Pillars of Dragonfire

by Daniel Arenson

  "Up, Bim! Up. We have to move."

  The troll kept shaking him, burning him with torches, and his eyes snapped open. Firelight blazed all around, and heat drenched Bim. He still lay under the log, the roots rising before him. Beyond them, the forest was burning in the night.

  "Burn them down! They hide here. Burn them!"

  His sister pulled him out of the burrow, and again they ran. Through flames. In shadows. Down valleys and up hills, moving between the trees, fleeing the inferno. They ran until they found ruins—a village of Old Requiem, a mere well and silo and the shells of a few homes—and they hid between crumbling brick walls. They shivered in the darkness as the fire burned below the hill, and they slept again.

  "We'll reach the coast," Til vowed, holding him close, smoothing his hair. Her voice rose in his dreams—the voice of the clawed beast, of a mother, of an ancient queen. "We'll find safety, Bim. I promise. We'll find a home."

  LUCEM

  As he flew with the camp, Lucem kept looking over his shoulder at Elory; she slept in human form, curled up on his scaly back. Again and again, every mile, he turned his head to check on her, to see that she still rode him, that she was real.

  Every time he looked, he half expected her to vanish, half expected this all to be some fever dream. He kept waiting to find himself back in his cave, talking to his clump of wood, or to a pinecone, or to a rock he had painted a face on. He kept waiting for a brief moment of clarity, just enough to realize he had finally gone completely mad.

  How can this be? Lucem kept thinking as he flew with the dragons. How can she be?

  He didn't deserve this. This couldn't be real. He was a coward! He was the boy who had climbed the wall of Tofet, had escaped, had abandoned his people. He was the man cursed to linger in a cave, to go mad with loneliness, his punishment for his betrayal. What had he done to deserve this blessing? To fly with so many dragons, fly by Meliora the Merciful herself, Queen of Requiem? To bear on his back Elory Aeternum, princess of dragons—a woman he loved and who loved him?

  He could not imagine a better life, a more precious moment. This couldn't be real. He had lost his mind. These dragons must be leaves in the wind, and Elory must be another block of wood with knots for eyes. He must be back in his cave. He was not a good enough man to deserve this.

  Neck twisted around, he watched her as she slept. Elory lay across his back, her cheek resting on her palm. Her face was calm as she slept, and her brown hair was growing, no longer stubble but a messy mop that fell across her brow; soon it would be long enough to completely cover her missing ear. Her burlap tunic was tattered, revealing many scrapes, cuts, and bruises, and her frame was still too thin, her skin burnt. The marks of her collar and manacles still showed around her neck and ankles.

  Gazing at her, both love and pity filled Lucem, and he knew: This was real. He truly was flying here, Elory on his back, and she was hurt, and she was scarred, and though her wounds would heal her soul might not.

  While I was in my cave, all those years, safe from pain, she was suffering under the whip. For ten years as I lingered—just a few miles away—she was suffering.

  The old guilt filled Lucem, worse than ever—guilt mingled with love.

  He began to descend in the sky. He flew below the other dragons of Requiem, heading lower in the sky, leaving the others above. A forest sprawled across the land of Saraph, and he kept gliding down.

  "Lucem!" Meliora cried above. "Lucem, you all right?"

  He looked up at the white dragon who flew above. "Just a quick break to water the trees!" he called back to her.

  She nodded and Lucem kept gliding down. Despite their haste, few dragons had agreed to act like birds, dropping their waste from above, and many commonly dipped down for some quick privacy before rising again.

  Elory rose on his back, stretched, and blinked. "Lucem, why are we flying down?"

  He spotted a clearing in the forest below, and he spiraled down toward it. "Because I wanted to tell you something."

  She raised an eyebrow and scampered onto his neck. "You know, I can hear you in the sky too."

  "And so can thousands of other dragons. This stuff's private."

  He glided into the clearing. Cedars and pines rose around them, and dry needles and pinecones lay strewn across the earth. Cyclamens grew in the shade of chalk boulders. The sky was bright with thousands of streaming dragons in every color. Elory climbed off Lucem's back, and he released his magic, returning to human form too.

  He took her hands in his. "Elory."

  She stared at him with soft eyes, her hands warm. "Lucem?"

  She's beautiful, he thought. She's kind. She's strong and brave and wonderful. And I don't deserve this.

  "Elory, I want to say that I'm sorry." He gazed into those brown eyes, marveling at their beauty, still holding her hands. "I'm sorry for everything."

  "For what?" she whispered.

  "For running away. For leaving you in Tofet—leaving everyone. I knew the agony of Tofet for the first eleven years of my life, and I can't imagine suffering another decade in that fire. I'm so sorry, Elory, and I don't know if this is real. I don't know if the dragons above us, if you here, if your hands in mine . . . I don't know if this is real or just a dream. Because this is too good. Too wonderful. More than I deserve."

  Her eyes softened, and she kissed his cheek. "It's real. And we all deserve this—a homeland. A nation. A family."

  He kissed her lips. "I love you, Elory." He caressed her cheek, marveling at its softness, at how large her eyes were, how her soul shone through them. "I love you more than I thought it possible to love another. I love you always."

  They kissed again, arms wrapped around each other, a long, deep kiss as dragons flew above. She felt so frail in his arms, half his size, small and thin from her years of servitude, but stronger than great queens and heroines.

  "So that's why you brought me here." Elory bit her lip. "To ravage me."

  Lucem couldn't help but grin. "If I tell you the world might end tomorrow, that this might be our last moment, would you allow the ravaging to continue?"

  She tapped her cheek and tilted her head. "I might just be the one ravaging you."

  He glanced up at the sky. Thousands of dragons were still flying above; it would be a while before the camp passed them by. Lucem took Elory by the hand, and he led her under the cover of a twisting pomegranate tree, its canopy rich and rustling. He had barely made it under the tree before Elory grabbed him, all but leaped onto him, and kissed him again.

  They fell onto the grass, lips locked, and Lucem closed his eyes. He reached under her tunic, and her hands slipped under his, and he pulled his cloak over them. Their naked bodies pressed together under the burlap, and his hands explored her body. Her frame was slender, her bones delicate, and he winced when his fingers passed over the many scars on her back.

  "Does it hurt?" he whispered.

  She shook her head and nuzzled his neck, kissing him. "Keep stroking me."

  Their hands explored each other and they closed their eyes. They had never made love before, but it felt natural, as if they had been made for this, had waited years for this. He moved atop her, her short brown hair tickling his nose, and she wrapped her limbs around him. It felt better than flying, better than blowing fire. It was joy—pure, distilled, perfect.

  This is real, Lucem thought. Thank you, stars. Thank you. I don't know what I did to deserve her. But right now, this moment is perfect. Right now is pure joy. Tomorrow the world might burn, but here, now, this instant in time—this is purest joy I never thought I would feel.

  "I love you," he whispered.

  She nibbled his bottom lip. "Right back at you, O hero of Requiem."

  They lay together under his cloak, holding each other, still naked, watching the dragons fly above beyond the branches.

  "I never want to leave this place," Elory said, nestling against him.

  He kissed the top of her head. "When we reach Requiem, I'm going
to build us a little home. Not too large, not too fancy. Just a comfortable little house. And we'll have a garden, and we'll plant a pomegranate tree like this one." He frowned. I'm not sure if pomegranate trees can grow in the cold north—they say Requiem is very cold. But they have birch trees there, and they say birches are beautiful too. And in the summers, we'll lie like this under our tree, in our garden, outside the house. And we'll just lie all day, being lazy, and naked, and—" Suddenly he felt his cheeks flush. "I mean, I don't want to dream too far ahead. I don't want to pressure you. Maybe you'll want to live with Meliora, not with me, and . . . oh dear, I'm not scaring you away, am I? Because if I am, I—"

  "Oh, hush." She kissed his lips. "Of course I want you to build me a home. And of course we'll live together and have a little garden."

  "And . . . the being naked a lot part?" he asked hopefully.

  She rolled her eyes. "Depends how much housework you do."

  Finally, as the last few dragons flew above, they shifted back into dragons and flew again. Heading away from their pain, away from guilt, from fear. Flying to a promised homeland. To a dream of a house, a garden, and more moments of joy.

  TIL

  For the first time in a month, the sun emerged from behind the clouds, shining down upon the ruins of Requiem, but it brought no warmth, no joy, no beauty to this land.

  Til and her brother walked across the scorched earth, their few belongings slung across their backs—fur pelts, an iron pot, some rope, an old canteen, and two scrawny rabbits on a rope. Their tattered cloaks billowed in the wind, and ash filled their hair and smeared their faces.

  Around them, the landscape was in no better shape. In the old tales and songs, Requiem was a land of beauty—her forests pristine, her plains blooming with flowers, her skies full of birds and dragons and golden light. All that was gone. The fabled birches were burnt, shattered, fallen, and soot covered the hills and valleys. Only a few scattered ruins rose in the distance—the stubs of columns, the shells of walls, crumbling towers. Even the sky had lost its beauty; red smoke coiled there like clouds, and ash rained.

  And every mile, they found them.

  The dead.

  "Don't look, Bim," Til whispered as they walked by the gallows on the hill. "Just look ahead. Just look and imagine the coast over the horizon."

  Yet she knew that he looked. He always looked, sneaking glances. The cages hung from the wooden posts, rusty, creaking as they swung in the wind. The skeletons languished within, jaws still open in screams. Most of the skeletons were bare. One still had some thawing flesh, and the crows bustled, tugging skin off the bones. Wooden signs were nailed onto the gibbets, written in the tongue of Requiem: "Weredragons."

  "You did tell me that we'd find others," Bim said.

  Til frowned and looked at him. He kicked a stone, not looking at her.

  "Don't joke about that." She kicked the stone into a rut before he could kick it again. "All right?"

  Still he didn't look at her. He only shrugged. "Someday we'll join them. Just two more skeletons in two more cages."

  Til stopped walking. She grabbed Bim's shoulders, spun him toward her, and glared at him. The boy was only eleven years old, shorter than her but not weaker. Perhaps in some ways stronger, for his hope was lost.

  Hope drives us onward, Til thought, but it hurts. Hope hurts so much. The hopeless feel less pain.

  "We will not end like that." Til grabbed his chin and raised his head, forcing him to stare at her. "Do you understand? We will not. Father did not die so we could too. He died to let us escape, to continue this quest. To find a safe place. To find other survivors."

  Bim stared at her, his eyes sunken into his gaunt face. His hair was red like hers, but it now seemed white with ash and snow. No emotion showed on that face. No life filled those eyes. No fear, no hope, no anger—blank eyes.

  I'm looking at the dead, Til thought. He's dead already.

  "All right, Til," he said. "All right. We'll go south. We'll find others."

  But he doesn't believe, Til knew. I promised to take him south, to give him a better life, but he doesn't believe there's a reason to live.

  Still holding his shoulders, Til looked around her at the devastation of Requiem. The burnt forests. The ruins of old towns. The smoke and skeletons in cages. Countless more skeletons lay strewn across the valleys and hills, some buried, more beginning to show themselves as the snow melted. Spring was near, but would any flowers still bloom here, or would only death sprout from the earth?

  She looked back at Bim.

  What could this do to a child—to always run, hide, never sleep for more than an hour, face death with every breath? When Til had been his age, a full decade ago, she had lived among other Vir Requis, a thousand souls. Their life had been hard, but they had tunnels to hide in, they had warmth, they had company and dreams and songs. What kind of life could Bim still have, and would the scars inside him ever heal, even should they find safety from death, an end to constant running and fighting?

  Til sighed. "You're right, Bim. You're right. Sooner or later, we all end up as bones. We all die. Perhaps we'll die tomorrow. Perhaps we'll die in sixty years, and those years go by quickly. Death is final. Death is unforgiving. Death—whether now or in a few dozen more winters—is certain. But so long as we draw breath, as our hearts beat, as our legs can walk and our wings beat, we will fight. We will believe."

  "Believe what?" Bim said, voice softer now, cracking.

  "That we can still build a new world. That we can find joy. That life is beautiful." She embraced him. "It's hard to see here in this ruin, but there is so much that's beautiful and good in this world. So much that our ancestors fought for and won, so much that we can still find. Do not let your eyes see only ugliness. Let them weave new landscapes of what can be."

  Yet as they walked onward through the desolation, Til wondered. Was the southern coast but a dream, a fool's hope, and would she find only ruin there too? If that was so, Til vowed that she would move on. She would travel to the east or west, or gather enough food and fly across the sea, or make her way north to the arctic and the cities of ice they said rose there.

  We move onward, until we find a home—a hope of peace or a rusted cage.

  She sang softly, the old songs of Requiem, and told her brother stories of the old heroes and heroines. The ash kept raining, the skeletons swayed in their cages, and the ruins spread out before them into the south.

  ISHTAFEL

  The boy cowered under the bed, panting, trembling, praying so hard to the Eight Gods to save him.

  "I never rebelled against you," he whispered again and again. "I was born here—here in Saraph, never in your garden. Please, gods, please, don't let her find me, don't let her hurt me."

  Yet of course she found him. She always found him. There were hundreds of rooms in the ziggurat, hundreds of beds to hide under, but she always found him. He heard her shriek in the hall, the cry of a dragon. He heard her footfalls patter through the palace. Seeking him. Sniffing him out. A wolf hunting her prey. The door swung violently on its hinges, slammed into the wall, and tore free from the doorframe. It crashed onto the floor with a shower of splinters, and the boy started. He scurried deeper under the bed, pressing himself against the wall.

  Please, gods, please, gods, please, let her go away, please help me. Please. I'm sorry.

  Yet the gods had banished his mother, and they would not save him from her.

  "Ishtafel, you little piece of filth!" Queen Kalafi screamed. "You miserable little worm, you wretched scum!"

  She knelt and reached under the bed, a rabid beast, her fingernails like claws, her golden eyes shining like two suns, her teeth bared. The boy wailed and tried to dodge those hands. He tried to escape from under the bed, to race to safety. But his mother had always been able to grab him, and she grabbed him now. She tugged him out from under the bed, lifted him into the air, and shoved him down onto the mattress.

  "I'm sorry!" he cried. "I didn't me
an to eat the cake. I'm sorry. I can bake another. I—"

  She slapped him. "Shut your maggot hole. I'm sick of your lies. I should toss you into the bronze bull and hear you sing. But I want to hurt you myself. You who ruined my body, who ruined my life, who ruined this family, a weak, pathetic link in a great dynasty. Shameful, shameful! You should never have been born." She shook him wildly, and his head whipped from side to side. "You should never have lived."

  She beat him then. She beat him as he screamed, until he could barely breathe, until he felt like every bone in his body was breaking. And even then, as a boy, he knew that a madness lurked inside Queen Kalafi. He knew that she was raging against herself, her life, her banishment, not against him. But he was small. He was weak. He was hers—her precious heir, hers to torment, to blame for all the pain of this exile, of this hot land so far from the locked gates of Edinnu.

  And so she beat him. She beat him until he slumped onto the floor, blood dripping from his nostrils and mouth.

  "Next time you disobey me, I'm going to send you into Requiem, and I'm going to let the dragons rip out your guts and feed them to you. You won't like that nearly as much as the cake you stole. You will not shame me again."

  Kalafi, Queen of Saraph, stepped out of the room, leaving her son bleeding on the floor.

  For a long time he lay, struggling to breathe, to wait until the bleeding stopped. But long after the pain faded, his mind stormed, and he trembled, the fear refusing to leave him.

  I should escape, he thought. Escape this palace. Escape this city. Fly across the wilderness.

  He had wings—the feathered wings of a seraph. He could fly away. He could cross the deserts and sea, find a safe place where Mother could not reach him, and—

  No.

  The boy shuddered.

  There was danger out there. Across the sea, they waited—the weredragons. Bloodthirsty men and women from a land called Requiem. People who could turn into dragons, their wings so much larger than his, their claws and teeth even sharper than Mother's.