At the next floor down, Edrin made a few more rubbings, and
again stored them carefully away in his map case.
"What do you think of Mac Anu?" Edrin asked as they
went down the stairs to the third level.
"What do you mean?" Tordek asked peering down the
hallway and gasping. The carnage of the dragon chamber was more
than he expected. The obsidian tower Mortalus had sundered the
dragon in two, but it looked like both pieces tore the room
apart for some time after that.
Edrin was taken aback by the site as well. It just wasn't a
scene you expected to see with a dragon in, any type of dragon.
For a moment Edrin wished he had brought Natalie or Saul with
him as well, just to try to make sense of what they were looking
at.
With untrained eyes, Tordek and Edrin guessed that after being
sundered by the sudden growth of the tower, the front half of
the dragon tried to dig through the north wall. Since Edrin
remembered going through the shadows of the south wall he ruled
out that the dragon was trying to get at him and the crew of
people he rescued from this chamber three days ago.
The mindless, but very powerful back half of the dragon seemed
to have shattered the eastern back wall with blows that smashed
open several anti-chambers and finally out into the trenches
dug by the lava flow. Rubble now clogged up that last area,
but from Tordek's mental measurements, that is what it was.
The gore of the creature was every where. Despite all of this,
what drew both of their attention was the blue stone the dragon
had clawed away the natural rocks to expose on the Northern
wall.
"You don't suppose..." Tordek started and then stopped
and grabbed the medallion that hung around his neck. A disk
of mithril with a hammer and anvil carved in the center. The
sign of Mordant, the forge Father.
Edrin didn't suppose anything. Two centuries of training in
archeology taught him to see what he saw, not what he supposed,
but that didn't stop a chill of ice from running down his spine.
He knew precious little about the beings known as the Slarecians.
He knew that neither the Gods nor the Titans 'made' them. The
writings he had suggested that they simply appeared about a
thousand years ago. He knew they were cruel and traitorous,
and were responsible for many acts of terror throughout history.
He knew also at some point the Slarecians were able to capture
the Goddess Drendari, Mistress of Shadows, and rip from her
the power to control shadows as she did. That last bit of information
was enough to set him on edge. What he also knew however was
that the Gods decided that enough was enough and tried to eradicate
the Slarecians. They lost.
Somehow the powers of the Slarecian people were beyond the
powers of the Gods themselves and it was only with the help
of their parents the Titans that the Slarecians were finally
beaten down. It is said that the war between the Slarecian people
and the Gods and Titans was almost lost as well.
No Slarecian has ever been reported since the time of that
war. Many of their artifacts and cities still remain, and their
servants the Penumbral Lords also remain. Edrin and Tordek both
had seen a Slarecian fortress before, and destroyed a Penumbral
Lord who was taking refuge within.
What bothered Edrin the most however was 'what exactly was
a Slarecian Dragon?' He knew a great deal about dragons and
dragonkind. They were a passion of his since he was a child.
A Silver Dragon often visited his father back then, and they
discussed many peoples and races that had long disappeared.
Edrin in fact owned several books that the Dragon Marious had
written for him.
However a Slarecian Dragon just didn't make any sense at all.
You didn't hear about Human Dragons or Elf Dragons. Were these
creatures a type of pet to the Slarecians? Were they created
by them? That didn't make any sense either. The Slarecians made
constructs such as the gargoyles and the Muses. They didn't
create beings, and if they did they certainly wouldn't have
started out with dragons. There would have been other beings,
other races, less powerful created first.
Edrin knew the answer to all of this; he knew it as soon as
he saw the creature. Some part of his soul knew what he was
looking at; his mind simply didn't want to think about the answer.
It was there however. Like a black spike in his mind. He knew
that what he was looking at was a Slarecian. Somehow the Slarecians
grew in power until they transformed into dragons.
"We're going to be here a while." Edrin said, and
stepped into the chamber, walking towards the corpse of the
dead Slarecian dragon.
Tordek dropped his pick axe and drew his battle axe from its
sheath, following Edrin into the room, trying not to smell the
gore. "You think that is wise?"
"No, but I do think it is necessary." Edrin responded,
his voice calm and monotone.
