Pillars of Dragonfire

by Daniel Arenson

  The chariots of fire crackled behind them, moving closer. Clutching their swords, the siblings stepped through the old gateway, entering the city of shadows.

  A dark cobbled road stretched ahead, lined with brick buildings. In the distance, the black towers rose toward the clouds. The rain stopped and mist floated through the city like ghosts. The moon was but a haze in the veiled sky, its faded light the only illumination. Til could barely see more than the outlines of the buildings.

  "Should we turn into dragons?" Bim whispered. "We can light our fire."

  Til stared ahead into the shadows. She couldn't see more than a block ahead. It seemed to her that the mist was a living creature, scurrying down alleyways, peering from behind every building. The wind moaned, so lifelike that for an instant Til was sure a figure was whispering ahead. Something thumped in the distance, just a soft sound, barely audible, soon gone.

  "No." She shook her head. "We don't know who lives here. We move quietly, hidden in shadows. We find a place to sleep. Just until the daylight."

  They stepped deeper into the city, moving between old brick buildings that rose several stories tall. Taller structures rose behind them, dark steeples cutting across the dark sky. It was hard to see in the shadows, but the buildings seemed dilapidated, no curtains or shutters in their windows, no doors in their frames. All wood and fabric had rotted away, leaving only craggy stone. No lanterns or hearths shone. If anyone lived here, they lived in darkness. When Til trailed her hand against a brick wall, it came back covered in soot.

  "Fire burned here long ago," she whispered. "Dragonfire."

  "Let's find a place to hide," Bim said. "The seraphim are coming."

  The siblings glanced behind them. The city walls loomed there, blocking the view of the wilderness. The gates revealed nothing but darkness beyond. Til couldn't even hear the chariots of fire anymore.

  "They're not coming," she whispered, daring not speak any louder. "They don't enter this city. They never enter. That's why it's still standing. They never destroyed Lynport."

  She looked ahead again, staring down the shadowy road toward the dark skyline. All her life, Til knew ruins to be crumbling piles of rubble—perhaps a few standing columns, perhaps a section of aqueduct, maybe a single tower or two, but no more. In the north, that was all that remained of Requiem. While Lynport was certainly crumbling and old, the city still stood. Rotted, yes. Lifeless, perhaps. But still standing.

  Why did the Overlord never destroy this place as he did all our other cities? she wondered.

  "I don't like this place." Bim clutched her arm. "We need to leave. Now."

  Til shook her head. "There are seraphim outside. This city is safe. We—"

  The wind shrieked, ruffling their cloaks and hair, drowning Til's words. Mist swirled and shadows danced in alleyways and dark windows. Clattering sounded in the distance, echoed, and faded.

  "The city screamed," Bim whispered.

  "Just the wind." Til drew her sword. "Let's make our way toward the coast. I'll feel better by the sea."

  They continued walking, leaving the gateway behind. The boulevard was wide and must have once been fine. Lantern poles still rose alongside, their lights long darkened. Alleyways branched off into shadows. The houses grew larger as they walked, and soon Til saw a towering structure, lined with columns and topped with steeples.

  "A temple," she whispered. "A temple to the Draco constellation. This is a holy place to Requiem."

  "Nobody but ghosts lives here now." Bim shuddered. "Let's keep walking. I don't want to stop until we reach the sea."

  Til paused, staring at the temple. The columns soared before her, embracing shadows. What wonders lay within? Would Til find ancient jewels, books of Requiem lore? Perhaps only the skeletons of ancient priests? She longed to enter the temple, to become a dragon in its hall and light her fire, to explore those secret chambers. After all these years of traveling through ruins—to find an actual temple, a relic of the golden age!

  She had taken a step toward the portico when shadows stirred between the columns.

  Til froze.

  She narrowed her eyes. Had she truly . . . ?

  There! She saw it again. A pale figure, moving between the columns, peering with black eyes—then vanishing.

  "Mist," she whispered. "Just mist."

  Feet pattered behind her.

  She spun around. "Bim?"

  A scream, high pitched like steam, rose across the city of Lynport.

  Til grimaced. She covered her ears, still holding her sword with one hand. The sound rose louder, louder, twisting, rising like a living thing, and Til doubled over and screamed. The sound seemed to crack, then vanish, perhaps just rising too high for her to hear.

  She looked at Bim. He stared back, eyes wide, lips pale.

  "To the sea," Til whispered.

  They continued walking, faster now, almost jogging. And Til saw them. She saw them everywhere. Gray mist in windows and alleyways. White eyes staring and vanishing. Padding feet. Cackling. The laughter of children, a thousand demonic girls, a young boy singing an old nursery song, then screaming, vanishing into shadows.

  Til and Bim ran.

  From the buildings around them, they rose.

  Shadows. Mist. Screams. Twisting faces. Pain.

  Til cried out in agony.

  Pain. They were pain.

  "Stop!" she cried, but they kept rising, flowing from alleyways, from gutters, descending from the clouds. They had no forms but they had faces, and those faces screamed. They had no bodies but they felt pain. They danced around her, hand in hand. They laughed. They wept. They twisted on the ground.

  "Bloodstained reptiles!" they screeched, voices demonic, impossibly high-pitched, the sounds of shattered glass coalesced into words. "Bloodstained reptiles, bloodstained reptiles! Run, run, run!"

  Til screamed and swung her sword, trying to hold them back. She cut through mist, but the faces floated all around. They formed in the reflections on glass windows. They twisted in the clouds above. They leered from shadows. The ruins came alive around her, writhing, the buildings leaning in. Arms grew from the buildings. Arms reached out. Eyes opened on the ground.

  "Bloodstained, bloodstained! Weredragons! Run, run, run!"

  They ran. The creatures laughed. They tugged at Til and Bim's cloaks, they danced between their feet, they danced around, a great ring of them in the sky, surrounding a great face, and the buildings laughed and wept, and the sky wept, and the arms reached toward them, dripping black blood, and the arms wept. They were happy. They were sick. They were in agony. They raged. They lusted. They begged for death.

  "What are they?" Bim cried.

  Pain. Pain. Just pain.

  "Just run!"

  Her head spun. Her pain throbbed inside her, living demons inside, tearing her up. Souls. They were souls.

  Just run.

  Just run.

  "Run, run, run!" the creatures cried.

  She knew their name. She wept. She fell. She rose and ran again. She knew them. She knew them.

  "Dybbuks," she said.

  Bim screamed and doubled over, creatures tugging at him, pulling his skin, pulling his eyes.

  "Stand back, dybbuks!" Til shouted, sword lashing.

  The ring of them spun around her, and the city creaked, bricks rearranging themselves, steeples leaning forward, eyes blazing within them.

  She had heard of these creatures—a disease of Edinnu, taken down into the world, infecting all they touched, ripping feelings from dead souls they consumed. Hungry demons, devouring the pain, the fear, the rage of those they slew. They had grown fat on the feelings in this city, had consumed the pain of Requiem, of countless slain Vir Requis. And still they hungered, an infection that ached to spread.

  "Til!" her brother screamed. "Til, they're in me. It hurts. It hurts. Bloodstained. Bloodstained. Run, run, run!"

  His voice rose higher, twisting, and his eyes bugged out, and he clawed at his face.

&nb
sp; Til shifted into a dragon.

  She beat her wings and blasted out fire in a ring.

  The shadows parted, and the dybbuks laughed.

  "Bow down! Bow down!" they chanted. "Bloodstained, bloodstained, bow, bow, bow!"

  "Bow!" Bim cried below, twisting on the ground, writhing, smoking, screaming. "Bow down, bow bow!"

  They laughed. They danced. Bim rose and danced. They danced around her. They danced inside her. They spun. The arms reached out to her, the buildings laughing, breaking, their eyes staring, and their arms wept.

  I don't know.

  Til screamed, wept.

  I don't know what you mean.

  She roared out her dragonfire. It was all she knew. Roar. Roar. Fire. Fire. Run, run, run.

  The dance. They danced. They spun all around her, and she danced with them, and they were inside her, and they lied. They lied to her. They felt things. They were feelings. They were things. They were buildings with arms.

  "Lie, lie!" she cried. "Not mine. Not mine! Not feeling. Not my feelings. Not my pain."

  "Your pain! Pain of Requiem. Pain of dragons."

  She fell to her knees, human again, dead again, a thousand dead again. A city dead again. A nation falling. Inside her. Inside her. She felt them, the disease spreading, the chunks torn off their deaths gushing through her, new blood inside her, pumping through her veins. Pumping through her belly.

  Lie, lie, they lie! They lie!

  "Lie!" they cried. "Run, run, run!"

  She screamed. She clawed at her face. She reached into her mouth. She reached inside her.

  Take them out. Take them out!

  Bim smiled. He stared at her. White eyes. Toothless smile. He reached his hand toward her. It bled. It healed. It was nothing but bones. It bled. It healed. His skin vanished. His skin appeared. He was in daylight. He was in darkness. He was a living one. He was a dead one. He danced. He sang. He died and screamed. He smiled and reached out to her.

  "Tell a lie," he whispered and took her hand.

  She lied. She danced. They all danced. They were dragons, dead, broken. They were shadows. They were buildings with arms. They were the sea.

  The sea.

  She saw the waves. Waves with faces. Screaming waves of blood.

  She stared into the water.

  The screams rose around her, shattered . . . fading. Fading. Floating. Fading.

  She stared at the waves. The sea was breathing. The waves were breath. There were bodies beneath them. The dead breathed. The world breathed. Requiem breathed.

  She stared.

  "Tears," she whispered. "The sea is made of tears. The sea is breathing. The waves are breath."

  She remembered. She had been traveling to those waves, to—

  "Father."

  The dragon died upon the lance. She screamed. "Fath—"

  The sea breathed. The waves were its breath.

  For so long, she had traveled, hiding, trying to reach that sea. And now she floated here. Floated above the buildings, dancing with the dybbuks. A dance of dybbuks. A dance in the sky. But the waves did not dance. She—

  "No!" the girl screamed. And her father lost his magic, returning to a human, a human impaled, staring at her, coated in blood. And she ran. She ran through the forests. She ran in the wilderness. She ran cross ruins. Run, run, run.

  Run, run, run. Run. Hide! Hide. Kill. Kill, kill, kill.

  She shivered in tunnels among the bones of dead dragons, and she prayed, and—

  The sea breathed.

  She stared.

  The waves were its breath.

  She floated among the feelings, and her brother danced with her, and he laughed, and he was alive, and finally he felt. Finally he felt so much.

  She turned in the air, and she stared across the walls to the northern darkness, and she saw the fire. The fire of ten thousand chariots, filling the sky. Fearing this place. They dared not enter. Not this city. Not this darkness. Not these feelings. Not this place where seraphim feared to tread. But she had entered. She could hear the sea, calling to her. It had always called her. It still breathed.

  She flew as a dragon.

  "I'm sorry." She wept. "I'm sorry, Father. I'm sorry. I couldn't save you. I'm sorry. I couldn't. I had to run. I had to run, run, run."

  Run, run, run.

  Fly.

  She tried to beat her wings, but she died.

  She tried to blow her fire, but the seraphim burned her, shoved their lances inside her.

  She tried to grab her brother, but she was born in pain, screaming. Her father beat her. She tried to fly, but she was afraid, trapped in an alleyway, a man holding her down. She died. She died a hundred thousand times. She died in the fire of seraphim, screaming, lingered on, fled, died at the walls, drowned in the sky.

  The disease spread into her. The dybbuks laughed, carrying with them the devoured pain of Requiem, spewing it into her, grabbing her pain.

  Bim screamed, laughed, danced with them. He was but a shadow. Only a face in the darkness, that was all. Only mist. And above him shone the stars.

  "The stars of Requiem," Til whispered. "Issari's Eye. Staring. There's no pain there. No pain in starlight."

  The sea breathed.

  There was no pain in the sea.

  There is pain in life. Life is pain. We are born in pain. We are drenched in pain from birth. We die in pain. We are but glimmers of starlight between pain and pain. There is no pain in starlight. There is no pain in the sea.

  Til forced herself to stare at the star, to let it consume her. To rise above the buildings with arms. To rise above the clouds. To be—

  Run, run, run!

  Bow, bow, bow!

  —to be nothing but starlight. Nothing but sea. Nothing but breath. Breath. Waves. The waves were its breath.

  She flew.

  She reached out and grabbed the shadow. She held her brother in her claws.

  "Lies, lies, lies."

  She flew through them, holding him.

  They clawed inside her. They tore at her skin from the inside. They died a thousand times. They made her die a thousand times. She died a thousand times over every street, but still she flew. She stared up at the stars. She stared at the sea. She refused to fear them. She would not fear. There was no fear in starlight. There was no pain in the sea. The waves were its breath.

  She flew over the city, holding Bim in her claws, and there on the edge of the water, she saw it. A towering fortress on a hill. A fortress with white arms that reached out in the black night. A fortress with eyes. A fortress where Vir Requis had been dying for thousands of years. A fortress that died. That made her die. That felt. Its arms wept.

  Til roared out her fire.

  Her flames slammed into the building, showering up, spraying onto dybbuks that still danced around her. The massive creature laughed, rising higher, built of bricks and mist and flesh, eyes blazing like furnaces.

  Now you will die, Til of Requiem. Its voice spoke in her head. Now we will feed upon your pain too.

  She flew.

  There is no pain in starlight.

  I am woven of starlight.

  There is no pain in the sea.

  The waves are its breath.

  She blasted her dragonfire and charged headfirst into the towering fortress of demonic shadow.

  Bricks showered around her. One of her horns snapped. Her scales cracked. She screamed and kept flying, tearing through it, a great lance like the lance that had driven into her father.

  The building collapsed around her. Turrets slammed down and shattered. Bricks rained. She flew through the dust, the screams, the fleeing demons within, casting back their shadows with her firelight, until she flew over sand and sea.

  She dipped down. The wind whipped around her. Her scales bled. But there was no pain in the sea, and the waves were its breath, and she plunged into the water and lost her magic.

  The water flowed over her, inky black, washing them away, and they fled her. The dybbu
ks. The shards of souls. The endless deaths and the endless pain. They rose around her, swirling shadows, vanishing in the cleansing waters of Requiem, until only the waves remained, only starlight above.

  The waves breathed, and they bore Til and Bim and laid them upon the sand.

  Til rose to her knees, shivering, her sword lost. Bim knelt in the sand, his back turned toward her, his shoulders stooped and head lowered.

  Til reached out hesitantly. When he turned around, would his eyes be purest white, his face twisted and dead, still a dybbuk?

  "Bim?"

  With a shaking hand, she touched his shoulder.

  He spun toward her.

  He shed tears.

  "Til," he whispered.

  She cried too, and she pulled him into her arms and embraced him, and they shivered together.

  "It's over," she whispered, rocking him gently. "It's over, it's over. We did it, Bim. We reached the coast. We'll be safe here. We're safe. The seraphim dare not enter the city."

  "Stars, I wonder why," Bim said.

  She laughed through her tears. "You were right to fear that place. But we're safe now. We—"

  In the distance, the fires burned.

  They did not rise above the city, but they flew along the coast, having skirted that hive of possession. Now they stormed along the beach, heading toward her and Bim.

  Countless chariots of fire that lit the darkness. The most Til had ever seen since the failed rebellion five years ago. Countless seraphim flew between them, and above all rose the great light of the Overlord, a sun in the night.

  "Hello, Til!" rose a voice from the effulgence. "Welcome, child, to your grave!"

  Til and Bim shouted, shifted into dragons, and soared. The countless seraphim flew toward them from all sides, burning the world.

  MELIORA

  They had been flying over the sea for days now, no food, no water, growing weary, getting scared. And always behind them cried out the harpies, forever on the horizon. Growing closer.