Chapter 52: Lecoeurge – Dragons in the Plume
The crowd inside the Plume moved in currents. Lecoeurge noticed a pattern in the movement and, following the pattern, he found the eye of the hurricane. Pierre. He had changed Rimbaud’s Caravan’s course, so now they were all in Tuen, at the Plume, an inn that belonged to a friend of Rimbaud’s. No one argued against Pierre. The Caravan had seen the dragon and looked for survivors. Three people had lived. One of them, Queen Adelaide took away with her. The other two were with the Caravan. They needed a better medical structure than a wagon, and Tuen was closer than Lune.
Líran walked by Lecoeurge like a purple breeze and climbed onto a table. She asked if they wanted to hear a story and everyone replied in purple. So Líran shaped the silence into legend.
The purple voice transported Lecoeurge to a time in which the elves were still alive. One of them was called Luikin. He had hair the color of the moon, eyes the color of tropical sea. Lecoeurge saw Luikin standing in the shade of an ancient tree. At his feet was Rênuni, and Luikin looked at the elven kingdom and the sea beyond it without noticing its beauty. Luikin didn’t care for beauty, he sought power.
Lecoeurge shrank when Líran described the weight of the power Luikin desired. At the same time, he understood. With that kind of power, Lecoeurge cound conquer Franária, the world. He would have arms.
The elf Luikin was no mage or mystery, so he resorted to sorcery. That was a thousand years before Sátiron, before the Satironese sorcery, which didn’t have to steal, which didn’t have to kill. Luikin’s sorcery was raw, crude, cruel. He murdered a unicorn and stole its horn. The porple voice drew the magic texture in Lecoeurge’s hand. The sensation carried Lecoeurge to a time when he had hands and could feel in the tip of his fingers the softness of his purple hat, handmade in Sejo Tíen.
Dragons invaded Lecoeurge’s memories. The elf Luikin had created a swarm of dragons of darkness. They took over the skies, hiding the sun. Thus began the Dark Age. However, Lecoeurge was not afraid. He had remembered the taste of felt in his hands and kept on reliving the memory, the sweetness of the fingers that gave him the hat, the same fingers that plucked the daisy they put on the side of the hat.
So sweet.
Líran went on with her story. On the crest of the horror wave sat the elf. His hair was the color of forgetfulness, his eyes blue like despair. He was losing his color, dissolving in darkness, lighter than ash in the wind. Do sleep for him no longer meant rest or dreams. Every time Luikin woke up he was a shade less real.
Líran’s voice was fog.
There was disturbance. The sea of darkness stirred, Luikin woke up. His dragons had left and a mountain he didn’t remember seeing before hid the sky from him. There was an elf. Dark eyes, dark hair. Lecoeurge took a fright. He recognized the Wraith of Lune in Líran’s voice. For the first time he saw the Wraith’s face as it once was. How could Líran’s voice reveal what no longer existed?
(And yet, there were Lecoeurge’s arms, his hands and the other pair of hands that his hat once loved.)
Luikin threw all his power on Sáeril, but Luikin was just a sorcerer, while Sáeril was true magic. Luikin stroke a match, Sáeril was the fire. But Sáeril did nothing. He didn’t have to. The mountain behind him moved. Lecoeurge opened his mouth, terrified as he saw gigantic claws grabbing Luikin with horrifying gentleness. Wings the size of mountinas spread, what was left of the sky disappeared. From each wing a hurricane was born and the black dragon took flight. It was day.
Sáeril hunted Luikin’s dragons. He fought darkness with all his power. One day Yukari Nakamura brought Sátiron to his side and that was the end of the Dark Age.
Líran sat down. She let the silence follow in the wake of her voice. Then a man hit the table with his cup.
‘They’re back,’ he shouted. ‘Luikin’s dragons are back. They’ve already destroyed Fabec. It’s a new Dark Age that begins!’
The Plume began to swat like water in a bucket, but Pierre jumped onto the counter and the Plume grew still.
‘You think the dragon is Franária’s problem?’ He pulled his sword. A slow, threatening motion. ‘We drew borders where none existed.’ He struck the beer barrel beside him twice. ‘Franária is wounded and darkness infects her like pus. Heal the wound and the pus will dry. Until then, Franária agonizes.’
And the barrel kept on bleeding.
Lecoeurge lost the texture of felt and the hands that, once in spring, plucked that first white daisy.
While Pierre bowed over and over again to the Plume’s owner, apologizing for having destroyed the barrel (‘I am so sorry, I didn’t think!’
The owner, a chubby woman called Joanna, laughed it off. She had enjoyed the drama),
Líran moved away to the stairs. She examined her own hands with a frown and only then Lecoeurge noticed that she had changed. The dark skin was replaced by pale, greenish in the candle light. Her features were leaner, the chin thinner, hair soft like fern. Her small ears tapered and the eyes grew dark like the underside of a water lily.
Pierre and Joanna came to her and hid her from the crowd, still lost in the story.
‘What happened to your body?’ Pierre asked.
‘I am mortal,’ said Líran. ‘But what kind of mortal?’
‘Were elves mortal?’ asked Joanna.
‘So much so that they died,’ said Pierre.
‘Not all,’ said Lecoeurge. ‘Sáeril Quepentorne is still alive.’
‘But no longer an elf,’ said Líran. She went up to her room. The next day she was a black woman again.