by Tom Barczak
To bring to fell the Shadowed Pale
When the Giver does return.
To lament the ones who will forget
The Dragon waits within.
The Prophecy of the Evarun.
He never thought it spoke of him. He still wasn’t sure that it did, and he didn’t care why. It was a prophecy for others; it offered him nothing to bring his kingdom or his father back. They were empty words and if it was his fate, then there was little left for him in it.
Chaelus drew aside the veil of the curtained door. Two Servian Knights stood watch outside. Their gossamer blades hung at their sides over their chainmail hauberks. They were armed for war but, by their oaths, were unable to wage it. For what purpose did they serve? Certainly not for his, but for some promise that had been made of him.
Al-Aaron’s wound would heal, now that he was here amongst his own. They would know the poison that claimed him. But Al-Aaron’s Order answered to another calling than his, and as much as Chaelus wanted to, even needed to, he knew he couldn’t depend on Al-Aaron any longer.
Beside the fire, rekindled while he had slept, more bowls of the dried fruit and bread had been left. His stomach, spoiled from the night before, gnawed at him.
The shadows lengthened as Chaelus ate. The burning dusk came nearly silent as the cool evening air began to settle, interrupted by the distant sound of laughter, a sound he remembered from many lives before but unlike even the laughter he had heard from the inn of Roanwaith. It was a sound without malice.
A bronze razor, jars of oils, and a small copper mirror had been laid beside a basin. A clean gray tunic, folded, waited nearby.
Chaelus undid his sword belt and set Sundengal down. Then, stripping off his armor and the cares of all the lives he’d already lived, he bathed.
***
Al-Aaron wavered on the thin line spanning the darkness. The chill of his wound whispered. The memories of his past called from its shadow.
He could still see the man’s face leaning down to him, silhouetted at the sewer’s end, the bright sting of daylight flashing upon the newly fallen snow behind him.
The sun burned like fever against Aaron’s brow, sweat mingling with the blood that covered him, burning the corners of his eyes. The dead body of Figus, his master, pressed against him, frozen in the darkness behind him.
Aaron held his breath, hoping that the man wouldn’t see him.
The man reached out his hand to him and waited.
“Would you end this life, child, and take another instead?” the man asked. “I will not hurt you as he did.”
Aaron let the scarcest whisper of his breath escape. The man already knew.
“Why not?” he whimpered.
The man stood. His robes billowed around him like a crimson fall against the snow. “Because you’re brave, my love, braver than most. You’re so brave, I think there’s someone only you can save.”
“Who’s that?”
The man smiled. “My son.”
***
The soft voices of the shadows whispered within the narrow close, warning him not to try.
Aaron’s hand jerked just as he touched the old woman’s thin cloak. She’d already stopped, already knowing he was there, like no mark had ever made him before.
The two men walking with her stopped as she did. Their eyes pierced through him like the eyes of hawks, but their hands never went to the swords whose hilts he’d already spied beneath their cloaks.
Aaron wanted to run, but he didn’t. He couldn’t.
Her eyes were less predatory than those of her guards. Her eyes though, held him like a watchman would hold his hands upon a thief. It was a feeling he knew well, because that’s what he was.
The old woman gathered her cloak and skirt up from the muddy, snow-clogged street and squatted down next to him
“What do you want, my dear?”
“Are you the one they call the Mother.” Aaron’s voice sounded small and weak against the noise of the babbling street behind them. “A man named Malius told me to come to you.”
The old woman’s face grew pale. Her stare released him.
Aaron wanted to run, but he didn’t. He couldn’t, because something even more powerful than her stare kept him there. Something that told him to stay. Instead, he attempted a smile and continued with what the man named Malius had told him to say. “He sent me to you, so that I can save his son.”
The old woman’s hand seized him. Her grip was cold. Her stare returned, but a reassuring smile turned her lips, like the one he had just given her. “Then you must come with me, for you have seen a ghost, my dear. The man named Malius is dead.”
***
The rush of sound returned as the waters of the Maddea fell away. Aaron knelt just as he’d been taught to, and then he laid down, his face pressed against the cool damp grass of the morning. The warmth of the new sun danced over him.
The soft edge of the Mother’s robes brushed against him as she stood over. He could hear the booted step of Al-Thinneas close beside her.
The gentle prod of her gossamer blade to each of his shoulders felt like lightning, like a promise of a new life fulfilled. And it was, unlike anything he could have dreamed of, and more.
The memory of Figus fled past him, along with the ghost of Malius, the spirit of the fallen Servian Lord who’d brought him here; ghosts of the past he’d left behind.
The sounds of the Garden succumbed beneath the soft lace of the Mother’s voice. “Arise, Al-Aaron, and claim your risen life.”
***
The small chamber fire did little to ease the chill of the Mother’s small private chapel. Yet Al-Aaron knew that the dawn of winter had very little to do with the discomfort he felt.
“Yes, Mother,” he replied. His voice crackled. His throat thickened.
The Mother’s eyes narrowed. “Are you so sure? I wouldn’t be. Not about this. And still my question is unanswered.”
The Mother pulled the thin blue blanket snug about her. She reached with one end of her stave, placing it carefully into the fire pot beside where they sat, shifting the old embers, rekindling them from deep within. Sparks lit out and danced upon the air.
She pulled the stave back. “I’ve heard your words regarding the one you would return to us. They’re the same words I spoke to his father, Malius, before he fell.”
“I won’t abandon this.”
The Mother turned to him. Her stare held him, as always. “Is that what you think it was?” She paused, a question held close within her thoughts. “To say so is to already have lost. Or do you believe you have gained some new power over this?”
Al-Aaron turned his eyes upward, to the three Nephelium painted on the ceiling. The small glowing angels hovered around the Giver as he bowed on his knees before them. It was a Giver from another age, but the Giver had returned. Al-Aaron’s voice drew thin. “No, Mother.”
“Then again I will ask you. Will you be done with this?”
“I cannot ignore the vision that has been placed before me.”
“The visions of Malius you claim can’t be trusted. For this reason, you are forbidden to go. You aren’t ready, and you’ve already forced too much in trying to be.”
“The blood of the Evarun is in him.”
“This we know, but there are many things we don’t. You’ve been blinded by where your vision has led you, and by the many things you’ve kept from me.”
His chest tightened with a faint fire from the truth of what she said, of what he still hid from her. “Mother, I don’t claim…”
“But you do! You have already claimed too much, much more than you can possibly bear.” The Mother paused. Her voice thickened with emotion. “The burden of prophecy is no idle thing, child. Can’t you see what it’s already taken from you?”
Al-Aaron slumped back, reeling. “I’m sorry.”
The Mother stood. “The time for regret is over.”
“You don’t believe he’s the One?”
&
nbsp; “No, Al-Aaron, he is not the One.” The Mother’s eyes softened as she reached toward him, raising her hand beneath his chin. She smiled. “But trust at least that your vision of Malius was not wholly in vain.”
“What do you mean?”
“Chaelus is not the One, my child. But I believe he’s the one who will lead Him to us.”
Behind the Mother, the ghost of Malius stepped forward, his dark crimson robes flowing about him. A small smile broke across his face.
“It’s almost done, my child,” Malius said.
Al-Aaron waited as the Mother left, knowing she would never see and hear the spirit of Chaelus’ father. Al-Aaron righted himself upon his seat. “Everything’s gone just as you said it would.”
Malius stared back into him. “Of course it has. And I know how tired you must be, but one more task still remains for you to bear.”
“No one believes me.”
Malius’ smile thinned. His haggard eyes narrowed further.
“They will. They will all believe you in time. Until they do, pay them no heed, for the faithless are your enemy. You only need do this one thing. Return to me my son.”
***
Al-Aaron bolted awake, his thin breath captured within his throat. His arm was cold, and still filled with a weight that bore down upon where the Remnant blade had cut him.
He stared up into the face of the Mother.
The light of the dying fire transformed her long straight silver hair into golden cloth as the lines tracing across her face deepened. Al-Aaron could not help but fall into them as she leaned over him where he lay, her eyes clenched tightly, lost in her prayers.
Al-Aaron relaxed into the softness and warmth of the bedding around him. He was in the Garden of Rua. He was safe. But more important than that, Chaelus was too. He’d returned to Malius his son.
Chapter Nine
Synod
A tentative knock sounded as Chaelus put his head up through the neck of the tunic that had been left for him. The ghost weight of his armor still clung about him like a hundred stone.
A boy waited upon the threshold. It was not the vision of Al-Aaron he had beheld before. This boy was real, and he wasn’t Al-Aaron. He gave Chaelus an awkward bow, revealing a mouth only half full of teeth as he offered a meek smile. “I’m Login. I’ve been asked to bring you before the Synod.”
Chaelus rose from his pallet as he let the tunic drop around his shoulders. “Another child knight as well then?”
Login stepped back, his eyes turned downward. “No sir. I serve the knights while I wait for my mother’s return. She sits upon the Council of Twelve. If you’re ready, we shouldn’t delay. The Synod won’t wait for us.”
The cool, evening air had already begun to settle as Chaelus stepped out through the doorway. The sun hadn’t set yet. It cast a warm glow amidst the trees around them, setting them ablaze with a languid fire. The burning dusk watched in silence as the leaves, dropping on the gentle breeze, resounded about them like the crackling of embers.
Login led him without pause towards the ancient stairs leading up to the ruined hall. The glow of the fire beyond its solemn stones burned brighter now than it had the night before.
Chaelus followed close behind him, hearing once again the clamor of voices. This time an urgent tenor held them. Login stood back from the edge where he waited, his eyes still cast downward.
The fire in the ruined and open hall had grown, its flames reaching high into the endless night sky. Robed in black, several score gathered standing around it, but it was clear there were fewer here than there should be.
Only seven of the twelve stone seats were filled. The Gossamer Blades of each of those seated rested upon the flagstones at their feet, pointing towards the fire. They betrayed the many lands of their owners, though each was still alike in their binding.
The Mother sat in one of the seats, facing away from Chaelus, her head bowed. She appeared small before the gathered Servian Knights. Her long gray hair hung straight, tucked beneath the blue blanket draped around the shoulders of her black robes. Al-Thinneas sat beside her.
To the Mother’s other hand sat someone else, just as familiar as she was. An aged man now, but his narrow eyes betrayed him. Chaelus remembered the rap of staves that had echoed across his father’s hall, drawing closer as, with a child’s care, he parted the curtain to see the ire within his father’s face. Not at the Mother, but at the sight of the man, Maedelous, who stood beside her. This man.
“The Twelve of the Synod are the eldest of the Servian Knights,” Login whispered. But his sight was elsewhere, as if he had just awoken. His voice wavered. “The empty chairs will remain, to honor those who haven’t yet returned.”
The Mother raised her head. The evening breeze blew through her hair. Though she looked small, Chaelus knew she could look down upon giants. Those gathered before her looked upon her with reverence.
The fire, burning between them all, flared in the breeze, sending out its sparks. For a brief moment, the night turned inescapably quiet. For a brief moment, nothing less than the moment remained.
“Rua.” The Mother’s voice drifted across the break. It was soft. It was gentle. “We humble ourselves before your grace, so that our sacrifice will not be in vain.”
Chaelus looked around for Login, but the boy had gone, away from the sight of the empty seats, and the one he had loved who’d once sat there.
Unlike the day before, no stares turned towards Chaelus from below as he descended the unbroken left stair, gaining comfort in his anonymity, seemingly safe amongst the shifting shadows of the night.
Beside Maedelous sat a scowling man from the southern land of Goarnn. His shield arm was missing, the sleeve of his robe tied off unceremoniously. His bearing was strong, with his hair pulled back into the ornate and gilded braids of his countrymen. His coarse beard stuck out from his chin.
The remaining knights who sat upon the circle looked to be men too young to have had either their faith or their wisdom tempered. Yet perhaps it had been. Their proud faces were pale as they sat next to the empty seats of the lost knights, knowing themselves to be next; believing surely that they alone stood against a tempest of the most awful reckoning. And perhaps it would be. In silence they waited on the Mother’s words.
“The time for grief has not yet come,” the Mother said, as if in answer to his, or their, thoughts. Looking towards her, Chaelus saw that her stare rested upon him, gentle but firm.
The Goarnni man stood up. “Why hasn’t it?”
His voice resounded thickly above the erupting whispers around him. “Why shouldn’t it? What other comfort is there while we wait for death and do nothing about it?”
“You forget yourself, Al-Hoanar, just as you forget your oath,” the Mother replied. Her voice was tempered but the gentleness had fled from her eyes.
It had fled from the Goarnni’s eyes as well, if it had ever been there. “I didn’t forget my oath. Neither will I forget those who haven’t returned. Nor will I forget why; why our brothers and sisters were forced instead to be cut down and hung out on gibbets by the very ones they sought to serve.”
“Enough,” Maedelous interrupted, a subtle veil betraying his eyes. “We cannot forget that it is not men we serve, but the Grace of Rua.”
“And tonight,” Al-Aaron’s frail voice sounded like an anvil struck, “It has been returned to us.”
He stood like a dim shadow, like the ghost Chaelus had seen on his doorstep. Al-Aaron slumped as much as he walked as he descended the stair.
Chaelus began to move toward him, then hesitated as if an unseen hand had stopped him.
Al-Aaron’s face and hair washed golden as he drew close to the fire, no longer ghostly but more like a spirit, as if one of the angels from the woods had returned.
“Roanwaith has fallen,” he said.
A murmur rose amidst the crowd.
“The boy is mistaken,” Maedelous challenged, his voice brittle and hollow in its timbre. “Eith
er your malaise still speaks for you, child, or you would have your words deceive us.”
“Man, woman and child, all have succumbed to the Dragon’s Sleep,” Al-Aaron returned, unmoved. His voice in fact succeeded in its strength. “There we faced the Remnants of legend, borne within the shell of the Theocracies’ own legions. We did so once more beneath the stair of Hallas Barren. The Remnants were led by the Dragon itself, in the form of the Wizard Magus, the whisperer who seduced both Malius and his heir. They hunted us. They hunted for the one I’d taken from him.”