‘And so – this is what I will do. This whole nightmare began before the Stone Crown, but her powers increased after she made it or found it – or however she got a hold of it! If I can take it, and hide it out there somewhere – then perhaps her powers will be lessened. Perhaps her control over the Great Golden Bull Dragon will be broken. The people of these lands may have a chance to organize, or perhaps just to not fear firestorm and earthquake every time they dare speak up—’”
And then Master Johannes abruptly stopped, looking at the final paragraph with deep, deep sadness. “And that is the true legacy of Torvald,” he murmured to himself, and the gloomy feelings in the air of the room threatened to blind us.
“This was how her travel journal came to be,” I murmured out loud to Abioye and the others, but only Johannes, Montfre, and Tamin appeared to be listening to me at all, as Abioye had turned abruptly around to start tracking through books in the reading lobby and the shelves just beyond, reading their spines before picking one out, and then another to flick through them.
I thought of all of the landmarks that the Lady Artifex had lovingly depicted along the way, everything from the standing stones that we Daza knew as the Crow (or Broken Thumb, according to the Lady Artifex’s map) or the Sea of Mists, the Shifting Sands… It had all been a treasure map, of sorts. A way for her to track her way to where she had hidden the Stone Crown from her evil master. I wondered for a moment why this strong, noble Lady Artifex even wanted to remember where the Stone Crown was going to be hidden… Maybe she was wiser than I had thought. Maybe she had guessed that it would rise again, somehow, and in some other time…
“A gigantic multicolored dragon, you say?” Abioye said, returning to the table with a stack of books, and thumping them down. I wondered what he was doing.
“I may be no great scholar, clerk, or historian,” Abioye said gently, “but it seems that this golden dragon had a mate, or a partner – or a sibling, perhaps.” His eyes flickered towards me with the briefest nod as he recognized just what it was that I had told him earlier, relaying Ymmen’s misgivings about Zaxx the Gold and his sister, Fargal. “And that other dragon had been close enough to respond to the High Queen Delia’s call – but also strong-willed enough to keep her distance, as surely the Lady Artifex would have mentioned her again if she had been a regular visitor to this mountain?” Abioye said, explaining his musing.
“We know that the Stone Crown has great power for evil – and Narissea here has shared with me that Ymmen himself and the other wilder dragons hate it. But this older dragon mentioned by the Lady Artifex was there, during that meeting. She knows what happened. She might know of a way to destroy the Stone Crown – or, at the very least, she seems powerful enough to be a truly great ally against Inyene,” he said.
Oh, thank you, Abioye! Suddenly my heart swelled for him. He had found a way to tell the others to concentrate on finding Fargal, without telling Master Johannes of the strange dreams or visions and voices in my head about her.
“And here seem to be the more general books of dragon sightings and records,” Abioye started separating out the stacks of books, before looking across at me a little sheepishly. “There were a few of these kinds of books in the poor houses where I grew up,” he said in a small voice. “The poor houses were usually run by charitable orders, and they had small, completely disorganized libraries where those of us who knew how to read could go.” He flicked open one of the leather-bound volumes to reveal that inside, its stiffened vanilla-yellow paper had been split into lined columns, with dragon sightings, location, and some kind of date sitting side by side.
“I used to be fascinated by these logbooks – as dragons were so rare…” he explained.
“The dragons are so rare, you mean!” Johannes grumbled, taking three of the tomes as Tamin took a couple, Montfre took a couple, and I gingerly picked out one.
Together, our little group leafed through the books, stopping at any entry that seemed to say ‘colorful’ or ‘many colors’ or just listed more than two or three colors to the sightings. It took a looong time, and my eyes were starting to ache with tired straining by the time that we had amassed so many entries that we had to use slips of blank parchment provided by the Master Johannes to keep a track of them all.
“But really, only a handful match the size we are looking for.” The Master Johannes appeared to be in his element, looking briefly through all of our finds. In the end, he settled for no more than six or so across almost a dozen books and easily over fifty or more entries that we had catalogued.
“You could have had a career as a clerk, young man!” the Master Johannes congratulated Abioye, who, despite his strong jaw, broad shoulders, and slight bruises and grazes about his face and arms that showed him to be a fighter – he blushed at the compliment! It made him look quite sweet, I thought for a moment—
“Here, there are at least five reports that confirm the existence of a truly gigantic multicolored dragon,” the Master Johannes said, summarizing just what he thought these entries were talking about. I yawned, feeling very, very tired indeed. “And these reports indicate a wingspan greater than any that even I can recall!” As Master Johannes spoke, I wondered precisely how old this ancient teacher or tutor of the Dragon Monastery really was…
“All of these accounts talk about the dragon’s presence, like a wave of power through the mind, as well as its colors shining and shimmering with many, many facets of light…” Johannes said.
“But where can she be found?” I burst out, remembering the dream-dragon’s voice that I had awoken to on at least two occasions now: Come to me, Come to me…
“Its territory appears to be along the central belt of the Dragon Spine Mountains.” Master Johannes waved a vague hand west of us, “And here, these two accounts talk about seeing it in the high Pastures, near a place called the Circle of Grom.”
“The Circle of Grom?” I frowned. That didn’t particularly sound like a very welcoming place to my ears.
“It’s a gigantic hollow in the mountains, or the remnants of a dried-up lake perhaps,” Master Johannes explained, cupping his hands together to depict how it created a circle. “People used to claim that it had been built or was the work of a very small falling star – but no one knows, really. It has always been considered an eerie and strange place, so even the mountain tribes rarely deign to climb that high!”
“Sounds like the perfect place to hide out if you’re an ancient dragon who is weary of the world.” Abioye nodded towards the rest of the group, and then to me.
“Yes,” I nodded back. It felt right. It felt like we had found Fargal, sister of Zaxx the Tyrant’s lair.