ADGIT 14

Passing down the gift of the Ancestor Dragon? What did that mean?

However, that might not be the correct question. Hiero should be asking what was the goal of whoever was showing him an alternate future. Specifically, this future where he had descendants, not that he ever considered making any, and where everything seemed to have turned out… fine.

Many a tale about wandering spirits ended with either finishing their business on the mortal plane—Hiero had none, with Tabithala in the real world mostly ash—or accepting a lesson that they could no longer change whatever their issue was. Hiero was more than ready to accept that he made a mistake if that would give him eternal rest.

He was dead. There was no point to all of this.

But it seemed the god of this afterlife wasn’t satisfied yet and had more to show him.

Hiero stood straighter and followed Aileen, yawning away the last clinging of sleep. “I was wondering… how can there be Draecontyrs with no full dragons to get Cores from?”

“What dragon Cores are you talking about?” She looked over her shoulder and gave a condescending stare. “Dragons, like humans, don’t have any. You should know that basic fact. That Tiskas sculpture over there? It wasn’t some artistic rendition of a dragon. We have books, diaries, and old paintings confirming that dragons really don’t have Cores.

“They’re divine beings, dragons. I know many will disagree. Maybe you too, but don’t tell me about it.”

“I won’t if I am,” said Hiero, puzzled at this twist. Dragons were the gods here?

“Dragons can manipulate aileh in nature,” said Aileen. “What more proof is needed? That’s why they don’t have Cores like beasts and some plants. Humans, also lacking Cores, have a chance to be divine. That’s why we use the Cores of beasts and lord over them. The First Emperor was seen fit to accept the gift by the Ancestor Dragon, an empty cup getting filled with divinity. Or so the clergy says.”

Hiero raised a brow as he placed a hand on his chest. “How does your royal family become dragons then? What are they passing—”

“Their blood.” Aileen stopped in front of a painting and placed her hands on her hips. “What else would it be, my dear Klanaan? Emperors and empresses pass their divine blood to their offspring. One in each generation will be blessed with the gift to turn into a dragon, and so will succeed their parent. Minus the dragon-transforming affair, isn’t it similar to only one heir becoming the next king and the like? Doesn’t Klana have a hereditary monarchy as well?”

“Uh, yes…?” Hiero’s brows furrowed. Such a peculiar succession method. It didn’t make sense only one child inherited the supposedly divine powers. He was getting further and further from deciphering the message of this afterlife.

“The difference, however, is that the blood of our rulers is truly special. Compared to other kings and lords who are just normal—” Aileen gasped and covered her mouth. “I didn’t say anything offensive, did I? I have no intention whatsoever to insult your Lord Mako.”

“No worries,” said Hiero. “I do sometimes wonder about the merits of inheriting a position because of an ancestor’s luck in the draw of fate.” Like many other things, Hiero couldn’t understand why Aileen thought he was from Klana and related to a certain Lord Mako. But she seemed amiable if he went along with the misunderstanding. “I suppose that applies to me as well.”

“And me too,” Aileen said with a smirk. “I’m not blind to the fact that a large part of my… privileges… are due to my birth. Even this.” She combed her flaming red hair with her fingers. “We get along quite well, Hierona.”

“Having a dragon’s blood, though… That’s magnitudes different from being born into nobility.”

Hiero didn’t find the idea of a human and dragon hybrid too surprising. The Biosyn, throughout their long history, attempted it, intending to connect humanity with nature. Even before the advent of mind gardens, forgotten scholars tried to mix the unmixable. Hiero recalled that Mitho approached him with a crazy experiment when he became a Draecontyr. Hiero rejected the proposal, of course. As far as he knew, no one had succeeded in something remotely like this—a bloodline of dragon-transforming humans.

Why did this illusory future go this route?

“That’s just how it goes here in Krysperia,” said Aileen.

“Have people tried to claim the throne by pretending to have the same bloodline?”

“Are you thinking of Molders turning into dragons? That’s impossible.”

Hiero nodded. “If there are no dragon Cores… then, yes. Impossible.”

“Enough of the nonsense speculations.” Aileen cheerily waved at the painting beside them. “Here we have the first of the dragon’s bloodline mixed with humans. The First Emperor, Hiero!”

An old man with a white mane and flowing beard, donning regal armor, looked sternly down on them. His eyes were piercing blue, unlike Hiero’s darkish brown, and his skin lighter too. The painting looked like something from the castle of the Grammus High King. If Hiero saw this painting without anyone telling him about its story, he would’ve guessed its subject was an ancestor of the equally old and now-dead Grammaton.

“This is your Hiero?” asked the real Hiero. At least, he was the real one before his death. In this world, he might not be. “He doesn’t look like…” He was about to say ‘me’, but instead finished with, “…like a dragon.”

Aileen snorted. “Because he’s not in his dragon form, obviously.” She grabbed Hiero’s arm and pulled him a few feet forward to the next painting. “This is it!”

She pointed to a picture of a red dragon, imposing and formidable, spewing fire on armies that were like ants beneath him. It reminded Hiero of the father of Tiskas. Yet another message, no doubt. A feeble attempt to tug at his conscience he wasn’t sure even existed. He was growing tired of this.

But his guide, Aileen, appeared to be enjoying herself.

“They say the First Emperor’s dragon form was as tall as the inner walls of the Hold!” she excitedly said, stretching her arm as high as she could. “If so, then he’s much bigger than depicted in this painting. Inaccuracies here and there. I think if the First Emperor stretched his legs and long neck—add his horns—he might match that height.”

Hiero looked past Aileen rambling about dragons. The hall stretched further, with more paintings, alternating humans and dragons. There were moments in history when Draecontyrs ruled cities and even whole kingdoms. Turning into a gigantic, aileh-breathing monster was a persuasive argument to be a ruler. But they rarely established any dynasties because their children weren’t Draecontyr.

“During the Unification Wars, the First Emperor—” Aileen stopped when she noticed where Hiero was looking. “Ah, yes. More portraits to show you. I’m easily distracted when dragons are the topic. Come”

The descendants of this First Emperor looked different from each other as if they weren’t family. It was reasonable to expect some prominent features common among them, like a few with the same nose shape or sharing high cheekbones or prominent foreheads. Hiero admitted he wasn’t good with faces, but he couldn’t see these people being related by blood to each other.

It could be that they married royalty from far-flung countries, resulting in wildly varying appearances through generations. Though, wouldn’t that dilute their bloodline?

Why am I puzzling over the logic of an illusion?

In contrast, the transformed counterparts of these mysterious rulers were all red dragons. No golden dragons. No ironwark drakes. No azure-tips of the sea. All red. If this was to torment Hiero for killing Tiskas, then it wasn’t working. Tiskas tried to stop his plan and paid the price. Both of them went into that fight—though Hiero barely remembered it—knowing that only one of them would survive.

Or was this another future that never was because of his actions? Human-dragon hybrids were interesting. And that was it. This illusory world still hadn’t presented its point.

Aileen continued to drone about the paintings. She’d give a line or two about the humans, at times unsure about their names, and then she’d gush about the dragons like a girl excited about a man she adored… if that man was hellbent on murder and destruction. She rattled off the enemies killed and cities razed by this or that ruler dragon while giggling.

There was something not very right with her.

“A bout of the Blight emerged around a hundred years ago,” said Aileen. “Emperor Soliman was up to the task of stopping it. With his impressive six-winged dragon form, he—”

“The Blighted Multitude is still around?” Hiero asked, tilting his head. Wasn’t this supposed to be a happy future he never got? “Didn’t the dragons defeat them all, or did I misunderstand you?”

“Defeated them in the Claiming of the East,” Aileen patiently explained. “Defeated is the right term. But…”

“The claiming wasn’t so successful?”

“Exactly, Hierona.” Aileen led him to the end of a hallway. “I’m hoping that you know what this is. We’re taught the same thing about where we live, right?”

A map that shone its own light took up an entire wall. It showed a familiar island.

Tabithala, Hiero recognized.

The names of the cities and borders drawn were mostly different from what he recalled, some didn’t change, but the outline of the continent was mostly the same. He couldn’t mistake it for anything else because of its odd shape. It was like an oblong that was pinched in the middle.

So, not an oblong at all. More like the goggles worn by the Romo when working the Dust Forges to protect their eyes. Two large landmasses, vaguely circular, with a ‘bridge’ in between.

This bridge connecting the East and the West was a formidable and expansive mountain range, the tallest and third longest in Tabithala, plagued with aileh storms and other phenomena the mind gardens couldn’t explain.

Archdragon Mordaneigh, leader of the dragons and Tiskas’ uncle, once told Hiero of its story. When the firstborn dragons came to settle Tabithala thousands of years ago, the place wasn’t one whole continent but rather two. The Long Sea raged between them, spilling into the Paxus Ocean in the north, and the Agen in the South. Those dragons found that the place they thought to be their new home was made barren by its occupants who weren’t willing to share. On the western island, primordial giants, with bellies as large as hills, had eaten almost everything except the very dirt they stood on and were beginning to consume each other. The father of those giants, Moab, slept on his lonesome on the other likewise empty eastern island.

Smelling a new food source with the dragon’s arrival, Moab awoke and reached for the skies. He was so tall that he caught a firstborn dragon in the sky and immediately stuffed it inside his mouth.

Battle ensued. The firstborn dragons barely won, eradicating the primordial giants, and fertilizing the earth with their aileh-rich remains. Moab fell into the Long Sea. The resulting tsunami created rivers and streams that webbed across the two islands. Moab’s corpse quickly calcified and somehow became a mountain range. His heart was the biggest heart node of Tabithala, breathing new life into the lands he and his children had consumed as water flowed throughout to sustain it.

Likely a legend with sprinklings of truth, Hiero had no interest in it even if he had seen bones of the primordial giants. What he wanted to know was the story of the Unclaimed Lands.

Aileen pointed to the lower right part of the continent. “See here, this grayish bit of Tabithala across the east coast? That’s the Unclaimed Lands.” She sighed. “Claiming of the East. Unclaimed Lands. I know, I know. They should have thought of better names for events and places. But undeniably very descriptive.”

“The Blighted are still there?” If this was an illusion meant to plague him with his failure, why it wasn’t a completely happy ending?

“Yes, shadow abominations roam those lands. How can you not know about this?”

“I… have a very sheltered upbringing. And is there a need to know about the Blighted so far away from me?” Hiero spied Klana on the map, a small territory a fair distance westward of Krysperia, almost reaching the coast.

Hiero raised a brow at the size of Krysperia. This empire.

It occupied a massive area in the middle of Tabithala, the entire mountainous land bridge was within its domain, no doubt giving it immense power over trade and diplomacy. Aderenthyn Citadel was now the heart of a city called Krys, presumably Krysperia’s capital. The empire—such a funny word—branched out to half of former Grammus lands to the west, and where the great cities of Whendel, Imano, and Koromir once stood to the east.

“I’m not going blame you for not knowing about the Blighted,” said Aileen. “Most people don’t care about them, even Krysperians. Including me. Out of sight, out of mind, as they say.”

“Why doesn’t the Blighted spread from the Unclaimed Lands?” Hiero asked. It only took a few years for the entire east to fall from the first recorded Blight victim.

“Don’t lose sleep over it, Hierona,” said Aileen. “You didn’t have problems about the Blighted then, you shouldn’t worry about them now. There are massive Wedges spaced throughout the border of the Unclaimed Lands, powering a powerful barrier made by the powerful ancient mages that keep the Blighted inside—one of the last acts of the mind gardens before they fought amongst themselves.”

The mind gardens are no more? This truly was a future with a happy ending.

Aileen continued, “The Blighted can’t go out of their pen and find more to add to their number and became a Multitude.”

“What about tunneling below the ground?”

Aileen shook her head. “Not going to work, dear Hierona. The barrier is a huge sphere that covers the earth below and the sky above. Completely enclosed. The dragons couldn’t eradicate all traces of the Blighted three hundred years ago, so the barrier was supposed to be a temporary solution made by the mind gardens until someone got around to finishing the job… which no one ever did. No country saw the upside of risking their armies getting infected by the Blight for what was essentially a solved problem. Over the years, people just strengthened the barrier.”

“But you said one of your emperors fought the Blighted a hundred years ago. So, it’s possible to escape from—”

“No, no, those weren’t from the Unclaimed lands. At least, that’s what's written in history books. No one really knows where they came from. Sometimes, the Blight spurts in some places. I’m guessing they’re remnants that have laid dormant for centuries and somehow got disturbed.”

“That doesn’t sound too reassuring.”

“If the Blighted comes back, we have the dragon-rulers of Krysperia to turn to,” she matter-of-factly replied. “The aileh flames breathed by dragons can cleanse the decaying taint rightly so. That’s why, my dear Klanaan, you should pay attention to your lessons more.” She smacked her palm on the map, covering the city of Krys. “For you to know the rich history and importance of Krysperia.”

This is the reason… Hiero thought as Aileen rambled about the significant happenings connected to the rise of Krypseria. He found the reason why the First Emperor, supposedly him, and Tiskas went to the Forgotten Lands in search of dragons. He didn’t know dragons could do something like that; he couldn’t when he transformed into a dragon.

Was this the answer to saving Tabithala? Though what good does knowing about it do to him now?

“It’s not like I could turn back time,” Hiero muttered.

“Turn back what?” Aileen asked. “Oh, you want to return back up? Of course, we can do that. You must be tired of touring the expansive Fahllyr House. All this talk about the Blighted might be filling your mind with gloom. Let’s go up, we should enjoy ourselves because the Fountain Festival is…”

Hiero didn’t listen to the rest of Aileen’s words, latching on to one phrase… the Blighted might be filling your mind…

What if he wasn’t dead? He was supposed to die, but what if he failed to ignite the heart node? His last memories were of Tiskas trying to stop him. Tiskas failed, dying to Hiero’s claws.

And after that?

Nothing.

Maybe he didn’t manage to execute his plan because the Blight took over him. Hiero didn’t know what people infected with the Blight think or feel or know, only that they have some semblance of themselves occasionally surfacing. It was possible their minds—his mind, too—were wrapped in an illusion, while their real bodies mutated into the light-forsaken.

Very plausible, Hiero thought, nodding as he stared down at the steps of the stairs they climbed.

His new theory about his predicament was likelier than his afterlife one but less hopeless. If he had joined the Blighted Multitude, there might be a way out. Adrenaline rushed through his body. So long as he retained his mind, there was a chance to do… He did not know yet what he could do.

They finally reached the ground level. Hiero recognized the make of the stairs and the walls, with wide arching windows running through the sides of the hallways, even if everything else was different. This was one of the palaces inside Aderenthyn Citadel. The armies didn’t occupy it during the siege because of how open and indefensible it was. Instead of the emptiness it used to hold, lush potted plants, intricate statues, and gleaming ornaments beautified the place. Banners draped from the ceiling while portraits gazed as they passed.

Hiero looked out the window, familiar tall walls loomed in the distance. Many people were outside, busy with some sort of construction. It was Aderenthyn Citadel, but also wasn’t.

One last possibility occurred to Hiero.

What if I’m in the future?

(Author's Notes: Took some time to get back to this story. I'll make the next ADGIT release as an advance for this tier.)