by James Enge
The edge of the sky was like a curtain of darkness. The bridge went on and Morlock with it.
The tal drawn from the sun, from the sky, was all around him. He felt renewed, euphoric, as if he would live forever. He tried to fight the feeling, but it was stronger than he was. He drifted in it, a fire within the fire.
Then the river of tal was gone. All light was gone. He was beyond the world.
With his inner eye he saw everything but understood nothing. He was like a baby just entering the world. Forms had no meaning.
Then something stabbed him. That had a meaning.
He swung toward the threat and brought Tyrfing to guard. He tried to understand what he was feeling. It wasn’t pain: his body was on the other side of the sky. But it was a kind of suffering, and a kind he had felt before.
Before him he seemed to see a warrior made of light, armed with a sword made of mist. Then he remembered. He remembered the prison without walls in Tychar, the island surrounded by a lake of mist. When he walked into the mist it rendered him down, somehow . . . broke him up into the components of himself until there was no self anymore. It had been agony. He could not feel pain in his vision, but the distress of unbeing was equally bad.
He remembered the anger and shame he had felt as they had dragged him back to the island, to the prison, to himself.
He dropped the point of his sword and stabbed wildly at the shining warrior.
The warrior’s parry was late—perhaps he was surprised. Tyrfing’s point didn’t strike home, but its harsh blazing edge struck the warrior’s bright shoulder and rasped along it.
In his inner ear, Morlock heard a Guardian screaming.
Morlock withdrew to guard and thought.
What was this warrior? Who was this warrior?
He thought he knew. He remembered what Aloê had written in her letter—not to mention the letter itself. The Graith had used their link with the Sunkillers to send her letter to the end of the world, and they must have sent more militant aid by the same route. And who would they send?
It was Naevros—his talic self, anyway—that Morlock was facing.
Morlock held his sword athwart his talic self, then raised it high, then dropped it to guard—a kind of salute.
A fragment of time, and the warrior opposite did the same. He was Naevros. He must be.
And yet. . . . And yet. . . . The shining surface of the warrior, like plate mail forged from glowing glass, was unlike any talic avatar Morlock had ever encountered in vision. And the voice he had heard in his inner ear was not Naevros’. If he had to put a name to it, it would have been Rild of Eastwall.
Were the other Guardians there, in rapport with Naevros, protecting him somehow?
Was Aloê there?
He hoped not, but his choice was made. He dropped his sword to attack; the other parried and riposted with the blade of mist; Morlock circled away from the stroke and stabbed the shining warrior in the side.
A new cry of pain: Vocate Vineion, howling like one of his own dogs. Morlock thought he saw him briefly, peering in pain through the crack on the glowing glass plate.
Naevros spun, struck Tyrfing aside, and lunged. The blade passed through Morlock’s talic self again: he saw the black and white flames of his talic being fade into gray lines where the sword of mist had passed.
Morlock moved back and brought up Tyrfing to guard. Naevros pressed his attack and Morlock contented himself with defense for a while.
They had done the best they could bringing Naevros here. He was the greatest swordsman alive.
And yet. . . . He also thought they had made a mistake. A timeless time ago, when he left the world and came to this place that was and was not a world, he had been utterly bemused.
But a fencing match, a fencing match with Naevros in particular, that was something he understood: a long, coiling argument that ran back and forth with flashing swathes of rhetoric and sharp, pointed periods. He had done this. He could do this. He understood this. And it gave him time to ponder the un-world of these unbeings.
Why hadn’t they attacked him with weapons of their own when he came through the gateway in the sky? He saw them all around him, lattices of tal framing emptiness, moving about the coarse, invisible landscape, staying still, appearing and disappearing in irregular rhythms. He felt their malice and their hate; he heard many more of their thoughts than he understood, but he knew this fight between Guardians was important to them. But they made no move of intention against him, or to help Naevros.
Perhaps they could not. Perhaps the brawling, stabbing, clawing of material survival was so alien to them that they could not participate in it.
They needed Naevros to do their knifework, as Bleys and Lernaion had. Morlock wished he could speak to the man that had been his friend and his enemy, his mentor and his rival. He would have chosen to fight alongside Naevros rather than against him.
Then he remembered that Naevros had killed Earno. Blood for blood, life for life: that was law in the Deep Halls of Thrymhaiam, where he had grown, like a mushroom, in the dark. Naevros had placed his bet; he would have to stand the hazard of the cast.
For a timeless moment, peering past the shining warrior, his enemy, he saw the Sunkillers, appearing and disappearing in the dark lands beyond, and he understood something. They were enacting the passage of a higher dimensional object through a two-dimensional plane. In his mind, the various shapes of the object took solid form. Transfixed by fascination, he was nearly destroyed.
The sword of mist passed under Tyrfing and through the centrality of his self.
Death was near. He knew it, and his enemy knew it. He struck back with all the force his fading will could command, and several of the glass plates shattered in screams of pain. Past them he could see Naevros’ unprotected talic self: a coil of shining, steely lines. Morlock brought back Tyrfing as Naevros twisted the misty blade in his selfhood; he struck through the shattered plates, stabbing at Naevros.
Now it was Naevros’ pain he heard echoing in his mind’s ear. The misty blade withdrew: Naevros backed away.
Morlock watched wearily as the shining plates protecting Naevros began to reform. More Guardians were being drawn into rapport to protect Naevros. How many could they draw on? How many were party to the vile alliance with the Sunkillers? Most of the vocates, by Aloê’s account. He hoped she was not one of them.
He became aware of another being. Not the angular lattices of tal that composed the Sunkillers, and not the shining warrior of the Graith, no part of his own black-and-white talic emanations. This being was more like a rusty, dark stipple on the surface of the darkness, oozing like a serpent among the lifeless stones, nearly as lifeless as the stones themselves . . . but not quite. There was a smear of bloody light there, the merest trace of life.
Native to this place? Impossible. An infection from the world, travelling with the sun’s life along the Soul Bridge? Perhaps. Skellar had done it. . . .
And, of course, this was Skellar! Or what was left of him, not fully alive or dead, body and soul almost untethered, but keeping each other from dying. The way Skellar oozed among the rocks reminded Morlock sharply of how he had groveled in his bed of gold all those years ago, when he had been god-speaker in the town of mandrakes.
Skellar felt his regard, and fled. Or . . . led? The snakelike talic avatar paused at one moment, is if to allow him to pursue it.
Morlock did follow. A thought was in his mind. What was renewing Skellar’s tal? Feeble as it was, it had not been snuffed out, and his body was not sustaining it. He must have a source of tal. Perhaps he was preying on the Sunkillers. Or perhaps he had found the outlet for the river of life, the tal stolen from the sun.
Naevros followed also, striding across the dead, dark world in his suit of light. He was slow at first, surprisingly slow.
Skellar disappeared over a ridge of dead stone. Morlock ascended above it and saw a valley of stars below.
Morlock descended after Skellar, whose rusty ta
l stood out like a shadow in that life-filled place.
The stars were bulbs of sunlife—smaller in diameter than Tyrfing was long. They seemed to grow from a tangle of thorny tal lattices, hedges of cold unlife caging hot sunlife.
This was what they did with the river of tal that they were stealing from the sun. These things were like jars, or something, restraining the dangerous tal of the sun and keeping in from infecting the un-world with material life.
Morlock wasn’t sure it was working. As he stood there, he saw a new bulb slowly start to take new form among the thorny lattices. Other thorns turned toward it, like flowers turning their faces to the sun. They might not be alive . . . but they looked like they were.
Skellar’s rusty avatar coiled about a low-hanging globe and grew a little brighter. That was how he had stayed alive. His body wasn’t feeding his talic avatar; his talic avatar was sustaining his body with tal bled from the sunglobes.
Morlock became aware of Naevros’ approach and turned Tyrfing toward him. The shining warrior came straight at Morlock—lunged—recovered—parried Morlock’s attack—riposted.
Slow, slow—indefinably slow. How close was the rapport between Naevros and the other Guardians? Was there resistance to his will—misunderstanding of a swordsman’s moves?
Morlock circled around the shining warrior, stabbing and slashing. The warrior, who was Naevros, but only in part, swung about to meet his attacks but could not disguise his lumbering, his failure to attain Naevros’ deadly catlike swiftness.
This was not like every other time Morlock had fought Naevros, half in jest and half in earnest. This was all in earnest, and Naevros’ magic armor was like weights on his hands and feet.
Then, and only then, did Morlock fully realize that he had no hands and feet—not in this fight. His body was on the other side of the sky, at the end of the world. He held Tyrfing by his bond with it and with his will.
Morlock rose from the ground and struck downward. The shining warrior raised his misty sword too slowly and Tyrfing only glanced off it to land squarely on the glassy crown of the warrior’s faceless head. The glass shattered; Tyrfing penetrated deep within it, and Morlock had the satisfaction of hearing both Bleys and Naevros cry out in a harmony of pain.
One for Earno! He would have shouted it if he could. Blood for blood and life for life.
He spun about the shining warrior in midair, stabbing and slashing, shattering plate after plate of the warrior’s armor.
Finally Naevros was moved to take a risky step. He turned the misty blade on his own armor, prying it apart as if he were opening a shellfish. The Guardians sang out, a choir of agony, but then Naevros’ avatar stepped forth, a wiry skeleton of steel, unprotected from Morlock’s sword but unencumbered now.
Naevros flew through the dark air and met Morlock in the empty sky. They circled around each other, striking when they could.
Morlock discovered something: now the advantage of speed belonged to Naevros. Tyrfing was made of matter, at least in part; it took an effort of his mind, and expense of his tal, to move it. Whatever Naevros’ sword was, it was something else: weightless, freighted with death. Naevros could move it as quick as his thoughts. The advantage was slight: just enough to kill Morlock.
Morlock took refuge in the thorny lattices holding the bulbs of sunlife. Naevros’ speed would matter less there, he hoped. Also, Morlock could bask and heal in the tal leaking from the sunbulbs. But so could Naevros, of course. . . .
Naevros’ wiry, shining avatar landed among the thorns and stabbed through them at Morlock.
Morlock vaulted over the thorns and tried to catch Naevros while he was entangled in them.
Naevros slashed with his misty sword and slid through the gap he had made in the wall of thorns.
He swung his sword as Morlock landed, sweeping it through the thorny lattices as if they were dry grass.
Morlock dodged the blow and struggled to bring up Tyrfing in time to parry.
Now a sunglobe was between the two swords, the disruptive blade of mist and glittering unbreakable Tyrfing.
It shattered between them and its light and life and tal were released in a single instant.
The thorny lattices were on fire—actual red fire, as ordinary as bread and water. Another sunglobe burst, and another. Morlock was dazed, exalted, dazzled.
Trapped in the burning lattices, surrounded by exploding sunglobes, Naevros writhed in agony.
The whole valley was exploding. Light was leaping into the lightless sky. The unworld was distorting under it, and Morlock knew he had to flee or die. He left Naevros dying there and arced through the empty sky toward where he thought the gateway to his world might be.
Except the dark sky was no longer empty.
A bright, white eye opened in the dark world. The Sunkillers scattered across the dark plain fell away before its glance, stretching like shadows at sunrise, and Morlock felt the shape of the dark world change around him. Naevros was gone. Skellar’s bitter, rusty ghost was gone. The Soul Bridge was going; he felt/heard it fragmenting behind him in the tide of sudden light.
The eye looked at Morlock, and the monochrome flame of his talic self flared back, back toward the gulf between the worlds.
He raised Tyrfing in defiance and salute. Khai, ynthara! he said or thought. Praise to you, Day. He fell back into a nothingness he feared and hoped was death.
A world away, Naevros syr Tol stood on the Witness Stone and screamed. His eyes filled for a moment with sunlight, and the Guardians looked away, unable to bear the light. His voice trailed off. His hands dropped. His eyes faded. He fell to the floor. By the time they reached him, he was dead, or at least no longer alive.
PART FOUR
Fall
We’re getting a bit short on heroes lately.
—Ian Anderson, “A Cold Wind to Valhalla”
CHAPTER ONE
The Way Back
The blue, empty sky at the end of the world blinked and was suddenly gold. Deor felt the heat of a thousand summers on his face, a bright light that baked him to his chilled, gray bones. He wondered if he would die of it. He did not think that he cared. It was wonderful to be alive, even for a moment, after so much death. It was something to be warm after so much bitter cold. It was something to know that Morlock had defeated the Sunkillers, even if he never talked to his harven-kin again.
Then the moment passed and the bolt of light from beyond the end of the world spread out into the sky above, and Deor heard his voice laughing. It was a kind of light, pleasant cold, like on Cymbalsday morning. That was a traditional day for snowball fights, so he made a snowball and hit Kelat in the face with it.
The Vraidish prince shook the snow off his mask and laughed. He grabbed some snow and replied in kind. His aim would have been perfect if Deor had been even five feet tall, so the dwarf took the precaution of ducking behind a snowy hill before the Vraid struck again.
Deor looked around, hoping to enlist Ambrosia and Morlock in the ongoing snowfight.
Morlock’s body still lay beside Skellar’s on the bridgehead at the end of the world. The bridge beyond was gone, shattered by the freed sunlight.
Deor dropped the snowball he was making and ran over to where Ambrosia was kneeling beside her brother.
She turned her face toward Deor. Her eyes were closed and he could see her blue irises shining through the thin skin of the eyelids. She was still aloft in rapture. She spoke, in the toneless voice of the enraptured, “He is falling through the void. There is no here, there is no there. Falling. Many are lost, but he is not lost yet. I am losing him. I am losing him. Help me. Deor. Uthar. Help. . . .”
“Kelat!” shouted Deor, and the Vraid was there, his brown eyes wide with concern.
“I don’t know what to do,” Deor said to Ambrosia.
She lifted her hands blindly, trapped in her vision. “Your strength to mine. We may hold him. We may draw him back.”
“Or?”
“Or we may fall wit
h him into emptiness.”
Fall with him into emptiness! Would the gateway in the west open for a soul lost, falling endlessly, at the northern edge of the world? Deor doubted it. It would be the second death for him, damnation, trapped in the earth where Those-Who-Watch could not see him or bless him.
But it was Morlock. It was Morlock. Better to be damned than to go back without him, to explain to Aloê, to Vetrtheorn, to everyone, Yes, he is gone. Perhaps I could have saved him but I was afraid. . . . That would be damnation.
He grasped one of Ambrosia’s outstretched hands, and Kelat took the other. The males kneeled beside the woman in the melting snow.
Then the prison of Deor’s skull broke open and his soul was drifting free in the endless air over the edge of the world. He didn’t like it. His body was gone and he seemed to himself a shell of silver scales with nothing inside. He didn’t like that either.
He wasn’t alone, though. He saw a green-and-gold whirlwind that he knew immediately was Ambrosia. Beyond her was a kind of coppery lightning bolt that he recognized as Kelat.
They moved together through the abyss, guided by Ambrosia’s will. The dome of the sky was close enough that Deor could see/feel its curve.
Ambrosia focused on an entity adrift in the gulf between the end of the world and the end of the sky: a flickering of black-and-white mingled with white-and-black. Morlock.
Deor stood in the air where he was, at Ambrosia’s unspoken command. Kelat passed onward with her, until he, too, was told to stop. Then Ambrosia went on alone into the gulf until she was almost as distant as Morlock, and the bond with her grew as tenuous as an old man’s memory.
From far away, Deor heard Ambrosia speaking without words to Morlock. He tried to add his unvoice to hers, was unsure if it had any effect.
There was a time, and then another time, and Deor blinked and found he was awake.