World's End

by Will Elliott

  ‘That’s it?’

  ‘That is it.’ Domudess said no more. The castle gave another faint shiver as he walked away. Eric ran after him, but when he rounded a corner the tall wizard was no longer in sight.

  Eric looked back in the hallway to Aziel’s chamber, where the real leaders talked among themselves. He didn’t belong there and he knew it.

  He wandered away, lost, not knowing where he was headed until he arrived at Aziel’s old bedroom. They’d left Case there to sleep with a bowl of water, a bucket of ale (now empty) and some thick bones to devour. The drake slowly opened one eye as Eric came in and sat on Aziel’s unmade bed.

  51

  MESSAGE FROM SHILEN

  Eric slept briefly, despite the odd shiver passing through the castle and the smell of neglected sheets. He woke when something moved onto the bed. ‘Let me sleep, Case,’ he mumbled. A murmur of voices ran through the room. Strange voices. When his eyes opened to find a pale green scaly face packed with teeth very close to his own, he screamed and scrambled backwards on the bed.

  It was an Invia. The room was filled with them. ‘Where’s Case?’ he said. He fumbled in his pocket for Hauf’s amulet.

  The Invia said, ‘Walker. Are you the man-lord they want?’

  ‘Back up, back off me. Who wants the man-lord?’

  ‘The dragons,’ said another, reaching to paw at his leg, as if the feel of it would determine whether Eric was the one they sought. The others nodded in agreement, thick ropes of hair swaying about their heads. ‘All the dragons want to speak with the walker man-lord who rides a drake. You have a drake. But there is more than one drake. There is more than one walker. Are you the walker man-lord?’

  ‘Your aura is like the man-lord’s aura,’ said another. ‘We were told what the man-lord’s aura looks like. Shilen told us. She manages the walkers.’

  ‘We were the ones chosen to fetch him,’ said another. Around the room their heads bobbed.

  ‘What do the dragons want with the man-lord?’ Eric said.

  ‘Man-lord, they want,’ one Invia said, speaking very slowly for his obviously dim brain. The others nodded.

  ‘The walkers outside were angry when we came,’ said another. ‘They shot bows and threw stones, but we’re not to fight with them here, even if they are Marked. We were told this.’

  ‘Where’s Case? The drake that was in here?’

  ‘We are holding him. He tried to block the window to keep us out!’ The whistling rustle of their laughter swept the room.

  ‘Are the dragons angry with the man-lord? Tell me that, and I’ll tell you where you might find him.’

  ‘Do you know him?’ said several of them. They peered at him eagerly. He could back no further away from them, but he tried. Rows of sharp teeth were all he could see. He shut his eyes. ‘Yes, I know him. Are the dragons angry? Just tell me that.’

  ‘Very angry,’ they said. More nodding heads, swaying coils.

  ‘Walkers are hiding what they want,’ said another.

  What they want? Eric tried to think. ‘OK, listen. I know where the man-lord is, but I won’t tell you. I’ll tell Shilen directly, and only Shilen.’

  ‘You must tell us.’

  ‘No!’ said another. ‘He must tell the dragons. He must tell all the dragons. They are waiting.’

  ‘They’re all waiting in one place?’ said Eric.

  ‘Vyin is not there,’ said one.

  ‘Ksyn is there,’ said another. They seemed to be competing to make the most important statement.

  ‘Is Shilen there with them or not?’ said Eric.

  ‘She is just a Minor.’

  ‘She is not important. It’s why she manages the walkers. They are least important of all.’

  ‘I’ll talk to Shilen,’ he repeated. ‘And Shilen only.’

  ‘You cannot say that!’

  ‘We could kill you.’ The heads all nodded, bouncing coils of white rope.

  ‘Do that, and the dragons will be furious with you.’ He had not thought a lie so simple would work on them, but the Invia gasped and drew back as if he’d brandished a deadly weapon. ‘If you even harmed me, they would be furious.’

  ‘We could harm you, that would be permitted. Your legs and arms, we could break or pull away. As long as you could still speak.’

  ‘Thanks for that correction,’ he said. ‘How close can the dragons come to the castle?’

  ‘Four miles away. They can go no nearer. Stupid! Didn’t you know that?’

  ‘Walkers are stupid.’

  ‘You got that right,’ said Eric, nodding his head with the rest of them. ‘Tell Shilen to meet me there, four miles from the castle, at the Great Dividing Road. Tell her to come alone. I will tell her many things about the man-lord. He is just about the stupidest of the walkers, I guarantee it.’

  ‘Why just Shilen?’ said one amidst a wave of unsettled chatter. ‘She’s just a Minor.’

  ‘Because she manages the walkers, and I am a walker. Who will be first to tell the dragons what I have told you? Surely they’ll be pleased with whoever among you tells them first.’

  Instantly – the very second he finished saying it – the furious beat of wings made the room a gale of feathery air. They poured out into the sky in a blur of movement, with many hard thumps as their bodies hit the window frame.

  Case sat in the corner, looking at him serenely. He didn’t seem to have minded being held down by a group of Invia at all; in fact it seemed he’d rather enjoyed himself. Maybe they looked better to him since they’d shed their human disguises and wore scales instead. ‘Rather you than me, my friend,’ Eric said. ‘We’ve got to fly, I’m afraid.’ Case’s look at him seemed questioning. ‘I’ll go meet Shilen. I don’t care any more, even if she kills me. I fucked it all up, Case. I could have summoned Hauf back at Elvury, and had him take Kiown out. Could have shot him at the tower too, like the real Case said I should have done. So I don’t think I’ve really earned a long and happy life. Let’s go.’

  As they flew over the familiar castle lawns, the stream of people pouring into the castle was quiet and orderly. Whether the half-giants had acquiesced and allowed them in, or whether they’d been overwhelmed by sheer numbers, the matter had clearly been settled some time previously, for the roads leading to the castle were clearing up.

  As they flew away from there, Eric thought of Domudess’s message from the haiyens: Let them. Were the haiyens just reiterating what Aziel herself had said? Let those people march into the dragons’ jaws, and to their deaths? If that was the message, were the haiyens really friends?

  But Aziel was right on one count at the very least: if that was what the people wanted to do, they would not be stopped by any speeches or any promise that there was a better way.

  The flight to the part of the Road where Shilen waited seemed very brief. She was gazing up at him in her dragon form, white, feminine and beautiful. But she was not what took his breath away, nor what made Case’s panting breath send forth little excited bursts of flame. Back some way behind her, just at the edge of sight, four enormous dragons had gathered side by side. There was no doubt these four were of the Eight; their power was tangible enough to feel. It was like a pressing weight on him, pressure squeezing his temples. With his mage eyes he saw enormous spires of colour twisting and tumbling about them. He’d seen nothing of the like since the airs about the castle during Vous’s great change. Here were only half of the great dragons. How could even the gods withstand them?

  In the far distance was the more familiar shape of Nightmare, waiting in the sky like a storm not yet ready to blow over. The dragons surely sensed him there, but none so much as looked in his direction. Nor did he come closer.

  With the huge dragons was a collection of lesser ones, a few of them airborne, suspended motionless while others languidly beat their wings. Those dragons did indeed seem small compared to the four mighty ones of the brood.

  It took desperate coaxing to make Case descend to ground level. S
hilen’s head arched high over him and her eyes glittered. There was no way to tell by looking at her that she bore such hate for him and hate for humanity, as Dyan had said. She was beautiful and graceful to behold, a nobody among her own kind but a queen to him. He felt like an animal, an ape, as he dismounted Case and stood before her. One of her wings still hung loose, torn at the shoulder. ‘I’m sorry about your wound,’ he said, sensing it was a dangerous thing to mention at all.

  Her head reared back further. ‘There are other things for you to regret. Or shall be, soon.’

  ‘Couldn’t the great ones heal you?’

  ‘Of course, if they wished to. They leave me injured as a mark of my failure, my shame. I accept it. They will injure me far worse, if you don’t help me. I do not expect such a thing to matter to one who does not even care for the lives of his own kind.’

  He took the charm she’d given him off his neck. ‘You can have this back. I shouldn’t have kept it at all.’ He tossed it towards her. Her head snapped at it with alarming speed. She caught the charm in her mouth and clamped shut her jaws. The charm fell to the ground in pieces.

  ‘Where is Shadow?’

  That’s what the Invia meant – Shadow is what the dragons want. ‘You would know if I lied, wouldn’t you? Of course you would. Then here’s the truth: I don’t know where he is. The haiyens told Siel to go somewhere. She had Shadow caught in her charm at the time.’

  Shilen’s head swayed side to side like a serpent’s as she appraised him. The ground faintly shivered as one of the huge dragons behind her took a few steps into his range of sight. Its skin was a silver not unlike Valour’s armour, with threads of red wound through it. Eric thought: It doesn’t matter any more. This world is theirs again. Maybe there are other worlds than the ones I’ve known. Maybe death is the only way out of Levaal and Earth both, the only way into a better place. So be it.

  Eric tried not to betray his amazement at what he saw next: a line of people walking towards the huge dragon which had stepped out of the group. The people provoked no reaction from it. They ran across the ground until they were close enough to touch it. To his further astonishment they began to climb up onto the beast’s tail, up along its back. Their calls and laughter carried across the distance between Eric and the great dragon … but like the great dragon, Shilen did not react to the sound. He knew she did not even hear it at all.

  He understood: these were the people the Spirit from Levaal South had taken away from the castle, just hours before. The Spirit had taught them to be unafraid, taught them to be filled with love for these enormous, deadly creatures, who only hated them in return. And it had worked. These people now laughed and whooped as they climbed aboard the enormous creature, unseen by it, unfelt and unheard. And untouched by its magic.

  Shilen’s head craned around to follow his gaze. ‘You are right to be impressed,’ she said. ‘It is a privilege to see him. A privilege to die to him, as many of your people have now done. Listen, man-lord. You feel you are safe from us, in the castle. If so, it is the last safe place for you in this world. We will change that on this day, if you do not tell me where I may find Shadow.’

  ‘How will you change it, Shilen? By sending Invia to the castle?’

  Her laugh was rich, soft and musical. ‘We shall wake our Parent. The four great ones you see behind me will do it today, if you do not tell me where I may find Shadow. We now know the haiyens worked with you to halt the Pendulum’s swing, to keep our Parent sleeping. If these four great ones cross to the South, our Parent’s rival in the South shall rise for war. Our Parent shall rise in turn. Humankind will know no sanctuary. These four behind me – plus one other – are agreed to perform this action. Vyin has not the power to stop them.’

  Suddenly it hit him: the haiyens’ message. Let them. He fought to keep his thoughts blank, lest Shilen’s glittering eyes could somehow read them. He said, ‘You lied to us, Shilen. You knew the dragons would devour us when they were free.’

  Again she laughed. ‘Suppose I knew it. How would you have relayed that information, in my stead?’

  ‘Why do they do it? You lied to me, but this part was true enough: you are grand enough beings to create your own pleasures. Why bother with us? Aren’t we beneath your notice altogether? I just don’t understand.’

  ‘Do you explain reasons to the cattle you butcher, or the game you hunt? If you did, what reason would you give? Those creatures are beneath you; it is your right. The dragons’ reasons are the same. Where is Shadow?’

  He knew Siel would be hidden from these dragons, even if he told Shilen where she lay in wait. The haiyens’ message repeated loud in his mind: Let them. What harm was there in telling? ‘Siel is at World’s End. Where the Great Dividing Road meets the road from the South. Shadow is with her.’

  Shilen let a silence draw out. ‘You have spoken truly. But if we do not find Shadow with her, we shall wake our Parent, and those of your kind gathered at the castle will die in an instant.’

  Let them. ‘Won’t your Parent kill the dragons too, Shilen?’

  She hissed in anger. ‘Do you think dragons alone are subject to our Parent’s laws? The Southern gods are not of Levaal. They are not even of Levaal South. They are from other realms altogether, and they are forbidden to come here. Our Parent decrees it. And yet at least one of them has come! It has interacted with humankind, and given aid to the gods of this realm. This is a greater violation of our Parent’s laws than the dragons gaining freedom. You will be destroyed if our Parent comes forth, not the dragons.’

  ‘You seem so sure of what will happen, Shilen.’

  ‘We have seen it happen before, man-lord. Our Parent will battle its rival for a time, and then both will retire to change their realms as they see fit. Should our Parent defeat its rival, the dragons will claim the southern realm too. And we shall reshape it to our liking. There will be no place in either realm for humankind.’

  Behind her, the huge dragon stared directly at him. He wanted to meet its eyes but he couldn’t. It saw him in totality: everything he was, everything he wasn’t. And yet the enlightened people climbed over it unseen, easily as children at play.

  In the distance the tall foreign god – the Teacher of Many Arts – appeared on the horizon for just a second or two, its antlers twisting against the grey-white sky. The people climbed down the great dragon’s back then ran across the fields towards where its image had briefly been. Eric felt hope wash over him like a faint breeze from that direction.

  Shilen had been speaking while all this transpired, but he’d barely heard her. Now she said, ‘None of the endless kings and conquerors among you ever felt my kind steering them. Only the Spirits ever challenged our influence. Your world has always been ours, man-lord.’

  ‘You forget, this isn’t my world. You never steered my world. You never had any influence there.’

  Her eyes glittered, and he could practically see her human form before him, smiling. ‘How little you know of us,’ she said. She turned and walked back to the other dragons. She gave no sign of seeing the group of people who now skipped and sang as they ran from the Great Dividing Road.

  The ground shivered with the huge dragons’ steps as they turned around, ran, then flew. A great gust of wind went up. They flew to the south, surely to find Siel. It seemed a stifling weight had been lifted from him, lifted from the very air he breathed … a weight those other happy people had not even felt.

  He did not know who to pray to for Siel’s safety. So he addressed the prayer to no one and hoped it would find whoever might act upon it.

  52

  PENDULUM SWING

  The world as they flew south seemed to Siel’s eyes like a table ruined after a ravishing feast. Even mountains seemed to lie in tumbled messes, destroyed by quakes from falling skystone if not smashed by direct hits. Lightstone pieces large and small glowed, scattered over vast miles. Dark grey skystone slabs had smashed deep holes down into the honeycombed groundman tunnels below the surface
.

  Those few people they saw on the ground would invariably run for cover upon sight of Dyan above them. All along the Great Dividing Road, where inns and small townships had stood, there was ruin and wreckage as if marauding armies had been through. Siel felt no anger or pain that the dragons had brought this ruin. After what the haiyens had taught her, there was nothing the dragons could do to make her hate or fear them ever again. Now that she knew human life was immortal, it could be said that nothing bad truly ever happened at all. This life was a fleeting borrowed thing, a short time to collect the experiences of suffering through a prison world; that was all. Each person born into it would one day escape it, as surely as they would die a mortal death. How absurd it was that people held such fear of death! The ultimate blessing perceived as the ultimate curse.

  Great as the dragons were in this little sphere of existence, the dragons did not have that part of them: soul. That was why she’d seen none of them marching towards the crystal lake’s waters to refresh and cleanse themselves. They would ever be here, or in realms like this. This really was their world; what had looked like a man-made hell of war and slavery had all been orchestrated by the dragons from their place of hiding, through their corruption of a few key rulers, just as they’d begun to corrupt Eric and Aziel. The dragons had created the preciousness of human suffering. And that was why Siel had learned to love them not as some trick of the mind, but with all sincerity.

  And because she now loved them, truly loved them, they could not see her. She even faded at times from Dyan’s perception, despite the link between him and the charm which commanded him. He would turn his head back, saying, ‘Are you there, Beauty? I sense the symbol you hold, but I lose sense of you.’