As he spoke, tablets made of swirling dust appeared in his hands, images flashing and forming in the air about them, each telling a tale of this ancient history.
“I have watched your kind ravage this creation over greed and power! I have witnessed the forsaking of the bright for the worship of the dark! Tell me, son of Ádhamh, why is it that you seek so holy, so great a treasure? What are you truly looking for?”
Cal’s mind continued to race, and all the longings he had felt since he was a young boy flooded his senses as he stood before this monolithic guardian. Wind and flame danced about the chamber’s walls while the man of dust heaved and pulsated with righteous indignation. Cal squeezed Astyræ’s hand, then smiled a true, albeit exhausted, smile at Deryn. He exhaled and turned his gaze once again to meet the eyes of the mighty man of dust.
“Home,” he said as a tear streaked his dirt-smudged face. “I have always been looking for a place in this world to call home.” He swallowed back his emotions as he spoke. “And so are we all … are we not? Searching for a place where the light shines free, where we will never again be lost in the dark? I have always hoped to find a Kingdom, a place where the hurts of this world have been truly mended, and where light has once and for all dispelled the darkness from its borders. I have been dreaming about and seeking that for all of my days … I only thought that at the end of this path, I might find it here.”
The man of dust reached into some unseen fold of his cloak to retrieve his hammer and chisel once again.
“Please!” Cal shouted into the storm. “Shine your light on me, on us.”
The wind began to blow and swirl even faster. The torches of silver fire whipped and danced in a frantic motion, and the ground below their feet seemed as if it were humming. Words, in a language ancient and hidden from the ears of man and Sprite, began to grow louder and louder, crescendoing in an almost harmonious chorus of unknown speech.
“Cal?” Astyræ shouted against the tempest. “We should leave now! The whole place is going to fall in on us!”
“No!” Deryn replied. “I do not feel fear in my heart. While I do not understand what is happening, I sense that we are in no danger.”
The storm grew louder and louder, and the winds and flames whipped the air about them. Just when they thought they might endure the whirlwind no longer, they heard a whisper buried in the heart of the uproar.
May it be so.
The man of dust raised his hammer high, and at the very center of the Harel Lior, he brought it down with ferocious obedience. At the point of impact, a light both silver and amber erupted from the bowels of the ancient Itxaro, and it shot forth up and through an oculus at the crest of the rotunda.
Cal and his friends shielded their eyes against the brilliance, only to find that its intensity only startled and did not harm them. The winds that had been moments before swirling and circling about them shot forth in all directions, and the walls around them began to rumble and quake. All around, they could hear the sounds of crumbling rock and falling debris, though, save for the floor below them at the center of the chamber, the ornately embellished room did not falter.
“Cal!” Astyræ shouted amidst the noises of chaos about them. “Look! The floor!”
Cal tore his gaze from the magnificent beam that was erupting out through the top of the room and followed it to the floor from where it was coming forth. At the center of the room stood the mighty beam, brilliant and beautiful, unwavering in its glory. As they stared in awe, the stones that had been laid in meticulous circles began to collapse, folding in and spiraling down into an ornate, stone staircase.
The man of dust watched as his handiwork shone in a new and radiant glory. His burning, blue eyes began to drip liquid sapphire-like tears upon the floor below.
“We have got to get out of here,” Cal shouted to his friends.
“Agreed! But we cannot go back the way that we entered,” Deryn replied. “How would you two ever descend the mountain?”
The floor beneath them continued to rumble, the quaking getting stronger and stronger with each passing moment. Cal looked about, but there seemed to be no other entry or exit along the curved cave walls.
“The steps going down at the center of the floor!” he shouted to them. “We will have to try it!”
“Is it safe?” Astyræ asked nervously.
“I hope so,” he said, taking her hand. “Come on, my lady!”
They ran across the stone floor, their balance unsteady and their footing unsure, until they reached the outer rim of the spiral.
“What do you see, Deryn?” Cal said as the Sprite guardian hovered out over the precipice.
He looked down, and then looked up to where the shaft of light continued to shine.
“I sense no malice here … I feel no warning in my heart, Cal,” he told them bravely. “Come, let us continue.”
And with that, the two of them put their feet on the sinking stones and made their unsteady descent, round and round, through the heart of the mountain. The light blazed in the center of the spiral stone stairwell, shining up through the center of the cavern. Although its brightness did not cast a shadow, there was no fear of burning, for its breath was cool and pleasant.
“Do you hear that?” Astyræ asked her friends as they descended with shaking steps.
Cal put his hand upon the wall to steady himself as the reverberations threatened to send him sprawling in a heap, all the way to the bottom. “What? What do you hear, my lady?”
“It’s singing,” Deryn answered.
“Yes! That’s what I hear, too. Only, not words … just music; from a thousand quiet voices.”
“What in the name of the THREE who is SEVEN?” Cal wondered, as he began to hear the unseen melodies. “Where are they coming from?”
“I believe … I believe they are coming from the light,” Deryn said, his own voice awash in wonder.
Cal looked at the center of the brilliance. “Is this what we have been seeking all this time?” he asked reverently.
“I do believe so, Cal,” Deryn replied.
“I hope that it is strong enough to chase away the Sorceress and her army,” Cal said, unable to tear his eyes fully away from the sight.
“Beauty is always stronger than evil, and hope more powerful than hatred,” Deryn said, with a great smile upon his small face.
The sounds of crashing stones and crumbling debris woke them from their silent contemplations.
“Well, I hope we make it out of here in one piece to see for ourselves!” Astyræ chided. “Come on now, boys … we are not safe just yet!”
The three of them made their way, warily and cautiously down the seemingly infinite spiral of stones steps. The walls about them shook and the dust of the trembling air glowed as it caught the brilliance of the beam of light.
They lost sense of both time and space as they made their journey through the heart of the mountain. When they finally reached an arched opening at the bottom of the stairs, their brows were slick with sweat and their chests heaved and gasped for air.
“Where are we?” Cal asked through labored breath.
“At the bottom? It seems that we have finally made it!” Astyræ replied as she doubled over, hands upon her hips.
“Yes, but made it … where?” Cal asked, scanning his surroundings.
“That is quite the question now, isn’t it?” Deryn said as his own azure eyes went wide in wonder.
“What in the name of the THREE who is SEVEN?” Cal said, his voice barely audible to his friends.
They looked up, but what they all beheld seemed impossible to even imagine. They were standing inside a large hall, surrounded by white, alabaster walls that were ornately engraved with branches and vines. Upon the vines were flowers, alive in the most magnificent array of colors. The floor of the chamber was as translucent as ice, yet not the slightest bit cold to the touch.
“Is that?” Astyræ asked as she bent down to touch the shimmering floor.
&n
bsp; “It’s crystal!” Cal said, disbelievingly. “Or maybe even diamond!”
“But, I don’t understand. Where are we?” Astyræ rose once again to her feet and whirled about, taking in the splendor of such a place.
BOOM! The sound of a terrible crash echoed from the other side of the spectacular walls that surrounded them. They looked at each other, the scent of jasmine and rose petals filling the uncertain air between them.
Cal spotted a columned doorway at the opposite end of the chamber, and though he was not ready to leave the sanctuary of this place, he knew that his quest was not yet finished. “There!” he said, pointing out the exit. “Come on, we have to get out of here, we have to see about our friends.”
With that, they walked. Slowly at first, their senses still overwhelmed with all that they beheld, but soon enough they were running towards the doorway. As they reached its threshold, the enormity of what they had set into motion assaulted their already befuddled senses. Out beyond the tranquility of the great hall, they saw a vast city that expanded in white-stoned brilliance out into the farthest reaches of the Itxaro.
“What … is … this?” Cal barely managed to whisper.
“Cal?” Astyræ asked him as she took hold of his arm in her own. “How can this be?”
They looked around, and to their even greater amazement, they could see as far as their eyes could behold. Everything was no longer shrouded in shadow, but was illuminated in the same, soft, amber and silver brilliance as the light in the stairs.
“There!” Astyræ blurted in astonishment. “I know where we are! There’s the river, and the highlands! And Shaimira … it’s there, right inside this great city! There’s the falls, and the battlefield—” Her words caught in her throat as she viewed the remains of war.
“Cal!” Deryn called, breathless with excitement.
Cal turned, whirling about in incredulous disbelief. His eyes traced the skyline of this unexpected city; the white and jasper walls seemed to encircle all that had previously been the Itxaro Mountain range itself. At the center of the shining city, a pillar of light erupted its soft amber and silver brilliance from the top of the white tower that he and his friends had just descended.
The crashing sounds around them and below them continued to shake the ground and confuse their already overwhelmed senses.
“Cal!” Deryn shouted again for his friend, but Cal’s eyes were transfixed on the scene unfolding before him.
The shell of mountains must have contained this hidden place, and now they seemed to have sloughed off, like a heavy coat from a road-weary traveler. The shale and dust, boulders and brambles, had fallen and crashed into heaps from the heights that they had once called home, covering the blood-stained battlefield below. Like parchment unwrapped to reveal the gift inside, the mountains were falling away. With each crash and world-shaking boom, the splendor of this new city was all the more revealed.
“Cal!” Deryn said as he flew to his friend and took his face in his tiny hands. “Cal, the darkness … it is gone!”
“The light?” Cal asked, his clouded eyes welling with joyful tears.
“Yes!” Astyræ answered him, her own tears cutting clean lines down her dirt-stained face. “Yes!” She laughed as she wrapped her arms about him, embracing him as tightly as her tired arms could manage.
“We found it,” he said in a whisper. “We found the light.”
“Yes, we did, Calarmindon Bright Fame,” Deryn said as the rumble and boom of the crumbling, mountainous exoskeleton punctuated his joyful proclamation.
Astyræ looked up at Cal, and her gaze was somehow different.
“My lady?” he whispered.
“Yes?” she answered him, her words breathless with glee.
“Your eyes!” He took her tear-streaked face in his hands. “The yellow … it’s gone!”
“Now is not the time for jest, groomsman,” she told him. “Now is the time for celebration! You were right, Cal! You sought it out … and you found it!”
“No … I am not joking, Astyræ,” His brow furrowed in wonder. “The yellow is gone from your eyes, not a single trace of it is left.”
Deryn turned to meet her gaze, and his own azure eyes filled with silver tears at what he witnessed right in front of him. “Not a trace of yellow,” he told her.
Her face wrinkled in confusion as her eyes sought the faces of her two companions. When not a trace of insincerity could be found, her jaw dropped, and her own hand reach up to cover Cal’s.
“Only violet, my lady. Only beauty remains.” He did not give her a chance to respond, for his lips tenderly and with great celebration found her own.
Chapter Forty-Four
Out from the ranks of the violet host, a silver star shot up into the sky. Ardghal, herald of the queen, raised his silver trumpet to his lips and blew the bright song of victory over the armies of darkness.
At that very signal, Faolan, captain of the Sprite host, drew his radiant blade. The host followed suit, and the sounds of their unsheathing rang out in harmony to the herald’s song.
Aius barked his order, and the Raven army turned their attention from the remnant upon the wall, filing into rank to defend themselves from the surprise arrival of the Sprites.
“For our Great Father, for the Queen, and for Cal!” the silver-winged captain shouted to his warriors.
“For our Great Father, for the Queen, and for Cal!” they answered in melodious union.
Without so much as another word, the Sprite host exploded in a fury of weapons and wings as they began their assault upon the Ravens before them. The Sprite warriors darted in and out and in between, like famished hummingbirds upon a field of poppies; their blades buried themselves between armor and into flesh, drinking deep of the black blood of their enemies.
Arthfael, the largest of the Sprites, flew up and above the battle, wielding his mighty, brown blade, Mathgham. He severed the necks of each of the scorpions’ ropes, sending them falling in heaps upon the heads of the Ravens below.
The Nocturnals loosed their arrows, but the Sprites flew swiftly out of reach, and even though the winged warriors made quick and deadly work of the Ravens, they were not impervious to the edge of their enemies’ blades. Both Raven and Sprite fell upon that field of war, in the shadow of the great Halvard. As the battle raged, Michael and the remnant watched in bewildered wonder at the host that fought on their behalf.
“Have you ever in all your days seen such a thing?” Celrod wondered aloud.
“I have never, in all my days, even imagined that I would see the things my eyes have beheld,” the brewer said as he wiped a tear from his eye with the sleeve of his tunic. “Dragons, and armies of green-eyed madness, and now this! I never even knew such beings existed to begin with!”
“I can’t!” Fryon called out with labored breath as he emerged from the stairs of the east tower and came out onto the battlements. “I can’t break it … I haven’t the means—” The oddness of the scene playing out before him stole the very words from his mouth.
“Looks like help has come for us, after all,” the old woman said as she patted his back.
“I don’t understand,” he mumbled in confusion, his chest still laboring under his hurried breath.
“Neither do we,” she told him. “But it don’t rightly matter much, does it? Not now that it looks like we are safe.”
“We are going to be alright, my lady,” Michael said. He wrapped his arm around Margarid’s waist and held her auburn head against his armored chest as they watched with cautious hope behind the merlons of the battlements. “I’ve met one, once before.”
“What do you mean? Who have you met?” she said as her eyes took in the battle below.
“One of them … a Sprite,” he told her, his eyes never leaving the scene before them.
“You never told me that before,” she said, disbelieving.
“Well, you would have never believed me,” he said with a laugh.
“No, I guess I
wouldn’t have, would I?”
“They are rather violent if you cross them, I nearly learned that lesson the hard way,” he told her.
“Oh?” she was curious now that the threat of death and destruction seemed abated.
“It was the last time I saw him, Mar,” Michael told her, his eyes misting over. “Right before Cal left for the Wreath. I didn’t believe his stories of Oweles, and dragons, and … Sprites.” He chuckled a bit, which was right for the story, but seemed so out of place amidst the carnage all about them.
“I said something stupid, and I offended him. The Sprite, not Cal. And before I knew what was happening, the little fellow had burst out from inside the cover of Cal’s cloak and nearly opened me up from hind to head.” He kindly kissed the top of her head. “That was the day I realized that there is much mystery in this damned darkened world of ours. All of it surprising, and some of it … some of it even good.”
“Michael?” Georgina asked nervously.
“Yes?” he said as he knelt down to meet the brave little girl’s face. “What is it? What is troubling you?”
“Don’t you feel it?” she said as she reached up and took his hand.
“Feel what?” he asked. “Georgina … you are trembling. What is the matter?”
“It is not me that is trembling … it is the ground,” she said worriedly.
“What?” he said, not quite understanding. He shot to his feet, convinced that as he peered out over the edge of the battlements, he would surely espy some witchcraft destroying the very foundation of this ancient fortress. The ground trembled beneath his feet, and quite quickly every one of them began to feel what the little girl had first perceived.
“Michael?” Margarid asked nervously. “What is it … what do you see?”
“I don’t know! Nothing is happening to the tower that I can see. All the Ravens are still focused on the Sprites!”
The stones of the battlement began to crack, and dust scattered down. The Western tower, burned and crumbling from the inside, started to sway. Sand danced upon the top of the barbican, and soon the remnant was clinging to each other to steady their quaking resolve.
The Coming Dawn: Epic of Haven Trilogy Book 3 Page 35