Prologue
Gage found himself crawling down the rocky face of a small edifice on the eve of January First. It was a strange thing for the young man; he was not inclined to physical exercise, or to feats of such daring as this. But as a rule, he was always more inclined to venture beyond his comfort zone after consulting his friend Benjamin, who always had a good, solid reason to do so.
"Watch your step," came the calm voice of the very same friend to whom Gage always consulted. The voice was soft from the distance it had to traverse between the two, as Benjamin had outstripped Gage during their climb down the white walled structure.
"Why?" asked Gage timidly, worried now.
"Well there are a few holes in the wall once you get down to the stone, and I assumed you might use them as foot holds. I'd advise against that, a few of them house some snakes. Use the cracks in the wall, it's rather rough, there are plenty of them."
Gage shuddered at the thought of stepping into a snake hole. He didn't particularly relish the idea of hurting the poor creature, but he was much more worried about venom then hurting some poor creature. He knew snakes in this untamed region tended to be poisonous.
He looked down, and then looked up, and began to wonder why he even decided to accompany his more adventuresome friend on this exploration of his. The two were currently climbing down the sheer white face of the surprisingly smooth lighthouse. It was a small, wooden structure that hadn't seen use in over one hundred years. Overlooking a mildly sheer cliff, itself on the edge of the sea, the Lighthouse was not generally considered prime real estate in the Haven City. It dug slightly into the cliff at its base, the result of many years worth of erosion on the walls of the cliff making the bedrock it sat upon unstable. Thus, it was declared to be unsafe by the city, and was thus abandoned.
The whole structure was unstable, according to town council.
Benjamin had different ideas about what the lighthouse was, however. The words he had used to describe it were, 'unjustly vacated, excellent ramp down to the cliff itself,' and Gage's favorite, 'perfectly safe.'
Of course, that last didn't seem at all true to Gage. But it was true that the lighthouse's unstable perch upon the cliff face would allow them to access rougher stone. The stone cliff had been smoothed over by the settlers who had come to the city in the early eighteen hundreds during their attempts to mine the precious marble from the cliff side, leaving the resulting stone completely unsuited to the purpose of the two young explorers who wanted to climb down to the presumably private beach below.
However, as Ben had convinced Gage, the lighthouse that dug into the cliff side would give them access to the rougher, easier to climb stones of the cliff face below, allowing them to reach their destination. A destination which Gage had to admit he had no desire to see.
"Why are we risking our necks climbing down this again, Ben?"
"I told you, there's no risk involved. Our total body mass is in no way sufficient to topple the structure we are using as a ladder, and the stone itself is strong. You've nearly made it through the riskiest gamble, climbing down the smooth lighthouse, already."
"How is it that that doesn't make me feel any better…"
But the truth was, it did make the young Gage feel better to consider the rough surface of the stone below his feet as he descended further. Compared to the polished, if slightly aged wood, the rocky cliff face was a simple climb. However, he was sure to avoid placing his feet in any of the holes in the wall, fearing the snakes his friend had described.
As they descended further and further down, Gage heard the crunch of Ben's feet hitting the sand below. He could only conclude, and correctly so, that the cliff was not much further a climb down for himself.
Never the less, gage was out of breath hen he finally reached the sandy beach himself.
"You look terrible," concluded his friend in his usual unexcited monotone. Only the prospect of solving a perplexing puzzle, or discovering something he had not known before, could rouse his friend from the monotone. Gage tended to enjoy the monotone more, truth be told. The monotone was safer.
"I guess I do," admitted the young teen. Examining himself, he concluded that he most certainly did. His dark brown hair fell about his face in a disheveled manner that provided anyone who cared to view it with ample evidence that it hadn't been washed that morning, much less combed. His brown eyes matched the color of his hair perfectly, and were bloodshot from a combination of a lack of sleep, and the salty mists of the surrounding sea air. His plain blue sweat shirt was caked in mud from the climb down, as were his jeans, and the black leather shoed his always wore. His pale skin, a result of spending the majority of his days in the safe confines of his home, was proving ill adapted to hiding flakes of dirt and mud that were splattered across his arm.
Of course his friend Benjamin was not much better off in the department of muck and mire. Covering himself in a white t-shirt and simple carpenter's denim jeans, the boy was not dressed for rolling around in the black, sandy mire of the Haven City beaches. His sandals were a good touch for the environment, but the white socks betrayed the capricious nature of this latest escapade. Unlike Gage, however, Ben's short, dark hair was neatly combed, and his brown eyes betrayed no fatigue, but rather a thrilled joy in his surroundings.
"Benjamin… why in the world did we climb down onto this beach?" asked Gage with exasperation. "We can see it quite clearly from the top of the cliff. It's boring, plain, and featureless. An afternoon of climbing well spent."
It was true of course, the beach was rather plain. Extending for almost a mile from one side to the other, the beach was surrounded on three sides by a twenty foot cliff, and on the fourth by the water of the ocean. It had no litter; litter would have suggested anyone ever came to this part of town. The beach was one of those quaint little areas of the world that humanity never seemed to touch, nor desired to touch. Gage certainly did not desire to touch it.
"You are incorrect," replied Ben, ignoring the aggravating use of his whole name. "We could not have seen this fine shore anywhere near so well from the top as we can from this very spot. It was a good ten minutes of climbing well spent."
"Spent to see… a boring beach."
"Boring for now," corrected Ben. "However, with a serviceable rope ladder, some wood, and who knows? No one comes here, and you're always complaining about your mother interrupting your reading. This would be a great spot for the two of us."
"Yes, a great spot," agreed Gage with a mocking undertone. "A nice quiet place for you to think all day, for me to read all day, and for neither of us to ever be disturbed by the world around us."
"Exactly," agreed Ben, who chose to ignore the undertone of skepticism. "That was exactly my point."
"The great philosopher has a point?" laughed Gage half heartedly. He sighed, and then gave the matter more thought.
"Well with a good ladder, we could get here easier… and I suppose if we put a roof over our heads… and the sound of the sea would be relaxing to hear as we curled up in our little shack too, would you agree?"
"I don't intend to curl up. I intend to sit," corrected Ben.
"Sit in our shack then," replied Gage as he rolled his eyes.
"Well that all depends, can you acquire the lumber?" asked Ben monotonously.
"Yeah, my dad has some in his back yard. We were going to build a tool shed last summer, and that's about the same thing as this right? He won't miss it."
"Then it's agreed," Ben nodded. "But I can not conclude that we will get any work done today. The sun is setting," he added, checking his watch. They couldn't see the setting sun from this angle, nor would they get a good vision of the rising sun, for the oceanic opening faced to the south, rather than east or west. But the time on his watch indicated to Ben that the sun was setting, and he trusted it.
"Well of course we aren't going to work today," Gage replied testily. "How would we get anything done in the dark?"
"We could bring a flash light, a lantern, a long extension cord with a lamp, or any number of things."
"…I don't think any of that would be wise."
"I agree," said Ben with a sharp nod of the head. "We should construct a ladder first…"
"Look, I don't know about you Ben, but I need to get home. It's cold at night this time of the year, and I don't want to get caught out too late. My mom would kill me," he groaned.
"Agreed, although I believe your mother would stop short of grounding you for a few days. Homicide doesn't seem to be-"
"It was a figure of speech."
"You know how I feel about that sort of thing…"
Gage chuckled, and muttered, only half under his breath, "Yeah, I know. Come on, let's get back up."
Now that he had scaled the cliff once, Gage felt much more confident about climbing it this time, though the effort on his muscles was dreadful to him. Having decided to ascend first, Gage made it up first, and gave his friend Ben a hand to help him finish his climb.
That was where they parted ways, each riding off in separate directions on their Bicycles. Each one was departing to their own respective abysses; each would be alone when they got home.
As he arrived at his home, night had thoroughly descended upon the sky of Haven City. Gage quietly rode around to the back of the house. He hoped that he had escaped notice as he opened the wooden gate to their back yard, but knew he hadn't. He never did.
Kicking down the kickstand, Gage sighed, content to sit under the stars for a while, but loath to do so. Things would only get worse for him if he did so.
Bracing himself, he opened the back door, a sliding glass piece with a screen to keep out the insects, and looked from side to side within the black confines of the house he grew up in. No sign of her. It was safe to move in.
He slowly opened the door more completely, and crept inside. He was sure to shut the sliding glass and bug screen opening behind him, not sure how he would explain it to his mother if he let the cold night air invade their home unduly. He tried to be as quiet as he could; today he tried by moving as silently, and slowly as possible.
Which was an ill advised maneuver. The door, which moved so smoothly in his quick motions of the moment before, had a tendency to creak when physical stress was applied in the correctly insignificant portions. The more he dragged out the process, the more it squealed.
He felt the warm breath mist on his back an instant before the hand gripped him on the back of his neck. He didn't struggle against it, save by tensing up instinctively as the location of the touch. he was frightfully accustomed to being accosted in this manner every time he came home too late.
"Where have you been?" asked the nearly baritone voice that owned the hand. It was thoroughly unpleasant, raspy by the virtue of the state of the lunges It came from, which had been invaded by the smoke of cigarettes on a nearly hourly basis, yet at the same time warbling with the flam caught in the back of it's throat, as if it's bearer were in a perpetual state of diseased, bed ridden melancholy.
"I was just out with Ben-" he pleaded with a resignation that came from knowing he didn't have a chance.
"Benjamin? The scrawny little boy with too little respect for his elders?"
"He's plenty respectful mother-"
"Don't you take that tone with me," she whispered dangerously. "Where were you now? Off in some cave, down some hole…" she trailed off with a gasp, and then narrowing her eyes (by this point in his life Gage had thoroughly learned to tell when her eyes were narrowed from the change in the tone of her voice alone), she finished her list with, "in the sewers!"
"Actually we were at the beach-"
"And a filthier place there never was. is should have known!" she said in dismay, looking down at his feet. "Sand all over my carpet, sand lice in your hair, the mist of the salt water bearing down your throat! I shan't imagine that you've caught a cold, influenza, the plague! I shan't imagine, because I will not have to! What on earth possesses you to follow that child wherever he goes, in whatever hair brained scheme-?"
"They're not hair brained schemes. Ben isn't some bold faced adventurer mom, he never does anything without first consulting logic to determine its safe-"
"Safe? Safety is here! Not off in some dank cave, or on some bug infested beach, waiting for the world to strike you down!"
Gage tightened his lips in a snarling grimace as she turned him around to berate him face to face. There was no reasoning with her when she was like this.
"What have I told you about staying out after dark? You'll be attacked by some wild beast, or a mugger, or worse yet by your own heart!"
As she continued on, she shook him so that it was nearly impossible for him to view his accuser. Not that he needed to, he knew the look. His overweight moth, easily tipping the scale well over three hundred pounds, would have a cigarette in her mouth right now. Yes… he could smell it now, wafting up to his nostrils. Sweating profusely, the smoke only almost managed to cover the smell of her own body odder. A thoroughly disgusting creature in her own right, Gage's mother had no right, or so he told himself, to be concerned at every little unsafe thing he did. Smoking every hour, eating her way into a coma, these were the things she did to her own body. It was a miracle that she hadn't collapsed from lunge cancer, or a heart attack at least, by this point in their lives. The lack of justice did not escape Gage, no matter how often he'd claim to himself that she was just looking out for him in the past.
"It's those damn books you read is the problem! The Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter and the stone of who-gives-a-damn, Eragon. Books of adventure that poison your mind with the idea that you're invincible. If Eragon-Legolas-Potter can survive a fall from his magic dragon of deus ex machine, surely you can go out in the rain without a coat? Bah!"
That was, however, where Gage drew the line. Where he always drew the line. Every night he decided to stay out too late, this was where he drew the line. His books.
"There's nothing wrong with what I read mother…" he growled, barely above a whisper. Drawing the line was one thing; actually shouting at his mother was another one entirely.
"Oh sure, nothing wrong with those trash stories they call novels. Except that they fill your head with nonsense. They fill your eyes with words of men who do not die, who do not get sick, who are nothing short of destined to live on. But you're not like that Gage! You don't live the life of the main character of some story. You can die-"
"But can I not also live?" he asked her, voice growing louder.
"If you just did what I told you, you'd always live. You'd live the entirety of your life, rather than cutting it short! No more," she cut him off with a wave of the hand, and then repeated, "No more! I will not allow this to descend to a contest of angered wills. It's bad for your heart. Now, go to your room, and stay their where its clean, safe, warm, for the rest of the night."
Gage knew when not to argue. The truth was there was nowhere he'd rather be than in his room, away from his overbearing mother. He didn't bother to storm off, a subdued, shambling gait was conducive to his purpose, and conveyed his true feelings more clearly.
As he arrived in his room, he stared at the walls. At that moment, the immaculate cleanliness of the place sickened him. Freshly scrubbed, the walls contained no point. His mother claimed that the lead in the mixture would poison him. Shelves were nailed to the walls, and on these there were lined books of various titles. These were organized alphabetically, first by the last name o the author, then by the title of the individual work. This particular organizational feat was of Gage's own hand.
He picked a book off the shelf, and then replaced it. He didn't have the heart to read the words off a page that night.
What did I even do? he asked himself. I enjoyed a fictional work, I stayed out slightly too late…
He had long ago concluded his mother's behavior was irrational. But he was unsure of how to proceed from that conclusion. And so he never did. It was always better to put it off until another day.
Muttering something the average parent wouldn't want to hear from their child in his frustration, the young Gage lay in his bed. The time was not yet eight in the evening, but his eyes began to close. He had nothing else to do. He would sleep.
My life's not so bad, he admitted to himself. The heroes in every story I've ever read had worse lives, one way or another. But then again, weren't they always compensated for it? Magic words, a sword to slay all evil… heroes in the stories I read have these amazing things. And I've gotten nothing. Guess I just haven't suffered enough.
He fell asleep, wishing that he could maybe, just maybe, skew the payment slightly more into his favor. That perhaps he could become a hero like those in the stories he read.
The young Gage was fast asleep by the hour of twelve. A heavy sleeper, Gage did not note the change in the lighting of the room. A small flash, accompanied by a whisper of words never spoken so fluently by a citizen of the nation in which thy found themselves, and then nothing but a single change. The lights dimmed themselves, the words ceased as soon as they had begun. Little was left behind.
But something was left behind.
Gage knew something was amiss the moment he awoke. It was no mysterious, trite feeling that alerted him, no whispered magic in his ear. Nor was it some subtle shift in the air, no cold mist had collected in his room. It was infinitely lass subtle.
The unpainted, smoothly sanded wood on the walls had been burned in the night. It was as if a bonfire had licked throughout the room, burning the wood of the walls without touching a single other object. The books on the wooden shelves remained unscathed, even as the wood around them had been turned black. Even the wooden bed frame Gage slept in was a coal color, though the boy himself was unhurt.
His mind went blank for an instant as he gaped at the damage. He said aloud the first thing that came into his head.
"My mother… is going to kill me…"
He hopped out of his bed quickly as he was able, and noted that the wood, blackened as it was, was not covered in ash or soot. The whole thing simply smelled unnatural to Gage, though he did admit to himself that he was a big enough fantasy connoisseur that he might believe a bit more strongly in the unnatural than others.
"Logical explanation, logical explanation, logical explanation…" he muttered to himself repeatedly, as if he were a computer junky watching a particularly irksome loading screen. He quickly hung his head in defeat.
"Yeah… I got nothing," he admitted to himself, still too disconcerted to realize he was speaking aloud.
He walked forward, aiming to exit the room quickly, in order to find a less distracting place to think. However, he looked down, and saw that he was about to step on something. He swerved his foot in a wider arc to avoid it, but the dramatic course correction caused him to loose his footing. He fell to the floor, and groaned slightly at the mistake.
Deciding to not even bother getting up, Gage pushed along the ground with his legs, rotating with a sluggish pace. As he faced the direction of what had caused him to trip, he became curious.
What was the object? What could it possibly be? The room was immaculate, or had been before it was charred beyond easy recognition. There was nothing on the floor. Until, that is, Gage had seen something that he nearly crushed under his foot.
So naturally as he turned on his stomach, he paused to see what the heck it had even been. His observations revealed little. It was little wonder that he had nearly missed it; it was the same blackened color as the floor around it. Then again, it was pretty large. Gage estimated quickly that it was the size of his head, maybe a little larger. Ovular, the object could almost be mistaken for a human head that had no features chiseled into it.
Gage took a moment, and then decided it was safe to touch. He picked it up quickly, only to feel the soot that covered it completely.
Well now I feel pretty dumb. Of course it's covered in soot, why else would it match this shade of black exactly?
He didn't even need a moment to decide before he started to chip away at a small portion of the soot that coated the object perfectly. His mind focused on the task entirely. This mysterious thing that should not have been there needed to be explained before he could simply put it away.
The soot chipped away easily. The revealed surface was…
He dropped the object immediately, it surprised him so much. He nearly let out a yelp. The object revealed was perfectly, unnaturally smooth. A grey-white color, the object shone like a precious gem. Gage wasn't entirely sure whether to liken it to a diamond or a pearl; it seemed to share the coloration of both.
White, web like veins wove through it.
It was these that caused Gage to drop in near abject terror. He knew what this was. It wasn't even possible of course, but it matched the description so perfectly. It was an egg. But not just any egg, a Dragon Egg.
No… that's just… it's just a book!
But just a book or not, there was a way to confirm his suspicion even further. Two ways actually, but he wasn't sure one would work, and even if it would, he didn't know if he dared try it.
So he hesitantly crawled towards the object that he had nearly thrown away from himself, and picked it up. He couldn't help notice how his hands shook. He got to his feet, and took the paces to his desk with great care. His legs weren't entirely willing to support his weight as they wobbled.
He made it to his desk, and took a small lamp from it. If he was right, this wouldn't hurt the thing in his hands at all. If he was wrong, well, he wouldn't even consider that. He realized for a split instant that he already knew. This object was an egg, a Dragon Egg.
He took the lamp, and struck it against the pearl-diamond shell of the egg. The force of the blow, though not too great, was enough to knock a large chunk of soot off the shell, nearly half if one were to be precise. The sound that rang out confirmed his suspicions. It seemed to sing to him. The words it sung (he imagined) were, "I am and impossible, but very real, Dragon Egg."
He placed it on his desk quickly, rubbing his face in his fatigue, which he had not yet shook off from his rest. He could feel the soot rubbing off onto his face, but did not groan in complaint. It wasn't significant compared to what lay on the charred wood before him. But it did give him a thought.
The soot… I haven't directly touched the egg yet… not with more than my finger nail anyway… Suppose I were to touch it? And suppose it were too…
Even in his head the idea trailed away. It wouldn't, it couldn't. Was such a thing even possible outside the country of Alagaesia?
Well the egg is real enough. I suppose I can assume there's a fire breathing lizard inside. Or are Dragons considered to be dinosaurs? Neither?
He shook off the ridiculous tangent. He had a choice before him now, he knew it. He wasn't a fool. He knew what this object was, and what it could mean. Whether in the world of fiction or in his own, one who rode atop a Dragon could not be ignored. They'd become a real force in the world. They'd matter, in a bizarre way no one else did.
But do I want such a thing? Does anyone really? Would touching this egg, and having it hatch before me, make me responsible for the world. Do I want that?
He touched a hand to his forehead, spreading still more black soot on it. His mother probably wouldn't think it sanitary if she were to see him now.
His mother…
He remembered the argument last night, and the aftermath. He had wished for this didn't he? He wanted to be more than normal. He had wanted to be a… hero.
Well I begged, and I received. 'd be a pretty ungrateful bastard not to go through with it.
And so he touched his palm to the egg, making sure he didn't touch the soot.