Dragon Aster Trilogy (9 page)

“Come, there’s more to show you.” Cirrus put the cards back in the box before returning it to the shelf. Then he headed out from the room with her following.

They walked for a few minutes more before the small hallways opened to a much wider and higher cavern of a hall, or what might have been an impressive one once. The pillars and white stone that had fallen all about made it look more like a catastrophe of rubble now. But what caught her interest the most was the white stone slabs near the end of it.

Sybl walked over to them and climbed over a few, before stopping on an elevated platform of the same stone that had survived for the most part. “What happened here?”

Cirrus looked at her for a while after he caught up, as if expecting her to know already. “Six months ago, our enemies, being the pluma like you saw at the Canyon, invaded these Caverns and brought the Fay Wall down. This was where we used to shelter our daorans and young.”

“That must have been horrible. But how do a bunch of winged cats do all this?”

“It was our first encounter with the Aeger, which is a sickness that drives the more simpler Ancients and Eminor out of control. They didn’t feel pain, and they didn’t stop until they had what they came for which was the lives of our most innocent. This Wall was considered to be a bone of Aragmoth, but as strong as it was, it didn’t stand a chance against a hundred plumas. They cut the life Threads to it and sent it crumbling down. We went back for vengeance, and although we killed most of them, we lost our Prince to the monsters.” Cirrus didn’t say anything more as he headed back the way they came and changed direction towards a strong wind coming from somewhere.

Sybl caught her hair as a blast of it blew her back before she could enter the next place Cirrus did. She caught the side of the rough wall and pulled herself into the room, before looking across to the abyss of the chasm that cut into the mountain. Then she looked at the giant holes that were responsible for the wind. It was almost powerful enough to lift her off of her feet. “Have these winds ever stopped?”

“Only once,” Cirrus replied, unmoved by the wind.

Sybl decided to leave it at that as his expression returned to what it had been at the ruins of the Fay Wall.

“We made the wrong choice. Revenge against an enemy wasn’t the answer to a sickness, and it brought us less than nothing in the end.”

She scrambled to try and catch him, before the wind picked her up and set her afloat. “Help!”

Cirrus seemed content to use her to change the topic before he could reflect the pain of his past onto her any further. He used the wind to set her over the Chasm as he focused in on her more simpler thoughts. Like her particular one on falling. “I’m sorry, did you just say you wanted down?”

“Yes. Please. But not—”

Sybl cried out in terror as she thought she was going to die when he dropped her. Then a surge of wind lifted her back up to the top again where his hand awaited hers. Her legs shook on trying to stand upright.

“If you were more specific with your escaping thoughts, things like this would be easier to avoid.”

“Point...taken...” Sybl said as she trembled a couple more times. “Just how do I do that?”

“You have to learn how to focus, and I wouldn’t be cheating if I didn’t have an Ancient to help with that. Your anxiety makes too much noise and any single thought you try to direct gets shaken off path by it.”

“I have an excuse to be full of anxiety,” Sybl said with another shudder. “I have a whole list of ‘em!”

“No, not anymore. Now give it a try. Think something to me without thinking of a hundred other things at the same time.”

“Um, okay.” Sybl looked at his eyes as she thought about the blue sky she might never see again on Earth.

“Try harder.”

She closed her eyes and thought about his name being that of cloud. Her focus was still failing as a rush of wind pushed her back and closer to the edge of the chasm. “Okay okay I got this!” Sybl pleaded. She tried again, before catching sight of something moving along the wall. When she looked closer, it proved to be a transparent shape of a dragon, but not so much as a fifth the size she had remembered it before. “Dragon?”

It was still the wrong answer as the spirit came straight at and through her in a rush of wind. The force of it all was strong enough to lift and throw her backwards off the edge, before the hands of a solid dragon caught her and twisted them back upright. Then Cirrus flew back up and through his chosen tunnel at the speed of a roller coaster. He carefully navigated the tunnels as she hung on for dear life, before the light on the other side could be seen and he rose up into it. Then he climbed higher as his command over the wind propelled the force of his wings straight upwards.

Kas hadn’t stopped pacing since they reached the Chasm. It looked to be driving him just short of mad to be lacking the wings to reach her. It was solid rock under the mountain, making it impossible to emerge from a Rift under it.

Hain was more interested in what was in the sky. “We have to go, they’re going to kill us if we sit like ducks here.”

“She is right there!” Kas yelled through his despair. “You have wings—you can fly over and—”

“And nothing! I can’t fly.”

“Why won’t you help me?”

“Because I can’t. Even if I could find a way to fly across that wind, that is a mountain of trained dragoons. We’re leaving, now,” Hain said as he caught Kas’ arm in hand. “We lost this round.”

“I will not lose her!” Kas cried in despair as he gripped the arm of the Mei that connected him to Sybl and pulled away from Hain’s grip. “I... I could have told her everything.”

“It wouldn’t have changed anything. If you told her then, you would have lost her sooner.”

“Why does Aragmoth not hear my most desperate prayers?”

A piece of Hain broke when the kid was reduced to tears. He had no memory of Kas crying before, not even when he was an infant.

As he could feel his own sadness being sung from a Nova within the Caverns, his conscience started to win over his mind.
Dammit.
He pulled forth from his psi enough of a trance to see the Threads that reached into the mountain. Then with one last thought on it, Hain touched the one leading to his own Bond.

There was no heartbeat as Cirrus released her from his hands and into the vastness of space and all its stars.

Sybl only felt fear now with the idea that they would freeze and suffocate from where they were, but she could feel Cirrus smile at her.
Cirrus...how are we breathing up here?

‘Much better,’
he congratulated her on her immensely improved psi skills.
‘I brought some air along, don’t worry.
’

She tried not to as she looked to the world below them. They had flown impossibly high, as she could just make out the shapes and colors of the land and water.
I guess taking next to everything out of the picture helps this psi thing?

‘I’ve always found it easier to think up here. No Thread to tie your mind to constant regrets and nothing to hold your thoughts down.
’

You have the whole world under your wings, what could you regret?

‘Power only leads to destruction, and I have destroyed much in my life. The regret of doing so is always there, and always closing me into a smaller and smaller place of darkness.
’

Yet you’re a dragon and the perfect creature for battle.

‘My kind were meant for more than conquest and death. Even if they have trouble remembering just that.
’

I’m totally seeing rescuing damsels in distress without eating them, and space travel so far,
Sybl thought back as she looked around. It was fun up here.

‘There’s hardly any meat on you. It would be a waste of good company.
’

I see how it is...

Cirrus pushed her a bit further away from him, till she looked down at what might happen if he did have it in him to be mean to her. She quickly took the thought back.

I thought Aster was below Earth?

He looked to where she did as his wind controlled by his wings floated him steady.
‘It is.
’

So how are we in space?

‘This is but another perception of Aragmoth’s mind. An image captured and sewn to keep those who would believe it is real bound to the world. This space, stars and even the moon are nothing more than the back of his eyes from the reflection of the sky he sees on Earth.’
He pulled her up higher with him. ‘
In the beginning, the Great Dragon was content to sleep with Asil’s dreams forever inside him. A thousand years later she would stir and want to be released as his dreams were not enough to keep her content. So he released her from his grip and opened his eyes, which became the three Aurs of Aster. The Ain Soph Aur, the Estus and Sylvan; life, death and the last eye was so that he could forever watch and ward against Earth should it be bold enough to attack again while he was exposed.
’

Again?

‘The first Aster was a world much like this, only Ancients, Eminor and Sylvan could all live separately from each other. The Dragon Moon that Earth sent after it shattered that peace and the first Aster into dust, where after Aragmoth formed and took refuge inside Earth itself. Aragmoth’s blood absorbed the Dragon Moon’s dark soul within him for strength. His scales and tears became the soil, and the waters of this second Aster. Of his wings, spanned the Dragon and Efereal Mountains, and of his back and neck spanned the Kyrie Plains. Of his breath, became the aeri and estus, and of the blood he took from the Dragon Moon, the Keol or blood tears formed.
’

So much for writing it off as a dream. But I don’t think my science class is gonna go for this.

‘There are only a few on your world who are aware ours is real. The Sentry cut and control all Threads and memories that would allow us to exist on Earth.
’

So you’re saying that whatever brought me here in the physical had the power to go right through this Great Dragon without the use of a Sylvan Light?

‘Yes. Cecil hadn’t finished fixing the Gate in the town of Berion before it was destroyed, yet there’s a good chance it has something to do with how you were brought here.
’

None of this answers why anyone would want me here.

‘You have no idea just how important you are.
’

Heh, if only that were true,
Sybl replied, sadly.
So do I get my own Ancient for awesome purposes?

‘You already have one.
’

Sybl smiled in a blush as the dragon looked at her with an expression that refused to be cheated out from the topic.

‘
Now which one did you want?’
Cirrus asked as he looked about with his head to the stars, as if to calculate just how far every last one was.

I thought you said these aren’t real?

‘Well, I never actually checked up close...
’

Do I get any say in where I’m going next?

‘Not until you pick one, because I’m not flying us back down until you do. You’re going to have to be very focused in which one you pick out with your psi as well.
’

She couldn’t pick a star—for she feared he would fly straight through to Earth if he went after it for real. She didn’t want to fly right back to it. So she set her focus on the moon.
That one.

Cirrus looked to where she did.
‘Hey, I said star. I’m not big enough to carry that one back.
’

Who says it’s not a star?

‘The Texts. The simple fact it doesn’t glow by itself...
’

Well, if this moon is just a reflection, then everything is a reflection of light up here, including the stars and nothing is glowing entirely by itself or has any weight of its own.

‘You are just as hard to reason with as Cecil is. Alright, well in that case I’ll have to come back for it.
’

Don’t think I won’t hold you to it,
Sybl teased.