Since the beginning of history, the magical beasts south of the Great Divide invaded the plains of Krymea to the north.

For 990 years, hordes of dragons, nymphs, harpies and gargoyles soared above the continent-splitting canyon. The enchanted creatures rained fire and lightning on the capital city of Bronze. And every year, the horde was pushed back by Krymean airships built from steel, steam, and gunpowder.

Despite their superior arsenal, the northerners were unable to put an end to the monstrous siege because of the immense magical power of Scaevola, the horde’s Fairy Queen.

As each year passed, the countless dead continued to overwhelm the mass graves on both sides of the battle. To prevent disease from festering, the dead were dropped into the depths of the Great Divide instead.

When the war reached its one-thousandth year, Bronze’s greatest general challenged Scaevola to single combat to the death in hopes of putting a halt to the bloodshed. The winner of the duel would claim the lands to the north and south of the Great Divide, expelling the slain commander’s kingdom from the broken continent.

General Caleb Brightsong’s skill in wielding a blade was only matched by his prowess positioning his troops across the battlefield. Caleb proposed that each champion bring only one weapon to the fight, a symbol of each kingdom’s greatest strength.

The Fairy Queen accepted the challenge.

On the morning of the duel, Scaevola arrived at her edge of the gorge unarmed but flocked by every single magical creature who called south of the Great Divide home. Her numbers were so vast they crowded the rim of the canyon as far as the eye could see.

“General,” the Fairy Queen said, “my greatest weapon is the strength of my people.”

Although Scaevola spoke softly, her magic carried her proclamation across the Great Divide, echoing against the canyon walls so loud that even the centuries of dead at its depths could hear her words. The northern army raged in response, screaming that the Fairy Queen betrayed the rules of the duel. Brightsong’s soldiers howled, begging the general to launch a full attack by all their forces.

Without orders, the twisted metal of Krymean airships screeched into attack position, airhorns blaring across the gorge, their air crews scrambling to prepare their cannons as the sounds of flapping wings, gnashing teeth, and sharpened claws reverberated from the southern side of the canyon.

But before a single volley could be launched, Caleb rose above his forces in his commander’s balloon, hovering above the wide dark maw of the canyon, unarmed and vulnerable. With a stern raise of his hand, he signaled his forces to stand down.

As the airship crews cut their engines and his soldiers eased their stances, so too did the Fairy Queen’s horde. A tense silence took hold of both armies as Caleb’s steam-powered balloon gently rumbled across the canyon toward his enemies. Inside its basket, Caleb thoughtfully and deliberately unslung his famous lute from across his back and plucked a couple of strings next to his ear to make sure the instrument sounded true.

Then, before the massive horde yearning to end the centuries-long war with blood and fire, General Caleb Brightsong began to play and sing. In a pitch-perfect baritone, the general performed one of Bronze’s most famous ballads, The Last Soldier.

The song told the tale of an ancient Krymean warrior who slayed all of his enemies until he finally felt safe and at peace. But the song ends when the warrior realizes he has killed everyone in his village just before he dies a cold, lonely death.

Caleb’s voice, full of sorrow and regret, washed over the southern people. Despite not having any magic to call his own, the walls of the Great Divide still carried his song to both ends of the continent. As he played and sang, his war balloon floated toward the Fairy Queen until the song’s climax was reached at her feet, Caleb’s voice trembling at the edge of the final note. A solemn quiet held the air before Caleb stepped from the gondola and spoke.

“My strength is the knowledge gained from our past mistakes. Let’s stop the war and grow our kingdoms together, my Queen,” Caleb said as he knelt, laying the lute before Scaevola in an act of surrender.

The Fairy Queen looked at the mighty general humbled before her and shed a single tear drop which splashed across Caleb’s lute, staining the wood in a magical glow.

Scaevola gently picked the instrument up and held it towards her people, commanding her forces to stand down. And just like that, the Thousand-Year War ended.

Soon after, a continent-spanning Bridge of Peace was built across the Great Divide, allowing northerners to cross and trade technology in Fairy lands and southerners to teach magic to the Krymeans.

To prevent future conflicts between the two peoples, a great city was built on the bridge uniting the two kingdoms. The city was named Riftmend and General Brightsong was chosen by factions on both sides of the Divide to be its King. A pact was formed between King Caleb and Queen Scaevola and their union was magically etched and imbued into the pillars of Riftmend and the foundation of the Bridge of Peace.

Scaevola granted Caleb immortality as long as he and his people would never again raise their weapons against the Queen’s people. If the King or another northerner were to commit intentional harm on a Fairy creature, not only would Caleb be made mortal once more, but the supports of the Bridge of Peace would crumble and the city of Riftmend would be lost in the depths of the Great Divide.

Riftmend prospered under Caleb’s rule and the mutual sharing of science and Scaevola’s magic. The city itself became a beacon for barons of industry and mystic scholars to hone their crafts and share their creations all across the world for the betterment of all people.

Using his tear-kissed lute, King Caleb recorded all of Riftmend’s achievements and wonders in a series of songs known as the Symphony of Civilization, all the while keeping the peace and honoring the pact.

A renaissance blossomed for another thousand years and was known as the Age of Discovery…

Xalli’s History

“Age of Discovery?!” Xalli interrupted the lecture with the carefree insolence of youth. “Come on, professor, that’s ridiculous. It was more like an ‘Age of Destruction’, right? All the Riftmenders did was build weapons of death with our magic.”

Xalli was a pixie child of 14, and like most Fairy teenagers, her voice was much larger than her stature. With bright purple hair that puffed out like a bloomed dandelion and large, bug-like eyes with pink irises, the rest of her thin body seemed to be pulled by the shear gravity of her head movements. The fluttering of translucent wings at hummingbird speed kept her afloat above the class with the other flyers.

“Please don’t interrupt my history lesson with Fairy propaganda, Xalli,” Professor Longtale said with the tiredness of a teacher looking forward to retirement.

“Please don’t blatantly lie to us,” Xalli replied. A muscular gargoyle boy named Gozgog hovering behind her stifled a chuckle. Xalli turned back and shot him a wink. Swallowing his anger, Longtale pulled at his twisting mustache, unfurling the curled ends which were peppered with white. Like most Krymean professionals, his black body hair was perfectly sculpted on his head, over his eyes and above his mouth to highlight and accentuate the rich brown hues of his skin. After a moment, Longtale gave a slight smile before responding.

“Well, in that case, perhaps you could enlighten us with the truth?” Over the word “truth”, Longtale swept his mechanical arm across his body in a wide theatrical motion towards the center dais from which he taught. The rest of the class murmured in discomfort. The room itself was reconstructed from a recovered ancient amphitheater during a Riftmend expedition years ago.

Longtale’s history class was renowned across the academy for being taught within a piece of actual history. The non-flyers sat in circular stone seating while the flyers could hover or roost on the overhangs embedded into half-moon shaped henges that covered half the class like a rising seashell made of rock.

In direct disobedience to school law, Xalli shimmered from her spot in front of Gozgog and reappeared on the dais next to Longtale. Before the professor could reprimand her for using magic in class, Xalli cleared her throat.

“I would love to.”

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You see professor, the pact was first about peace not weapons. Your Bard King was a shining example of what a northerner could and should be, but he was only one man.

Other so-called “conquerors” in the north believed magic wasn’t something to be shared but a prize to be stolen and sold.

Brightsong’s Symphony of Civilization only told what the commoners wanted to believe about how our lands came together, and it was only in the beginning that we both actually won.

As you said professor, together we built stuff that helped everyone: The Raven’s Nest, the Gearforged, even Mana itself.

But eventually, while good ol’ Caleb was strumming his magical guitar singing about harmony and progress and peace, a toxic greed was taking shape in Riftmend. 

And soon, everything we learned about when we were kids, all the sacrifice and good we were doing for the world, all of it was a lie. A lie that ran so deep that it deceived the Bard King himself and eventually got him killed…

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“Xalli!” Longtale shouted in trembling rage. He channeled the ivory-colored Mana Stone embedded in his mechanical arm and spoke the words of banishment, unleashing a warping void that shimmered around Xalli and sucked her from the classroom.

Xalli reappeared at the western docks of the bustling metropolis known as Bronzescar, miles away from the academy in the center of the city. The blurred disorientation one feels from being teleported against their will quickly subsided and Xalli’s vision realigned to reveal her new location. She spat in anger. As expected, moments later, a spectral raven flew towards her and landed on her shoulder before speaking.

“Xalli, you have been expelled from the Civilized Academy: District 1 for the remainder of the day on charges of impeding the learning of your peers and using magic in a non-authorized zone. Don’t worry, your professors are not mad, they are just disappointed in your actions,” the raven spoke in a soothing, comforting male voice, like that of a priest or a therapist. “But since learning is not a priority of yours today, you are asked to volunteer the remaining of your school hours assisting golems maintain our wonderful city. The greatest need of resources at this point in time is at the Bronzscar Docks. Do you agree to this request?”

No stranger to academic expulsion, Xalli knew the automated glamour would wait on her shoulder until she accepted the assignment and if she didn’t, Longtale’s expulsion spell would transport her to another location in the city where her labor was needed until she did. Xalli stood up and assessed today’s punishment offering.

The midday coastal air was unseasonably warm for spring, but the sky was clear. She was dropped just above the downward steps that led into Bronzescar’s famed shipping channel where imports from all over the world were processed for Krymean consumption or magical goods, such as artifacts and Mana gems, were packed for export. Various ships, both of the air and sea, were segmented into their own individual loading docks.

Enchanted lifeless worker golems, known locally as the Gearforged, moved about their assigned tasks like a mechanical ballet loading cargo, repairing hulls and patrolling for dock thieves.

Xalli guessed the latter was the biggest need because she noticed an unattended ship being expertly robbed by three non-golems, one whom she recognized as a teenage harpy who got expelled almost as much as she did.

Xalli smiled and spoke to the raven, “I accept.”

Behind the Image

The featured image for this post was found on Unsplash and taken by Peter Olexa.

The bottom of the Great Divide is the main location of our adventure. I really enjoy how geography is sculpted by forces seen and unseen with the prime mover being time.

Whenever I think about the rush of adrenaline when uncovering buried treasure, I become more excited about the knowledge lost over the centuries that can now be recovered rather than any material wealth that may be found.