"So comes snow after fire, and even dragons have their endings."
― J.R.R. Tolkien

Prologue: The Call

July 31st, 1050 A.D.

They called it the Demon's Call, the Shadow Call, the Black Call.

Most just called it the Death Call.

No one knew what unholy creature on God's green earth made the cry, only that everyone huddled in their homes that night, unwilling to step foot beyond the comforting fires.

Animals shrieked in symphony, their terrified wailing weaving in and out of the heart-stopping screech.

No one slept that night.

They stayed up, muttering to each other under assault of the dark scream and the howls and braying and wondered in fear what was happening. What was making the Call? Did it mark The End? Had Judgment Day come at last?

Little did they know the Call ended an Age.

Once there were dragons in this world.

You'll have to take my word for it, for the dragons have long since gone, as have their Riders.

For a long time before the dragons disappeared, humans and dragons were the fiercest of enemies, both sides taking many lives.

That's when the Master of Dragons stepped in.

No one knows just what they did; only that slowly, gradually, the dragons began disappearing off of the face of the earth. Anything about them—books, drawings, jewelry—it was all tracked down and vanished in the darkness of night, too.

Dragons had always been pests, menaces, even threats to people's livelihoods and lives. Kingdoms began hunting them when one too many crops withered up in flames. Wings were presented in halls and teeth were worn proudly around necks. Their poisons were harvested, their spikes used in displays. No one noticed that fewer and fewer dragons were to be found. When they did, it was already too late. At first the people cheered, thinking their tactics had worked, that the dragons had gone to bother somebody else.

But word got around, and soon people began to realize that the dragons hadn't just moved on from their ancestral homes to another land; they were gone for good. When people rushed for their books to figure out why—after all, most of the time humans and dragons coexisted quite nicely and dragons were even helpful when it came to dealing nosy neighbors—dragons were quite attached to fish, most had discovered and if side fish were on said nosy neighbors roof, well . . . accidents happen—they found that their books were gone as well.

Soon it was like dragons had never existed at all.

Years passed, and though tales were passed from father to son, mother to daughter, the children expressed their disbelief that such creatures could exist; after all, they saw the goat in the fields, the cows in the pasture, and the pigs in the pens. But there no dragons to see. Not even a hint.

Slowly, dragons faded from people's lives, and most stopped wondering where they had gone.

And then the Death Call sounded.

"Dragon," Those disbelieving children, grown now with families of their own, hissed to one another, wondering if the tales and legends were true.

But they would never know.

The Call that sounded echoed through the night. It was mournful sound filled with a terrible, terrible sound. It was as though whatever made the call had lost a part of itself . . . and would never get it back.

The Call died at the arrival of day, tapering off as though the first rays of sunlight were pushing it away.

"Unholy demon," some whispered.

"Hateful god," whispered others.

"Death itself," was the general consensus.

The Call never sounded again.

Once there were dragons living on this world.

They're gone now, and humanity continued thriving, growing and expanding their empires and kingdoms, fighting with each other and working with each other.

Soon they forgot all about the dragons.

Dragons exist only in the imagination; in games played with dice, in books that describe their hoards of gold, their corrupt evilness and their lust for power.

But no one remembers that, once, they truly existed.

And that their tale . . . was not yet over.

"Once they all believed in dragons
When the world was fresh and young,
We were woven into legends,
Tales were told and songs were sung,
We were treated with obeisance,
We were honored, we were feared,
Then one day they stopped believing—
On that day, we disappeared.
Now they say our time is over,
Now they say we've lived our last,
Now we're treated with derision
Where once we ruled unsurpassed.
We must make them all remember,
In some way we must reveal
That our spirit lives forever—
We are dragons! We are real!"

—Jack Prelutsky