“Sóthé ima,” he said, tears in his eyes. Délin knew not what it meant, yet it touched him in the depths of his soul, which lay as a temple quivering. Théos smiled gently, the smile of one who soon shall leave this world of pain—and then he was lost.
Délin hugged the lifeless body. No boyish arms hugged back, for they were limp, and when Délin kissed the boy’s forehead, none were returned, for there was no life within the frail body now—that life had been taken and scattered about the blood-laced ground.
* * *
Ifferon seized Teron by the throat and drove him to the wall. “Fiend!” he screamed, anger exploding in his face like the raging fires of a volcano too long laid dormant. “What have you done?” he asked, though no answer was necessary. “You fool! What have you done?”
“I have done,” Teron said, choking on the words and the fires of Ifferon’s anger, “only what was necessary.”
“Necessary! What crazed evil finds the death of a child necessary?”
“Do not be a fool, Ifferon!” the head-cleric croaked. Ifferon’s hands tightened about his neck. “He is hardly a child in spirit.”
“Ah, so,” Ifferon said, spitting the words like lava upon the crags of Teron’s face. “You know he is a Child of Telm then? Is that it? You work as Olagh’s cleric and then seek to destroy all that carry his blood?”
“Olagh be damned, it has nothing to do with him! There are greater gods than he, and you know well who they are!”
“You think Agon is a greater god?”
“Not a god at all, Ifferon, but he is getting there. Have you forgotten Corrias?”
“Corrias? What has this to do with him?”
“You are blind, Ifferon! It has everything to do with him!”
“How?” Ifferon cried. “Speak!”
“Agon was never coming,” Teron said. “At least not now. There was no Call to answer.”
Part of Ifferon’s mind felt as though it were collapsing, as if all that he had known to be true was now no longer real. Even the very ground beneath him felt as though it might simply be an illusion.
“So we embarked on this quest for nothing,” Ifferon said despondently, his anger weakened by a growing sense of despair.
“He will come when his time is at hand, rest assured of that, but this was never about him,” Teron said, shifting position as Ifferon lessened his grip. “Corrias was coming, Ifferon. It was he who was summoned and he who Agon feared, even more than you and all in the line of Telm.”
“But there was no word of Corrias!”
“No, and why should there be? The Al-Ferian are too full of pride to share such secrets, but they knew all the same that one of their children had been born different. Different, Ifferon—like you and I. A Telm-child was born, Ifferon, and Théos was imbued with the spirit of Corrias from the start, for that Céalar had found a way to incarnate here, though it would be many years until the boy would remember who he really was and what power he had. He was a god-child, indeed, but that would have mattered little until he became a god-man, for there his true threat to Agon would be felt.
“But the Garigút’s assault on Nahragor was too great an opportunity to miss, and so an escort was arranged, and the boy was brought to Telarym to aid in the siege, for no blade or shadow could touch him, nor could death assail him, but all who knew truly who he was would tremble in his presence, just as we tremble in the presence of the Molokrán.
“But Agon learned of this and sent his forces hunting. They killed the boy’s guards, but could not touch him or bring him anywhere. So he sat in the emptiness for a time, until at last you and your company came across him. Only in the presence of Telm’s bloodline would he travel, and while he could not be hurt in normal lands, as you can tell, Ifferon, the Old Temple is hardly normal lands. It was built by the gods before Corrias, and only here could the child be killed.
“So you see, my friend, you set out to stop the Call of Agon, yet you have brought about the death of Corrias instead, who wandered blindly as a child in your company. You are indeed an important player, Ifferon! You play the games that even gods dare not play, and you played right into our very hands!”
Anger returned like an ally. “You wicked thing!” Ifferon bellowed, his fingers growing tighter by the second. “What madness drove you to this evil? What reward was had for this?”
“Ah, the reward has yet to come, though I did delight in sending that fool Melgalés to his final doom. What? You mean for all these years of suspicion you did not suspect that? Ah, your mind has dulled, Ifferon! I cursed the letter I gave to you. Those stamps were Molok-runes, and they did the job well enough, did they not? Oh, I bet he was soon tired after reading that letter! I bet much darkness was drawn to him then ...”
“You despicable scoundrel! There are no words or curses foul enough to say of you!”
“Melgalés deserved death, Ifferon. Do not let him make you think otherwise. He received the Elixir of Life when it should have gone to others. I should have been elected at that Council, Ifferon. I should have been an Ardúnar! But they are all fools, showing false piety to gods who no longer listen. Agon listens, Ifferon. He offered me life, an eternity of youth. Immortality.”
“You will have no perpetual youth, you fool!” Ifferon screamed. “You speak of me as blind, yet your eyes have been clouded by the fear of age and death. And here you are now, having brought death the closer, and death shall grace you, Teron. Death is here!”
Ifferon grabbed his sword from his belt and drove it through the chest of the head-cleric, who but choked as blood leaked from his mouth.
“Death,” Teron coughed, gasping on his final breath, “brings eternal life closer.” And so he parted from the world, his body slumping against the pedestal, as if he had been sacrificed upon it. A sudden chill came into the room, a wind from the depths of Halés, and it bore away Teron’s soul.
* * *
After many moments of troubled thoughts, Délin stirred. He stood with the boy in his arms and brought him out through the labyrinth of passages, through the main chamber and then out into the bleak white of the mountains. Ifferon unpinned Herr’Don from the pillar and woke him from his daze, and they stumbled after Délin, Ifferon struggling to support Herr’Don’s weight. They stopped at the entrance, granting the knight his right to grieve.
When Délin had reached the brink of the mountain he knelt again and laid the boy gently on the bed of snow. Grief loomed deep in the well of his heart as he watched the colour in the boy’s face slowly fade to match the snow. He traced his hand across Théos’ forehead, brushing his hair to one side. He kissed his brow, a kiss he had often given to valiant knights who had lost their lives in the bitterness of battle; he had not once been forced to do this for a child, and this was a reality far more bitter than any battle he had faced.
He took the Sigil of Corrias from around his neck and grasped it in his hand. He looked at it through his veil of tears, looked at its design and thought about what it meant for him: bravery, loyalty, fielty, and valour. These were his virtues, his merits, his truths. But no bravery or loyalty could comfort him now; no fielty or valour could mask the shadows of the world. Hope parted like the passing of the wind and left but a chill in his soul.
He thought of his god Corrias. “You have forsaken me,” he said, and with an angry sigh he threw the pendant into the air. It hurtled forth and then fell, just as Théos had fallen, landing in the snow. Great snowflakes came down from the gloom in the sky, landing upon its fading surface, burying it forever.
###
The story continues in The Road to Rebirth:
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The Call of Agon: Book One of The Children of Telm Page 37