The Fall of Neverdark

by Philip C. Quaintrell

  “They haven’t seen each other in four years,” Vighon replied. “It’s just a matter of time before one of them tries to kill the other…”

  Galanör unclipped his dual scimitars and ceremoniously removed the fine blades from their scabbards. “Why can we all feel the tension between them? Hadavad’s never mentioned any bad blood between them.”

  Vighon checked the mage, sleeping soundly beside Ned. “Blood’s the only thing they share anymore. Alijah walked away from the family four years ago, no word, no note. He just left in the middle of the night.”

  The elven ranger began wiping down the steel of his blades with a delicate cloth. “Why would he walk away? Just having his last name will open every door in Illian.”

  Vighon shrugged. “That’s all he’s ever told me, and that was three years ago. Alijah doesn’t really like talking about it, or his family in general. I think he finds it easier to believe he hasn’t got one.”

  Galanör paused with what appeared to be a deeper understanding of Vighon’s explanation. “Family can be painful.”

  Vighon tugged on his sleeve to hide one of the many scars that marred his body. “Isn’t that the truth.” He looked back at Alijah, meeting his eyes briefly in the distance. “Alijah’s my family now.”

  Galanör lifted his scimitar to eye level and examined the flat of the blade. “Does that make Inara your sister, then?”

  Vighon could feel a small lump forming in his throat as he once again found Athis’s eyes on him. “That doesn’t make us anything,” he replied, dismissing the topic with his tone.

  The elf smiled. “As you say.”

  “I do bloody say,” Vighon snapped.

  Galanör turned his attention to the other scimitar. “You’ve certainly got that temper you northerners are known for,” he said absently.

  “What would you know of it,” Vighon bit back, tempted to go and sit on the other side of the fire.

  “By your accent I’d say you’ve spent a lot of time in Namdhor.” The ranger wiped his cloth down the steel with incredible care. “A hardy folk from recollection.”

  “You can learn a lot in Namdhor,” Vighon said, eyeing the elven scimitars. “We can swing a real sword for starters. Namdhorian children play with toys like those.”

  “Not like these they don’t.” Galanör showed no sign of offence. “This one is Stormweaver.” The ranger presented Vighon with the scimitar in two hands.

  It was impossibly light, well balanced by the hilt, and etched with elven glyphs. Vighon wanted one.

  “Feels flimsy,” he lied.

  Galanör smiled again and took the blade back, presenting Vighon with its twin. “This is Guardian.”

  Again, Vighon hefted the scimitar and got a feel for the weapon. It wasn’t identical to Stormweaver, which had a blue and golden hilt rather than Guardian’s green and silver hilt. Vighon didn’t have the best command over his own language, let alone elvish, but he was sure the glyphs on the steel were different too.

  “They’re so light,” he commented. “Can they even cut through leather?”

  Galanör chuckled to himself. “They can cut through more than just leather. They were forged by the best elven smiths in Elandril, using techniques passed down from the First Age.”

  Vighon looked upon the scimitar with new interest. “These were made in Elandril? In Ayda?”

  Galanör nodded. “An ocean away. They were gifts from Queen Adilandra herself for my part in the war.”

  “The War for the Realm?” Vighon checked.

  The elven ranger took Guardian back. “It’s the only war I’ve lived through, so I just call it the war. At the time we didn’t even think of it as war, it was just survival. The fancy names and tales always come afterwards, I suppose.”

  Vighon would never divulge his desire for the blades, but knowing where they had come from only made him want them all the more.

  “What of your blade?” the elf asked, eyeing the sword laid out in front of Vighon.

  Vighon wanted to embellish the sword’s history and forging but, looking at it now, the blade only brought back harsh memories. “It’s nothing special. I just like the balance…”

  “The same cannot be said of your shield,” Galanör observed.

  Vighon rapped his knuckles against the shield’s smooth wood. “It was a gift from Hadavad. He gave it to me three years ago after I joined this merry band of… whatever we are.”

  “The magic he etched into it is powerful,” the ranger replied. “You took more than one spell that should have killed you.”

  Vighon sighed. “The old man didn’t give me that shield to keep me alive. He told me exactly what I was to do with it when he put it in my hands.” He looked across the fire at the closest thing he had to a brother. “He told me to keep Alijah alive.”

  The elf didn’t reply straight away, choosing, instead, to chew his lip and glance from Hadavad to Alijah. “In the years you have been together, Vighon, has Hadavad ever referred to Alijah as his apprentice?”

  Vighon’s face screwed up at the question. “Why would…” It took a second longer, but he understood the meaning behind Galanör’s question. “No, he hasn’t. At least not with me around. As far as I’m concerned, preventing the old man’s spirit from crawling inside Alijah comes under the same edict as keeping him alive.”

  Galanör simply nodded quietly, apparently satisfied with Vighon’s answer.

  “What’s your part in all this?” Vighon asked, suddenly curious as to the ranger’s motivations.

  Galanör offered a coy smile. “You have your orders, and I have mine.”

  “Oh, we’re back to that are we? You should know, the whole mysterious ranger thing doesn’t work for you. It’s just bloody annoying.”

  Where the light met the dark, Inara turned her back on Vighon Draqaro, who stole every opportunity to glance at her, and, instead, confronted her brother.

  “So this is it then?” she began, struggling after only five words to contain her frustration. “Four years go by without a word and I get a pat on the back.”

  “Inara…” Alijah could only maintain eye contact for a second.

  “You just left, Alijah. You packed a bag, stole Asher’s blade and bow, and slinked away in the night!”

  Alijah threw his hands up. “I didn’t steal anything. They belonged to the family and they’d sat above the hearth for decades collecting dust. I’ve put them to much better use.” He turned his back on her before quickly coming back around. “And I didn’t slink away in the night! I just walked away!”

  Inara glanced over her shoulder to see Galanör and Vighon looking at them. It seemed nothing could wake Hadavad, who slept like the dead.

  “Try and keep your outbursts to a more mature volume,” she said as patronisingly as she could.

  Alijah gritted his teeth. “Don’t start on me.”

  Inara… Athis’s tone projected soothing emotions.

  Ignoring the dragon’s calming aura, Inara pressed on. “If memory serves, you always started it and I always finished it…”

  “I’m faster than you,” Alijah said with a dangerous glint in his eye.

  “And yet you were always slower to learn,” Inara fired back, clenching her fist. “I’m stronger, remember?”

  Alijah flashed a cocky smile. “I’ve learnt a few things here and there…”

  “It’s a shame you haven’t learnt how to shave,” Inara quipped.

  Alijah’s face dropped before scrunching into a grimace. That was it. Brother and sister kicked up the sand and dashed for each other with murder in their eyes.

  Athis brought his tail down between them like a hammer, preventing any escalation.

  Somewhere beyond the fire, Inara heard Vighon say, “I told you so…”

  Inara! If you cannot control yourself then you are not the Dragorn Master Thorn trained you to be. You will also find yourself grounded until some measure of control and humility can be found.

  Inara wanted to repl
y to her companion, but she could feel the dragon close himself off just enough to give her the hint.

  The Dragorn sighed and looked at her brother. “You have to help me, Alijah. You just walked out and took the only things our parents had left of Asher. Do you know what you’ve put them through?”

  Alijah wiped his face, just as he had done as a child when he was exasperated. “Are they well?”

  Inara could feel her fury rising to the surface once more. “You would know if you hadn’t cut us all off! If you wanted to be a ranger you could have just said. Instead, you left our parents to split their duty to the realm and waste time searching for you.”

  Alijah whirled on her shaking his head. “I don’t want to be a ranger. I just… I just wanted…” He swallowed all his anger and became eerily still. “You couldn’t understand. None of you could.”

  “Help me to, Alijah,” Inara pleaded, desperate to have her brother back.

  “How could you understand?” he spat. “You, the Dragorn. Your shadow drowns us all. I could just about compete for our parents’ attention growing up, but when we turned sixteen… everything changed.”

  “Alijah…” Inara didn’t know what to say. They had both travelled to The Lifeless Isles to meet the dragons, but only one of them had remained.

  “You left me,” Alijah said, fighting back the tears. “For him.” Alijah levelled his gaze at Athis, his eyes blazing with hatred. “After that, it didn’t matter what I did. Inara Galfrey, the Dragorn! I became an afterthought. The one they didn’t know what to do with. The one who always got it wrong.”

  “That’s just your perception!” Inara argued. “They never saw you as—”

  “How would you know?” Alijah blinked a single tear away. “You weren’t there, Inara. You had an eternity of adventures ahead of you.”

  “That’s it?” Inara bit her lip in an effort to stay calm. “You walked out without a word because you were jealous? Your talents are limitless. I grew up in your shadow! You could do anything you wanted, everything came naturally to you. You were just too much of a spoilt brat to see it!”

  “I didn’t walk out because I was…” Alijah ran out of energy and turned his attention to the ground. “You couldn’t understand.”

  “I think you’ve laid it all out pretty well.” Inara shook her head having heard about as much as she could handle.

  “Inara…” Alijah called, turning her back. “I left for you, for all of you.”

  There was something in his tone that gripped her. For all the lies he told to himself, this was the truth.

  “How could exiling yourself be for the good of the family?”

  Alijah walked over, removing the tie from his messy ponytail as he did. His hair cascaded over his chest in a mixture of knots and braids. With one hand, he scraped back the hair on the right side of his head and turned his face so that Inara could see him clearly.

  It took Inara’s elven eyes a moment in what little light they had, but there was no mistaking the few strands of grey hair hiding among the black ones. It took another moment for her to realise what that actually meant. The Dragorn gasped and stood back with a hand covering her mouth.

  “No… no you can’t be…” Inara could feel eyes on her again but she ignored them. “They’re just… they don’t mean…”

  Athis looked back at her as she called out to him for help.

  Alijah let his hair fall back over his chest again. “Father started to get a few grey hairs in his early twenties as well. The magic that Asher poured into him halted any more from coming through. It’s quite typical… for mortal men.”

  Inara couldn’t accept it. She looked at his pointed ears, elven cheekbones, and recalled his enviable speed growing up. If anything, he was more elf than she was.

  “We’re half-elf,” he continued. “There was always the chance that one of us would inherit a mortal’s lifespan. Unfortunately,” Alijah looked down at himself, “it was the one who couldn’t be a Dragorn.”

  Inara could feel tears welling up in her eyes. “No,” she said again. “Father is immortal. Mother is immortal. We should both be—”

  “Father’s immortality isn’t natural,” Alijah corrected. “It cannot be passed on.”

  Inara clamped down on her emotions enough to ask, “That’s why you left? Because you’ll…” She couldn’t say the word.

  “Because one day, I’ll die,” he said bluntly. “I didn’t want Mother and Father… I didn’t want you to see that. To watch me die while you all live on. It’s not fair. I thought, the sooner I leave the better.”

  There was a quiet rage building inside of Inara and she wanted to hit something. For the first time ever, the Dragorn found herself wishing she was standing in front of a hundred orcs. Instead, she darted forward and wrapped her arms around her brother. Alijah hesitated in her embrace, but he eventually lifted his arms and held her tightly.

  Inara finally stood back, glancing at the side of her brother’s head. Is it true? she asked Athis.

  The red dragon curled his neck around to bring his head over the two of them. Athis inhaled deeply, pulling at the twins’ hair.

  I am so sorry, Inara. He is mortal.

  Hearing it from Athis made it all the more real in Inara’s mind. Her head dropped and tears fell from her eyes, thankfully concealed by her hair.

  “It’s better this way,” Alijah said with a dispassionate practicality to his tone. “We’re twenty-six years old. None of you have seen me since we were twenty-two. Twenty-two years is easier to get over than a whole lifetime.”

  Inara whipped her head up. “That’s not for you to decide! You should have told us. We should have discussed this as a family!”

  “What family?” he snapped back. “You were never around, they were always off somewhere on official business. We hadn’t been a family for some time when I left.”

  “That’s not fair,” Inara insisted. “We all had responsibilities, Alijah. Places we had to be, duties to perform for the good of the realm.”

  “That’s what I’ve been doing,” Alijah declared with a finger in his chest. “I just had to get out from under your shadow and our parents’ fame to discover it.”

  “You have responsibilities to the realm now, do you?” Inara asked incredulously.

  “I do,” Alijah stated firmly. “When your years are numbered and old age beckons, you begin to see the world differently. You don’t have an eternity to figure things out, to find yourself. You have to dive right in and paddle for as long as you can.” Alijah was pacing now. “I wanted my life to mean something. All I’ve ever wanted is to serve the realm, keep it safe as our parents did, as you do.”

  “You mean, you wanted to be important.” Inara regretted her words and tone immediately. Alijah had a way of bringing this side out in her.

  “You couldn’t understand,” Alijah said again, shaking his head. “While you’ve been flying around hunting down monsters in the desert, I’ve been making a difference. The Black Hand are the biggest threat to the realm. You didn’t even know about them! They’ve been manipulating events from the shadows for centuries. Now Asher is back and bonded with Malliath, both of whom are slaves to The Crow’s will. Whatever they’re planning, it’s on a scale to match the war and I’ve been in the middle of it for the last four years.”

  “You don’t know what you’re in the middle of,” Inara maintained. “If the orcs really are returning to the world in the numbers I fear they are, a few dark mages are the least of our problems. You’re in way over your head, Alijah. Hadavad has been battling The Black Hand for five centuries, Galanör is a seasoned warrior who out-classes us both. You’re running around playing hero with Vighon when you should be—”

  “Should be what?” Alijah interrupted. “Now that you know I’m mortal you think I should stay at home and read books by the fire? I’ve uncovered temples and relics of The First Kingdom. I’ve battled The Black Hand and their leagues of undead. I even found a…”

  Inar
a could see the subtle twitches flicker across her brother’s face. He had plenty of bluster left in him - he just didn’t want to divulge something.

  “You found what?” she pressed.

  Alijah stood up a little straighter. “You have Dragorn business and we have ours.”

  Inara couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “I think we’re on the same side,” she argued.

  “Until today, you didn’t even know there were sides. The great Gideon Thorn has been blind to the single most devastating threat to all of Illian. You keep hunting your orcs, they’re on the other side of The Undying Mountains. We will take care of The Black Hand.”

  “Oh right.” Inara nodded along. “So you’re going to… what? Beat Asher in a drinking game? Ask Malliath to kindly fly away? You’re trying so hard to prove yourself that you can’t see what’s going on around you. Those that you hunt and those that I hunt have allied. The Dragorn might not have known about The Black Hand’s involvement, but we do now.”

  Alijah shook his head with a mirthless laugh. “So, you’re just going to take over? This is Dragorn business now?”

  “I’ll tell you what I’m going to do.” Inara took two steps closer to her brother and looked him in the eyes. “I’m going to escort you all to Tregaran, so I know you’re safe. Then, I’m going to report back to Master Thorn so we can get on top of this before it gets any worse.”

  “Any worse?” Alijah echoed. “A cult of necromancers hell bent on religious reform have resurrected the Asher and enslaved the biggest dragon in the world. A horde of monsters from the past rises up to join them, but it’s alright, the mighty Dragorn are going to get on top of it before it can get any worse.”

  “You think we should leave it up to you?” Inara retorted. “You might have Asher’s sword and bow on your back, but neither of them will be enough to stop this evil from spreading. Maybe the mage can help you. He’s only been failing to defeat The Black Hand for five hundred years… I suppose there’s Galanör. A wayward elf with no sense of belonging and a penchant for killing monsters. Or Vighon, perhaps?” Inara paused her sarcastic tirade to consider their old friend. “Why is Vighon with you, exactly?”