Ringwall's Doom. Wolf Awert

screeching.

      “He-he-he-haaa!”

      The hall swallowed the cry effortlessly, and the second one sounded rather less spirited. “He-he-ha!” But as always, just as Nill began to despair, a small, stubborn part of him started to take over. “He-he-he-he-haaa!” And again. “He-he-he-haa!” Nill’s cries grew louder and louder, and soon he was throwing all his doubt and despair into them. The sound broke upon the pillars, bouncing back and back again; echo met echo, and together they raced across the rock, chasing out the emptiness, the loneliness and the sleeping age of a brooding time.

      Nill had to laugh. Of course, nothing had really been changed by his screams. The hall was as monumental as ever, huge and unfathomable. But at least he felt better now. He stretched his weary joints, stood up and searched the wall for the exit.

      “Enough for today,” he told himself. “Enough, just like yesterday, and the day before, and all days before that.”

      No door led into the hall, and if one did not know the secret of the stone, there was neither entrance nor exit. Nill waved a hand along the rock, and with his first two fingers drew two signs on the wall. He waited. A gentle quaver told him that Knor-il-Ank had understood. The quaver became a quake, the rock cracked and a piece of the wall crumbled. The echo of tumbling rocks strayed around the pillars and the eight chambers. A black, jagged line tore its way from the ground to the ceiling, and with a sound somewhere between a moan and a sigh, the tear opened to a gap. Nill squeezed through sideways, taking care not to snag his clothing.

      With another quake and a sigh of relief the rock mended itself. “When the mountain moves, all of Ringwall ought to move with it,” Nill pondered. He had never heard anyone mention it. “I wonder if anyone has any idea where I am.”

      He conjured a pale orb of light to illuminate the path before him and moved quickly along the Walk of Weakness to the great gate. It was protected by a magical seal and by a small, ancient dragon, called the falundron. Twice the seal had been broken, and both times it had claimed a mage’s life, for the Walk of Weakness took first the magic, then the life force from their bodies. Only Nill could walk it unhindered.

      Five steps before the gate Nill dismissed his light and used his hands to guide him instead.

      The catacombs were the only safe place for him. Everywhere else in Ringwall, he feared for his life. It was little consolation that the mages were afraid too. It had been only a few winters past that the wisest of the world had recovered the fragments of a prophecy from legend and song, from myths and tales. When they had put it together again, they looked into the mirror of their fates, and saw in it their doom.

      The tool of fate was the Changer, but the mages knew not who this was supposed to be; so far, the magon had only seen him in visions. Yet there was a core of mages in Ringwall who were certain that Nill was the so-called Changer.

      “Nothing will be as once it was,” the prophecy said.

      Was someone on the other side of the door?

      Nill asked himself that question every time he left the Hall of Symbols. An elemental blast, too quick for a counterspell, and Ringwall’s problems would evaporate. Or so some mages thought.

      Nill stroked the great gate and listened to the wood’s breathing. At the smallest touch of another presence it would recoil. His rank of archmage was no protection. He was not yet a fully-fledged mage. Even a common sorcerer would crush him in a fight.

      And so Nill took all the time in the world to track traces of magic, and only when he was absolutely certain that he was alone down there did he push the gate’s doors open. He stepped through, minding the raised threshold that served to keep out creatures from the Other World, and allowed the door to fall shut behind him.

      “Done. Another day survived.”

      Nill tried to keep his spirits up, but surviving in Ringwall was only the beginning. He had to crack the secret of the prophecy.

      He bolted the huge lock and jumped a little when a guttural hiss pulled him out of his thoughts. On the lock sat the falundron, as if crafted from rusted iron. Nill waited patiently for the lizard to restore the magical seal with the five layers of elements. Whoever wanted to pass through the gate had to remove the seal and fight against its keeper. Even the greatest mages could not do so alone.

      But this time the falundron was singularly uninterested in doing its duty. The little dragon, whose rigid motionlessness made it seem like part of the door, kept its mouth wide open. The hiss had turned into a growl, a growl which made Nill’s skin tighten so much that his ears were pressed flat against his skull.

      The lizard’s head swayed left and right to the rhythm of its feet, which seemed to walk on the spot. The pointed ends of the spikes on its back dripped with shining poison, its tail curved threateningly over its body, twitching as though prepared to strike at any moment. The door, too, had come to life beneath its tromping feet. It groaned and moaned and bent this way and that, so strongly that it barely stayed in its hinges. Nill saw the magic tear the old fibers apart and mend them again. He felt the air above the door becoming denser and denser; even his breathing was shallow now. All the powers from this side and the other side of the door seemed to stream together, melting and becoming one in the lock beneath the falundron.

      “If only you could talk,” Nill sighed. But humans and dragons are too different. Only the basest, most primitive part of their brains, where emotions were born, where fear cowered, hatred exploded, but also where trust grew; that was the only connection he had managed to forge with this strange creature. Hissing, growling and spitting was a language Nill did not understand. So he closed his eyes and felt his way towards the falundron with his spirit. He sent feelings of warmth, friendship and even love into the dull mind. The falundron felt his touch, pushed and shoved, and when Nill still did not understand, it responded with magic. Nill flew back and was ripped forwards again by the force of the magical band.

      The falundron’s magic was not that of the mages.

      “It’s as if there is a magic within the magic,” Nill sighed. “How am I to understand that if I can’t get a proper grasp on even the five elements?”

      The little lizard’s body was now rocking wildly on its stomping legs. Reflected light danced across the cracked leathery armor, a landscape of ravines and gaps, as though hewn by an ax. Scars and furrowed growths, defiantly holding themselves aloft against an invisible sword, and broken lines that attempted to keep the ruins of barely recognizable shapes. But it was not like that at all. The leathery skin bore the glyphs of an ancient power like a living book. Nill could read them, but not make sense of them. But now they became softer, unfocused, as a magical aura rose from the dragon’s hide.

      “How did I never notice before?”

      Nill could only shake his head at his own stupidity. Any magical creature ought to be surrounded by an aura, but the falundron had always been bare.

      “How do you hide your aura, old friend? If only I knew the secret, no mage could ever find me.”

      The aura grew and grew; it was a milky gray, densely woven and seemed to merge with the air in a manner that hid its size. What had Tiriwi said? “Dense auras with no real color are strong, melded and unreadable.” This was the aura of a powerful mage, not the pale shell of an animal.

      As Nill stared at the falundron’s aura, an idea began to form in him, so mad and dangerous that he immediately dismissed and tried to forget it. But some ideas are unwilling to be forgotten. With the same stubbornness that was so much a part of him, the idea penetrated his skull, becoming stronger and clearer all the while.

      The most powerful sorcerers defeated their enemies by destroying their aura. Anyone who succeeded in shredding or even completely removing their enemy’s aura was left facing a helpless idiot. Nobody knew whether someone who had lost their aura could ever regain magical powers. But such an attack was dangerous and foolhardy, for the stake was one’s own aura.

      Nill’s true gift was not his power; instead, he could see auras