Authors: Vera Nazarian
“
I see what you can do,” he said in a loud impassive voice to Feale. “Now, release them all, and confront me, at last.”
Atop his warbeast who was elephantine darkness, Feale laughed, throwing back his head in a caricature of human abandon. His hollow laughter sent ghostly echoes all around, and soft hallucinations of wind.
And then, Feale disappeared.
One blink of an eye, and he was no longer in the grand ebony saddle.
Another blink, and he stood on the ground, in the small clearing, just before the fallen Lord Vaeste.
Feale wore skintight elegant armor, and yet his outlines again appeared to waver like a mirage. In his gloved right hand was a long black sword of midnight iron. It had not been there only a second ago.
“
Come down and join me, you who rule the Light Guild,” he hissed softly, and there was a strange sweetness to it, Ranhé thought, a sweetness of corruption. At the same time, she felt the psychic pressure lifted from her, as the great invisible palm released her chest, and she could once again sit up straight in the saddle.
On the ground, lying in a growing pool of his own blood, Elasand groaned, then attempted to raise his head, sensing momentary relief from the psychic onslaught. As he lay, he could see metal-shod feet, at ground level, watched them stepping in the pale dust.
Elasirr meanwhile, did not waste a second, and having dismounted lightly, was now on the ground before the dark one, his two Bilhaar swords flashing pale and deadly in both hands.
Feale leaned his head to the side in an odd human gesture, observing him with amusement, and again smiled. He stood, feet planted apart, and said, “Would you like this duel, Guildmaster? Would it please you to think you died well?”
“
My lord!” suddenly came a weak voice of a child from somewhere up above, behind the Qurthe ranks. “My lord, be on your guard, for he cannot be killed! I struck him down once, and he still lives! He is not human, he cannot die!”
Without looking up, Elasirr recognized the voice of the boy-Heir, Lissean Grelias. So, the child had been dragged here, into the thick of battle. Then Hestiam must be here also. Whatever good that would do them.
“
I thank you for the warning!” said Elasirr loudly. And then, without any warning of his own, his larger sword streaked forward, and sliced at the body of Feale, entering some resilient darkness at chest level, and just as quickly was retrieved again.
“
Ah . . . Strike me again,” slithered the voice mockingly, with pleasure, just as Elasirr watched, incredulous, the gaping wound begin to smoke with thick ebony richness, and close up in the Enemy’s chest.
“
Damn you!” spat Elasirr, and again he thrust before him, this time with both blades.
All watched the blades pierce the form of the dark one. The longer blade sliced horizontally, cleanly severing Feale’s neck. For an instant, the head hovered several inches above the body, so that one could see
through
the slit and all the way to the other side.
And then the head, lips still smiling, descended upon the severed neck, healed instantaneously, and was again whole.
“
What are you?” whispered Elasirr harshly.
“
What will you have me be?” replied laughing darkness.
Elasirr, breath catching in his throat with the cold beginning of inevitability, said grimly, while circling the form of his Enemy, “I will have you dead. I am not afraid of you, Feale. If it’s fear that makes you invincible, then you have no edge over me.”
Feale, elegant, stood back, moving in a graceful parody of Elasirr’s own Bilhaar dance.
“
Fear?” he mocked. “No. Neither fear, nor lack of it matters. And yes, you are fearless . . . even to the last.”
“
Is it anger, then?”
“
Not even that. Besides, your anger, Guildmaster, is well under control.”
“
You think you know me?” hissed Elasirr, taunting the Enemy with a killing smile. “Then why don’t you strike me, at last?”
“
As you wish . . .” whispered Feale.
And unexpectedly, he took a step to the side, not toward Elasirr, but toward the form of Lord Vaeste. His black blade of vacuum arose above his head in a single-handed smooth blow. And then he brought it down, in terrible slow motion. . . .
Ranhé cried out, the only one to make a sound as the blade fell. It landed deep and slow, into the lower back of the one who lay at their feet.
A
gony! So, this is all, then. . . . This is. . . .
Laelith. . . .
There was one shudder. All things took on one last intense focus.
Laelith!
With one eye, lying face on the side, he took it all in—the ground, and the dust, splattered with ebony drops of blood, softly illuminated by a weakling sun.
Laelith.
And Elasand was motionless and silent, at last.
N
o!
In Ranhé’s vision, spinning earth and sky.
“
No!” exclaimed Elasirr at the same time, a howl of desperate fury, and surged forward madly at the Enemy, no longer thinking, no longer impassive.
But like a mirage, the Enemy shimmered and moved out of reach.
No! Elasand!
Ranhé did not know who it was that was crying. She did not know whether it was she or some other that was voicing the terrible guttural sound from within, as she swung forward from her saddle, dropping her sword (its
yellow
light extinguished instantly), and came at them, at the bizarre trio out of her nightmare.
No! Elasand!
She was on her knees, having thrown herself forward upon the smooth paved ground of the Markets square, only inches away from the feet of the
thing
that had struck him, her Lord Vaeste.
She had known all along it would be very likely that he would die in this battle—for he’d had that look of completion, of ending in his eyes. But—not like this.
She looked up, momentarily, and registered, with one part of her awareness, the bloated disk of the dying noonday sun—somewhere high up above.
He will never again see this sun. . . .
There was a dark silhouette with phosphoric alien eyes, looking down upon her, his thin curved lips.
She took hold of the bleeding body, registering the small sharp detail. The broken small links of the chain mail. His raven strands of hair, long and soft (she had never touched them, only now would she know they were soft—locks like silk). Hair, stained with deep black wetness. Instantaneous awareness of all of him. She was leaned over his body, pulling at it with both hands, then lowering herself to lie over him, over the wetness, while the world began to spin all around, imbued with that precise focused awareness. And she just repeated his name, over and over again, mouthing with her lips only, not with her voice, rocking back and forth, while her own blood drained all away from her, drained down somewhere, away from her lower extremities, and into an unspeakable void. . . .
Elasand! Elasand. Elasand . . .
He was dead, and with him, died the City. Suddenly, very clearly, nothing mattered anymore.
And she lay upon his corpse, oblivious. She did not care, in that instant, that the one who was Feale raised his demon blade for the second time, and started to bring it down slowly, precisely, upon her own lowered head.
Elasirr cried out for the second time, his voice inhuman.
Suddenly, she felt strong fierce arms grab hold of her, and she was pulled backward roughly, thrust away like a thing of straw. It was all a matter of a heartbeat, as she found herself rolling on the ground, and out of the way of blackness, which in turn came down, and struck another.
The blade had struck another in her place.
Elasirr!
“
Gods, no!” she cried. “No! Gods, if you can hear me, if you exist, then no!”
She whirled around, and saw him.
The Guildmaster had gone very still suddenly. He had dropped his blades, his proud Bilhaar blades, so that he could instead take hold of her. . . .
He swayed. And then he came down on his knees. She saw a single focused look of his darkened eyes.
“
This . . .” he whispered. “I had seen . . . this . . . come to pass. . . .”
And then he was silent, his head lowered forward, still on his knees, bleeding a few steps away from his brother. He, at least, still lived.
There was a cold wind gathering, pitch black as the void. It grew within Ranhé, first soft with vapor tendrils, then thickening into absolute night. She drew upon it, upon the insanity, folding it within her into a tangible form, and though she was drained, she could still mold it, pour it out from her self. . . . Not
color
, but—
Blackness.
Ranhé, crouched on the ground, then slowly arose, and stood facing the Enemy.
Elasand . . .
She made it come from her lips, like a soft breath, the darkness—soothing, peaceful dark. So easy to manipulate, for it was a part of her.
It sailed forward, like a kiss on the wind, like strange deathly ectoplasm, only black, and it wound about the form of Feale.
It had drawn his attention.
ElasandElasandElasand
. . . .
In her mind, his name had become strung together.
“
You . . .” whispered the dark serpent. “You are . . . different. Like myself. Who are you?”
elasandelasandelasand
. . . .
She said nothing, but simply breathed forth the soft encroaching dark, like tendrils of rich twilight, letting it flow and wind softly like cobwebs around the outline of the Enemy.
And then, she forced it like a knot, to gather and cling to his own darkness, and mold it, move it farther away.
The cloud of twilight that stemmed from Feale and massed around them all began to shrink. She forced it, forced the dark back upon him, clearing the air for several feet, so that again they could see the weak sun overhead.
“
You are not strong enough . . .” the Enemy whispered then, appearing to stand before her, so close that she could see the dull phosphor of his eyes.
And with that, he swept her into absolute night.
There was no frame of reference. Ranhéas Ylir stood in a black void, feeling no ground beneath her feet. Her lungs took in some thickness, no longer air. She was growing cold and numb. And the darkness that she was manipulating had grown beyond her embryonic scope. And yet, through it all, she could still see his eyes, glowing, and he was all around her, on the
inside
of her, enmeshed within the very fabric of the dark.
Within her mind.
No!
Nothing matters.
She sees herself small and young, as she had been. Mother crying in a locked room. She can hear her father’s droning voice which she hates and pities, for he is only ill, and his cruelty is not his fault. She feels the prickly stubble on her cheeks, and the sudden utter stifling sense of destiny, of being unable to escape it, the damned hair, ever, this—unable to escape the confines of her own body which she hates. She is not a woman, and yet she is. It, the hair, makes her untouchable, hateful.
It sets her apart.
Or maybe it widens her range of self; womanhood stretches into maleness and the lines are blurred, the same way as light stretches deeper into the shadows and then becomes darkness. It is a movement past the ordinary boundaries into the enhanced elevated place approaching union.
She hears the voice of the Phoenix,
Be yourself.
No, she sets herself apart, hates herself, with the only shred of dignity, for that is all she can do to live.
She does not want to live now.
Nothing.
“
I am you,” whispers the Enemy. “Look deep, and find me within yourself. You are made of the fabric of my being. You are mine, had always been. How can you fight yourself?”
Be yourself
, the Phoenix speaks, beginning to weep.
And Ranhé weeps also.
I cannot fight myself, and yet I cannot be myself!
She shudders with sobs, bends forward, down, becomes fetal, small.
What are you?
The Phoenix regards her.
And Ranhé, grown small and sobbing, thinks.
If my right hand, which is myself, strikes against my will, I will lift my left hand and cut off my right
, she thinks.
It will hurt. . . . It will hurt unbearably. And yet, I must
.
If darkness is at the core of my heart, of my being, then I must rip it out. And if in doing that I die, so be it
.
And she takes it, takes the darkness, the Enemy, that which has always been a part of herself, that which she hates, gathering the night within her (hatred against the self, against that dark void, seethes inside even now, while the Phoenix screams), and she smothers it tight with her will. And as the black recedes, deep somewhere, deep, deep, so does her being, her self, the Enemy. . . .