Chapter 406: The Last Free Gods

There was something about the last words he said and the way he spoke them that felt like a law. I had no doubt that someone like him might be able to get to the truth in time, but again, everything depends on how long I was permitted to remain in the past.

Dorrik put the jar back on the shelf and left his hand on it a moment, and his voice reached me.

"Enough for tonight. It is getting late, and I can feel it in my core; tomorrow there will be blood and death. Whatever peace I had in this mountain is gone."

I froze and thought about the commotion that resulted from my descent. I knew that it could not be hidden for long and was even wondering why this place was not filled with various parties looking for what fell from the sky.

Looking at the stone man, I felt guilty. Did I bring down chaos on his calm halls?

"This has nothing to do with you. The armies of the fallen gods were always coming, and your presence did not change much," Dorrik may have sensed my thoughts as he turned towards me, and I felt the weight of his attention settle on me like a physical thing.

"For one so young, you carry a great deal, Elric. More than you know, and more than you should. I can see it in the way you hold yourself, and watch the shadows. I observed that you did not flinch when I mentioned the Pivot; that word is known to very few, but it is not strange to you. You have been looking for answers for a long time, and you have found very few of them, and it does not help that you are chained."

I did not answer him; I still thought it was my fault that danger was coming to this mountain so quickly, but if there was anything I was good at, then it was battle. If possible, I would not allow this Stoneborn to fall into ruin.

He pointed to a space beside the forge, where a pile of hides had been arranged against the wall. "You will sleep there. The stone is warm, and the fire will not go out. You are safe here, for as long as you need to be, and the warmth is good for the soul."

I asked something that has been burning in my mind ever since, "Dorrik, you do not have it inside your soul... the System."

He nodded, "We are the few that are left, and the fallen would not rest until every god and mortal is tied under their forsaken order. The world can no longer be free, Elric, and it is a good thing that at the eve of the end, I find someone to share my hall... even if they are chained."

I looked at the pile of hides. They were thick and well-worn, and I could feel the warmth radiating from the forge even from where I stood. It was the first time in months that I had been offered a place to rest that did not come with a price.

"Thank you," I said.

He waved a hand. "Do not thank me yet. You have not slept through the night, and I have not yet decided what to do with you when the morning comes."

Dorrik began to walk to the other side of the forge, and then he hesitated as if he was thinking about something, and then he sighed.

"From the moment the Dragon God returned from the void, he has been busy. He brought the Pivot back from the void, and with it, he has been pulling gods and mortals into its domain. Those who refuse to be bound, who still remember what it was like to be free, are hunted. We are the last of the free who still remember how this world was supposed to be, and there are fewer of us every year."

He gestured vaguely at the walls, and I knew he was not just referring to this mountain range, but the world beyond. "This war, Elric, is a war of existence itself. The Dragon God is consuming everything, shaping it to his will, binding it to his System. Those of us who resist are losing. We have been losing for a very long time."

I sat very still, absorbing what he had just told me. The Dragon God brought the Pivot back from the void, and he was using it to reshape existence itself. The System was his tool for binding gods and mortals alike. And those who resisted were being hunted to extinction.

"Why are you telling me this?" I asked.

"Because you asked the right question," he said. "And because I think you are part of this, whether you know it or not. The way you appeared here at this exact moment...none of it is coincidence. You are connected to this war, Elric."

He smiled and walked towards his forge, and I turned towards the pile of hides and lay on them, and I felt the warmth of the forge seeping into my bones. The fire was invisible, but I could feel it, just as I could feel the mountain around me.

The truth was that I knew where all of this ended, even though I was just realizing its beginning. Perhaps all the free gods were going to fall, but in the end, the Dragon God would not be the one to control this world, he would perish as the skies collapse and a new age would come about, the age of mages, and if the System was forged by the Dragon God to change the direction of power for the gods, it would not succeed, and it would be the mortals who end up benefiting from it.

I did not tell Dorrik of this, because there was no reason for me to do this, not unless I was able to fully understand the time that I found myself. As I heard the sound of the Stoneborn moving around his forge, a thought occurred to me, and I asked,

"The sky," I called out. "You said it would eat me."

"Oh, that, yes."

I sat up so I could see him, and he pointed upwards, "The skies in this region are no longer safe, Elric. There is a mad dragon circling the sky. She is the mother of the Dragon God, and she has been cursed with an infliction that does not have a name... It tortures her, even as it warps her flesh, and for three hundred years, she has not stopped flying, and any who stays in the sky for long would feel her claws and fangs. Do not go into the sky, Elric, not if you want to die; not even the Dragon God wants to challenge his mother. You don’t want to hear her cries of pain, lad... it is a sound that you will never forget."

I shivered, not because I was afraid of this unexpected danger in the past, but because of the thought of enduring a pain that ravaged the flesh for three hundred years. I knew what pain could do to the mind, and I did not wish it on anybody.

Before my eyes closed, I stared at the walls, at the shelf filled with stone books... with the coming light tomorrow, I reminded myself to read them, and I was surprised how quickly sleep began to take me.