Place: Mausoleum
Time: Winter
Object: A flickering candle
December, 1644
The
frigid snow crunched underfoot, the only sound in the dark stillness.
Clouds hung heavy in the sky, dropping tender white flakes of ice to
join their kind on the ground below. The winter gusts bit even through
her heavy black bearskin cape, but she did not acknowledge it. In her
right hand she bore a festive evergreen wreath, woven with a black satin
bow. In her left, a tall candle burning brightly in the cold grey
elements. The soft echoes of carolers in the city reached her ears, but
the music did not reach her heart.
She trudged to the door of
the ancient mausoleum. The latch was still bright from the last time it
had been opened, one year previous. She left the wreath hanging upon
the door, and moved inside, shining her candle upon the two fresh crypts
there: Ewan and Berenice Thorne, perished within a year of each
other—the most recent being her father, having fallen at the Battle of
Alton a year prior. It would be her first Christmas alone. She placed
the candle on the stand and knelt before the graves.
The candle flickered, but it was a warm wind that blew.
"Cailleach."
She raised her head as the voice resounded from the palpable gloom beyond the light of the candle.
"How dost thou fare?" She asked the shadows.
A
broad, scaly head bent into view. The deep-blue scales blended into the
darkness, while a glinting golden sheen gave the illusion of a night
sky at the back of the mausoleum.
"I am well," replied the dragon.
Cailleach gently touched the warm snout when the dragon bent its head toward her.
The
Thorne family had been guardians of the Midnight Dragon ever since
Arglwydd Thorne, her great-grandfather, had discovered him trapped in a
crater where he had apparently arrived in this world from wherever his
origins, wounded by an even more fearsome predator. Arglwydd had nursed
him back to health and given him a home in the family's spacious
mausoleum, where the dragon maintained vigil over the dead while
remaining out of sight of other humans. Every generation, when the child
came of age, was presented to the Midnight Dragon, and admonished to
both keep the family secret and visit the dragon once a year, on the
anniversary of the most recent death.
This visit, however, was not like other visits. Cailleach Thorne had been summoned.
"What is thy bidding?" She asked as the Midnight Dragon flexed his mighty legs. The tips of his wings scraped along the stone floor.
The
Dragon raised his head and sniffed the air. "There are stirrings in the
threads of time, Aeres Thorne. I have summoned you to tell you I must
leave."
Cailleach dared look upon the magnificent dragon, such was her surprise. "Wherefore?" She gasped.
"The
Ecrivaine is coming," whispered he. "'Twas an ancient spell that
brought me here, and only the word of the Ecrivaine can send me back, in
the right place and manner."
Cailleach trembled from head to toe. What if something were to happen to him? "Whither shalt thou go?"
"I
go North," said the dragon. "There are High Lands there, where I shall
meet the Ecrivaine. Fare thee well, Arglwyddes Thorne. Thou hast borne
thy duty well."
The Midnight Dragon spread his wings, and
seemed to envelop Cailleach in the night sky. The darkness cleared, and
he was gone. Cailleach left the candle burning bright in the darkness of
the vacant mausoleum, till an errant gust of wind snuffed it.
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