by Tammy Salyer
Balavad’s vessel lay near the doorway, limp and prone, eyes staring at the ceiling. Ulfric approached it cautiously, waiting for a trick. Though tricks like this seemed far outside Balavad’s character, such as it was. The Battgjaldic woman’s body didn’t twitch or groan when he toed it, and Ulfric could do nothing but stare in wonder. This woman, though still much taller than an average Vinnric, was profoundly different from the last time his eyes had beheld her. Her skin had lost the deathly pallor of a Ravener, and her back had lost the hunch that seemed to be a symptom of Balavad’s infernal consecration. Even her eyes were more like those of any of the humans Ulfric had encountered in other realms. Though she had dark crescent-shaped pupils, the irises were a serene copper shade, a bit like Mallich Roibeard’s. Most noteworthy of all, she looked at peace.
Surprising himself, he realized he pitied the woman, even felt a hint of grief at her state. Had she ever had a choice of what would become of her? Had Battgjald once thrived before Balavad had become so bent on dominion? Could the people of their realm have been their allies if not for their misguided creator? The saddest of all was that they would never know. Battgjald wasn’t merely out of reach—it was no more.
As he stared down at her lifeless body, he thought, Balavad has not simply abandoned this woman as his vessel, she has even been released from his service completely. The elixir that made her monstrous is gone, the same way it was removed from the fighters in Arc Rheunos, and the Vinnrics Vaka Aster rescued from Balavad’s warship before that.
His next thought jolted him like thunder. If Balavad has relinquished his vessel…
Then where was Balavad now?
The shouts and cries from outside the citadel had moved inside, and he could hear them coming up the stairs to the tower. Quickly, Ulfric barred the door. If Balavad had left his vessel, there was every chance that the rest of the Dyrraks were once more their unsullied selves. He was beginning to suspect he knew what happened, and if it were true, nothing he might experience in another hundred lifetimes could amaze him more.
The Syzyckí Elementum, he thought. But regardless, if by some miracle beyond reckoning had occurred and the thing he’d known only to be described as “the destruction of destruction” had happened, that didn’t mean he had a believable explanation for why the leader of Dyrrakium, Domine Ecclesium Starkas Nazaria, lay nearly headless and utterly exsanguinated almost at his feet. After what the Dyrraks had so lately been through, they would be difficult to reason with. And Ulfric was certain he’d lost the glamor that had made them all revere him as Vaka Aster’s living simulacrum. If his vision had returned to normal, it was certain the appearance of his eyes had too.
As he halfheartedly swept the room for the celestial stones, believing in his heart that they had dispersed into the ether upon their transformation, he heard a rustling at one of the arched windows. Turning, he smiled broadly.
“Urgo, Yggo, there are no words in any of the five realms to tell you how happy I am to see you.”
The bruhawks churred affectionately, dipping their heads up and down in excitement. He stepped to the window and stroked the back of Urgo’s neck, lamenting the loss of the memory keeper to help him communicate better with his old friend. Despite this, it seemed they knew him, recognized him once more as himself, not as what he’d been—a shell for their creator. And at that, Ulfric realized his guess was right.
I am me, and only me. The cage was unmade, not by anything I did but by what the Syzyckí Elementum did. They are the One again, unified and complete. And so, the Great Cosmos is as well. The One Verity has no more need of an earthly vessel to be bound to the realms. We are all part of one realm now, joined together in a new age.
He chuckled, realizing that despite the enormous joy of he felt that his worst fear, the ending of the realms, hadn’t come to pass, he had so many questions now that he doubted he’d ever learn all their answers. Not in another thousand turns anyway. Were the other realms truly as unharmed as Vinnr? What would the One Verity do now? And, most personally pressing, what would become of the Knights?
He’d no more than had the thought when he was addressed by a voice. One that was familiar, for he’d lived with it in his own mind for weeks, but one that was also many. The voice spoke in dozens, hundreds of tones, as if composed of countless speakers at once. It was Vaka Aster, and it was much, much more. It was the voice of the One.
She asked him a simple question. He knew how Symvalline would respond, and was certain he knew how Isemay would too. The rest of them would make up their own minds, but he didn’t hesitate a single heartbeat before giving his answer. Then he turned to the bruhawks.
“You’ve already done so much during this exploit, friends. How do you feel about one last journey? It’s time to rejoin the rest of the Knights, and we have a very long way to go.”
Chapter Forty-Eight
Hallumbrum had come and gone, and dawn was no more than an hour or two away. Symvalline sat with her legs dangling over the edge of Magdaster’s great wall, fatigued beyond any measure she’d ever felt before. Knights could go for days, even weeks, without sleep or food. But Symvalline couldn’t, for she was no longer a Knight.
The Syzyckí Elementum—they all knew now what it had been. The crescendo of the rising harmonic that had shaken Magdaster’s walls, the very earth itself, exploded throughout the realm just after the Knights had reached the wall’s base. It had seemed as if the entire Cosmos had suddenly burst open. The Knights had clutched each other as the note reached its peak, fearing the worst. And then… all was calm. A peaceful hum had followed, rapidly diminishing like the ripples over a lake touched by a light breeze. Like the soft brush of air in the wake of a dragørfly’s wings.
None of them had needed to ask what had happened. Mylla’s quest had been a success. The Syzyckí Elementum was complete. If they’d needed further convincing, the sight of the hundreds of remaining Dyrrak attack craft in the air abandoning the battle en masse and returning to their ships would have done it. More than that, however, was the immediate and unusual transformation of the crimson dragørs of Anzuru. As the last note of the Elementum died away to a soft hush, Symvalline looked to the sky to see the dozens of crimsons shifting from grossly elongated flying worms back to a form much more like their Howling Weald cousins, compact and stout like equines, but smaller. The fighting overhead ceased, and both species of dragør had settled all along the walls to lick their wounds, perched on the ancient structure like gargoyles.
With no one left in the air to engage with, the remaining Himmingazian ships landed outside the wall in a compact formation. The handful who had controlled them all emerged, each of them bruised, overwhelmed, and stunned, but in one piece. She’d learned later they’d lost three of their own, and they’d been buried like heroes with all the Magdastervians who’d died as well.
From the ground, the Knights watched the dragørs, fascinated, knowing they must have been speaking to each other but unable to penetrate their conversation, even with their Mentalios lenses. The Magdastervians, choosing wisdom over combat, retreated to whatever shelter they could find while the dragørs communed. Before long, the crimsons launched in one grand flight and angled their great bodies south, returning home to Dyrrakium. That more than anything else assured all present that the battle was finally and truly over.
Even though the battle, like all battles, lasted a finite amount of time, the aftermath invariably went on for much longer. As the proverbial dust and the actual smoke-and-ember-infused air settled, Jaemus had gone to see to his home-worlders, while the Knights immediately rushed back into the city to provide any aid they could. At least half the interior buildings suffered total destruction, as had the watchtowers lining the wall. The wall itself, however, had sustained negligible damage. The Magdastervians had constructed it in desperation and determination to withstand any attack a thousand turns ago, and it had done the job admirably. The one other group of battle instruments with minimal damage were the emberflare
cannons themselves. Constructed from Magdaster’s best steel, the best steel in the whole of the realm, they would probably be around long after even the Knights had dissipated to dust.
Symvalline had dived into her role as healer without a second thought, doing what came naturally to her. Though she of course desired to help those in need, she worked herself ragged mostly out of a need to stay busy and keep her mind off the death of her heartmatch.
Yet shortly after the Knights had begun to help, they’d been caught up at the same moment by a sound like the song of the Elementum, the chime of a thousand voices, all coalesced into a singular note, resonating in their minds. They’d had no reason to make a guess at what or who it was; there was only one entity it could be.
Knights Corporealis, Mystae, Wardens Temporalis, and Archons—you have served your maker well. Our gift is now yours to do with as you will. Those of you who wish to retain your spark of ordination and serve your realms everlasting may. Those who wish to return to your common selves may as well. The choice is yours.
Theirs. The choice to remain invincible and immortal, but given to a new purpose, not to aid their Verity but to aid their peoples. Or, the choice to be as they’d once been, mortal and ordinary, and thus able to relish life, short though it was, with the exquisite gratitude that came from knowing it was only temporary. Giving up possible eternity, something that in Symvalline’s experience dulled into colorlessless in its repetition, for the simple but brief joys, which would shine all the more because of their fleetingness.
Symvalline had chosen in an instant. Her life had been more meaningful to her as a healer, a mother, and a partner to Ulfric than it had as a Knight, and she preferred to keep those experiences sharp and beautiful in her memories, rather than losing them to the inevitable deterioration of infinite time.
The others, Mallich, Safran, Stave, and to no one’s surprise, Griggory, had chosen differently, but Symvalline felt nothing but happiness for them. Though, in Mallich’s case, she wondered if he’d chosen to remain a Knight out of lack of hope for a better life, a life without Eisa, more than because of a fealty to such long-ingrained duty. Perhaps she would ask him someday. As for Knight, or Mystae, Bardgrim, she hadn’t learned yet what his choice was.
Now she sat alone on the wall, feeling the weight of time and the weariness of humanity more heavily than ever. The city had quieted in night’s embrace, regaining its strength for the days and thirty-nights ahead of healing and rebuilding. She should sleep too, she knew, but pushed against the need. Sleep was a threshold, and somehow, once she crossed it, she would be letting go of the last of what had made her a Knight. She was almost ready, but not quite yet.
As she stared into the sky, she wondered what had become of Mylla after she’d met with Fimm in Ærd. Was she still alive out there, with no way to return home? After granting the Knights their choice with regard to remaining as such, the One Verity had gone silent. No questions they sent were answered, no reassurances were given. They knew only that the realms were, as the Verity itself was, unified into one cosmic fabric. Would the Verity be present in their lives? Would they be able to call to it in times of need or uncertainty? They had no way of knowing, but given the silence they were left with after the last words, and a deeper sense of aloneness that Symvalline had never felt before, she doubted it.
And that, she felt, was for the better.
She’d feared she would never see Isemay again, with the Fenestrii being transformed and leaving no way to open the starpaths. Upon her voicing this worry, Griggory assured her she had no need to be troubled; he’d speak to Heart of Purple Might on her behalf. Though pressed, he didn’t elaborate on what he meant, but she hadn’t felt a need to require a definitive answer right away. She trusted Griggory implicitly, and if he said she’d be able to see Isemay, she believed him.
In a few days, after she’d regained her strength, she’d seek clarity on his meaning. But for the moment, she was content to watch the peaceful night sky, imagining Ulfric was up there now among the stars, smiling down at her. And she smiled back, if sadly.
A gleam of moving silver against the black ceiling of night caught her eye, and behind it another. They moved like the tail of a shooting star, but seemed much closer than any celestial body. Symvalline stood up, watching the streaking lights approach. They were not dragørfly ships, nor were they dragørs themselves, but she’d known creatures who shined this way for hundreds of turns. Two bruhawks were drawing near.
Without thinking, she chanted the words through her Mentalios link to Urgo and Yggo—but she’d lost her spark. Her Mentalios was now nothing but a lovely pendant and reminder of the man who’d made them. All she could do was wait until they were close enough to call to.
The two hawks descended to land before her, having seen her easily with their preternatural eyesight. As overjoyed at seeing the two Knight companions as she was, who they had with them rendered her completely speechless.
Urgo dropped Ulfric to his feet before landing beside him on the wall. Yggo released Mylla next to Ulfric and alighted as well. Symvalline stood there, silent as the still air, tears falling freely from her eyes.
No one spoke for several breaths until Symvalline finally said to Ulfric, “Balavad claimed you were dead.” The two of them collapsed into each other’s arms before he could respond, both weeping openly in joyful, relieved sobs.
Mylla smiled at them, a bit wistfully, and stepped aside. She and Poppy’s Noble Inferno had emerged from the starpath well moments before Ulfric, Urgo, and Yggo had come through the interrealm well from Dyrrakium. The reunion between her and Ulfric had been equally jubilant, but short, as they were both anxious to get to Magdaster and learn what had become of their companions as quickly as possible. Noble Inferno had left them in the care of the bruhawks, who were more than capable of making the flight in a short time, seeming to have reached her limit with humans. Mylla had felt honored, even a little touched, to even receive a final Farewell, Knight Evernal. For one so small and fragile, you have achieved greater things than should have been expected of you.
Thank you, Master Inferno, she’d said. I will be forever in your debt.
As if you could ever have anything I would want, the dragør responded and then was off in the sky with a great gust of wind.
Despite the creature’s dismissive words, she still smiled. At least she’d risen from the rank of speck to Knight in the dragør’s view. Because, like the others, she’d made her choice.
Now, watching Ulfric and Symvalline bask in their happiness at being reunited, she knew it was the right choice. Though she’d loved Lock, and always would, she realized when the One had spoken to her that she would not be able to return to an ordinary life. Whatever ordinary was. Not a moment of her life after her brief, tragedy-filled childhood had ever been normal. And after being impacted, even shaped in a way, by the spark of the Five sundered Verities, she wouldn’t even know how to fit into a commoner’s life. Her purpose, her calling was to be of service to the common peoples of the Cosmos, but not one of them. And to her surprise, she found she welcomed the duty.
Symvalline stepped back from Ulfric, still holding his hand. With her other, she reached for Mylla’s and smiled at her radiantly. “We should go tell the others you’re both here. I expect that if there’s anything that will shock Stave or the Himmingazian into silence for once, this will be it.”
Ulfric laughed. “Not even death could make Bardgrim be quiet.”
Chapter Forty-Nine
Jaemus unleashed a string of curses of such profligate elegance that he was in danger of producing expansive, if obscene, poetry. Some of the words he borrowed shamelessly from Stave, some from Himm, and others he invented on the spot as was his nature as an engineer. If he were as skilled at engineering as he wished, however, the result of his exhortations would have been the proper fitting of the metal shielding he was currently attaching to one of the crashed Glisternaut ships. To his further disgust, it merely led to wasted h
ot air and a cramp in his shoulder from trying to force the metal plate in place.
“A mouth like that is almost enough to make me blush, novice,” said Stave, who’d arrived in the makeshift shipyard unnoticed.
Jaemus swiped his brow, not caring that he was likely adding more grease and grime to his already grimy face. He’d been hard at work for over three weeks in the yards and had long since given up trying to maintain a presentable appearance. “Well, I may not have achieved much mastery with your teachings on the finer points of stabbing things, pun intended, but I’d say any partnership that ends with at least one of the party greatly expanding their vocabulary isn’t a wasted one.” After a thoughtful moment, he added, “And I guess you don’t really need to call me ‘novice’ anymore.”
“No, I guess you’re right, I don’t. I’m sorry you decided not to take your oath and stay in the Knights with us, though. And I have to say, more than a little surprised.” Stave spoke distractedly as he walked around the small ship, examining its undercarriage with a critical eye.
“It was an… interesting opportunity, but I had to pass it up. I think I’ve performed enough heroics to last lifetimes already. I don’t really need to live those lifetimes to fully appreciate it.”
Stave nodded. “Fair enough. You being a Knight was a little like trying to fit an ax into a sword’s sheath.”
“An ax?” he said, cocking a skeptical eyebrow. “Me?”
“Ah, I take your point, I do. More like a what you’re doing there, trying to force that plate into a slot that’s just not the right size for it. Take it off and give it over. I’ll take it back to the forges and work it into the right shape for you.”