by Greg James
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Sarah thought back to how everything had begun for her as she ascended the Shadowhorn; a nightmare flight up the snow-crusted flanks of the Fellhorn. Now, here she was, striding solemnly up the Shadowhorn, through the smoke and stinging ashes clouding its uppermost heights. She knew what was waiting for her at the summit.
The Fallen One: a monstrosity from another world, another dimension.
Was its birthplace still out there in the cosmos, somewhere, or was it the last of its kind?
The mountain shook beneath her. The scale of the power she was about to confront terrified her, the casual way He could destroy lives, like a cruel boy burning insects with a magnifying glass.
I’m not sure I can do this.
Her doubts and thoughts were silenced by the pounding of hooves. She turned and looked towards the scarred lands at the foot of the mountain, where a glowing form suddenly came bursting through the fog and gloom. His armour shone. His steed was aflame. His purpose burned as true as ever. The White Rider thundered up the mountainside, his star-shod horse dashing from outcrop to outcrop and cliff to cliff until he reached Sarah’s side.
Just as he had before, back in the Wood Beneath the Worlds, he lifted her bodily, and then they were streaking up to the mountain’s summit and the living nightmare that waited there. Though she was thankful for his help in the ascent, Sarah knew the Rider was merely delivering her to the appointed place. He was the masculine aspect of the Flame; a being of instinct and pure force, nearer to being a weapon than a creature of consciousness.
This moment of destiny would be hers alone.
It would belong to no other.
Sarah dismounted a few short strides from the mountain peak and turned to the Rider. The least she could do was thank him, but he was already gone, a white ghost disappearing into the grim ether. He left behind only the sound of pounding hooves, and the heat of his nearness. The latter soon evaporated as Sarah crossed the short distance to the peak, a flat, crude oval on the uppermost mountaintop that reminded her vividly of her struggle against the Fallen-born atop the Fellhorn.
The Fallen One was waiting for her.
She could not see Him, but she could feel that He was there. He had a face that was not a face and a body that was not a body. When He moved, Sarah felt the world around her scream with shock at His unlikeness. Reality tried, as it had always done, to reject Him and cast Him out. But He was too strong; instead, the stuff of the world was forced to buckle and bend around Him. Wet, sizzling patches broke out across the stone ground. The Fallen One was abroad, and Sarah could see He was already making the world bleed.
She stood before Him, small and human. He burned. He smouldered. Space and time seemed to bend and twist into obscene shapes. He would not be rejected, He would not be cast out, she could see that. He would drag this world and everything living in it into the void, and then He would do the same to the next world and the next until all things that were not as He was had been annihilated.
She could not let that happen.
Sarah called on the Flame, she let it pour into her with tidal force. Her flesh and bones began to hum and crawl with building intensity. It was ecstasy. It was purity. It was every dream and reality condensed into light and flowing energy. It fed on her, and she fed right back into it until she was sure she had created a feedback loop which meant the power could only grow and grow in its ferocity. There was no stopping it now. He could never survive this. She let the Flame loose. Reality shrieked around her as the power of Creation tore through the air. It struck the Fallen One.
He stood before her and He took it.
All of it.
Every ounce of power she had disappeared into Him.
How could that be?
It was at that moment Sarah remembered something she’d learned in science class some years ago. A simple thing, a plain piece of knowledge, but it chimed in her mind now. What happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object?
I am one, and He is the other.
He could survive this, after all.
No ...
And then, He gave something back to her.
... ...
Sarah saw herself in a hospital bed, her body hidden under plaster casts and bandages, her battered eyes closed in a bruised sleep. The machines next to her were beeping and chiming at each breath, each heartbeat. Trianna and the others had caught her that day. She had not escaped into the Hall of Mirrors. They had beaten her bloody. Left her to die. She had been in a coma for three years. There was no sign of her coming out of it. They would have to pull the plug soon.
... ...
She saw Kiley driving home from the hospital after Momma died with tears in her eyes. Her sister did not see the car that was careering towards her. It hit her. The vehicles swerved and spun as one before the collision. The crash shattered glass and twisted metal with a tremendous shrieking. Sarah wanted to turn away as she saw her sister’s body hurled through the windshield by the splintering force of the impact.
... ...
“That didn’t happen. It’s bullshit.”
He was inside her head.
“The truth is too much for you, so you escape, you run from it. You sent your sister back to her death.”
His voice was soothing and soft – not what she had expected at all.
“No. It’s not true. I’m not in a coma. Kiley is not dead. And this world you’re destroying is not a fantasy, it’s real!”
“It is a dream, Sarah Bean. It always has been. I can set you free from it. I can take the Flame away. Then you’ll never be tormented by it again. You will rest in peace.”
“No. You can’t have it. I won’t let you take it away from me.”
“Think carefully, Sarah Bean. I will offer you this chance only once. Then your dream will become a nightmare. It will consume you. You will never awaken. Never escape.”
“No. I won’t let you have Seythe. Deal with it.”
“Very well, Sarah Bean. Such a pity. Your nightmare shall begin.”
“No, it will not.”
“You cannot deny me.”
“I can too. If I should have died, but I didn’t, then Seythe saved me. Imagination saved me. Creation saved me. That is why you cannot bear its existence. It is a blight to you. I can see it. I feel it. I burn inside this world and all others because I am a part of them. You are not. You came here from the Outside, and you are still Outside. The Worlds scream at your very presence. You do not belong with us. You should not be here.”
“My existence is not for you to deny or take away, Sarah Bean.”
Sarah blinked and let the Flame go. She was standing atop the mountain and the non-shape of the Fallen One was before her. She turned her back on Him.
“You have no existence for me to take. I deny you. I take back everything that you have destroyed.”
“You cannot do this, Sarah Bean. It is impossible.”
“I can, because you told me your secret. Why is there something instead of nothing? If this is a dream, then I can choose to no longer believe in you. I want Seythe as it was. I want every life you took away returned. You are not the Fallen One. You are not even One. You are Zero. You are Nothing. You are shit.”
“Nothing? I am not Nothing!”
“You are nothing. This world is something, even if it is a dream. Goodbye.”
The Fallen One lunged forward. His hand that was not a hand touched her.
And it did not touch her – because it was not there.
Nothing was there.
Nothing had ever been there.
But Sarah could have sworn she heard a scream—for a moment.
He was gone.
And, so was Sarah Bean.
She let the Flame go. She no longer needed Seythe.
... I’m coming home, Kiley ...
But, one day, it might again need her.
Epilogue
No one on Seythe saw Sarah Bean again after that night, w
hen a sudden winter storm brought to Highmount the most beautiful snow ever seen. It shone of all colours and hues, some that could not even be identified, and it fell sparkling from the quiet sky, casting a haze of ethereal rainbows over the face of a harvest moon.
No one saw her, but there were those who dreamed of her for many lived again because she had wished it be so. Woran awoke and found himself in his little house on the hill in the Norn Valley with Barra warming his feet. Enna and Witta arose from where they had fallen in the Grassland Plains to find the women they had loved and lost waiting for them. General Kella and the dead of the Highmount siege sat up where they had been laid out, making the Herb-Sisters scream in terror before they were calmed and rejoiced. Fellfolk recovered their humanity and were returned to their families. Others there were too who found themselves awakening from death, more than can be recorded here – for Sarah Bean had been into Erebus and she came back with a power that was absolute, even in the face of Death.
If Seythe was in any way a dream, the Living Flame had decreed that, for now, it would be a good dream.
~ ~ ~
The Three Kingdoms saw an abundant Spring come to the land and the signs of the Fallen One’s contagion retreated as the days and weeks passed. Cities and lives were steadily rebuilding.
In the throneroom of Highmount, it was quiet. Jedda sat upon the throne uncomfortably with Venna at her right side. The room was filled with a great crowd of Earlmen and Earlwomen who had come from the beleaguered kingdoms to pay homage to the true heir. But Jedda did not want their homage. She did not want the throne – but how could she tell them this after what had happened? It would seem like she was abandoning them after setting them free.
I have to do what is right though, she thought.
At a gesture from General Kella, who stood at her left side, Jedda rose to her feet. Venna took up the crown and the crowd began to murmur in expectation. Jedda turned her eyes to Venna and solemnly shook her head. Little Venna smiled, understanding, and lowered it once more.
The crowd gasped.
Jedda turned to address them, “My people, these are my words and my will. I choose them carefully though many of you may think otherwise. We fought the Fallen One for a dream of freedom. That dream is now a reality and I mean to see that it is a good one. I renounce the throne-”
Shouts of disbelief went up from the crowd.
“I renounce the throne and I leave the Three Kingdoms in your care, to do as you will with them. The line of Ferra ends with me and with my sister, Venna. We will leave Highmount tomorrow morning. We will travel with the Wayfarer, Orraea, to other worlds and see the good that has come to pass from the Fallen One’s defeat.”
“Will you ever return to us?” a voice called out.
“Perhaps one day, but not to rule. The responsibility for so many lives should not lie with one soul. That much I have learned. Such responsibility can quickly lead to corruption and the Ferra line could soon become as twisted and ruinous as the Fallen One himself. No, you must rule yourselves, and you will. This is my last decree, see that it is done.”
Uneasy silence greeted Jedda as she stepped down from the throne.
Mistress Ruth was waiting for her.
“Give them time,” the Herb-Sister said, “They’ll see the sense in what you’ve done eventually. It’ll just take some getting used to is all.”
“Will you go with us, Mistress?”
“Kind of you to ask, Majesty.”
“Just Jedda now, please. No more titles.”
“Very well. Jedda, it would be my pleasure.”
“And it would be my honour to have you with us, Mistress Ruth.”
Jedda bowed graciously to the Herb-Sister.
“Royalty bowing to me, eh.” Mistress Ruth said, “Now, I have seen everything.”
And thus began the Age of the Flame...
The End ... and A Beginning
The Adventures of Sarah Bean will continue in 2014!
For after the Age of the Flame, there will come an Age of Ashes...
Author’s Note
Thank you for reading The Stone of Sorrows. I hope you enjoyed it. If you have a moment, I would also greatly appreciate it if you left a review on the site where you purchased this ebook. No matter how big or small it is, every review counts and matters to a writer because without you, the readers, we are nothing.
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Titles available by Greg James
The Age of the Flame Trilogy – YA Fantasy
The Sword of Sighs
The Sceptre of Storms
The Stone of Sorrows
The Chronicles of Willow Grey – YA Fantasy
The Door of Dreams
Voyage of the Pale Ship
Khale the Wanderer – Grimdark Fantasy
Under A Colder Sun
Lost is the Night
Hordes of Chaos
The Vetala Cycle - Horror
The Eyes of the Dead
Shapes in the Mist
Hell’s Teeth
The Sevengraves Cycle – Horror
Sevengraves
The Thing Behind the Door
Standalone Horror
This Darkness Mine
London Ghost Story
The Clowns Outside
Zombies by Moonlight
The Oeuvre
Short Story Collections
Made for the Dark
Night Residue
Poetry Collections
Untitled I
Untitled II
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank the following people for their help, support and contributions;
Lora Kaleva – for putting up with a very decisive yet indecisive author who knew exactly what he was doing, except when he didn’t.
Christine DeMaio-Rice – for creating an excellent cover to see the series off.
Tara West – for putting together the paperback cover art and doing a superb job.
Karin Cox – for helping me knock this one into shape when I thought it was all going to fall to pieces instead.
My fellow self-publishers, all of whom are awesome; Shea Macleod, M. Edward McNally, Jack Wallen, Cheryl Bradshaw, Jessica Meigs, David Gaughran, Jolea M. Harrison, Alisa Tangredi, Heather Marie Adkins, Mike Cooley, Cheryl Shireman, Lin Welch, Athanasios Galanis, Danielle Blanchard, Michelle Muto, Red Tash, P.J. Jones, Julia Crane, Sarah Billington, J. Carson Black, Lizzy Ford, Graeme Reynolds, James Everington, Autumn Christian, Tony Rabig, Sean McLachlan, Tony Slater, Mandy White, Sarah Woodbury, Arshad Ahsanuddin, Laura Yirak, Matt Conrad & Ben White – the Word Lovah!
My friends are my family and this book could not have been done without them, as ever; Ruth Latchford, Jez Joubinaux, Evie Joubinaux, Kris Dyer, Jason Brawn, Dolores Harrington, Mark & Tori Waddington, Sandra Norval, Adrian Chamberlin, Nyki Blatchley, Chris Hall, Jean Hatton, Jim McLeod, Libby Cummings, Kiley Owens, Robin Jennifer, Kacey Stewart & Ann Giardina Magee.
About the Author
Greg James was born in Rochford, Essex in darkest East Anglia. He studied Literature and Media at university and spent a year in the Far East teaching English as a foreign language. He now resides in London where he takes long walks on the asphalt beach, dreams strange dreams and keeps trying to get back to Narnia through the wardrobe.
Glossary
A’aron (AH-aron)
The Creator of Women, known also as the Mother.
Adraxis (AH-drac-SYS)
The last of the Unicorns.
Ahmen-Ra (AH-men-RAH)
The founder of the Herb-Sisters’ order.
Atosha (Aa-TOH-sha)
One of the Three Kingdoms.
Barra (BAH-rah)
Woran Bean’s small but fearless mongrel dog.
Batracca (BAT-rack-AH)
A species of giant bat-like creatures that have been tamed by the Cham to carry warriors and travel
lers on their backs.
Bean, Kiley
Sarah Bean’s sister.
Bean, Sarah
An American teenage girl who discovers she is the Living Flame – a scion of A’aron and prophesied saviour of Seythe.
Bean, Woran
Adoptive grandfather to Sarah Bean. He lives on a hill in the Norn valley with his mongrel dog, Barra.
Berace, Old
A supernatural being who has taken the form of the jolly rustic innkeeper of The Everlong Road Inn. He has knowledge stretching back to the beginnings of the Thirteen Worlds but no interest in taking part in the wars that ravage Seythe. He is charged with offering sanctuary and wisdom to those who need it, nothing more.
Brindan (brin-DUNN)
One of the Three Kingdoms.
Cham, The
A splinter group of the Molloi race that have settled in Yrsyllor as farmers.
Daogoth (DAY-oh-GOTH)
The new leader of the Iron Gods.
Dettha (DET-hah)
An Earlman of the Three Kingdoms.
Dionin (DIE-oh-NYNN)
Creations of the Fallen One. A fusion of Fellfolk ‘volunteers’ and giant carnivorous invertebrates. Possibly the result of an experiment with the Great Larvae.
D’noi (DUH-noy)
A Kay’lo warrior.
Doctors, The
Undefined beings that inhabit a dimension outside of the Thirteen Worlds.
Dracken (DRAH-kin)
Creations of the Fallen One. Stunted dragon-like creatures that obey the will of Malus and E’blis.
Drujja (droo-YAH)
Also known as The Storm that Walks. Creations of the Fallen One.