Legend LXXXIII – The Dracomicon

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It is said that there are books that do not wish to be read, but wait until someone is mature enough to be read by them. The Dracomicon was one of them. For centuries, it lay on changing shelves, in chests, and forgotten chambers, always where time grew thin and memories gathered dust. Its cover was made of dark red leather, hard as hardened scales, marked by fine cracks and dents, as if the book itself had led a long, traveling life. In its center arched a relief that was never quite still: a dragon, entwined within itself, with outstretched wings and open mouth, as if it were breathing when no one was looking. Some swore its eyes glowed briefly in candlelight; others claimed that a faint vibration could be felt as soon as one touched the book. Beneath the relief, a metal plaque bore the book's name, and whoever spoke it aloud felt a burning sensation in their throat, as if they had used a word never meant for human throats. The Dracomicon was neither a bestiary nor a spellbook in the ordinary sense. It was a memory. Within its pages rested the names of all dragons that had ever existed, including those that had never hatched, those that had lived only for a single thought, and those whose greatness had been so immense that the world itself held its breath before them. Each entry was written with an ink made of ash, gold dust, and the blood of broken promises, and each word changed whenever a dragon, anywhere, was born, died, or dreamed. Whoever opened the book heard not a whisper, but a distant rumble, like mountains moving beneath the earth, and sometimes mingled with it something that sounded like voices, fragile and ancient, as if memories were trying to preserve themselves. Many scholars attempted to copy its pages, but every copy crumbled to dust before the last letter was completed. Others sought to destroy the book, fearing the power it held, but fire was smothered by its binding, water ran off it without effect, and even time seemed to pass it by without leaving a trace. The true purpose of the Dracomicon only revealed itself when dragons became rarer and their traces vanished from the world. Then the book began to grow heavier, not with matter, but with meaning. It attracted those who wished to forget and those who remembered too much. Those who held it long enough felt something coil within them, an inner ember that neither burned nor warmed, but remembered. For the Dracomicon preserved not only the dragons themselves, but also what the world lost without them: the courage to be great, the awe of the untamed, the fear of wonder. On the last known night, the book was found open, its pages blank, the dragon on the cover motionless like frozen metal. Since then, it has been said that the dragons have not disappeared, but have passed into those who are ready to bear their burden. And somewhere, in a room filled with dust, dim light, and expectant silence, lies a book, still waiting to be read.