They came to the balcony, and they could see a dust cloud slowly rising from all around the city’s outskirts. Artalon’s towers swayed, and the ground kept trembling.
“It seems we do now,” Eszhira stated grimly. “What do we do?”
“The zorium will hold,” Attaris said, “but this is most unusual.”
Suddenly the whole tower dropped five feet. They all fell to their knees.
“That’s not an earthquake!” Yinkle exclaimed.
“Fuck me!” Oriand cried out. “They attack from the ground…”
“They can’t get through zorium,” Attaris protested. “Can they?”
The tower dropped again another ten feet, and now the floor was slanted; the tower tilted away from the sky. Oriand looked outside and saw the entire skyline of the city askew of the horizon.
“They’re not,” she realized.
“Oh, Modhrin’s Hammer!” Attaris swore. “They’re pulling the earth beneath the city away. They’re going to sink Artalon!”
A great rumbling built, and the city tilted again. They fell away from the window as the floor heaved, sending them tumbling back against the far wall.
Then, with a horrible scraping sound that echoed around the city, Artalon fell into the earth. The Sea of Wrath poured over the disintegrating shore, crashing through the sinking streets. Salty spray and plumes of dust mixed in the air, coating Oriand’s tongue with a gritty taste that made her grimace.
They huddled, grabbing on to each other and the walls in case the city bucked the other way and sent them flying. The towers continued to slide into the earth until finally the city settled and returned to an upright position.
It’s reached a deeper layer of rock, Oriand thought. She pushed herself to her feet and made her way to the balcony. She had to see.
The city had sunk a hundred feet beneath the sea that now reclaimed it. Water flowed between the towers, and debris and bodies floated and churned as the sea slowly settled. Some people had managed to survive, trying to swim to safety, and others tread water.
“Fuck me, fuck us all,” Oriand gasped. Arda’s vernacular came more naturally now.
From outside the city, from all directions, a roiling mass filled the water, and she saw flashes of crocodile-like tails and jaws, with humanoid legs. Thousand of them. Tens of thousands of troglodytes swimming through the water with ease.
People screamed. They were pulled under the watery surface, and soon the froth of blood mixed with the sea-foam churn, turning it pink.
Her friends came to the balcony to witness the massacre below. “We’ve lost,” Oriand cried out in despair. She leaned over the balcony’s edge, clenching the rails until her indigo knuckles turned white, and she lifted her face to the sky. From the bottom of her gut, Oriand let out a primal howl of rage. She kept screaming until her throat turned raw and her voice would make no more sound.
Then the sky went dark, and then the fallen hosts of Dis descended onto the tower tops.
35 - When Dragons Die
Aradma couldn’t leave the city. She was compelled not to do so.
She couldn’t open the prison pods. She was compelled not to do so.
She couldn’t speak to Tiberan or Arda through the gap in the pods’ nearly closed lips. She was compelled not to do so.
All she could do was stand beside them. Her choros skin protected her from the city’s dwellers, identifying her as one of their own, while the pods protected the other two. She had been commanded to remain there, forbidden from returning to the tower unless she went to surrender herself to the enemy.
Athaym spent his time at the top of Taer Koorla, watching the battle for Artalon from afar. Aradma knew that as soon as his forces took God Spire, he would gather the seals there and bind the land in Darkness.
Your last chance to be Life’s Advocate, he had said before he left her there, is to join me in the tower before Artalon is mine. Surrender your body, woman, and grant me a child, or go as a slave with the others.
He wanted to kill the gods somehow—was that even possible?—and precipitate the Turning of an age. A new aeon.
Ahmbren had passed through only nine aeons since its mass condensed around the sun, the way dragons counted time, and only three of those were counted by mortalkind. Every Turning involved a fundamental shift in the consciousness of Ahmbren’s life force and the living beings that inhabited it. The Seventh Aeon, called the First Age by mortals, saw the rise of civilization out of barbarian nomadic tribes. The Eighth Aeon, the Second Age, saw mortalkind attempt to define themselves through conflict, now free of the Archdragons’ rulership from the prior age. This ended with the Fall of Artalon and the destruction of the Darkling Empire. Now in the Ninth Aeon, the Third Age, religion, art, and philosophy guided the search for meaning though culture. The Shadowlord’s reign had only been a thousand-year dark stain on a ten-thousand year evolution of thought and civilization.
She wondered. Was a Tenth Aeon possible? If Athaym—she refused to think of him as Klrain any more than she thought of herself as Graelyn—had his way, the Tenth Aeon would bring about an age of darkness. Life could emerge again, for Ahmbren had been born from darkness, but they would be starting over.
How could he kill the gods? If he were able to seize control of the Kairantheum through Artalon’s power, what would he do?
She remembered then what he had said, and horror stabbed an icy chill through her heart as she realized he would succeed. He would will the gods to surge and strike against the very mortals who worshipped them. He would still end all life that had hopes and dreams, that had the ability to conceive of greatness and the desire to achieve it. The gods would kill the very sources that kept them alive—Ahmbren’s peoples—and then they themselves would starve.
Ahmbren had clearly moved on from the time of dragons, and mortalkind was now its flower of life. The problem with the Archdragons was that they were, for all practical purposes, gods themselves. It didn’t matter that they technically weren’t gods; their touch was too heavy in the later aeons’ streams of life. By the time the other sapient races evolved, the four Archdragons were no longer like the other dragons. They couldn’t escape worship. But both Archdragons and gods were shackles from earlier aeons, and Ahmbren’s life could not evolve further as long as they remained.
There had to be another way forward. The Turning had to happen, but not with so much death.
Her heart sank. He will win. In days, or less, he will take Artalon, and I have failed. We have all failed. We will go with him and he will use us to unlock its power, and then it will all be over. He will discard us, and Life will have no advocate. Life’s only hope is that I go with him, and the time is almost gone… unless I go to him. Surrender Life to save life.
Her body responded to her thoughts, her anger, and trembled to create life as a defiant act against so much death.
But then: No. He forgets life’s purpose: joy.
She closed her eyes, and tears fell. I will not go to you. She grieved for Ahmbren. I will not destroy hope and joy. There is other life in the universe; if this is the fate we have wrought for ourselves, then our fruit is death.
In her mind’s eye, through Dragon’s memories, she saw the expanse of stars across the universe. The cosmos was a garden, and flowers of life bloomed across the Void as pockets of Light. Some had once been joined by Artalon; others lay alone and yet undiscovered. If she went to Klrain now and gave him what he wanted, Ahmbren would become a source of darkness that would threaten other worlds. I will devour this world and all worlds across the stars, the Black Dragon had said once. Without her, without Life, his legacy would devour itself here on Ahmbren until this world died. But he wouldn’t threaten the others.
She took a deep breath, coming to peace with the end of things. You have failed, Klrain, she calmly thought, speaking in her mind not to Athaym, but to the Black Dragon she had known for aeons. For all your confidence, and even if we all perish before you, you will fail. You will achieve your purpose and
destroy the gods, and all life on Ahmbren, but the Dark will consume you, and this world will die. You will be alone in the end, and then you too will fade away as the universe moves on.
Aradma heard a movement behind her and spun on her heels. All the warriors had gone with Naiadne, and very few walking creatures remained among the female buildings. Only choros, and those warriors too young yet to undergo the rites of choros-nalcht.
The space behind the prison pods lay dark, unnaturally so. The druid took a step back.
The shadow dropped away, and Anuit stood there, holding a bundle of leather with Arda’s sword hilt sticking out from it. Aradma sucked in a breath. The sorceress appeared just as Aradma had remembered, only a bit older now. No, there was something else. Were Aradma able to touch Life, she could have seen the music in Anuit’s soul, but that sight was closed to her. Still, there was something… severe.
Anuit’s eyes widened in surprise when she saw the light elf. “You’re alive!” she exclaimed, grinning. Then: “Where’s Arda?”
Aradma’s face fell in dismay. “Oh, Anuit, Odoune and Fernwalker came too, and I sent them away. You are no match for Athaym. He is—”
“The Black Dragon. Yes, I know.” Anuit looked around, taking in the monstrous city. She seemed unfazed. “I followed his pathways here. Athaym took Arda from Dis.”
“What were you doing in Dis?” Aradma asked.
“Looking for the secret to unlock Artalon,” Anuit said. “We found it, but he took her.”
Aradma shook her head. “He already knows its secret. He has us all, the four seals. It’s only a matter of time before he takes Artalon, and you must leave before he notices you. He has bound us just as you bind and command your demons.”
Anuit considered that for a moment. “Us.”
Aradma motioned to the prison pods. “Tiberan and Arda are there. Even if you free them, they are compelled, as am I, to stay. And he has cut each of us off from our elements. Please… go before he finds you here.”
“Do you have a plan?” Anuit asked. She seemed completely unconcerned about her danger.
Aradma frowned. “I’ve… no. I cannot see a way out.”
“He must have a weakness,” Anuit said. “What does he desire?”
Aradma laughed in spite of herself. “Aside from killing the gods? Me. He wants me to surrender and love him. To worship him.”
“We can’t kill the gods,” Anuit said. “I’ve seen Those Who Dwell Beyond, floating in the space between worlds. They would devour our world were it not for the Kairantheum.”
Aradma raised a skeptical eyebrow. Ah! she then realized with a quick intake of breath. There it is! Those Who Dwell Beyond. The spirits of failed worlds, devouring without end. Had I gone to Athaym, Ahmbren would have taken its place among their number.
“It is over, Anuit,” Aradma said sadly. “I will not go to him. If I do, life will continue for a time, but Ahmbren’s path will warp and twist, until, in the aeons to come… I would rather this world die than become one of them.”
Anuit paused and took in Aradma’s meaning. “Those Who Dwell Beyond. Revenant worlds. Life and Dark, without Light or Time.” She frowned. “Ahmbren herself would become as Seredith is now. No, you cannot give him that.”
Aradma nodded in sad agreement.
“Wait,” Anuit suddenly blurted. “He wants you to worship him!” She lay the leather bundle down on the ground.
“He will never have it,” Aradma replied, shaking her head, “and I wouldn’t be able to fool him. I can’t leave from here until I offer him my body.”
Anuit grinned, and then shifted suddenly. Aradma blinked as she stared at a doppelganger of herself.
“How?” the druid asked.
“I’ve mastered my demons,” Anuit-as-Aradma replied. “I’ve reintegrated them into my being. Their separation was a lie… and now my truth is restored. You should appreciate that.”
It felt eerie, looking at herself. Every detail was precise, nothing overlooked. The black choros suit, the red stripes peaking out over wrists and neck, and even the glow of the green striations lining stained-oak irises.
Aradma reached out and touched Anuit-as-Aradma’s belly, sliding her fingers beneath the mollusks of the black suit. They parted at her touch, and she gasped as she felt even the pink scar from when Skole had threatened her unborn Fernwalker with his knife, almost twenty years ago. She jerked her hand back.
“What are you going to do, Anuit?” she asked, eyes narrowing.
Anuit regarded Aradma with those knowing seelie eyes. Is this how people see me? Aradma wondered.
“I’m going to use a trick,” the sorceress said. “One that the Lord of Incubi almost used on Arda. I’m going to steal his power.”
* * *
“Shit!” Fernwalker shouted. “I’m out!” She pulled back and raised her rifle. Cory Piper threw her a leather pack of rounds. She grabbed them and hastily reloaded. This is crazy! They don’t even use guns. They just run at us.
Aradma’s Legacy had been overrun. Troglodytes had come through, cutting people down in the hall as they penetrated their lines. Fernwalker and her companions had been isolated and cut off from the rest and retreated farther up into the tower. Sidhna helped during the nighttime fights, protecting what little sleep they had and guarding their retreats, but she had to mist away before dawn and find a hidden place to sleep through the day.
The troglodytes were tough, of that there was no question, but they weren’t impossible to kill. There were just so bloody many of them.
Suleima cocked her own rifle. She had abandoned her runestones years ago and now fought like the rest of them. She fired a few rounds down the hall, dropping one of the advancing warriors, and then Attaris filled the hall with lightning bolts from his hammers.
“That should slow them a bit,” he said.
Fernwalker raised her rifle, ready to fire again, but nothing stirred.
“We need to keep moving,” Cory Piper said, emerging from down the hall, followed by Yinkle. They sheathed their rapiers after they rejoined the others. “More will come, and we need to find a defensible position.”
“Aye,” Attaris agreed. “The runes will replenish us only for so long before we’ll need sleep. Actual sleep.”
Sleep sounded good. It was the dusk of the fourth night since Artalon had fallen, and none of them had gotten much rest; some of them, none.
“Krista and Ezzie went on ahead,” Fernwalker told them. “They’re looking for a clear path out of here. The next tower over is supposed to be more secure. Maybe we can manage some sleep there.” This isn’t good. We’re on the defensive. We can’t afford to surrender Artalon, but they’re flushing us out like rats. She glanced sideways at the two ratlings after that last thought.
“Let’s go catch up with them,” Attaris replied. “There’s no sense in sticking around here.”
They navigated over debris from previous fighting through halls and stairwells. Eszhira met them, beckoning. “We’ve found a bridge,” she said. “It’s clear, and the next tower is held by orcs. They’ll take us in.”
They hurried through a medium-sized kitchen chamber with a stone-tiled balcony opening out onto a narrow platform. The walkway wrapped around the outer wall and led to a bridge connecting to the next tower.
Kristafrost appeared around the bend. “Hurry!” she said.
Odoune landed as an owl beside her and then shifted into his troll form, and they followed the gnome single file around the platform until it joined the larger bridge. It widened into a graceful arc that landed at the nearby tower. Demons assaulted its crown, but gnomish wizards and orcish runewardens seemed to be doing an adequate job of holding them off.
“Quick!” Kristafrost shouted. “We’re exposed on the bridge!”
Odoune took up the rear, shifting into his bear form. Fernwalker ran in front, the ratlings scampering on all fours beside her. The bridge narrowed at the arch’s apex, and something caught her eye over the side rails.
She stopped to get a look.
Below her, on a bridge only ten feet above the agitated water, a knot of troglodytes and demons clashed with a phalanx of dwarven warriors. The dwarves fought fiercely with shields and blast-axes—axes whose shafts were short shotgun barrels—but were soon overcome by the frenzied mass of hellhound teeth and troglodyte jaws. Red blood sprayed through the air, coloring the bridge’s sides and water below.
But there, in the middle of the monstrous squad, stood a little girl. She couldn’t have been much more than ten years old… and she was seelie.
“Oh shit!” Fernwalker exclaimed. That dwarven company had been trying to save that girl—how in Dis did a girl get stuck in this city?!—and she was next!
Without thinking, Aradma’s daughter hopped over the side of the bridge and fell. She fired her rifle, dropping two of the troglodytes before she shifted into the white crane, her outstretched arms expanding into feathers as the rifle absorbed into her body.
She dove and, at the last moment, caught the air, swerving under the low bridge and up the other side. At the height of the arc, she shifted back into elven form and fired her last four rounds before she alighted beside the seelie girl.
The girl stared up at her. She had short cyan hair and facial features that were eerily familiar. Her body was covered in a strange black skin-suit. Fernwalker knelt and took her in her arms. “Don’t worry,” she said, “I’ll get you out of here.”
She bent her knees and stepped back, ready for the enemy’s assault. Her free hand sparked with life-captured starlight, and she prepared to open up on the monstrous horde.
The troglodytes ignored her, passing her by. The hellhounds stopped and fixated on the two seelie, but they stepped back and lowered their heads, giving her space.
“A seelie,” the little girl said. “I’m sorry you have to die.”
Fernwalker dropped the girl in surprise, stepping back. The child regarded her with cold light in her eyes.
She’s with them!
How was that possible?
“Oh gods…” Fernwalker gasped. Ten years old. Fighting alongside troglodytes. The familiar face. That black suit, the same her mother had been wearing in captivity.
When Dragons Die- The Complete Trilogy Box Set Page 130