The Dragon Tower

Far out in the sea, past the Ember Wastes, there is an island that smokes. The ground is black rock, split with glowing cracks. Young dragons, no bigger than geese, play in the warm ash. Drakes nap on the cliffs. And in the middle of it all stands a tower, taller than any tree, with a ramp winding round and round it all the way to the top.

At the top of the Dragon Tower sleeps Aurendrake.

It is the oldest dragon of all: older than the drakes, older than the Gold Dragon and its hoard, older than the island itself, some say. It has one great body with folded wings and a long curling tail, and a heart that glows through its chest like a lantern behind a curtain. Along its spine, from behind its head to the root of its tail, sit seven great crystals, each glowing faintly with something different:

Seraphine, the Dragon-Keeper who sits by the shrine in the village and knows every dragon story there is, says the plates were no accident.

"A dragon that old could have kept all of its strength in one place," she says. "Aurendrake didn't. It chose to split its power into seven wards, set along its own back, so that no single hero — however strong, however good-hearted — could ever carry all of it alone. If you want to reach its heart, you can't do it with strength. You do it with seven friends, each keeping their own ward, at the very same moment."

This is why.

When one of Aurendrake's wards tires, its crystal goes dark, and a rune plate on the rim of the tower glows with that ward's colour. If somebody stands on the plate for a few moments, the ward settles and turns to stone. But the stone only holds while somebody keeps standing on the plate. Leave it alone, and the ward stirs and wakes again, as bright as ever.

Only when all seven wards are stone, and seven friends are keeping all seven plates at the very same moment, does the Sevenfold Seal close. Then the shield round the dragon's heart breaks open, and for a short while everyone can reach it. After that, the wards all wake at once, and the friends have to do it again. And again. For as long as it takes.

Six friends can never do it, however strong they are. There are seven plates, and each needs its own keeper. Aurendrake built it that way, Seraphine says, so that nobody could ever win its power for themselves.

And the tower doesn't let just anybody in, either. A gate of runes shimmers in its south door, and it turns back everyone who doesn't carry the Sevenfold Seal. You earn the seal from Seraphine, by learning the old dragon tales one by one.

When at last the dragon's heart is calmed, Aurendrake settles down and falls asleep, sealed, and the whole world hears the names of the heroes who were there. Each of them takes home a Warden Scale, cut from one of its seven wards, and something wonderful from the dragon's hoard.

But dragons are patient. After a couple of hours, the old dragon stirs again, waiting for the next seven friends to climb the tower.