Talismans

Chapter One – Awakened One

A tremendous crash woke him and fine dust fell on his upturned face. He opened his eyes in alarm but saw only profound darkness. Blind? Another explosion just beyond his head drove him to sit up in alarm and he groped across a rough stone floor, feeling his way away from the fearful blasts.

“

You've got to come out now!

” a voice roared, making his head ache with the reverberations.

“How?” he shouted back, groping around for a wall or something to give a frame of reference. “I can't see.” A third explosion rocked the chamber and he desperately staggered to his feet. The cavern sounded as if it was crumbling and he could barely remain upright when his reaching hands finally met a wall to help him balance. “What's happening?”

“

You are under attack,

” the deep voice returned. “

You are outside the Seal. You must break through before they find the cavern. Feel your way toward my voice.

”

He staggered against the wall, groping along as the pounding continued, bringing down a rain of rubble onto his head. “I can't break through solid rock. Where are you?” he called again.

“

I am right here. You must wish very hard. Feel for the power. Yes, right there. Now push!

”

The terror of being buried in a collapsing cave, of eruptions, of utter blindness and the alarming awareness that he could not even remember his own name combined to flood him with adrenaline. He wanted out, even if his own death awaited him on the other side of this wall. Out!

Abruptly the rough stone barrier disappeared and he staggered through, almost thrown forward by yet another explosion and landed on his knees on a ridge in bright daylight. With bloody knees, he realized he was naked as a baby and he rose up painfully. At least he could see but the light almost burned. When he finally got his vision to focus he saw something so large he had to step back.

A gold and black iris, flecked with fire and as large as he was tall blinked at him no farther away than his reach. The iris belonged in an eye the height of a house. He tilted his head back to look up and up and found the face of a golden dragon, scales, and spikes flaring about the jaws and sharp ridges over the eye that had come down to his level. An entire dragon lay draped over a black cinder mountainside, gold and glittering like a jeweled necklace on the throat of a lady.

I'm dead, he thought.

“

No, little one,

” the voice rumbled. It took a bit of concentration to understand it, as if this was a foreign language. “

You have just been on a long journey and it will take some time to recover.

”

Journey? He couldn't remember a journey. Indeed, he couldn't remember anything. That observation made him shudder as another detonation rained cinder down the mountainside behind him. Where was he? Who was he? How did this happen to him? Explosions around him, a dragon about to eat him and a vast void where his past must have resided; there was nothing to steady his thoughts.

“

We must deal with the sorcerers now that you have hatched,

” the dragon's voice returned. “

If you will move aside, I will deal with this one.

”

So the thunderous explosions within the cavern had not been this enormous reptile attacking but something else? Without any recourse, the human stepped to the right, as far as he dared on the little shelf that stood out from the mountainside on which he perched. Curiously he watched the dragon's eye close in concentration and then a wave, almost invisible to his eye, pushed out from the dragon's forehead and into the mountain.

The rock wall imploded and avalanches of stone roared above and below. Only this little landing and wherever the gigantic dragon rested remained untouched. The top of the mountain erupted, blowing out the far side in a wave of billowing gasses and washed over, out of sight. The human instinctively crouched down to balance against the earthquakes that threatened to pitch him off the shelf. Then the eruption above eased abruptly and the dragon again rested his head on the ridge again to look at him.

“

There, that's better. I'm sorry that your hatching place was outside the Seal but we didn't know precisely when you would arrive and the mountain just kept growing until it left the protections of the Seal. And of course, that made the outlanders think they could come attack.

” The dragon's golden eye rolled down at the stupefied human. Apparently the dragon's pushing the volcano had done its job for the explosions within the mountain had ceased.

“

We will call you Owailion,

” the voice returned as if nothing had interrupted this singular introduction. “

It is not your true name, which we will keep hidden. Owailion means the awakened one. You are the one we were promised.

”

The human straightened up, stupefied by it all. Owailion….could he accept the name? He couldn't remember his real name. Nothing, not his work, or if he had a family; nothing of his life remained. The looming fear this emptiness created in his soul threatened to swallow him, and he deliberately dropped those thoughts like burning coals.

“Promised what? Who are you?” Owailion murmured, his voice cracked with disuse and the strange language on his tongue.

“

You may call me Mohan. My real name is too long for humans to speak easily,

” the dragon replied. “

And your coming…it is a long story. I will tell you it all when you are able, but for now, we must get away from this volcano before the outlanders return. Also, we do not know how to care for you precisely. You must help us understand what you need.

”

Owailion waited for that to make sense and then realized nothing would for a long while until he could remember his life. How would he know what he needed if he didn't remember that? He looked down the slope of the volcano toward the forest below and beyond that in the distance, a chain of mountains capped in snow. None of it was familiar. In his amnesia, he had lost much though he surely knew people did not wake up completely encased in stone. Humans didn't regularly have the ability to burst right through a rock wall and they certainly didn't find a dragon waiting to swallow them on the other side.

In this surreal situation, Owailion reached forward and touched the steely gold scales just below the dragon's eye, and Mohan blinked in pleasure, sending a waft of warm musky air up Owailion's arm. The rumble of a purr echoed up the mountain ridge. That sound alone nudged more pumice and rock to slide down the bare slope.

“

No, Owailion, all this is new to you. We have not met before but you have come a long way to join us. This is the Land…our Land and you are most welcome here, the first and only human to come through our Seal.

”

“Mohan? Are you listening to my thoughts?” Owailion asked, just realizing then that the dragon had addressed his concerns and comforted him without the human even saying a thing.

“

How else would I speak with you? You can hear me and I can hear you no matter where we are if you will learn to listen. The language is new to us both but we can understand each other. This is good. Now, you must have needs. You are so newly hatched. What can I do to help you?

”

Hatched? Owailion looked back at the crumbled cliff wall where he had been encased. Did dragons come from eggs? It made sense that Mohan would think he had 'hatched' in that Owailion had somehow broken free just like a chick hatching.

Mohan rumbled like he tried to chuckle. “

What else would I call it? You have broken out of the mountain's shell. Fledglings are weak but you will get stronger with time. What do you need to be stronger?

”

Owailion dropped all his questions and considered Mohan's instead. What did he need? He needed off this cliff. He needed clothes. He needed to understand.

“Clothes?” he asked Mohan in embarrassment. He could not imagine climbing down off this mountainside in his bare feet, let alone the rest of him bare.

“

Clothes?

” Mohan replied curiously.

Had Mohan never seen another human? One wearing something other than their skin? The thought almost made Owailion laugh.

“

We did call you Owailion for a reason. There are other men on this planet, but few that we dragons have seen. The Land is sealed so no men may enter. You are the first human God has promised to send. Perhaps you are hungry. All fledglings are hungry. Do you require food?

”

Owailion thought about that suggestion and then decided it could wait. “No, clothes are more important right now. I don't have scales like you and I'll burn in this sun and unless you intend for me to stay up here, I need clothes to get down off this ledge.

“

I do not understand clothes but if a fledgling needs a clothes you can make this for yourself,

” Mohan rumbled apologetically.

“Make them?” Owailion did laugh this time. He stood naked on a mountainside, conversing nose to nose with a creature he had assumed was a myth. Mohan could swallow him whole and wonder where the rest of the supper was coming from.

“I can't make clothes here,” Owailion admitted, motioning to the panoramic but useless view down the mountainside.

“

Why not? You could break free from your shell. A clothes is easier. You imagine a clothes and wish for it and it comes to you.

”

Owailion rocked back on his heels, wondering when the dream would end and he would wake with understanding. “That sounds like magic. What am I saying? Everything I'm experiencing right now – amnesia, breaking through stone, forcing a volcano to erupt, a conversation with a dragon; it's all magic.”

“

You are magic, Owailion,

” Mohan confirmed. “

You used magic to break through your shell. The outlanders attacked because you are magic. God sent you to us for magic. A clothes should be easy.

”

“Magic? How?”

“

God gave you magic as you arrived here. It is new to you but I will teach you. Can you imagine a clothes? Wish it into being.

”

Mohan blinked, mesmerizing Owailion into settling his mind. Now, think about clothing and wish them into appearing. Nothing else here made sense so he might as well try. Unwillingly Owailion closed his eyes. He had to tune out his latent fears of large predators, unseen sorcerers, and looming volcanoes and concentrate on something to wear. Then he wished for these things to appear.

Mohan snorted and Owailion opened his eyes in alarm. At his feet, right under Mohan's chin, he saw the clothing he had imagined: pair of leather pants and breeches, a linen tunic and some rugged boots for climbing. Without waiting for the invitation, Owailion sat down on the ledge and began to dress. “That was the most amazing…you say I'm magic? I know a lot about being human, but I didn't know I was magical.”

“

Very few humans have magic…unlike dragons.

” Mohan's mental voice held just a tinge of pride in this fact. “

You weren't magical in your life before, but you have come to help us and so now you are magical. You wanted this.

”

“I wanted this?” Owailion prodded as he put on the boots that, to his amazement, fit perfectly. Why would he have wanted to be a magician or to come to this place…the Land Mohan had called it?

“

I thought as a fledgling you would know more of these matters,

” Mohan commented.

Owailion took a deep breath before trying to explain. “I am not a fledgling,…precisely. For a human, I think I am relatively young, but I am full grown. Humans are born, not hatched. I just don't remember magic or anything of my personal past.” Then as he stood up in his new clothes he felt much closer to trusting this new world he was encountering. “That's better. Now, can you explain some things while I get down from this ledge?”

“

You will not get bigger?

” This observation seemed to concern Mohan. “

Men are so small. Are all so tiny?

”

Owailion chuckled at the thought. “Women and children are smaller. Does that bother you? It makes me a little worried myself. You might yawn and accidentally inhale me, but this is as big as I get. Why are you…why am I your fledgling?”

“

Well,

” Mohan tried to clarify as he lifted away from the slope allowing Owailion a fuller view of possible paths down the volcano's sides, “

the Land is sealed and there are sorcerers who want to get inside. They think they can take over the magic here. We built your volcano for your arrival but it was too near the Seal that keeps them out. It grew beyond our borders and that is why they attacked, to go through the mountain. They weren't after you exactly, but getting into the Land itself.

”

Owailion scooted off the ledge and began sliding down embankments of cinders as he thought about that. “And you keep saying we. Are there others here?”

As if Owailion's words cast a spell, the sky, the other sides of the slope and even up above the little ridge filled with dragons of various colors and sizes. Over a dozen had all been invisible until he said something. Silver and gold predominated their hides, but with accents of sapphire, ruby, emerald, topaz, and amethyst. No two appeared the same in Owailion's eyes. Some had wings and others, even flying ones, had none. Some had one head and others as many as three heads and an even wider variety of tails. The smallest he could see hovered above Mohan's back and looked to only be triple the size of a large human. Mohan appeared to be the largest, covering easily a thousand feet toward the foot of the mountain. Most disturbing was the fact that every single one of these newly appeared dragons had eyes only for him.

“

We …my fellow dragons have been waiting for you,

” Mohan admitted, “

but we didn't want to frighten you at first.

”

“Too late,” Owailion admitted. “It's the situation that alarms me. You must explain this all. Why do you need me?”

Mohan must have said something privately for the family of dragons disappeared again leaving only Mohan's gold visible although Owailion doubted they had actually left. Then Mohan continued as if this display of power meant nothing.

“

As I explained before, we were promised a man by God and He sent us you. We need your help. You see, we dragons are going to sleep. The Land needs someone else to hold off the sorcerers and stop the demon attacks while we sleep. We need you to take mastery of the magic here.

”

“Attacks like the one that woke me?” Owailion looked over the peaceful countryside beyond Mohan's bulk and saw nothing but forest and summer sky.

Mohan rumbled as he added, “

Yes, sorcerers from the outside and demons within. They grow naturally here in the Land if we do not watch carefully.

”

“And that's why the magic must be mastered?”

“

Yes,

” Mohan stated simply. “

And you will be the masters.

”

“Masters….more than one?” Owailion asked eagerly.

“

God promised that dragons would remain awake long enough to train the first one. Eventually, there will be sixteen humans, the Wise Ones, the ones who will come to control the magic and tame it, so that it will not tempt the evil ones. Power like that normally will seduce man, warp nature and then all will be lost.

”

“Sixteen…. Wise Ones?”

“

Yes, the humans who will not be corrupted by the power. Magic always will ruin a man unless there is something to guide him. You know, I could carry you down the mountain more quickly.

”

Owailion could sense his independent streak resist that idea. While he trusted the dragon to a certain point, Mohan's gaping ignorance about humans left him a little nervous.

“

I wouldn't harm you,

” the dragon promised adamantly. “

You can't be hurt. As a Wise One, you live forever. The magic makes you almost indestructible.

”

Owailion chuckled at that as he sat down on his newly crafted leather pants and made a quick slide down another slope of cinder. “It's the 'almost' that worries me. You don't know how to carry a human and how strong …or weak we are. And even if I'm magically indestructible it doesn't mean I'm interested in being accidentally punctured or dropped or something. You're awfully pokey and sharp and hard.”

“

And you appear to be somewhat…squishy,

” the dragon admitted and pulled farther away from the mountainside, wheeling impatiently above Owailion. Mohan as a dragon sample boasted one set of wings, one head and two tails that twined around him sculpting the air, acting as rudders. Owailion watched him swoop through the sky above and felt distracted by the beauty. Gleaming gold in the high sun, Mohan almost blinded him. The dragon kept a close eye on his human too as Owailion carefully descended.

The dragon groused, “

Do humans always take this long to travel?

”

“Longer,” Owailion commented under his breath, as he scrambled as quickly as he could. “There might be a magical way to travel but walking is just about as fast as we can go. With only two legs we aren't as fast as most animals. And you're right, we are squishy. We make up for being rather vulnerable with reasonable brains and good hands.”

“

What do humans eat?

”

Owailion was winded and could barely reply. “I'd settle for venison or a nice salmon right now. I love bread and vegetables. Strawberries?”

He should have remained silent, for he abruptly found himself in a torrent of fish slapping down all around him out of the air, and the distant thud of whole dead deer hitting the mountainside. Finally, a hail of strawberries rained down on him until he shouted out in alarm.

“Stop that!” he bellowed, looking up at Mohan in surprise. “Where did that come from? I'm not interested in eating if it comes falling out of the sky at me.”

“

Sorry about that,

” Mohan replied. “

The others just want to help. We don't understand your words, bread, and veg…vege…tables. Usually, a fledgling will eat his full weight twice a day for many days before they are sated. You are not hungry?

”

“Hungry, yes, but I don't eat nearly that much and I want to cook it before I eat it and that means on flat ground.”

“

Cook?

” Mohan asked curiously.

Owailion sighed in frustration, clamping down on his temper festering within. “Cooking is too complicated to explain. How about I demonstrate when I get down to the bottom and instead you tell about these sorcerers that are trying to get across your borders. Explain about this Seal.”

The dragon hovered almost motionless over the forest at the base of the volcano before he answered. “

We dragons magically maintain a barrier around the borders of the Land. No one, dragon or human, may enter unless they are one who has set up the Seal or whose magic supports it,

” Mohan replied proudly.

“You dragons seem to be very good with magic. It seems that you could handle invaders just fine even when you're asleep.”

“

Ah, but we don't sleep. Except that is about to end,

” Mohan clarified. “

Four thousand years is a long time to stay awake. Now we wish to rest.

”

Owailion paused in his efforts navigating the slope in order to look back up at his mentor in magic. “Sleep? You dragons don't sleep? Ummm…unless there's something very different about me now, I like sleeping too. There is no way I am going to stay awake that long.”

“

No, you misunderstand,

” Mohan replied when Owailion started off again. “

We know that humans are like other creatures; you will sleep for a night and then wake and in the meantime, magic will not run amok. However, it is not necessary for dragons to sleep…until it is; a long sleep, a thousand years at least. Magic cannot go that long unattended. It will break free and start to alter things, warp them into sickly, twisted puzzles of what they originally might have been.

”

Unbidden, an image flooded into Owailion's mind of a panther-like creature. He watched in fascination as the animal began oozing blood, writhed in pain, spitting and snarling. Its hide rippled and the muscles twisted around its stretching bones. The tortured cat climbed into an equally twisted tree. There the beast abruptly sprouted wings and launched itself into the sky. Then the vision faded from Owailion's brain.

“

Demons form with warped, unattended magic. These demons wish to possess others and feed on their pain. Dragons have banished the demons of the Land to another realm, but more come if we are not watchful. There are portals where they sneak in as well. They will surely come if we sleep.

”

Owailion shuddered in horror and almost stumbled as he slid down a bank of cinders. He would be battling demons like that? With magic? Something in him resisted thinking on it. Instead, he changed the subject. “How am I supposed to survive all alone for a thousand years? Usually we humans form nice little packs and help each other in things like this.”

“

Packs?

” This insight must have surprised Mohan. “

We did not think of that. I would not worry about needing others. Magic should be adequate for all your needs, surely.

”

Owailion huffed at that. “Magic might supply my physical needs, but humans like to interact with others. Sixteen Wise Ones won't be enough. We like to form families. Pack is probably a bad word. Our families help us raise children and keep us emotionally stable. The families live near each other to make villages and sometimes when there are many of us nearby we would call it a city.”

That he had the vocabulary in this apparently new language meant something, Owailion reasoned. He would need other humans or he would go mad, even if there were a few other magicians here. He could not imagine being so isolated here in the Land. If the new language had the words for family, village, and city then they must be necessary.

“

This is not something we considered,

” Mohan replied in a contemplative tone. “

Dragons live apart, left in our eggs until we have fledged. There is a conclave where we gather once a decade, but we rarely see each other in the meantime. Your coming is the first time I have met many of my fellow dragons all at the same time. Is a family necessary if you have no hatchlings?

”

Abruptly Owailion felt light-headed and stopped in his tracks. He sat down with a thump on a convenient outcropping nearby and slowly began realizing all he might have forgotten in this amnesia. Had he left behind a wife and children? Hopefully, he would not have volunteered for this strange change in his circumstances if he were leaving behind someone who depended on him. But no wife or children? No other people at all…except for the eventual arrival of the other Wise Ones? And he was going to be living eternally? It seemed alien to him.

“

Owailion, are you ill?

” Mohan hovered closer and then dropped down onto the mountainside below him. “

You are not well. Did we do something wrong?

”

Owailion did not know why but this final blow to his limited understanding rocked him to the core. Alone for eternity? He could not fathom it and the terror that should have drowned him ever since he had awakened to the first magical blast now descended on him like rain. He curled up around himself and closed down, shutting out everything: the volcano, the sorcerers, demon battling, a massive dragon, his own filthy and tired body, everything. Owailion wanted to sleep away the horror and wake up again sometime later with his memories intact and pick up his life wherever he had dropped out of it.

Without asking, Mohan reached out a claw and delicately scooped Owailion off the mountainside. If he had not been catatonic already the human would have passed out in terror as the dragon launched himself out over the valley and spun down gently into the forest below. Knowing so little about humans did not keep Mohan from acting. Instead, he used what little he did know, finding a creek at the base of the mountain near the trees and wedged his gigantic reptilian body between the trunks and the slope. Then he carefully set Owailion down on the bank of the creek and with a little thought, conjured a pile of twenty fish or so and an equal pile of berries next to Owailion's head.

“

Owailion, are you there?

” Mohan asked in a mental whisper.

The smell of fish rotting in the late afternoon and his hunger eventually overcame Owailion's terror enough and he mumbled something and then sat up. He looked at the fish, the creek and then back toward the mountain but he could only see a bank of gold scales between himself and the mountain. So, with nothing better to do, Owailion began laughing hysterically. It was all too surreal to comprehend.

And his laughter did not help. Mohan reared in anxiety. The dragon probably interpreted his laughter as a sign of distress for the reptile began carefully backing away, which promptly brought trees snapping and crashing in the forest.

“No, I'm fine Mohan. Please, don't move anymore. I'm fine.”

“

You don't sound fine. Is that the sound you make when you are in pain? Did I hurt you by picking you up?

”

“No, it's laughter. Dragons don't laugh?

In answer to the question, Mohan demonstrated by sitting back on his two tails, lifting himself up high above the trees and letting out a hacking roar that shook the ground. When he had settled once again the dragon replied. “

That is how dragons laugh. What were you laughing at? I thought I hurt you. You didn't move and your mind stopped speaking to me.

”

“That's probably because my mind stopped speaking to me too for a moment,” Owailion replied. “It just hit me very hard that I'm alone and I didn't take that well. I was overcome.”

“

You are not alone, Owailion,

” Mohan tried to reassure him. “

All the dragons know you are here in the Land and will protect you. Other Wise Ones will come to help you make your packs. God has promised that. But that does not explain why you were laughing.

”

Letting out a sigh, Owailion admitted, “It was either that or I was going to cry. No, I saw this pile of fish and had to laugh. Humans don't eat that much in a month. Yes, we eat often, but not that much. And now that I'm on level ground I can make a fire. I'll show you how humans cook.” Then in a fit of curiosity, he asked another question. “Do dragons blow fire?”

“

Yes, at the sorcerers on the other side of the Seal, but it would probably start a forest fire here, which would not be good for squishy people. If you need a fire to do this cooking, I can teach you how to make one with magic.

”

True to his offer, Mohan walked Owailion carefully through using his power to conjure fire. “

You must draw on the deep of the earth,

” Mohan began. “

Use your mind to see what you want to create. The stuff of the earth will become fire if you ask it to change. Think about its size and the place you want it to grow and the fire will come.

”

Doubtfully Owailion brushed aside a coating of fallen pine needles, clearing a spot for his fire and then concentrated, thinking first of kindling, and then the start of a smallish fire. If this worked he did not want to be the one to deal with a raging forest fire. At his wish, kindling popped out of the ground like dandelions, and Owailion laughed again. Then a poof of smoke showed in the middle of the kindling, and he blew briefly on the smoke. He was rewarded by a simple fire, and then he had to hurriedly add conjured firewood to maintain it. He grew so fascinated with the magic involved that he forgot the purpose of the fire in the first place.

“

Is making fire cooking?

” Mohan asked curiously but sounding not at all impressed.

“No,” Owailion admitted. “Now I need a knife and …” Owailion used the magic to conjure a knife to gut one of the many fish that had been offered. As he worked with the knife and then conjured a pan to fry it in, he explained the need to cook his food.

“

And you cook your food every time you eat?

” Apparently this amazed the dragon, for he ate a few caribou, his favorite meal, about once a month. “

But look at all you eat. No wonder you eat three times a day. It seems a waste of time to make your food all brown and hot. Well, maybe this is because humans do not have the fire within you so you must roast it on the outside. That makes sense to me.

”

Owailion chuckled at the thought of cooking his food while in his stomach and then went back to questions he had about magic. “So I can conjure anything I want or need just by wishing for it? What is to keep me from conjuring grand things, making myself rich beyond anyone in the world?”

“

You are a Wise One,

” Mohan reminded him. “

You would not be so foolish. Besides, who would care if you made a clothes out of the brightest dragon scales? No one here will see them to be impressed. God selected you because you would not be tempted by that kind of magic. That is where the evil starts among man; using magic out of greed rather than for the service of others. The sorcerers from other lands use their magic for that kind of control and avarice.

”

Owailion looked around at the forest, at the emptiness of the Land and then gathered a fist full of pine needles to feed his fire. “What if there is no one here to serve. Humans are not meant to be alone.”

Mohan rumbled audibly at that before he replied. “

Then perhaps God does intend you to be in your pack. He will provide what you need. Never forget, He has chosen you. Have faith in that.

” Then after a pause, he added, “

Owailion, your mind is cloudy. Is there something wrong with you?

”

“Oh, I'm just tired now. You know humans, we sleep every night. If I can sleep, I will be not-cloudy in the morning. Is that enough for you?”

Mohan snorted his agreement. “

What do you require to sleep?

”

Owailion conjured a blanket for himself and lay down without caring about the bed he knew once upon a time he might have enjoyed. “Dark and quiet,” he mumbled. And Mohan gave him that.