On the Origin of Magics

Chapter 4 - Secret Origins

The bar had closed and Gil was feeling better. Letting out his emotions with music had become his go-to response whenever his heart was struck a blow. Since his initial effusion at the piano he'd been up on stage four more times over the course of the evening. He'd been offered way more drinks than he could possibly handle and had early on switched to lighter alternatives.


They had made their way to the river and were now sitting on a ledge a few meters above the water. Gil was staring into the deep while Tess sat at his side, silently comforting him through the night. This was one of the things he found most attractive about the girl. No matter how inebriated she managed to get, she never became insufferable. She was the only person he'd ever met that he never seized to be able to tolerate. She was the reason he had stuck around for so long. This was what he thought to himself as he dangled his feet against the stone wall.


"What are you thinking about?" she mumbled, cozying up to his shoulder..
He hesitated before making his decision. "I was thinking that perhaps it's time for us to get home and go to sleep." He made a motion to get up when, but was held him down.

"Not yet." She pulled him in place by his arm. "Please? Let's just sit here for a little while longer. You could tell me one of your stories. Tell me the one about the boy and the dragon riders." Her begging eyes completely disarmed Gilligan, who's defences were already low.

"Fine." he conceded. "And you mean the tale of 'The Boy and The Dragon Wars'."

"Whatever." She yawned peacefully and moved to lay her head on his lap. "Just tell it already!"

"Okay then." he said, and started telling the story while stroking the short black hair of the pretty girl in his arms.




"Once upon a time, on an island far far away lived a boy with his family. They might have been a family of mages and their island a volcano, alive and angry, but they were a happy family nonetheless.

But the family kept a secret, a secret greater than most. One of which the runt of the family, a boy of no more than twelve, was blissfully unaware.

But then came the day when the Boy was to find out.

It was the day of the summer solstice and he was sitting in the grass, looking out over the ocean. A cloud so dark it poisoned the sky was approaching on the horizon. The boy studied it and as it got closer he slowly came to realise that it was not a cloud at all. It was a swarm. A swarm of dragons. It drew nearer, gradually blocking out the sun, and the boy could see what must have been a thousand dragons, each and every one with a rider on it's back. They were just like in the stories his mother had told. Varying in size from that of a horse to that of a house, there were dragons in black, red and dark shades of green, their long and slender bodies streaming through the air like a river in the sky. It was the most beautiful thing the boy had ever seen. And the most terrifying.

The boy got up and ran, screaming for his father and shouting for his mother. She barged out through their front door, chanting a spell the boy had never heard before. After her came his father, spouting even more unheard words. Then the dragons, who were closing in with speed like the wind, suddenly came to a halt right around the edge of the island. His parent never seized to chant as they motioned the boy to hide.

Glancing back again and again he ran to the safest place he knew: a miniature grotto created under a large rock protruding from the hillside. He crawled in and from there he watched. He saw as his parents struggle to hold the dragons at bay. How they did it he couldn't tell, the dragons simply seemed to be repelled by their words. And then he noticed a second cloud coming towards them from the north. This one more robust, and even faster.

Ships. They were ships flying through the air, and aboard them stood people. Hundreds of people, all wearing long robes and strange pointy hats. And the instant they reached the dragons a thousand bolts of fire and lightning rained down from the ships. The dragons turned towards them and what followed was the greatest battle the world has ever seen.

The dragons and their riders fought back as one, completely filling the sky with bright lights of death. There was fire and smoke, and a scent of blood spreading all the way to the boy's hiding place. He couldn't tell how long he lay in there, watching the events taking place on the island he called home. He felt as if he wasn't even there, as if it was all but a dream and he'd wake up at any moment. And then the earth shook. At first he thought he'd imagined it as no one else seemed to notice, but then it came again. It was bigger this time and accompanied by a great roar which turned the screams of thousands into a deafening silence in the blink of an eye. The boy looked at his parents, their chanting had stopped for the first time since it started. Then he looked at the ships whose every passenger had frozen in place, their faces wrought with fear.

And then he looked at the dragons. They were as still as creatures could be while keeping airborne. All of them were looking towards the same spot at the center of the island, waiting. The world shook a third time and now the dragons all burst out screeching. No, singing! The boy didn't know how he could tell, but he knew the dragons were singing. A terrible symphony of rythm void of all melody. The high-pitched screams cut into the ears of the boy who finally had succumb and hid his face beneath his arms trying to block the noise out.

In his protective shell he felt the fourth and final tremor. Far greater than any before it, it rattled the stone above him and he managed to crawl out just in time to avoid being crushed. He quickly forgot about his narrow escape when he, upon feeling a great heat, turned around only to see a giant dragon emerging from inside the volcano.

Far greater in size than any of the others, it towered over them as they sang in it's honor and they ascended together higher into the sky. It was a great beast with scales of brightest white. It had a particularly long neck, even among dragons, which ended in a slim, spiked head with a mouth big enough to gobble up a small cottage in one bite.

'Behemoth.' It was his father who had caught up, and was now stood beside him. 'The original dragon.'
'The original dragon?' the boy exclaimed. 'How can there be such a thing?'
'There are many things most people are not supposed to know about magic.' his father's voice was heavy, the very sound of it made the boy feel like a great weight fell upon his shoulders. 'This one was our secret to keep.'
At that moment the Behemoth gave out another great roar, spewing fire high into the air. The dragonriders took the roar as the order it must have been and swooped back down towards the flying ships. The people on the ships, who had been frozen solid in fascination at the sight of the magnificent being above them, sprung back to life as if time restarted for them. Hundreds of spells could be heard chanted in hurried shouts as defences were raised and missiles of magic reached for the enemies above.

The boy's father pointed towards a smaller ship that had landed a short distance away from them and told him to run and seek shelter on it. Then he kissed the boy on the forehead and joined the fray. The boy did as he was told and boarded the ship. Almost as soon as he did it took off again and, to the boy's surprise, turned invisible together with everyone on it. It was a spell completely new to him and he momentarily wondered over not being able to see his own body before he returned his gaze to the battlefield.

It was an even battle. He could see his family fighting from the ground, supporting the warriors on their airships. Then his heart felt like it would break as he saw the bodies that were very slowly accumulating across the island. He looked at the dead and then, among them, he saw his sister. Lying lifeless, her chest had been pierced by the sharp tail of a writhing, dying dragon. He screamed. In futility he screamed while the battle raged on around him.

Then something happened. The earth shook again. Far far greater than even when the Behemoth had appeared the earth quaked. And then the volcano errupted. With a force unlike anything ever seen by human eyes it exploded, shooting burning rocks in all directions with a deafening boom. All the dragons turned and flew. So did the ships. But none could escape. Down fell molten lava and boulders big as horses, striking down dragons and ships alike. The boy's ship was struck just as Behemoth flew by and the boy jumped in sheer desperation, landing on the dragon by what could only be described as either luck or destiny.

Holding on by the spikes on it's back the boy was like a fly unto a cow, the beast didn't even appear to take notice. The boy looked back and saw all he'd ever known sink into the sea in a rain of fire while simultaneously shrinking into the distance. And so he screamed again. He screamed and he screamed until his voice gave out and then he screamed a silent scream far more terrible than any worded one might ever be.

And just as the boy was starting to loose himself to exhaustion the dragon stopped dead in it's tracks. It roared like thunder, clutching it's chest with winged arms and then fell into the sea, taking the boy with him. No one knows what caused the dragon to drop. And no one has ever heard of either the boy or the dragon ever since."



When he finished the story Gilligan was teary-eyed and hoarse. He felt Tess snoring lightly, having fallen asleep in his lap.

"That was an interesting story." A voice behind him spoke out. "It rings an oddly familiar bell, doesn't it?"