He went back a few lines and started to read more carefully. The text said that Amatus travelled west across the sea to the land of Mira, where he spent time studying with a group called the “enlightened” at their ancient temple. Amaury’s skin tingled with excitement. Mirabaya had been known as “Mirabensis” when it was an Imperial province. Might it have been known as “Mira” before that? There was nowhere else he knew of with so similar a name, and it lay in the right direction from Vellin-Ilora. This was purely speculation on his part, but it was hard not to get excited by the thought that magic had started in this very land, perhaps not far from where he now sat. What if it was exactly where he now sat, and that was why the College of Mages chose that site for their library in Mirabensis?
He was fit to burst when he read the next few lines:
“Sadly, no trace of the Temple of the Enlightened was found when the Empire laid claim to this ancient land and named it the Province of Mirabensis.”
His mind raced with possibility. The irony of the Cup being found here, taken across the sea, then brought “home” only to be lost struck him hard. That the discovery of magic had been here in Mirabay sent his head into such a spin that it took him several moments to compose himself.
He knew he had too little to go on, so he took a deep breath and continued to read. There wasn’t much left in the book, and Amaury feared that this hint about the “enlightened” would be all he got. Did they still exist? Might he be able to learn from them? Or would they be a threat?
His heart sank as he read. The writer clearly didn’t know much of what went on, other than that Amatus gained his power at the temple and became a powerful mage, possessing a cup that allowed him to guide others to the same level of magical potency. On the final page, almost as a postscript, there was one more morsel that served only to whet Amaury’s appetite, rather than satiate it.
“Later in his life, Amatus returned to the temple in the land of Mira to take his place among the enlightened. He was never seen again, but his legacy endures.”
He had something new to search for—the Temple of the Enlightened. It might lead him to other fragments of knowledge, that would allow him to put the entire picture back together. He sighed. How would he find it? Where would he start?
CHAPTER 16
The world represented a great dichotomy, Pharadon thought, as he allowed warm updrafts to lift him in a long, lazy glide. In one respect, it was timeless—mountains, oceans, forests, and lakes. Changing, but remaining the same. In another, it had altered beyond all recognition. None of the marks of man nor dragon that he had expected to see were present. Everything was different. Even to his old soul, witness to so much, this was unsettling.
He could smell all sorts of things on the air, and knew that among his kind, he was not alone. The scents were unfamiliar, fresh and youthful, and he was certain they represented dragons he did not know. While that was something he would investigate soon, there was a stronger smell that he could not ignore—a familiar one that filled his heart with a mixture of joy and concern. It was the scent of his old rival, and older friend. Alpheratz.
He followed his nose, the route as clear to him as a forest game trail. The direction in which it led surprised him—toward humankind. Alpheratz had never been humanity’s greatest fan. He had always refused to take on human form, and Pharadon thought it unlikely he’d have changed his mind about that—an old dragon tends to be quite set in its ways. He took another great breath and wondered what had drawn him to a place filled with creatures he held in utter contempt.
Pharadon could not smell any other dragons he knew, nor had he seen a trace of any of them in the short time he had been awake. While the wars had distressed him to the point of self-imposed exile, he had enjoyed the company of many humans over the years, and had travelled extensively through their realm. Music, art, literature, architecture—they excelled at all, and had they confined themselves to these things, how much better a place the world might be. They had been a young race, however, and like dragonkind in its own youth, they were ruled by their baser instincts—avarice, jealousy, violence. By the absence of compassion. He couldn’t be too critical, though. The unenlightened amongst dragonkind were no different.
He’d fed on a small herd of deer, sating the hunger he had woken with. He could smell clusters of humans beneath him, and occasionally see the lights and fires they lit at night. There were far more of them than when Pharadon had gone to sleep, and they had spread. Even in the dark he could see the way they had changed the land around them. Forests were gone and rivers diverted; roads etched their way across the land like old battle scars. Places he remembered as being occupied by humans were larger, and they lived in more towns than before. They had thrived, while dragonkind apparently had not.
When he located the source of Alpheratz’s scent, Pharadon stopped and hovered awhile, deep in thought. The smell came from the centre of a large town. Could Alpheratz actually have chosen to live amongst them in human form? It seemed hard to believe. Had humans won the wars with dragonkind and enslaved them? Or had a way been found to live together in harmony? He liked that idea, but there was only one way to find out.
He fell into a long, spiralling descent that ended when his talons bit into the ground. Then Pharadon did something he had not done in a very long time. He reached deep within his soul, to the dense concentration of the Fount located at its core, and bade it change him. He felt his muscles heat and tingle. It was not painful—more like a deep, uncomfortable ache in every fibre of his being, one he willed to soon be over. When it was done, he remembered that in human terms, he was naked. It had been so long since he had taken on human form that some of the details had escaped him. It would have been far easier to obtain clothes from one of the hanging lines humans used while he could still fly. The benefits of hindsight.
The only thing he had to cover his nakedness was the darkness, and there was not much of that left. It would be hours before he had absorbed enough of the Fount to replenish what he had used and be able to create clothes—he was still very out of practice. It would be longer still before he had enough to transform back to his natural state. The switch between human and dragon form was one of those strange magics that was entirely reliant on one’s internal reservoir of magical energy, making it dangerous to the caster but incredibly potent. The transformation required the expanded capacity enjoyed by the enlightened, and even then could be performed only after much practice. Their base brethren could not do it.
He wondered what to do next. His nakedness would mark him out among other humans, and that was never a good thing, even had he genuinely been one of them. Also, he couldn’t ignore the possibility that his transformation was not perfect, that he had not left a telltale patch of scale on his back, or some such. His first priority had to be to find something to cover himself with, so he struck off into the darkness to accomplish just that.
The garments were dirty, and smelled as though someone might have used them to wipe their backside. There were holes and tears, and they didn’t fit properly. All that could be said for them was that they covered Pharadon from neck to ankle, and for his purposes, that was good enough. It was with some trepidation that he approached the town’s gates, which had opened shortly after dawn. There was a steady trickle of people in and out, including one or two who looked just as dishevelled as Pharadon.