witch.”

Tonek waved Dak Lu off, “Nadia, please lets be reasonable. A dragon is a creature not approached even under the most powerful of positions without extreme need.”

“You are alive,” Dak Lu, pointed out, “no one is trying to kill you. You have no debts to powerful unpredictable lunatic why try to be suicidal?”

Now Nadia did pout jutting out her lower lip in an exaggerated posture of hurtfulness. “I had thought you would jump at the chance.”

“Chance for what, suicide?” Tonek asked, “you sword wouldn’t even scratch his scales, and you want to waltz out with his hoard?”

Nadia sat up, “that’s why this is not suicide. I have a sword which can defeat him.”

Tonek sat up straighter and leaned forward an unchararistic glint in his eyes. “A sword that can pierce a dragon. That itself is worth a fortune.”

“Nadia nodded, “but it is nothing compared to the dragon it shall slay.”

Tonek snorted his manners no where to be found, “nothing compared to the death that leads you to”

Nadia leaned across the table her eyes sparkling “in danger there is profit” A slight smile curled around her lips, as she motioned the bartender for a beer.

Tonek laughed,”you would tempt me as a gambler?” He leaned forward, pressing his hands together. “If I don’t accept that bet you are liable to go ahead without me. And you would. If it were my bet I would take the sword and merely profit by it. Low risk, considerable gain. Or, perhaps merely use it to defend myself by. There are more monsters than dragons that could use slaying.”Tonek looked at Dak Lu who seemed fairly to quiver with excitement.

“A sword?” he breathed, “One that will truly pierce the dragon?”

Tonek waved aside his question, “there are many such swords, most magical, a few not magical. The unmagical I regard as myths and half-truths. Where is it Nadia? I would have to see such a sword before I laid my life to it with a dragon, let alone a lesser beast.”

Nadia frowned shaking her head, “in the dark hills, in a secret burial dell. I can lead us there.”

Tonek groaned, “I’m glad I asked, not only is the swords capability suspect, its existence is questionable. What old man did you drag this secret out of?”

Nadia blushed recalling the last item she held the “secret location” of. “I am a daughter of the East, full blooded.”

“A vision?” Tonek demanded his tone changin, “tell me, what did you see?” His eyes grew hard as crystals and seeming to reject the light of the lamps which swung above locking Nadia’s gaze in his own. She had often suspected him of possessing minor spells the way he dragged information out in these fits of his.

“I saw the sword sitting in the dell, buried beneath the surface. Then I saw the dragons cave and the sword leading me to him glowing with a burning passion.”

“Did you see the dragon?” Tonek interrupted, “did you see the dragon with its hoard about it, did you see the dragon die?”

Nadia nodded, “I saw death in its eyes and blood spilt about it.”

Tonek waved aside the beer mugs that were brought, “that is not for us tonight, we need something purer, bring the Belgain Wine.” He looked steadily into Nadia’s smug expression, “a drink to our health, may it not be the last.”

Dak Lu jumped from the table with a cry drawing his knife from his side. Tonek turned in time to see the knife go hurling across the room embedding itself in the door which shut with a bang. “He was listening. We shall have a thousand fools on our backs by morning.”

Tonek grabbed the bartenders arm, “Dak Lu, wait. Is your back room free Micus?” He looked at the bartender slidding a thick gold piece into his hand. Micus nodded. “We’ll, need it, and wine…all night long.”

An hour later Micus returned to the back room. There was a note on the table surrounded by a pile of gold coins:

We are here all night. Not to be disturbed. Leave a lot of bottles. Take the gold, there will be more if we are successful and you do well.

~Tonek

Micus left the bottle on the table and burned the note. He left many bottles until he closed and then went back and broke one open to celebrate.