by Jason Alan
He shook his head. “No. I don’t really want to talk. No one has spoken truthfully with me yet. I’m alone…”
“You’re never alone. Please, talk to me, I—”
“Not now, Morning’s Hope. I can’t.”
“As you wish.” She moved her head down closer to his, and softly said, “But please know—you can tell me anything, at any time, should you desire.”
As Drinwor looked upon her glorious face, he felt himself change yet again, as if whatever hardened version of himself had just appeared just as quickly fled. His own face lightened, and his expression returned to the one of hopeful innocence that Morning’s Hope was accustomed to seeing. He matched the softness of her words when he next spoke. “I know. I know I can talk to you. Thank you.” And then he patted his leg pouch, and said, “We’re all right. It’s just all been so much to bear. I’ll get used to it.”
Morning’s Hope opened her mouth to comment further, but from somewhere behind them came a raucous cough. The two glanced to the field, and there, on a nearby hill, cloaked in dark, ripped robes, stood a crooked figure clutching an equally crooked staff. A strange little song emanated from the oversized cowl, and the figure disappeared in a puff of black smoke…only to instantly reappear right beside them.
“Morigos!” Drinwor cried out. He was surprised at how happy he was to see the haggard dark elf.
Morigos choked, swiped away the smoke clinging to his robes, then managed: “What in the name of blasphemy went on here? Were you simulating the impending death of our ancient sun? What was all that light?”
Drinwor clenched his fists. “I’ve succeeded! The Sunsword has been imbued with a soul!”
“Succeeded?” Morigos snorted. “You’ll vanquish yourself before you vanquish any foes with that thing! At the very least lose a limb or two. Just another blasted, burning light!”
Drinwor pointed toward the falls. “What were you doing there?”
The mage cupped a hand to the side of his head. “Eh? What is that you say?”
“I told you,” Morning’s Hope said, “he’s worse.”
Drinwor smiled, and spoke louder and slower. “I asked—what were you doing in the falls?”
“Ah, I see. I mean, I hear…barely! Damnable banshee scream probably won’t ever completely abandon my ears! No matter. Anyway, I was salvaging what’s left of this broken body, my boy, though little good that’ll do me.”
Drinwor nodded, though he didn’t entirely understand.
Oh, then swiftly did a darkness pass over them, causing everyone to look upward. A velvety black cloud had snuck in over their heads, squirming through the sky like a worm through the dirt. Morning’s Hope whispered, “Silence, no one move!” Everyone froze, and the cloud slunk down and twined about them; and it seemed as though it had an awareness, like some spirit, for it issued unintelligible whispers and chilling moans. But when it slid around Drinwor, sparks ignited in its innards, and shrieking it flew back up into the sky, leaving a fading wake of red fire.
“What was that?” Drinwor asked as he watched it fly away.
“Specter demon,” Morigos answered. “They bleed fire. Somehow, you wounded it. Nicely done!”
Drinwor let out a little gasp and looked to Morning’s Hope. “The sword does attract quite a lot of attention.”
She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. As I said, sword or no, it was inevitable that we would be seen. But now, with specter demons about, and the Dark Forever freed, time is against us. We must leave.”
“Where are we going?” Drinwor asked.
“Where else?” Morigos cried, raising his staff high, “to Ulith Urn, where our doom…eh, where the doom of eternity awaits!”
“Yes,” Morning’s Hope concurred. “Nenockra Rool will likely enter the primary universe somewhere close to Ulith Urn. My Emperor, you’re going to see some unpleasant things. Phate has endured—”
“I know,” he interrupted, “the damage caused by the shards.”
“It is not so much the destruction caused by the shards that I speak of,” she said. “It is the effects of the Dark Forever that will be difficult to take in. The world will appear…morbid.”
Drinwor clasped his hands together and bowed his head. “Wonderful.” Then he suddenly perked up, and said, “Oh, are we going to leave without Vu Verian?”
Morning’s Hope nodded. “Indeed, we must, for all fate cannot wait for him! Fear not,” she reassured, “I think I know where he is. He will find us.”
“I hope not!” Morigos said, cackling even as Morning’s Hope glared at him.
“I wonder what he’s doing,” Drinwor said.
The dark elf’s cackling suddenly turned into a painful grunt, and he held up a broken, backward facing finger. He threw down his staff, grabbed the finger with his other hand and twisted it round. Drinwor grimaced as it crunched back into place. The mage cackled, cursed, and said: “Battle damage.” Then he picked up his staff, and faced Morning’s Hope. “I would never presume to sit with the boy Emperor upon your noble back, but I have not the strength to fly myself across the continent. What strength I have left is reserved for killing demons.”
Morning’s Hope stared to the west, to the sky over the Phantom Falls. “I have foreseen this. Last night, after our fight, I summoned a loyal emissary of the Fallen Angel. She arrives now.”
Drinwor and Morigos looked to where her gaze was fixed, and saw something descend out of the darkening clouds. Thankfully, it was no specter demon. No, no, not at all! It was snowy white, bespeckled all over with silvery glints. The movements of its feathered wings were fluid and graceful. The creature didn’t fly so much as it swam through the sky, in a fashion reminding Drinwor of Morning’s Hope.
As it approached, Drinwor couldn’t help smiling, for indeed it was a creature that could have only come from Vren Adiri.
Bear witness, my faithful reader, here was the last known of the starlit unicorns, the last winged steed of the long vanished shadowlight elves! But should I be so lucky as to be afforded the time to continue my tale in further books, I promise you, it will not be the last one you ever see…
I know where there are more.
Anyway, the starlit unicorn flew down, unfolded its six legs, and landed before them. It was large, much larger than Drinwor had originally perceived, at least three times bigger than a wild horse, in fact. Its musculature was so perfectly structured, had it been standing still it would’ve looked like a white marble sculpture. A long crystal horn twisted up from the center of its forehead, and its eyes were wide and white as frozen seas.
Here was Arcynn Ahnna Jha, she who had delivered the Gauntlets of Loathing Light to Forn Forlidor.
To Drinwor’s surprise, she strode right up to Morigos.
“If ever there’s been a more unlikely pairing, I don’t think I’ve ever seen it,” Morning’s Hope commented. “You couldn’t in a thousand years understand the honor bestowed upon you.”
Morigos extended his black-gloved hand to Arcynn Ahnna Jha, who lowered her head and nestled her snout in his palm. “And you cannot understand what this beast means to me, my patronizing dragon. I am not so unworthy as you might think. I know this creature, and I am indebted to it.”
Drinwor and Morning’s Hope were stunned. But before they could press the dark elf for more information, he added, “Ask nothing, for that is a story for another day…”
“Then save your story,” Morning’s Hope said as she unfurled her wings and shook them out, “and let us fly to secure the day that we might hear it. May we vanquish all threats of darkness, and by doing so add another tale to the tomes of history! For all the dreams and hopes and lives that exist beneath blue skies, let us fly. Blessed be the light, blessed be Drinwor Fang, the glorious Son and Savior of the Stars!”
“You’re quite a big fuss, eh?” Morigos quipped to Drinwor with a chortle. “Let’s hope your little sword is all it’s cracked up to be!”
“Let us hope!” Drinwor agreed.
They took to the sky.
One and all, they would never forget this flight…
Drinwor’s eyes were arrested by atrocity. “May the Gods return, look at that!”
Morning’s Hope was right: everything did indeed look morbid. The Continent Isle of Volcar appeared to have in one night gone through an entire age of necromantic despair. The lands were virtually unrecognizable. Craters were everywhere. Rivers overflowed with blood, and mindless masses of undead trudged through burning cities. What forests had survived the meteor storm were now being strangled by a poisonous red vapor that crept out of cracks in the countryside. Trees withered to dust before the companions’ very eyes.
“It’s the influence of the Dark Forever!” Morning’s Hope yelled. “All the universe will suffer thus should the forces of light stand idly by!”
The red vapor crept into the clouds, curdling the air. All around the companions, sorcerous tornadoes swirled into being like giant evil genies suddenly freed from some other dimension. They had no wishes to grant, but curses they had aplenty, and from their phantom hands did waves of liquid lightning stream through the stormy sea of the sky.
“Watch it!” Morning’s Hope called out as a flash of electricity slipped past her.
Arcynn Ahnna Jha angled hard aside and spun over, evading the strike.
“A most wicked weather today!” Morigos yelled as they righted, one hand holding his staff out, using its weight to balance himself, his other hand clamped to the unicorn’s silvery mane.
Swifter than the ill winds that chased them, the dragon and unicorn flew on, the bevy of sentient storms a constant pest.
As the day grew longer, I’m afraid the conditions only worsened. There were constant lightning strikes, and clouds that spontaneously erupted into flames. There were gusts of acidic rain, and all around them the spectral tornadoes continued to whirl. Specter demons were everywhere, their hushed hissing as prevalent as the whistling of the winds. It was chaos, with no serenity in sight.
“Has all of Phate turned against us?” Drinwor screamed over the storms. “Morning’s Hope, are we losing our world?”
“No!” she cried, “the world is still ours! This is but a show, a masquerade meant to terrify the eyes and heart. Nothing more. We will destroy this blasphemy with the power of the Sunsword!”
Seemingly inspired by her own words, she flew on even faster, the starlit unicorn ever staying right behind her. They flew deeper and deeper into the day, desperately trying to get back across Volcar as swiftly as possible. It was a difficult journey indeed, for not only were they targeted by the unnaturally nasty elements, but they were beheld by many a demonic eye. They did their best to avoid confrontation, but sometimes demons strayed too close for them to ignore. Of these encounters, it suffices to simply say that Morning’s Hope mercilessly dispatched all blasphemous beings in their path with potent breathes of electrified energy. She was merciless because she had to be. Now she was a warrior dragon, and she led her little group on through this host of horrors.
Thus, they crossed Volcar, taking no time to view the myriad features of Phate, which most of them wouldn’t have recognized now, anyway.
By the time they approached the western edge of the continent, the red sore of a sun had already crawled over the sky’s summit and fallen halfway to its nightly dungeon.
“We’re not far from the sea!” Morning’s Hope called out. “Be ready!” she bade Drinwor. “We approach the enemies of all the universe!”
Drinwor slipped his hand into his leg pouch, and thereby made to withdraw Surassis.
Morning’s Hope shot her head around, shouted: “No! Not yet!”
“But you just said to be—”
“Not yet with the sword! At least not until he appears...”
“He?” Morigos called from behind. He shook his staff and it leaked a trail of glowing green smoke. “Do you mean Warloove or Nenockra Rool?”
Drinwor cringed upon hearing the fiends’ names.
The mage was left to wonder which one Morning’s Hope meant, for she paid him no mind. She pulled her wings in and slowed. They were many miles in the air, and she seemed to be considering the world beneath them. Everyone wondered if she could actually see anything, for the lands were totally obscured by the storms. After a few seconds, she nodded with satisfaction, then darted down through a thick layer of black clouds, Arcynn Ahnna Jha staying right on her tail. Forks of lightning jabbed at them, but none found their mark; the immortal mounts punched through the bottom of the clouds unscathed.
Totally lost, Drinwor asked, “Where are we?”
“Some Emperor of the sky you are!” Morigos snickered from behind.
“We’re over the Mountains of Might,” Morning’s Hope answered before flashing the mage one of her looks.
“We are?” Drinwor trusted his loyal mount, but wondered how she knew that. There was no point of reference, no horizon. The land directly below them was shrouded by low-flying clouds that looked more like aerial flows of fire. In the distance, a colossal, heaving mass of reddish fog had seemingly consumed all the western world. It billowed over the edge of the Cliffs of Moaning Wishes and stretched for miles uncounted to the north and south. This was no wandering sorcerous storm! The bloody fog climbed high into the sky, rising and rising until its lightning-wracked peaks buffeted angrily against the bottom of the atmosphere, as if it insisted on breaking through the claustrophobic confines that separated the skies from the stars.
Drinwor thought it looked like Phate was transforming into its own dying sun. “What in the name of the Seven Glories is that?” he shouted through the winds, pointing to the red mass. “Is it smoke?”
“It is not smoke,” his dragon said, her voice stern.
“No? Then—”
“It’s the Devil’s Wind,” Morigos confirmed. “The Dark Forever has come!”
“The Devil’s Wind?” Drinwor said.
“You’re looking at a gigantic mass of demons,” the dark elf mage explained, “demons shrouded by the misty red air leaked from the Dark Forever.”
“May the Gods return!” The dusk elf Emperor stood from his saddle-throne, his eyes as fiery as the scene they beheld, his hair wild with wind. Sweltering sweat drenched his face, but inside his armor he shivered with frightful chills. “I can see the demons!”
Indeed, the red mist was bursting with millions of gleaming, crimson bodies. Glowering, hateful eyes peered through the fringes, and claws and horns and hoofs stuck out the billowing sides. Drinwor could hear their unholy cries, their cackles of delight, and he himself squirmed when the whole mass writhed. Thunder sounded, the loudest he’d ever heard, and amid the mass he saw huge cracks splitting the sky apart.
And just when he thought he could stand to look on it no longer, his gaze was mercifully drawn away. For Morning’s Hope, continuing to descend, had banked sharply around. She deftly evaded the burning clouds, and what was left of the Mountains of Might appeared through the haze below.
“It would appear that the mountains are no longer so mighty,” a wheezing Morigos noted.
The mage’s declaration was accurate—the range had been totally ravaged by the shards.
With most of them leveled to their bases, the Volcanoes of Volcar spewed lava like the impaled gushed blood, with eruptions splattering everywhere. The mountains sat in the middle of their own molten lake. A smoking tributary trickled from the lake, carving a new valley into the Wicked Plains before plunging over the cliffs and emptying into the poisoned waters of the Raging Sea.
Morning’s Hope flew a little farther down, then held her altitude and glided forward, careful to avoid the unpredictable eruptions. “Where is Vren Adiri?” she mused aloud. “It’s supposed to be here, and I thought perhaps Vu Verian would meet us—”
And then the
volcanoes flared with brilliant light. “Look!” Drinwor shouted, peering over his dragon’s side.
“The mountains are exploding!” Morigos yelled.
“Indeed, they are,” Morning’s Hope returned, “but not with fire.”
“With what, then?” questioned the mage.
“Dragon souls,” she whispered.
It was true, my reader: May the Gods return, the Mountains of Might were erupting with spirit dragons!
Freed from the Hall of Voices, answering the call of Soular Centurion 7, and rising to the aid of the Son and Savior of the Stars, thousands upon thousands of golden dragon spirits flew up through the bloody bowels of the ruined mountains, slathered themselves with lava, then shot clear into Phate’s haunted sky! Oh, here were dragon ghosts given life again! They’d been jewel dragons and cloud dragons, lesser translucent dragons and insect dragons, forest dragons and lightning dragons, all come from different lands, different realms, and different ages. Some were the size of castles, and some the size of flies. But now they all inherited the same hide—a fluid, reddish-black skin that flowed like a molten coat about their souls. And their eyes, burning with the white fires of eternity, all pierced with the same purpose. Their brazen cries echoed through the skies beyond the Wicked Plains and out across the sea, voices from the past returned to challenge the future’s forbidding fate.
On and on they came in a seemingly endless eruption. They flew up behind the companions and soared over them, a great wing of molten beasts that soon amassed into a swarm five hundred thousand volcanic spirit dragons strong!
Drinwor was breathless.
He tilted his head back, trying to take in as many of the dragons as he could. They looked like another meteor storm, a massive hail of living shards. He could feel the heat that they projected, and his nostrils were infiltrated by the metallic and smoky scent of flaming souls.
“Magnificent,” he whispered.
Oh, it was magnificent, it really was!
Morning’s Hope slowed to a stop and hovered in place. With the volcanic beasts streaming overhead, she looked back and offered Drinwor a slight smile that was soon broken by dispirited words. “It is a blessing, but a tragedy all the same.”