Veil of the Dragon (Prophecy of the Evarun)

by Tom Barczak

  Chaelus passed her. He sat down on the trunk of a tree and looked up to her. His eyes were weary, but searching. “You’re still new to this. You’re new to the Servian Order.”

  She dared not speak to him, yet she knew it was not a question.

  Chaelus’ eyes didn’t waver. “There are indeed few enough of you left.”

  “What do you want?” Al-Mariam asked.

  “I would have my kingdom returned,” he answered. “To do so I must defeat the Dragon that stole it from me. To do this, I must depend upon you. To do this, I must know you. I would know who I can trust, after all I trusted are lost. Tell me, Al-Mariam, what is your Story?”

  Al-Mariam’s chest tightened. The tremor of her hand passed down through the length of Aela’s blade. “Don’t mock me.”

  She could do nothing beneath the measured heat of his continued stare.

  “How did you come to serve the Servian Order?” Chaelus asked. “What gain do you seek from them? What manner of death was it that summoned you, only to lose you again to this?”

  What manner of death, Al-Mariam thought? No, death hadn’t chosen her. No cool embrace at the long end of suffering had come to greet her, as it had him. She would have welcomed it. Instead, she had been forced to suffer the long lonely wait that had come to pass.

  She smiled. “You’re a fool.”

  Within the space of her gathered heartbeat, Chaelus stood.

  The sharp sound of drawn steel echoed through the clearing. Chaelus circled her, his unbound blade bright against the ebbing night. “If you won’t tell me, then at least show me how one fights with a blade who doesn’t wish to kill.”

  Al-Mariam’s jaw tightened as her previous fear and anger returned. “I won’t.”

  Chaelus’ sword danced confident within his hand. “If what your prophecy says of me is true, then it may be the last free choice I make. And that is something I won’t be denied.”

  Al-Mariam kept away from him, tracking him from outside the circle of his blade.

  “If I can’t know you, then at least show me this one act of yours, if in the end I’m to save you.” He reached out and glanced his blade sharply against hers.

  Al-Mariam pressed back at him, batting his sword away. The unbound ringing of steel trembled through her. The ghostlike gossamer that bound Aela to her promise dimmed into something less than the pale thread of its making.

  Al-Mariam’s fear bled out into a coarser anger. “It’s no act!”

  She backed away. A log broke her stride. Her balance gave way.

  Chaelus’ hand swept up against the small of her back. He lifted her up, his strength around her like a second skin. The warmth of his body both comforted and terrified her. Once more she fell lost into the deep well of his eyes as he drew closer.

  His kiss was coarse and tender, strong and uncertain, like the first shoots of spring forcing their way through the lingering snow. For the first time, the long cold wait that had fallen on her trembled away.

  Chaelus pulled back from her, taking the warmth of his breath with him. In his eyes, sunlight reflected like falling snow. The sadness within them returned.

  “Be mindful of your anger,” he said. “It could lead to your fall.”

  Shame and embarrassment quickly brought Al-Mariam’s anger surging back and she pulled away from him. Her hand fumbled with the leather tether as she returned her blade to it, but she would not turn her eyes from him. She could not. She did not.

  She backed away from him, up the mount of Col Durath, back towards the others.

  Still, the lingering ghost of him held her captive, breathless, as one by one everything she had built to defend herself tumbled from her mind. He stood watching her, his sword still unbound. Her voice held itself breathless as she murmured, “It is no act.”

  ***

  The pulse of Chaelus’ heart echoed with the sounds of the ebbing night around him.

  He found his way further down the wooded, rocky slope away from the haunting ruins above, away from the others, away from the pull of Al-Mariam, away even from the ghost of Faerowyn whom he’d already lost, away from the chilling words Al-Aaron had spoken, away from the ghosts of all of the things that had been summoned back to him.

  He had to clear his head, clear his heart of the too many voices, too many feelings, the all too much that he did not want to be his.

  The haunting allure of Al-Mariam still lingered about him, subtle and deep, the gentle heave of her breasts beneath her hauberk as she breathed, in the peace of the moment before she knew that she was no longer alone. Her breath then had held a whisper all its own, powerful and mournful, a promise of something not yet fulfilled. Just as it had been for him, he knew that her suffering came from a choice that had never been hers.

  Chaelus envisioned the eyes of Faerowyn upon him beneath the votive promise of her veil, and all the desire and the doubt that it hid. It had been a promise of something more, a life more, but something more than his fate would let him be. It was the promise of a life to be lost, and so it had been.

  A trace of Faerowyn’s promise whispered beneath Al-Mariam’s unoffered one. But unlike Faerowyn, Al-Mariam wore no veil. She didn’t need one.

  Al-Mariam’s promise was bound within the length of the blade she had held twice now against him, her reflection unwavering in the steel beneath the gossamer that bound it. She feared him. She feared what he had brought with him, perhaps more than he did himself. Because of this, her promise, the very breath of her clung upon him, no less than the taste of her returned kiss, and from it he feared he would not escape.

  Of all the Servian Knights, only Al-Mariam didn’t ask him to suffer for the sake of prophecy. She would not ask him to sacrifice himself. Unlike the others, Al-Mariam alone would never ask him to be her savior.

  Yet promises were made to be broken, and he had already lost too much from broken promises.

  No. He would wait. He would let the Servian Knights and the promises each of them served lead him to Magedos, and to the Dragon’s ruin. After that, whatever remained of the Dragon’s shadow could take him, and the rest of them as well when he was through.

  The pale dusk brightened as the forest fell away.

  Across the clearing, the tops of the tall grasses shifted. The subtle creak of sinew and the harsh smell of unwashed flesh whispered upon the air.

  Chaelus dropped to his knee, easing Sundengal from its scabbard. The morning sun blinded him through the low thick wood beyond. Broken footsteps sounded out amongst fallen branches beneath the trees.

  The strangled blast of a Khaalish horn shattered the dawn around him.

  Just like the rest of his past, they’d returned.

  As a shadow fell across the sun, Chaelus jumped up with a cry of war.

  ***

  The dawn stood silent as Al-Aaron stopped, settling into the infant shadows of the tall grass just as the sun began its crest. A stone’s toss ahead of him, a dark man bound in furs waited in the brush. A dark mane adorned with bits of bone and blood-red feathers hung behind his head. Dark paint streaked from his eyes and around his mouth in a soulless visage like nothing he had ever seen before.

  The silence erupted into trumpet calls. The voice of Chaelus cried out, distant across the clearing. In a single motion the man raised a bow, pulling both fletching and bow string to his cheek.

  In Al-Aaron’s mind rose the memory of Figus, cackling mirthless over his trembling drink as he waved the remains of his shattered arm. A Khaalish archer never misses.

  The ghost of Malius stared across the clearing. He looked down at him, haggard eyes stern. “Remember your promise to me, child. Or would you let it end like this?”

  A soft whisper and thunderous crack announced the bowstring as it and the blood feathered shaft left the barbarian’s fingers.

  Al-Aaron felt more than heard himself scream. The distance between him and the Khaalish archer fell away like burnt gossamer.

  ***

  Chaelus’ cry falter
ed.

  A man in white robes stood before him. The sunlight burned like a fire around him. He leaned upon a staff, holding his other hand to his side. Coarse brown hair and pale skin framed shadowed eyes of the grayest blue.

  Chaelus stumbled backwards until he felt the rough bark of a pine press against him.

  “I am Talus,” the man said. His voice was like the tinkling of cymbals. The sounds and smell of the Khaalish vanished as the burning light of the sun softened blue around him. “I am the Giver.”

  Chaelus’ legs gave beneath him and he fell to his knees.

  Talus removed his hand from his side, both of them crimson. His held his open palm out to Chaelus. “My blood is your blood, and it alone shall protect you.”

  Fear gripped Chaelus. He stared downward, away from the vision. “What’s happening?”

  The warmth of blood and flesh pressed against his brow and lips as Talus placed his hand upon Chaelus’ face, raising it back up to him.

  Talus smiled as he let go and backed away. “My path is now your path. My fate is now your fate. My strength is now your strength.”

  Chaelus felt the warm sensation of Talus’ touch still upon him as Talus drew his hand away. A sudden wind carried past them.

  Feeling a pull at his cloak, Chaelus looked down to see several crimson-feathered shafts embedded in the tree behind him.

  He spun back but the vision of Talus was gone. It was replaced by a much crueler visage, white war paint covering dark skin as one of the Khaalish weighted his war ax high overhead.

  Chaelus jumped up, sidestepping the spear which now hung from the tree where his chest had just been. Sundengal lay beyond his reach in the grasses.

  The Khaalishite stood motionless before him, confused. His eyes were wide with fear. The shadows of more warriors waited just beyond the trees. They wouldn’t stay so for long.

  Throwing his arms out, Chaelus shouted as he seized both the man’s head and ax hand.

  The Khaalishite closed his eyes and fell limp. The ax tumbled from his hand. He let out a pitiful cry in his tribal tongue, which somehow, Chaelus understood.

  “To see you is death,” the Khaalish warrior whispered.

  A shadow rolled out like oil from him. It disappeared into the ground. Chaelus stared in shock as he continued to hold the Khaalish warrior up. The Khaalishite trembled, burying his face against him.

  Chaelus lifted the man’s face up and ran his thumb over the warrior’s trembling eyelids.

  Chaelus spoke to him in the barbarian’s own tongue, a tongue he didn’t know, in words that overtook him, that Chaelus knew were not his own, and that he was powerless to stop.

  “Then open your eyes, Obidae,” he said. “And be reborn.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Awakening

  The dead leaf danced across the paving stones.

  Michalas pulled his foot away. He listened to it though. It wasn’t really dead.

  It whispered along with the other leaves, even in the fall of their passing, gathered within the clutches of the broken stones around him, the whisper of life that remains amongst those things which only seem to have passed.

  Ras Dumas had taught him that. Ras Dumas was the one who’d helped him give meaning to the voices he’d always heard, the whisper of life that he’d always known was around him.

  Ras Dumas had also taught him the truth about the Dragon. Of what it had done, where it had gone, and where it still remained. But of all the things that Ras Dumas had told him, there was one thing that right now was the most important thing. The Dragon only possesses the living; the dead serve no purpose to it.

  Michalas shivered from the cold. With his numb fingers he pulled the ragged sack cloth he had found closer. It scratched his skin, but at least he was safe within it. He was safe at least for now, but it had only been a day.

  When the darkness of the tunnel had exploded into light, the screams of the Dragon were extinguished, replaced by the Angel’s voice. Now the Angel’s light had faded into gray, her voice receded beneath the cries of carrion birds and the scraping whisper of decay, here amidst the ruins of the dead city that sprawled beneath Ras Dumas’ tower.

  Here is where he would wait, just as the Angel had told him he should, here, where she and the two who always came with her had left him.

  The wind whistled through the narrow close where he huddled in the corner of two walls. The empty eyes of dead windows stared over him. Only a thin chasm of gray light filtered down between the walls. Black crows called to each other as they circled above, searching for him, listening.

  Michalas held his breath until they passed.

  And the gray light brightened.

  Michalas leaned his face into the summoning glow of the Angel’s hand as it touched him.

  Her light surrounded him. It tunneled through him like a breeze. The damp chill of the bleak stones faded away.

  “I knew you’d come back,” he said.

  “Trust that your wait is almost over,” the Angel whispered.

  But her hand pulled away from him.

  Michalas recoiled from the chill that returned. But the soft feeling of her touch lingered like a flower’s smell.

  The Angel smiled at him. Her dark hair was like a lantern’s frame. “You must wait only a little more, for the coming of something you know, and for the return of something you’ve lost.”

  The other two Angels faded behind her, and then she did as well.

  Michalas smiled at the place where they’d been.

  Wait for something he knew and the return of something he’d lost. What or who? Ras Dumas was the only person he’d really known, or wanted to know, despite all the things he knew Ras Dumas had done. Other than him, Michalas didn’t know anything or anyone, not anymore. The only people he’d known before were his mother, whom the Angels had given him to, and his sister Mariam. But like Ras Dumas they were both dead.

  Michalas’ smile broadened. Like Ras Dumas, at least they were safe.

  ***

  The sun resumed its unerring path.

  Chaelus rose beside the crimson-feathered arrows, struck into the tree where he had only just been standing, until his eyes met the thick shaft of the Khaalish spear, where his head had just been. He ran his fingers across the brackish feathers and binding that rested beneath its broad, sunken tip.

  The image of Talus, the Giver, still burned against the back of his vision, underlying everything above it like an inverted veil. The Giver’s touch still pulsed through him, like a second skin living beneath his own. He could smell him, like an odor of subtle incense. He could even taste the sweet ardor of his holy breath.

  Al-Thinneas, Al-Hoanar and Al-Mariam stood just apart from him, each bathed in a faint cerulean glow. Beneath it, the shadow of the Dragon turned within each of them as befell each of their fates.

  Yet how could he know? How could he see? In answer, Chaelus felt the heartbeat of the Giver pulse within his chest, along with the memories Talus held, of who Talus was, or had been, a thief and a murderer, and even a lord like him, and how Talus had felt just the same once, when the Giver had come to him a hundred years before.

  The voice of Al-Thinneas struck sharp against his senses. “The Khaalish have fled. It wasn’t by chance that they found us. They were aided by one of our own.”

  “That’s madness,” Al-Hoanar blustered. “Here, so close to the Garden?”

  Al-Thinneas gripped the spear and pulled it free from the tree, weighing it within his hand. He stared at Chaelus. “This was a trap meant for the Giver alone. The Happas Servius is wild and our passage is too young to have been followed. But there were many of our own who knew it. It was why the Khaalish knew to wait here.”

  Al-Mariam drew closer with the measured creak and din of her hauberk beneath her coat. “To be one of the Order is to know the Prophecy, and to know the Prophecy is to know that if he is indeed the Giver, neither arrow nor spear would harm him.”

  She raised the point of her unfet
tered blade towards Chaelus. The revelation of the Dragon’s shadow within her grew as the fear and uncertainty of her faith, and the kiss they had only just shared, burned beneath the chill of her stare.

  “If they believe as the Younger claims,” she said, “they’d know it’s only this that he needs to fear.”

  Chaelus held her stare but did not, or could not, rise against it. He dared not taunt her as he had before. The gentle touch of the Giver inside him cautioned him back.