NOTE: This is a fan fiction that never got off the ground. There are only two chapters, and no ending.
Writing The Last Battle of the Valkyrie left me (and I assume my readers) with a lot of unanswered questions. What happened to the characters? What were their lives like before they were summoned? There was a lot of material in both the Quest and LBV that never really got explored, though it was hinted at.
Nargshir, Vervalsing, Gormal, Dan, and presumably Francois all were sent back to their homeworlds. If I recall, Gormal managed to have a proper ending, as well as Nargshir (though I was careful to leave it wide open). Even Cyprien had an ending of sorts when he dueled Einar. But Vervalsing and Dan were never mentioned again.
Dan's tale will be told in Code 4114. That fan fiction has been planned in some form or another for a long time. But Vervalsing's tale was never told. All I had was vague ideas, an image stuck in my mind of my version of Icaria, and the struggles within it. But there was no story.
The idea persisted, yielding spontaneous creations like the following:
Spoiler Alert!
_____Whispers across the land. A shifting of power. The domain of fire goes silent, and stillness descends, such quiet stillness. The world waits, and listens.
_____“You’re sure?”
_____“I saw him. Lying there, too weak to even raise his head. He was different, altered… almost withered.” _____Soon the truth sweeps across Icaria like wild fire in a plain of grass. Zelrig, lord of the northern territories, has died. Chaos and panic follows in the wake of realization.
_____“His guards fled, day before yesterday. Took off north in the morning, haven’t been seen since.”
_____“How long do you think Fræling’s territory will last?”
_____“Against the desecrators? She may have already fallen.” _____With Zelrig’s gaurds gone, returned to his territory, Lesser Dragons and Young descend on the vulnerable, taking what they can, destroying what they can’t. Carnage erupts over Icaria as a thousand invasions occur at once, and those that would keep their territories are put to the test.
_____“Why do you leave? Fræling won! Our homes are safe!”
_____“The desecrators will return. They’ll always return. Fræling is not strong enough to defend us. We must leave now, while we still can.”
_____“Where will you go? What other dragon will protect you like Fræling? What other dragon could?”
_____“There is one… one that might save us.” _____As the chaos dies, new powers raise their heads. They are the ones that have withstood the shift in power, and emerged victorious. Among them are the strong, the fast, and the cunning. In time, the strong make mistakes. In time, the fast are cornered. Only the cunning remain, patiently waiting in the shadows, watching, learning, waiting for when the time is right to reveal themselves.
_____“I can’t stop seeing it. Blue light, blue as the sky, but brilliant, so brilliant! Our homes were gone in an instant. Nothing left but charred ground. We never saw the dragon that did it. Only a glimpse as she flew overhead, faster than a windhawk.”
_____“Who?”
_____“Only one dragon could do that to a village. If Esemia has risen, then the black days are upon us. No Icarian or dragon is safe from the wrath of Aldrak the Elder.”
Nothing came of it, until mid-2015 (or so my computer tells me - the date seems debatable). At that point, I began real work on a tale set in Icaria. The development was simplistic and shallow, and while it definitely had potential, it was doomed to fail. It did yield a little over two chapters though, and since I will likely never return to Icaria, I figured it couldn't hurt to show my readers a glimpse of the Icaria I know.
I give you (not related at all to the above snippet): From the Ashes
Chapter One
Spoiler Alert!
_____Defeating a dragon is supposed to be impossible. Their scales are thicker than bark, and harder than stone. Their fangs are as sharp and hard as cut diamonds. Their claws are as thick as your arm, and as deadly as five spears. Their tail has the power of three trolls, and the spikes it usually carries can go through you like steel through wet paper. Oh, and nearly all of them can kill you from a distance, either by fire, frost, acid, lightning, or a hellish combination of the four. Like I said, defeating a dragon is supposed to be impossible.
_____No one said anything about fighting one.
_____They all stared at me in shocked silence. Baird’s mouth was slightly open, his drink halfway to his mouth, forgotten. Ænette was sitting sideways, but she had frozen and was staring at me too from across the table. Daren had his arms crossed and was regarding me with the expression he usually reserved for lunatics. Only the old man, Esod, was moving, shaking his head sadly.
_____“It can’t be done,” he said weakly, his voice subdued with age. “You’ll only get halfway there, and then die. No one will remember you. No one will care. What will you have accomplished?”
_____I leaned forward. Daren leaned away from me slightly. “Look,” I said. “This isn’t how we’re meant to live.”
_____“What do you mean?” interrupted Baird. “We have food, we have shelter, we have protection. We’re left to do as we please. What else do you want?”
_____“Freedom,” I said. Baird dropped his tankard to the table in exasperation.
_____Ænette spoke. “We have freedom,” she said quietly. “We can go where we wish. We can say what we like. And we can do whatever we want.”
_____“Okay,” I said, holding up my hands. _____“Okay. Maybe freedom was the wrong word. It’s just… I don’t want to feel like a pawn anymore. Pieces of a game, that’s all we are. We’re moved around, bargained with, sent in first to see what happens… we aren’t people to them!”
_____“We’re subjects,” said Esod sharply. “They’ve been gracious enough to give us protection, don’t you think we owe them a little something in return?”
_____“Something, yes,” I said, “but not this. Not our lives, to be toyed with. That’s what we’re being protected from in the first place.”
_____Ænette looked down. I knew she hated to talk about the other lands. She had seen enough of them as a child. But she had to listen, to know, to understand.
_____“Look,” I said again. “All I ask is that we be treated as people. Is that too much?”
_____Esod looked at me thoughtfully. “Nearly everyone here is happy with their lot in life. Vervalsing had – and still has – no reason at all to protect us. But he chose to do so. All he asks for in return is our loyalty. Many are happy to give him anything he demands, in gratitude for their safety.”
_____“You mean they follow him blindly.”
_____Esod stroked his beard as he watched me. “Perhaps,” he said slowly. “Perhaps that is all they want. Their life is perfect. Why struggle against it?”
_____I sighed. “Because it’s not perfect,” I said. “Yes, Vervalsing protects us. I’m as glad of it as anyone. But he protects us like sheep for the slaughter, not like people. Not like true subjects. He thinks of us as part of his land, something he can sign over, bargain with, add to and take away from.
_____“We are more than that. We’re people. We have emotions, we can think and feel. We’re just as intelligent as they are. I’m not asking for equality. All I’m asking for is respect. Respect of life. I’d be perfectly happy with Vervalsing ruling us, if he only recognized us for what we are.”
_____“And what would change?” asked Esod quickly. “Hmm? What would be different? Why, we would be protected and left to do as we please, rather like we are now. Vervalsing might not think of us as people, but he treats us like them all the same.”
_____“Us, here, in his mountain, yes. But not out there,” I said, gesturing at the wall. “Beyond this mountain, Icarians live in terror. They fear a raid, yes, but they fear nearly as much the word of their king. Vervalsing lets us do as we please because we’re the ones he depends on. The others, beyond his mountain – they are the bargaining material. Two weeks ago, Vervalsing confiscated the entire food supply of a village. Why? Because he was running low on food here. Even in the Dark Ages, no king did that. He might tax his subjects, he might leave them barely enough food to live by, but he always left them something, because they were human, just like him. If times were desperate, the only ones the king robbed of food entirely would be the dogs, the animals.
_____“Vervalsing doesn’t treat us like subjects. He treats us as livestock. We’re useful, raising food for him, defending his borders when he’s away, keeping a lookout; but once our usefulness is over, once he needs our resources more than we do, we’re done. It’s over. He comes in, takes them, and we’re left to starve, or be raided in the dark.”
_____Ænette’s eyes flashed dangerously. I had forgotten, briefly, what a raid meant to her. Esod spoke before I could apologize.
_____“You’re right,” he said heavily. “We’re treated as animals, not people.”
_____I glanced at him, surprised.
_____“However,” he said, fixing me with a steely stare. “Even if we wanted to do something about it, which most of us don’t, we couldn’t. Going up against a dragon is suicide.”
_____I sat back. “Who said anything about fighting one?” I said. “All we need to do is talk to Vervalsing.”
_____Baird roared with laughter, slamming the table with his palm and slopping mead everywhere. “Talk to Vervalsing?” he repeated, choking back tears of mirth. “None but dragons and the Gifted are permitted in his presence. He’d kill you the second he saw you, and you wouldn’t have a chance to say a word.”
_____I watched him silently. Esod and Ænette glanced at him too, frowns upon their faces. Only Daren remained looking at me, his expression now thoughtful. Baird’s laughter faded as he saw us watching him.
_____“What?” he said.
_____“You said it yourself, Baird,” I said. “Vervalsing would kill me rather than give me a chance to speak. Is that the act of a king?”
Chapter Two
Spoiler Alert!
_____Icaria had been powerful once, back when it was called by a different name. The humans had discovered power faster than they could control it. They had rushed forward in a mad fever of scientific discovery, never caring what the knowledge they uncovered would lead to, or who would suffer because of it. In the end, their discoveries turned on them. And then they turned on us.
_____I lay awake that night, thinking. My words had won Baird and Daren to my side, if only to see how long I would last. Ænette said she would join me too, though she didn’t say why. I had followers. Now I needed a plan. If we were to change the way Vervalsing saw his subjects, we would need to do it carefully. One wrong step, and we could end up as charred dust on the floor.
_____Daren could be useful. He knew how to hide, how to move soundlessly, how to creep into an area and back out so that not even a dragon would know he had been there. Baird’s skill, despite the fact that he was nearly always to be found at a table, lay in strategy. If there was a fortress to enter, or a maze to traverse, he would get through it. Maybe not very quietly, but he would make it.
_____Ænette was the one that had me worried. She was unpredictable. No one knew what she was thinking, due largely to the fact that she never told anyone. I trusted her with my life. I just wasn’t sure if she trusted me. And I would need her to trust me if we were going to go through with this.
_____Ænette’s story was similar to my own, although with a ten year difference in time: village raided when we were young, parents killed, left to fend for ourselves. We had both been forced to confront the world, with the result that we knew more about it before age ten than most elders. This was probably just because the elders never left their villages, though.
_____I had stumbled my way to Vervalsing’s mountain, where I had been taken in and cared for. Ten years later, Ænette, small, frightened, still covered with ash from her burning village, had arrived. I had been eighteen, and the same family that had taken me in adopted her as well.
_____She had grown up seeing me as her brother: a figure to be looked up to, but never quite trusted. She was careful, Ænette. I couldn’t blame her. Her family had been her life, and they had been taken from her. She was wary about pouring her heart out into anything after that. As far as I knew, she still hadn’t.
_____Ænette was only one of my problems, though. I was worried. I was worried about how I would convince Vervalsing to talk to me. Baird had been right. Only other dragons or the Gifted were allowed in Vervalsing’s presence. An audience with the king was something unheard of in Icaria.
_____Before I could worry about that, though, I needed to consider the other Icarians themselves. Esod had said they were happy with their lives, and it was true. They wouldn’t want me changing things. If they caught wind of what I was up to, they would end it before it even began.
_____And then of course there were my own doubts. Esod’s words hadn’t been lost on me. Most of the Icarians were happy with their life. Well, maybe they weren’t happy, but they definitely accepted it. The conditions in the far villages, where Vervalsing’s protection was weakest, were pitiful; but even there, no one complained. What protection they had they were grateful for, and they were willing to give Vervalsing almost anything in return. It was only people who had lost everything, like me and Ænette, who thought something needed to change.
_____I rolled over. I’d solve the problems as they came, one at a time. Even as I thought this though, the forbidden thought entered my mind. Every one of those problems could be solved instantly. All I needed to do was visit the vaults.
_____I tried to shove the idea from my mind. Icaria had nearly become a dead world because of the contents of those vaults. Would they help me get to Vervalsing and speak with him? Yes. But it would be wrong. No one knew exactly what lay within the vaults, but I had a general idea. And I didn’t like it.
_____The only way I would enter the vaults was if no other path was left open to me.
Chapter Three (unfinished)
Spoiler Alert!
_____No one knew where the dragons had come from. They arrived in the year 3470, and had stayed on Icaria ever since. The planet had never been the same again. It took several years, but a system was eventually set up. Not through mutual agreement. It was simply how things worked.
_____The dragons were intelligent, powerful, and very territorial. Their borders were a day’s flight from their lairs. If they wanted more land, they would need someone to keep a lookout and manage things while they were gone. And so they found uses for the Icarians. This was fortunate, as up to this point, Icarians had been nothing more than yet another interesting inhabitant of the planet. Interesting, but defenseless.
_____Only the Gifted had been able to stand against the dragons. But they didn’t live forever, and eventually they fell, one by one, to the dragons. The dragons took their gifts and hid them in vaults, bestowing them on only a few select Icarians: vassals, sworn to serve them in their endless territorial wars.
And there it is. Despite it's inability to take off, I still find the idea very interesting. There's a story there, wrapped around the vaults, the gifted, and the protagonist who I now realize I never even named. And Vervalsing. Unfortunately, that is one story which will probably not be told.
Vervalsing seems a lot less sympathetic in this one did he did in your other stories with him. Was that because he really wasn't a good king? Or was it because your main character, through only having half the story, had the wrong idea about him?
Vervalsing seems a lot less sympathetic in this one did he did in your other stories with him. Was that because he really wasn't a good king? Or was it because your main character, through only having half the story, had the wrong idea about him?
Vervalsing was caught up in the structure of Icaria. He doesn't see his Icarians as people, equal with dragons. It's not because he's evil, it's because it's natural. He was raised to see them way, and he knows of no other way to see them.
He sees them like we see a pet cat. We love our pets, but there's no doubt who is in charge. We decide what is best is for them and what they will or will not do. It's not because we are evil, it's because that's how things work. That's how Vervalsing sees his Icarians, along with every other dragon on the planet. If I recall, that is ultimately what the fan fiction was going to be about.
In terms of dragons, Vervalsing was an excellent king. Many dragons hunt Icarians for sport.
May 12th, 2017, 06:54 PM
UNFINISHED: From the Ashes - A Tale of Icaria
William099 is Lord of Blades...
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