Here be dragons...

Here is another, quite simple map of the Southern Lands of Airthai, showing the lands of the Seafolk and their neighbours (drawn by yours truly). The Dragon Guardians are part of the Seafolk and live at the aptly named Dragon Cliffs. This is where "A Dragon's Freedom" starts...

Map of the west of the Southern Lands 

Fiction Monday: Eldarion Whargahn

Eldarion watched his brothers disappear into the trees before he turned his back on the Rëaghor Forest. At the crossroads before him there were two choices for any traveller: travel through the forest or travel around it. Deep ruts led north and south, following the road most often used. But on this road, grass and weeds were matted where people had passed fled into the forest. The forest and its surrounds had been the Erewhar's home for almost as long as their tales remembered. He glanced behind him, checking that the last few stragglers of the Whargahn clan had disappeared into the shadows of the forest; each carrying only a small bundle of possessions. They had no time to wait for a cripple. He clenched and unclenched his hand around the green hilt of his short sword. At least he could hold the Khalvér back for a while and give his people a chance to escape a taint to their souls.

The moon showed only half her face, but the light was enough to see by for the Erewhar. He glanced at the four stars that pointed south to where his people had come from so many generations before; before they had betrayed the Ahma on that fateful day – the choice that had led to their fall. He heard the figures approaching before he took his eyes from the stars. For a moment he wondered if the Erewhar would remember him.

Cursed vermin. Did they truly still think that the Erewhar would join them in serving the ever-cursed Lewjan? The Erewhar may have fallen once, but would never again stoop to that level. His people would be redeemed. He rested his eyes on the dark figures and felt the power of the Talent being awakened deep inside him.  

"Stay where you are!" he called to the figures, not expecting them to stop, but hoping that they would step into the road now that they know they had been spotted. Three of the figures did just that. He couldn't make out their faces, but knew the golden sigil they wore upon their breasts. There was no doubt about their identity – Khalvér; and Servants of the Shadow. For all he knew Alzer, the boy they had sent as messenger, lay dead on his way to the Khalné. Would the Khalné arrive in time even if they had received the message? He drew his sword a couple of inches from its sheath and said a prayer for the redemption of all their souls.

One of the Khalvér lifted his hand, but it was neither in greeting, nor in warning. Eldarion felt the air around him thicken and press against his chest, leaving his breathing laboured. He drew strength from somewhere inside himself. The Other, the Elders called the source that the Erewhar was able to draw upon. Part of the Talent that the Khalné used, but it was different in many ways: more potent, but also more unpredictable, and addictive like the Talent was not – tainted somehow by deeds long past. He already felt the Lewjan’s shadow calling to him. He did not move, but pushed against the Khalvér's magic. His breathing became normal once more and he drew his sword fully. They laughed when he took two steps closer to them and they saw that he stumbled as he walked.

"Fight me fair," he said and his voice rang out across the grassy field. He fought off a second Khalvér that tried to bind him, lifting his arm to keep his balance. More shadows appeared in the tall grass. He would never be able to fight them all off and live. His heart beat faster still and cold sweat beaded on his brow. Perhaps he was not meant to live through this night. A strange glow showed in the palm of one of the Khalvér, proving that he summoned his power from the Shadow.

The Khalvér strode towards him. Towards the woods. Towards his people. He had to save his people, no matter what the cost. Eldarion flung out all the power inside him at the Khalvér, striking with his sword at the same time and receiving a pounding in return that sent him to his knees and crushed his fingers around the hilt. He cursed himself for letting them know the extent of his Talent so soon.

The leader of the band of Khalvér, a Werlea, stepped forward. He drew his own blue-black blade from the sheath at his hip. The intricately wrought blade seemed to glow with the blood it had drunk before. Tempered in Ahma's blood, the word went about these swords. And what was Erewhar but fallen Ahma? What was he? He felt his heart quail and the Talent dimmed. The Werlea’s voice was emotionless.

“There will be no peace for the Erewhar. No life. No redemption. You will join with us or die.”

Eldarion’s blade was forced to the ground and cleft into the sand. There were too many, and they were too strong. What was so much of the Lewjan’s magic against his tainted Talent? His heart sank, his breathing slowed, crushed from his body by the Khalvér.

He felt a faint pulse around him. He took a quick gulp of air before it was pushed away once more. Eldarion closed his eyes and concentrated on the faint pulse of Talent.

Fear only seems to lessen the Talent you’re given, he remembered being taught. He pushed once more with all the might he had, joining that faint pulse. Three of the Khalvér dropped to their knees. By their howling he knew they had been stilled and left to face the Shadow’s Lord without their dark magic.

A Werlea stepped up to him. Intricate tattooed patterns partially hid the burst veins and discolouration around his eyes. From his belt he drew a short, twisted blade. The Servant of the Shadow laughed at Eldarion as he tried to lift his sword. But as he struck with his blade at the young Erewhar's heart, the stroke glanced away and threw him off balance. Eldarion’s grip around his sword's hilt loosened, and pain flooded his arm as feeling returned.

Eldarion glanced around, feeling the pulse of Talent grow stronger. Then he saw the figures in their light cloaks. The Khalné had arrived. There was a chance for redemption still. The Erewhar were saved. He was saved. 

Photo by Thomas Schaeffer

The Fall of the Erewhar

A thousand years or more before the dark day of the Battle of the Black Field a stranger came to the south west of the Southern Lands. No one knew where he came from. No one knew where he was going. He was dressed in brown, threadbare clothes and a formless felt hat hung over his half blind eyes. In his right hand he carried a black staff and in the left a leather bag with books which he sometimes swung onto his bowed back.

The people of the town of Hêrgereh, which in that time was a city with its own House of Learning, welcomed the man when they saw that he had books with him which they didn’t know of.

He also showed them wonderful works, which he seemed to do with his Talent, like curing the city ruler’s son from a sudden illness that affected his brain and mind. What the people didn’t know was that he was one of the Lewjan that came to them in human form to seduce them and lead them away from the Allwaldan. He let them copy the books and helped them to translate the books into the Erewhar’s language from a strange language which they didn’t know. Through this, they learned of a new power. They gave this knowledge to those among them who was not learned until every Erewhar in Hêrgereh used the new power and not their given Talent.

Then they went to the other towns of the Erewhar and those from Hêrgereh gave them the knowledge of the Lewjan as well. Within two decades, all the Erewhar had turned away from their Talent and Allwaldan and now followed the Lewjan, even though many at the time did not realise this yet.

The Lewjan that went to the Erewhar took on his true, twisted form on the day that the last Erewhar turned away from the Creator and he laughed at them and their Houses of Learning. “Just look how quickly the pious Erewhar turns from their Creator! You will serve my master for the rest of Airthai’s existence!”

Then the Erewhar knew that it was a Lewjan in front of them and that they had lost the Talent that had been given to them. They had turned so far from Allwaldan, that they had even forgotten their own laws and blood ran in the streets of the Erewhar towns as each fought for more power.

One after the other the wonderful towns, city and Houses of Learning of the Erewhar fell in flames and ruins.

But the Creator will never leave his creations for the Lewjan and sent three Airus to one of the towns where some of the Erewhar had come to see that they had turned from their Creator and sought a way back somehow. At first they turned a cold shoulder to the Airus, thinking that they also wanted to lead them from the light, and did not want to listen to them. But in time they learned again their old ways and found that, when they broke through the Lewjan’s chains and chose the side of the Light that they received a new Talent – one with which to better fight the Lewjan.

Because they had been under the Lewjan for more than a generation by this time, they found that the Lewjan still had some kind of hold on them when they used their Talent. The Erewhar had the Talent to fight the Lewjan, just like the Ahma, but a deathly sin had been awakened in them and when they fought they did not want to only fight for their and other’s freedom, but also to gain power or exact revenge. That is why they took to saying that the shadow of the Lewjan always followed them. For many generations the Erewhar would still fight against the power of the Lewjan.

Then one of the women who lived on the outskirts of the Erewhar’s lands gave birth to a daughter. She was not only taught by her family, but also by the Ahma from Reiaghy that heard about the family’s goodness and that they wanted to shun the Lewjan completely. She was called Aleidys. When she was twenty years old Aleidys, along with others of her town that shunned the Lewjan, and the Ahma, went to the other towns and through their use of their Talent and their words convince the people to turn against the Lewjan.

The Erewhar freed themselves from the Lewjan’s chains slowly and came in revolt against the Lewjan and their minions. They drove away the old man and any other Lewjan they found in the towns.

On the last day of the hundredth year since the coming of the Lewjan to the Erewhar the soldiers of the Erewhar stood against the Lewjan. A fierce fight was fought on that day. The Lewjan attacked the Erewhar with fire, but not one hair on the heads of the Erewhar was singed. Some of the witnesses later said that they saw the Airus that fought on the field alongside the Erewhar and kept the fire from them. The Erewhar stood strong because they knew that this battle was not just for their freedom, but for their very souls.

Some of the Erewhar, however, were so drunk and blind with the power the Lewjan gave and promised them, that they still chose to go with the Lewjan even after the Erewhar had won and were taken away in a plume of smoke when the new day dawned. They were not seen again in their own human form, but were rumoured to dwell in the Death Plain seeking souls to twist as their own were twisted. They could take on any form that they wished, like the strongest of the Lewjan, and it is said that they often took the form of seductive women to seduce men with their looks and voices.

The Erewhar who stayed behind found the ground turned to ash where they stood and not one tree still stood on the burnt plain. Around them was nothing but ash and mud. And so they trekked south to seek help from the neighbouring countries. Aleidys led the group that would later become the Whargahn clan.

They made their new home in and around the woods of Reiaghor and that is where Eldarion Whargahn of the Whargahn clan stood against the Khalvér.