XXVIII - Rebellion Reveal
Crater had undergone some pretty drastic changes since I had last been home. It looked like King Aspen was already holding up his end of the deal; vines and greenery were growing within the city, trees sprouting atop the stone structures with their roots gripping the rock. I could see the dragons below, most with smiles on their faces. They weren't fighting, yelling, or arguing. It was good to see that we were getting along as a race. The air even seemed cleaner, it didn't smell like sulfur.
However, the feeling of being watched was new. I couldn't spot anydragon looking at us so I ignored it.
The three of us flew over the city straight to the Anthanium, where Olakaan was waiting. Landing in front of the doorway, I took a deep breath and exhaled slowly.
“Are you okay?” Niirah asked.
I nodded. “Yeah, just hoping this isn't super bad news.”
“I’m sure it will be fine,” she said, wrapping her tail around mine.
“Come on. Algae’s eggs are due any day now, I wanna get back as soon as we can,” Dwiin said impatiently. I don't know why he’s so worried: I don't think he realizes that it will be another thirty-three months before the eggs hatch.
“A little hint for you, Dwiin; things do not get better after the eggs are laid,” I told him as we entered the Anthanium.
“Algae will at least return to her non-moody self-right?” he asked hopefully.
“Ha!” Niirah burst out loudly.
Dwiin looked worried. “What?”
I spoke first. “Oh, nothing, just don't be surprised when she snarls at you because you got too close to the eggs.”
“Or snaps at you because you didn't keep them at just the right resting angle,” Niirah added. “Or just to bite at you.”
Dwiin’s ears fell. “Oh,” he muttered and walked ahead, out of our earshot. Niirah and I both looked at one another, frowning in sudden guilt.
“You should talk to him,” Niirah stated.
“Thank you Captain Obvious. I hadn't figured that out,” I muttered.
“I know, what would you do without me?” she joked proudly. “But seriously, he looks up to you like your his older brother. Talk to him.” She hurried on ahead.
I followed closely. We came into the main area of Olakaan’s library. “Olakaan! You here!?” I called.
Light erupted from a tunnel going to another chamber, and hushed voices followed. “...I’ll let you know if they are successful,” Olakaan’s voice carried.
“Please do, I've helped you this far. The least you could do is inform me of the outcome,” another voice that sounded like Olakaan’s came before the light disappeared.
Olakaan himself came out of the tunnel with a wide grin. “Okay then, straight to business, no time to lose.” He hurried over to a pile of papers and drew a sketch of the bracelet in my dream.
“This is the Elderspark. An ancient pearl that came from the core of a volcano. A volcano from the dragon’s original dimension. If you believe the stories anyway. As far as I can tell it can store an unlimited amount of heat energy. Like the kind you produce when you get angry.”
“Cool? So it's an old rock?” I asked receiving a whack on the nose with a scroll.
“Not just any old rock, possibly a rock equal in power to the Bloodstone Scepter!” Olakaan said excitedly.
“WHAT!?” I almost lost my breath. Niirah, and Dwiin both looked at me with equally surprised looks. “Why am I seeing it in my dreams then?”
Olakaan grinned. “Ah! Now to the interesting part!”
“And that wasn't?” I asked.
Olakaan rummaged around for more papers. “Long story short, the stone once belonged to the first bloodline of fire dragons, and was passed from king to king, or queen to queen.”
“Waiting for why I'm involved here?” I asked, waiting for him to spell it out for me.
Olakaan fixed me in a glare. “It's a magical stone that is basically alive. Belonging to dragon royalty. It's been many millennia since the stone has had an heir. It's calling out to its next owner…” He pointed a claw at me.
“WHAT!” I cried, my head suddenly spinning.
“So you are saying that Krein is a Fire Dragon pureblood, and basically a king?” Dwiin asked.
“Well maybe not a king, but definitely a pureblood,” Olakaan explained. “Him and his family, with the exception of Kii, a magic dragon. He is also the eldest living heir. The Stone obviously knows this, and it wishes to be claimed.”
I was too focused on breathing to listen closely to him. This stone was possibly equal to or stronger than the Bloodstone Scepter. And I'M the bloody owner! There had to be some kind of mistake.
I abruptly remembered the skeleton who lunged at me from my dream and a thought suddenly occurred to me. “What happens if I don't go and get it?” I asked.
Olakaan frowned. “See, that is the scary part about this. If you refuse its calls, it’ll get angrier. First, the dreams will become more intense. Second, you’ll start to lose control of your anger more. And third…” He paused, glanced down at some papers, then spoke. “Eventually you will overheat too much and your own fire will cause you to explode and die.”
I beat of silence fell across the room. “Well,” Niirah started. “That's intense. Kinda removes all choice from this situation, doesn't it?”
I just nodded, and we all sat there in silence for a few minutes. “Why am I the only one out of my siblings overheating?” I wondered. “If they are purebloods too, shouldn't they have the same problem?”
Olakaan shrugged. “I'm not gonna pretend to know how the magic of a dragon’s fire works. But as far as I can tell, your soul is a strong one. You need the Elderspark to help you control it.”
I cleared my throat. “So my options are this. One: go mad from creepy intense dreams, then go on an insane rampage, and then eventually blow up and die, and probably kill a lot of other ponies and dragons. Or two: go retrieve a crazy old pearl and potentially become a political rival to the Dragon Lord, and be killed then. Either way, I end up dead.”
“Well you don't have to be a king or anything like that,” Olakaan said. “The Elderspark merely wants to be found. You don't have to rule over anything.”
“Good, because I don't want to! I'm perfectly happy where I am,” I said.
“But…” Dwiin said.
“But I have to go get the stone or else I die. I know.” I groaned as I stood. “We better get moving.”
Olakaan coughed. “As Ice dragons, Niirah and I can't go. Because it's in a particularly hot environment.”
“Yeah, I figured that out on my own,” I turned to Niirah. “You gonna be with your siblings?”
“Yeah, but um…” she said a little nervously. She hesitated for a moment, then kissed my cheek quickly. “Be careful,” she said, her face flushing red turned and quickly left the library. I felt my own face flushing.
“So,” I said. “Where is the Elderspark exactly?” I had a hunch but I needed it confirmed.
“The last anydragon knew, it was in the Cradle of Fire,” Olakaan said, pulling out a map. He pointed out the Cradle of Fire.
“Here is some reading material on the Elderspark, for when you take breaks. You will tell me everything you can right?” Olakaan asked excitedly, handing me a big stack of papers and books. I wondered if he’d even noticed the kiss.
“Everything we can remember,” I assured him, tucking the papers into my saddlebags.
Dwiin and I headed out. “After you, your Majesty,” he joked, bowing.
“Please don't do that,” I muttered. I really did not want to think about how Torch would react if dragons started referring to me as a king.
It took Dwiin and me about a day and a half to get to The Cradle of Fire. A fitting name now that I know it holds the Elderspark. We alighted down on a good spot to rest. I pulled out the reading material on the thing and started to look through it.
As I perused various theories about the Elderspark Dwiin seemed uneasy. “You know you'll be fine, right?” I said, not looking up.
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“You, Algae and her younglings,” I said. “Just do everything she asks while waiting for the eggs to hatch and you'll do fine.”
“Is she really gonna get worse?”
“No. Not really, but she will be extremely overprotective of the eggs. Just be careful and you'll be fine.” I assured him.
“I can come to you if we need help?”
“Of course.”
“Thanks. That means a lot.” We were silent as we continued to rest.
But as I got further into the reading material, I found things that were a little concerning. “Hey listen to this; ‘The Elderspark is rumored to contain the consciousness from all its previous wielders. Those consciousness’ can be tapped for knowledge if assisted by one who has mastered the Dream Realm.’ Interesting right?”
Dwiin nodded. “That is interesting. Perhaps you can ask Princess Luna for assistance there?”
“Yeah, maybe. Let’s get moving shall we?” I suggest standing up.
“Let’s.”
We took flight and flew for the Volcano that I recalled from my dream holding the tomb. After circling the volcano a few times, a break in the ash cloud revealed exactly what we were looking for. A good fifty feet down from the rim of the volcano, a dragon-sized stone archway. The entrance.
“You weren't kidding that it was hard to reach,” Dwiin commented, as we started for it.
We dove hard through the ash cloud toward the entrance. At a decently high speed, we landed hard just inside the tomb sliding on the sharp stone until we stopped. I rubbed the scrapes on my claws and talons.
“I hate landing like that,” I commented.
“Doesn't bother me really.” Dwiin shrugged, strutting around in his armored hide. Show-off.
I had a look around. There were four coffins in this first chamber near the entrance. I had a look at the inscriptions on each of them. I recognized only parts of the dragon script: each of them was the name of the dragon inside. But they all felt...familiar. I felt like...like even though each name was different, they were dragons I knew. More than that, they were...
“They are all me,” I whispered.
“What?” Dwiin asked. “None of those say, Krein.”
“I know, but…” I said. “All of these...it feels like looking at my own name. I think these were all past versions of me.”
“Whatever, this place is creepy. Perhaps we should just get what we are here for and leave,” Dwiin suggested.
“Yeah, you’re right.” I hurried to the back of the tomb where Dwiin was headed.
We found ourselves at the top of some steps that spiraled downwards into a deep pit. The issue was I couldn't see down there.
“Hey, check this out,” Dwiin called. He was by the railing, touching something with his claws and holding it up for me to see: a thick black liquid. “Oil, going down a groove in the railing.”
“Give it a light,” I said.
Dwiin nodded and lit the oil with a small spit of fire. The fire spread down the railing, illuminating the path, as well as something I really didn't want to see.
More coffins. More dead past versions of me. Dozens of them going deeper and deeper until the fire made a circle at the bottom, a good one hundred feet of old bones and stone.
This was kinda more than I expected. “I'm not sure what's more disturbing; that I've lived this many lives. Or that I've died this many times.”
“Or that we dragons have been here far longer than we have been lead to believe,” Dwiin added as he started down the stairs.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Think about it like this. You could have lived at least a millennia or two as each of your past selves. Multiply that by...I’m guessing there are about forty-two to fifty coffins here. That is approximately forty-five millennia all together, give or take?”
I did the math quickly in my head. “Wow, you’re right. And the scripture on the coffins could tell us about my lives and how long we have been here. Too bad we can't read it.”
I paused briefly to look at a coffin and recognized the dragon script for female. Apparently, I was a girl in another life. Not sure how I feel about that.
We were soon at the bottom. The stone floor felt warm, we must have been above a magma pocket. And on a pedestal at the head of the last coffin in this crypt, was a brown bracer with a pearl embedded into the leather.
“The Elderspark,” I whispered and approached it. I was still working on believing that it was real. But here it was plain as day in front of me. I started to reach for it.
“Be careful. It might be boobytrapped,” Dwiin said quickly.
I stopped. “How many of the Daring Do novels have you read?”
“Two,” he admitted.
I rolled my eyes and picked up the Elderspark. Unsurprisingly, nothing happened. Booby traps, ha. I proceeded to put it on my left wrist. As I pulled the strings tight, the leather melded together, the strings disappeared, and the band changed.
What looked like gold appeared around the pearl and the edges of the leather, and black swirling flames appeared in the space remaining. Maybe it was a trick of the light, but I could swear the flames were moving.
I looked over at Dwiin, who had just watched the same thing. “You saw that right?” I asked.
Dwiin blinked. “Saw it. Still, don't believe. I guess you really can't take it off.”
I examined the Elderspark a little further. “Apparently not,”
“Well, you got it. How about we get out of here?” Dwiin suggested.
“You aren't going anywhere!” a feminine voice called from above.
We looked up, and on a flight of steps working their way down to us were three exiles. A fire dragon, a sea dragon, and leading them was a fairly large ice dragoness. I recognized these three, face brands and all.
They were the same three to attack Saddle Arabia all that time ago. It looked as if they were a little malnourished. How’d the ice dragon and sea dragon get past the heat? I thought for sure it was enough to kill those not adapted.
All three dragons glared down at us, continuing to make their way down the steps calmly. They were experienced fighters, and they had us outnumbered: I did not want to pick a fight with them.
“When I say now, take off. Halfway up, you need to shoot a blast on the floor we are currently standing on to release the magma and trigger an eruption,” I told Dwiin in a hushed whisper.
“But that will destroy all of this,” he reminded me. “And put you in a lot of danger.”
“Better this place be destroyed, than risk the chance of the knowledge here falling into the wrong claws,” I finished as the exiles reached the bottom of the stairs.
The Ice dragoness spoke up. “Long time, no see, Speaker. Although we looked better last we met.” She pointed to her brand.
“I apologize I didn’t get your names last we met. We were busy arresting you for treason. Let me guess; Hefhah, Meyuz, and Hinzaal?” All three meant some form of ‘idiot’ in dragon.
The ice dragoness glared at me unamused. The other two shrugged at each other. At least I knew who was the brains in this outfit.
“The only traitors in these lands are Lord Torch and those who follow him. Bartering peace treaties with creatures beneath us.” She spat viciously as if the word peace was poisonous. “Disgraceful! We should be ruling over them like we did before!”
“‘Before?’ Before what?” I asked. When had dragons ruled over other creatures? “What is it you want?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” the sea dragon said, pointing at the Elderspark. “We’ll be taking that little trinket for the rebellion.”
The fire dragon nodded. “Killing you would be a fun bonus. Please let us.”
“How'd you find this place? More importantly, how’d you get in here?” I asked.
The ice dragoness laughed. “We've been following you since Crater. As for how we got in here, the rebellion has its tricks. We have eyes and ears in the right places to put it plainly. For example; we know that rock there on your wrist is powerful enough to take on Lord Torch. Although admittedly that won't be the first thing we do it. Extinction of the ponies sounds like a good start, though.”
The trio of dragons stepped closer, and I had to fight the urge to step back. “Well, that sounds all well, evil, and sinister—thanks for telling me all about your plans, Miss Big Mouth—but if you want the Elderspark, you are gonna have to come and get it. Now!” I shouted, leaping upward. Dwiin leaped onto the air after me.
Flying in a space where it was barely possible to get air under your wings was difficult. Very difficult. I took to kicking off the walls a few times to keep up my speed, and my wings scraped the walls more than once. The other three dragons were a bit too slow to react, but they were quickly catching up to us.
But as we got halfway up, Dwiin turned, took in a breath, and fired a huge fireball at the floor of the tomb. The brimstone floor burst from the release of pressure, sending hot gas, magma, and rock flying everywhere with a tremendous roar. The sea dragoness screamed in pain and fear behind me. The heat licked my back and my tail, pushing me to go faster.
Dwiin and I escaped the tomb just as a stream of heat and molten rock blew out of the cave behind us. Barely slowing, we took advantage of the clearer air outside and flew faster. We dared not stop until we had reached the safety of Crater.
The city of Crater never looked so good. Dwiin and I let ourselves glide to the city edge and landed.
“So tired,” Dwiin wheezed, his wings and legs shaking with fatigue. I collapsed on the ground next to him, panting. Every inch of my body ached.
We paused for a few minutes to catch our breath, then I wearily forced myself back up. “Let's get to Olakaan and tell him what happened,” I said, starting down the steps into the city, slowly.
It was a long, aching walk to the Anthanium, but we made it without having to rest more than once. As soon as we entered, Dwiin went and found a pillow to rest on. I set to work looking for Olakaan.
I followed a bright light coming from down the passageway from before. Curious, I approached quietly. I heard hushed whispers as I approached.
I opened the door and found two Olakaans. One wearing glasses and one not wearing glasses, standing in front of an archway of light. They both looked at me with a surprised look on their face.
“Well this is awkward,” the fake-Olakaan said after a moment. “I'll talk to you another time,” he said to real-Olakaan.
Fake-Olakaan stepped through the archway of light and disappeared. Real-Olakaan turned a glowy knob on the side and the light went away.
“You weren't supposed to see that,” Olakaan stated.
I was beyond confused. “Why were there two of you?”
“I um… you look exhausted and tired. You’re probably just seeing things,” Olakaan quickly led me out of the room before closing it and locking it.
Tired I might have been, but I know what I saw. “You aren't a magic dragon. How did you do that?”
“Let's just say that knowledge is power. I have the knowledge, therefore I have power. Just forget what you saw in there, and don't go in there again please.”
“Um...okay.” I was still really confused, but I was too tired to really care about anything other than the fact that I know had the Elderspark and had nearly died.
Olakaan led me back into the main chamber. Dwiin had fallen asleep.
“Dwiin and I have bad and good news. We need Viing here,” I said sitting down.
Olakaan nodded. “Okay then, I'll send for him in a bit. You rest a while.”
I didn't argue.
“Krein!” I heard Niirah cry, pulling me from my slumber.
“What?” I said groggily. I looked around to find her examining my wings. “What are you doing?”
“Your wings are bleeding!” she said concerned.
“What?” I was now aware of the stinging sensation in them and noticed the red streaks across the membranes. “Oh! Well, would you look at that.”
“The blood likely dried up while we were flying, and when you rolled while sleeping, it opened them up,” Dwiin guessed.
“I only noticed the pain now when it was pointed out.” I yawned as Niirah fussed over my wounds, cleaning them off with some clothes Olakaan had brought.
“These cuts and abrasions are gonna get worse if you try and fly with them,” Niirah stated. “How'd this happen?”
“Oh, entertaining story. Viing around?” I asked.
“Over here!” Viing made himself known. He was next to Dwiin.
Oh. “Oh! Sorry didn't see you there. So we ran into some exiles, and guess what…”
So after reciting the tale to Viing, we decided it was time to bring Lord Torch up to speed. Ving touched his brand to summon the enchanted fires in his claws and we quickly told him the story of the rebels and the Elderspark (with some details about how I was apparently the reincarnation of a dragon king left out). He was silent for several seconds, then spoke.
“Speaker, I think it's time we informed our allies of the possibility of a Dragon Civil War. It would be best if they were prepared just in case of the worst,” Lord Torch said through Viing’s magical flames.
“It will be done my lord,” I spoke as Lord Torch cut off the spell. He always has to have the last word.
“That brings up the question of how we are gonna get back to Equestria. If you fly you risk tearing holes in your wings,” Niirah said pointing out my injuries. I seriously doubted they were that bad, but she seemed worried and I didn't want to push it.
Viing cleared his throat. “I was gonna send an airship to finally collect Ash tomorrow. I can send it a day early, it’s no issue. It’s headed straight to Canterlot for the transfer.”
“We need to get back as soon as possible. We’ll go with the prison transport,” I said. standing up.
“I will start coming up with plans on how to deal with this Rebellion. I will inform you if I need assistance,” Viing called staying with Olakaan.
Dwiin, Niirah and I headed out. We walked quietly through Crater, making our way toward the docks. The events of the past few days were catching up with me. Heck, the events of the past few months were enough to send a dragon to the madhouse if others had not been through the same. And with the now very real threat of a dragon civil war and not merely the whispers of one, I was not sure how my role in this will change, and I really was not sure I’m ready for it to change.
“You look worried,” Niirah pulled me out of my head. “Everything will be okay.”
“How do you know?” I asked.
“A wise dragon named Krein once told me: ‘Just keep flying onward, and things will work out.’”
“I don't recall saying that,” I told her.
“I might be paraphrasing. It was something like that. I still believe it,” she nuzzled me as we walked. Her touch felt heavenly against my scales and I nuzzled her back.
Perhaps a little change would be good. What’s the worst that can happen?
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So I take it Spike will play a big role?
8931754
Not telling.
Ah, murphey's law has been evoked.
Zu'u faan bozok draaf!