“Ardrhythain,” said Ridmark.
“Dragon Knight,” said Ardrhythain. “I fear you must hasten. Imaria has entered the city, and she is moving towards the Citadel. You must stop her before she can tap the Well and destroy Black Mountain.”
Ridmark nodded. “Very well.”
“Wait,” said Calliande, the suspicion in her mind sharpening as she looked at the red staff. “Can you send any aid with us? Or can you come yourself?”
“I cannot,” said Ardrhythain, glancing at the sky. “Every bladeweaver and mage among my kindred is engaged in battle. Our strength can hold back the power of the Frostborn, but only barely. Even the loss of one mage would mean that the Frostborn could rain ice and death upon your allies. And as for myself…the archmage of Cathair Solas has one final duty to perform, should the battle go against us.”
Final duty…
“Ardrhythain,” said Calliande, a chill falling over her. “What is the Final Defense?”
“The last hope of stopping Incariel from escaping its prison,” said Ardrhythain. “Should you fail to stop Imaria, should she be about to release Incariel, then I will break this staff against the ground. When I do, the spell holding Cathair Solas aloft will be broken.”
Ridmark blinked. “That…will destroy Tarlion.”
“It will do more than destroy Tarlion,” said Calliande, horrified. “That much weight falling from that much height…”
“It will completely destroy Tarlion,” said Ardrhythain. “It will also kill everyone within about twenty miles of the impact point, and flatten forests for another fifty miles. The impact will cause a massive shock to the surrounding ocean, and the resultant wave will devastate continents and civilizations of which you have no knowledge.” He let out a long breath. “It will also seal the Well of Tarlion and render its magic inaccessible to anyone.”
“That is horrible,” said Calliande.
“It is,” said Ardrhythain. “It will mean the final destruction of the last remnant of the high elven kindred, the deaths of millions, and the destruction of several civilizations, yours among them. But the alternative is worse. If Incariel is freed, then this world is doomed from now until the end of the cosmos. Every living mortal on this world will be enslaved for millennia beyond count, chained to endless madness and chaos. Uncounted billions that would be born here will never exist. If the Final Defense is used, in time this world will heal. If Incariel is freed, this world will be damned until the final moment of time.”
Calliande stared at Ardrhythain. He would do it, she knew. He would break the staff and let Cathair Solas plummet into the Citadel and Tarlion like the thunderbolt of God. Ardrhythain would die, and so would the final remnant of the high elves and countless others. But he had said that the task of the high elves was to defend the world from the shadow of Incariel. They would do it, and they would perish in the process.
Along with so many others.
“But it’s not too late, is it?” said Ridmark. “Not yet.”
“No,” said Ardrhythain. “I shall wait until the last possible moment before using the Final Defense. But if I sense that you have failed, if I sense that the Black Mountain is about to shatter, then I will use the Final Defense. This sacrifice will ensure that our world will not die.”
“Then we’ll just have to move quickly, won’t we?” said Ridmark, his expression hardening. That heartened Calliande. He would not give up, not ever, not for any reason. And especially not when the stakes were so high.
“Go with God, Dragon Knight,” said Ardrhythain. His golden eyes turned towards the final city of his kindred. “I will pray for your success.”
Calliande opened her mouth, closed it. She saw again why the high elves did not get involved in the affairs of other kindreds. They were too powerful. She would have hated Ardrhythain for what he was prepared to do…but if he used the Final Defense, he would sacrifice himself and all the remaining high elves.
Ardrhythain knew what would happen if Imaria succeeded. So did Calliande.
“I think we should hurry,” said Calliande.
Ridmark nodded and opened another gate with the sword, and they stepped through it.
Chapter 25: Enlightenment
Tarrabus watched the battle, fascinated and puzzled.
He did not understand what was happening.
The first phases of the battle had been obvious enough. The Frostborn had launched wave after wave of assaults at the northern wall. Then they had flung a combined attack of siege weapons and frost magic at the northern gate, shattering it and granting them access to the city. Tarrabus had smiled at the sight. Tarlion would soon fall, followed by Andomhaim itself, and the fools would pay for their rejection of the Enlightened.
Perhaps he would make some of them pay with his own hand, assuming that Ridmark and Calliande and Arandar and the others were still alive.
He leaned against his window, watching the frost drakes wheel over the city. The men of Andomhaim put up a good fight, but the momentum of the fight was inevitably against them. Tarrabus watched as the medvarth established footholds on the wall and poured through the wreck of the northern gate, pushing the host of Andomhaim back step by step…
Then the flying city came into sight.
Tarrabus’s first thought was that the boredom of his captivity had driven him mad and that he was seeing things. But he hadn’t been bored watching his enemies face inevitable destruction.
But a flying city?
He saw other things. Giant figures of bronze leaped across the ramparts, smashing medvarth warriors and siege towers as they did. Flying beasts that looked like a mixture of lions and eagles soared over the fields, battling the Frostborn upon their frost drakes. Tarrabus had no idea what those flying creatures were, but he thought the bronze figures were taalkrazdors, the magical armor of elite dwarven warriors. That meant the dwarves had come to join the battle, and that would mean the Keeper’s wretched alliance had arrived.
And, apparently, Calliande had found a flying city somewhere.
To Tarrabus’s fury, the battle swung in Tarlion’s favor. The medvarth were driven from the walls, and the men in the Forum of the North rallied, pushing closer to the ruined gate. Tarrabus’s remaining hand curled into a fist. By rights, the men of Andomhaim ought to lose the battle. They had rejected the shadow of Incariel, and they had proved themselves weak and unworthy. They deserved to die for their folly.
As if it had come at his call, a flicker of darkness went across his vision. Had he drawn the shadow of Incariel to him? No, the wards around his cell still stood, and he could not reach the shadow.
But the flicker of darkness had come from below, from the gate to the Citadel.
###
The shadow surged through Imaria, and she shaped it with her will, hammering at the wards on the gate of the Citadel. The wards were strong, but not as strong as those on the walls, and they succumbed. Without the protection of the wards, the current of shadow swept across the gate, and the wood turned to splinters and the steel to rust. The gate collapsed in broken ruin, and Imaria stepped through the wreckage and into the courtyard of the Citadel of the High King of Andomhaim.
A flicker of old memory went through her as she looked at the splendid towers and walls and bastions, at the huge basilica that served as the High King’s hall. She remembered coming here as a girl with her father and her sister and her brothers. It seemed like a thousand years ago, and she remembered the awe she had felt at the mighty buildings and the pomp and splendor of the High King’s court.
Her lip curled in contempt. Such useless things. The men of Andomhaim trusted in their laws and their customs and their God to keep them safe. Imaria would free them from that, would give them freedom from time and causality and matter.
A dozen men-at-arms stood guard before the doors to the Chamber of the Well.
Imaria would start by freeing them.
Swordbearers and Magistri would have proven a challenge. A soulblade could kill e
ven the bearer of Incariel’s shadow. Common men-at-arms could not. The shadow of Incariel poured from her hands, ripping the lives from the men, and they fell dead at her feet, their bodies reduced to withered husks.
Imaria strode past them without a second glance and stopped before the doors to the Chamber of the Well.
The wards here were far stronger than the ones upon the gate of the Citadel. Imaria called on the shadow and sent it hammering against the doors. The ward wavered and shimmered, corroding beneath the power of the shadow, but it held. Imaria snarled and redoubled her power, flinging more shadow into the ward, but the spell continued to hold.
She wasn’t strong enough. Imaria could channel a great deal of the shadow of Incariel, but not enough to break the ward. The ward drew its power from the Well itself, and to break the spell she needed more of the shadow.
Imaria would need someone else to help her channel the shadow.
Her teeth bared in a snarl, the shadow hissing in outrage inside her skull. She would not be denied now! Not after so many millennia of labor. She needed another wielder of the shadow. If the pathetic Enlightened had not gotten themselves all killed, she could have used one of them…
The shadow hissed in her thoughts, and she looked at the soaring towers of the Citadel.
No. Not all the Enlightened had been killed, had they?
Imaria called to the shadow and soared aloft, the wings of darkness carrying her towards the towers.
###
Tarrabus craned his head, trying to find the source of the flicker of shadow he had seen.
And then he saw his distorted reflection in Imaria Licinius Shadowbearer’s quicksilver eyes.
Tarrabus blinked in surprise. He had not been sure what had happened to Imaria after the destruction of the Enlightened. No doubt she had fled once the Enlightened had been defeated. Or perhaps the Swordbearers had killed her, or maybe Ardrhythain had caught up to her at last.
But now she hovered before his window, great black wings wrought of shadow rippling behind her. Her corpse-like face regarded him without expression, the black veins pulsing beneath her skin. She still wore that close-fitting dvargir armor, the plates sliding around her limbs as if they were alive.
“How are you here?” said Tarrabus.
“Stand away from the window,” said Imaria, raising a hand.
Tarrabus backed away until his heels hit the thick wooden door.
Shadows exploded in a cone from Imaria’s hand and struck the wall. The wards the Magistri had built around his cell flickered and shuddered and went out, their strength leeched away by the cold power of the Shadowbearer. Suddenly Tarrabus could call to the shadow of Incariel again, and he felt its dark strength roaring through him.
He started to say something, and the wall exploded.
Tarrabus shouted in alarm, his maimed arm coming up to shield his face as chunks of broken masonry landed around him. Imaria’s power had torn a door-sized breach in the stone wall, and she glided through it.
“You will come with me now,” said Imaria in the eerie double voice of the Shadowbearer.
“What is happening outside?” said Tarrabus. “How did you get here?”
A strange, irritated twitch went over her features. It was as if she had forgotten how to make normal human expressions. Or if she had been so filled with the dark power of Incariel, so twisted away from what she had once been, that there was hardly anything left in her that was recognizably human.
“You will come with me now, Tarrabus Carhaine,” said Imaria.
“Do not presume to command me,” said Tarrabus. “I am the rightful High King of Andomhaim…”
This time a recognizable expression went over Imaria’s face.
She sneered at him.
“The High King?” said Imaria. “You are a broken cripple in a cell. You were beaten, Tarrabus. The Enlightened thought to make themselves gods, but Arandar swept them away like chaff. You thought to make yourself the High King of Andomhaim, and Ridmark Arban beat you. You thought to treat with the Frostborn as equals, but instead, you are rotting here as the Frostborn break Andomhaim. Perhaps you are as weak and as useless as your father always thought.”
Rage boiled through Tarrabus, and he stepped towards her. “You dare to speak to me…”
“Then take your sword,” said Imaria, “and cut me down. Assuming you can use one with your left hand.”
The fury drained away, replaced by the exhausted apathy he had felt before the Frostborn had arrived to besiege Tarlion. Perhaps she was right. The Enlightened had proven useless, and had failed the test at the critical time. Perhaps his father had been right. He had always berated Tarrabus for his weakness. Tarrabus had killed the old wretch in his sleep, proving himself the stronger.
Or maybe not. Maybe the Enlightened had been doomed from the beginning, fated to be swept away by the Frostborn.
Imaria started to smile. There was nothing human about it, her expression filled with alien, malevolent glee.
“That was your error, Tarrabus,” said Imaria.
“What error?” snapped Tarrabus. “Trusting you and your predecessor?”
“You put your trust in strength,” said Imaria. “That is folly, for there is always something stronger. But I shall unmake strength. I shall break all laws. I shall free us all from consequence.”
“What nonsense is this?” said Tarrabus. “Do you…”
She moved forward, caught his face between her hands, and kissed him hard on the lips.
Tarrabus had not been with a woman since before he had built his siege walls, and his body should have responded with enthusiasm. Instead, a wave of revulsion went through him. Her lips felt like ice against his mouth, and the armor plates that brushed against his chest felt like the touch of a poisonous thing. He wrenched away from her and saw her grinning up at him, saw his reflection wavering in her quicksilver eyes.
“Do you desire revenge, Tarrabus Carhaine?” whispered Imaria. “Do you wish to see Ridmark suffer for all that he has done? Do you want to see your enemies crushed beneath you?”
“Yes,” said Tarrabus.
“Then I shall give that to you,” said Imaria.
She placed her palm against his chest. Tarrabus flinched from her touch, but her hand remained against his chest. Shadows boiled from her fingers, waving back and forth like dozens of tiny serpents.
Then they plunged into his chest, seeking his heart.
He just had time to scream, and then pain exploded through him. He felt the cold power of the shadow of Incariel howl through his veins, filling him with its malevolent strength. Tarrabus had been the strongest of the Enlightened, able to call upon the shadow of Incariel to its fullest extent, but now more of the shadow opened itself to him. Another wave of agony rolled through Tarrabus, and the pain subsided.
“Behold,” said Imaria.
Tarrabus opened his eyes and saw his new hand.
Excalibur’s blade had cut his right hand from his wrist, but now a hand wrought from shadow rested in its place. Black veins flowed through the flesh of his arm, feeding power into the hand of shadow. Tarrabus blinked in surprise and flexed the fingers of his new hand. A sudden impulse came to him, and he called to the power of Incariel.
A shiver went up his arm, and a sword of shadowy force sprang from his new hand, about the length and width of a longsword, but with no weight whatsoever. Tarrabus knew that a touch of the dark sword would wrench away the life of its victims and that it could cut through nearly anything.
“Do you see now, Tarrabus?” whispered Imaria. “All things shall be undone. All strength shall be overthrown. Neither strength nor weakness shall be of any consequence, for freedom and chaos and madness shall rule all things. Do you desire your revenge?”
“Yes,” said Tarrabus. If he had possessed this sword when he had duled Ridmark, the battle would have gone very differently.
“Then come!” said Imaria.
She seized his shoulder, and shadows swallowed t
he world, agony roaring through Tarrabus.
When both the shadows and the agony cleared, he found himself standing in the courtyard of the Citadel, dead men scattered at his feet. The white mass of the Tower of the Moon rose overhead, and Tarrabus found his eye drawn to the doors to the Tower’s interior. They glowed with a pale white light, a ward to keep wielders of dark magic at bay.
“When I give the word,” said Imaria, “strike at the doors.”
“We’re going to take the Well?” said Tarrabus, confused. The Well was a stupendous source of magical power, and it fueled the spells of the Magistri. But the Well’s power was inimical to the shadow of Incariel. Both Tymandain and Imaria had often spoken of their wish to claim the Well, though Tarrabus wasn’t sure what they intended to do with the thing.
It seemed he was about to find out.
Imaria did not answer, but drew herself up, raising her hands before her. The dark veins in her flesh bulged, and shadows erupted from her hands, pouring into the doors to the Chamber of the Well. The ward held beneath the enervating fury of her attack, but the white light began to spark and flicker.
“Now!” said Imaria, her double voice tight with strain. “Strike now!”
Tarrabus ran forward, walking unharmed through the stream of darkness. He drew back the sword of shadows and slashed it diagonally across the doors. The white light of the ward flared once more, and then it collapsed, overwhelmed by the dual attacks. The doors shattered in pieces to the ground, and pale white light came from the inside of the Chamber, visible even in the sunlight.
“At last,” said Imaria. “The Well. After a hundred thousand years, the Well is mine. Come!”
He started to say that she was not yet thirty years old, but Imaria shoved past him and into the chamber at the base of the Tower of the Moon. The Chamber of the Well was wide, at least sixty yards across, and built of a white stone that gave off its own pale illumination. The Well filled the center of the Chamber, its circle thirty yards across from one end to another. It was filled with rippling water, and the water was so clear that Tarrabus could see through it and into the depths of the earth, where a harsh white light seemed to shine.
Frostborn: The Shadow Prison (Frostborn #15) Page 36