Song of the Dragoons

I was alive again. Again. That was the wrong word. I was [always|never|recently] alive like this.

More importantly, I could see. I was standing on water, the surface of a vast lake or sea that seemed only an inch deep. Fog marked the boundaries of my world, no more than a few hundred feet away at any time as I wandered forward. I didn't know what I was walking toward, what I was hoping to find here. There wasn't anything but the water and the empty grey sky.

I chanced a look down. I saw [me|them|us], the image of an orange-scaled dragon looking back up at me from the mirror. I was human here above the surface, but my other self was below. It mirrored my movements as I kept walking.

I chanced a looked up. The sky wasn't empty anymore. There was a star, bright and golden, that descended from the void until it hung in the air close enough that it felt like I could touch it. It shone so bright that I had to shield my eyes. As I did, rays dripped from its body into the lake. Where the light touched the water, things rose up out of it. Grass. Land. A wide shore sprung up at the edges of where the fog had been. Trees came next, then the grey of the sky wiped away into a black expanse, full of stars. Stars that proceeded across the whole of the celestial sphere like a flowing river.

The rays dripped down before me, and people rose from the water. People clad in the attire of farmers, nobles, factory workers, soldiers, and occultists, people who ranged from young children to elders to strange, pallid, tall figures. None of them had faces, but they all had reflections. Dragons that sat below the water's surface, staring at me in a way their eyeless counterparts couldn't.

The scene was tranquil until one of the tall figures let out a horrible scream. They summoned a knife, seemingly from nowhere, and knelt down, striking at their reflection. The dragon writhed in agony, and the water was tinged red. One by one, the rest of the tall men gave the same scream before following the first one's lead, stabbing their counterparts again and again until the whole lake had filled with [blood|memory|identity].

I looked down at my own reflection. It…she seemed worried. Terrified. I felt I had a chance. I could cut her out of me. Like those tall men did. But the screams made me hesitate. They seemed wicked.

The water's surface was broken by a spear of light. It lanced through the heart of my reflection, pulling her up and out of the water until she was suspended, still as dead air. More harpoons shot into the lake from the star overhead, striking the water and pulling up draconic counterparts. The screams ceased. Soon the air was filled with captured dragons. All of the other people began to panic, then run away.

Blood flowed from the corpses up the chains and into the star. A harsh wind blew over the lake. The land around us began to dry and crumble. The plants withered and twisted, turning into patches of dead thorny brambles. I heard a sound in the gale, like weeping. It was both despairing and wrathful. It hurt.

The blood seeped into the star, and its form shimmered. It became solid. The gold light faded, replaced with a sanguine red glow. The ephemeral surface became the pitted, cratered landscape of a blood-red moon. A cacophonous cracking sound echoed over the world as enormous valleys were cut into its surface, carving out a shape. One I had seen before.

But this time, my mind was open. I was aware. I could see. The carving was weightier. I felt it engrave itself into my brain. I knew what it meant. This moon, it was a [god|star|language]. A

G R E A T M I N D

The weeping turned to an endless howl of pain, anger, anguish, and deep, deep loathing. The people who had run fell to their knees, clutching their featureless heads. They began to disintegrate as the dead dragons they had been paired with twisted and morphed, their forms becoming fiendish. My own began to twitch, and I suddenly felt a great splitting force in my head.

I fell, my legs no longer able to hold me. I couldn't hold back a scream. I could feel my brain coming apart at the seams. [Water|Knowledge|Light] rushed in to fill the cracks, only pushing me further towards splintering, like ice freezing inside a broken rock. It was more than death that I felt. It was a total end. A transmutation of all that was once me.

In the red darkness, I saw a glint of light. It came from beyond the dead shore. It shone through the shadow, cutting it back. I had little reason to hope in the face of overwhelming existence. But I allowed myself to anyway, and looked toward the light. I was blinded by its shine for a moment. And then, when my vision cleared, I was standing again.

My brain hadn't been put back together, but it wasn't falling apart anymore. I could think again. There was a warm light around me that felt soft and gentle. A comforting embrace. Standing in front of me was the form of a large person in a cloak, holding a walking stick in one hand that bore a lantern hanging from the top. Despite the light from the lantern, their face below the hood of their cloak was entirely shrouded in darkness.

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"Who…?" I said. The words didn't work. I couldn't put them together right. "Here is…there was water? Why?"

The figure moved to rest both of their hands on their staff. The glass of the lantern cracked, forming another carving, the same one on the moon. But this one's invisible contours were shaped slightly different. This Great Mind was [young|spectral|stillborn]. It pointed, and when I looked in that direction the darkness around me was gone.

I stood on a hill overlooking a swampy lowland. A great lake dominated the view, but in my mind I saw it as a ewer, a collection of the first water. An open-air temple was built on all sides of the lake, like an ancient coliseum, its seats filled with tall people, like those I had seen below the moon. In the centre, a four-way arched bridge spanned the lake, and on it stood three men in priestly robes. All of those present were chanting a language that made my ears buzz.

Blood pooled at their feet, flowing down into the lake. The men in the tiered rings around the temple collapsed, their bodies convulsing as the last of their blood flowed free, reaching out towards their retreating vitality like revenants trying to cling to life. The lake turned red, then black. The three men at the centre raised their arms high, before a booming wail echoed from the sky. A symbol was carved into the centre of bridges, too distant for me to make out. The blood that flowed suddenly became still, then ran backwards. The lake didn't empty, but no more blood reached it. Screams erupted from the congregation, as their hungry blood returned to them, their bodies warped, and the three leaders fell in a heap, their flesh melting together.

Behind me, the lantern-bearer spoke, its words incomprehensible, yet they engraved a shape on my cracked mind:

R A G E

Time accelerated. I saw the crowd turn to beasts, then rampaging monsters roved over the landscape as the days flew by. The temple crumbled, its remains claimed by entropy and hanging ivy before being buried altogether. Soon, dragons soared across the sky and I saw humans curiously glancing from the forest's edge before the lake sunk below the earth as well, falling into a cavern below.

Some thousands of years later, the cave which had once been a temple was breached. Red light emanated from beyond a wall, and the stone was shattered. A young woman stepped through, clad in simple white robes robes. She cautiously approached the lake, speaking a short phrase and drawing a glyph in the air. I saw what she saw. The lake emitted tendrils of purplish energy. Vis. I could feel the power wash over me like a tidal wave. The woman looked shocked, then a wide smile broke over her face before she dropped to her knees and cupped [water|power|pyrite] into her mouth. She began to change even as she kept drinking of the powerful, powerful water, her form contorting into a massive fiend, larger than any beast I had ever seen. She roared in the cave, before leaning down to continue filling her belly with the corrupt water.

The lantern-bearer spoke again, carving another shape on my brain:

G R E E D

Time accelerated once more. The fiend continued to drink and drink, its thirst never slaked, and the waters never running dry, until the passage it came through was sealed by fallen rocks, and then broken again, this time by a tremendous blast of powder. The fiend finally looked up, roaring at the intruders, but when it attempted to strike them, its attacks were rebuffed by a potent magical ward. Deacons entered first, firing bullets at the beast over and over, then ministers of the Church who cast glyphs and burned blood to conjure ephemeral red chains that bound the creature to the floor. Then entered Saint-Archvicar Paul Barbosa. He gave a dismissive gesture to the massive monster, then approached the lake.

One of the ministers, wearing familiar garb, slightly different than those of the others in the room, came to his side, and they discussed in hushed whispers before turning away. I couldn't understand what they said, despite them speaking a language I knew that I understood. The people filed out of the cavern, dragging the growling fiend behind them.

The lantern-bearer spoke a third time, and I received another carving:

P R I D E

They walked forward, across the flat water on the dark lake. I made to follow them, but something told me that I shouldn't enter the [water|mind|knowledge] here. It wasn't my domain like it was theirs. They walked beneath the four-way bridge and stopped. They turned around, and pointed a pale, skeletal finger towards me. Waters swirled up from the lack, coalescing in front of me into a solid sphere. I cautiously reached out to grab it. When I pulled my hand back, there was a gemstone, a pearl of pale purple. The figure spoke one final time:

H A R M O N Y

"What?" I asked. I could feel my mind healing itself, but I still couldn't parse any of what was happening. "I–I need more! Please, I don't understand! Who are you?"

The figure's finger fell to point down towards the water as it began to slowly sink. Suddenly, I felt hands grabbing my shoulders, my arms, my face. They pulled me back and up, away from the cavern. I passed through the ceiling as it turned to fog.

"No!" I screamed desperately, struggling ineffectually against the thousand hands taking me away. "No! I need answers! Please! Someone, give me answers!"

My pleas went unanswered. The world turned to fog, then to darkness once more.