by Phil Tucker
Iskra couldn’t move. She watched, spellbound, as the Ascendant stepped forward till he was almost directly beneath the blade. Shoulders back, his robe fluttering as if caught in a storm’s high wind, he stared up at the demon, raised both hands and then slammed them together in the form of a triangle.
The burst of power was immediate. The golden light that surrounded them everywhere burned like smelted gold, shot through with undulating smears of white, and a song rose up all around them, heartbreaking in its purity and beauty, ethereal and otherworldly, a thousand voices raised to hold a single, pure note.
The demon’s blade evanesced.
With a roar, the demon reared back, arms flailing, wings beating powerfully. The gusts caused ripples to flicker across the sphere’s surface, but they disappeared as rapidly as they had come.
The Ascendant stood still, glaring up at the ysil-athamagr, and then slowly, deliberately, he turned his back on it and walked back to the center of the sphere.
Nobody moved. Iskra doubted that anyone so much as breathed.
Eyes still burning white, the Ascendant stopped, turned, and then rose back up so that he was hovering once more, cross-legged. Slowly, but with an air of finality, he closed his eyes again.
The sphere let out a low, resonant hum and then was still.
Iskra reached out and squeezed Orishin’s arm, and even Tóki let out a bark of laughter as he raked his fingers through his thick hair.
“And we opposed this man?” asked Patash, his voice quiet, almost stricken.
“No,” said Orishin, smiling widely. “We merely opposed the drunken, sadistic bastard who carried out his orders.” He froze, then looked aghast. “I cry your pardon, my empress. I did not mean —”
“It is nothing,” said Iskra. “I stopped defending my husband many years ago.” She gazed up at the Ascendant. The frown was gone from his face, and he now appeared, if not serene, then calmly focused.
“Your isil-atha-maga wasn’t quite up to the task, was he?” asked Tóki, turning to Audsley.
The magister scowled. “Are you asking me to defend the demon?”
“Don’t know,” said Tóki. “You feel like it? You haven’t told us yet what’s going on. Didn’t you have demons inside you not too long ago?”
“Tóki,” said Iskra, and the Hrething scowled but stepped back. Iskra smoothed down her skirt and faced the magister. “If you have anything of use to tell us, Audsley, now is the time.”
“I, ah…” Audsley raised both hands as if to clasp his head, and tears brimmed in his eyes. But he grinned, as scary a smile as Iskra had ever seen, and for the first time she questioned his sanity. “I, well, there’s much to share, oh, yes, and my place in history – it’s quite marked, for better or worse, though I suppose it depends on whom you ask. Where to begin? Oh, by the Black Gate, where to begin?”
“How about the beginning?” Orishin said with an almost unctuous civility.
“No,” said Iskra. “That can wait for when we escape. Tell us facts that can aid us now.”
“Facts, facts. What are facts but opinions backed by a majority opinion, hmm?” Audsley’s smile strained even wider, and he reached up to fondle Aedelbert’s ears. His gaze slid over to the Ascendant, but he quickly looked away as if the sight of the hovering youth had scalded his eyes. “Impertinent pertinencies, in order of priority, to distill, to distill —”
“Audsley,” said Iskra, keeping her voice low, doing her best to hide her concern. “Calm yourself. We need you. We all need your wisdom. Don’t fail me, my friend, in our time of greatest need.”
“Oh, Iskra,” said Audsley, and this time tears did run down his cheeks. “Fail you? If only you knew. But yes. Let us lend what little service we are capable of in this gloaming hour. Marshal yourselves, dissolute thoughts!” He pressed his knuckles against his temples and scrunched his eyes shut.
Iskra ignored Orishin’s querying glance, praying that Tóki would bite his tongue. They all waited, watching as the magister muttered to himself, until with a gasp he straightened and smiled at them once more.
“Very well,” he said. “Ennoia. Yes. That’s the truth of it, as best I can guess. Zephyr said she wished to bring Starkadr back onto the world stage; I assume she meant by her turn of phrase that she wished for an audience, and where is the greatest gathering but in Ennoia itself? Not Aletheia, no, a stonecloud falling onto a second? Haphazard, chaotic, undignified. Perhaps Zoe? But Zoe is too far down the chain, is it not? Sige and Nous are inconsequential in size, leaving Ennoia, the capital, home to two hundred thousand souls, all of whom could cast their gaze aloft and witness the miraculous appearance and subsequent fall of a legend long thought little more than myth...”
He trailed off, his smile almost fatuous, as if he were mocking himself, but his eyes glimmered with a spiritual pain that defied Iskra’s comprehension.
Nobody spoke.
“Ennoia?” she whispered at last. “That — that is where Kethe was fighting. Where our army was massed. Are you sure?”
“Sure? No. Facts, as I said, are slippery things, defying even — but no, no, enough with the prolixity. Let us hew, let us hew — but perhaps…” He inhaled sharply and straightened as if presenting himself for inspection. “I believe we fell upon Ennoia. And being, what, almost a mile wide? We must have crushed half the city.” The corner of his eye began to twitch. “The center of which was most densely populated, so perhaps — consider the army, Tharok’s own kragh, oh, a rough tally, some hundred thousand souls just perished with our fall.”
Iskra stared at him, horrified. Fascinated. Sickened.
Audsley lifted a shaking hand, then snapped his fingers. “Like that. Gone! Sent streaming — where? To him?” He pointed without looking at the Ascendant. “Does that mean, I ask you, that a hundred thousand Noussians are about to be born? Oh, but we shall have to build new towers, a dozen more, no, a hundred to accommodate such numbers! Unless they were bad, sinners all, in which case they shall flood the Zoeian hinterlands with the wailing cry of an army of babes, thrust out from between the legs of a hundred thousand unsuspecting mothers!” He tittered. “Or – or — perhaps they won’t be born, not here, not there, not anywhere. Gone. Like dust blown from a windowsill by a bored maid, a hundred thousand motes disappearing into the air and gone forever from all sight.”
“He’s mad,” said Tóki.
“I wish I were, my hirsute warrior! And where do you fall, hmm, being a Hrething, born outside the city states of Ascension? When you die, where shall you be reborn? As a beast? A Bythian? Perhaps we should ask the Ascendant. He is here, after all, the ultimate temporal authority, the light of the Empire, the greatest soul. We should ask him, yes, beseech that he clarify these questions now, before we are crushed and torn to shreds by a horde of demons that will surely fall upon us, to feast upon — upon —”
Audsley covered his face with his hands, turned, and fell into a crouch. His shoulders shivered with silent sobs. Aedelbert licked his cheek, but to no effect.
Nobody spoke. Eventually, everyone turned to Iskra as if they were waiting for her to pronounce judgement.
Her thoughts would not coalesce. Like an insufficiently trained falcon, they wheeled about and refused their summons. She stood, fighting not to sway. Ennoia. Kethe. Was the body of her daughter crushed beneath her, obliterated by thousands of tons of black rock? And the entirety of the imperial army? Agerastians and Ennoians both? If so, there was no point in escaping Starkadr; there was nothing to escape to.
“Your Imperial Highness?” Orishin asked softly.
How could one be expected to command when dealt such blows? Her life had become a succession of tragedies. Persistence was simply asking for more pain. How could they ask her to respond in a meaningful manner at such a time? A wail built itself within her and sought release, to claw its way up her throat.
One hundred thousand.
Kethe.
She was saved from having to answer by a new voice, rich with
amusement and careless in tone.
“Hello.”
Iskra turned, her body wooden, and gazed beyond the circumference of the sphere. A hauntingly beautiful young woman was floating in the dark. Her layered and fashionable robes billowed out about her, and her black hair rippled as if caught in an updraft, only pinned in place about her brow by a plain circlet of iron. Her eyes betrayed a fey, almost cruel amusement, and her sensual lips were curved into a smile.
“Who are you?” asked Iskra.
“Who was I, or who am I now? Or perhaps you meant to ask, what am I becoming? Never has my identity been in such flux. It makes answering your question a challenge.”
Tóki growled and flexed his hand by his hip, clearly missing his ax. “You’re floating out there with them,” he said. “That’s answer enough for me.”
“Crude, but accurate. If we are to draw lines in the sand, then I stand with ‘them’.” The woman smiled, completely unperturbed by her declaration of allegiance. “Now. Let us converse in a more dignified manner.”
And so saying, she reached out, and with but a touch caused the golden sphere to disappear.
CHAPTER 2
Tharok
Pain pulsed through Tharok, caused by the wounds dealt by the two humans before him, but already the deepest cuts were healing. If anything, the pain served to remind him of his own formidable strength. Not even the best the human Empire had to offer could slow him down for long. Even without the circlet, he was a force of nature.
The humans, on the other hand, could barely stand. The Bythian was gaunt, his skull prominent beneath his bone-white skin, and his eyes were unfocused. He swayed, and only the woman’s arm about his waist kept him from toppling over.
She had enough stamina yet to meet his gaze, though shock had addled her wits. Her ferocity and determination had been quenched by the impossibility falling from the sky above Ennoia, and now she seemed a child, her eyes wide and glimmering tears. They were encircled on all sides by kragh who waited, weapons drawn, for the slightest signal from him to cut them down.
“How are we to survive that?” Her voice shook with emotion. “There is no surviving that! Starkadr has fallen, and with it — with it —” She cut herself off before emotion got the better of her.
“Starkadr,” rumbled Tharok. “The name of the mountain. You know it.”
“I — yes.” She hitched the Bythian a little higher up her shoulder, examined him worriedly, but pressed on. “It is — was – our headquarters, where the Ascendant and our people fled after you — after you —” Fury, indignation, helplessness all arose within her voice.
Tharok lifted a hand to forestall her anger. “That is the past. We must put it behind us. What I saw befall your city is a graver threat than we can pose to each other. Tell me of this Starkadr.”
“How can you be so calm about this!” Tears sprang into her eyes, and the challenge in her voice caused the kragh around them to grunt and stir restlessly. “You’re our greatest enemy — you killed Henosis, murdered thousands. You — you sacked Aletheia, and you speak as if we can just put that behind us?”
“Yes,” he said.
She opened and closed her mouth several times but was diverted by the Bythian, who let out a low moan as his knees buckled and he slid to the ground.
“What is wrong with him?” asked Tharok, searching for a debilitating wound.
The woman crouched at the Bythian’s side, easing his head onto the rocks, biting her lower lip. She studied the man’s face and then sat back on her heels. “He pushed himself too hard. He cast too much magic. It’s just about killed him.”
“Hmm,” said Tharok, lowering himself into an easy squat beside her. “He is a shaman?”
“No,” she said. “A walker of fire.”
Tharok cocked his head to one side. “Are you saying he is that action?”
“No.” She looked at him strangely. “That is what his kind are called. Flame Walkers.”
The translation was off. Tharok paused, waiting, and then it made sense. “Flame Walker,” he said, emphasizing the title.
The woman nodded. “Not a shaman. He — he draws magic from — from —” Her expression crumpled, her chin shivering as she bit down on a sob.
Tharok waited. She was feeling too much emotion. “Cry, if you must. But do not cry long. We have much to do.”
She dashed the tears from her eyes. “You speak as if we’re friends! You’re not my friend, and you’ll never be my ally! I hate you! I loathe you and all that you have done. Do you think I’ll forget your crimes at Abythos? I’ve sworn to kill you. How do you think I’ll fight at your side?”
Tharok shrugged. “Because you must. Just as I must put my dreams of conquest aside. I saw the spirits pour free from the falling mountain. Thousands of them. My shamans cannot handle such a number. We need to work together if we are to prevent them from destroying us all.”
“Not spirits,” the woman said quietly, staring down at her friend. “Demons.”
“Demons, spirits.” Tharok shrugged. “It is all the same. They are our enemy. Their appearance brought great destruction. We have gravely weakened each other. We must fight together if we are to survive.”
“Fight together,” said the woman. “What have my kind left to fight with? That was our last army. Gone, destroyed beneath the stonecloud.” She gave a bitter laugh. “You conquered too well, Tharok, if you wish to make allies of us now.”
Tharok rested his hands on his thighs and waited as emotion coursed through her like a flash flood down a canyon. “You fight with white fire. He fights with black. Both can be used to harm these demons. Your Ascendant is a great shaman, is he not? He can advise us how to fight them. You have brothers and sisters who also wield the white fire. They can fight alongside my kragh.”
“Had,” she whispered. “You turned Synesis, Mixis, and Akinetos to stone in Abythos. You tore Henosis apart at the Abythian gate. Ainos turned traitor and killed Theletos. They’re all gone. All dead. I’m the only one left.”
“Hmm,” grunted Tharok. “Yet I saw others fighting alongside you with some measure of your power.”
“The Consecrated,” she said, still staring down at the man. “Some survive, I suppose. Sent by Lutherius to watch Zoe, Sige, Nous.”
Tharok felt a twinge of loss for the circlet. It would have guided him adroitly through this conversation. Helped him navigate this human’s overly complex emotions. “Have you nothing left to fight for?”
The woman stared at her palms. The lines there were engrained with black dirt and crimson blood. They shook. Slowly, she closed them into fists. “My mother and the Ascendant were inside Starkadr.”
“It was a big mountain,” Tharok said in what he hoped was a diplomatic tone. “They may have survived the fall.”
She went to snap a rejoinder at him and then paused. “Yes. Perhaps.”
Tharok rose to his feet and looked around. He was the tallest of the kragh, the largest, and the ground sloped down and away from the mound on which the great Solar Portals stood. From where he was standing, he could view the kragh who remained to him. A thousand, perhaps less. Similar numbers were no doubt positioned in the other cities. His force had been reduced at a guess to some four thousand kragh. Their morale would be dangerously low. It would be difficult to convince them to fight alongside the humans.
“Uniter.” It was a medusa-Kissed kragh, large and broad-shouldered. His thick braids roped with gold thread hung down over his shoulders, and his skin was matte black and glimmering with crimson undertones. Kraxor of the Burning Shields, one of his ten warlords.
“Kraxor,” said Tharok. “What is it?”
“The cavekillers are dead.”
“Yes,” said Tharok. “And if not dead, lost to us beneath the stonecloud.”
“No, Uniter.” Kraxor spoke with wary courtesy. “Those who were here in Bythos. They are destroyed.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Dragons,” said
a squat kragh in the second row.
“It is true,” said Kraxor, placing a fist over his heart. “We all saw them while you were fighting in Ennoia. Four dragons. They scoured the plain and burned the cavekillers where they coursed. Then they flew to the Blade Towers. We have not seen them since.”
Tharok rocked back on his heels as if he had been struck a blow. Dragons. His kind’s most ancient protectors. Creatures of myth. Their liberators, their greatest symbol of freedom.
Panic bubbled up within him. Dragons. How? Kyrra would have drawn their wrath. Was she dead even now? Would the dragons declare themselves content and return to their spirit home, or would they come for him?
“Send scouts!” he barked. “To the towers! Your fastest kragh! I must know where they are. Go!”
But Kraxor didn’t turn away to obey. Instead, he stared over Tharok’s shoulder, his eyes widening with something akin to joy and awe.
Tharok took a deep breath and then turned.
Four dragons were flying toward them, growing larger by the moment. The smallest was the size of Jormungdr’s corpse that he’d found in the Valley of the Dead. The largest was a black-winged monster out of his nightmares. Despite his fear, he felt his own sense of reverence envelop him.
If he was to be stopped, if he was to be killed, then death by dragon was a fitting end to his legend.
Peace descended on him. He spread open his arms as if to embrace the four and began walking toward them. A song arose within Tharok’s mind, the pure, achingly beautiful song of the White Gate. But, no. This was not the time for that mystery. This was the hour for something older, more hoary with the weight of tradition and doom. He took a deep breath and gave voice to his dirge, the final song that a kragh might sing as he walked to meet his fate.
On all sides, the kragh knelt and pounded the rock with their fists. They approved of his facing his death. What other reason could there be for the dragons’ approach?