Chapter 31: The Great Work
The decade following the Theocracy's trial by fire was a golden age. The victory over the Volantene coalition had been so decisive, so total, that it had purchased them the rarest of commodities in the Century of Blood: a lasting, respected peace. Their borders, guarded by the zealous and disciplined Legions of the Wyrm, were inviolable. Their trade, flowing along Hesh's magnificent Wyrm's Roads and protected by their small but technologically superior navy, was the most stable and profitable in the known world. The Golden Covenant was no longer a revolutionary new doctrine, but the established law and culture of a thriving, multi-ethnic empire. The children born in Lysaro, Mantarys, Old Ghis, and Astapor now knew no other life; they were the first generation of true Theocrats, their identity forged in the prosperity and security their parents had only dreamed of.
In his domain, the god watched his creation flourish. His celestial map glowed with the solid, unwavering light of his empire, a bastion of order in a world still consumed by chaos. The faith that flowed to him was a deep, mature, and powerful current, the belief of a secure and purposeful civilization. The Great Tree at the heart of his realm stood immense and majestic, its roots intertwined with the very fabric of his being, its crystalline fruits representing the vast wellspring of talent and skill his nation now possessed. He had succeeded beyond his wildest initial projections. His start-up had become a blue-chip, market-dominating corporation.
But a successful corporation does not rest on its laurels. It invests its profits in research and development, in the pursuit of the next great breakthrough that will secure its dominance for generations to come. The Theocracy was stable and prosperous, but its ultimate purpose, the great, secret project for which it had been built, remained dormant. The Dragon Egg, hidden deep beneath The Serpent's Coil, was the ultimate asset, the seed of a future he had promised himself. The wars were over. The foundation was laid. The time for consolidation had passed. The Great Work could now begin.
The High Council of Prophets met in their capitol chambers in Lysaro. The five of them, once slaves huddled in a dark cistern, were now the seasoned and respected rulers of an empire. Their faces were lined with the cares of governance, their eyes held the wisdom of those who had navigated perils that would have broken lesser souls. But with peace came a new and unfamiliar challenge: a lack of immediate crisis.
"Our trade surplus is up seventeen percent this quarter," Lyra reported, reviewing a ledger. "The new irrigation projects in the Ghiscari plains are yielding a record harvest. Jorah's legions are at full strength and their morale is high."
"The people are content," Elara added, a gentle smile on her face. "The schools are full, the hospitals are clean. The Covenant is the law, but more than that, it is the culture. Our children are growing up with its principles in their hearts."
"It is a well-oiled machine," Hesh rumbled, his voice full of a craftsman's pride. "It is strong. It is stable."
And yet, a subtle restlessness lay beneath the surface of their success. They had built a perfect machine, but to what end was it now running? To simply maintain itself? To grow richer? It felt hollow. They had been forged in the crucible of impossible tasks, and the quiet hum of peaceful administration felt like a kind of spiritual stagnation.
Kaelen, who had felt his god's divine attention turning inward, towards a deeper and more profound purpose, knew the time for this new chapter had come. The god had been patient, allowing them to build their house and put it in order. Now, he would give them their ultimate architectural challenge.
The whisper he received was not a vision of war or politics, but of creation itself. He saw the dragon egg, a thing of dark, dormant potential. He then saw three distinct streams of pure, coloured light flowing from the heart of their empire to converge upon it. The first stream was a deep, fiery red, the colour of the earth's core, a light of immense physical heat. The second was a shimmering, complex blue, the colour of twilight and starlight, a light of pure knowledge and arcane lore. The third was a brilliant, pure white, the collective, focused will of their entire civilization—the light of faith. As the three streams touched the egg, its obsidian shell began to glow from within, a slow, deep pulse, like a sleeping heart beginning to stir.
The divine message was a formula, a blueprint for a miracle.
A seed needs more than soil to grow. It needs heat to break its shell, water of knowledge to nourish its slumbering mind, and the light of faith to guide its growth. You have built the garden. Now, you must build the hothouse. You must master fire, lore, and faith as one, and focus their combined power on the Great Work.
"Our purpose until now has been to build a sanctuary for our people and our faith," Kaelen announced to the council, his voice resonating with the gravity of their new mission. "That work is complete. Now, our true work begins. The god has shown me that the Theocracy itself is not the end goal. It is the vessel. It is the tool we have built for a single, sacred purpose: to create the conditions necessary for the return of the dragons."
He explained the vision of the three streams, the three great projects they must now undertake. It was a purpose so grand, so mythical, that it dwarfed all their previous accomplishments. They were to be more than rulers of a nation; they were to become the engineers of a resurrection. The restlessness in the room vanished, replaced by a surge of profound, holy ambition.
The Great Work, as it came to be called, was a multi-generational undertaking that would focus the entire might of their civilization.
The First Stream: The Hearth of Fire. This was the most direct and dangerous of the tasks. It fell to Hesh, the Prophet of the Hand, and his legions of engineers and artisans. The Academy, Lyra's great institution of learning, provided the theoretical framework. Their scholars, led by a revitalized Septon Barthos, had translated ancient Valyrian geological and architectural texts. They learned that the dragon hatcheries of the Freehold were not just caves, but complex geothermal incubators, built into the sides of the Fourteen Flames, channelling the volcano's heat through intricate networks of obsidian and dragonstone conduits.
Hesh's task was to replicate this on an even grander scale. Deep beneath the First Temple in Lysaro, a secret excavation began, a project that would become the most ambitious piece of engineering in the post-Doom world. Legions of miners, sworn to secrecy under a holy oath, began to drill into the earth's crust. They sought not gold or iron, but the planet's own fiery heart. They drilled for miles, using advanced techniques and tools developed in their workshops, reinforcing their tunnels with Hesh's unique brand of fused-stone construction.
After three years of relentless work, they found it: a great magma plume, a river of molten rock flowing deep beneath the city. They did not tap it directly. Instead, they built a vast, cavernous chamber above it, a subterranean cathedral of black obsidian, its walls laced with golden circuitry that acted as heat exchangers. This was the Chamber of Genesis, a man-made volcano, a perfect, controllable incubator designed to cradle the egg in the precise temperature and pressure of its birthright.
The Second Stream: The River of Knowledge. While Hesh dug into the earth, Lyra reached out to the world. The Lysaro Academy became the intellectual heart of the empire. Lyra, the Prophet of the Mind, used the vast wealth of the Golden Hoard to fund the greatest acquisition of knowledge the world had ever seen.
Her agents, posing as wealthy collectors and scholars from the Serpent Trading Company, spread out across Essos and beyond. They travelled to the shadowed libraries of Asshai, to the ancient archives of Qarth, to the feuding universities of the Free Cities. They bought rare books, bribed scholars for their secrets, and meticulously copied ancient maps and scrolls. Their quest was singular: to find every scrap of information pertaining to dragons, dragonlore, and the lost magic of Valyria.
Septon Barthos, now the revered Dean of the Academy, oversaw the translation and synthesis of this mountain of information. They learned of the specific bloodlines of the great dragons of the past. They rediscovered fragments of the spells the Dragonlords used to bond with their mounts. They pieced together the prophecies and theologies that surrounded the great beasts. They were not just learning how to hatch an egg; they were learning how to build a culture, a science, and a system of magic worthy of co-existing with a dragon. They were ensuring that when their dragon was born, they would understand it not just as a weapon, but as a living, breathing piece of their god's own divinity.
The Third Stream: The Light of Faith. This was Elara's great work, the most subtle and perhaps the most important of the three streams. As the Prophet of the Heart, she was the shepherd of the people's souls. She knew that the sudden appearance of a physical dragon, a creature of myth and terror, could shock and frighten her flock. The Covenant had taught them to revere their god as a divine, guiding intelligence, and to see his draconic form as a sacred symbol. They needed to be prepared for the reality of a mortal, breathing child of that god.
Elara began to slowly and carefully evolve the doctrine of the Golden Dragon Church. She, with Barthos providing the historical framework, began to "uncover" a series of lost texts known as the Draconic Verses. These new scriptures were introduced into the temple services. They spoke of the god's ultimate promise to his faithful: that when their empire had proven its devotion through its worth, its strength, its craft, its community, and its wisdom, he would bestow upon them a great gift. He would send a "child of fire," a "mortal vessel of his divine might," a "Prince of Dragons" to walk among them.
This dragon would not be a beast of war, the prophecies claimed, but a living embodiment of the Covenant, a guardian of the people and a judge of their adherence to the principles. The birth of the dragon was transformed from a secret project into a messianic promise, the ultimate reward for their faith and good works. Elara was not just managing public relations; she was channelling the collective belief of an entire civilization, focusing their hopes and prayers into a single, powerful beam of psychic energy aimed at the egg slumbering deep beneath their feet.
Five years after the Great Work began, the three streams were ready to converge. The Chamber of Genesis was complete, a silent, magnificent testament to their engineering prowess, waiting for its heart. The Academy had assembled the greatest library of draconic lore in the world. And the people of the Theocracy now prayed nightly for the coming of the prophesied Dragon Prince.
The climax was a secret ceremony, attended only by the five Prophets. They descended into the earth, down a thousand spiraling steps, into the vast, warm darkness of the Chamber of Genesis. The air was dry and hot, humming with a contained, geothermal power. In the centre of the cavern, on a great altar of polished obsidian, was a depression carved to the exact dimensions of the egg.
With immense reverence, Hesh and Jorah carried the lead-lined chest containing their most sacred object. Kaelen opened it. He lifted the egg, its surface still warm, its weight still a profound and promising burden. He placed it gently into the depression on the altar.
The moment it settled into place, the golden circuitry lining the chamber began to glow. Kaelen placed his hands upon the egg's smooth, warm surface. He felt the culmination of all their efforts, the focused power of their entire civilization.
He felt the deep, primal heat rising from the earth's core through Hesh's great forges—the Hearth of Fire.
He felt the weight of the knowledge they had gathered, the ancient wisdom of Valyria flowing from Lyra's Academy—the River of Knowledge.
And he felt the collective, focused prayer of a million souls from the cities above, a torrent of pure belief channelled by Elara's church—the Light of Faith.
He closed his eyes and spoke a single word in the Dragon Tongue, a word he had learned from a recovered Valyrian text, a word of calling, of awakening.
"Slen…" (Flesh…)
As he spoke, a deep, resonant hum filled the chamber. The golden circuits glowed brighter. The obsidian altar began to pulse with a slow, rhythmic light. And Kaelen, his hands still on the egg, felt it.
A faint, slow, steady beat from deep within the ancient stone.
A heartbeat.
The five of them stared at the egg, their own hearts pounding in their chests, tears streaming down their faces. Lyra, the pragmatist, wept. Jorah, the hardened warrior, fell to one knee. Hesh and Elara held each other, their faces filled with an awe that transcended words.
The Great Work had not yet been completed. It had just begun. It would take years, perhaps decades, of carefully controlled heat, of whispered incantations from the rediscovered lore, of focused, unwavering faith, for the life within to gather the strength to break its shell.
But the heart was beating. The seed was viable.
The god, in his domain, felt the quickening. He felt the first stirrings of the new life, a faint echo of his own. The great, unopened bud at the apex of his Tree of Life began to glow with a furious, contained, crimson light. The long, patient investment was about to mature. His empire was secure, his people were united, and his secret, sacred purpose—the dream he had nurtured since his own fiery rebirth—was now a slow, steady, undeniable heartbeat, waiting in the warm darkness beneath the foundations of the world he had built.