The Lament of Bel (short Story)

This short story is a preview of the Mirror's Eye universe, with a much more loose and timeless feel than the novel.

There are some tales told in the halls of old that still ring. One may hear them if quietly enough they listen. This is such a tale, one sewn into every dreamer’s tapestry, since before many memories, long forgotten, had been first spun. Nary a soul dead for many a thousand years could name its author, nor hearken back to that obscure moment it first was told. It comes to us in rhymes, remembered in the songs of children, and in the wistful legends of the elders: A tale of first love, and deathly hatred, of fearful power, and crippling weakness.

Long ago, before the angels and mystical creatures all left this world, there were four dragons. Not the only dragons were they, but the oldest, and strongest of their kind. They fought men, angels, and beasts alike, but above all, they hated each other. Day and night, summer and winter, and year upon year they sought to be the greatest dragon, for no dragon may rest, if a serpent greater than he soars the skies above. Two names are forgotten, two remain. The greatest dragon of old was Salin. A creature of strength alone, no living thing knew reason with Salin. To be caught in his gaze meant fiery death, and no creature on earth, nor any devil beneath it, no man or angel that had name or drew breath, would dare to stand against him; all that is, save one.

For Salin was not wise nor cunning, and in the shadows their waited another, a more devious serpent, who was content to wait through the ages for a chance to strike at him. Bel was his name, the smallest, and weakest of those four elder-drakes. Now Bel was a creature of reason, some say it was from his desire to defeat Salin, and others that he wasn’t black at heart. Whichever is true, he would often take counsel with men and angels, and stood as a guardian to both, should they ever happen upon the lands ruled by Salin. Through time, his strength in the ways of angels grew, and with it his favor among men. He learned to temper his fiery soul, and could take on the form of a man, with the likeness of an angel. In so doing he would walk the halls of the kings of men, and at times lead their armies, in their conquests of the South.

Yet Bel’s heart, clever and ruthless as he was, knew one weakness. For the Lords of the Angels had given him the heart of a man, that he would know love, a thing not known to dragons before him, nor forever after him. Their purposes are concealed in legends that have long been silent.

It happened one day, deep in the cold of a long winter, such as men have not known for an age of this world, that Bel strode the hall of the Great King Threigo, Lord of the Lands of Midnight sun. It came to Bel’s ear, deep within the walls of Threigo’s castle, a voice. No rough northman voice was it either, but soft, sad, and dripping with the mystery of a half remembered dream. It touched the dragon’s heart, and he forgot for a moment, his dread purpose. For all time, Bel had known one passion, the defeat of his tyrant foe, but no longer. Turning from the great winter hall through the long passages of cold and dreary stone, he followed the song. It soon ceased, its echoes fading from between many walls. Bel searched to hear it again but could not. His cold mind knew not beauty, and the memory of that solo had nothing to grasp, and slipped from it. A day passed, then a week, and at midnight on the seventh day, he heard it again. Once more he followed the melodious wisps, until, past the great wall, and a small wood of spruce trees, he arrived at stone hut, with a wood and iron door. It was locked and bared with a hefty seal. He knocked softly, and called out, “Whose is that voice? name yourself!”

The melody stopped, and no reply drifted through the oaken door. Bel sat by the door, and fell asleep in the frost till morning. When he awoke, a guardsman, by the name Cnut of house Glainsberd stood at the door. Bel inquired of Cnut, “Who is it that waits in this dreary chamber?” The guard looked at him, not recognizing now the former glory of Bel, meekened as the monster was, by the softness of that mournful song. “The she-elf, Balibo” he replied, a look of disbelief on his face at the ignorance of his companion.

There were not always kings in the the lands without winter sun, in a former age that icy circle was home to the winter-elves, younger than the angels, but older than the summer elves, and the first men. The Northmen tell tales of harrowing battles in which they were very nearly defeated after a great many attacks, and only by sheer might of arms did they prevail against those magical lords of ice and snow. The elves, for their part, sing a devastating lament of their home being raided, and their dazzling castles of Ice smashed beneath the axe’s blade. Whichever is more true, the winter elves were long gone from the northern kingdoms, only to be found in the most remote and dangerous track of snow and ice on earth, the Sides of the North. Balibo was of the few remaining in all the land, daughter of Kainör the Wise, most powerful of the winter elves, taken as a young girl in a battle many winters past.

Bel asked entrance, but Cnut simply shook his head, baffled that any man would seek entrance into a room with the dreaded elf, who could turn flesh to ice at but a glance, or so legends say. Cnut, mistaking Bel for a change of guard, left him there to wait upon a door forever closed. Bel spent his days, and weeks, by that lonely door, each seventh day savoring the song within the hut, until the winter had nearly passed. Then, one particularly still night, when the stars shone with the clarity of a thousand thousand gemstones, beneath the fiery and harsh breath of a dragon, a song escaped his own heart. He had learned the song of Balibo, sung in a tongue he knew not, but with the precision of a student, he recited each spell, and each rhyme, as though he had spoken it all his life. When he had finished, there came no sound from within, and for a minute longer than all the nights he had waited in the snow, silence hung between them. But it was broken this night for the first time, and the she-elf replied to the words he’d spoken that first night, “Balibo, Balibo is my name, who is it that asks?”

“I am Bel.”

“Bel, an interesting name for a northman, who is he who would shame the great Dragon, and take his dreaded name?”

“A fool, indeed,” Bel replied, “But I am no northman, I am the dread serpent Bel.”

“Surely not, I never heard a dragon sing before,”

“Neither had I,” Bel said aloud, “but neither had I heard a song such as yours before, of what do you sing?”

“It is a song of woe, and lament,” Balibo spoke after a pause, “Listen, I shall teach you the words,”

And so she taught him, the great dragon hanging on her every word, as she recounted, in the language of the northmen this time, her tragedy. By the end of it, Bel’s heart was full of a new hatred, against the men of the north, for their crimes against the family of Balibo, and he began to seethe with vengeance upon house Threigo. But Bel was not a hasty being, and knowing all to well the patience of well planned revenge, he strove to imagine how the northmen might be scourged for their greed against the Icy lands.

Bel had been missed in the great hall, and decided then to return. But each seventh day, he would return to that place, and sing the song Balibo had taught him, his resolution growing with the love he now felt for the she-elf. In the words of the Elven tongue, he learned many dark spells, and the wielding of the winter winds. After many nights, he summoned what courage there was in his scaly heart, and asked,

“Would you strike if I entered?”

“Enter if, if you dare,” She replied, mysterious in intent as ever.

The door posed no obstacle to the dragon, but immediately as his eyes would have met hers, crystals of dark blue shot up his chest, and wrapped his face. Her face turned from calm to storm and she screamed with a howl, piercing as a wolf’s, and threatening as a winter tempest. For any other being this may have been the end, but Bel quickly regained his wits, and returning to his reptilian form, he scorched the ice from his flesh with a breath of dragon-fire. He subdued Balibo in an instant, realizing her escape would mean the end of his dealings in the North. But quickly as he subdued her, her anger melted, and he gently released his grasp. For in that moment, their eyes had met, hers of ice, and his of fire, a seductive union unbreakable as the season of an evergreen tree.

But they were not alone. Cnut had returned, and seeing the two powerful beings embracing before him, he ran back to the great hall, and alerted Threigo. Bel, seeing they had been spotted, put Balibo down, and closed the door, leaving her with the simple words, “I shall return.”

A hundred of the King’s men took Balibo the very next day, and locked her in the high tower of the great castle keep, thirteen of them being frozen in the effort by the wrath of a bound winter-elf.

For his dealings with a she-elf, and his love of the northmen’s oldest foe, Bel was cursed by the halls of angels, , and the King of the North forbade him to enter his castle. For years, Bel plotted how he might once again see the fair Balibo, and be reunited with her. He determined his only way was to kill the Great King, but in such a way that the kingdom would favor him once again. What better way than with his arch-nemesis, Salin. He could kill the king, and defeat Salin, all in one stroke. With Balibo at his side, and the loyalty of the North, he would rise as far greater than Salin ever had been. But Salin had been asleep for a lifetime of men. To awake him would mean certain death, as Bel was no match for his ancient foe in combat, but among the skills of angels was the wielding of the winds. Bel plotted to merely pull Salin from the sky with a great blast of the North Wind, dashing the weighty beast into the rocks below.

Now there were in the North, great caves of gold, ruby, and sapphire, a stone greatly desired by men. The Great King himself was particularly fond of precious stones, but above all he desired Gold. Bel sewed the myth among his men that a great seam of Gold lay in the Sides of the North, and he gave them the location where Salin had taken up rest. He waited until the King heard of this rumor, and decided it was his time to act. Disguised as a Northman Prince, with a great horned helmet, and broad axe, he entered the King’s court, pulling with him a cart. In the cart there were crude baskets filled with precious stones, but in the middle there lay a ponderous chest. The King himself opened it, and inside lay raw pieces of gold, one hundred in number, each the size of a cluster of grapes. Now the king new Bel’s voice, so Bel acted as one dumb, having written his message on goatskin. On the skin lay a map, and a few words, telling the king where to find the source of the gold. Overcome by greed, the king set out at once to claim his treasure, with Bel leading the party. Salin’s cave lay four day’s journey up the Sides of the North, but in time they arrived at the highest point in all the land for a thousand leagues in any direction. When none looked on, Bel excused himself to remove his disguise, as he prepared to ambush Salin, who he expected to fly out at any moment, spouting flame. Now there was indeed gold in the earth, all property of Salin. As the king’s men dug and dug, they disturbed the earth, awakening the dragon. The men ran this way and that in terror, some falling of high cliffs, and others being trampled by horses. Salin shot up in the air like a great shaft from a crossbow. As he descended, Bel prepared his assault.

But alas, Salin flew too close to the ground too quickly, and Bel only succeeded in injuring the dragon’s left foot. Salin smote the mountain, sweeping off it the King, his horses, and the stolen gold, all of which fell with a rumble into the earth below. The King was dead, and Bel seized upon his chance, rushing at him from behind. But Salin was too fast, and outpacing Bel, darted for the King’s Castle. Balibo! Thought Bel, she was locked in a tower, with no escape. He fought to slow down or outrun Salin, but in vain. When he reached the castle, only fire and stone greeted him. Salin had retreated North, to where Bel knew not. He searched for days, but found not Balibo, the tower in which she lived turned to ash, with the base standing aright to the heavens as a memorial of his loss.