Chapter 1

The Bar-Lanian

Far, far away from here, farther than you could walk even in a week of hard walking, high up in the mountains of the North, the mountains that people call ‘The Fire Mountains’, there lie the ancient halls and lairs of the Bar-Lanian. The halls are empty now, and the glory days of the Bar-Lanian are long past. Now the empty halls sit, like hungry bellies with waiting jaws, open to the outside world, waiting to swallow anyone foolish enough to wander in. Those halls and lairs, which once glittered and clinked with the shine and scratch of precious metals, precious stones, and priceless treasures, are bare now. Or so it is said. But even if the mounds of coin still lay there, snug between the warm volcanic rocks, it would take a very brave or a very foolish person to step inside. The Bar-Lanian are gone, but their magic is still there, watchful, waiting, hungry. 

The Bar-Lanian, as they used to be, were violent and cruel, and the gold fever raged in their blood, and the treasure hoard was their greatest joy, and their greatest pain.

To see the Bar-Lanian now, in their homes in the rich oak forests of the South, and their warm stone manors of the North, you would never believe the stories of their dark and bloody past. The Bar-Lanian still collect, they are still dangerous and fast, but they do not rob, steal or slaughter for their collecting. They make. At least that is what people say.

These days, when Bar-Lanian, or if you wish ‘Dragons’, as the humans call them, meet – which they do not do often, for they live mostly alone and far from each other – their words are set, and they ask, ‘What is your name, and what do you make?’ and it is the making that is most important. The making has replaced the taking, and now the Bar-Lanian are some of the greatest makers in the world. But it was not always like this.

This is not a story about what the Bar-Lanian are now. Nor is it a story of the deeds and adventures of the greatest and worst of the Dragon race – though those stories are marvellous indeed. It is not a story of how the Bar-Lanian came to leave their hoards, to give up their stealing and abandon their endless bloodthirsty feuds – though those stories too, are rich, long, and marvellous to hear. It is a story from the old days. It is the story of Liss-Tallian, from the days before her fame, before her people called her ‘Prophet’, or ‘curse breaker’, before she changed the world. Her name was Liss-Tallian, or Lisst for short, and the old Bar-Lanian, Par-Talmallion, the Lord of the Mountain, her father, was waiting.

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