“To the west of the Empire lay the Desolate Lands. 'Tis said that these are grounds of cold sand, sharp rocks and deadly encounters. Life does not occur in its barren soils, yet death flourishes. Old historical accounts tell of an ancient, now ruined and forgotten kingdom, far to the west, beyond the horizon that can be seen from the mountains. The cold desert is famed for its air devoid of mana, and the colossal stone golems forever roaming it. It is unknown whether the golems caused the fall of the kingdom that laid here, or if they are the last remnants of its lost civilization. One could only theorize that the golems are eating the mana, therefore eternally preventing any other existence, while prolonging their own.

-Entry from an old encyclopedia”

* * *

Azcheron

“I'm surprised you didn't actually end up killing anyone,” Azcheron said as he bit into a piece of bread.

Erin swallowed the food she was munching before replying. “Who do you take me for ? I'm not a blood-thirsty berserker. I was just... joking.”

I do feel like you're also 'joking' right now.

“Well, in any case, that was certainly an entertaining episode.”

“See ! You're the one enjoying that. I'm sure you got off on seeing me beating up these poor guys.”

“I was just angry with them because they delayed my lunch.”

They walked toward the Academy's library as they finished eating. Before Darius appeared, Azcheron had planned to eat quickly and spend the rest of the day searching and reading documents there. Erin, having nothing else to do before the evening's seminary, decided to stay with him.

As they entered the library, Azcheron remembered he had a question for Erin.

“So, I noticed something, Erin.” She looked at Azcheron, waiting for him to continue. “It seems your family name has a peculiar effect on most people. They promptly freak out or become somehow mindful when the name Verald is mentioned.”

Erin became grumpy. “Yeah, it does have that impact on people.”

“Care to explain ?” Azcheron was getting increasingly curious.

“Hah... Okay. I told you my house was well-known in the Empire, yes ? Let's just say that they hold a lot of power in the Imperial Palace. The Verald are famous because they're one of the four main houses that are basically governing the nation.”

He let out a laugh, seeing the face of his friend. She seemed to feel guilty for hiding how important her family was.

“You know, I almost expected you to confess you were royalty or something, for a moment. But I guess that makes more sense, regarding how bent they are on telling you to lie low.”

Erin simply gave a wry grin, and Azcheron carried on. “I'll get worried about bringing you real trouble at this rate. I'm not necessarily planning to stay on friendly terms with the Empire, in the distant future.”

“Don't be. I told you already. I don't care anymore about trouble, especially if it's related to my family. If it comes to that, we'll deal with it, won't we ?”

Azcheron shook his head. “Even then, I don't intend to act carelessly before I can secure a safe position. I'll wait until I am well-known and popular to do my thing.” Upon seeing Erin's mouth opening, he added, “I'll tell you about that when I'm ready.”

And I need to do some research beforehand. There are several things that need confirmation, after all.

“Fine, fine. Tell me something else instead.”

“What would that be ?” he asked while struggling to reach for a book on a shelf.

“That boy, Darius. Darius Farril ? How come he was so eager to fight you ?”

Azcheron stared blankly at the book's cover he was holding, before putting it someplace else without a single care in the world, muttering. “...the heck is this ? I don't need that.” He then looked up at Erin. “I can't have you telling anyone about that, alright ?”

“Okay,” she said as she picked the misplaced book and put it back where Azcheron found it, while he tried once again to reach for the book he wanted.

“I wouldn't know either if Anton hadn't warned me yesterday. You know how everyone just call Roharl by his name ?” She nodded. “Why, do you think ?”

“Because... he relinquished his family name ?” She paused, frowned, and carried on in a low voice. “He's a Farril ?”

“Anton implied so. He told me I may have to deal with the Farril house after the rumours about me and Roharl spread. I assume they're another important family.”

“They are. But now I'm not sure anymore whether they became important thanks to Roharl or not.” She effortlessly grabbed the book Azcheron failed to obtain.

“Thanks,” he said as she handed out the book.

“What's the story behind him, then ?”

Azcheron shrugged. “Who knows ? I'd say it could be something similar to your situation. That wouldn't surprise me, I had the time to form a very negative opinion of the Empire's nobility in these past two weeks.”

“Then you got dragged into a feud between them and the Dragon Slayer, and that's why Darius challenged you ?”

“I don't think so.” He scratched his chin. “If anything Darius gave me the impression that he admires Roharl. It's probably something like wanting to test yourself against someone who sparred with your respected grand-father ? I'm just guessing things but that doesn't seem too far-fetched.”

They sat at one of the large and massive wooden tables located between the shelves. Erin looked at the books Azcheron had gathered.

“That's a collection of peculiar books you're reading. Stuff on summoning magic, illusion spells, and other things in a language I don't know.”

“Peculiar... It is, isn't it ?”

“What's going on ?”

“The bout with Roharl got me thinking.” He saw Erin's expression changing. He knew she was disappointed that she missed the fight. “I have two things to do now.”

“Training ? Learning new spells ?”

“Training and discovering new uses for the magic I already know, yes.” He pointed at the books in the Common tongue. “And learning new spells, yes.”

“What's with the unintelligible writings then ? This looks like a... dictionary,” she said as she picked up and opened a heavy-looking book. “What language is this ?”

Azcheron wore a mischievous smile. “That, my dear Erin, would be the Dragon tongue. Turns out there's a plethora of very old spells still unknown to most people, because everything about them is written in that ancient language.”

* * *

“I'm going to burn down the entire place.”

Azcheron was resting his chin on the table. He had been trying to learn the Dragon tongue for weeks now, but he felt he wasn't making much progress.

“Stop complaining. I should be the one ranting, you know ?”

Erin also started to study the language, just to for fun and to pass time, but it proved way more difficult for her. As much as Azcheron enjoyed complaining in front of Erin, he had been learning at a considerably fast pace.

She kept on. “Besides I don't think you have the right to act like a spoiled brat. This is so unfair. In less than a month you can already read most sentences. It should be impossible for the majority of people...”

“Except I take two hours per sentence. And I still need the dictionary. And I started with an advantage. Yet this is the most frustrating thing I've ever faced. I thought it'd be easier.” He straightened his back and picked up a magic encyclopedia.

Azcheron didn't start to learn the Dragon tongue on a whim. His mother had been telling him about her stay in the Academy, and at some point she mentioned, among many other things, how the Rahal dialect and the Dragon tongue had a some similarities.

He wasn't either doing this only because of the almost-forgotten magic he was eager to discover, he also had other reasons to do so. For one, many ancient history books were written in this language, and he had a few specific things he believed he could read about in said books. As he had a head start because of his mastery of the Rahal dialect, he had no reason to delay any further his studying of the Dragon tongue.

But the young Saint had not expected this venture to be so challenging.

“The grammar makes me want to pull my own nails out. It's as if someone took all the worst and most annoying grammatical rules of the Rahal speech, and thought it'd be fun to base an entire language around it. Then they decided to add even more difficult rules.”

“Yeah, I wouldn't know about that because I can't even read this thing.”

Erin had promptly given up on the language when she realized she couldn't even differentiate the characters. That, and there were as many different handwritings as there were books – most of the texts in the Common language were magically printed nowadays, but the old Dragon tongue was still being written by hand at the time.

However Erin insisted that it didn't mean she was bad at learning foreign languages. Having travelled a bit in the south before becoming a mercenary, she taught herself a bit of the languages from the neighbouring kingdoms.

It was just that this particular one was... very special. It was created by dragons, after all.

“Ah, yes, well that is another issue. And I don't even want to think about how you're supposed to pronounce the words without magic. It's obvious it wasn't conceived with the capabilities of the human vocal cords in mind.”

“I wonder how smart people were back in the Empire's beginnings. It shouldn't be possible for an entire population to learn this thing unless every single one of them was a genius.”

Now it was Erin who rested her head on the table, stretching her arms across it and covering Azcheron's book with her hands.

“Maybe they weren't and that's why we now use the Common tongue ?” He moved Erin's hands out of the way to find a specific page in the encyclopedia. “Okay, I think we can try this.”

Erin straightened up and looked at what Azcheron was pointing, but it was useless since she couldn't read.

“What ?” she asked, frowning.

He answered with a eerie smile. “A summoning spell.”

“I have a bad feeling about this. You're not going to summon a demon or something, right ?”

“It says majestic, err... feathered, I suppose ? Half the word is a disgusting scribbling but I'm pretty sure it's feathered because next is birds. I don't know of any unfeathered bird so... And with the colour of the sky. I think. It shouldn't be too off the mark, hopefully.”

Erin didn't look hopeful.

“Haaah... I guess as long as it doesn't turn out to be an army of skeleton tigers or a hundred-metres tall golem, we can still kill easily it if it's dangerous...”

As they exited the library to look for an ideal summoning location, Erin asked the dreaded question.

“How does summoning magic work, anyway ?”

Azcheron knitted his brows and casted his eyes downward. “Honestly ? No idea.”

“Doesn't Anton know ? It's his theory that magic is partly based on science, after all.”

“That's the problem. According to him, it's a magic that can't be explained that way. I figure it's so complicated that the current scientific knowledge hasn't reached that level yet.”

It was probably created by dragons anyway so... There's a huge gap between their mental ability and ours, I wouldn't be surprised if they already knew every secret the world has to offer.

“Hmm. Ah, isn't here fine ? There's no one around.” She pointed to a large and desert courtyard.

“Right.”

They walked to the centre of the court, and Azcheron cleared the snow on the ground to draw a magic circle. It wasn't anything complex, it just set the spawning point of the summoned entity. The chanted spell would do most of the work.

When he was done, they both stepped back a bit, and Azcheron started to chant. The incantation was in Dragon tongue, of course, so Azcheron used wind and sound magic to help him pronounce it in a more or less proper manner. He guessed that every single human who could speak the language had to do so.

As he voiced it, the incantation made him shudder. The sounds of the words were both grandiose and eerie. It felt like a superposition of a choir, roaring, guttural sounds and crystalline vibrations. He had practised his wind magic beforehand, but now it felt like the chant was being pronounced on its own, as if Azcheron only had to open his mouth and pour mana into the idea of the words, and they would realize themselves just like that.

Is this how it's supposed to sound ? Maybe that's what happens when you use magic to speak it. Or is it just the incantation that makes it like that ?

A disc of light formed inside the magic circle. Azcheron felt a surge of rightness and somehow knew that the incantation had worked the way it was intended.

Then, from the light, they came.

Dark bluish-purple abominable hairy bats. Hundreds of them. They were large and screeching, their small wings making a deafening flapping noise as they all were propelled out of the circle at a horrifying pace and went flying who knows were before the appalled Azcheron and Erin could react.

“No... What ? … How ? I don't get it.” He massaged the bridge of his nose. “I didn't mess up the spell, I'm certain of it.”

Erin replied with a voice that comprised both amusement and horror. “Well, I get it. I think you need to work more on your vocabulary.”

“I'm pretty sure I did a good job...”

“Oh yeah ? How come you translated 'nightmarish hairy bats with the colour of night and darkness' as 'majestic feathered birds with the colour of the sky' then !?”

“What if I translated the thing properly and it's just that the guy who wrote it was stupid or had differences of interpretation ?! Maybe the author was a demon and used whatever description he found adequate !!”

“Does it matter ! Now there's like a thousand of these things flying above the Academy ! We don't even know whether they're harmless pets or evil inhabitants of whatever demonic plane they were summoned from ! And they don't look like harmless pets !”

“Fine ! Let me think ! The stupid book doesn't mention anything about controlling them but maybe it's worth a try. What do I say ?”

“I don't know ! Something like 'come back where you're from' or 'disappear from this world' !” she hurried him as she kept her eyes locked on the things flying above them.

He desperately searched through the heavy dictionary. “Err... That's too long ! Ah, there's disappear, here.”

“Good, say that.”

Azcheron spoke and the peculiar choir-roaring happened again. “Disappear !”

Then, the things disappeared.

“It... worked ?” he asked, unsure.

Erin had a relieved expression and was about to answer, when they heard the characteristic screeching and flapping of the things.

“DID YOU MAKE THEM INVISIBLE !?”

What the heck ! Dragon tongue can't cause something like that ! What were the chances that these things could use illusion magic !!

“Are you sure they're not gone ?” he tried to lie his way through.

“As if ! We can still hear them ! Not being able to see them is actually worse. You just know they're here. This is creeping me out !”

“Right, this is getting annoying, I'll look for 'return' or something like that.”

“Yes. You do that.” Erin looked slightly pissed. Slightly, as in, a lot.

“Return !” Azcheron spoke for the third time in the eerie sounding tongue. Finally the horrible noises of the things stopped. They waited for a moment to make sure, before rejoicing.

It couldn't be that I mispronounced 'return' as 'be silent', could it ? Hahaha... I sure hope not. There's no way I'm sharing that doubt with Erin anyway.

“Good thing almost no one bothers to learn that language, I guess ?” Azcheron tried to joke.

Erin glared at him. “And you've got some more learning to do.”

They quickly escaped the vicinity of the crime scene to avoid being recognized as the perpetrators of what would come to be known as the 'one minute-long invasion from hell' by the people misfortunate enough to have witnessed the things flying in the sky. They apparently had nightmares for some time after that.

Azcheron and Erin decided to wait until they cleared the many secrets of the Dragon tongue before trying to use ancient summoning magic again.