OPENING NOTE

This chapter takes random facts stated in the revised version of chapter 4. If you read that Naga entered battle with a dozen other divine dragons and that only one escaped, I expect this chapter to make full sense. If you read some ridiculous story about how he charged into battle alone that seemed disgustingly out of character for the traditional protector of mankind, then you may consider reading chapter 4 again, at least where Morcere discusses Naga. You may be able to proceed without doing so, but it may make the chapter somewhat less interesting.

Chapter 7

Family Ties

After he sent his apprentices to Drasor, Morcere remained at his house for several hours, continuing to study magic. Most of his work these days were attempts to recreate the Dragon's Gate, but he suspected that his approach was wrong, for progress was extraordinarily slow.

That is not to say that his experiments were fruitless, merely that the fruits were of a different variety than expected. Just yesterday he managed to open a portal, but rather than leading to Elibe, it reached into the world of spirits. Of course no sane person would ever want to go there; all of his tests thus far had resulted in the instant vaporization of whatever passed through it. It had enormous potential as a weapon if he could ever make it more accurate, but while he was still testing it, its durability was the greater issue. After having to rewrite the tome for a third time, he decided to just make a few dozen of them at once so that he could finish testing uninterrupted.

He had been writing for almost four hours now, and although he was still not nearly done yet, it was time for him to go. His uncle must have finally heard of whatever trouble his apprentices had gotten into by now, and he couldn't let him have too much time to think on the matter before confronting him. He rose from his desk and muttered the elder incantations of teleportation magic and a ring of light shone up from beneath his feet before rising upwards. When it had passed over his head, he was no longer standing before his study, but on the central streets of Drasor.

After eight hundred years of making such an entrance, most people were somewhat accustomed to it, at least enough to not give him the confused and frightened stares that they were today. Of course he had actually hoped to be greeted in such a fashion today because if everything was normal, then that could only mean he was too early. Everyone continued about their business quickly enough, though; for as long as he could remember, everyone had been exceedingly respectful to him to the point of irritation, and even now they did not wish to offend him.

Of course that also meant that people were always willing to help him, and right now he needed information. Luckily enough, he found the dragon he had healed at the Gate two weeks ago, and because it was a general policy of his to talk with people in his debt whenever he could, he waved and walked towards the fire dragon.

"Ah, hello, Vur," he said. "I haven't had a chance to see you since the incident. Have you recovered well?"

"Yes, thank to you," he said humbly. "I've recovered completely since then. How are you?"

Morcere never could stand how abominably respectful people were to him but at least here it led the conversation where he wanted it to go. "Not well, actually. I have heard some disturbing rumors recently. Rumors about me."

"Oh. Err, I'm sorry. I don't know."

"What are you sorry about? I doubt you went around telling stories about me. But I think you know; by the looks that everyone's been giving me since I got here, I think everyone does. What's going on?"

Vur looked around uncomfortably before answering. "Well there was a morph in town," he said finally, "and some people say they saw him walking around with your apprentice."

"That's it?" asked Morcere, disappointed.

"What? But everyone hates morphs. And after what happened during the Scouring, I think you would the most." He stopped suddenly, as though he only just realized what he was saying. "Sorry, I was out of line there. I didn't mean to be rude or anything."

"It's fine, really. But that is it then. I'll have to find Lasentis immediately and hear what she has to say for herself."

"Wait, no that's not everything. They were fleeing the city, and a few dragons came to chase them. They came from the bad side of town, and I think they were drunk or something, so a Law Keeper came and tried to stop them. He probably didn't notice the morph. But one dragon got away and followed him, and the Law Keeper only caught up to him a half hour later. It was terrible."

"What was terrible?" asked Morcere. Whatever it was, it sounded like everything had gone according to plan, or at least close enough to it.

"He was dead, and the morph and Lasentis were gone. But the way he died was just terrible. They say they crushed his wings before ripping them off and then left him there lying on the ground. He changed his forms to save his energy, and he looked just like a human, but covered in cuts and with a bloody hole on his back. It looked like he was alive for a while, but he bled to death before anyone found him."

"Ah," said Morcere. He knew that this was a possibility, but he had hoped that it would not come to pass. His goal was to have zero deaths in this coup, save perhaps his uncle, but he knew from the beginning that that was unlikely. Why else would he have packed their bags with Arcwind tomes?

"Thanks for telling me this," he said finally. "But now I have to talk to Lasentis. This sounds nothing like her, so there must be something we don't know."

They said their farewells, and as Vur resumed walking, Morcere warped away, though not to search for his apprentice, of course. Instead he reappeared within the walls of the capital building, causing no small commotion. The general public was not allowed access there, and though Morcere hardly fell into that category, he was still unexpected.

"I'm sorry," he said to the clerk who he knew was in charge. "But this is very urgent. May I speak with the Divine Dragon King?"

The clerk hesitated for a moment, but who would ever dare refuse Morcere? He was well respected by all and knew a large number of particularly influential individuals, and even if those failed, the legends of his unmatched power would be enough to intimidate anyone. The clerk led him to an ornate door that reached a hundred feet upwards to nearly touch the ceiling. Opulently garbed guards opened it for him, and when he stepped inside, shut it again with a resounding thud. Morcere cast a spell to prevent sound from leaving the room so that those guards or any other people could not overhear his conversation, then proceeded forward to the throne.

The Divine Dragon King was well over 10,000 years old, one of the most ancient dragons alive, though his appearance was closer to that of a seventy year old. His head had just begun balding, though he still had a thick white beard that descended to the middle of his chest. The wrinkles on his face curved inwards in a stern expression, accentuated by the scars along his face and arms. But his appearance was far removed from bearing, for the public had always recognized him for his kindness, wisdom, and morals.

"Hello, my nephew," he said calmly. "It's been a long time."

"962 years, my old friend" said Morcere. He did not want to say more than he had to, else any chance of diplomacy would be lost. The two remained silent for a while.

"What is it that you want?" asked Naga. "It saddens me to say it, but I know that you wouldn't come for the sake of long lost friendship."

"I'm sure you heard of the recent death here. "

"Please. Don't tell me that you had something to do with it."

"Unfortunately, I did. He was not killed by my orders, and I did my best to stop it, but he was killed by my apprentice."

"I see. I know that what you say must be true, just as I know that there is more than what you say. I will not ask if you do not wish for me to know, but do you have anything else to say on the matter?"

"This is only the first step for them. They're running now, but they'll be back soon enough."

"Why?"

"Because I asked them to and they agreed."

Naga sighed and ran one hand through his thinning hair, again not talking for the longest time. "I have heard your warning," he said finally. "What is your request?"

"The same request that I came to you with the day after my father died."

"As I feared. I am sorry to say that you have not changed at all this past millennium, Morcere, and so neither has my answer. I will not give you the throne. No matter what strife comes from your attempt here, I have no doubt that it will be nothing compared to what ensues."

Morcere sighed silently to himself. "I'm not quite the monster you make me out to be," he said. "I will not have dragons die unless there's no way around it. And there is. You know that I'll find a way to the human world eventually, and there are a number of dragons willing to join me. I can't wait thousands of more years for you to descend from the throne at your death; that's a long time even for us, and for humans that enough to bring them back to their strength before the Scouring. With every passing year, they grow stronger and we remain the same. Not so very long from now it will be impossible for us to ever return to the land of our birth."

"And what if I do hold the throne for that long? You would not attack then; you are not suicidal, Morcere."

"You will not," said the Archsage. "Within a year, you will descend one way or another, I can promise you that. My plan's already in motion, and it's not something easy to stop, even for me. I need your cooperation now if you want me to even be able to do anything about it. There are lives at stake here."

"Their blood will be on your hands alone," said Naga. "I wish you would turn back from your path, but I know that you are too willful for that. You've always been more cunning than I have, and if you've dedicated yourself to taking the throne, I'm sure you'll succeed, just as you've said.

"However," he said as he straightened his back, his voice growing firmer, "I will oppose you to the end, even if it is futile. Even the smallest chance of preventing another war with humans will be well worth whatever price I must pay."

Morcere closed his eyes and brought a hand to his head with a sigh. This was not going well at all. Just as he had expected, of course, but it was still disappointing. But he knew that he could not give up yet, and even if it was just as futile as Naga's opposition, Morcere changed tactics.

"And you call me the willful one?" he asked, baring his teeth. "Perhaps you ought to take a fine look at yourself before you start accusing me of that."

"And you're still so bitter," said the King, his pitying tone never wavering. "I know how much you've suffered from your father's death, and believe me, I too know how such anguish feels."

Morcere let out a maddened peal of laughter. "You know nothing, just as you always have. You watched my father get ripped apart by morphs and came fleeing back to safety with your tail between your legs, and how are you rewarded? You take my father's name and title–my birthright–for yourself, and not only that, but lead all of dragonkind down a path of weakness and stagnation, all because you are so mindlessly afraid of those pathetic humans."

"I am concerned for the lives of my people. When you have lived as long as I, you truly grow to appreciate the value of each individual life with all its potential ahead of it."

"Don't think I'm so stupid as to actually believe that. A thousand years ago you were every bit as bitter and stubborn and cunning as I was, the two renegades of the Divine Dragon clan. And that didn't change because of your age but because of your wife."

"Don't go there," said the King, sorrow lining his face. "Please."

Morcere grinned. He had found an opening. "And why ever not? She was the one with your idiot pacifism, the one who wanted the humans to live, not you. You pretended to agree for her, despite having spoken words saying just the opposite when she wasn't listening. Yet she remained ignorant and you both remained happy for centuries.

"And then came the Scouring. My father led the royal family against the humans, including the two of you, and everything seemed to be going so well. Sure, some had died, but you, your wife, and your brother were all still alive, and that's what mattered.

"Then came the sorcerer and his morphs, and suddenly things were not so fine, were they? Your wife died stopping a blow aimed at you so that you could escape, I hear, and so you took your advantage and abandoned her and your older brother and left them to die–and would have done the same to me, your old friend and nephew, if my father had not demanded that I stay out of the battle.

"And somehow that changed you. My old friend Leagan was never a useless pitying pacifist, but when Naga became his name, he quickly changed into that. Oh, it took you a while to realize exactly what your wife's death meant, and you were fine for almost a year after that–time that you used to manipulate your way to the throne while my back was turned, I might add.

"But after you ripped my title away from me and came here away from the war, you had time to think about your wife again. A ruthless tyrant by day, but at night the servants could here you screaming your wife's name in your sleep. In time you grew to become the filthy love-filled lizard that you are today, and your sleep was quiet again, but you were still changed. Centuries passed where the world never heard your laughter nor saw your smile, merely your exhausted, mournful gaze. You can't really expect me to believe that you're satisfied with your reign if you've been acting like that throughout it. I know your true ideals are the same as they were a thousand years ago, the same as mine, even if you refuse to admit it."

"Enough!" roared Naga, a bellow so thunderous that Morcere could feel the shockwave of sound. "I will not listen to your lies any longer! Get out!" He was standing now, his fists clenched and chest heaving.

Morcere regarded his uncle coolly for a moment. "My offer still stands," he said quietly. "If you give me the throne, lives will be saved as your wife would have wished, and the humans will be killed as you and I wish. But I warn you that while I am the one behind the rebellion you will experience in these coming weeks, I am not its leader, and once my apprentices reach my contacts, I doubt I can stop it. That is all."

With a brief incantation he removed the sound stopping spell that he had filled the room with earlier to prevent eavesdroppers, then warped back to his house and promptly went to bed. It was early and he had not eaten dinner, but he didn't have the energy to do anything at all. He wouldn't be waiting for the King's response, because he knew that it wasn't coming. Diplomacy had failed, and dragons would surely die.

–––Author's Notes–––

It was rather obvious where I made canonical extrapolations in this chapter, I think, and it all had very little grounding in anything, therefore I will simply proceed to the most important matter in these notes: please review. This is the first chapter where I am unsure if I conveyed what was necessary, specifically in regards to how people perceive Morcere, and if you have the time, why. But because I am severely cautious of people telling me what they think I want to hear, I will not say what my goal with him was, though I suppose I could tell people individually if they state their impressions first. Thank you very much.

Onward to mildly more interesting matters. Leagan comes from Dutch liagen, which translates to "lie". And on the off chance that there was any confusion on the matter, it is referring to an untruth, rather than resting horizontally on a supporting surface.

And on the ever so slight chance that anybody is interested and because I already have the information compiled for my own reference, I will begin to include weapon statistics in this section for any tomes that made no appearance in Blazing Sword. This will also be added to previously mentioned tomes in the chapters where they were introduced.

Name: Niflheim
Type: Dark
Rank: SS
Might: 255
Hit: 0
Critical: 255
Weight: 20
Range: 1-2
Durability: 5
Weapon Experience: 4
Effect: Magic +5
Comments: This was intended to be a more extreme Eclipse, enhancing its destructive power to ridiculous levels at the cost of a higher rank and weight, and less range and hit. It is of rank SS, denoting a stage one higher than S, as it does in Radiant Dawn. Do note that 255 is the standard maximum numerical value for most in-game statistics. The name is the same as a rough equivalent of the underworld in Norse mythology.

And one final, hopefully not too terribly obnoxious time: this chapter needs reviews far more than any previous one. If I must make revisions to it, I wish to do so with all reasonable haste in order to minimize confusion for you and other readers.