Chapter 5: The Obsidian Phoenix and the Ash-Strewn Hoard
The first tremor was almost gentle, a subtle shudder that ran through the ancient stones of Valyria like a sigh. Most dismissed it. Aelyx Velaryon, however, felt it as a gunshot. His greensight, which had been a chaotic storm of fire and screams for weeks, coalesced into a single, blinding vision: the Fourteen Flames, the colossal volcanoes that ringed the peninsula, erupting not just with lava, but with a cataclysmic surge of raw, untamed magic.
He was in his family's manse, outwardly calm, discussing some mundane shipping manifest with a nervous steward. Internally, he was already moving. "Mipsy, Tibbit, Kreely, Gorok – status Shadowmere, now!" his mind commanded, the soul-bond instantaneous.
The reply was equally swift, a chorus of elfin voices in his head. "Ready, Master Aelyx. Wards active. All aboard."
The ground bucked violently. A horrific tearing sound ripped through the air as the sky to the east turned a blood-red, then an incandescent, impossible white. The very air shimmered with heat and distorted magic. Screams, sudden and sharp, erupted across the city.
Aelyx didn't wait. "A tremor of unusual magnitude," he announced calmly to the terrified steward. "I shall inspect the family vaults for safety. Secure the household." It was a perfunctory dismissal. He strode, not ran, towards the wing of the manse that housed his personal chambers and, more importantly, the hidden access to the expanded trunk.
The world outside his wing was descending into chaos. Buildings groaned, statues toppled. The air grew thick with ash and the stench of sulfur. Through it all, Aelyx moved with an unnatural calm, his Occlumency shields absolute, filtering out the rising tide of panic. He reached his chambers just as the first great explosion thundered from the direction of the Fourteen Flames, a sound that was felt as much as heard, a shockwave that cracked the marble floors beneath his feet.
Inside the trunk, within its deepest, most heavily warded chamber, the Philosopher's Stone pulsed with a hungry light. Aelyx had spent months preparing it, weaving complex enchantments derived from Voldemort's darkest soul magic and Flamel's understanding of spiritual energy transference. It was no longer just a source of Elixir and gold; it was a psychic siphon, primed to absorb the monumental outpourings of life force and emotional agony that were about to be unleashed.
As he sealed the final wards on the trunk itself, readying it for transport by the house-elves should his own escape be compromised, he felt the first wave. It was not physical, but a psychic tsunami – the collective terror, agony, and life essence of millions, ripped from their bodies as Valyria began to die. The Stone in his mental vision flared with an intensity that was almost blinding, a scarlet vortex drinking in the deluge of souls. Aelyx gritted his teeth, not against pain, but against the sheer, ecstatic rush of power. Voldemort's fractured soul within him reveled, but Aelyx, the controller, merely noted the incredible influx, cataloging its potential. This harvest would empower the Stone beyond anything Flamel had ever conceived. The Elixir it would produce would grant true, unbreakable immortality, not just to him, but to his chosen few, and even to their dragons.
"Mipsy, now!" he commanded.
With a faint pop, Mipsy appeared, her large eyes wide but resolute. She took his offered hand, and with another pop, they were on the deck of the Shadowmere, anchored a league offshore, its dark hull already coated in a fine layer of grey ash, its enchantments thrumming to repel the worst of the heat and magical fallout. Tibbit, Kreely, and Gorok were there, along with Pip and Elara, their faces grim.
The sight that greeted them was apocalyptic. Valyria was wreathed in a colossal pillar of black smoke and fire that reached miles into the sky, blotting out the sun. The sea boiled and churned, new islands of molten rock hissing as they rose from the depths, while others sank amidst clouds of steam. The roar of the dying peninsula was a continuous, deafening thunder. Explosions, like the death throes of gods, lit the inferno from within. The very air tasted of brimstone and despair.
Most ships were fleeing in terror, a chaotic exodus from hell. But the Shadowmere, under Aelyx's cold command, held its position. He watched, his violet eyes reflecting the cataclysm, an obsidian phoenix observing the pyre from which it would soon rise, reborn and empowered. For three days and nights, they watched as Valyria tore itself apart, as the greatest empire the world had ever known was erased in fire, ash, and blood. The psychic screams eventually faded, leaving behind a profound, echoing silence, and a Stone that throbbed with unimaginable power within Aelyx's mental grasp.
When the main cataclysm subsided, leaving behind a shattered, smoking ruin wreathed in perpetual twilight under a sky choked with volcanic dust, Aelyx gave his next orders. "Prepare for landfall. Full protective enchantments. We are going scavenging."
Gorok, ever the pragmatist, grunted, his small, glamoured form looking even more incongruous against the backdrop of devastation. "Master, the air is poison, the land still burns. What could survive that?"
"Valyrian arrogance, Gorok," Aelyx replied, a sliver of something that might have been amusement in his tone. "They built their strongholds to last an eternity, to withstand dragon fire and sorcerous assault. Some of that arrogance might have inadvertently protected their deepest treasures. And dragon eggs… they are children of fire. Some may have endured. We will be the first."
He was right. While the surface of the Valyrian peninsula was a hellscape of cooling lava flows, ash dunes, toxic geysers, and magically warped terrain, pockets of relative stability existed, often in the subterranean vaults and deepest foundations of Dragonlord manses. The Valyrians had delved deep, their architecture as much subterranean as superterranean.
The Shadowmere, its hull now enchanted with potent shielding charms against heat, corrosive fumes, and residual wild magic (a combination of Flamel's defensive alchemy and Voldemort's more robust warding spells), nosed carefully through the ash-choked waters, guided by Tibbit's magically enhanced senses. They made landfall on what was once a proud harbor district, now a beach of black glass and steaming rubble.
Aelyx stepped onto the dead land, garbed in enchanted robes that shimmered faintly, a rebreather mask of Flamel's design covering his face. His house-elves, similarly protected, fanned out. The Invisibility Cloak was reserved for Aelyx's personal use when deeper, more dangerous incursions were needed.
The ruins were a haunting testament to Valyria's former glory. Colossal statues lay shattered, their obsidian eyes staring blankly at the poisoned sky. The skeletons of grand palaces clawed at the horizon like a dying man's fingers. The silence was broken only by the hiss of steam, the crackle of lingering fires, and the mournful sigh of the wind through a thousand broken arches. There were bodies, of course, thousands upon thousands, some flash-calcified by intense heat, others buried under tons of ash and rubble, their souls long since devoured by Aelyx's hungry Stone. He spared them no glance.
Their first targets were the known estates of the great Dragonlord families whose strongholds had been somewhat inland, perhaps partially shielded by terrain from the initial blasts. Tibbit, using his intimate knowledge of the city's layout (gleaned before the Doom), led them through treacherous, shifting landscapes of ruin.
The work was perilous. Collapsing structures, pockets of still-molten rock, and geysers of superheated, toxic steam were constant threats. Wild magic, unleashed and untamed, warped reality in localized zones, creating shimmering mirages, gravity distortions, and occasionally, coalescing into elemental furies – fire sprites and ash wraiths that Kreely and Gorok dispatched with blasts of focused magical energy, directed by Aelyx.
Their first significant find was in the ruins of what Tibbit identified as a lesser hatchery of House Belaerys, the same House Aelyx had previously stolen from. Buried deep beneath layers of collapsed basalt and fused earth, in a vault whose enchanted door had buckled but held, they found a clutch of three eggs. They were caked in ash, but a quick diagnostic charm by Aelyx revealed the faint, stubborn pulse of life within. Two were a familiar amethyst hue, though darker, as if stained by the cataclysm. The third was a startling, vibrant sapphire blue, a color Aelyx had not seen before. Three more for his collection.
Days bled into weeks. The Shadowmere became a mobile base of operations, moving along the ravaged coastline, while Aelyx and his elves mounted expeditions inland. They developed a system: Tibbit scouted ahead, his senses piercing the gloom and illusion; Aelyx, often under the Invisibility Cloak, would assess the most promising locations, neutralizing magical traps and wards that had somehow survived; Kreely and Gorok provided the brute magical force for clearing debris or dealing with physical threats; Mipsy meticulously cataloged and stored everything of value within the expanded trunk, which was kept aboard the Shadowmere. Pip and Elara worked tirelessly to maintain their equipment, brew restorative potions, and decontaminate them after each foray.
The ruins of the Dragonlord strongholds yielded a grim but valuable harvest. In the shattered remnants of House Qoherys's main keep, they found a deep, lead-lined vault. Inside, amidst melted gold and fused jewels, lay two massive eggs, one the color of burnished bronze, the other a mottled grey-green like jade. They were hot to the touch, radiating a fierce inner warmth.
The Targaryen quarter was almost entirely obliterated, closer to the epicenter of the Fourteen Flames. Yet, even here, in a collapsed sub-basement that seemed to have been a private treasury, amidst charred bones that might have belonged to some lesser members of the family, Aelyx found a single, miraculously intact egg. It was black, like the one he had stolen before the Doom, but this one had vivid streaks of blood-red running through it, like veins of fire in obsidian. Its pulse was strong, almost violent.
It wasn't just eggs. They found dragon corpses, some colossal, their scales still shimmering with faint color beneath the ash – Balerion's kin, perhaps, or other legendary beasts. Aelyx, drawing on Voldemort's knowledge of dark rituals and Flamel's anatomical precision, directed the house-elves in the gruesome but necessary task of harvesting. Hearts, still warm in some cases, were carefully excised, preserved in enchanted stasis jars. Horns, claws, and teeth were collected. Patches of the toughest scales were flayed. These were potent magical ingredients, invaluable for wand-making, potion-brewing, and enchanting. The sheer scale of some of these remains spoke of dragons far larger than any Aelyx had personally witnessed before.
Valyrian steel was another prize. They found caches of it – swords, daggers, armor, even unworked ingots – in armories that had been buried deep enough to survive the initial inferno. The secrets of its forging were lost, but the metal itself was a treasure. Aelyx planned to arm his future honor guard, his most trusted descendants, with these legendary blades.
Libraries and scriptoriums, if located in deep vaults, sometimes yielded caches of scrolls and books. Many were fire-damaged or water-logged, but Mipsy, with her delicate touch and knowledge of preservation charms (enhanced by Flamel's lore), managed to salvage a significant number. These were not just histories, but treatises on forgotten sorceries, star charts, alchemical formulas, and records of Valyrian engineering. Aelyx knew it would take years, perhaps decades, to sift through it all, but the potential knowledge was priceless.
They encountered few other living beings. Most Valyrians were dead. The occasional survivor they stumbled upon was usually mad, driven insane by horror, loss, or the warping influence of wild magic. Aelyx dealt with them swiftly and silently, a whispered Avada Kedavra from beneath his Invisibility Cloak ending their suffering and ensuring no witnesses. He felt no compunction; they were echoes of a dead world, and his priority was the secrecy of his operation.
Once, they disturbed something truly monstrous. In the ruins of what might have been a sorcerer's tower, a place where the magical energies were particularly twisted, they encountered a creature that had once been a clutch of firewyrms, now fused into a horrifying, multi-headed abomination of molten flesh and burning hatred. It took the combined efforts of Aelyx, unleashing a torrent of cutting curses and explosive charms, and his house-elves, with their surprisingly potent offensive magic, to bring it down. The encounter was a stark reminder that Valyria, even in death, was still lethal.
Through it all, Aelyx was a figure of cold, unwavering purpose. The devastation did not awe him; it was merely a resource. The ghosts of Valyria did not haunt him; their souls had already fed his Stone. He moved through the ruins like a master scavenger, picking the bones of a dead empire clean.
After nearly three months of relentless, perilous work, Aelyx judged their task complete, or as complete as it could be without undue risk. The Shadowmere's expanded trunk was filled to bursting. They had recovered a staggering sixteen new dragon eggs, each one pulsing with promise, bringing his total to twenty-nine, not counting the two phoenix eggs. They had harvested components from over a dozen dragon corpses, some of truly legendary size. They had acquired chests of Valyrian steel, countless artifacts, and a library of potentially priceless lore.
The Philosopher's Stone, now located within a special, heavily shielded compartment in the trunk, radiated a power so immense it was almost a physical presence. Aelyx could feel it, a wellspring of near-infinite energy. The Elixir it could now produce would be potent beyond measure, capable of not just extending life, but perfecting it, enhancing magical abilities, and binding his future immortal followers and their dragon mounts to him in an unbreakable chain of vitality.
As the Shadowmere finally pulled away from the smoking, accursed shores of what was once Valyria, heading north towards the distant sanctuary of Skagos, Aelyx stood on the deck, the acrid wind whipping his silver-gold hair. He looked back one last time at the smoldering funeral pyre of the world's greatest empire. He felt no triumph, only a grim satisfaction. The old world was dead. His world was just beginning. The Age of Dragons was over. The Age of the Shadow Lord and his immortal, dragon-riding wizards was dawning, hidden in the mists of the north, built upon the ashes of Valyria. He had his hoard; now it was time to make it hatch.