It took a great deal of restraint to not start running, as Sylver realized he wasn’t staring down a crack in space itself and was instead looking at an enormous eyeball. The eyeball slowly moved down, and then back up, before the dragon moved him away from itself.

The only reason he felt Ria’s fear was that he was actively holding onto her staff, otherwise the dragon’s impossibly large soul would have made focusing on anything other than the dragon impossible.

As Sylver floated away from the creature, he gradually realized they weren’t alone.  

Sort of.

It had three heads, each one almost completely identical to the other. The one on Sylver’s left had murky white eyes, the one in the middle looked fine, and the one on the right didn’t appear to have a mouth. The heads were roughly the size of a large boulder, and the two with the mouths could easily swallow at least 10 men in a single bite. Each eye was as big as Sylver was.

Its scales hung loosely on its body, and with every shallow breath caused the light illuminating them to sparkle in a brilliant rainbow. Every motion made an odd clinking sound as if the scales were made from thin crystals.

Its body had the shape of a fat mouse, a rectangular, bottom-heavy form. It almost looked funny because of how wide it was but describing a dragon as humorous wasn’t something Sylver was currently capable of. It looked more like a successful hunter, fat from its many kills, than a lazy rodent that stuffed itself full of nuts.

There were no wings that Sylver could see, but going by the bumps on its back, they were hidden underneath the scales, the way a beetle would hide its wings. 

Where the necks were attached to the body, Sylver could see what he had to assume were scars. The scales were flat up against their neck, in a very noticeable straight line. Someone had beheaded them, all three of them, multiple times.

There was a serpentine movement to them, as the heads moved towards Sylver, and shifted so the one missing its mouth was in the middle, while the blind one was on Sylver’s right, and the normal-looking one was on his left.

They changed positions again, and again, and in the end, the blind head was on the left, the mouthless head was in the middle, and the normal-looking one was on Sylver’s right. Their necks were pressed up against one another, the way a braided rope would be.

The blind head began to speak.

Instead of a painfully loud booming voice, the creature spoke with a soft, almost feminine tone. Its mouth opened so slightly that Sylver struggled to tell which one was speaking.

“What did it-” Sylver tapped out STOP so hard that he bruised his finger from tapping on his skin. Ria compressed herself as much as she could and remained quiet for the rest of the conversation.

The dragon spoke in the ancient Eirish dialect the word TRADE had been written in. It spoke 4 words, and Sylver only understood 3 of them.

“Something NEGATIVE MOUNTAINS REFERENCE,” the dragon head said.

Sylver reached deep into his memory, and condensed years of study into two simple words.

“NO UNDERSTAND” Sylver replied and could see what he felt amounted to a smile from the three heads.

The one that looked normal breathed out a puff of pure white smoke, so thick and dense that it looked like floating milk. The smoke spread out below the floating Sylver’s feet, and he watched as the smoke formed into a three-headed dragon on one side, and a small human-looking man on the other.

The man was armed with a sword, and a round shield, but everything identifiable about him was too vague for Sylver to get a clear picture. The man swung his sword, and a giant ring appeared on the 3 headed dragon’s body.

A chain appeared and attached itself to the ring, and like a dog on a leash, the dragon was pulled away from the man, with its claws tearing the milky land apart as it tried to fight against the chain.

The landscape changed again; the dragon was in a cage with 12 familiar-looking stone pillars keeping it contained. The chain that was attached to the ring around the dragon’s body, originated from a large bowl in the middle of the cage.

A stream of liquid came up from the bowl, traveled up into the air, and spread outwards, like a protective umbrella, until it formed into a bubble that surrounded the 12 peaked mountains the dragon was trapped in, along with the land around the mountains.

Several spheres appeared over the protective bubble, and the image changed so Sylver could no longer see the dragon. The spheres that represented the suns moved around erratically, and Sylver had to guess that it was trying to tell him how long it had been since that man had trapped it.

Sylver didn’t know enough about the path the suns took to understand the exact amount of time, but given the way the buildings rapidly sprung up, then fell, and were rebuilt repeatedly, he had to guess it’s been a while.

Without any warning, the man who had captured the dragon appeared right in front of Sylver. His body was turned around, and Sylver could see an almost glowing marking on his right shoulder blade, a birthmark. The man split into two, one man that looked identical to the first, and another that was slightly thinner.

Both of them had the same birthmark, a filled-in circle, with flame-shaped lines sticking out of it.

3 children appeared behind the two men, and each one had the same birthmark. The bigger man had 2 children, the smaller man had 1 child, all boys.

The bigger man’s 2 children were given the sword, and the smaller man’s child was given the shield.

The children grew, and at some point, the two original men disappeared, and the children were moved forward as if to replace them.

Sylver was then shown as the two original men’s family trees grew, and each generation replaced the previous one, over and over again, and passed along the sword, shield, and birthmark. 

At some point, one of the shield children was moved off to the side, and while the rest were still in the same group, that child’s line continued away from them. The group that remained only had the sword, the one outside had the shield.

It was slow, but Sylver could see that with each new generation, the birthmark gradually became smaller, had fewer flames, and eventually was so small and thin that Sylver could barely see it.

Sylver looked around and could see that there were only 5 men with the birthmark on them, everyone else didn’t have it.

The landscape changed again, the five men with the birthmark stood near the chain that connected the bound dragon to the bowl, and as each one disappeared, the chain became more and more weathered.

When there was only one man left, the chain looked rusted and brittle, like it was only one good tug away from breaking. Finally, the last man disappeared, and the chain slowly became thinner and thinner and finally broke apart. The three-headed dragon was released and flew away.

If the man with the birthmark dies, the dragon will eventually be freed…

The landscape changed again, and Sylver saw that the last with the birthmark man had a son, but the son didn’t have the birthmark 

Off in the distance, Sylver saw a small girl, with such a faint birthmark on her shoulder blade that Sylver could only tell it was there because it was glowing.

The man’s son walked over to the girl, and moments later, another child appeared in front of them, and this one had a birthmark that was as big as the originals had been. The child walked over to where the chain and dragon was, and it went from being weak and brittle, to as strong as it had been since the beginning.

Their child will have enough original blood to reapply the spell…

The landscape changed again.

A tall figure clad in a robe stood between the girl and the boy. It had a sword in its hands, the sword the original man had used. The figure stabbed the girl in the chest, it stabbed the boy in the chest, and with the sword still wet with the two people’s blood, the figure walked over to the dragon and shoved the sword into the bowl.

The bubble surrounding the land burst, and the dragon broke out of the 12 peak mountains and flew away.

The image wound back, to when the boy and the girl were still around, but they now had the child with the large birthmark in front of them. The robed figure appeared once again, and stabbed the boy and the girl, and stabbed the sword into the bowl, but nothing happened.

If I kill them after the child is born, it won’t work… I would have to wait for centuries for the chain to weaken again…

The landscape changed again. This time it was a map of Eira, with the Schlagen mountains in the middle.

The sword the original man had used appeared in front of Sylver and turned so he could see the birthmark-like symbol embedded on the metal blade. It floated down into the Schlagen mountains, and stood upright near the dragon, like a monument. It was in the 1st peak, the one where the emperor lived.

The sword descendent is the emperor, because of course he is… And the prince, or whatever his son is called, is the boy who could father the child with the birthmark.

The shield had a similar-looking mark on it, but there was a symbol inside the circle that for some reason looked familiar. As if Sylver had seen it before, very recently too.

It moved down onto the map, and landed northwest of the sword and dragon, and slowly moved towards it. It was moving along a river, there was a double bend that Sylver recognized, he knew which river the dragon was referring to.

The shield descendant girl is coming here soon…

I need to either kill the girl or kill the boy, to prevent their child from being born... If I use the sword and their blood I can free the dragon earlier, and I won’t have to kill the emperor, or wait for the chain to weaken… But I need to find the sword first… 

It’s with the emperor, has to be… Unless it’s a metaphorical sword?

The dragon must have read his body language because it managed to get the point across that the sword was very real, and was indeed somewhere in the 1st peak. The actual shield on the other hand, was just gone, even the dragon didn’t know where it was.

Sylver strained his mind for the words he wanted to use. The best he could do was the word the dragon had used.

“TRADE,” Sylver said.

Edmund.

He froze in place as he felt the dragon's magic engulf him and continued to stay still as the Edmund mana-soaked paper slid out of his pocket and flew down towards the milky smoke.

The dragon’s chain snapped, and it flew away. The paper floating near it became covered by the smoke and took the shape of a burly man that looked identical to Edmund. He walked over to the robe-wearing figure, and they hugged.

It will give me Edmund when it’s free… 

So, I either need to find that sword and wet it with the boy and girl’s blood or kill the emperor and wait for the chain to weaken on its own… If the boy and girl have a child while I’m waiting, I failed.

Before Sylver could say anything, the Edmund mana-soaked page floated back to him, with a new word written on the other side.

QUESTION.

At least I can come here again if I need to. Just have to say this out loud.

Sylver focused in on himself as he tried to figure out how to say what he wanted to say.

“NEGATIVE TRAP AFTER,” Sylver said in his broken ancient Eirish.

What will you do after you’re free?

The three heads uncoiled from one another, and Sylver could feel a disharmony between them. He couldn’t tell if they were sharing a soul, or what was going on, it was so massive that it was like trying to count how many suns you could see while being blinded by every single one.

The smoke underneath Sylver’s feet showed the dragon being freed from the chain and then showed it flying away. It flew west, and then landed on an island where other similar-shaped creatures were flying around.

A dragon sanctuary…

The next question Sylver asked, he asked because he knew that Ria would ask it.

“NEGATIVE TRAP AFTER KILL TRAP?” Sylver asked and felt a wave of heat pass over him.

If this dragon had someone else, Sylver would have been killed just now.

Because if someone else tried to interfere in an ancient dragon’s business, by asking “will you destroy the city after being freed,” they would be dead. 

Sylver didn’t even need to focus on the dragon to know it was staring at him. He could feel the gaze of the two heads practically clinging to his skin.

“Something something TIRED something DANGER something TIRED something HOME something NEGATIVE MOUNTAIN AGREE,” the dragon said.

Sylver was no longer sure he had understood it correctly, “NEGATIVE MOUNTAIN” didn’t work in this context, it didn’t fit.

Before he could say anything, Sylver appeared exactly where he had been several minutes ago and started to fall towards the ground.

***

There was a commotion of some kind, as Sylver walked back to his sect. People were running past him at breakneck speeds, and even though he was curious, Sylver decided against getting involved with them. The gong they were ringing was already giving him a headache, he wasn’t in the mood to deal with whatever was going on.

He had enough on his mind.

The two boys standing guard at the sect entrance, nodded at Sylver as he passed them.

“What happened?” Faust asked as Sylver sat down opposite him.

Sylver summoned a fresh set of bandages to replace the ones on his face while he spoke.

“They’re using an ancient dragon as a fuel source for their barrier, and it’s somehow linked to a bloodline. I need to kill the emperor to free it,” Sylver said, as Faust’s eyes became wide enough that Sylver stopped what he was doing to stare at him. 

Faust’s soul did a backflip, as he reached into his bathrobe and produced a single sheet of paper. He unfolded it and turned it so Sylver could see what was written on it.

“In that case, we should celebrate,” Faust explained, as Sylver just stared at the page.

In big bold letters, right at the very top of the page, Sylver read words that filled him with so much joy he felt like he was about to throw up.

“THE EMPEROR IS DEAD” the page read.

The attacker from before Sylver had arrived used poison, which took several days to finish the job.

And to make things even better, Sylver remembered where he had seen the symbol on the shield.