Chapter Twenty-Five - A Linchpin

  53rd Day of Spring - Year 1758 of the Golden Era

  Shorefarm, Yellowfield, Draya Calyrex

  There was much work to do, but very little of it involved his direct input.

  By the time the town was scoured and every building and room was checked, the puppets had taken off already and it was approaching early evening.

  Maldrak decided to take a few moments to return to his office and get an early start on what would likely be a growing pile of paperwork. After all, it was very possible that he'd soon be running a small town.

  He wasn't entirely unfamiliar with that kind of procedure. He was a noble lord, though it was second to his title as Magus. He had lands and estates, and those needed running as much as anything else.

  They had much greater numbers than this tiny port, and yet were far less troublesome all the same. Shorefarm was going to prove to be difficult to manage, he could tell already. He had Alchemist Magus Discipulus Mossthorn looking over the serfs the puppets had captured, and it seemed like the tiny number of citizens in his employ were all quite ill, both physically and mentally.

  Worse, he had no true history with any of them. To them, they were a conquering force from across the ocean, coming in at a time when their dragon lords were failing to answer. They might very well be right.

  At the moment, he had but one source for what, exactly, had transpired before the situation had deteriorated so terribly. The previous lord mayor's journal.

  Maldrak looked the leather-bound book over, then opened it. It was relatively new, and it seemed as though the first entry was dated to the first of the new season.

  The Journal of Lord Mayor Gared Vellion was written in a fine script on the opening page. For the year 1758 of the Golden Era

  Maldradk read through the first few entries, getting a picture for the lord mayor of this small village.

  1st Day of the New Year

  Aurynth's light shines upon another blessed year. The tides were calm today. The fishermen report a fine haul, and the fields beyond Shorefarm have not yet frozen too deep to work. The tax will be lighter this season, praise be.

  Had a fine meal in the hall tonight. The lesser folk muttered about thinning grain stores, but the lord's tithe comes first. Aurynth will provide in his wisdom.

  My dearest cousin, Lord Goldfillius of Shorefarm proper, has his 103rd birthday soon. I must visit Viremontis to procure something for him.

  Sparse, but nothing untoward. The Vellion family were the local dragon lords, then, in charge of this region. Likely, they were little more than lesser barons, but it was still good to know.

  5th Day of the New Year

  The tax collectors arrived earlier than expected. They took the first measure of grain from Shorefarm, though we will owe more before the season is done. The people grumble, but they are peasants. That is their way.

  A letter came from Yellowfield proper. More requests for fish. I told them the same as last season—we send what we can. There is no more to give. My cousin was right in thinking that expanding the village fisheries would be a profitable venture. I wish I had the income to spare to purchase a few more boats. They would pay for themselves in a few sparse seasons!

  Maldrak tapped the page as he thought. The village was expanding, then? It was supposed to be an hour's walk from Shorefarm proper. On his older maps, it was noted as little more than a fishing space for serfs, but he supposed that it could well be more. He certainly intended to expand it for his own needs.

  The Magus skimmed the next few pages. Some complaining, some reports, but nothing more than what he would expect from the running of a small village.

  And then the first sign of something a little unorthodox.

  22nd Day of the New Year

  A courier arrived by boat from Viremontis, heading northwards. He purchased our fastest horse from my cousin. I accompanied him all the way to town and was delighted to learn that he was a cousin of sorts himself, a young third-son who had taken to courier work to make ends meet.

  He said that trouble had fallen upon the capital in recent times and he was being run ragged between the two. Some nobles aren't trusting the mages and their arcane messaging anymore.

  I wish I lived in a more interesting place. Such gossip ought to be beneath me, but it is quite titillating.

  A trader came through speaking of troubles in Viremontis. I did not entertain his ramblings.

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  Maldrak rubbed at his chin and re-read the passage carefully. The 22nd... that was a little sooner than he himself had heard of any issues in Draya Calyrex.

  Two things jumped out to him, though it was very weak speculation with only a madman's journal to go on. First, that the nobility knew of something occurring even so soon. And second, that they were distrustful of their own mages.

  A schism? There had been some, in this nation's history, but rarely between the dragon-blessed nobility and the academically-minded mages.

  In this nation more than any other, the mage was not the pinnacle of strength.

  30th Day of the New Year

  I dreamt of Aurynth last night, but he was silent. His form was shifting, golden and sickly, his wings stretching out beyond the sky. He did not speak, only turned his eyes upon me. I awoke to the sound of waves lapping at my floorboards.

  There was no water in my room.

  Maldrak frowned. The next entry suggested more strange dreams and nightmares, and the lord mayor seeking the audience of a clergyman from the town just next door.

  33rd Day of the New Year

  No word from the temple.

  No word from our Lord.

  Something is wrong.

  Maldrak hummed and opened his own journal. Would this date line up? He wasn't sure when the dragons fell, but he suspected that it wasn't all at once, not even the individual dragons simply knelt over and died. They were powerful, ancient beings, the closest thing the world had to living gods. They did not die overnight, unless by violent means.

  38th Day of the New Year

  I haven't heard his voice in five days. Five! And yet I hear him gasp in my nightmares. Never in all of my years has Aurynth been this silent. The priests are cowards who refuse to answer me.

  The food is turning. I put our stock of goats to the knife. The water tastes of metal. The serfs whisper when they believe me deaf, but I see them. Their fingers are twitching like claws.

  My lord... perhaps a sacrifice greater than goats will aid in the golden one's recovery?

  Maldrak felt an eyebrow rising.

  40th Day of the New Year

  There was a woman at my door last night, or something like one. She stood in the dark, her arms too long, her nails dragging against the wood. When I called for the guards, she melted into the mist.

  I heard her voice whispering through the keyhole. It sounded like the tides pulling back before the storm.

  There are figures in the fields. They do not leave footprints.

  We must make offerings.

  Was the man going mad at the time when he wrote this? His handwriting shook, certainly, but it might have been fear.

  The truth was that while Maldrak wanted to claim that madness led to the writing of that passage in the journal, there was a very real chance that the death of the lords of this land had allowed other things to awaken.

  He made a note to double the number of guards they'd be posting by nightfall. Perhaps retreating to the ship might even be a better option. Just in case.

  46th Day of the New Year

  The people are fools. I told them to gather what they could. We must appease him. The harvest was not enough, the tithe was not enough. Aurynth will not leave us if we give more.

  The villagers resisted. I had them brought to the square. Their cries were drowned in the sacrifice that followed.

  They were joyful when the knife took them.

  He winced. This leaned more towards the mad. The essence within the lord mayor was calling for something that no longer answered, and so he did what he could, but without a firm understanding of the arcane...

  51st Day of the New Year

  My body is changing. I feel the warmth of his gaze upon me once more. I knew I had not been forsaken. The gifts he bestows are divine. My fingers are golden. My blood is golden. My eyes burn with his light.

  The others are blessed as well. They weep with joy.

  We will become his chosen. We will become his children.

  I will make them see.

  The last entry. Dated to two days prior. Maldrak wondered why there was nothing more recent, but the reasons for that were likely buried with the lord mayor himself.

  In any case, it was a confirmation and little else. The man had been taken and was being transformed by uncontrolled essence.

  A risk that might overtake anyone that spent too much time in Draya Calyrex. An entire nation filled with newly lost madmen and the serfs following them off a cliff.

  And here he was, designing himself as a linchpin against the madness.

  ***