Kaldor closed his eyes and spoke three words of magic. He felt the seal leave him.
Arda looked at him without reaction.
“There,” he said. “It is done. Arda, you are now the living Seal of Light.”
“I didn’t feel anything,” Arda said. “I don’t feel different.”
Kaldor shook his head. “No, not yet. It is a matter of a higher order, and these things happen according to their own time. You may find that it deepens your own link to the Light. You’ll know the seal has taken root in you when you start seeing the substance of the Kairantheum… Aradma… she doesn’t know. She bears Graelyn’s seal. It is why she too can see divine light. I never thought to tell her…”
“I… I don’t know what to say,” the paladin answered. “I’m not worthy of such a thing. Can’t it go back to the Light? Maybe there doesn’t need to be a seal.”
He smiled and breathed slowly, closing his eyes. He was getting sleepy. The pain was less now. “That is why I want you to have it,” he said. “I don’t think it should die with me, and better it goes to you than someone who thinks they deserve it.”
Arda squeezed his hand. “Oh, Kaldor.”
“There, there, don’t cry,” he said. “I think I’m going to take a little nap.”
They sat in silence for a while.
Before he dozed off, he opened his eyes again. “Another thing,” he said. He looked at both of them. “Be good to each other. Anuit, sorcery cannot be used for good. It corrupts. The Dark is not evil, necessarily, but it is dangerous, and sorcery was designed to corrupt. Klrain was the secret King of Dis. More than any other element, the Dark brings out the evil in us. Only the purest of heart can use the Dark and not be corrupted, and once Klrain fell to evil he corrupted the Dark’s wellspring for all on Ahmbren. Klrain is dead, so his influence is gone. The seal of Dark would have passed away with him, so it may yet be possible that you don’t fall to his fate. Please be careful. Remember love. Arda, please help her with that.”
Anuit came close and joined her hands to theirs. “I promise,” she said. “Sorcery is not something I wish to pursue any further.”
Kaldor shook his head. He coughed. “No, you don’t understand. You can’t stop. You’re in too deep and it’s in you. You have to see it through. You will find balance or you will fall. There is no turning back now. I saw what you are capable of. But remember, you are not alone.” He looked at Arda. “Neither of you are alone.”
He closed his eyes for a moment and then opened them one last time. “Aradma. Did you find Aradma? I would like to see her. I would like to say goodbye.”
Arda shook her head. “Attaris has had Captain Kaern and all the Windbowl guard scouring the land for days now. If she is in Windbowl, she is well hidden. But I think they have taken her from here.”
“Who has taken her?” he asked.
“We think the gypsies,” Anuit answered. “They disappeared the night Rajamin tried to…” she trailed off.
He smiled. “Oh yes. Poor Rajamin. His heart was in the right place… just muddled… promise to find her will you?”
“We promise,” Arda said. “Even now, Attaris and Odoune are looking for her.”
For a moment, his mind became clear and the pain returned. “More importantly,” he said, “Artalon. Finish our work. You know of what I speak.”
They both nodded. “It will be done,” Anuit said. “We will end the rule of gods. And demons.”
He smiled. The world started to get pleasantly fuzzy again.
“Tell Aradma I love her,” he said. “And tell her… don’t wait so long this time… to find someone… she shouldn’t be alone…” Yes, a nap sounded good. “I’m going to rest my eyes for a bit,” he whispered.
His breathing became pleasantly slow.
* * *
King Donogan came to Windbowl and presided over Kaldor’s funeral. Even though the coalition of sovereign states held, Donogan was considered the first among kings, the High King of Hammerfold. It was an honorary title, for their sovereignty was preserved by the treaties Aradma and Odoune had helped them negotiate.
They soon discovered all vampires in Roenti and most of the rest of the world had died when Athra cast Malahkma back into the abyss. Only the Covenant remained. Count Markus sued for peace, and offered a treaty where he agreed to no more incursions into Hammerfold land. He recalled Covenant vampires from all those except Kriegsholm, which chose to remain aligned under Covenant rule. When challenged as to whether they could trust him, he stated, “I know who my god is now. He will hold me to any agreement.” It was said in olden times that Yamosh the Deceiver never lied, and that he was also the God of Contracts.
Roenti and Tiumapar had almost no living people left. The bloodlines for their thrones had not survived. They were empty wastelands waiting to be filled once more. Aradheim and Galadheim had also lost most of their population, but the contagion had not spread quite so deep before Athra destroyed all of Malahkma’s progeny.
Athra’s Jewel disappeared, and none could say what happened to her.
Cloudmoore answered Kristafrost’s call, and the flying city moved over Ahmbren to float above Artalon. The gnomes retook the city, but its secrets remained lost to history.
Tiberan rejoined Ghost in the Tranquil Woods. Keira had traveled with the tiger, and the three of them set off into the abandoned lands to make a life together, avoiding civilization.
Aradma’s friends continued to search for her throughout the Hammerfold states.
THE TIDES OF ARTALON
PROLOGUE
Purgatory
Graelyn’s dreamwalker watched through Sidhna’s eyes as Valkrage surrendered the power of the Violet Dragon to Aaron. Graelyn, the Green Archdragon of Life, saw in Valkrage’s face the price of his loss, and she knew that the mind of his greater self, the Violet Dragon, died in that moment.
The Green Dragon’s dreamwalker saw her alarm echoed in Kaldor’s eyes as he shared her realization. Yet, even knowing the price, he too relinquished his power to Aaron, the Champion. The Gold Dragon’s greater mind, Kaldor’s greater self, faded away.
It was her turn. She was supposed to give over the power of the Green Dragon to Aaron. This was the very reason she, Graelyn’s dreamwalker, had incarnated in the body of the sidhe girl known as Sidhna. She looked at the Champion’s piercing blue eyes. She didn’t want to die for him. She didn’t want to be stuck in Sidhna’s body, the frail frame of a mortal elven woman.
I don’t want you in me, she heard the elven girl’s thoughts roil angrily. For a moment, their shared body froze as the two competing minds fought against each other.
Graelyn’s heart wasn’t in it. She could easily dominate the girl. She could consume her personality as Eldrikura had done to Valkrage. But Graelyn had allowed herself to love the mortal elf as the girl had grown up. She felt Sidhna’s pain when she looked at Aaron. The woman had given her body to him, but in the end Aaron had chosen Valkrage. Valkrage!
Go away! The elven woman’s thoughts rang with vehemence. I reject you! Leave me alone. Return to your Dragon’s body and give me back my self.
Graelyn’s dreamwalker didn’t want to die. She was but a spark, a fragment, of the larger Green Dragon, sent out into the world to fulfill her higher purpose. She wanted to return and be reabsorbed into her higher self. If she surrendered her power to Aaron, the Green Dragon would die, and the dreamwalker would be cut off, alone…
Sidhna also fought against this idea. She wanted to be rid of the Green Dragon’s presence altogether. Graelyn’s dreamwalker could tell herself that compassion for the elf swayed her mind, but compassion was only the excuse. It was the gateway that allowed the fear of death to command her—
—and in a single moment she couldn’t undo, Graelyn’s dreamwalker released herself from the elven girl’s body. She fell away from the physical world in an instant, leaving Sidhna trembling in her wake.
The Green Dragon’s dreamwalker floated numbly through the fi
elds of consciousness. She was but a fragment of a much larger whole, a projected being made from a small piece of the Green Dragon’s mind. The dreamwalker had existed as a separated individuality for over a million years, watching the rise of mortalkind while her greater mind slept.
I have failed!
The immediate memory of abandoning her avatar pierced her numb consciousness.
She floated between the Otherworld and Ahmbren. Her ethereal form still reflected the image of Sidhna. She wanted nothing more than to return to the fullness of her greater mind, to be comforted by the maternal center of power. The shame of her failure was too great, and this self had existed as a separate being for too long.
I never should have been separate for so long. I am too… distinct.
In this place between worlds, she saw the expanse of her greater self, the Archdragon consciousness, spread out before her as a globe of thick soft-green light.
I have failed.
She wanted to dissolve back into her greater mind. She needed—
I cannot go back.
She floated there over the sea of green light. She looked at it reproachfully. She knew the greater mind of her being couldn’t hear her. It was completely focused on maintaining the Black Dragon’s prison. Only, its focus wouldn’t be enough to bind the Dark One any longer. The Gold and Violet Dragons’ greater minds had died. It was only the Green now who remained, and it was only a matter of time before Klrain the Black awakened. But the Green couldn’t disengage from maintaining the prison, for if she awoke, she would awaken him as well.
I would have died, she told the green sea of light. You would have died. Just like Archurion the Gold and Eldrikura the Violet, I would have become mortal and succumbed to old age in the span of mere centuries. I who have lived for millions of years.
But what now? She knew the answer. She felt shame. She had failed.
I must not return to you, my higher self. It will be the end of us all.
If she rejoined her greater mind, the Green Archdragon’s awakening would send out a psychic reverberation over Ahmbren that would pull the Black Dragon out of dragonsleep.
We need time.
But what could she do? Where could she go? She thought about entering dreams to speak with Kaldor and Valkrage, but the shame was too great.
Klrain will awaken. His dreamwalker will sense the bonds are loose.
The realization caused her spirit to tremble. This could not be allowed to happen. She knew what this would mean. Klrain’s dreamwalker lay trapped in the Otherworld, held by the Fae King’s court. She must go there now, and prevent him from awakening… somehow. She needed to buy time for Valkrage and Kaldor. They were all that remained of the two Archdragons, and they were still in Ahmbren with the Champion. Valkrage would figure out another way… the world depended now more than ever on his calculating mind.
The Black Dragon must never become aware of our failure!
The faerie Otherworld was made of light and song, its fabric the substance of dreams. In ages past, all the dreamwalkers had met here and conversed, both with each other and with the faerie inhabitants of the mystical realm.
She stood on the steps of the Fae Court’s glass castle. It had been long since she stood here. The Fae King met her, was waiting for her. His skin was deep red, embellished with bright yellow stripes. A gold crown adorned his forehead, and his eyes held golden disks that matched his body markings. His eyebrows were long, and his ears thin and stretched farther than any elf’s in the physical world. He moved at odd angles, and his lips kept bending in and out of a weird grin.
“It has been long since the Three have turned their attention here,” he said. Through his surreal grin, venom tinged his voice. “You left us to guard Klrain the Black’s dreamwalker. Now there is disharmony in our realms.”
Graelyn looked at the shifting lands around her. The King was right. The music of the Otherworld had undercurrents of discord, broken notes that seemed to creep through the crevices of this realm’s magical foundations.
“I must see him,” she said.
“We have felt the dying of the Gold and Violet minds,” he stated. “It is only a matter of time before he feels it as well. We can no longer contain him. Even now, he stirs in agitation.”
“How much time before he awakens?” Graelyn asked.
“Moments,” the king inclined his head. “Maybe less.”
“Take me to his prison.”
The King of the Fae Court nodded.
They stood outside the crystal chamber. The black oily essence of Klrain’s dreamwalker undulated as a ball of dark lightning, its misty fingers joining its center to the crystalline walls. Even here, Graelyn could see a dark, smoky essence escaping through the facets’ edges.
“He is everywhere,” she said.
The king nodded. “And so we hate you. You who created our world and allowed us to be. Now we are doomed to his fate. Should he awaken, he will twist this world to his will as he unleashes his vengeance upon us, his jailers.”
“He must not awaken,” she said. “The Violet and Gold avatars still live in Ahmbren with the Champion.”
“The Champion is not strong enough to challenge him,” the king stated dryly. “You ensured that when you abandoned the elven girl. He needed the strength of all three of you to have a prayer of success. You failed all of Ahmbren and left Sidhna as an undead husk.” He gestured to the form that Graelyn wore. “And still, you wear her image, at least as she was—youthful and beautiful. I find that… in poor taste.”
Graelyn looked down at her body. He was right. She still thought of herself as Sidhna. She blinked and changed her image back to an older form she had worn before they incarnated, when she would visit mortal dreams. She now appeared as a human woman, with shocking green eyes and chestnut brown hair. She wore an emerald wizard’s robe and drew her hood over her head.
“Why are you here?” the king suddenly asked. “What do you intend to do?”
She looked at him from under her cowl. “I intend to buy my brother and sister time,” she answered. “I became too attached to the elf girl, too influenced by her fears. I allowed myself a moment of weakness and hesitated when it was time for sacrifice. I will put it right.”
“How do you intend to do that?” the king challenged. His eyes shone with true worry, betraying inner emotion. Then he realized what she intended. He held out a hand to her. “Oh no,” he said. “I’m so sorry.” A tear formed in each eye. “Must you?” he asked.
She nodded. She felt a twinge of fear, and banished it.
“He won’t be able to resist me,” she said. “Hopefully I’ll prove a distraction long enough…”
“I will stand watch here until it is done,” the Fae King said. He bowed his head to her and took her hand, kissing her fingers.
She withdrew her hand. “I must do this now,” she said, “before I shrink away again.”
She placed her hand on the edge of the crystal chamber. The dark mist inside flowed to the inner surface of the sphere, touching at her palm…
…and then she was sucked inside the Black Dragon’s mind.
The Fae King stayed beside the chamber, never abandoning his promise to her. He watched the black smoke twist in upon itself to devour the green light that had appeared in the chamber’s heart. The light never died, and the black essence never tired of its feeding. Her screams reverberated silently in the crystal prison for one thousand and thirteen years, until the day the Champion slew the Black Dragon and the Otherworld collapsed in upon itself.
PART 1: DESCENT
1 - Emergence
A spasm of fear jolted Tiberan awake. He lay in a cold sweat on the ground under a large oak tree. The dream haunted him. It had started shortly after he left Artalon, and it was always the same: a human woman, with the greenest of eyes, and the richest brown hair. No, a spirit who wore the image of a human woman, a part of the Green Dragon. She descended into the Black Dragon’s prison, and Klrain couldn’t resist b
ecoming drunk on her agony, oblivious to all other distractions… even the awareness that he could have awakened from dragonsleep had he just turned his attention away for a moment.
A piece of the Green Dragon lived on in the core of Tiberan’s being, the central point of his soul around which the faerie sparks had gathered. He had fully integrated them into himself, and no inner voices or echoes of dead personalities haunted his mind, unlike most of his people. Still, he had their memories. They were his now, just like the Dragon’s memories were his. The spark of the Dragon lived within him, and even his name had come from it, an old name from the old dragon language. Tiberan: He Who Masters.
He wondered if the tormented piece of the Dragon in his dreams had also been a piece of what had birthed him. He wasn’t sure, but regardless of the truth, the dreams shook him to the core.
He lay beneath the trees of the Tranquil Woods. He had left Artalon weeks ago after being thrown nine years into the future by the Archmage Valkrage. Now, he walked north. He had no desire to involve himself any further in the affairs of the world.
He needed to get away, needed time to think. Seeing his beloved Aradma in the arms of another man had torn his heart. He wasn’t angry. He understood. Tiberan had been thrown forward in time, and thinking him dead, she had moved on.
So he withdrew. Let her think he was still dead. He would go far, far away.
He stood and brushed dust from his trousers. He sensed two beings approach that were not native to the Tranquil Woods. One, he knew: the tiger named Ghost, his companion from Vemnai. Tiberan felt the animal through the link he had established, and ever since reappearing in Artalon, he had felt the beast draw closer. The other, a wolven woman, was a surprise. She was covered in jet-black fur, and her lupine eyes were unusually blue, rather than the common gold of her kind. Tiberan waited for them patiently, putting thoughts of the dream aside.
When Dragons Die- The Complete Trilogy Box Set Page 83