Chapter One: The Affairs of Dragons
The sun, shockingly bright after the forest murk, lanced through the thin mountain air to awaken lights of garnet and crimson in Kael's short hair. She was a spot of brightness on the austere face of the mountain as she stared down from her perch on one of its many jagged spurs, watching the waving of the forest clinging to the mountain's stony feet far below. The remote mountain scene in all of its late-afternoon glory did not go unnoticed, but only served to provide Kael with a nagging reminder of the task she was currently ignoring to admire the scenery.
First, she needed to find a place with a good vantage point- her pale eyes regarded the outcropping she stood on with annoyance- like the one she was standing on, except with a greater height difference from the surrounding area. Jiriaewuthelaan was not to be taken as lightly as the humanling, young as he was. She had every intention of manipulating the grounds of their encounter to favor her, the first order of business being finding ground that favored her- Jiriae was prone to confusing size with importance, and towering over her would not discourage that propensity.
She sighed inwardly as she wrenched her focus back to the task at hand, unused to having to exercise more than perfunctory caution after twenty-some years of work retrieving the chief treasures of Morzadavien'mgo's hoard from mortals who usually had little cognizance of what they'd gotten their hands on. Kael was always more careful when dealing with her full-blooded kin. While not specifically malicious, indeed less so than some dragons living outside the pocket of reality occupied by Raszkethemiorl, they would brook no weakening of their bloodline. Therefore, Kael's heritage was just barely tolerated by some with disdainful sniffs as it was, and disdainful sniffs from the fire-breathing members of the Raszkethemiorlei were not easily dismissed. Losing face before the youngest and weakest of the Raszkethemiorlei was not the note on which she intended to begin her triumphant return.
Kael's gaze raked her surroundings with an air of purpose this time, ignoring its lonely grandeur and the ever-unanswerable siren call of the ice-blue ocean of sky vaulting above her in her search for a suitable position from which to summon the juvenile dragon. She sighed, readjusting the bag of holding slung over her shoulder with a grumble, and she sprang down from her perch. She landed carefully on the uneven ground, and began her trudge further up the mountain where a slender stream had cut a gash through the stone, her stomach grumbling in similarly bad humor as the brisk mountain wind chuckled around her ears. Reminding me of what I don't have, Kael thought sourly as she climbed onward, vestigial muscles in her shoulders itching to spread the wings she lacked.
Her mood cleared as she came upon the source of the stream, finding that the trail of water trickling down the mountainside collected in a bowl-like depression before spilling down as a stream. Better still, the ground rose sharply around the depression, giving her even more distance between the sunken zone and where she would place herself. She pulled a single scale from where it had curved around her ankle, glad to finally be rid of the continuous itch of magic longing to be worked while trapped between her skin and her boot. Etched into the scale was Jiriaewuthelaan's name in draconic script, glowing coyly now that the time had come for its dweomer to actually be activated. Kael gritted her teeth in annoyance: summoning spells were treacherous, more so when the entity in question had no interest in answering calls, as seemed to be the case now. Fortunately, the spell itself was already encased within the scale, a concession to Kael's rudimentary knowledge of the art of conjury. The only alteration she made to her activation of the spell was this: that she tossed the scale over the frigid pool rather than the dry ground beside it as she spoke the name etched into the emerald scale.
Her voice awoke the script containing the spell, bringing a knife-edged gleam to the letters as the spell tasted her power in search of the crystalline bite of the magic that made it. Kael made no attempt to block the seeking tendril as it squirmed through her aura, finding the soul of her magic, the formless essence of the sky that nonetheless held edges sharp enough to make the wind bleed. This was the legacy of the Raszkethemiorlei that the spell sought, and having found its invoker worthy of wielding it, it retreated in a semblance of humility (but only a semblance; it was, after all, draconic magic) to work what was commanded of it.
The crisp mountain air held for a moment the scent of salt and of foreign verdancy as the portal opened, swallowing the scale as payment and dragging the vivid green reptile who owned it through, dumping him unceremoniously in the icy mountain pool. Kael had seated herself on a slab of shale and watched from above, blinking away the droplets of water as the indignant dragon removed his ten foot long body from the water and snapped his jaws in her direction.
Little of the cold from the water had reached through his scales, Kael knew, and so was unconcerned about his irritation. A little water was hardly reason enough for him to actually bite her- as the youngest of the dragons of any color of the Raszkethemiorlei, he still couldn't afford the arrogance typical of the older dragons. Nor, for that matter, could he afford facing down Dartathleciele if she sustained an injury as severe as a dragon bite due to his temper.
"Kael'risseth arii Mornkierasalein," he greeted her, eyes flashing and voice clipped.
Kael smiled in the face of his irritation."Jiriae. I hope you're prepared for a long flight."
Avarice instantly sharpened the young dragon's gaze. "You have them?" he asked, his interest helping him to brush aside his injured dignity. Anyway, having inadvertently acknowledged Kael as the higher ranking of the pair when she refused to match his formality, the only thing left for him to do was pretend that he had not been impaled upon his own verbal sword. At least half of what decided rank among the Raszkethemiorlei was simply acting the part- and of course, he should have expected that greeting Kael formally would end in her claiming that as homage. Sardior, god of gem dragons, delighted in clever conversation, and it was an art avidly practiced by the Raszkethemiorlei.
Her expression could only be described as smug as she watched Jiriae smolder over her successfully one-upping him. "Would I summon you if I didn't?" Kael asked, enjoying their banter and the fact that she could carry on a conversation in Draconic, rather than the bland tongue that was Faerûnian Common.
"If you wished to add their safe return to Raszkethemiorl to your record of accomplishments, yes."
"I'm not in such dire straits for respect among our people, Jiriae," Kael replied. She gave a shrug and added, "Besides, I can afford to be generous, since I believe I've vastly exceeded expectations by so easily surviving a hostile world where my supposed peers reside."
Jiriaewuthelaan stared at Kael, sitting without a scratch on her for all that she had spent a two-score and a half of years in a world utterly foreign to the dragon-born girl. Her triumphant return would certainly force at least two of the five eldest to eat their words- and Kael would be on hand to cheerfully feed them every morsel of a mutter and mop their scaly jaws clean of any derisive whispers that remained— naturally, all out of a good-natured concern for their digestive health.
"Show me, then, the Seven Gems of the fallen Morzadavien'mgo's hoard, that I may bear witness to your success." At least then he'd be there to watch the elders' dismay as Kael'risseth emanated self-satisfaction at them- politely, of course.
Kael pulled her pack from her shoulders and set it on her knees, her every motion exhibiting a flair for the dramatic that she knew would irritate Jiriaewuthelaan.
The young emerald dragon gave a snort that ruffled the short, unruly locks of her garnet hair, saying, "Don't strain yourself impressing me, sister. Save your impudence for the elders; I know you're dying to face them again."
The garnet-haired half-dragon took minimal notice of the jibe, only chuckling and saying lightly, "You have no idea." In truth she was a decade older than Jiriae and no relation to him, but by dragons' reckoning, they had practically grown up together, thus cultivating all of the sibling rivalry that that entailed.
Paradoxically enough, it also made Jiriaewuthelaan Kael's best friend; he was not yet secure enough in his draconic might to attempt to run roughshod over her pride as the others under Dartathleciele's sway did. Although he has been trying to chip away, Kael thought, eyeing him. Ambitious little wyrm.
She brushed away a sigh as she pulled the first of the seven artifacts from her pack, enjoying the awed light that sprang unbidden to Jiriae's eyes as he viewed the treasure with both his eyes and his psionics, and imagined the defenses she had to pass in order to secure such a potent work of magic and craftsmanship.
At first glance, the item in her hand was a crystal orb similar to those used by diviners, legitimate or otherwise, across the world of Toril. A closer look would draw the eye to noticing a small but definite cleft at one point in its circumference, exactly opposite a spot where the sphere extended into a more oblong shape. It was not until one noted the steady pulse of the wintry light within the crystal, coalescing in the core of it and pushing outwards to gleam in the pinpoints of its myriad facets like unnumbered, hungry eyes that its true shape snapped into view: that of a heart. It was an empty, forsaken thing, the only thing within it that hungry, pulsing light, faint in the mountain sunshine but carrying the entire hollow famine of the deep, endless winter that the ice dragons held in their fondest dreams.
Kael smirked, neatly covering the discomfort that her continued proximity with the starving, frigid crystal caused her while basking in the glow of present and future esteem. Being the scion of the lovely garnet dragon Mornkierasalein had ensured her survival as an infant, for despite the fact that it was a scaleless, soft, elven infant inside her egg, Dartathleciele hoped that she would grow to powers like her mother, a formidable dragon by all accounts. The other dragons, though none dared to say so, privately thought that he was deluding himself, although they were far less subtle in expressing this opinion to Kael. Mornkierasalein's opinion on the matter was something of a mystery; in a manner typical to the garnet line, she returned to her solitude once her hatchling had replaced her first set of teeth, about thirteen years after Kael's hatching.
"Kael'risseth?" Leaving out her lineage was the greatest concession to familiarity that Jiriae, the puffed-up emerald lizard, would make on this important task. It had the desired effect, however; it snapped Kael out of her trance.
"Jiriaewuthelaan?" she responded.
"Fabulous as the Frozen Heart is, it doesn't excuse you from showing me the other six treasures, that I may be certain of their authenticity."
"Bite your tongue, wyrmling," Kael snapped, deciding it was high time to remind Jiriaewuthelaan that she was not to be taken lightly, no matter how good of a mood she may initially be in, or how important he was trying to make himself feel.
Predictably, the dragonling's eyes flared and locked with Kael's, his own dignity unable to let such a slap in the face pass. He spread his wings, hooding them menacingly in the hope that the simple reminder of his physical advantage would cow Kael. Unimpressed, Kael's glare continued to bore into her impertinent junior- and even though Jiriaewuthelaan at his full height was taller than Kael on her perch, the wiry halfblood still somehow managed to look down her nose at the young dragon.
Disappointed but unsurprised, Jiriae broke eye contact to size up Kael, silently marveling at her. Every line of her spoke of supreme confidence in the face of her horned and armored adversary, showing complete disregard for the vulnerabilities inherent in her own slender form and tender skin. She had been bold in the face of mightier dragons than he before, Jiriae remembered, but he wondered how much bolder she may have become after years in a world where her heritage provided an innate advantage. It would be interesting to watch her progress on Raszkethemiorl, he decided, for as much as he and Kael clashed, he genuinely liked and was fascinated by the half-dragon girl.
"You will make a great dragon one day, Kael'risseth arii Mornkierasalein, if you ever gain the form to match your heart," he said, his way of acknowledging defeat.
Kael gave a wry smile at the self-serving compliment- it wasn't so bad to be defeated by a future great dragon, after all. "So, shall we proceed?" she queried. As if nothing had happened, as if she had not won another of Jiriae's occasional challenges, she withdrew the next item, her favorite of the ones she had collected, from her pack.
Simply holding the enchanted garnet, its ornate golden setting dimly lustrous in the twilight, Kael could feel its ties to the plane of Fire, could feel a promise within it similar to that imbued within Jiriae's scale. There was a difference, she knew: while the dweomer of the scale was expired, leaving it merely a shed piece of dragonhide laying wherever Jirae had been before she summoned him, the Ixen'ifni had within it the power to draw elementals from the Plane of Fire, not young, quarrelsome dragons, and its enchantment would not expire. It also had the added benefit of washing away the residual chill left by holding the Frozen Heart, which was not something Kael intended to be touching while her thoughts wandered again.
Kael's gloating manner was tempered with some reluctance as she handed this treasure over and reached for the next items in her bag, the white jade and onyx statue that she had initially broken in to steal from the baron (she had never bothered to learn his name), and a large and wickedly enchanted sword, also from Morzadavien'mgo's collection, that she was surprised to find and took, as well as several precious gems that she was keeping for herself as consolation for not returning and razing the corpulent baron's manor to the ground. She handed the sword over without any real interest, and it was accepted by Jiriaewuthelaan with the same casual manner.
The statue of the dancing woman was the true prize, for although enchantments blazed from the sword, the statue was imbued with a subtle magic, just barely within Kael's ability to sense. It was a magic that exhaled the essence of darkness: the formless dark between the stars, the shadowless night of the subterranean world, and the wonders that such darkness hid. It murmured of the unknown, waxing in strength, warping the laws of what may be in the savage underworld, revealing themselves through snags in the fabric of the world- for that was the nature of true treasures, that by virtue of their very mystery they altered the laws of possibility to suit their shape.
On the other hand, enchanted weapons were kept in hoards, to their mind, for bribing mortals with or for loaning to them while they did their bidding. That, or in the event that any of the Raszkethemiorlei felt it necessary to take on a mortal form, they would have no shortage of fearsome weapons at their disposal. It helped, or so they were told, to assuage the sense of loss at having their physical capabilities so severely curtailed. Neither Jiriae nor Kael would know, as Jiriae was as yet incapable of such a transformation, and Kael made it a point not to fall back on such a crutch- she had left Raszkethemiorl determined to triumph on her own power, and not due to the virtue of the many weapons or other items Dartathleciele had attempted to press upon her out of concern for her security. She flinched slightly at the memory; his concern was touching, she supposed, but the low opinion of her might that it implied still stung, decades later.
The sword was followed by a series of four skulls, reportedly possessed of remarkable wisdom, but while Kael had had them, showed only a remarkable propensity for incessant chatter. Kael had bound them up with a silencing charm that she had renewed religiously over the journey. She handed them over with an air of almost vindictive pleasure, saying, "I don't envy your journey with those garrulous carcass-caps, should you fail to silence them."
Her charm expired right on cue, and the dwarven skull swiveled on its nonexistent neck to regard the stunned young emerald with a grin laden with the signs of senility. How a bare skull retained so much expression, Kael failed to fathom. "Now would ye mind terrible if-" he began.
"Kindly do not give the dwarf any of that swill he calls mead," another voice chimed in. "However, should we be in more charitable talons than when last we saw the light of day, I would appreciate a goblet of elverquisst." This skull's words had the unmistakable lilt of an elven voice and, Kael thought, the snobbery of the entire isle of Evermeet's inhabitants combined.
Poor Jiriaewuthelaan looked so taken aback by the first two alcoholic skulls that he could hardly look more so when the human snorted dismissively (though how he did so through his fleshless sinus cavities, Kael never had figured out) and began disparaging the merits of both dwarven holy water and elverquisst, instead proceeding to spout the praises of a beverage, presumably alcoholic, of which neither dragon nor dragonborn had ever heard.
"I'd silence them quickly, were I you," Kael offered casually as she slid down her perch to land lightly on her feet. "Before they wake the gnome."
The smallest of the skulls stirred, and Jiriaewuthelaan looked at it in horror as the other skulls jerked its way in what Kael had learned to interpret as a glance, the human remarking, "About time you joined us, you pint-sized sluggard."
The dwarf leaped into the conversation, greeting it cheerfully as the elf chided the human skull for his lack of manners and what Jiriaewuthelaan assumed was the gnome skull took exception to the human's dour attitude and fired off a stinging retort. The dragon's eyes were wide enough that they might have leapt from his own skull as he proceeded to cast the quickest succession of silencing spells in his life.
Finally only the elf skull was left, steadily resisting the magical compulsion to be silent so that it could continue shouting, "Churl!" at the now-mute human skull.
Kael, laughing, silenced the elf skull for Jiriae. "Good luck with them," she saluted him, and left the shell-shocked dragon where he stood.
She was several paces away when he regained his senses enough to ask, "Where are you going?" "Hunting," Kael replied. "I'm hungry."
"I won't wait for you," Jiriaewuthelaan warned.
"And I won't overburden you on your journey. Fly swiftly; I have no intention of reaching home before you and the Gems do." Kael saw Jiriae open his jaws to continue his half-hearted argument, and she stopped him with a raised hand. "You have no desire to play the beast of burden, and I have no desire to compel you to. Shall we forego the token arguments and part ways?"
A toothy smile stretched across the emerald's face, and he nodded his agreement, dipping his wings in salute before gripping the bag of holding containing all of the Gems once more and launching into the air. He nearly fell back to the ground, he had so overbalanced in his desire to flaunt his power of flight, and he righted himself with Kael's teasing laughter ringing in his ears as he labored away, the scales of his ears glowing rather brighter than before. He flew swiftly indeed, and was soon a bright flash of wings in the distance, and then was gone.
Kael blew out a sigh of relief. "Good riddance," she said to the empty mountainside. Still, her silver-blue eyes remained fixed on the patch of sky where Jiriae had disappeared while she prayed to Sardior and any friendly deity that might be listening that he succeed in returning the Gems to the hidden isle of the Raszkethemiorlei dragons.
With that done, she extended her consciousness in a search for anything carrying enough meat to satisfy her. Her metabolism ran slow, more akin to a dragon's than an elf's, but considering that she hadn't eaten in roughly three tendays, she was holding out for something roughly wolf-sized. That, or she'd go back and see how quickly the human traveled- not that it mattered; once a dragon had begun a hunt, not even death could reliably stop it, and in that, Kael was fully dragon.