Veil of the Dragon (Prophecy of the Evarun) (22 page)

Al-Mariam saw them from the corner of her eye, but she was too afraid to turn away from the Hand of the Dragon still towering above her.

The Khaalish legion filled the void of the passage through which they had come.  Each of their faces was painted with a ghostlike visage, and they bore no reckoning to men. They pulsed like a single living thing to the unintelligible guttural chant that they murmured beneath their breath. They were no legion. They were a horde.

One stood alone in front of them. An array of crimson feathers struck out from behind his head. He clutched a pair of spears, one in each of his fists.

The Dragon’s Hand still above Al-Mariam sputtered and hissed.
“What’s this?  The Master hasn’t summoned you.”

“No,” the barbarian chieftain said. He hefted his spears above his head. His accent was thick but his words, spoken in the tongue of Gorond, were clear. “The Dragon’s veil has been cast aside.”

At the chieftain’s signal, the gathered horde poured past him.  

Al- Mariam fell down. Beside her, Michalas stood in wonder.

The Hand of the Dragon staggered back, three arrows pierced through its breast. Shadow billowed from it, from its eyes, from beneath the wrappings which bound it, and from its wounds, swept along by the winds which still surrounded it.

Like a wave breaking over broken rock, the Khaalish horde descended upon the remaining Hand of the Dragon and the demon shield wall waiting at the edge of the shadow behind him. The barbarian’s hacking blades blurred before them like the wave’s broken froth. 

The Dragon’s Hand hurled its mace, shattering the wall of flesh that came. A dozen of the Khaalish either crumpled or flew backwards, instantly dead from the malevolent force of the blow.

Yet its return swing never came.

The Dragon’s Hand screamed out, succumbed beneath the wave of those that came behind the first. Their swords, their spears, and the full force of their flesh fell upon it. Its black cloud billowed, spiraling out and away from between them in a maelstrom of shadow and decay and crumpling steel.

Al-Hoanar moaned where he lay. 

Al-Mariam knelt beside him, passing her hand across his cheek. 

Al-Hoanar smiled, wincing as he did. “I told you. Nothing to fear.”

The barbarian chief knelt beside her. His ghost face leaned close to her. The fevered pulse of his breath vibrated against her. “My name is Obidae. Has the Giver now gone to his task?”

Al-Mariam backed away. She remembered the men which had held her down on that day. She remembered the clutch of their smell. She reached out to Michalas with one hand, while the scars upon her other hand burned into the pommel of her sword. She imagined its gossamer oath had fallen away.

“Yes,” Al-Thinneas said. 

Al-Thinneas strode towards them. He carried Al-Aaron in his arms. Al-Mariam could not help but notice the emptiness beside him. Chaelus, the Giver, had left them.

The Khaalish chief spun from her to Al-Thinneas. “Then gather up your fallen and leave while you can. Let us end this for our part.”

“No.”

Michalas’ small voice resounded from where he had come to stand beside Al-Mariam. Beneath his voice, and through it, labored the breath of another. It was a woman’s voice, and it held an ancient strength. It echoed against the surrounding darkness and the screams of the Remnant spirits that suffered there beneath the Khaalish spear. The fire upon Michalas’ scarred brow marked a halo that wrapped a gentle blanket of light around him. Chaelus’ cloak dragged at his feet. 

“The bones of your willingness are worthy,” Michalas said. “But its flesh won’t suffer the scourge that will claim it.”

Michalas pointed towards the wall of shadow that the Khaalish horde were assaulting. The Khaalish clamored against each other for their chance to join in the fray. Their chanting swelled and echoed. 

“Shoa Ti. Shoa Ti.”

Yet the rhythm of the Khaalish chant, and the crash and din of their weapons, did nothing to hide the painful slaughter in their cries. Though the Khaalish horde surged without reluctance towards their enemy, it was obvious that the teeth of the rocks upon which the wave of their vengeance fell would not recede. They only gathered corpses at their feet. 

Al-Hoanar labored as he scrambled to stand. He clutched his sword arm to his side. Blood stained his fingers around the hilt. 

“My pitiful eyes,” he said. “They tell me once more of my lack of faith.” His eyes narrowed to the slaughter before him, tears falling from them. His sword lowered. “Even their courage won’t suffer this for long.”

Obidae stood. He scowled, first at Al-Hoanar, then at Michalas and then at the truth that he now saw threatened to consume him. “Then at least until then, let it be our courage that saves you.”

The wind rose. The ravaging blister of debris billowed around them.

“Draw what is left of your legion back to you,” Michalas said.  Then his voice was once more a child’s voice. “This is something I have to do.”

Al-Mariam felt her brother’s words drop like a grave stone upon her.

“No!” she hissed. 

She felt another’s clutch upon her wrist. 

Al-Thinneas, with gentleness and strength, pulled her hand from her brother’s wrist. The mark of her fingers remained there but Michalas had already left. He still stood before her but was already lost to the light and the beginnings of the fire of the spirit which claimed him, and to the suffering it would force him to face.

“Let the boy do what he must,” Al-Thinneas urged. The piety of his stare pressed deep against her, but his words crushed her, as if he had just said that her Michalas was dead. They pushed against her heart like a vice. 

“So that I can lose him again?” she asked.

“No,” he said. “Do it because you must, do it so that yet another promise made won’t be broken.”

Obidae cried out beneath his upturned spears. Slowly at first, reluctantly even, the Khaalish pulled back to him. As they did, the broken front of their line became visible, along with the scarcity of their numbers. It was only a few hundred. The Khaalish drew back to a protective circle around their leader.

The demons drew closer beyond the wall of shadow, their armored veils now torn aside. The terror of their empty eyes was bettered only by their ghoulish maws beneath, filled with beast-like teeth meant for the consumption of souls, the corpses of the Khaalish, torn and cast away beneath them. Unsated, they howled at the ones who had retreated from them. 

Al-Mariam cried out at them, at everything, but a deafening thunderclap crushed any sound. It shook her and pulsed through her like a living thing, her grief and her fears carried away by it.

Michalas stood before her, between her and the howling enemy, immolated, a burning silhouette just as Chaelus had been. 

The howls of the Dragon’s legion turned from cries of lust to howls of pain. The light of her brother’s holocaust burned through the legion of dark warriors surrounding them. It burned through them by rows, circling about them until their darkness was turned to light. 

The faces of the Khaalish that had retreated held her brother’s luminance as if it were their own, silent save for their continuing chant of “Shoa Ti”, now a trembling and constant whisper, baptized in the light of her brother.

“No,” Al-Mariam whimpered. 

She couldn’t lose him to this. She couldn’t watch until whatever spirit protected him fell fragile and failed him before the darkness assailing him; because it would, because the darkness, it would always return. Yet as much as that, she could not bear to watch the tempest consume him, and take away from her everything left of him that she had only just regained. 

Light ebbed to darkness and darkness ebbed to light. Michalas wavered where he stood. The broken husks of the Dragon’s spawn descended into ashes around him. The dim lights of the souls in the cenotaphs returned again as they did. 

Michalas looked back to her. His stare, suddenly in need of her, claimed her.

The ground trembled beneath her as she ran to him.

Michalas sloughed listless into her arms. His eyes weighted back into his head.  His breathing fluttered.

Al-Mariam felt the sharp sting of detritus. Her cloak flew about her. Winds buffeted
.
Then
,
as quick as it had come
,
the sudden wind died. Black mist wrapped about her feet.

Al-Thinneas cried out. He looked past her, his eyes opened wide. He set Al-Aaron down to rest beside the two
who
had
been
raised from the wells of the cenotaphs. Al-Thinneas’ Gossamer Blade flew into his hand. 

Al-Hoanar readied his own blade as well, such as he could within the grip of his shattered arm. Beside him, Obidae murmured a chant beneath his lips, his spears held loose within his hands.

Tendrils of not mist but thick, acrid smoke spiraled up amongst the Khaalish encircling them. Their ghost-scribed faces washed pale with their fear of it. They waved at it and stabbed at it with their spears, but it was smoke and ether and it laced up between them, wrapping around them, whispers of it gathering at last into columns, eleven of them all told, that stretched high above.

Al-Mariam passed her hand across her brother’s cheek. She touched the reddened corners of his eyes, wet from where her own tears were falling, beneath where the Dragon’s crown
,
that was wreathed beneath the scars upon his brow, had been changed to ash.

Fallen

Chaelus spun towards the voice.

Only sands blew where the dark water of the Shinnaras should be. Beyond the plain the ground rose again, to the low white ruin of the Line
;
its broken remains scattered, worse than Chaelus remembered, stretching out upon the jagged horizon. Beyond it, the gray world of the Pale continued. 

Near a breach in the wall, a shadowed figure sat on a stone, its face veiled by the blowing sands. 

Chaelus’ cry stole across the wind. “I have come for you, Dragon!”

The ghostlike pallor of the Shinnaras plain rushed past Chaelus. The winds bit at him like locusts. He held his arms up in defense against them. His stomach turned, until only the fallen stones of the Line remained between him and the Dragon, sitting before him. 

Sand borne upon the wind burned Chaelus’ eyes, deepening the veil between them.

He raised up Sundengal. 

“Do you know why you’re here?”
the Dragon asked. 

“I’ve come to destroy you,” Chaelus answered. “I’ve come to restore what you’ve broken.”

“No, Chaelus.”
The Dragon stood.
“You’ve come for something else.”

Chaelus leveled Sundengal. The calm of the Giver extended through his hand and held the blade without tremor. “You won’t deceive me. Not this time.”

“The kingdom you seek is already lost,”
the Dragon said.
“So too are those you’ve come to save. You, my love, have been sent as a meaningless sacrifice, sent to die again by those who call themselves your friends.”

“Then death can come again,” Chaelus said. “And I
’ll
take you with me.”

The Dragon sighed, the sound coarse like the blowing sands.
“Do you know the meaning of the mark I placed upon you?”

“You marked me because you fear me, because you knew what I’d become.”

“No,”
the Dragon said.
“I marked you because you are special, my love. The child Al-Aaron was right about one thing. It
’s
upon you and you alone that all things depend.”

“I won’t let you deceive me again.”

The veil of sand lifted. In the gray light, the silver childlike face of Magus shimmered. 

“I’ve never lied to you,”
the Dragon said.
“I have only told you what others wouldn’t. Wasn’t it I who served you all those years? Wasn’t it I alone who served you while your so-called friends did nothing to save you? I am the only one who ever tried to.”
 

The Dragon raised its gloved hand towards the gap in the wall.
“But if you don’t believe me, then look with your own eyes and see.”

Beyond the gap, thunderclouds turned, rolling upon themselves, blanketing the Pale beneath their shadow. Beneath them, the stones of the ruined city heaved. Liquid black rock rose from the ground, crawling out across the Pale. The tower that had stood above them was gone, its white stones cast down under the churning blanket of darkness.

As if in answer, the domed and painted courts of the Theocracy, too far to be seen, somehow stood dark before him, beyond the heights of the Albanjan. Their lights were gone, their veil already cast aside, as their own darkness swept towards him.

Between them stood a single white tower, his tower, the one his father ruled from before him. But had never seen it like this before. It was graceful, slender and tall, rising above the churning haze like a star against the night sky, the roar deafening beneath it as the storm clouds of stone broke against its walls.

Chaelus stepped away. “There is one tower that still stands against you.”

“It will soon fall like the others. It will fall just like the one before it did.”

“The tower is me.”

“No, my love. It belongs now to the one you left behind.”

Chaelus saw a vision of blood struck red upon the fallen snow. Guilt shadowed his whisper. “Baelus.”

“Know that he suffers this for you. Despite what you have heard, your brother loves you and he waits for you. But he won’t last much longer. He can’t bear to suffer this for long.”

“Why do you show me this?”

“Because I, unlike your friends, my love, would offer you a choice. I would help you end this. Come with me, and together we can save your brother.”

Magus reached out his hand. 

Chaelus drew back and raised Sundengal between them.

“What of the suffering of your friends? Join with me and the suffering of those you left behind, those you love, will end. Even now they die as they wait for your sacrifice. Don’t let them. I don’t wish for your death. I don’t wish for theirs. It’s your life that I need. It’s theirs. Help me save them.” 

“No.”

The Dragon lowered its hand.
“Then you choose the same fate your father did.”
 

A sullen red glow flooded Chaelus’ mind and vision. “You killed my father slowly, just like you killed me. I won’t let you do it again.” 

“I didn’t kill your father. You did.” 

“Enough of this,” Chaelus said, stepping closer.

“He was offered a choice, like you, but he did nothing. Instead he chose to place his faith upon the dead words of prophecy. Consider the sacrifice he made for you, only to die by your hand.”

“I said, no!” Chaelus’ hand erupted with the Giver’s blue flame. Its power poured out from him. Sundengal held the light upon its length as it arced across the silver mask.

Bits of soft metal flew away.

The Dragon crumpled before him, seated on its knees, its hands held out before it. The Dragon looked up, the child mask still hanging to its face, a cleaving nearly splitting it at an angle across its middle from brow to cheek. 

The Dragon lifted its hands to the rent mask, grabbing it. With a horrible sound it peeled away.

Chaelus stared, helpless, held in place by the pale face and dead eyes of his father.

***

Breathing was the only sound
;
his own and the breathing of the Angel who held him.

The Angel had his mother’s face
–
no, his sister
’
s face. She smiled back at him. The Angel looked so much like Mariam. He had never noticed it before now.

Michalas smiled back as the Angel touched her hand to his cheek.

She was a glowing flame against the endless night behind her.
Ye
t it wasn’t the night. It pulsed, felt more than seen, like waves in the ocean. He floated in its waters. It quivered around him.

Michalas felt the sound of his breath, and the breath of the Angel against it. 

“Your task has nearly ended,”
the Angel said. 

The Angel pointed away, to the center of the living darkness where the night sky remained. Twin blue stars flickered so that all the other stars fell dim
to compare
. Around the night sky, at the edge of the swirling darkness, eleven pillars of red flame burned. But one of them burned less so. The center of its flame was tinged with blue.

“
Yet
one more task
still
remain
s
.
” The whisper of the Angel floated in his ear.
“There is one more promise yet to be fulfilled.”

“
Ras
Dumas.”

T
he answer of the Angel was silence.

Michalas opened his eyes, little more than slits, and waited as the normal darkness of the world returned before him.

Yet it wasn’t all darkness. The candle flames of the souls within the cenotaphs close by still burned with the glow of the innocent. And he could feel his sister’s breath, her arms wrapped tight around him. Twin blue flames captured the gossamer blades of Al-Hoanar and Al-Thinneas from where they stood beside him.

The glow from the swords washed across the faces of Obidae and the hundred-odd Khaalish warriors who still protected them. They were all that was left of the army of a thousand that moments before had stood against them, before they were turned by the will of the Giver, and before the teeth of the Dragon had consumed them.

Beyond them, the glow washed across the ram’s head visage of Ras Dumas’ helm, and the ferral masks of the other ten Servian Lords who stood with him.

The eleven Servian Lords encircled them, hovering at the edge of the abyss. Black smoke drifted around them; their battle armor scarred and bitten from an age that had long since passed, the glory of its past darkened by the shadow which bore them. Upon the brow of each masked helm was set a crown.

The Dragon’s dark spirit burned with red fire from behind the eye slits of their armored veils. Yet, beneath the mask of Ras Dumas, somewhere very deep, in a place that the Dragon’s fire hadn’t yet consumed, the other fire burned as well. 

It was why the Angels had asked him to return. It was why they’d told him to stay.

Carefully, Michalas pressed away his sister’s arms. They resisted him, like deep roots set within the soil, until at last they gave way. 

He stood. Amidst the startled, awed cries of the Khaalish he made his way between them until he stood before his old master. Michalas bowed his head.

“My Lord Dumas.” 

No reply came from the flames burning within the shell before him. The only sound was the echo of his voice against burning steel.

Michalas bent down on his knee. “I delivered your message, just as you asked me to, my lord. The Servian Knights, they are here before you now. They’ve come to your aid, just as you asked them to.”