"A Song for the Fallen Angels, Prologue" by Jon Midget

Prologue: A Night in the Ivthian Desert

A flash of piercing white light erupted in the western Ivthian desert. When the light faded, A man stood at the crest of a rocky hill, quickly wrapping a ragged coat around his suddenly cold arms. It was night. Three moons shone overhead. Wind rushed down the canyons of the Targish Mountains, picking up dust, and whipped across the man's face.

"Avasi Pheros," he hissed the ancient elvish words. The wind ceased.

He walked down the hill, carefully avoiding the scrub firs and hollum trees scattered throughout the desert landscape. Far behind him, where the hills settled into a sandy valley, a dust devil arose, violently swirling the sand around. But in the hills, amid the rocks, brush, and dry trees, the air remained still.

The man stopped. Back and forth his eyes wandered, surveying the ridges and foothills ahead. There were no paths or roads, no sign of where his destination lay.

A sudden, deep gush of wind blew into his face. A large shadow swooped across the sky, blotting out the light from the moons. An enormous, four-winged dragon settled down to a boulder near the man. It s wings twitched. It s yellow eyes narrowed and stared at the man.

"We have not seen your kind in these lands for some time," the dragon spoke. It nodded toward the dust storm in the valley. "Are you now devoted to making chaos out of our weather?"

"I am looking for Delaran," the man said. "Your master," he added with a wry smile."Could you please tell him that Seraph wishes to see to him."

"The Dragonlord," the dragon sneered, "is not our master. We bow to no one."

"Of course," the man, Seraph, said. "If taking a message is too difficult, would you be kind enough to show me to his tent?"

The dragon rose to its full height and beat its wings. "I am not a servant," it spat, bursts of flame erupting with each word. "You can find him yourself. His canyon is the smallest one—the one given to him only because we have no use for it."

The dragon flew away.

Seraph smiled. Obnoxious, pompous lizards. He continued down the hill, following the ridge to the small canyon the dragon had pointed out. The air felt warmer. Grass and brush grew along the sides of the canyon, roots embedded in the harsh rock.

He continued along the canyon floor, a dry wash that probably flowed for about a week or two every spring. The moons had moved behind the canyon walls, and everything was hidden in the shadows. The man stumbled several times, scraping up his hands each time he had to reach out and brace himself to keep from falling.

An owl's cry echoed through the canyon.

The canyon made a sudden bend, finally exposing a small, round hut. The walls were made of animal skin and held up by polished black wooden poles. A cold greenish-blue light glowed from the open doorway. Seraph approached the doorway, hesitating at the entrance.

"Welcome to the tent of the Dragonmaster," a deep voice spoke from behind.

Seraph turned around, barely able to pick the speaker out from the shadows.

"I'd offer you a stool," the speaker continued, "but I'm afraid I don't have another one. I don't get many visitors."

"You'd get more visitors if you moved to the coast," the man suggested. "And if you ran a bar with attractive serving girls."

The speaker stood. "I think I would rather be lonely than deal with the noise." He put his feet down and stood up. "I don't think I have ever met a half-blood from Meridia before. It is an honor." Delaran made a slight bow, pressing two fingers to his brow and holding out the other. "I am Delaran."

Seraph clasped Delaran's outstretched had with both of his. "Seraph," he said. "And what makes you think I am from Meridia? Do we all have a particular smell?"

"Formias, the dragon you spoke with, let me know about your little trick with the wind," Delaran said. "That is not the work of a small-time bastard from some backcorner village."

"Very true," Seraph replied. "That was the workings of a big-time bastard from the other side of Aldora."

"You have a uniqe sense of humor. Formias found you rather insulting."

"And I found him rather tiresome,"Seraph replied.

"It would have helped if you had asked his name before giving your own. Dragons have certain ways of doing things—their own customs. It is polite to learn and follow them."

"I'm not here to learn new conversation manners," Seraph said. "I came to have a chat with you."

Then come inside," Delaran said, gesturing to the doorway of the tent.

Seraph walked through the doorway, letting Delaran follow him. It was bare. A stack of books sat on the far side, two mats on the left, and a short table, stacked with parchment and pens, stood near the doorway. A lamp hung from the center of the tent, filling the it with the greenish blue light.

"You don't bother to learn the ways of the dragons," Delaran said, "yet you obviously took the time to learn Ivthian customs—taking my hand with both of yours, leading the host into his tent. Doesn't that strike you as odd?"

"No. Why?"

"It seems that considering their size and their appetites, dragons would be the more vital to show respect to. I am, after all, just a human."

Seraph laughed. "I guess you haven't heard what other people say about Ivthians. We have enough dragons in the Western Isles to know that if you annoy them they simply ignore you. But from what I have heard, if you annoy an Ivthian you are likely to get yourself impaled."

Delaran eyed the half-blood. "I'm ... not sure what to make of you," he said. "You scoff at dragons, follow my customs impeccably and then insult my people."

"Don't worry about it," Seraph patted the Dragonmaster on the shoulder. "Nobody really knows what to make of me. I'm a perpetual disappointment to my mother. Could we just sit down and get to the point?"

Delaran gestured to the floor.

"Oh, and do you have anything to drink?" Seraph said as he stooped down. "If I don't get something liquid in me soon I may turn into a raisin."

Delaran caught himself just before sitting on the floor, rising again and walking brusquely to the opposite end of the tent. He dished a few spoonfuls of water from a small pot in a cup, and returned to Seraph, handing him the water, and sitting down crosslegged on the floor. Seraph sprawled his legs out. Neither spoke.

Delaran was a large, strong man, brown skinned and dark-eyed. A coarse mustache and small beard surrounded his mouth, and his brown hair was pulled back into a small ponytail. He wore the loose, thin, black shirt common among Ivthians, opening up at the chest. His pants ended at his knees, and his feet were bare. Three black lines were scrawled down his left cheek.

Aside from his unkept, shaggy black hair, Seraph looked completely elvish. Light greet eyes dominated his face, his ears were pointed, and his thin lips appeared perpetually pulled into a self-mocking smirk. His skin was very light, a strong contrast from the deep purple of his shirt, which was mostly hidden beneath the ragged grey coat wrapped around his arms.

"So ... why are you here?" Delaran finally asked.

"Because Queen Aloria thinks quite highly of you," Seraph said, noticing Delaran stiffen at Aloria s name. "And because I have nowhere else to to go."

"I have never heard Aloria mention you," Delaran said, his voice tense.

"That's hardly shocking. I doubt she knows who I am. I maintain a very low profile among the Islands. I have only heard her speak when she speaks to all of Meridia. But make no mistake, she talks about you, her admiration for you is obvious and, as far as I can tell, actually genuine. I ought to know. I'm an expert at deceit."

"Get to the point," Delaran said. "What do you know about Meridia?" Seraph asked.

"It's a formal society of half-blood sorcerers, the only one in the world, I've been told. The result of several hundred years of breeding experiments."

"Right," Seraph winced. "For all the fancy tricks we can do, we're nothing more than glorified cattle and goats. Or beetles. Did you know that the Jungians have started to breed beetles? I guess it has to do with their parsnip crop—"

"You already annoyed a dragon," Delaran cut him off, "don't annoy me too. I have no idea who the Jungians are. Please keep on topic."

"The point," Seraph said, "is that those coordinating the breeding are not those being bred. And the objective of the breeding is not for the good of those being bred; it is for the good of the breeders."

Delaran s face suddenly changed from annoyance to concern. His eyes narrowed. "And who is doing your breeding?"

"That, my far-too-serious Dragonlord, is the question nobody else seems to be asking. Nor are they bothering to wonder what the purpose of the breeding is. But I suppose that's to be expected. After all, those few who do disappear. Pfffft! They're gone.

"But I'll tell you something I do know," Seraph continued. "Four hundred years ago my elvish ancestors fled Horeti, exiles and renegades for trying to figure out these half-blood, magic wives' tales that had been floating around for millennia. But they didn't flee alone. They left with survivors of the Astoran expedition. And these survivors were not alone."

"Astorans?" Delaran was incredulous. "Astorans are behind Meridia?"

"Well," Seraph shrugged, "they don't call themselves astorans. They're the Locites, and as far as anyone knows, they're just a small group of odd-looking humans living on the same island. But if you know where to look, and I do, you will discover the truth. They are astorans, and they were the ones, behind the scenes, who led the exiles to establish Meridia. And they are the ones, again behind the scenes, who really run the affairs of my half-blooded brothers and sisters."

"And what are they trying to accomplish?" Delaran asked.

"I don't know," Seraph said. "But it's ... something about it gives me the heebie-jeebies. Something's very not right."

Delaran laughed, rolling his eyes. "So you have the heebie-jeebies, and now the world is about to end?"

"When they flutter in the heart of a sorcerer, they mean something," Seraph said.

"So why come to me about this?" Delaran asked.

"Because I don't know who I can talk to in Meridia. I've kept a low profile, hiding my full abilities behind a flamboyant personality and big mouth. I don't know who I can trust and who I can't. And then, just last month, Aloria came and addressed the Valiar Council, and she just happened to mention something: that you had been reading the stars and consulting with the dragons and were worried that something ... cosmically bad was approaching."

"Just speculation on my part," Delaran said. "It is often impossible to tell the difference between chance events in the stars and sure insights to the future. It could be nothing."

"But it's enough to have you and the dragons concerned. And my willies are probably nothing, too. But it's enough to make me scared."

They sat in silence, neither looking at the other. The air was chill. There was no sound except the wind against the tent. Seraph pulled his coat around him even tighter, shivering with the cold desert night.

"The heavens," Delaran finally spoke, "are a poor look into the future, but since the gods silenced and left us on our own they are all we have. If you look at the night sky, you'll see that it's always changing—a malleable thing that the gods are constantly reshaping and reshaping. When the future causes unusually strong emotions in the gods—when great or terrible things are about to happen, their emotions are expressed in the changes of the sky. If the emotions are strong enough, then you can discover specific things that are causing them to rejoice or tremble in fear.

"But," Delaran continued, "it's impossible to be sure. The stars align in particular ways all the time by chance—it's natural for an ever-changing thing. How can anyone be sure that they align some way unnaturally, because a specific event that is causing specific emotions in the gods?"

"Assuming that you are reading a true look at the future," Seraph said, "and assuming my concerns about my people are correct, what do the stars tell you."

"That a child has been born who does not fit in the life patterns established by the gods."

"And are the gods rejoicing or trembling before this child?"

"I do not know."