Chosen by the Dragon God

"Elys, I'm bored!" cries Jana, throwing herself flat on your bed and groaning loudly. "Let's go out and do something fun!"

Glancing up from where you've been reading Green Flame's journal and making notes on it, you say, "I know you've got homework to do. Why don't you get it done now so that you won't get a detention later on?"

"Perhaps I should learn how to knit. Or sew. Or crochet," says Jana, who hardly seems to be listening to you. "At least then I'd have something to do while you're reading all the time. I'm sure your mom would teach me how."

Actually, over the past few weeks, you haven't had much free time in which to read or do anything else: you've been spending a lot of time with Raef, learning the basics of portal magic. Also, your teachers at the Engelram Academy of the Magical Arts have been giving you so much homework that you're starting to worry that they know that you've been sneaking out of school and have decided to discreetly punish you for it.

"When I've finished this, we'll go back to Tyrepheum," you promise her. "I'll need to arrange it with Raef, so… maybe tomorrow? Then, I'll tell Cadre 1F what I've discovered. And I'll ask one of the girls to go on a date with you, how about that?"

"Really? You mean it?" she asks, sitting bolt upright, eyes shining with excitement.

"Yes. Do you think you can hold on for that long?"

She nods. "I'll try."

"Would you rather go on a date with Isolia or Venta?" you ask.

Her eyes widen in sudden panic. "Um… I don't know," she mumbles. "I'll have to think about it."

"You do that," you say, turning back to what you've been working on. "And while you're doing that, I'll finish reading this."

Even without Jana trying to distract you, it is difficult for you to read the journal that Green Flame went to such lengths to hide: it is written in tiny, cramped handwriting, as if she was trying to cram in as much information into as small a space as possible; it meanders from one subject to the next and then back again, suggesting that its author wrote things down as they occurred to her; and additional notes are written in the margins and wherever else there is any space that would otherwise be left blank. It's a disorganized mess, which is probably because it was never really intended to be read by anyone. Nevertheless, you persevere: there is much to be learned from it.

The first page of the journal and several pages after that describe Green Flame's experiences during the War in Heaven, when she and the other members of 'Green Squadron' were summoned by Keron to take part in the final battle against Telthalus. Apparently, they were immediately dive-bombed by a huge flock of birds, so many that they could see nothing but the press of feathery bodies swarming all over them, and were forced to defend themselves. Two of Green Flame's colleagues – Green Blade and Green Light – died in the ensuing skirmish.

After they fought off the first flock of angry birds, Green Flame glanced around and saw Mawroth, the Father of Crows, Telthalus's lieutenant, fighting a desperate running battle against the Sons of War, Lothol and Corrothir, constantly swooping at them, quickly sneak-attacking, and then fleeing before they could strike back. In the distance, she caught a glimpse of Keron's duel with Telthalus. Her master, the elder god of conflict and strife – instead of looking like a monstrous giant with a hundred arms and a hundred swords – had shapeshifted into one of his smaller and more manoeuvrable combat forms. Telthalus was shrouded in shadows and illusions, which made it difficult for Green Flame to see what he looked like – or for Keron to hit him.

At this point, Green Flame recites the traditional legend of how Telthalus defeated Keron: he tricked him into fighting his own shadow; the shadow is a symbol of the soul – according to some mythic traditions, it is the soul or at least a part of it – and so, when he succeeded in destroying it, he did disastrous damage to his own soul; afterwards he lay down, went to sleep, and became one of the constellations: the Ouroboros, the snake that constantly seeks to devour itself.

However, according to Green Flame, the traditional legend is either wrong or is just a metaphor for what actually happened. What she saw happen was this: Keron overextended himself in his eagerness to get to grips with his former friend turned hated enemy. This meant that Telthalus was able to stab him with one of his most powerful tools, the Knife of Unmaking: the same weapon with which he had previously slain Vlakoroth, the Father of Monsters.

Green Flame didn't see what happened after that. She and the surviving members of Green Squadron had to fight off another flock of birds, who attacked in such overwhelming numbers that they would probably all have been killed, if Keron's command – the one that had brought them to this place of battle – hadn't been abruptly cancelled; the spell that normally bound them to one place activated instead, instantly recalling them to their usual guard post, several thousand miles away. They were all badly injured – Green Flame's eyes had been pecked out – and the death of their healer, Green Light, meant that it took a long time for them to recover.

There follows a lengthy digression in which Green Flame describes how, after he created his first group of elves, Keron was dissatisfied with their inability to develop their skills, work together as a team, or adapt to the demonic invaders changing their battle tactics; therefore, he partially re-ensouled them and gave them knowledge of Godspeech, so that they would be able to communicate with each other, learn from their experiences, and formulate complex battle plans. This meant that, after the deaths of Green Blade and Green Light, the other members of 'Green Squadron' were able to compensate for their loss: Green Shield had some knowledge of healing magic, so it was decided that all of his remaining teammates should learn at least the basics from him. Green Axe, Green Fist and the others who specialized in close combat would have to take over Green Blade's duties. All of this was decided in an utterly matter-of-fact and unemotional way. Keron had made his elves into something more than simple automatons, but they were still much less than human.

You stare at the words on the page and frown at Green Flame's description of elves as being "less than human". It seems wrong to you, somehow.

In the next paragraph, Green Flame theorizes that the other elder gods tinkered with their elves in much the same way. The first elves were made by fey spirits who used their souls as fuel for the ritual that turned their empty husks into ageless, seemingly immortal beings. It is often assumed that the elder gods used exactly the same process to make their elves. However, with their immense divine power, the elder gods had no need to destroy souls to make a relatively paltry amount of 'fuel'; rather, they preferred to disassemble the souls of the humans that they had turned into elves and set the pieces aside, in case they ever had need of them. This meant that, thousands of years later, Galadan the Mystic and others like him were able to reassemble the souls of those elves, or at least recover some of the pieces and put them back together.

Some historical texts mention that the elder god Nymandor's elves were shapeshifters who were partially ensouled to enable them to infiltrate human society. Green Flame's personal theory is that Nymandor created a batch of soulless elves first; then, when he realised that they were hopelessly unable to pass themselves off as regular human beings, he partially re-ensouled them, giving back some of what he had taken away from them, allowing them to think and feel and reason for themselves, until he was confident that they would be able to blend in to human society.

Here, Green Flame notes that, if Nymandor hadn't disappeared at the end of the First Age, he would probably have continued to tinker with his elves. All the history books she has ever read say that Nymandor's elves were eventually exposed, hunted down and exterminated, so his attempts to make them seem more humanlike can't have been entirely successful. So, if he had the chance to try again, what would he do? Would he bother to make any more elves? Would he leave their souls intact, indistinguishable from those of any other human being? Or would he get humans to worship him, indoctrinate them to be unquestionably loyal to him, and then ask them to spy for him?

Squeezed into a small space at the bottom of the page, a note written in tiny handwriting says that Borrakul, a member of the Mystic Path, was very interested in Green Flame's account of what happened to Keron, but that he forbade her to tell anyone else what she'd told him.

It is clear to you that Green Flame never realised that Galadan the Mystic was actually Raef the shapeshifter, one of Nymandor's elves. Not only because of her apparent belief that Nymandor's elves are all dead, but also because, on the next page, she goes on to describe the man himself: she remembers Galadan as a white-bearded old man who was nevertheless vigorous and active; he moved with unusual grace and surefootedness; a master of multiple branches of magic, including the nigh-legendary portal magic, he was remarkably intelligent; and, even when she was barely more than a mindless automaton, he treated her kindly, as if she were a real human being. And he had secrets. She has no idea what they were, but Agon Hurondus, a member of the Mystic Path, forbade her to tell anyone about Galadan's secrets. Whatever they were.

Also, Green Flame doesn't know what happened to Raef or how the Mystic Path took over the school. From her perspective, Galadan was the headmaster until one day he wasn't. Then, the Mystic Path appeared out of seemingly nowhere and claimed to be in charge of the school; several members of staff 'mysteriously vanished' and the rest were too cowed to do anything. However, when someone at the imperial court – it may even have been the emperor himself – found out that the Sambian Empire's most prestigious school was missing its headmaster, they appointed Opernus Prentigold, a famous war hero, to take his place.

Because they were using her as a servant at the time, Green Flame bore witness to a conversation between Borrakul, Agon Hurondus, and Alikada Zinistrari, when they were discussing Prentigold's appointment and what it would mean for them. Zinistrari was quite keen to work with him, Borrakul didn't care one way or the other, and it was obvious that Hurondus despised him. Ruminating as to why this was the case, Green Flame seems to have decided that it was because Prentigold was a patriot who had fought for his country time after time, whereas Hurondus seemed to think that such things were beneath him.

For whatever reason, the Mystic Path decided to leave peacefully after that. They even left behind a magic mirror, which was undoubtedly made by one of Galadan's students, who must have learned portal magic from him.

The next pages are dedicated to Green Flame's notes on portal magic, which she has been studying with help from Archironaeus, who can 'feel' how the magic mirror works. Since you have recently been learning the basics of portal magic, with the benefit of personal tuition from Raef, you feel qualified to comment on this: it's impressive work, but she's wrong about a few things. Potentially dangerously so. Maybe you should ask Raef to talk to her about it? Or, since he's only teaching you for a few hours each week, maybe he could teach her as well?

What will you do? (Choose one)
[] Ask Raef to talk to Green Flame about portal magic.
-[] Suggest that he subtly point out the mistakes she has been making.

[] Ask Raef to teach Green Flame how to use portal magic.
-[] 'He' should reveal that he is Galadan the Mystic, the old headmaster who was kind to her.
OR
-[] 'She' should pretend to be the schoolgirl that Green Flame met before.

[] Don't suggest that Raef should do any such thing.
-[] Leave Green Flame to make her own mistakes. She probably won't accidentally tear a hole in the fabric of reality. Probably.

Chandagnac said:

The next pages are dedicated to Green Flame's notes on portal magic, which she has been studying with help from Archironaeus, who can 'feel' how the magic mirror works. Since you have recently been learning the basics of portal magic, with the benefit of personal tuition from Raef, you feel qualified to comment on this: it's impressive work, but she's wrong about a few things. Potentially dangerously so. Maybe you should ask Raef to talk to her about it? Or, since he's only teaching you for a few hours each week, maybe he could teach her as well?

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

You continue to read through Green Flame's journal, but you worry that Jana is getting restive: her fidgeting and foot-tapping has become a constant distraction.

While you're trying to focus on your reading, you learn that, before the Mystic Path left the school, Green Flame overheard the end of conversation between Alikada Zinistrari and Opernus Prentigold. Apparently, Zinistrari wanted to take Green Flame with her, but Prentigold told her, "She is school property. Taking her with you would be theft. That would be a poor start to our working relationship."

Zinistrari didn't argue. Instead, she replied, "If you want her, you can keep her. I withdraw my claim to her. In exchange… I do so hope that we can have a good working relationship!"

"You have no legal claim to her," Prentigold pointed out. "She is not yours."

When she heard that, Zinistrari merely laughed.

At the time, Green Flame was grateful that Prentigold didn't let the Mystic Path take her away. Even back then, she was afraid of them – of Zinistrari in particular. Later, she began to feel resentment towards Prentigold because he called her 'school property' even though, according to Sambian law, that is exactly what she is and was.

Over the next few pages, Green Flame tried to describe the various members of the Mystic Path as best as she could. She only met three of them – Agon Hurondus, Borrakul, and Alikada Zinistrari – but they gave her the impression that there were others.

Borrakul was probably the oldest of the three. He was a twitchy old man with an unfamiliar accent and darkly tanned skin, who styled himself as 'the Master of Time Magic'. Green Flame's best guess was that he came from Anakwaan, the southern continent: perhaps he was born in the Avanni Empire, which comprises a wide range of different ethnic groups, which might be why she didn't recognise his accent. In his dealings with Green Flame, he was quite a pleasant conversationalist and always seemed excited to learn more about the First Age. However, at the same time, he was obsessively secretive and made a point of telling her that she shouldn't reveal the things that she'd told him to anyone else.

In classical Sambian, 'Agon Hurondus' literally means 'tyrant master of magic'. Unsurprisingly, the man who decided to call himself that was immensely arrogant. When Green Flame met him, more than twenty years ago, he was in his thirties: a haggard, balding man who was impatient and dismissive even with his closest allies. He claimed to be 'the Master of Portal Magic'. For that reason – and because he seemed very familiar with the layout of the Academy – Green Flame assumed that he had once been one of Galadan the Mystic's favoured students. She didn't see much of him and he didn't seem to have much interest in her. There was one occasion when he visited her and made her promise never to reveal any of Galadan the Mystic's secrets, whatever they were, but most of the time he treated her as if she were beneath his notice.

It was difficult to tell how old Alikada Zinistrari was: she always wore a silver mask shaped like the face of a beautiful woman, which completely covered her face except for two small holes through which her dark eyes could barely be seen. Nor were her gloved hands any indication as to her true age. Her long, silky black hair was probably a wig. And she tended to wear expensively bitter perfume, which may have been intended to cover up the scent of blood and decayed flesh that seemed to follow her like a faithful hound: she called herself 'the Mistress of Life Magic' and spent long hours in her laboratory, where she seemed to spend a lot of time cutting up dead bodies and performing various ghoulish experiments.

When the Mystic Path took over the Tyrepheum Academy, Green Flame had not been ensouled for very long. In many ways, she was a frightened child with barely any understanding of what was going on around her. She was terrified of Zinistrari, who forced her to participate in some of her experiments: once, she cut off Green Flame's little finger, took samples of her blood, and then watched for hours, seemingly fascinated by how long it took the wound to clot, asking questions such as, "How long do you think it would take your elven healing to regenerate a lost digit? What if you had no access to healing magic?"

Afterwards, Zinistrari kept the severed finger preserved in a jar. She seemed to think she might be able to use it for something, but Green Flame didn't dare ask what.

The last time Green Flame saw Borrakul and Agon Hurondus was more than twenty years ago. She has no idea what has happened to either of them since. However, Alikada Zinistrari has returned to the Tyrepheum Academy several times over the past two decades. Presumably, she has an arrangement with the current headmaster, Opernus Prentigold, who must have some way of contacting her when wealthy people require the services of a Mistress of Life Magic.

Calling herself 'Madam Zyn', she returns to the Tyrepheum Academy only when her prospective clients are able to present her with an intriguing medical conundrum to solve: she charges exorbitant sums of money for her services, but the money seems less important to her than the chance to develop her magical abilities and gain greater understanding of human biology.

One set of clients was Dorian's parents: his father has an illness that has made him infertile – and is slowly killing him – therefore, they were unable to conceive a child without Madam Zyn's help. She promised them a son or daughter of their own. Green Flame doesn't know exactly how it was done, but Dorian's mother, Carmenta, told her what Zinistrari promised them: she said that she was going to take samples of living cells from them both, extract the basic building blocks of life from those cells, remove whatever aberrations or impurities had given Dorian's father his degenerative illness; then, she would combine the remaining 'building blocks' to form an embryo, which she would implant in Carmenta's womb.

At the time, Dorian's parents were very impressed by this. However, nine months later, they were quite shocked when they saw that their new baby was a half-elf. When they asked Prentigold about this, he reassured them that baby Dorian was a throwback to his distant ancestors. Was it possible that Madam Zyn had combined the 'basic building blocks of life' from some random elf with those from his mother, instead of bothering to include anything from the man who wanted to be his father? (Fortunately, as far as Green Flame was able to tell, it doesn't seem that they treated Dorian any differently because of this: they tried their best to be good parents to him nonetheless.)

Personally, Green Flame thought it likely that Zinistrari had taken elements from Dorian's mother and father, just to make sure that he would somewhat resemble the two of them, so that no one would doubt that he was theirs even if they thought it was peculiar that he had inherited the elven characteristics of a distant ancestor. Those 'elven characteristics' were probably because Zinistrari hadn't been able to resist the urge to make the baby special: perhaps she was trying to give him elven magic or accelerated healing. She told Carmenta all of this and was surprised when the other woman hugged her and wept grateful tears into her shoulder.

Without asking Zinistrari for details, it is difficult to know which elf was unwittingly involved in Dorian's conception. It could have been Green Flame herself: while she was in control of her, Zinistrari took plenty of samples of her living tissue, more than she could possibly need, including an entire severed finger. However, for various reasons, that seems unlikely: other than their pointed ears, they don't have any noticeable family resemblance; and, even before he came to the Tyrepheum Academy to learn magic, Dorian had already developed unusual powers that seemed to be related to time magic, which he had presumably inherited from his elven 'ancestor'. Therefore, Green Flame believes that Zinistrari must have found the dead body of one of Aea's time elves and taken something from it – the 'basic building blocks of life' again? – which she used to make Dorian.

According to an obscure legend, early on in the Second Age – when the elder gods were all gone, the Wheel of life, death and rebirth had ground to a halt, and it seemed like endless hordes of demons were pouring through the Outer Gates – the Demon Lord Daevos tried to use his reality-warping powers to cause all of time and space to rip apart.

The Demon Lords must have thought that they had won: it seemed their ultimate victory was mere moments away. However, they were opposed by the time elves, who were determined to preserve what the elder gods had created.

Almost a third of the time elves were slain in the battle that ensued. The Demon Lords were all badly injured, some worse than others: Daevos was so grievously hurt that he was never able to fully recover: from then on, he only acted as the Demon Lords' transportation system, opening portals through which their armies could travel to wherever they needed to go, until he was captured and imprisoned in the Pits of the Underworld at the end of the Second Age.

Still, the Demon Lords would have won the battle – the time elves would have been overwhelmed and wiped out – if someone else hadn't joined the fray. The All Devourer, a fragment of the old Death God, emerged from seemingly nowhere, forcing the Demon Lords to retreat or be erased from existence.

Before this, no one had ever seen the All Devourer before: no one realised that it was possible for any part of the old Death God to come back from what he had done to himself. The Demon Lords were utterly blindsided by his sudden arrival. They fled, leaving the remaining time elves bloodied and battered but alive and able to carry on their duties.

In the thousands of years since then, the Demon Lords have never again tried to destroy Creation in a way that would cause the time elves to mobilize against them.

Green Flame's theory is that the Mystic Path managed to salvage the body of one of the time elves who was slain in their battle with the Demon Lords: they gave it to Zinistrari, who used it – or a tiny part of it – when she made the embryo that would eventually become Dorian.

After the Mystic Path left the Academy more than twenty years ago, 'Madam Zyn' came back to Tyrepheum several times, presumably because she had wealthy clients who were willing to pay her large sums of money if she would solve unusual medical problems for them. However, most of the details of those transactions have been carefully hidden. Other than Dorian's parents, Green Flame only knows who a few of Madam Zyn's clients were; still, she can make some educated guesses as to the identities of some of the others.

She suspects that Philander's father might have been one of them. Relatively recently – after Phil became one of her pupils – she was informed that Cinna Boole Bidwell Bulhac had made a deal with the lesser Demon Lord Achamat: apparently, he gave up his "thousand-year-old surname" in exchange for wealth, power, and influence. Cinna became the undisputed ruler of Tyrepheum's criminal underworld, but it was as if he had lost a fundamental part of himself, as if he was barely a person at all: even his most loyal minions occasionally struggled to remember who he was or anything about him. And so, he was willing to pay large sums of money to any convincing charlatan or hedge wizard who claimed to be able to give him a new name and free him from the demon's clutches.

Opernus Prentigold was the one who told Green Flame about this. He told her that Achamat hadn't taken Cinna's soul. "Demons have no need to bargain for that which they already own" is what he said. However, after that, Green Flame began to wonder if Prentigold was telling her the whole truth.

A person's name is an important signifier of who that person is. According to legend, 'true names' can be used to bind even the greatest of gods. The deal between Cinna and Achamat would have had to involve some kind of magic ritual. If Cinna's surname was one of the ritual components, what was it supposed to represent…?

In her attempts to find the answer to this question, Green Flame filled the next few pages with guesswork and crossings-out.

What conclusion do you think she came to?
[] Write in.