The pointed blade of the dragon’s head cast eerie shadows against its scaled flank in the firelight as it curled around their camp, shielding it from the town nestled in the bay.

“Tenebris Glendor. What is your business with him? Has he not recently returned from a voyage?” Asked Samson,

“You know him also?”

“That I do, and I saw you looking toward his ship out there on the cliff. You are part of what is unfolding, where you fit I do not yet know. But you sense it too, the dreams, the presence that comes close but does not reveal itself and the things Tenebris brings from his voyages to the fractured light where not even my dragon goes. You know of those things also; the marcray crystal, it is in exchange for them?”

“Yes, it is” she answered simply, realizing now that he knew more of everything and that he was not just a traveler, passing through on the periphery of it all - “for the drift that washes up near the fractured light. These things are fragments of other worlds, ones as far the constellation Orion is named after, others that are so close one could step into them, were they to reveal themselves, like the visitations that step through my dream fires.

They are all part of something and this world is the nexus of that. I am but a piece of a picture with many pieces tethered to yet more pieces. And what have you, Samson, learned of these things?” She said throwing a leaf into the fire watching its glowing edges curl in and collapse.

“You know that the fracturing is growing stronger, you know about the rend in the light and that the things that come through are of a different nature. Do you know the origins of these changes and what comes through into our world?”

“I have been watching the unfolding of things since I saw the ancient one give you the words to the other side” he said,

“Dragon riders defend the light after all. To defend the light, is to defend the world and to defend the world, one must know what gathers on the other side, the mirror to the light, two sides of the whole, they must keep their balance or the axis breaks”. He said, taking out a silver coin from his pocket, twirling it between his fingers, it flickered in the firelight, a darting fish as its faces alternately flipped toward the light. His voice then took on a strange cadence, keeping rhythm with the coin glimmering between his fingers, recognizable as the common tongue yet somehow foreign.

“Ken you the wild sliver, shadow hidden sentinel, shiver light, split in the dark, shifting tides, see through these, see through all of these…”

The coin stopped, caught between two fingers, he flipped it in the air, its face flicking from light to dark as it fell, heads over tails, heads over tails…

The words and the coin shimmered on the thin edge of vision and thought, time pooled into a single moment, spun, suspended into night. Something took form, in that lacuna, between the turning planes of silver. The scene before them dimmed, becoming less valid as something else fought for the same space. Coiled then unfolding, it seemed to substantiate, became almost real, then lost its integrity, the moment collapsed, the spell broken. It was just the crackling fire and the night pressing in around them, an owl hooted from the larch woods up ahead.

They sat looking into the dying flames for a long while, allowing the echoes of what had just passed dissipate, then Samson spoke:

“The way we find our dragons is through visions and dreams. The visions, they become so strong, in the end they are like waking dreams, overpowering that which lays before you. My visions took me to the mountains where I was united with Orion. These visions were real things, the dragon sight, it calls you, it finds you…”

“The meaning of my visions remain obscured, they bring me many things, yet never a whole truth, only fragments and the more I see, the more fragments there are” she said knowing there was no real answer to it.

“You will see more eventually, maybe not all, but a lot more, I am certain of that”.

That night they slept tucked under each of the dragon’s wings, she could hear the creature’s great heartbeat and wrapped in her thick traveling cloak, felt as though in a warm dark womb. It’s breath coming out in long huffs of steam in the cool air. In the distance the sushing of the waves, a little closer here than at her cottage on the amethyst cliffs.

***

Magda’s dream:

I knew not where I was but it seemed to be in a forest of gnarled mountain oaks, perhaps close to the ruins but I wasn’t sure. I was looking again into the face of the dryad, as I had many years before. This time, her hand was outstretched and in it was swirling shadow, I knew this darkness was for me, a gift of sorts. Her eyes gazed down at me, detached as though it were not for her to care whether or not I took what was offered, after all, it wasn’t hers.

The broad, angular features of the dryad woman’s face became the face of the pale dragon with the moonstone eyes, it too gazed down at me with the same expression. The shadow thing was me, was mine, it was only being presented so I might know to keep it.

***

At first light, as pale sunbeams started refracting through the aurora along the horizon and the distant cries of fishermen and vendors came up from the fish market by the harbor, gulls circling the boats coming to shore, they ate a cold breakfast of smoked mackerel and bread. The dragon disappeared into the larches, fading like smoke into the shadows of the wood.

Tenebris Glendor’s odd looking ship with its branches for masts and the trunk rising from the midship, swayed gently, a small distance from the other ships, even from atop the cliffs one could see petals drifting languidly on the breeze from its upper branches.

The atmosphere seemed muted, as if bracing for something.

“I have noticed a change even in the townsfolk, they seem nervous and watchful, especially with the drift pirates out in the bay. Tenebris has only just returned from his voyage and they have yet to see what comes back with his ship. It is always a tense time, yet they all want the black magic of the talismans for protection. They are fools and they know nothing” said Samson looking over at the town, cloaked in its fine haze of woodsmoke.

“Yet they sense the turning of things also, they feel it on the tide, I’ve heard talk of strange things washing ashore. Even the festival seems quieter than last I was here. Although they should take comfort in the protection of their sea oaks, if merely one can protect Tenebris and his men from what lies at the edge of the world then…” Magda fell silent as her mind's eye tried to form something coherent from this roiling unknown known.

“It is true, but as you say, strange things still come ashore and they feel a change in the air, like the pressure before a storm… Tonight we meet Tenebris on his ship, I too would know more of what he found at the edge and what has come back with him.”