The Dark Chronicles Ch. 00

Author's Note:

The Dark Chronicles is my version of one of the world's great myth cycles. I play fast and loose with the more established versions of the myth (of which there are many) by introducing new characters, changing names, changing events, and generally writing it my way. Commentary along the lines of, "but the stories don't tell it that way" will fall on deaf ears so please, don't even bother. Besides, it's all written.

I am publishing it all in the Sci-Fi and Fantasy category because of its over-arching mythical theme. It is mostly heterosexual in flavour, but has incest, a bit of gay male, some anal and various fetishes. So if you don't like those elements, I suggest you back out now. There is no non-con and nothing extreme, other than blood in several scenes.

For those that know my work, this prologue is a promise, for those that don't know me, it's a tease.

It is presented as a complete work, made up of ten chapters, this Prologue, and an Epilogue. The myth cycle itself is more extensive, this is the core story. Additional self-contained parts might happen in future, but no promises on that.

Prologue - The Dragen Wakes.

I was there.

The day the earth roared louder than thunder and ash and floating rock fell into the sea all around the ship, and the sea rose and dropped five huge times, I was there.

The voyage had been long, south down the long coast of Shi, aboard a tall ship made by the Emperor, three galleys high and sails wide, his gift for my voyage. I made the Emperor a map when I returned from the mountain gone from the sea, and that was my gift in return and my thanks. "I did not know other kings' lands lay beyond the frozen mountains and long deserts; these are not my people," he said, as he marvelled upon the map. "How many years did you say, travelling here?"

Two hundred men rowed when the air was still and the ship made head to the south. I had heard tell of the smoking island; captains and commanders sailing up from the south, from Banteen and Baatuwara, landed and told stories in the ports, and they were always the same, these stories. "High from the sea," they told. "The mountain grows high from the sea, the height of two tall men each year." The stories made me curious and I thought upon brother Plinius and his boat, and the cloud rolling down the high mountain that he saw, swift as water and dreadful, both cities gone and the earth alive.

This was a bigger dragen coiled in rock and fire, molten rock in its blood and smoken ash in its breath. I was curious and made my way south. "We will stay on the water," the captain said, "and not make landfall there. The craft will be safe, but the shore is not safe." The commander I found to discover the place was the sixth seaman in a long line and his greatest scare was to sail close to the land. "I'll not do it," he said. "I'll sail off the shore the distance where the mountains are small and far away." He was certain. "My grandfather taught me this, and his grandfather before him." I trusted him, and the ship turned once around the mountain so I could see with mine own eyes that the stories were true.

The mountain was tall, perfectly shaped like the high Fuuj near the castle of Prince Shotogku in Japon, but the top was rock and rubble and not snow, and I could see with my eyes that no bush or grass or tree grew there. Smoke rose, a straight long column climbed high into the sky until the wind and the clouds tore it apart. "You see it, sire, and I wish it behind us." The captain's nervousness crept upon me, and I am used to rooks and ravens and tall stones and do not get nerves. But even I could feel the low breath upon the air, beneath our hearing all a giant throbb upon the water, strange ripples shimmering in circles on the surface of the sea. "See it, sire, and we shall make our way off. There are no birds here and the fish are gone too. Let us not stay long." The captain was nervous, and I shared it, so we made our way off, until the top of the mountain only could be seen, the horizon a long darkness against the westering sun, and the cap smoking there, its long thread climbing highest to the sky, and lingering up high, threading smoke through the finest clouds like sand in a stream.

That night, a storming rain surrounded the ship and the clouds dropped low. The captain kept small sails aloft so the ship could still make head, but its movement in the water was slow, just enough to steer. The captain kept towards morning, and the sea shuddered and pulsed beneath the hull, and far off from the land we could hear low groans and echoes. Nobody knew the meaning of the sound, it was uncertain and unregular.

"Look toward the west, sire, I think the dragen awakens and we might see it roar." In the galley and on the poop, the men were hushed and low songs began. These men had no words on their fingers, no pens, but with their songs the stories and remembering began, and the tells would pass down from father to son. Just like in my home land, but the longest trails there sing from mother to daughter. It is different here, I am not so familiar with it.

"Look, sire, the sky is different."

It was low dawn and the cloud was lifted. To the east, the sun was just shimmering on the horizon, and in the opposite place the coiling high smoking column threaded red and twisting black, so we knew that it moved and spun from the ground, reaching higher for the air than before, thrust upwards in a massive force. The column was thicker, too, pulsed red with coiling veins standing thick and twisting. The captain looked at me, a wry smile on his face. "Where is the dragen's woman, sire, that he stands so hard?"

I laughed, and looked to the sky, but there was no Goddess there, not that night. "He is waking on his own, then, this dragen. The earth is no different from us mortal men, it seems, standing hard in the morn." Our light comedy betrayed a fear that was in us both, and the words were repeated by the men to ease their waiting dread. There was laughter from the fore deck and jealous jesting, as one of the young sailors stood high on the rigging and jetted a long golden arc to the sea, his prick thick and hard in his hand, making proof of our observation. "That boy will please his maiden, when we next make port," I smiled, my own morning glory a softer thing now, for I am old already.

"Or a man, to be fucked by that," mused the captain. "Indeed, a man too would enjoy that length."

"No different than a mortal woman, then," I replied.

"Or your Goddess," said the captain, for I had shared with him some of the hidden beliefs of my distant isle, slumbering since the centurions came and long walls built. I might return there soon, but my curiosity always kept me wandering. Always under the same stars though, always under the same stars and the light of her moon. This night, the moon was full and glowed high in the brightening morning sky.

Our low words between us were but waiting. The captain and I both knew, and all the men too, that we would go from this day with a tale of a thousand tellings. Witness the distant land and the thick water beneath our ship, keeping us safe above the rock and ground. Some last instinctive nervousness moved upon the captain, and he called for twenty oars to turn the head of the ship to face the mountain and its breath, coiling thicker now and pluming up like a giant mushroom top widening the sky. The world panted, a low grumbling through the air and it was like distant thunder but constant, a moan, a groan.

"Your ears men, keep your hands over your ears as best you can," the captain called, and his leftenants repeated his warning to all the men. But now the sound was louder still and we could not hear our voices.

"Sire," I could see the captain's lips move. And he pointed.

Of a sudden, I saw the base of the horizon where the sky touched the sea and the land and where the smoke was a single column; I saw the blackness and grumbling smoke suddenly grow wide and huge, twice as wide, four times, ten. An enormous fist of smoke and glowering rock and flame bloomed like some huge sun, red, thick red, like some monstrous dome that grew and grew and touched the sky, so high our necks bent back. The jet of black and red, thick coiling and roiling, twisted upwards like some monstrous gush and it was every thing in front of us, and the black punch exploded higher.

A strange shimmer took the air, and we watched terrified as across the water ran a massive fierce circle of light, steaming water and smoke as if it rushed before a furious breath, like every forge of hell opening at once and Lucif's terrible angels running from the bowels of the earth, flaring banners on the air behind them. Then the strange fast thing in the air was upon us, and blasted past us, rocking the ship in one huge surge, and sucked the air from our mouths. My ears thickened and were painful, and I swallowed and swallowed until my ears eased and then...

...the sound, oh the noise and fire and thunder of the sound. A monstrous massive noise so huge, so loud, my guts shook and my head was pummelled and crushed. I looked to the captain and his mouth was a grimace, his hands pressing hard against his ears pressing to stop the plosion, the thunderous loudest thing. I fell to the deck and he did too, writhing in agony and pain and my ears hurting hurting, I'm screaming. The thunder was right inside my head and then it was gone, a strange ringing, then silence, a silence so black and vast and huge. My mouth was wide and screaming but there was no sound but a giant loud ringing like a million bells in the towers high. My ears filled with that sound and there was a terrible pulsing thing throbbing within the sound, and it was fast and terrified and I knew my blood was screaming and my heart, all I could hear was my heart. Thumping, thumping, thumping.

I felt a grip on my arm. The captain clenched my wrist with one hand and pointed with the other. His ears were bleeding and the corners of his eyes too, but the horror in his eyes made me look where he pointed. The captain let me go, and he wrapt his arms around a post from the deck and gripped his hands on his forearms, locking himself there. From the place of the explosion I saw, and it came across the sea faster than a fleeing horse, faster than the speeding chetah as it coursed upon its prey in long away Ethiop, a mounding rise of water, foam flying from its top. It was smooth and unbroken, but huge and swelling grey and black and it sped upon the ship.

The prow of the ship dipped once as the water rose, then the ship angled upwards as the huge unbreaking surge of the sea lifted us up and up, the sea swelling like a massive thing and the ship rose so high that I could see the distant land and a long surging white band where the wave hit the land and covered it, racing over the trees and swirling there. Then the ship fell and fell and we pressed down between the walls of sea. Behind us the height of the water raced away from us, curious eddies and trails and whirlpools following behind. In front of the ship, another wall of water reared above us and again the ship ran up highest and again I saw the thundering white gash upon the land. This time trees were torn and tumbled as the water surged into the land and plashed upon the mountains high.

Three times more the ship rocked up onto the black and churning sea, then the water stopped its movement up and down and the ship was thrown and tossed into a swift current that pulled us towards the centre of this maelstrom. Giant whirlpools and running rivers in the sea channelled us onwards and inwards towards the belching place. The captain gestured to men to mass their strength onto the steering oar, all movements commanded in dumb show because we were all deafness to the world, and he commanded every oar to the stroke to slow the hellish slide towards the swirling watery centre. Slowly the strength of the men beat the run of the sea, or the sea slowed, I do not know which, but soon we were able to stand off the same distance everywhere, and to circle the hellish spinning hole, water tumbling into the pit, steaming and churning like a thousand thunderous falls, gone into hell.

For I could see that's what it was. Where once was a mountain high and from its top the belching column of smoke, now the land was gone utterly. The smoke and exploding gush was still happening, a steady flow still a thick plume into the air two miles wide I thought, judging as best I could for we stood miles off, reaching to the top of the sky. Like the world's highest thunder anvil, grey clouds riven by lightning, the smoke rose into the sky. I could see cracks of lightning flickering within the cloud and it was a new storm in there. But the gush was from under the water and steam was in the smoke, swirling and mixing white and black and grey, and all through the middle of it was orange and flowing up pushing red, like a forge made by a thousand smiths. I could feel the heat of it, all upon my face and arms.

Another hell began. Ash and black rain began to spot the deck and soon every man above the decks had his mouth wrapped in cloth to breath. The captain ordered the ship to turn, to head from that place. Two hundred oars pushed against the sea, and we were all silence still, not a man hearing his brother, no drums for they were pointless. Those of us who did not row brought clean water to those who did row, and where a man fell exhausted on his oar, another man dragged him away and took his stroke. For every man one of us knew this was a dreadful place, and curiosity was done now. Slowly we made a safer place in the ocean. We were gone from sight of the land, but not from the sight of the earth's spew as it still rose. The captain kept us on for a whole day, and the next time the sun rose it was red, blood red. And the moon too, that night and the next and the next, as she waned, she was red, blood red.

Half through the next day our ears came back and our voices and sounds were dull and muffled. A constant ringing began in mine own ears. Some of the men were deaf completely and gestured and moved their hands in dumb show, and they could not hear. The captain moved among them with his leftenants, and knew the men to be fearful but still brave. This shudder of the world upon them would mark them, and they would remember the mad man that was in my head, for bringing them here. But man is a curious beast and still some wanted to know more. The captain set the ship's boat to the sea and he took the ten strongest men to the oars, just in case, but the wind ran high and we sailed fast towards the mountain gone, and still erupting up to the sky. Black dust fell about us everywhere, and soon all of us could have grinned like a black man from Ethiop where the chetahs are, our eyes peering mad upon the sea.

And the boat stopped, prevented on its way. "These rocks, they float on the water and are as light as fluff," marvelled the captain, and it was so. I remembered Plinius, and he too wrote of floating stones, and so the guts of the earth was the same, even in distant places. I took small pieces of those miracle rocks and placed them in my travelling box. "Have you seen enough now, sire, can we make our way to the ship and north from this place?"

"Yes. Even my curiosity, which is much, is held happy to be gone from this place, well gone at that." I looked one last time at the monstrous thrust of gas and rock and smoke and steam, thoughtful as to what it meant. "The dragen, then, is riding from this place and is awoken. He rides upon the air."

The captain laughed and remembered our nervous conversation. "Perhaps the dragen awakes in the morning every thousand years and fucks the world with his glorious seed, and jets upon the sky." He looked at me. "Can your Goddess take that fuck, do you ponder? Spreading her legs wide?"

"Ah, that I don't know," I replied. "Perhaps she sleeps. But this noise and roar, I think, will have been heard a thousand miles from this confounding centre and will awaken most anything." I looked towards the sea and pondered something of the geography of this place. "Those high waves, how fast do you think they ran, those five high waves running from this plosion? How fast? Surely they must reach every place where there is a beach and a tide. The waves, so much taller than a tide, surely they will find every dry stone and make it wet, on a beach and by the shore?"

"Aye, sire, I think you right. My grandpere taught me of strange tides between tides, when the water rose when it shouldn't. He always taught me that it was a dragen stomping somewhere, making its way on the world, a drinkin' and a dancin'." He looked at me, man to man, and grinned. "Just like us mortal men, then, a looking for his mate."

We sailed away from that place and passed through the straits of Malac as we made our way north, and could see the dreadful path of the waves on the land as we passed. Ten men high or twenty, we could not imagine the destruction as those waves thundered, but we could see the torn and tangled trees, the whole floating shore a mess of bodies and floating things, the trail that was left by the waves and the furious sea. Later, in port, and months after, before I left that eastern land, I heard stories of cities and places ripped asunder, all men and women and children lost, countless they were, and beyond number.

After six months I left that country, thanking the Emperor for indulging my curiosity and sharing with him the dreaming smoke, pipes each night and a favourite wench, slit eyes and sleepy; and made my way west over the land and by boat, following the red clouds. Every day and every night, the skies were red and people were afraid. Long winters were beginning, those with the longest memories and the best songs said, for they could remember their stories of the earth down through long ages from the times of the thick ice and the melting, singing their songs and remembering.

I am Maerlyn, and when the mountain of Krachoa exploded that morning, I was there.

It is a long way home, and I am called by the dragen. There is work to be done. I hope I am not too old.

* * * *

"Mother, why is the moon red?" Nymue was always curious and knew the cycles of the moon like the counting of her heart, constant, regular and well understood. She knew the moon's phases, from full to sickle, then nothing at all but always returning. This moon was a count of ten days after the full, a crescent high against the sharp, brilliant stars. Nymue had never seen the moon blood red before, not this deep red straight from hell, nor the rising and setting sun scarlet as it rose and fell. Like blood, the sky shimmered with colour, even the high clouds in the middle of the day glowed brilliant pink, shifting on the wind.

"Why is the sky bleeding? Mother, tell me!" The girl was insistent and Vivyane knew this was good, because it spoke of a spirit in her daughter that was strong, but sometimes the questions, the endless questions, they were too much; and the girl not ready to be taught, not yet.

"Child, I do not know it, but I fear it is a sign. Something is coming, I can feel it my bones, coming huge." Vivyane shivered and held her arms to her own body for strength and comfort. I must gather in my sisters, she thought to herself, I will need them around me. And the child too, but she is not ready, not yet. "Child, go, don't bother me. I don't know why."

"Mother, your bones! Why do you read the guts of birds if your bones already know?"

"Hush child, away with you. Go to the sea while the tide is low, and bring back some cockles." Vivyane gave the girl a leather bag with a thick strap for her slim shoulders. "Don't forget to watch the sand. As soon as the tide turns, walk ahead of it quickly. Don't get caught." She knew Nymue would watch the water closely. Every child around the estuary learned the huge extremes of the tide from when they were very small, and all learned to swim almost instinctively. Their lives depended on it, down by the water. The tides were huge, as high as seven men standing on another man's shoulders, and rushed into the estuary. Where the sea narrowed, further north and east, the water made a breaking wave, every day. Boats could only cross when the high tide turned and the water flattened.