THE ANCIENT LEGEND

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as discovered inside an abandoned book of shadows
nearly entirely devoured by the rot of centuries.

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WITCHES.

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From the distant past to the modern day, these creatures have stalked from amidst the darkest shadows of the magical world. It is known all over the natural realm that common humans have no proper way to resist their influence. Sometimes, however, the moon inverts on itself – and implausible, unbelievable events begin to occur surprisingly easy. There’s a sense of emptiness that will come over any witch at evening; with the odor of burned candlewax still hanging in the air after a slight rain and the ashes of various herbs growing cold in the cauldron. A dizziness that makes all the devils and stars tremble from within the borders of any tarot card, skewing the divinations of even the most astute of the witches, and thus leading them to misfortunes unseen, from defeat to defeat, sometimes even at the hands of mere mortals. It is the desperate moment when they discover that which had once seemed to them the sum of all wonders and strength can fall into an endless, formless ruin, into corruption, in a single, misleading night. But apart from that most fateful night of the year, where the moon eats away their abilities for itself, these creatures known to us as witches can still not be underestimated, cannot be considered heirs to their own undoing. At least, not yet. Except for a few foolishly rare cases. And so, running from shadow to shadow, through the walls and towers destined to crumble, with a tracery of a pattern so subtle it could escape the termites’ gnawing, a coven of the most terrifying of witches lifted the lands of an abandoned seaside town into the air, creating a floating safe haven for their kin flooding in from all over the world.

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And thus, it was created…

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A land that simply cannot reside on a mortal’s tongue, but simultaneously, a land most would not dare to ever enter, even if they could miraculously utter a single vowel of its archaic language.

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…

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Rot, as dark as the endless void, now devouring the wood that once glowed in a most magnificent red. Myths that once fashioned the whitened marble plates in faint blue ink, amusing all those who chose to stay still and look for a moment or two, now faded by the relentless passing of centuries. Of these myriad of mysteries that were once harbored by that peculiar town near the sea – only a murmur remained in those lands. But even the murmurs were still so enticing that the witches could not resist turning it into their own land. To take the sea and turn it into an ocean of darkened clouds, to shape the mountains into spiraling staircases, turn their peaks into braziers, and to even change the days into endless nights lit by flames and the wicked laughter that was carried to every corner by the wind. The witches now owned that land; robbed it from the earth to place it among the stars for themselves. And once they discovered the ancient myths and legends, still faintly aglow in the petals of a white morning-glory caught in the upswing of the wind, their collective gaze landed upon the last deity still alive, still lurking from this town’s ancient past. But in an absurd twist of irony and fate, it was this very same godly creature that had first driven them all off the lithosphere, into forming this floating, nearly incomprehensible hellscaped paradise. The strong desire of wanting to escape their fate had led them into dangerous proximity of what they had feared so much and understood of so little. For centuries upon centuries, these witches have drawn their power from the universe, erected shrines to worship the moon and the stars, and yet, ignored that these gave them as much as they were capable of taking from them. And they also ignored something crucially decisive:

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It was an exchange. It has always been that way.
Ever since, the first lovelorn witch cast a curse.

Ever since, the first witch freed herself of earthly chains.
It had been there. It had listened. It had granted.
One could say, it is the moon itself.

Or at the very least, it erupts from its darkest side.

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The witches’ dragon.
Or more accurately … the black dragon.

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…

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For millennia, hidden in the shadowy abyss, where the boundaries between the natural and mystical blur, this ancient creature rested. Colossal in form, draped in midnight scales and obsidian in appearance; yet has been weaving itself seamlessly into every single night that the mortal realm has ever seen. The thought of it having never been caught by the eyes of an unsuspecting child seems unbelievable. Its serpentine body was so vast and sinuous that it could stretch itself over a landscape like the tattered remnants of a celestial cloak, bearing the wisdom and the scars of a life arduous and long. Yet no one had ever really seen it. Only a shadow, only an idea of it was ever caught by mankind and then lived on for decades in songs, books and tongues. And all the while, it simply continued to soar through the moonlit skies with its scales mirroring the glow of the stars, unbothered, recounting the eons it has weathered through. However, its most defining trait, curiously left out in every myth and legend told between men, but which most certainly would always be remembered first among those who have actually encountered it, are its eyes … twin orbs of abyssal intensity that radiate in eldritch mysteries and a bottomless passion that finds its expression in a violent flash of purple color. That feverish purpleness unexpectedly arising from what initially appears as pools of darkness entrances everyone who has ever witnessed its emergence. This light in the dragon’s eyes … a light that was soon coveted by the witches. Maybe the first in history to be witness and once they had seen it, they all wanted it. Lusted for it. Something primal inside them – instinctual and animalistic – awoke to new consciousness, and they collectively understood what it meant. What has always been the truth hidden away from prying eyes. When it descends from the moon to the earth, this dragon was not only the cause behind the disturbances in the witches’ ability to cast spells on those rare nights where the moon inverted on itself, but this being did so in order to collect magical energy, to soak it up through its scales, into its body, into those eyes. The witches all believed that it did because it could grant a wish to anyone who managed to win its goodwill. To distract it for a minute from its eternal solitude. To anyone who made its eyes fiery with that purple passion. Thus, the witches all started trying to individually cast their spells on this dark myth, hoping it would descend for them specifically, with that most ardent expression, having chosen one of them as the worthiest of that purple source of light. That it would open its maw - a cavernous gateway to the infernal - and that with each exhale from it, would cascade forth billows of shadowy breath, summoning an unholy symphony of darkness that could fulfil every wish a witch could hold and any emotion she could not yet imagine. In this breath, even entire cities and universes could be built – or so, is how the legend goes.

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But the actual truth, they would never discover.
No spell ever worked on the dragon.
Instead most of these witches fell into nocturnal depths of their own making.
To never reappear again.
Devoured and torn by their own lust.
By their own misleading ideas.
By their own shadows.

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Now, they were all on their way to become heirs to their own undoing.

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Except for one. For you have to know, that it has been rumoured that a single witch had actually managed to win the dragon’s attention. Even its honest affections. As unbelievable as it may seem, but one day, this witch of unknown oriental descent, of undeniable wit and humour, approached the deity not with spells or demands, but with gifts of her own, of promises so enchanting that one could go on fantasizing about them forever, and thus, managed to gain its trust little by little. At least, for a while. For a brief moment. For it is currently very difficult to say with accuracy what happened to both. Some recount that they left earth behind together, some say that it was tragic but beautiful. That as they were floating up into the darkness of the universe, their tears of joy added stars to the night sky. Less sentimentally inclined tales, simply recount that the dragon vanished and was never seen again, that the oriental witch withered away with heartbreak as a result. That ever since, in those floating lands, the air itself seemed to fracture, and that occasionally shattered moonlight can be seen dancing around a silhouette with ink-dipped appearance, but nobody knows for sure.

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It has become another murmur,
yet to be heard.

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END OF CHAPTER ONE

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