Veil of the Dragon (Prophecy of the Evarun) (26 page)

Chapter Twenty Five

Needles and Stones

The three Tenders encouraged the dying embers and the fire returned in measure. Yet the certain chill of autumn’s ebb would not be kept away.

Michalas sat back on the root of the giant tree. He pulled back his hood. The cold felt good against his skin. 

The Tenders withdrew. The small vigil fire they had started had been restored. It danced as the wind channeled between the trees. Deep shadows broke across the baskets of offerings and crimson feathers that had been left before the small door to where Chaelus, the Giver, still slept.

Al-Hoanar had been brief but truthful in his report to the Mother, neither omitting nor adding anything. And like the court of Ras Dumas, there were whispers even here. Already word had spread of Chaelus’ return and of what the Servian Knights had heard of what he had done. 

Michalas turned to his sister who sat beside him, still in vigil. 

“Has he awoken?”

Al-Mariam started at his voice. She had become quiet, saying little to him since their return. “No. He hasn’t stirred.”

“Do you grieve for him?”

Mariam’s eyes darted to him and then away. “I have no need. There is no need. He’s…you’re…the Giver, are you not?”

“I am not what you think I am. Don’t be afraid of me.”

Mariam turned to him. Like ice melting to a flame, her eyes and then at last her face succumbed beneath her doubt. “I don’t know who you are. But then again, I never really have.”

Michalas held her gaze. He knew her grief for him was real, but it was not the same as the grief she held for Chaelus. It was not even the same anymore as that which she held for herself. 

After the storm clouds fell, after the Dragon had fallen, on the nearest bank of the Shinnaras with its waters made clear, the Khaalish had found Chaelus, collapsed. 

They had watched him walk across its waters.

In the hours before this, while the others had waited in their camp, Michalas had watched Chaelus. He had watched him through Chaelus’ own eyes and through them he had seen everything, and he had suffered all of it with him. 

Not until his loss of the Angel had Michalas ever suffered any loss of his own. He hadn’t suffered it because, until then, there had been nothing of his own for him to lose.

“To know yourself is to know him,” Michalas said to Mariam. “To know him is to know me.”

Mariam returned her stare to the door where Chaelus waited to awaken once more. Her breath was heavy. “What do you mean?”

“He is you, and you are me, and we, all of us are bound one to each other.”

“By prophecy?”

“No. By our suffering.” Michalas placed his hand into his sister’s. “It’s something I never knew. I need you. I need your help, Mariam.”

Mariam turned to him. Her tears had dried. She closed her hand tight around his. It was warm, like the glow of the Angels.

***

An eternity passed. The timeless darkness faded to the warmth of amber light, summoned to him by the voices of lost friends. 

Chaelus watched their shadows pass over him, the sounds of their voices ebbing and flowing. Their words, though, remained indistinct.

One voice at last stood out among them, a child’s voice. It was Al-Aaron’s. “I’m with you.” Yet then his voice passed on. Darkness returned. 

Another voice brought Chaelus back once more. 

Walls of white stone surrounded him. Living shadows broke across the light from the open doorway. Heavy blankets pressed him down as he tried to rise.

The Mother placed her hands to his brow, easing his head back down. She smiled. “Don’t move. There’s no hurry now.”

Chaelus waited for his breath to return. He was in the Garden.  “Where’s Al-Aaron? Where’s my Teacher?”

“Al-Aaron is safe, as are you. He has been with you, more than he should have, and now he’s resting.” 

Chaelus closed his eyes. Beyond the pain that coursed through every part of him, a chill and numbness ached in the place above his heart, the place where the Dragon had pierced him. He winced.

“There are many different kinds of death,” the Mother whispered as she wiped his brow.

The echo of Talus’ words followed hers.

“You knew I would fail,” Chaelus said.

“Did you fail?” the Mother answered. 

“The Dragon defeated me.”

“They waited for you. Your friends, they waited for you until the Dragon’s sky at last fell still beyond the Karagas Mun. Then you came to them. Don’t you remember?”

“The Dragon that I killed was me.”

The Mother smiled. The words of prophecy drew soft upon her lips.

“Lament the ones who will forget.

The Dragon waits within.”

“Save for one,” Chaelus said. “Michalas, Al-Mariam’s brother. There’s no shadow within him.”

“I’ve already heard much about him,” the Mother said, her smile saying more than her words revealed. “He’s here as well, and he waits for you too. Al-Mariam waits outside with him. She hasn’t left his side, that is, when she hasn’t been watching over you.” 

She pursed her lips in a faint smile.

“The shadow of the Dragon has passed but for a moment,” the Mother said. “It will regain itself where its shadow still stands. Your Kingdom and your brother are safe for now. Let them be, and don’t suffer twice the loss of what you sought to gain. The time of your gain passed with the life you lived before.”

She stood, her words final as only the truth can be. 

He could not go back. 

“Then what am I to do?” Chaelus asked.

“You will either go forward or you will fall. Your success or your failure is yours alone to choose. But your fate is tied to the Giver and cannot be changed. The threads of the tapestry have already been woven.” 

The Mother paused before the open door. “On the morrow we will pay our respects to Al-Thinneas and the sacrifice he’s made. There are those among us who wonder if you would use such an occasion, as well as his sacrifice, as an opportunity to take up the mantle of our Order as your father did before.”

***

Al-Aaron squinted. He struggled to raise his head. His fever had broken, but weakness still consumed him. Yet the light that came through the open window fed him. Soft sounds drifted upon it, voices familiar but changed, including the voices of two he had only just met.

He lay in one of the upper rooms of the ruined tower, with such height as it held, the room’s window looking out across the forest to the east. The two whom Chaelus had raised had prepared the place for him. Their service in the face of their own suffering stirred him, yet he still could not remember their names. He leaned back into his pallet, pulling the thick furs tight around him. 

The Mother entered. She winced as she eased herself upon the foot of the bed. The deep pleats of her black robe spread out beneath her. “How do you feel, child?”

“Did you know there would be two?” Al-Aaron asked.

“Did I know there would be two if two there never has been?” The Mother pursed her lips. Then she smiled. “No, my dear. Not then. Not when you left to save him. But I don’t think any words or wards of mine would have changed what was already made to pass.”

She held his hand open. “I brought something for you.” The tremor of her hands passed into his and she pressed the folded gossamer within them. “It’s somewhat loose and there’s a stitch that’s flawed. The needle was too big, and my eyes, they don’t see as they once did.”

Al-Aaron opened the gentle cloth. Soft thread shimmered in the light, a verdant field on one side of the open fold, a golden field on the other. Within each of them was a sea of blue that together were held up like open hands. 

“It’s beautiful,” Al-Aaron said.

“It is not of me,” the Mother said, “It’s from Rua that all things are made, and it is from it alone that beauty comes. I’m only a vessel and, I’m afraid, a crude one at that. But when I finished it, it was then that I saw it. It was something I hadn’t seen before. It was then that I remembered. Tell me, what do you see?”

“There are two seas.” 

“They are ancient and they lie at the very heart of the world. Chaelus could tell you about them. He would know them from his time in the libraries of Lossos. They are the Sea of Beladun and the Crystal Sea. Both are fed by great rivers. 

“The first, the Sea of Beladun, overflows in its abundance. There, every kind of bird, fish and plant can be found. The city states which line its banks are burdened only by the wealth they draw from it. 

“But the second, the Crystal Sea, is very different thing. It is a dead sea. There is no life to be found there, and only the desert sands find any rest along its banks. So tell me, child, why are they so different?”

“I don’t know.”

“The Sea of Beladun has an outlet that carries its water away. The Crystal Sea does not.”

The fragrance of cut timber struck Al-Aaron. He had never smelt it here. The wood for fires had always been gathered. It was for the funeral pyre that the Tenders would need more.

The Mother placed her hand over his, closing them over the small tapestry. Deep lines traced maps of their own upon them. “Chaelus has known many deaths to stand where he does. Yet still he has such little faith. The child, from what I have seen, knows little of either death or loss. He is like virgin cloth cut from the Rua’s own fold. Perhaps it is through the both of them that the Giver will return. Perhaps by their gift to each other, the water and the abundance of the sea may flow.”

***

Chaelus
stared at
the clear night sky, the warm train of his breath passing above him. The moon was full and the stars somehow brighter than he thought they could be.