The Unmaking by Catherine Egan

eaten breakfast, Eliza said to Swarn, “Tell me about Making.”
    Swarn gave Eliza a look of such scorching intensity, it felt almost like the gaze of a Mancer. “An odd request from a girl who can barely conjure,” she said.
    “I dinnay mean teach me how to do it,” said Eliza, irritated. “I mean tell me about it, lah. What is it, exactly? I know the Ancients Made Tian Di, but do other beings have the power to Make?”
    “It is exactly what it sounds like – the creation of something that did not exist before. As you say, it is the power of the Ancients and I could not teach it to you even if I were mad enough to wish to. Why are you asking me this, Eliza?”
    “I had a dream, aye. Or...lots of dreams, praps. Ravens kept saying Making to me, over and over again. It seemed to go on all night.”
    Swarn stood up in one fluid motion and paced in a circle around the small earth hut. “That is very strange,” she said at last.
    “Aye,” said Eliza dryly. “What do you think it means?”
    Swarn shook her head.
    “I don’t know. Making lies at the root of all Magic. What we call Magic is, in fact, the residue of the Ancients in their creation, for no being can separate itself from what it Makes. The Magic of Making, the power of the Ancients, is still in the earth and the air and the sky and our own blood and breath. We call upon it for all our lesser Magic.”
    “So no beings since the Ancients have actually Made anything?” Eliza asked.
    “Some have,” said Swarn. “We have only myths and stories to go by. The story of Making that is most widely believed harks from the Middle Days. There was a wizard who lived with the Immortal Dragons in the East. He was called the Great Dragon Mage. It is said that he quarreled with the Lord Dragon and stole from them the sacred flame that was the source of their power. He fled the Dragon Isles and came to Tian Di, where he used the sacred flame to Make the mortal dragons. They were his creatures, bound to him. They served him and did his bidding. But as they procreated and their numbers grew, their power became equal to and then greater than his. They drew upon his life force, his essence, to increase their own strength. Though he tried, he could not sever the link between them and was absorbed by them entirely. I do not know if this story is true but it is certain that there were no mortal dragons before the Middle Days, and since those days the Immortal Dragons have not been seen in Tian Di.” There was a strange gleam in Swarn’s eyes as she spoke. She seemed to be looking at something far beyond the small, dark room. “There are some other stories in the Mancer Library I expect,” she finished. “You would be better asking them to tell you about Making. I have told you all I know now.”
    “Something is happening,” said Eliza, frowning at the fire. “I cannay ignore these visions and dreams, the ravens following us all the way to the Crossing. They’re trying to tell me something, aye, or they’re trying to harm me, I dinnay know which. But I cannay just wait for it to come clear. I need to find out.”
    “And how do you propose to do so, Eliza?”
    Eliza looked up at the witch and for a moment Swarn thought she saw, for the first time, some slight resemblance to Rea.
    “I want to speak to the Oracle of the Ancients,” said Eliza.
    Turning away from Eliza and from that flash of her old friend, her love, Swarn said curtly, “We will leave at once.”
    ~~~
    Swarn and her dragons turned back towards the Dead Marsh while Rhianu welcomed Eliza at the Temple of the Nameless Birth. The first time they met they had been unable to communicate but Eliza was now able to speak haltingly in the Language of First Days. It was not a language that lent itself to conversation, however, so much as to proclamations and flowery inquiries.
    “Your hospitality is an ocean of dandelions,” said Eliza, then frowned and bit her lip. That was certainly not the correct