The Siege Against Tolkeen

Chapter Thirty-Eight

In a place of darkness, where time meant little and space could be molded like putty, there was a castle of glass and obsidian. The castle sat on a mountaintop, its twisted spires reaching up towards the heavens and very nearly pricking the fluffy black clouds. At the foot of the mountain, mindless gibbering things with many eyes and power beyond that of any mortal man danced an endless dance, praising the sole inhabitant of the black castle in a tongue that even they did not understand. They understood very little of the world. Their purpose was to dance and to sing in honor of their lord, and they intended to do it until the stars burned out.

The lord of the castle sat on a throne of dragon skulls, brooding and thinking dark thoughts. Although he had been a servant (some would say lap-dog) of the Old Ones and was therefore an unbelievably ancient being, the lord of the castle was stuck in the frame of a lesser being. During the fall of his masters, a spell had shattered his physical body, reducing him to a powerless spirit. After several millenia of wandering the astral planes and other realms for a suitable host, he had finally come upon one. Unfortunately, the only being whose soul resonated properly to subsume had been a peasant. A stinking, sweaty, elf peasant. For countless years, a being of great power had been forced to inhabit the weak and fleshy body of a pointy-eared dandelion eater. Although the lord of the castle was not terribly conscious of his looks, this seemed to be a cosmic insult of some sort.

The only beings who could give him back his former glory were the Old Ones, his masters, and they were sleeping. The lord of the castle wanted to wake them for the purpose, but could think of no way to do so. Every so often he would enter their dreams for clues, but gained little insight and much distress from that. The nightmares of the Old Ones would madden any other being, and badly disturbed the lord of the castle. He spent much of his time thinking about how to save his masters from their slumber. It took him eons to make even the simplest insights into how to resurrect them, but time was meaningless to one such as him. In a few billion years, perhaps he would have the answer, and then everything would be as it had been before.

Suddenly, there was a disturbance, and the lord of the castle sat up in his chair of dragon bone. A mystic portal opened up before him, sparkling with chains of vibrant green and blue energy. A shifting, sentient blackness could be seen on the other end of the mini-rift, tiny tendrils reaching out from its world to his.

"How are you, my friend?" asked the lord of the castle, in a forgotten tongue. "Have the ages been treating you well?"

"Hhhheellllpppp...." growled the darkness, its voice badly distorted. "I-immprisssoned...b-b-by Shhhaaarhd. Ggoiinnng to...bbbeeee...slaaaainnn."

"What?" asked the lord of the castle, badly shocked by what he heard. He invested some of his own energy to widen the portal, only to find his efforts blocked by some invisible force. Something was terribly wrong. He hadn't seen any mortal magic of this caliber since that silly conflict between the elves and the dwarves. "How are they doing this?"

"Shhhaaaard iss...the key," said the darkness. Suddenly, there was a crackling noise, and the mystical portal slammed shut before either of the two entities could react.

For the first time in several hundred years, the lord of the castle rose from his throne. This was disturbing. If the mortals had magic to imprison one of his brothers, then they could set back his plans to wake the Old Ones. This could not be stood for. Shaard was one of the most powerful dragons in existence, but even he could be swept aside if the situation and desperation demanded it. A trip to Earth was dangerous, but he saw no other options. If the mortals succeeded in this endeavor, then they would doubtless try it again. That could not be tolerated.

The lord of the castle strode over to his closet, opening it with a thought. Inside was his armor, a full suit of gleaming, jet-black armor forged in the heart of a sun. He put the enchanted armor on, and then shut the closet with another thought. Then, he walked to the center of the room, where his sword hovered in the air, just inches above the ground. It was a black blade, of the same star-metal as his armor, with a serrated edge that could slice the electrons off of an atom. As he picked it up, the lord of the castle thought how good the thing felt in his hands. After fashioning a crimson cape for himself with a muttered spell, he felt ready for battle. There was a flash of lightning, and the lord of the castle, servant to the Old Ones, thinker of dark thoughts, departed for Earth.


Shaard suddenly shuddered, as images of apocalypse and fire filled his mind. Screams, gunfire, and a terrible explosion filled his mind for a brief second.

"What's wrong?" asked the godling, suddenly concerned.

"Nothing," snapped Shaard, suddenly regaining his calm composure. "Just got a little jolt. The ley line energy will do that to you sometimes."

"No," said the godling. "One of the lesser races might get those once in a while, but not you. An ancient ice dragon should not be getting jolts from the ley lines. So tell me, what's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong!" said Shaard, more than a little defensively.

"It's the flashes, isn't it?" said the godling. "You've been seeing flashes of the final conflict. I've been getting them, too, along with pretty much every other sensitive in Tolkeen. The solstice, which seems to be shaping up as the final battle between us and the Coalition, is just about a week away. And if what you saw in that clairvoyant moment is enough to make even you flinch, then you know how unsavory that final clash is going to be. Shaard, I'm afraid we're going to have a Pyrrhic victory here. Whether or not we wipe out the Coalition States with this pyramid, it looks like the Dead Boys are going to stomp all over us."

"That doesn't matter. Without resupplies, the army will fade away before they can wipe Tolkeen off the map. We can rebuild very easily."

The godling pondered this for a moment. "You know," he finally said, "Some of the other Council members have been talking about evacuating citizens, getting them to other dimensions so that they'll survive no matter who wins. To tell you the truth, I like that idea a lot."

"No good," said the dragon, shaking his massive head. "We can't afford the energy that opening those rifts would have. Everything has to go into the ritual if the spell is going to work properly."

"Goddammit! Shaard, these are our own fucking people that we're talking about! You are willing to let the civilians of your own nation be massacred? That's inhuman!"

"Inhuman? My friend, you've been living amongst these 'squishies' too long. Mortal things come and go. They achieve nothing, they consume resources, and they die. Tolkeen is more than its citizens. It's more important than you, it's more important than me. If we take care of this city, it'll last forever, an eternal testament to our greatness."

"If you keep on like this, Tolkeen's going to be a cinder, an eternal monument to our stupidity! Shaard, do you honestly think that the Coalition States are the only enemies we have? That flash you just had, I know that it takes more than visions of war to make you shudder. If a flash of the future made someone like you quake, then our future has got to be something horrible." The godling stood up, and began to walk out of the room.

"Don't do anything stupid," said Shaard. "Just remember, the ritual can proceed without you."

With that, the godling walked out of the room, leaving the great dragon alone with his thoughts. And although Shaard's blood was cold enough to freeze living flesh into ice, the dragon felt cold somehow.

Next Chapter


By David Haendler.

Copyright © 1996, 1997, 1998 David Haendler. All Rights Reserved.

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