A few years back I was staying its my cousin in Bristol, and it was there that Castelmaine took on its true form. The city is an amalgamation in my mind of the British cities of Bristol and Canterbury. Canterbury for its winding streets and wonderfully fantastical architecture, and Bristol for just about everything else.
I had spent a morning first having a breakfast and ale at the local Weatherspoons, then had seated myself first on a grassy square in the shadow of an old university, surrounded by students, and then later in a grassy park near to a fountain. It was on that day that the Universities and Colleges of Castelmaine were founded in my mind, and immediately thereafter came the dragon Mozu-Beric, one of the three founders of Castelmaine, and the head of Berican University. For some reason, every time I write her lines, I hear Dame Judy Dench, and I think this is one of the reasons I love the Mozu-Beric character.
I once wrote some awesome scenes for her before and during the war that detail her earlier adventures and how she came to be sequestered in an eyrie at the top of the highest tower in the Glimmering City, atop her own university. But that is another story for another time. I hope you enjoy her character as much as I love writing her.
She was old, very old. She remembered the years when the world was young and fresh, and all was good. She remembered the darkness and horrors of the First Coming, and the endless fires of the Second Coming. She remembered the birth of Castelmaine and had been there when the first stone had been mortared. She was as ancient as the mountains, but only recently had she actually felt it.
Mozu-Beric lay curled in her eyrie lazily watching the city below from the great opening before her. The eyrie itself was a large circular room with curved walls that gradually came to a point in the centre of the ceiling. The stone of the walls was smooth and seemed to shift between greenish blues and reddish purples in an endless cycle of colour. Diaphanous drapes of these colours hung around the walls, each intricately detailed with golden spell thread in whirls and loops that twisted and circled with a life of their own. The only entrance to the room was from the terrace and a spiralling staircase that wound its way up the outside of the tower from lower levels.
She herself was a great dragon. A long serpentine body curled around a good two thirds of the eyrie, one end tapered to a slender tail, the other, her reptilian head with an almost avian beak. Two huge pearlescent eyes were half closed, shimmering in the little light of her abode. Four great legs, slender and well muscled, were loosely sprawled out, and her scales varied from a soft yellow-orange along her torso to a vibrant fiery red at her ankles and the tip of her tail. A spiky blazing red frill hung limp around her neck.
"Enter, Auden." She said in a deceptively feminine voice, cracked with age but soft and gentle.
Auden Marr stepped into the eyrie carrying a full pale of clear water that steamed slightly in the cool morning air, and a large leather pack across his shoulder, which he placed on the floor carefully and unwound. Within the pack were all kinds of tools and instruments, some recognisable like cloths and sponges, others like forceps, and others still more obscure and vicious looking.
"How are you feeling today, ma'am?" He asked softly with a bow.
"Heavy, Auden. Heavy with the years and with worry for the world outside my cage."
He tried to smile sympathetically at her, but found he couldn't. He had witnessed the great wyrm deteriorating over the years and felt a great sorrow weigh upon his heart every time he came to tend to her. He took one of the cloths and submerged it in the water before wringing it out and stepping close to Mozu-Beric. He placed the cloth softly on the flank of her neck and began to clean her scales with the warm water.
"Cage, ma'am? But there are no bars here."
She sighed and lowered her neck to the ground, "Not of iron, nor locked with key perhaps, Auden, but how I long to feel the vibrant winds beneath my pinions once more. I fear that I may yet forget how it feels to stretch my wings, as I may yet forget the warm caress of the sun upon my scales."
"Ma'am, don't talk of such sadness. There may yet come a time when we will witness your grace and majesty curve upon the skies once again."
At this she smiled a little and her breathing audibly slowed and relaxed.
"You are kind, Auden, and you do me a great service."
"I do only what any would be honoured to."
Mozu-Beric let out a little throaty chuckle, "Perhaps. What of the city and the lands beyond?"
He placed the cloth back into the water and moved further up her neck towards her jaw.
"There is no further news from beyond the walls, ma'am, but the city gossipers are afire with talk of strange goings on in the Glittering City, and two Huszari were found broken, bloodless and dead in Old Town this morning."
"The tale of the Huszari is distressing, but speak more of these 'strange' events."
"Reports seem to vary and I know only what I heard on my journey here, but a young girl of your university was attacked by some nameless horror on the stairs in the Orphanage. The fiend was disposed of and the girl is fine, but nobody can tell from whence the beast came."
"Do you believe this instance and that of the Huszari to be linked, Auden?"
"Such guesswork is not my strength, ma'am, but there is more from the other universities and colleges, but naturally details are thin on the ground. The only one I could verify, was that the Obsidian Tower of Amlec vanished."
"Vanished?" The great dragon raised her neck in shock and turned to face Marr directly.
"Yes, ma'am. I checked myself. It's just gone."
"So, scouts - possibly from Ravenwood - are seen leaping from the Obsidian Tower of Amlec College. That very night the tower disappears, a strange fiend appears in our Orphanage, and two Huszari are drained of blood. Very strange indeed. What of the girl?"
"As I said, ma'am, she is fine. She sustained minor injuries but I am told her condition is good. She's a little shaken, naturally, but awake."
Mozu-Beric turned away for a moment, pondering. Marr continued to wash her scales, now well down to her shoulders. From here he could see the wounds which had laid the great beast low, a huge rent twisted from below her front left leg across her belly, and though it had mainly healed over, a hideous blackened scar remained.
"Can you bring the girl to me, Auden?"
He tore his gaze from the wound with a start and spun around. Mozu-Beric lay with her jaw pressed to the floor solemnly as if in deep thought.
"Ma'am?"
"I would desire to speak with her if she is well enough."
Marr nodded and bowed to excuse himself, then stepped into the sunlight of the veranda and disappeared down the winding stair for the lower levels.
"Strange tidings indeed..." She muttered to herself, "I wonder..."
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