Book 13: Chapter 64: The Dragon Has No Clothes

Path of Dragons

Gargantuan waves crashed against the cliff, sending a corrosive mist over the edge. Elijah stood steadfastly against it, his eyes narrowed as he focused on the oncoming ships. Each one was around a hundred yards long, with a black metal hull and outriggers that extended fifty or so yards from each ship’s bulky form. They crested one mountainous wave, then descended along the slope.

None of them had sails, but that didn’t surprise Elijah. Even back on Earth, people had figured out how to create engines powered by ethera. Doubtless, the native engineers of Gorveth had discovered similar technology. What did surprise him was that the monsters left them entirely alone.

From so far away, even with Eyes of the Eagle enhancing his vision, Elijah could barely make out the sailors working on the deck. From what he could see, they were all heavily mutated, and to the point where they barely looked human at all. The largest ship sailed in the middle of the fleet, leading the way as they rapidly descended the wave.

It took more than a day for them to get close enough for Elijah to make out more than the barest details. The slow pace, which was characterized by the need to climb and descend those huge waves, told him just how long it must have taken to cross the Restless Sea from the other continent.

They’d been at it for a long, long time.

But Elijah couldn’t help but think that the last leg might become the most dangerous portion of their journey. After all, there was nowhere to moor the ships. No convenient beaches or protected bays. Just an endless cliff that stretched around the circumference of the continent.

Not that he could remember every nook and cranny. He certainly couldn’t. He’d not even seen all of it, despite his constant work. That was not a surprising development, considering that the landmass itself was somewhere around the size of all the land of the pre-transformation Earth. At least fifty-five million square miles. Probably closer to sixty, based on the math of his latest runic circles, which were still years from completion.

Either way, the sheer scale of it meant that, even with his emerald mind helping with his memory, there was no way he could remember every inch of the continent. But one thing he did know for certain was that there was no safe harbor within a thousand miles.

As Elijah watched, he found himself preparing for a fight.

After so long, there was only one possibility for the invaders’ identity. Somehow, the Synod had tracked him across the other continent and through the Restless Sea. Now, they’d sent someone to make him pay for what he’d done in Ithalon.

It should not have been surprising. The people of that city treated the members of the Synod like they were the closest thing to gods. So, when he’d killed the Hollow Voice – which he still regretted at times – he’d destroyed the object of their faith. He would’ve been shocked if such a wound would ever heal.

Part of him wanted to simply fly out there and take the fight to them. In the ocean, they were vulnerable. Meanwhile, since his advancement to demi-god, Elijah had ventured out to sea on multiple occasions, just to test Shape of the Sea. What he’d found was that he could easily survive out there, even if he still didn’t dare challenge the true monsters of the depths.

Not yet, at least.

Even if he could kill them, it would be a task of months, rather than days. And he didn’t want to leave Treebie and his project for that long.

But there was a part of him that was itching to give it a try, now that he could actually gain experience again. It wasn’t until he admitted that to himself that he realized just how apathetic he’d become when it came to things he’d once obsessed over. He’d never been a thrill-seeker – not really – but he’d always enjoyed challenging himself. Never was that truer than when it came to fighting ever more powerful monsters.

Yet, a good bit of that fire had been extinguished by the lack of reward. Killing monsters wasn’t nearly as satisfying when he got no experience for it.

In the end, he remained in place, hoping that the sea would take the whole situation out of his hands. With every passing hour, they inched closer, giving Elijah a better look at the details of the crew and the vessels themselves.

He didn’t recognize anything from Ithalon. No green armor. No leather-clad Silent Hunters. Just normal, albeit mutated, people. A man at the helm that Elijah presumed to be the captain was garishly dressed, though, with multiple colorful scarves and enough jewelry that he would’ve been perfectly at home in the Gilded Reach. Except that he was so densely mutated that he looked like he’d been crossed with a squid.

Finally, the ships drew within a mile, and Elijah saw how they intended to come ashore.

Huge harpoons emerged from the deck, looking like nothing so much as cannons. When the ships crested the latest wave, they fired. Enormous chains, tipped with massive hooks, soared through the air, only to slam into the side of the cliff with enough force that the hooks buried themselves deep in the rock.

The ships leaped free of the wave as they were dragged through the air so rapidly that it only took a minute for them to hit the cliff. A cushion of ethera protected their hulls as the hooked chains winching them upward. A similar ethereal bubble protected them from the oncoming wave, which splashed against it without harming anyone on the deck.

Once the ships reached the spot where the hooks were embedded, the crew shot another set of chains upward. This set arced over the edge of the cliff before the hooks embedded themselves in the rocky ground.

One landed only a few hundred yards from Elijah, which gave him a good view of just how enormous they were. Fifty feet long, at the very least, and the chain links were each the size of a horse.

Love what you're reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on.

Elijah shifted into the Shape of the Scourge, then adopted Guise of the Stalker as he waited for whatever came next.

Gradually, the ships rose to the top of the cliff, stopping only when they could extend a gangplank onto land.

That was when people poured out.

Thousands of them from each ship. They didn’t look great, either. Not sick. Not starved. But not entirely well. It was clear that they’d spent months at sea, and many of them just weren’t suited to such a journey.

A few fell to their knees, weeping in relief at finally reaching dry land.

Then, Elijah saw a familiar face.

He was transforming back to his human shape before he even knew what he was doing. The crowd of people screamed at his sudden appearance, many of them turning to flee back to the ship.

But the target of his recognition just shook his head.

“I knew you were alive,” said Benedict, the woman he’d met in Dravkein clinging weakly to his arm. Elijah couldn’t remember her name.

“What are you doing here?” he asked, his voice cracking slightly. How long had it been since he’d spoken? Normally, he communicated with Treebie via the bond of their souls.

“It’s a long story.”

“I’m listening,” Elijah said.

“Before we get into that, I have a question for you,” Benedict stated evenly.

“Go ahead.”

“Where are your clothes?”

Elijah opened his mouth to reply, only to realize something that should have dawned on him far sooner. He was entirely naked, and had been for years. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d worn clothes, mostly because it just didn’t seem very necessary. After all, there was no one there to judge him for his nudity. And besides, he spent most of his time in one of his other forms, so clothes just seemed like a needless detail best forgotten.

Now, he was beginning to regret that choice.

“Oh,” he said, forcing nonchalance. “Guess I just forgot. Give me one second.”

Instead of awkwardly dressing, he just shifted into his dragon form. Predictably, it caused quite a ruckus, with any of those brave enough to stand their ground finally breaking for the ships.

“Come on. Haven’t they ever seen a dragon before?”

“I don’t think so, Elijah.”

After a moment, he acknowledged, “Suppose that’s fair enough. So? What are you doing here?”

Benedict glanced at thethe three-hundred-foot-tall, recently constructed trilithon more than five hundred feet away. It led to a trail of identical monuments stretching off into the distance.

“I could ask you the same thing.”

“I asked first, though.”

“Were you responsible for those pulses of vitality?”

“You felt those?”

Benedict nodded.

“I mean, technically, that was Treebie. Sort of. I contributed, I guess,” Elijah admitted. “It’s complicated. And a long story.”

“Can you please go back to a…smaller form? You’re scaring people.”

“But my modesty!”

“You didn’t seem to mind when you sauntered up here dangling your –”

“Fine, fine. Just turn around. I’m shy,” Elijah said with a grin.

Benedict rolled his eyes and did as he was asked. The woman did the same. Jasai’i. That was her name, Elijah remembered.

Once he was certain they would keep their eyes to themselves, Elijah shifted back into his human form and hastily donned his only intact set of clothes. Well, mostly intact. They had quite a few holes in them, and they would have been better suited as rags. But they covered him up.

For the most part.

“Alright, I’m decent.”

Benedict turned his head, and after seeing that Elijah had told the truth, his body followed. Elijah once again prompted him to tell his story, so he launched into it, explaining how they’d been driven from Dravkein by the increasingly aggressive forces of Ithalon. Using the pulses of vitality as a guide, they’d set off across the Restless Sea, hoping that they would find shelter upon arrival.

“Or failing that, at least putting a significant barrier between us and the Emerald Guard,” he finished. “So, that’s how we ended up here. Nine months at sea, and that was with the world’s greatest Sailor at the helm. I don’t know how you managed it.”

If Elijah was honest, he wasn’t certain, either. Those days spent swimming across the ocean in the Shape of the Sea had begun to blur, and all he really remembered was constantly fighting various monsters and trying his best to avoid drawing the attention of the true leviathans of the deep.

“So?”

“So, what?” Elijah asked, jerking back to the present.

“It’s your turn. What have you been doing over the past nineteen years?”

“Nineteen…”

Elijah hadn’t realized it had been that long since he’d left Dravkein. That meant that he’d spent more than two decades on Gorveth. Closing in on twenty-five away from home. It simultaneously felt like far fewer years and so very much longer. He stood there for a long few moments, lost in the reality of his long solitude. It wasn’t until Benedict cleared his throat that Elijah even realized he’d gone silent.

“Well, I guess it all started with the Cyst…”

Then, he launched into a short recounting of events that had led him to his current state. He told Benedict about his efforts to cleanse the area and plant the tree. About his various breakthroughs and the long project of building the ever-expanding system of rings that had thrust vitality back into the world.

He went on and on about how he’d taught Treebie to grow his roots into a series of glyphs, and finally, he explained how the tree had begun to cleanse the very core of the planet.

“And then he made contact with the World Tree. He’s kind of a pseudo-Branch, now. That’s how I evolved my class,” Elijah explained. “Oh, yeah – I’m a demi-god, now. Forgot to mention that, I guess.”

“We felt it the second you revealed yourself,” said Zek, who’d joined them about halfway through. The old hunter didn’t look great. Clearly, sea life didn’t agree with him. “Your aura is blinding.”

“Oh. Thanks? Anyway, I’m still working on terraforming the rest of this continent, but you guys are welcome to settle right outside Druhmor. So long as you follow the rules, at least.”

“Rules?”

“Don’t mess anything up. You can’t imagine the amount of work that’s gone into building everything up. I won’t have it ruined through negligence.”

“Fair enough,” Benedict said. Zek nodded his agreement as well.

“How far is it?” asked Jasai’i.

Elijah shrugged. “About four thousand, two-hundred, and twenty-one miles that way,” he answered, pointing toward Druhmor. “Give or take a few feet.”

“So, we have a long way to go,” Benedict remarked.

“Suppose you do. The area should be mostly clear of monsters, though. So, just keep going that way. When you reach the mountains, I’ll show you the easiest way through. From there, it’s a pretty straight shot.”

“Where will you be?” asked Zek.

“Working,” Elijah answered, nodding toward the giant pillar. “These things aren’t going to build themselves.”

In reality, he’d reached his limit for human companionship. As lonely as he was, nearly two decades of solitude wasn’t easy to overcome, and he found himself slightly overwhelmed by the number of people around.

Thankfully, Benedict seemed to understand it, and soon enough, he’d begun to gather everyone and usher them deeper inland where they had already started to build a temporary camp.

It would take everyone a while to reacclimate to living on land. During that time, Elijah wanted to finish his current ring. After that, they’d need to figure out where to put the thousands of new arrivals.

Maybe someone could even make him some new clothes.