by Jason Alan
But before Herard Avari Fang’s soul stepped into the eternal limbo that existed before the closed gates to the Seven Glories, he thought of a name. He projected that name out into the void, over and over again, until his mind was silenced forever.
Vu Verian…Vu Verian…Vu Verian…
Herard’s blood supply was severely depleted, the blood itself with little flavor. What a shame. Such little sustenance, hence, little satisfaction. No matter. This was but a taste of what was to come.
Warloove lifted his blood-soaked face from his feasting, and what remained of Herard crumbled onto the carpet. The vampire then turned about, his smoky form twirling tighter into itself. Soon a head formed behind the white face, and a body materialized beneath the head. He had solidified, returned to his dark elf incarnation. All his physical characteristics were enshrouded, though, for the smoke on his surface continued swirling around him as an all-encompassing robe. Only his eyes peeked through the shroud, now glowing as brilliant yellow slashes.
Warloove called into the shadowy recesses of the chamber. “Slave, come.”
“Yes, my Lord.”
From beneath the stair, a decrepit being limped into the light of the chandelier. This being’s black robes were tattered, shredded, the embroidered runes ripped and glowing a dull green. He stumbled toward Warloove, relying on a staff that was as crooked as his spine. His breathing was labored and loud. A painful grunt ensued with every step, for many of his bones had been broken, only to be put back together haphazardly. Debilitating diseases saturated his organs, and his blood was suffused with poisons. These maladies were not natural. They were a curse.
He had been afflicted with the Ever Dying.
Such was the price for losing the Gauntlets of Loathing Light.
Such was the punishment for Morigos of the Moom!
You remember Morigos, right, my friend?
Here was he who had betrayed his dark elf brethren to the side of light…
He stepped up to Warloove and bowed, well, at least insofar as he was able. When he spoke, it sounded more as if he was trying to cough up a stuck piece of meat than he was trying to enunciate words. “What will you have of me, my merciful Lord?”
“What will I have of you? What do you think, fool? The gauntlets! Retrieve what you have lost! They are in that pestiferous palace in the sky, Vren Adiri. You have gained favor with that accursed angel, have you not? So, go there and get them!”
“Yes, great one, I am willing…though thanks to you not quite as able.”
“What?”
“Nothing, Lord!”
“Go, Morigos, and may the Dark Forever save you if you fail me again.”
“Yes, merciful one. Thank you.” Morigos turned about and crept back into the darkness beneath the stair.
Warloove called after him, “Remember, if you fail me again, I will see you burn.”
Morigos didn’t belabor himself by turning about, but paused and nodded. Then he shuffled away, practically rowing himself with his staff, murmuring beneath his breath, “I think not, merciful one. It will be me who watches you burn…”
“What did you say?”
“I still have so much to learn, my Lord!”
“Yes, you do. And always remember, I am more than your master, I am your blood…”
Morigos disappeared into the shadows.
Warloove walked to the center of the chamber and sang sorcery. Thin beams of white light appeared in the air and formed the three-dimensional outline of a large pyramid beneath the chandelier. The pyramid emitted a peculiar hum, and the image of a bulbous grey head materialized in the center.
Warloove waited silently, obediently, as the head’s oblong eyes stared down at him. They were emptier than a shadow demon’s eyes, their depths as hollow as a black hole. The image flickered and the head spoke, its words coldly monotone.
Warloove, you waste precious time toying with these mortals. You share information with them and express to them your desires. Why? I’ve told you before, do not ever treat them as anything more than slaves.
“I know, I know.”
Do you?
Warloove bowed low. “Yes, Darkis.”
What am I?
Suddenly, before he could answer, Warloove was washed over with crackling red energy. It was a Robe of Soul Stabbing. Its electric arms shot through his cloak of smoke, dug through his skin, and stabbed down into his dark soul, such was their strength. He struggled through the pain of a thousand jabbing discharges to answer, “You…are my salvation, my master. Please, I beg you!”
As you punish your subjects, know that you, too, will be punished. You’re wasting time. Apparently, I have understated how valuable time is. The sun is dying, the Dark Forever is coming, and my enemies search the stars for me. If they find me, I swear the wrath I suffer will be nothing in comparison to what I do to you.
“Yes, master…I understand.” Warloove sank to his knees.
The Gauntlets of Loathing Light were handed to your people, and yet you managed to lose them. They must be retrieved! We cannot harness the power of the Sunsword without them. Our starship awaits, Warloove. We must honor the deal with the Devil King and secure this sword, or all our eternities will suffer.
“We will have both the gauntlets and the sword,” Warloove cried. “I swear it!”
The robe’s energy intensified.
Warloove fell to his hands. “Please! We have assassinated the Emperor of the Sky. The sword should not be difficult to acquire now.”
The robe’s energy crackled, Warloove’s cloak of smoke sizzled, and his dead skin burned.
“Please, master. The pain!”
Do not fail me, or you will die…again.
Then all went silent.
The Robe of Soul Stabbing disappeared, and the pyramidal image faded.
After a moment’s seething, Warloove composed himself, arose, and strode into the bowels of his castle. It was time to conceal himself in the shadows in which he had lived for a thousand years, for soon the sun would arise. But he swore that when the stars again dotted the sky, he would unleash his own hell upon those who stood against him.
After the vampire left his entry parlor, Morigos stepped from the darkness beneath the stairway, and smiled.
Now, my loyal reader, fateful events have already led us to an unfortunate, yet unavoidable, set of circumstances. And though our brave Herard no longer walked among the realms of the living, in a manner of speaking, the best of him was yet to come...
Hereafter, let me tell you of his son.
One may bear the ice and rain, the lash of storms, the winds of change; but can we sanely still remain, within the eyes of hurricanes?
Petroo Chi
Lord Minstrel of the Sleeping Tombs
Vu Verian…
Buffeted by winds of unease, a lone cloud stirred in Phate’s sky. It contracted and flattened, its billows smoothing over and unfurling into a pair of silvery-white wings. Talons sprang from the bottom, and tail feathers extended from behind. A large, rounded face took shape at its head, revealing sky blue eyes that were wide, sad, and staring. Long ago these eyes had been radiant, but now they were dulled by the weariness of unwanted wisdom. They blinked a few times, and the transformation was complete.
The Great White Owl had awakened.
The elegant creature turned about, then coasted over the Continent Isle of Volcar.
It was dawn.
The sky was a sea of swirling colors that washed the last of the night’s black away, and the Shards of Zyrinthia twinkled red over the purple crescents of Rong and the Four Apostles. The owl looked to the five moons for a moment, then turned his gaze to the brightening east. He sighed, for there was an even greater beauty. There, clouds piled like snowy mountains over the glowing curve of the horizon. An abandoned city of ivory citadels that was embedded in the clouds’ sides sparkled in the emerging sun, and the spirit dragons soaring above it glittered in the brightening rays.
Dusk was consi
dered magical on many worlds, but on Phate, dawn was miraculous.
The owl soared on, careful to avoid the sorcerous storms that plagued the skyways below him. How careless wizards from previous ages had been! That they’d inflicted the future with the ire of their own age, that multicolored lightning incessantly blasted the lands—
Vu Verian…
“Hello?”
What was that? A voice in his head? Perhaps a lost spirit had just called to him. It was a possibility; Phate’s sky was filled with them these days. Or perhaps it was just a lingering effect from his dreams. Yes, that was probably it. His dreams had been troubling of late. They’d been haunted by those poor, doomed beings stranded on worlds that lay on the brink of the black holes. Sometimes their voices followed him into the day. There was nothing he could do about this, so he just flew on. A few more minutes went by, and the voice was gone.
Good.
Vu Verian…
“Not again!” Now this was no dream! Something or someone was trying to contact him from beyond the primary universe.
He slowed to a hover and attuned his mystical hearing to all the planes of existence. Moments later, he was able to pinpoint the voice’s origin in a dimension typically inhabited by recently deceased souls. Although he couldn’t yet tell whose voice it was, he could hear a message coming through. It was difficult to decipher, for the roaring racket of the Dark Forever echoed across the dimensions, thus garbling the words. He concentrated harder. The words began to clarify, but he still didn’t recognize—
Vu Verian…
Wait. He did recognize the voice.
“May the Gods return, oh, no…”
Now it made sense.
Whatever words were coming through were the last words of his only friend. Although he didn’t want to hear them, he knew he must. He sang out, invoking stronger sorcery, lifting the voice above the discordant din of eternity. There was a ripple in the air before him, and the voice spoke out clearly.
This is what it said:
Vu Verian, if you can possibly hear me, know that I have passed into the Forever. I’m sorry, my old friend, I’m afraid the sky needs you once again. You know what must be done. Save the Sunsword, and please, help those who will help my son. Tell Drinwor…tell him that I will be watching over him, always.
I have done all I can for this world. I have expended all my hopes. And if there is any hope left, may you find it in the stars, may you see it in the eyes of my son, and may the Gods return your blue sky to you. Farewell, Vu Verian. Someday, when the gates to the Seven Glories reopen, perhaps we shall meet again. Farewell…
And then the voice was gone.
Vu Verian’s owl head bowed before his fluttering wings, and he fought back tears. “Yes, Herard,” he whispered, “I know what needs to be done.” So, the time had come. The universe was now racing headlong into its inescapable fate.
He snapped his wings, and his silvery-white form streaked through the sky like a shooting star.
It was time for the son to be awakened.
Vu Verian passed into the northwestern skies of Volcar and approached the sky elf palace of Areshria. “Beautiful Areshria…” Ah, there it stood upon its enchanted cloud bank, gleaming in the morning light, proudly defying the mysterious, magical pull of gravity. It was said the sorcery that held the palace in the sky was so strong it would last forever.
“Forever.”
It was an impossibility, Vu Verian mused. Nothing that stood before the face of time lasted forever; not even time itself would endure thus…
And yet, he was amazed how the passage of centuries never seemed to diminish Areshria’s splendor. Made of glistening white pearl, the palace’s tallest tower had no rival in all the galaxy. Its pointed spire pinnacled some ten miles above its cloudy foundation. That it was made of something solid was sometimes hard to believe, for in certain lights, its smooth walls looked to be flowing like curtains of white silk buffeted in a gentle breeze. The giant crystal dragon statues seated at the four corners of the spire’s base glinted with reflections of the crescent moons, and their eyes blazed like white fires.
Adjoining towers tapered down from the main one in a wide, closed ring, guarding the sprawling city that slept within. Vu Verian flew between two of these towers and dipped low over the city. There was little to see, for over time, the unattended cloud bank had reached up and swamped the streets with mist. The sapphire libraries and platinum halls and silver forges had all but sunk into the clouds.
“Such a shame,” whispered the white owl.
Such a shame indeed. Once this place had been a sanctuary for the world’s most gifted artists and musicians, the capital city to ten million sky elves, the realized vision of an entire race’s labors drifting over a world of unimaginable wonders. Now it was a place of forgotten dreams, forgotten hopes. Now, like so many other places on Phate, it was empty.
Vu Verian could see its inhabitants in his mind’s eye; he could feel the warmth of their souls flitting through his heart. Oh, how he sorely missed them! How he sorely missed long vanished days… “Areshria,” he muttered, “the one-time Spire of the Sky, a jewel in the eye of a bygone world.”
He flew across the city, curled around to the outside wall of the main tower, then flew miles up its side, passing through flocks of vaporous spirit dragons as he went. He ascended to the topmost terrace and touched softly to the floor, arcane songs slipping from his beak.
And for the second time this morning, Vu Verian transformed. Once as large as a small dragon, his owl form now shrank to humanoid size. His feathers smoothed over into silky skin and long satiny robes. Luxuriant hair sprouted from his head to flow straight down his back. The features that formed on his face were both delicate and strong. Everything about him was pristine white—everything except his eyes. Slit wide beneath a gently sloping brow, they remained a solid sky blue, beautiful wells of enduring sorrow.
Here was the true incarnation of Vu Verian.
Here was the last sky elf on Phate.
Now he observed things from the highest viewpoint in the world. The roof of clouds below him looked like a carpet, stained here and there with storms. The horizon’s curve was so dramatic, the world looked as though it was rolling away from him. Had the crescent moons been steps, he felt as if he could have lifted his foot over the railing and climbed them to the stars.
It was a singular, solitary feeling, being alone above the clouds—a feeling he well knew. He silently gazed at the sky for a short while, just standing there as wind whipped hair into his face. Eventually he slid his hair aside and said, “I’ve been alone for so long…so long. Herard, how could you leave me?” Then he turned on his heels and strode to the terrace’s twin crystal doors.
The sigils of protection inscribed in the doors’ molding brightened upon his arrival, but dimmed just as fast, recognizing the spirit of the one who had placed them there.
Vu Verian grasped the latch with a quivering hand.
He began to turn it…then stopped.
He closed his eyes, brought his head to rest gently upon the door.
“Damn,” he quietly swore.
Then he lifted his head and conjured his Cloak of Winds, a mystical mantle that masked him within an invisible shroud. With a resigned sigh, he opened the doors and slipped inside like a fog come to darken a forest wrapped in sunny dreams…
Sleep.
Night after night it had escaped Drinwor Fang, and this night had been no different. Try as he might, he could find no respite from tireless thought. How the body could be so exhausted, yet the mind so filled with energy, was beyond him. Why must one peruse the meanings of existence and mortality when one simply wanted to sleep? What was it about the night that brought out these inner demons? It was torture, really. Each sleepless night seemed like a little eternity in itself.
Sleep! Please! he screamed in his mind.
He grumbled and tossed about, ending up in a position so awkward it ensured that he would stay wide
awake while his left arm went completely numb. Seconds later, he grumbled again and flipped to his other side. Oh, this was perfect; now he was even more uncomfortable! His right arm, bent in a most uncomfortable angle as it pinched beneath his chest, began to tingle with the onset of numbness.
He was defeated.
Sleep would elude him yet again.
Yes, my earthling reader, sleepless nights have haunted countless souls in countless ages on countless worlds. In this, at least, you are not alone.
Anyway, Drinwor rolled onto his back and propped his head upon a stack of silk pillows.
“All right,” he said to the dark, “you win. I don’t need sleep…no, really…I’m fine.”
An hour went by.
“Still awake.”
Another hour. “Is it the end of the universe yet?”
And another.
“Suffering…sleepless…stupidity…”
He yawned. And then, finally, just as the sun broke its crimson beams across the horizon, just as the morning began to snuff the light of the stars, Drinwor’s mind hushed for something longer than a moment, and he immediately fell into deep dreams.
Only to be awakened mere seconds later.
Someone was there.
Drinwor sat up with a start. “Hello?” He blinked, rubbed his eyes.
The space beyond the foot of his bed glittered with tiny sparkles.
Drinwor smiled through a yawn.
The Cloak of Winds.
“Vu Verian! It’s been a long time. Wha—”
“Forgive the intrusion Drinwor, I didn’t mean to startle you.” The mystic sky elf loosened the magical cloak, and his outline appeared—a thin, clear light, like that of the crescent moons’, surrounding the sparkles within his frame.