Dead Man Walking
Page 25
The piercing whistle of the phoenix which had saved his life rang across the sky again. Moments later, the bird dove from beyond the snowy peaks and landed a few yards ahead of Isaac. Its talons sank into the snow as steam rose from underneath. Several of the angelic creature’s feathers were blackened and there were bloody marks across its chest, but it seemed able to overcome the injuries on its own. Already, Isaac could see the wounds pulling themselves closed, and felt a twinge of jealousy.
The great bird ducked its head down, tilting its head sideways to keep an eye on the human, then took a couple of slow steps toward him. The phoenix lifted one of its legs and nodded.
Isaac got the distinct impression that the gesture meant “Come here.” He obliged, the sensation of warmth and protection the bird had provided still fresh in his mind.
The phoenix lifted him to the air, and they floated upward to a cliff near the top of the tallest mountain. The cliff ended with a polished wall covered in spirals of elf text. In what ought to have been a doorway, a statue identical to his new feathered friend, only made from dark gray stone, stood.
The bird landed, dropping Isaac gently on the cliff. They remained in their landing spot as he approached the statue.
“Däthë vös säväním,” A groaning voice came from the statue, but its beak didn’t flinch. The voice cracked and faded as though it was many centuries out of practice. Isaac felt an odd twinge of pity for the evidently conscious – to some degree, at least – statue.
I know this bit, Isaac thought. As he had seen in the stories, he stared into the statue’s eyes and focused.
“Næ,” Another familiar voice from behind the statue said, before Isaac could. “Let him in, he must be exhausted,” The voice continued.
In the blink of an eye the statue sank into the ground, out of sight, allowing Isaac into a circular room, dimly lit by moonlight through openings in the ceiling. A large, polished fountain which matched the walls of the place took up much of the room.
On the edge, a heavily scarred, bloody woman in a torn tunic like his, if it had been made from silk, rested on her back. Sweat glistened on her forehead and she seemed to be in the midst of a fever. Looking directly at her gave Isaac a blinding headache. The harder he tried, the more the features of her face blurred. He could just make out a pair of gray eyes, scanning every atom in him before closing, and wavy silver hair that appeared to melt into and bond with the water.
Seated to her left, next to her head was L’æon, beaming as a single tear fell down his cheek. He was carefully avoiding looking directly at the woman but brought a small cup from the fountain to her lips. The sweat on her brow vanished, and shortly after she did as well.
“Wha - who -?” Isaac stuttered. L’æon rose approached him, leaving the cup on the fountain’s edge. The human flinched at first but relented. The elf clapped him gently on the shoulder.
“She will be okay, now,” L’æon assured him. Isaac asked him how he got to this place ahead of him. The elf smiled and shrugged his shoulders.
“Before anything else, please accept my apologies for our last interaction,” L’æon said. “I have studied Úë’älmælectía for what must be thousands of years, only to find how much I still have yet to learn.”
“I think I owe you an apology too - I thought you were the one trying to kill me,” Isaac replied, embarrassed. “Is this the, y’know…?” He tried to ask. L’æon nodded before he could finish the sentence.
“Átrí Nä’lún, the City of Moonlight,” The elf said. “My first return in… well, an incredibly long time. Most of it, from your perspective. When I departed from the library, I walked about as far as the street corner before I blinked and found myself here, brought by a power far greater than my own.”
L’æon offered the cup, still full, to a grateful Isaac. The fountain’s water smelled sweet, like warm Earl Grey tea with peppermint, but the cup was cold in his hands. It tasted like it smelled, and as it ran through Isaac’s body, he felt a mild giddiness inside. He looked to the elf, who was still grinning broadly.
“Lilith, the vampire, the actual one I mean, she claimed you were just a character in a story, L’æon the Fallen King. My cousin said so as well, but he called it L’æon Úë’sälúm ä Tä’süä,” Isaac told the elf flatly. No use attempting to hide his thoughts here.
L’æon simply shrugged. “It would be difficult to argue with them,” He explained. “This place, this city, it is the reason stories exist. Across the cosmos, from Earth to the Port of All Things to Gulorrah Prime and beyond, people tell stories that began with the First People of Átrí Nä’lún.”
“And the ones I found? The Book of L’æsälum?” Isaac asked. He dug the other two Pages from his backpack and handed them to L’æon. The old elf smiled.
“The Book, a myth even by my standards, is thought to predate the Æ’géminë and, in its completed state, contain the infinite and ever-evolving knowledge of the very multiverse you just saved. This impossible Page I took from you, it tells of when this city fell - of the night I earned the rest of my name, ä Tä’süä - the Fallen.” L’æon told him. “Finish your water, the Ascension process has already begun.”
Isaac looked at the still mostly full cup and took another quick gulp. L’æon went on speaking.
“Reading it brought some of my memories back,” The elf explained. “This, this Næ’zätæmém, I remember him being a friend until that night. I believe we fought. I never knew why… Beyond that, I am at a loss. The title itself means ‘forgotten’, somebody with significant power must have decided he should not exist.”
“Somehow Lilith found out about him,” Isaac said. “This was all for some ritual she called a Remembrance. She wanted to use me to bring him back and go on a reality-spanning murder spree. I guess I stopped that, any idea how? Is she dead?”
“The rejoining of your timelines created a surge of psychic energy which could have put even my own spellwork to shame,” L’æon replied. “In short, it bought you a miracle. As for her being dead, it is impossible for us to know, but I fear not. This Lilith was particularly persistent and well-informed, as her kind goes. But regardless, she is no longer in this part of the multiverse, and that is thanks to you.” The elf rose to his feet and stepped out of the Shrine to the cliff, and Isaac followed. The phoenix who had rescued him rested near the edge, beak tucked under a wing. A single eye remained open, watching the pair as they approached. Her arachniwyrm adversary still flew in the distance, raining flame and venom over the ash desert. The colossal creature looked like an action figure, from the distance between them.
“Thank you, Mér’xælä, and if you would be so kind as to let your mother know we have returned,” L’æon said to the still-waiting phoenix. She whistled sweetly and nuzzled Isaac’s chest with her beak before taking to the sky. Sparks danced delicately over his clothes as the elf giggled.
“She likes you, congratulations. She never would have taken on Velryd alone otherwise.” L’æon said to a bewildered Isaac. The chilly night air at the top of the frozen mountain didn’t seem to grip his skin as harshly anymore. At this height, the sprawling city of the forest and mountains didn’t seem so dead either. The moonlight hit the frosty coat over everything and bounced back to the sky in beautiful defiance, once again showing Isaac a brilliant sea of silver, blue, purple, and green jewels. Even the trees stood straighter now than they had when he arrived.
Isaac finished the cup of water in his hand. “So will this make me like you?”
“By the will of the Lightbringer, you are the first of a new echelon of Æ’géminë,” L’æon told him proudly. “You will need to be, as we search for more of the Book. Something tells me this business with the Forgotten One is not yet over.”
“Æ’géminë,” Isaac whispered. “I heard a woman’s voice on the way to the valley say that, and then Átríminë.”
“Átríminë, you say?” L’æon asked. “That is a new one indeed. In our language, it would mean ‘elf of t
he city’,” He nodded in approval of the descriptor as he waved his left hand over the frozen, leafy metropolis below.
Isaac felt a slight urge to apologize to everyone who had tried and failed to instill an appreciation for winter in him back on Earth, as he gazed at the glittering forest. Only a slight urge, however – cold is still cold, even when dulled by magic.
“Isaac,” L’æon said. “Welcome home.”
Ä Mör [THE END]
Æ’lin (Elvish)
Ä - (AH) The
Äb - (AH-bah) No
Æ - (EYE) First
Æ’chäb - (eye-KAH-bah) Chaos, destruction, pandemonium
Æ’chäbömín – (eye-KAH-boe-MEAN) Abominant, an endangered mutant species
Æ’géminë - (eye-JEM-in-AY) Name of the elves (Literally; First People) Used to describe the higher L’ class from the mountains, as well as the species as a whole.
Ægö - (EYE-go) I, me/my
Ægö qünävím vös hädæö ä sídvë - (EYE-go CUE-nah-VEEM voze hah-DIE-oh ah SEED-vay) I compel you to speak the truth.
Æ’lin - (eye-LIN) First Tongue, name of the language of the elves
Æ’lúmélýrä - (EYE-lum-ah-LEER-ah) Birth song, a complex and time-consuming ritual which grows a newborn elf from a magical spark to maturity. As elves in their homeworld live almost eternally, this ritual is rarely performed.
Ákhfräl’ürémír - (AHK-frah-LURE-eh-MERE) Brotherhood of the Wolf God
Álg – (AHLG) Gray
Äl’khäshæ - (all-KAH-shy) Betrayer, traitor
Äl’mæ - (all-MY-ah) Everything, reality, universe
Ál’mörtæ - (al-MORE-tie) Death
Äl’mæ - (all-MY-ah) Everything, reality, universe
Ál’mörtæ - (al-MORE-tie) Death
Ál’mörsämär - (al-MORE-sah-MAR) A defunct team of battlemages
Äl’ötíä - (ALL-oh-SHE-ah) Peace, security, safety
Äl’præcü - (all-PRY-coo) Guardian, defender
Äl’sílë - (all-SEE-lay) Silence
Átrí Nä’lún - (ah-TREE na-AH-lun) City of Moonlight, home of the elves
Äy - (EYE-ah) And
Bä’qü - (BAH-coo) Water (noun)
Bí’tärës - (bee-TAH-raysh) Restrict, restriction, bind, binding
Dä - (DAH) To
Däsghäsýl - (DAS-gah-SEAL) Forest of Darkness
Däthé - (dah-THEY) Proof, evidence (noun), prove (verb)
Däthë vös säväním - (dah-THEY VOZE sah-vah-NEEM) Prove your strength
Déndréminë - (den-DREH-me-NAY) Forest elves
Dí’prætä - (dee-PRY-tah, rolled R) Defense, shield, protection
Ghäsýl - (gah-SEAL) Forest, tree
Ghältér - (gall-TEAR) Earth (In Elvish this word refers to all dirt, stone, etc., not the planet)
Hä - (ha) It
Hæ - (high) Its
Hädæö - (hah-DIE-oh) Speak
Häzün - (HAH-zoo-NAH) Fortune, luck
Húlsömn - (HULL-sohm) Dream, vision
L’ - (LA) Honorific prefix signifying one’s Ascension (Ex: L’æon/Æon, L’mæl/Mæl). If approved by the Eternal Lightbringer, a ritual is performed by the Council of Six to fix the honorific to the subject’s being.
Märæsälúm - (mah-RAY-sah-LUM) Highest rank among the Ál’mörsämär
Mín - (MEAN) Of/from
Mör - (MORE) End, over, finish
Mör’næ - (MORE-ah-NYE) Remove
Mör’næ ä bí’tärës - (MORE-ah-NYE ah bee-TAH-raysh) Remove the restraint
Næ - (NYE) Run/move/leave/guide/lose
Næ’chäb - (nye-KAHB-ah) Warp, bend, distort
Næ’chäb äl’mæ dä ægö säväním - (nye-KAHB-ah all-MY-ah da EYE-go SAH-vah-NEEM) Bend reality to my will.
Næ’chäb äl’mæ dä ægö säväním - (nye-KAHB-ah all-MY-ah da EYE-go SAH-vah-NEEM) Bend reality to my will.
Næ’räcín äkh nä’, äy yü täjnë - (nye-rah-SEEN AHK nah-AH, EYE-ah YOU TAHJ-nay) Fade into night and be unseen.
Næ’vös - (NYE-voze) Goodbye (informal)
Næ’vös, dä Dätánímä - (NYE-voze dah dah-TAH-nee-MAH) Leave, to the Empty Place.
Næ’vös shívæ - (NYE-voze she-VYE) Run for your life
Næ’zätæmém - (nye-ZA-tie-MEM) Forgotten/lost memory (Cosmic Error 404)
Nä’ghältér - (nah-AH-gall-TARE) Moonstone
Nä’sálvë - (nah-AH-sal-VAY) Hello, good morning, welcome (formal). “AH” syllable must be pronounced distinctly.
Näj - (nah-ZHA) Formal/royal surname prefix meaning “son/daughter of” (Ex: Näj’últëa, son/daughter of Últëa. The parent’s status as L’ does not factor into the name of the child)
Ném - (NEHM) Yes
Pán’ämírä - (pa-NAH-me-RAH) Priestess
Qäläsämär - (kyah-LAH-sah-MAR) Singer, musician
Räcín - (rah-SEEN) Dust
Sädr - (SAH-dra, rolled R) Drag, pull
Säväním - (sah-vah-NEEM) Will/strength
Shínímä - (she-NEE-mah) Heal, restore, cure
Shívæ - (she-VYE) Life, existence, continue
Sídvë - (SEED-vay) Truth
Sílränéx - (SEAL-rah-NECKS) Chainbound, a group charged with protecting the balance of nature using chains which grant them elemental powers.
Tä’gläcí äy æ’chévän - (TAH-glah-SEE EYE-ah EYE-keh-VON) Freeze and vanish
Tä’súldä - (tah-SULL-dah) Underskies, named because the world seems to turn upside-down as one’s altitude increases.
Täw - (TAO) Stop
Úë’älmælectía - (weh-ALL-mah-LECK-tea-AH) Epistemancy, knowledge magic
Úë’lëxa - (WEH-lecks) Cursed
Úë’mælifíci - (weh-MY-lih-fih-see) Magical artifact
Úë’mæsömníä – (weh-MY-ah-SOM-nee-AH) Oneiromancy, dream magic
Úë’sälúm - (weh-SAH-lum) King/Queen.
Vægö næ’räcín dä äl’ötía - (VYE-go nye-rah-SEEN TAHJ-nay dah ALL-oh-SHE-ah) We fade away to safety
Vö’géminë - (voh-JEM-in-AY) Stranger, foreigner (used to describe anyone who is not an elf)
Vös- (VOZE) You
Zätæmärbitrí – (zah-TIE-mar-BEE-tree) Archive
Zätæwäpræcü - (zah-TIE-wah-PRY-coo) Librarian