Ren of Atikala: The Empire of Dust

by David Adams

  “Is anything in this world?” Ophiliana’s claws brushed aside the mould, and I could see it was an egg. An egg big enough for a person to fit inside. Covered in slime and pulsing faintly, it hissed as faint drops of water hit it.

  There was an indentation within it. The shape of a human, lying curled up, hands around their knees.

  “Someone was here,” I said, unable to keep the volume of my voice under control. I suddenly realised, all at once, what I was looking at. The vehicle for the destruction of Atikala. My home. “A falling star did not destroy Atikala…it was a man.”

  “Not quite a man,” said Ophiliana, running her claw along the indentation. “A woman. A very special woman.” It did indeed look like a person. A human female. “The fallen star was…the end of something fantastic. And it took six years to get from where it was launched to where it arrived. Six years of travelling through the great dark between worlds, seeking a new vessel…a new host.”

  “A new host?” I couldn’t help but feel a deep stab of worry. “What kind of host?”

  “A corpse,” said Ophiliana, matter-of-factly. “A dead thing that could contain the beacon that would draw it in. Powers beyond my understanding reached out, calling the stone toward the host, journeying through the dark void, hoping to be rejoined…Heading straight toward it. Heedless of the barriers. Six years between the infusion of divine energy and the eggs arrival…” Her face twisted. “But even I do not understand the truth of what is happening here. The gap in the egg does not resemble you at all.”

  There was undeniable truth in this. It was far too big, shaped like a human…

  A human.

  I took the amulet out of my belt pouch, and cautiously, slipped it over my head.

  The world shifted and shrank once more. My armour slipped away from me, straps unbuckling and loosening on their own accord, and I felt Magmellion’s palpable disgust as his mind separated from my own. Red hair once again tumbled down my shoulders, and the world went black.

  Light. It sprung from my fingertips as I completed the spell, bathing the area in yellow illumination. Ophiliana’s dead pupils expanded until they almost consumed her eyes.

  “Reina Firehair,” she said, the reverence and awe in her voice as thick as the mould on the ground. “I would not possibly believe it if I had not seen you with my own eyes.”

  “Who?” That was the same name the humans had called me. Because of the hair, they had said. “Who is that?”

  “The dead Goddess of fire,” said Ophiliana, her voice barely a whisper. “She was the last of the Gods to fall silent. In life she appeared as a human woman, wreathed in flames, for fire is the great destroyer, but also the great healer…fire burns the skin but seals infection. Such is the duality of her nature. Your nature. It is no wonder you could not die.”

  A Goddess? There was no way I was such a thing. “You’re tricking me,” I said. “Lying to me.”

  “To an avatar of the Gods, not even I would be so bold.”

  It wasn’t me. It wasn’t possible. Slowly, I turned my eyes towards the hole in the egg. Naked, and suddenly freezing cold, I stepped over towards it, awkward in my human body. I slid into the hole in the egg, the indentation in the shape of a woman, and turned sideways, wiggling around until I fit.

  And I did.

  Perfectly.

  I felt strange, sitting there in the perfect outline of my human form. As though I were pretending to be a person I was not. Strange.

  And vulnerable.

  “I am sorry,” said Ophiliana, voice tinged with sincerity as her head turning upward, the corners of her huge mouth sagging. “I brought her here, as you requested, my lord.”

  Contremulus. He appeared smile first in the silhouette of the night sky above, a winged golden shimmer that became a dragon.

  “You didn’t bring me here to help you,” I said, clambering out of the hole, my human fists balling at my sides. “You betrayed me!”

  “I was forced,” said Ophiliana, as she looked away from me. “His thoughts are in my mind, slaving me to him. I am not fully formed, yet. The bond is incomplete. My mate thought I would destroy myself when I saw what horrible creature he had made me into…”

  From all around me, a faint scrabbling noise grew. From the stone rubble, well hidden from view, climbed a dozen or more tiny dragons—hatchlings all, the size of a kobold. Withered. Dead. All had the same blue light in their eyes their parents had.

  “…and my children.”

  I had no armour. No sword. Nothing. I was helpless at the bottom of a massive pit. “How could you do this?” I asked Contremulus. “You loved her, I saw it in the way you kept her memory alive in your room. Now look at what she is! What you’ve done to her!”

  “I’ve freed her,” he said, his deep voice echoing from all the walls of the giant hole. “We can be together again.” He looked at her, tail lashing. “Say we can be together again now, my love.”

  “We—” Ophiliana forced the words out, “can be together again.”

  “See?” Contremulus craned his neck, smiling eagerly to me. “What death has done I have undone.”

  Madness. Utter madness. And I was a fool to trust him. “So go ahead,” I spat. “Kill me already.”

  He laughed, the noise booming and shaking the rock walls. “You think I had my mate bring you here to kill you? Silly kobold, you simply do not understand anything at all, do you?”

  “You want to harden me, test me, use me to bring Ophiliana back into this world.”

  “And how can I do that if you are dead?”

  That was a good point. “So,” I said again, taking a deep breath of the cold, musty air, “why am I here?”

  He examined me with those eyes, blue and dark and terrible. “I need you to suffer.”

  “Hearing your voice is suffering enough,” I spat. “And seeing what you did to the body of the one you claimed to love. To your own children. I’ve felt your knives. I’ve lived in the darkness. I know suffering.” My voice cracked. I had hurt Valen, too. “Nothing can hurt me more than the ones I’ve lost.”

  Contremulus silently gestured with a claw. The dracoliches that were his children surged forward, grabbing me with their claws. I kicked and struggled and spat flame, but I had no weapons, and fire could not hurt them. They held me down, on my back, sharp claws digging into my human flesh.

  Contremulus loomed over me, his giant dragon face inches away from mine. “I have been planning this for so long I barely know where to start,” he said, his foul, dead breath washing over me. “Dismemberment. Slashing. Cutting. These are primitive forms of suffering; the most exquisite ways are, as you said yourself, the matters of the heart.” His gaze met mine. “Do you wonder why I always knew your movements? Why you simultaneously won and lost every battle?”

  I said nothing, just glared at him.

  Contremulus’s eyes rolled back in his head. “My pet,” he said, “I have her now. It is time.”

  I could barely keep in a furious hiss. “You are lying,” I said. “Trying to make me paranoid, thinking all my allies are against me. Filling my head with lies about fire gods.”

  “Then let us see,” said Contremulus, his wings unfurling. He spoke to those around him. “Bring her to the surface, let her see for herself. Ophiliana, take her armour with you.”

  She picked up the plates, as commanded, and her dragon hatchlings lifted me up. Carried me out of the hole in Drathari. Ophiliana and Contremulus followed, circling as they climbed, and soon we were back under the moonlight of the surface world.

  A glance to the battlefield told me everything I needed to know. It was overrun with the dead. Kobold bodies lay strewn everywhere, and my forces had been backed up to the cave entrance that led towards the underworld. There was no fighting. No more battles. As we drew closer, I could see why—the dead had stopped, turned away from the battle, and as though completely disinterested, began to march back to the ruins of Northaven.

  We landed near the cave entran
ce. The dragon hatchlings threw me unceremoniously on the ground, the plates of my armour thrown down beside me. Incinerator clattered on the stones as it landed by my side.

  All eyes were upon me. I barely recognised the kobolds surrounding me; they all looked like stunted monsters, full of teeth and claws and spears, with identical wicked expressionless faces.

  They chittered in their strange language—my language that I no longer spoke—and I glared up at Contremulus.

  “They see you as a human now,” he said. “They see you are not one of them.”

  From the crowd, I saw one kobold with dark blue light glowing in their eyes. It had to be Sirora. She was the traitor, of course. Of course it had to have been her. Of course…

  Yet, despite my face-blindness, I could she was fearful. Reserved. Her posture did not strike me as one who was revelling in their triumph, more one who was terrified at the prospect of a sudden, imminent death. In fact, the only kobold who was anything other than terrified was…

  Kresselack as he sank down onto his knees before Contremulus, bowing low and reverently.

  “What did they promise you?” I hissed, smoke rising from my hands. “Power? A meaningless title? You were already head of the blacksmiths, you miserable little worm, what possible thing could they have…” The words died on my lips. He couldn’t understand me, but the way he was looking at me, through me as though I were an object, told me everything.

  Me.

  They’d promised him me.

  I raised my hand, and I sent a searing hot wave of flame at him, intent on burning him to the bone, but my armour sprung to life and—moving of its own accord—formed itself into a kobold and flew in front of the heat. Then, marching forward, it enveloped me.

  Steel flew on my shoulders. On my arms. The helm jammed itself onto my head. It stretched to accommodate my human size—twisted and uncomfortable, and it held me fast. I struggled inside my metal prison. I couldn’t move.

  Contremulus inclined his head. “You did well,” he said, “Grand-Ember Magmellion, Lord of Ashes.”

  “Free me,” came a hissing from the armour. It wasn’t Draconic; I didn’t realise Magmellion spoke the common tongue. “I did as you asked, now destroy Ren of Atikala, let me be free.”

  “In time,” Contremulus said, “Kresselack can unwork the binding. You will be free, proud prince. She is not to die yet.” He turned to me, ominous light glowing in his eyes. “Leaving only the matter of completing the bond. Of tying Ophiliana’s life to this world forever, completing the binding, and strengthening her phylactery, so that it can never be destroyed.”

  “I will help you,” said Derodohr, stepping out of the crowd, his voice sounding so different in the common tongue.

  “Bastard eidolon,” I said, the beginnings of a snarl coming from my mouth. “You promised to help me. Your mistress promised. We had a deal!”

  “I never promised that my soldiers would join your side,” said Derodohr. “Nor that any dwarves would. You inferred from my words that we were here to help you. In reality, all we said was, simply put, that they would fight and die in the coming battle. Which we did. Meanwhile, we infiltrated your ranks, guided you subtly towards the surface, and…” he shrugged helplessly. “Here we are.”

  “You can’t seriously believe you’d get away with this,” I said.

  “Of course I do,” said Derodohr. “That’s why I’m doing it.”

  Fury burned inside me. “When your mistress hears about this—”

  “Are you really that blind?” Derodohr, seemingly amused, glanced to his dwarven soldiers. Those that remained. “She commanded me to betray you. Sorry you had to find out this way, but…there’s an old dwarven saying, kick someone when they’re down—it’s the only time you can really kick anyone.”

  I ground my human teeth together. “I should have known the demon summoners were liars.”

  “Never have we lied to you. Not once. We have found, over the years, that the best way to avoid magical detection of lies is to simply tell none.”

  “But that’s not fair,” I said, struggling once again inside my own suit of armour. My own prison.

  “Nothing in this life is.” He smiled with plenty of teeth. “If it helps, Ren, we would have genuinely helped you had you won. My mistress is old enough to know how the game is played—she was not on your side, she was on both sides. Had you beaten your father, slim possibility as it was, we would have genuinely allied ourselves with you. As things stand, well…” He nodded to Contremulus. “The queen serves you, Lord Dragon.”

  “Of course, she does,” said Contremulus.

  “I’ll get you for this,” I said to Derodohr.

  “No, you won’t,” he said.

  I glared at Derodohr, at Kresselack, and then finally at my father. “An impressive show,” I said. “You won. Go ahead. Torture me. Do whatever it is you want—I am sick of talking.”

  “Then let us begin,” said Contremulus, striding over to me, his wings settling over his back. “But first, let me look at you with your own eyes.” He reached out for the amulet I wore, grabbed hold of the jewel and snapped the chain.

  My body shrank. I reached up and took the necklace off, and the world began to return to its rightful size—larger, full of light, and the detail on my allies faces returned.

  As I changed, my armour changed with me, keeping me immobile. Contremulus picked up my blade and inspected it in the growing light. Above him, his reanimated hatchlings circled, their dead wings beating silently in the night.

  “Impressive,” said Contremulus, running his eyes along the edge. “Quite the masterful weapon. I sense powerful magic to it.”

  “Its touch can turn the living into ash,” I said, squirming inside the metal to no avail. “I wonder what it would do to you?”

  “You want me to die?” Contremulus narrowed his eyes, an amused smile dancing over his lips. “How wonderful.”

  Contremulus had fought so hard, done so much, that it was impossible to conceive of him wanting to end it all. There must have been something I was missing. “I have no idea what that means.”

  Ophiliana looked at me with a strange eagerness in her eyes. Gone was the innocence, the injury. Was it all an act? No. I sensed something else. “We will need her blood,” she said, the barest quiver in her words. “How best should we extract it?”

  “This,” said Contremulus, his eyes turning to me, “is something we are both intimately familiar with.” His body began to shift and melt away. Shrank. Became a human man with blond hair, Incinerator in his hand. The weapon grew to fit his palm.

  My gut churned. I knew what was coming. Once he had ripped out my heart. The pain was fresh in my mind. Agony. My whole body ached just remembering. “Just do it,” I spat. “Do it!”

  Contremulus walked over to me, my own blade in hand, and carefully slipped it between the metal plates and into my gut.

  There was no way I could prepare for it. The raw, searing agony of steel piercing flesh, tearing past my scales, and into the tender organs below. It burned in a way I’d hoped I’d never feel again, raw and visceral and primal.

  And my screaming. Screaming like I was back in Northaven, having my flesh cut into, my scales pried back, my spines pulled out. I felt like I was back there, back in that dark place.

  Blood. Pain. Contremulus yanked the blade out of me, slick with my golden blood.

  Everything got fuzzy. Light. I could barely focus. I knew this feeling, and I’d prayed with all my strength to all the dead Gods that I’d never feel it again.

  “So curious,” said Contremulus, marvel in his voice as he regarded the blood-slicked blade. “You did not burn.”

  I gurgled wordlessly, my blood splattering out onto the snow in front of me, staining it piss-yellow. It would have been better if I had; better to be consumed and turned to ash than to slowly die of a gut wound.

  “Are you ready?” he asked Ophiliana.

  “Yes,” she said, her wings settled in against her
sides. Whatever reluctance she had displayed before was completely gone.

  Contremulus reached into an invisible bag—his hand disappeared, and then returned—and when it did, it held a familiar flower, blood red, suspended in a glass of water.

  I knew this thing. A treasure of his that he kept so very close to him.

  Of course. Of course he’d chosen that as the container for his soul.

  He tilted the blade, letting my blood run down it, thick drops hissing slightly as they fell into the water, tainting the fluid faintly with gold.

  “My love,” said Contremulus, smiling genuinely as he held it out to Ophiliana, his human hand dwarfed by her draconic form. “It is done. Drink, and we’ll be together forever.”

  “I love you,” said Ophiliana, and with an equally genuine smile, she reached out and cupped the vial in her claw.

  With one swift motion, crushed it.

  Glass fell on the ground, tiny shards breaking as they hit the stones. The water splashed and dissolved into rainbow light.

  Contremulus howled in a voice that reverberated with magic. Bright blue light shone from his eyes, lighting up the night, but it faded quickly.

  The hurt, the betrayal in his eyes was so real that whatever sense of savage satisfaction I could draw from it was muted and double edged.

  His soul had been forced back into his body.

  He was vulnerable.

  Ophiliana swung her claw at him. Contremulus leapt backward, golden wings springing from his back. He grew, becoming a dragon once more. The two clashed, claws slashing and teeth biting.

  “I will not be your slave!” roared Ophiliana. Her claws found purchase on his body, squeezing, puncturing his dead flesh. Her voice reverberated with ghostly power. “I died long ago!”

  Contremulus raked at her exposed belly, drawing thick lines across her scales, sparks flying from his claws as they sliced her open.

  Neither wound seemed to affect the other. They bit and slashed and clawed like crazed beasts, but almost as soon as their wounds had been inflicted, they closed.

  Bite. Claw. Rend. Roar. Slash.

  The two dragons locked in close, tumbling across the snow, rolling over a handful of the Ironguard who failed to get out of the way in time and were crushed. Their wings slammed into trees and people alike, smashing whatever they found into chunks of gore and timber.