"Elllethorrrrr…"
The voice rose ahead, high-pitched as wind between canyons, mocking him. Laughter rolled.
"Nedath, come and face your king!" he cried again. "Bring back Lyana or I will kill you."
Somewhere ahead, Nedath laughed and sang. Her voice echoed from countless tunnels, a symphony of chaos. "Again the humans run… again their sweet stench rises… again Nedath shall feed!"
Elethor ran, slapping cobwebs aside, trying to find the demon. The tunnels branched, a labyrinth of them. Whenever he thought he heard footsteps or laughter, he headed that way, but then heard the sounds from behind him.
The cobwebs flapped against him, heavy and thick. Moans and pleading whispers rose from them. Elethor raised his lamp… and felt nausea swell.
Some cobwebs held severed arms with fingers that still moved. Others held ruined bodies stripped down to bones; the spines ended with withered heads whose mouths gasped, whose eyes spun, whose voices begged for death.
"Boy… boy, are you a skeley, are you skeley yet?" whispered one creature, an upside down, mummified thing, no thicker than Elethor's arm, its head shrunken and its lips smacking, its gums toothless. "Boy, it's skeley good, do you think?"
Elethor screamed and shoved past the hanging, mummified creatures. They gasped around him, eyes spinning and fingers twitching, swinging wildly on the cobwebs that bound them. Stars, what are these things? Elethor's head spun and he tasted bile. Were they humans once? Will Nedath turn Lyana into one of them?
In the shadows, the demon's laughter rolled.
"Poor poor humans, yes, Nedath. See how they cower! See how their fear fills the air, so sweet. Soon they will rot, and shrink, and hang, and lick, and smack, and whisper, and weep, and beg, and we will eat them slowly, yes Nedath, we will suck their juices dry, and the marrow from their bones, and their eyeballs, and their sweet innards, as they rot, and shrink, and hang, and…"
"Silence!" Elethor shouted, spinning around, seeking her, seeing only mist and cobwebs. He wanted to rage, to find this creature and fight, to be strong and proud and a warrior like Orin. But he felt close to tears. His legs shook. He gritted his teeth, and would have crumbled and wept had Lyana not needed him. Around him the withered, hanging creatures swung on their cobwebs, sucking the air and whispering madness.
Be strong, Elethor told himself. For Lyana. You must find her. You can't let her turn into one of these hanging things.
"Nedath!" he shouted, hoarse, close to panic. He swung his sword, cutting cobwebs. "Nedath, come and face me!"
Mist rose, cobwebs parted, and the demon emerged.
She was more hideous than Elethor remembered. Her centipede body rose, each segment bristling with black fur. Mounted atop the last segment, the torso, arms, and head of the rotting girl were slick with drool and blood. The girl's mouth opened, revealing chewed flesh. With a screech, she vomited, spraying meat and broken bones and fingers.
"Elethor!" she screamed, a sound that shook the tunnels. "King Elethor of Requiem, fell lord of lizards!"
With a shout, Elethor swung his sword.
The blade sliced Nedath's top half, cutting into the rotten girl's belly. Snakes spilled like entrails, bloody and hissing.
Nedath screeched, a sound like shattering bones. Cobwebs tore and the bodies within them burst, spraying white ooze.
Elethor swung his sword again, aiming for Nedath's head, the head of a rotting girl. The demon raised her arm, and the blade halved her hand, cutting down to the wrist. Her spider legs lashed. Two slammed into Elethor, cutting him, shoving him down. He struggled to rise, but more legs hit him.
Nedath leaned over him, snarling. Drool dripped down her chin. Her eyes shed blood. Three tongues slipped from her mouth, fell onto Elethor, and squirmed across him like snakes. Around them, the hanging creatures twisted and smacked their withered, pursed lips, gasping for air and mumbling.
"The numbers don't line, the numbers don't line, they say, I heard them line it!" said one creature, a spine with clinging skin, its head a mere mouth with two eyeballs on stalks.
"Into my lair, boy, into my lair, we will drink somebody, boy, in here I say, listen, yes," said another, a twisting stem of a thing, its head a wilting cloth bound in iron wire.
They spun around him and Elethor screamed. He swung his blade, cutting at Nedath, but she pinned him down with her legs. She laughed, blood bubbling in her mouth.
"The new Boy King of Requiem," said the demon, voice twisting and rising. "You will be king of my withered things, and you will hurt more than them all."
He drove his fist up and shattered her face. Her skull cracked and cockroaches fled from it, the insects' faces almost human. Nedath laughed. She leaned down and bit Elethor's shoulder, and pain blazed—more pain than he'd ever felt. He writhed and screamed.
Darkness spread across his eyes, closing in until the world was black, and all pain dulled to throbbing cold. In the shadows he saw blue eyes, cruel and mocking, lips that kissed him, a golden face.
"Solina," he whispered hoarsely.
She leaned over him, her naked body pressed against him, and kissed him with the kisses of her mouth, and he ran his fingers through her hair of molten gold. She whispered into his ear, laughing softly, and he held her close.
"I love you, El," she whispered and laughed. "My secret prince."
He wept, clinging to her. "Don't leave, Solina, don't leave, stay here, don't go into fire, don't go into fire…"
But she burned. She burned atop him, screaming, her flesh peeling and melting, until he saw her skull, and still she screamed and clung to him.
No, he thought, shaking. No, I can't let her burn. I can't let this happen. I can't turn into one of these things, these hanging twisting things of memory and pain and madness.
He shouted Solina's name as he drove his blade upward.
Ferus, his sword forged in dragonfire, shone with starlight. It pierced through the burning apparition of his love. Blazing, it drove into the rotting, mad Guardian of the Abyss. With the howl of collapsing stars, the steel blazed into darkness, and Nedath howled too, and the world seemed to explode.
The demon's head shattered. Fragments of bone and gore flew. Behind her, her snaking body of black, furry segments burst, showering the tunnel with blood. Her scream echoed and the hanging things swung, eyes spinning and mouths gasping.
Elethor rose to his feet, breathing raggedly. He looked around him. It looked like the innards of a dead whale. Blood and entrails covered the tunnel. His lamp had fallen and set fire to cobwebs. He stamped out the flames, lifted the lamp, and surveyed the darkness.
"Lyana!" he shouted.
The withered bodies cackled around him, swinging on the cobwebs. They cried out in a mocking cacophony. "Lyana! Lyana! Lyana!"
Elethor began shoving his way between them, knocking them aside. They careened around him, some only spines and skin, others pale creatures whose hearts beat red behind transparent skin. Was Lyana hanging here too? Had she become one of them?
"Lyana, answer me!" he cried. His eyes stung. Stars, he couldn't leave her here. He couldn't let her become a creature. "Lyana!"
Coughing sounded in the distance. A muffled voice cried out. "Elethor!"
His heart leaped. He ran, boots sucking at blood, sword swinging at hanging creatures. His lamp swung and shadows swirled. Down a tunnel and around a bend, he saw a figure cloaked in webs, hanging from the ceiling.
"Lyana!"
Tears stung his eyes. He ran to her and began tearing the cobwebs off. She hung upside down, coughing and blinking. He kept ripping off webs, not knowing what he'd find. Would her body be withered, her skin clinging to bones, her heart beating behind clear skin? When the cobwebs were torn and he pulled her free, he breathed in relief. Blood covered her armor, and black ooze covered her face, but she was whole. Her drawn sword clattered to the floor.
"Lyana, talk to me, are you all right?" He wiped her face, revealing her pale skin.
She coughed
, gasped for breath, looked at him silently… then crashed into his embrace. She clung to him.
"I… saw him," she whispered. "I saw Orin. He was here, Elethor!" She looked at him pleadingly. "He was hanging here from the webs, and I could see his spine, and his head looked like, like… it was just a flat piece of leather, but his eyes moved."
"It was a dream, Lyana," he said softly. He picked webs from her hair. "I saw Solina too. We see the ones we love here, I think."
She gulped and lifted her sword. Blade raised, she looked around her: at the blood on the walls, at the creatures who still hung and stared at them, at the torn segments of Nedath's body. With a sigh, she closed her eyes and leaned her head against Elethor's chest.
"Thank you," she whispered. "You killed the guardian. You did what I could not."
They stood silently for long moments, holding each other in the darkness. Lyana's mane of curls tickled Elethor's nose, and as he held her, he too thought of Orin. In the old days, some claimed that the souls of dead sinners landed in this place, while the pious glowed among the stars.
Elethor clenched his jaw. No. Orin was a hero. A noble son of Requiem. He dines now in our starlit halls, and his soul will never see this cursed place.
"Elethor, look!" Lyana said. She gasped and fear filled her eyes. Slowly, she stepped away from him and raised her left hand. Her fingertips were gray and withered, thinned to sticks.
Elethor's stomach churned. Cold sweat dripped down his back. He forced his fear down and spoke through a tight throat. "Adia can heal them, Lyana. She is a great healer."
Her chest rose and fell as she panted. "Stars, Elethor, stars, am… am I turning into one of them?" She gestured around her at the chamber. The shrunken, withered creatures snorted and cackled and licked their toothless gums.
"No," Elethor said and clenched his fists. "Nedath is dead now. She can no longer harm you. And your mother will heal your fingertips, I promise you." He reached out, held her good hand, and squeezed it. "Now come, Lyana. We go find the Starlit Demon. The faster we leave the Abyss, the better."
She nodded and wiped a tear off her cheek.
"Let's go," she said and raised her sword. "We delve deeper… and I pray that the worst is behind us."
As they walked deeper into the darkness, Elethor prayed too. But he knew in the pit of his stomach: The worst still lay ahead.
SOLINA
With a trembling heart and the whispers of old pain, she walked toward his home.
Solina had told herself she would be strong this day. She was a queen of Tiranor, a great warrior clad in steel and gold. Her twin blades were sharp, her army was vast, her power endless. She was hardened by fire, then by sand, finally by blood. She had not thought this place could hurt her.
Yet some pain drove past armor, and some memories haunted even great queens of cruel desert lands. As Solina walked toward Elethor's old home upon the hill, that pain clutched her heart and twisted.
It was a small home for a prince—a narrow hall, its walls lined with columns, their capitals shaped as dragons. It rose upon a hill where grass had once rustled, pines rose like sentinels, and birds always sang. Solina remembered the old smell of the place, the sweetness of lilac in the gardens, the wine that forever poured here, the musk of him as they made love between these walls. Now the grass was burnt, the pines fallen, and she only smelled smoke and blood. The columns still stood, but while they were once snowy white, soot now stained them.
"This was a good place," Solina whispered as she walked uphill. "This was the only place we found peace, away from the court of the cruel king."
She stepped between columns toward the hall's doors. Once carved with dragons and stars, they were now charred and cracked; the phoenix fire had reached even this place, the doors to her chamber of old secrets. When she shoved them, the doors opened, showering ash. Solina stepped inside, heart like a bird caught in her ribcage.
She saw the chambers as they had been, lush with flowers from the gardens, warm with pillows and divans, sweet with the secrets of forbidden love. She would lie naked here by his side, holding him, and they would talk and kiss and laugh until dawn rose. She remembered the wooden turtle with emerald eyes he had carved her, and his songbirds in their golden cage, and the tears she cried here when the pain of exile was too strong.
The room now lay in ruin. The fire had burned those pillows, divans, and flowers. All that remained were seven marble statues, life-sized, and Solina's breath caught.
They were her.
She stepped toward one, tears stinging her eyes, and touched its cheek. The statue stared back, a girl blossoming into womanhood, pure and beautiful, her eyes soft and her lips smiling. She was draped in cascading robes that revealed her left breast, and her hands were held out as in offering.
"Oh, Elethor," she whispered.
He had not forgotten. He still loved her, had missed her like she missed him, and suddenly Solina was trembling. She wanted those days back, if only for a respite from this pain and fire. She wanted to see the wooden turtle again, and hear the birds sing, and lie with him and kiss him with all those forbidden kisses.
She looked away.
"But those days are gone," she said and clenched her fists. "I was an exile then. I was afraid. I was weak. I was burned. I returned to my southern land, and now I come here as a queen."
Sudden rage exploded in her. Who was that smiling, beautiful woman carved of marble? That was not her. Not anymore. The dragons had burned her, ruined her beauty, scarred her face and soul. With a snarl, Solina drew her dagger and pulled it down the statue's face. The marble chipped, and she kept hacking at it, until a rut halved the statue's face.
"There," Solina said and touched the scar that rent her own face. "Now you are Solina of Tiranor, burned with fire, seeking revenge."
She moved between the other statues, hacking at them, until scars snaked down their faces, torsos, and legs. She would allow no more memories of pureness to fill this chamber. Those memories were lies.
"My power is truth," she whispered.
She opened her leather pack and looked inside. Nestled between rations, sharpening stones, and bandages lay a box carved of olive wood, a foot long and half as wide. Golden runes of suns and flames lined the wood, twisting and glowing. When Solina touched the box, it nearly seared her hand. The weapons within buzzed as if begging for release.
"Soon your fire will be unleashed," Solina whispered. With an angry jerk, she sealed her pack, spun around, and marched out of Elethor's house. She walked downhill between charred pines and birches, jaw clenched, refusing to look back. She would never return.
"I will scar you too, Elethor," she whispered as ash blew around her boots and phoenixes shrieked in the sky. "I will destroy all memories of this place. I will fill it with only my strength and majesty."
She made her way through the ruined city of Nova Vita. The birches still smoldered, charred sticks rising from mounds of ash. The palace rose ahead, its proud columns blackened, its lush gardens now crackling with scattered flames. The city amphitheater dipped into a hillside, a bowl cut into the earth, its tiers of seats holding charred bones, its stage splashed with blood. A hill of bodies burned between the columns of a temple, an offering of death for the cruel stars of Requiem.
No more weredragons filled this place—their vile, shapeshifting bodies now cowered underground. Her troops of Tiranor lined the roads, tall and proud men and women, their skin golden and pure, their hair shimmering platinum, their eyes sapphire jewels. They were as noble a race as weredragons were foul. Even as smoke rose across the city, their armor glimmered, and the firegems around their necks cast ten thousand lights. They stood with swords drawn, the blades curved like the beaks of sacred ibises, their pommels carved as sunbursts. Above them a hundred phoenixes circled in patrol of the skies. Ash rained and smoke rose in pillars.
Solina called out as she walked. "Sandfire Phalanx, fall in behind me! Jade Phalanx, follow! Deserthawk, follow!"
"It is time," she said, "for a fire in the deep."
This would be no long siege. She would not wait here for moons, even years, until the weredragons' food and water dwindled. She would break through their defenses. She would burn them all, and her men would take their women, and her blades would cut her old love.
"For your glory, Sun God," she whispered and looked to the heavens. The sun burned there behind smoke and cloud; it was smaller here in the north, and colder, but Solina would bring all its wrath to this place. She would serve her lord with the flames he'd given her. Her hand clutched the firegem around her neck and its heat shot through her, rivers of flame in her veins.
Soon they reached the tunnel entrance, where a hundred Tirans stood with drawn steel. The archway rose around the darkness, stained with fire and blood. The stairs plunged into shadow.
Elethor waits down there.
Lord Deramon had raised barricades of stone, sealing her outside. He would find that no rock could face the flame of Tiranor.
As her troops stood behind her, swords raised, Solina opened her pack. Delicately, as if handling a holy artifact, Solina withdrew the long box of olive wood. It thrummed and its runes blazed, nearly blinding her.
She whispered a prayer to the Sun God. "May your light forever cast out the darkness. May your fire forever burn out the cold."
She caught her breath and opened the box.
Six clay balls lay there, placed into holes lined with cloth. They nearly burned her hand when she touched them. Decorative red lines, shaped as flames, ran across them.
"Tiran Fire," she whispered. A hungry smile touched her lips.
Her priests had labored for moons to produce these weapons. Each clay container had taken many nights of work and prayer. One alone could destroy a phalanx of troops. Six would destroy Requiem.
A Dawn of Dragonfire (Dragonlore, Book 1) Page 15