Short Story: Return To Orlos

Short Story: Return To Orlos

This piece has not been edited by the ShortbreadStories team.

It shouldn’t have been possible, there was no way that it could have ever been planned, but such is the wonder of the multiverse. Alphine had laid her egg many years before. It was before the dreadful Dragon Light Night which saw the great Kingdom of Orlos plunged into a state of suspended animation.

As all female dragons know, as they are all taught from childhood, there is only ever one egg, it is more precious than gold, it is more valuable than all the wondrous jewels in the treasure house at the palace. It is quite simply priceless.

The eggs must be kept safe, they must be hidden and they must be secret and it is the responsibility of the mother dragon to ensure all goes well. When the time came for her to lay her egg Alphine went to the foothills of the Iron Mountains and battled through the mighty Redwoods. Deep in the forest she found a glade, beside a stream and with soft welcoming soil. She knew, that when the egg hatched she may well be far away and so there must be water, there must be safety and there must be magic to help the tiny dragon to thrive in its first days of life.

The magic in the forest is thick, the air is heavy with it. Tiny glimmers of wonder flick between the dark branches, the enchanted stream glitters and shines as it sings its way over the gold flecked rocks. It is a place of peace and harmony and it is perfect and so Alphine digs with her great front paws. She forms a soft, dark nest, a burrow lined with love to receive and hold her egg and cradle it with the tiny, singing dragon safe and secure inside until it is time for it to hatch. What Alphine doesn’t know, can’t possibly know, is that the song in the egg is a duet, eight tiny paws twine and two baby dragons live inside the silver shell. Alphine has produced double magic and though she won’t understand for many years, it is the magic, the only magic, which can save Orlos.

She lines the earthen cradle with soft moss intertwined with fragrant flowers and then gently covers the whole with the warm soil from the glade. She doesn’t know; how can she? that as she pats the earth above the nest flat and lays a branch above it, a fold in time opens deep in the earth. Instead of waiting in the shallow depression the egg slips through the opening and slithers down the damp mud to rest far, far below. It is below the depth of the winter freezing, below the level of the summer heat and below the influence of suspended reality that curses Orlos when the dragon spirit leaves the kingdom. There it lies for many years, the tiny dragons singing their unborn songs, playing with their paws and twining and curling their tails. Their sparkling eyes open into the gloom and they wait.

With no animation in the kingdom they could have been fated to wait forever were it not for the great furnace at the centre of the sphere. The furnace is surrounded by a lake of inert Orlosium which melts once in a hundred years, at the time of the double moon, and the magical element becomes liquid. The heat from the molten sea warms the surrounding strata and the transferred warmth wraps the dragon’s egg in a blanket of tender balminess.

As the heat increases so the tiny inhabitants of the silver ovule sing the hatching song and fight their way through the ancient shell. They emerge, not to the blessed greenness of the forest floor and the tinkling giggle of fast flowing water but to the gleam of jewel specked ore and the harsh grit of a diamond studded tunnel. They move off, instinct as old as time drawing them towards the light. They claw and struggle forward, mewing a little with the effort, onward and upward until they reach the softness of earth and the tangle of tree roots. Blinking in the relative brightness they emerge to the woodland and with them bring life, and hope and joy back to the Kingdom. Two living breathing dragons, tiny they may be, but they are enough, once more there are one hundred dragons in Orlos and once more the kingdom may thrive and breathe and live.

On a beach many dimensions away an old man, silver hair falling as rain around his shoulders, faded green eyes peering from the wrinkles painted by time on his wise old visage, raises his head as he hears, faintly, echoing in the distant corners of his mind the song of the dragons of Orlos so he turns from the ocean and the light and treads, struggling at first against the pull of the sand, but stronger with each pace as he straightens and grows in strength and stature and Alpheus answers the call, just in time, oh so very nearly too late and he enters the cleft in the rocks, bows his head and awaits the whirling cyclone that will take him back to the kingdom, the storm that will speed him home…

It is written in the annals of history that because of the maternal dedication of a great mother dragon, and the magic of the underworld and the benevolence of the deities the great Kingdom of Orlos rings with laughter once more, children run in the streets and the Dragons of Orlos mount guard. That wondrous night following the hatching, they found their fire and breathed in terrible unison to light the great Dragon Light and the King looked down from his battlements and smiled on his people. What is also written, is the story that Alpheus has told, the story of his search for their brother dragon and what became of him on the night when the great pit swallowed them. It is forbidden to read the text, it is forbidden to even want to read the text but two young dragons, feted and adored as they are, feel the need to know, the need to discover the truth and with the impetuousness of cherished youngsters they begin to form a plan to formulate their ideas. They determine to know it all, to understand everything. Not the truth about their birth, that is renowned in song and story, but the truth about Perteus, the missing dragon and the reason that only Alpheus returned when the kingdom renewed and lived again.

Oh little dragons, leave it, don’t enquire where secrets are hidden, don’t pry in corners steeped in mystery. That way lies disaster.