by JANRAE FRANK
"I am sorry," the Patriarch said. Eshraf's gaze touched on Dynarien's arms, and rose to Twice-Born Son's face in dismay. "You know what this means?"
Dynarien swayed unsteadily, leaning close so that only the Patriarch could hear. "Yes. She was the same Gylorean Galee, mother of all Lemyari, most potent of them all. We knew that last night. Say nothing till I've left."
"So be it. The bards will make songs."
"There will be many songs. These months of struggle have made many heroes."
Talons opened her eyes. "Bryndel?"
"Where's Bryndel?" Aramyn asked the people around them.
"Bring him ... to ... me."
Aramyn turned and saw Bryndel, hovering at the edges. He was cut and bloody, unsteady on his feet. Someone put an arm around his waist, helping him to come forward.
"Lift me up a bit," Talons said. Mohanja raised her to a sitting position in the crook of his arm and chest.
"I love you," Bryndel told her.
"I know," Talons said, regret lining her words. "I never loved you that way. You were my friend."
Her eyes met Dynarien's. "I love you," she whispered, then fell back against Mohanja, her eyes closing as consciousness deserted her.
Jysy stood close to Dynarien, her eyes watering. Jimi wrapped his arms around her. They had saved the kingdom and lost Talons.
Dynarien took Talons from Mohanja's arms and rose. Edouina laid her hand on his arm.
"Where are you taking her?" Takhalme Gee asked.
"To my sire, Willodarus. We must try to save the children."
Takhalme nodded. "So be it, then."
"Take this," Mohanja drew the wrapped blade and handed it to Dynarien. "It is the blade that killed her. It is a seeking blade apparently meant for Takhalme."
The yuwenghau looked shaken, but accepted it. A blade made for death. Tears forced their way from the corners of his eyes. "Hold onto me, Edouina."
His form shimmered as he began his Jump.
Jysy, realizing that physical contact would take her with him, grabbed Dynarien. So great was Jysy's devotion to Talons, that she would not allow him to take Talons away without her. Jimi grabbed Jysy instinctively, without understanding why. Then they all vanished, carried off to Imralon in Dynarien's auric field.
* * * *
Ceejorn Osterbridge sat in the Grand Master's throne chair in what had once been Takhalme's star room in late afternoon, the day after the battle. A second throne chair stood beside his, and Isen occupied it. He stole glances at her. The business before them was serious, but Ceejorn could not completely put aside his joy and worry over the fact that his young wife carried his child. The Readers said he had a son coming.
Alysyn now led her Netherguard and allies in hunting the rest of Wrathscar and Galee's followers through the streets of the city. The Guild had secured Galee's apartments until priests could examine their contents.
All of Galee's tapestries had been ripped from the walls and the dark wood stood naked at Ceejorn's order. With all the signs of taint gone, the room seemed warmer despite it's being emptier. Eshraf sat at his right hand and, Ceejorn could tell from the way the Patriarch's eyes roved about that he was taking in all the changes and approving them.
Aramyn and Mohanja brought Takhalme in to him. The former paladin-king had exchanged his grand garments for the unadorned, brown robes of a penitent. He leaned heavily upon Mohanja, moving with a weary, shuffling step. Mohanja settled the broken mon into a chair facing Ceejorn and took his own place beside the new Grand Master.
When Takhalme learned that he no longer ruled – even in name – it had broken him still further. He had allowed the sensuality of Galee's body in his bed as a middle-aged mon to lead him into the folly of blasphemy by fiat. Now he was old and had lost everything, even the heirs of his loins. He sat hunched with the tentativeness of the aged, weakened by grief, the side effects of the drugs he had become addicted to, and the lasting physical damage of Galee's nightly visits. Everything sat heavy upon his thin shoulders.
When no one ventured to speak, Takhalme stepped into the void. "What did she mean? When she said it was a better death than she was dying?"
Ceejorn nodded at Eshraf. "Galee had been poisoning Talons for months," the Patriarch told him.
"Why did you not speak?" Takhalme asked.
"Talons tried to. You refused to listen to either her or myself," Eshraf growled, his voice strained and edged. "Or to anyone else."
"You condoned and justified the rape of your heir," Ceejorn's voice was cold, measured. "You allowed her to be tormented, instead of turning to your god and his teachings. But you have thirty years of transgressions to atone for and I will not go into all of them now." Then he allowed his companions to piece the whole ugly story together for Takhalme.
Takhalme looked sadder and more desolate as the tale wound to its end.
"You will remain a penitent before god to the end of your days." Ceejorn pronounced his judgment. "May Hadjys have mercy upon your soul."
Aramyn answered a knock at the door, and Bryndel entered. He walked unsteadily to a chair and sank into it as his legs threatened to give. His right arm – which had been severely bitten and torn – rested in a sling. His shirt hung partway open, showing the bandages beneath.
"You should be resting," the Patriarch admonished him.
"No. I wanted all of you to know what my part was in this."
"Bryndel," Ceejorn said. "You were as much a victim as the others. Galee was deep into your mind from childhood. You do not need to confess the actions, which her coercions forced you to do."
"I know." He sounded lost. "I still want to tell them. It – it needs to be known. Perhaps then something like this will never happen to anyone in Creeya again. It isn't just for Talons, it's for Belyla. She walked into the flames, rather than harm Yahni's family. They killed the mon she loved and made a monster of her. She had more courage than I did. I lost my sisters, my wife, and my children. It needs to be told."
Isen regarded Bryndel with a steady, compassion in her eyes. "Let him tell the tale, and let Takhalme listen to the suffering his failure of faith has caused."
"My Queen is wise," Ceejorn said. He extended his hand to Isen. She placed hers in his, and he kissed her fingers. "So let it be."
* * * *
"Something is troubling you, Eshraf," Aramyn asked, as they left the meeting with the Grand Master.
"Many things still trouble me. Takhalme will be content to spend every moment in prayer or sleeping. Ceejorn is already making a fine Grand Master. I finally know more about who and what Gylorean Galee was. It haunts me. I have been reading Queiggy's translation of her journal. Galee was very ancient ... the mother of all the Lemyari that exist today. She was practically a god. She had been a god. She existed during the Age of Burning. Willodarus did battle with her for seven days and seven nights before he could subdue her and seal her into Hadjys' ninth hell. Yet she escaped."
Aramyn gave him a long searching look. "You still haven't gotten to the point. Where is all this going?"
The old Patriarch's eyes moistened and he looked ready to cry, which startled the Guildsmon. Eshraf looked suddenly extremely old, as if the years had caught up with him once the stress and pressure ended.
"Dynarien is dying. I saw his arms ... Galee plunged all ten fingers into Dynarien's arms..." Eshraf's face twisted up. "She injected her entire load of venom into his veins." He sighed heavily, shaking his head. "So many deaths. There are so many candles burning beside the altar. All day and all evening they come to light the candles and pray. The Fae are staying until spring to continue their hunting. Dynarien. There is so much in the book. Her mother was a lamia. Maybe we could learn more if we could catch one of those creatures, but I have no idea where to even look."
Aramyn saw that Eshraf's gait had become unsteady and he had begun to weep. He helped the Patriarch into a secluded alcove, slipped an arm around his shoulders, and sat with him until Eshraf could master himself.
The Guildsmon rubbed his hands over his face, finally pressing the corners of his eyes with a heavy sigh. Although they had won, in many ways it was much like thirty years ago over again. Their divine champion had perished each time. "I'll walk you to the Temple, Eshraf. I want to sit with Derryl."
* * * *
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
IMRALON
They materialized in the ancient inner court of the Palace at Imralon. Thick vines wrapped the columns that rose in a maze of conchoidal arches along the covered walkways. A banyan tree spread its arching and descending branches in a secondary maze around the open spaces. Dynarien staggered, dropped to his knees, and laid Talons gently on the ground. His fading strength exhausted, Dynarien folded over half on his side, and lay still, bleeding heavily from a score of long tears in his body.
Edouina knelt, feeling for his pulse, and found it racing. She touched his forehead, feeling the heat of a high fever. His left arm had settled with the palm half closed as if it had been clenched shut in pain. The ripped, bloody sleeve had something green oozing through the tears. Edouina tore it open and found ten punctures, around which the flesh had blackened with red streaks radiating around them, and green pus oozed from the centers. Venom. The creature had poisoned him. The full load from the most ancient and powerful of the Lemyari. As the creatures aged, the venom became more concentrated and more potent. Sick dread gripped her and she fought it down. Could he be dying? They were in Imralon, the garden of his father. There had to be help here if she could find it. "I'm not losing both of you!"
She stood up, shouting, "Help us!" in the Night-Elf tongue, grateful that Willodarus had given her the sacred language two days ago. "Dynarien is wounded! Help us!"
The Night-Elves answered led by an aristocratic female snapping orders that set them to their tasks; six warriors in green and brown silks and golden dragon scale mail, accompanied by four ladies. They seemed to almost materialize out of the dense forest of vine draped foliage.
Mariko's slanted green eyes widened with distress, her lips tightening a moment before she mastered herself as she knelt beside Dynarien, "My son!" She touched him, and then gestured to her guards. "Quickly, quickly!" She Read first Dynarien and then Talons. She spoke to the leader in a high-pitched singsong pattern. Warriors immediately lifted Talons and Dynarien, carrying them away. Her ladies surrounded Edouina murmuring meaningless phrases intended to comfort. Then Mariko rose, slipping her arm around the Sharani, leading her along behind them.
* * * *
When Dynarien collapsed, Jysy lost her hold on him and tumbled backwards into Jimi. They crashed through the bushes and out the other side. She started to stand, but strong hands threw her down on her back hard. The Sharani looked up into hostile, slanted blue eyes in opalescent black-skinned faces. A silver spear-point rested lightly against the hollow of her throat. From the corner of her eyes she saw Jimi in a similar situation.
"What?" Jimi gasped.
"Night-Elves," Jysy said.
"Nahn!" one Night-Elf growled. He looked to be the leader, clad in glistening silver armor over knee-length white robes.
"Friends," Jysy said. "Beijoan."
"Nahn!" the leader snarled. "Gehjojin!"
"Shit. They think we hurt them."
"Tell them different." Jimi told her.
"Can't. I only know a few phrases."
The leader motioned to the warriors who bound them with spellcord, hand and foot, and snapped deadly seals upon the cords, slid a spear under the cords and then lifted them up as the spears were settled fore and aft on sturdy shoulders.
Their captors carried the pair into the palace, down a winding stone stair and threw them roughly into a small cell.
* * * *
As soon as Mariko saw her son and his mates to the healers, she dispatched their warleader to find her husband in the Garden of Thought.
"Lord," Akira said, "Your Twice-Born Son is grievously wounded and the Hadjeeshyn paladin he brought with him is dying. The other paladin begs your assistance to save the children. I have thrown their attackers in a cell."
Willodarus shook himself, sending a cascade of leaves and twigs about the clearing. His trunk and roots separated into legs, as his form shrank back into vaguely human form. As the battle raged, he had sensed the presence of an evil he long believed he had destroyed. "Dynarien?"
"Yes, lord."
"Edouina and Talons?"
"Yes, lord."
"Take me to the paladin first." Willodarus followed him. As they walked Willodarus wondered about the attack itself. "They were attacked here? In my citadel?"
"No. The assassins followed them."
Willodarus frowned. Anyone with enough power to harm Dynarien and then chase him halfway around their world should have left traces in the ether, but the god sensed nothing. "Show me where Talons is. We will examine your captives after I have seen to her and my son."
* * * *
Talons lay unconscious in the middle of a bed. The Night-Elf healer had bound her wound, and several ladies had changed her into a white shift. Edouina bent over her weeping. The bloodstained dress lay folded on a small chair in a corner. The healer and ladies bowed themselves out when Willodarus and the Night-Elf warleader entered, leaving them alone with her. Willodarus gestured and Akira left them. Edouina moved to the foot of the bed, shoving her tunic off. She pushed Talons' shift up and opened her legs. Then she climbed onto the bed, pressing her bare stomach skin-to-skin against her lover's swollen belly. She roused the bi-kyndi and reached out for the children. It could easily kill her to try and move so large and so many fetuses as the three unborn babes.
"Better to try and die than not to try at all." She gritted it out between her clenched teeth. The bi-kyndi flooded Talons' body, taking away her pain. Edouina could feel the way her heart struggled as the blood from her severed spleen poured into her belly around the children. She reined her power back, concentrating on the children, and trying not to think about what was happening to Talons. She wrapped the three unborns in her power, drawing them toward her, feeling their forms go ephemeral, shifting into that misted essence that would allow them to rise out of Talons' body and nestle in her own.
Gods, it hurts! Edouina felt as if she were being ripped in half. The children slid away from her. She caught them again, pulling, pulling. Her heart hammered in her head. The blood vessels in her temples throbbed, feeling ready to burst. Tears ran down her face.
Willodarus lifted his hand with a word of command, dropped his other onto Edouina's shoulder, and filled her with his power. Edouina cried out as the children came free of Talons, entered her, and nestled safe beneath her heart. She sank to her knees, exhausted. Immediately she pulled herself up, moved to Talons' side, and took her hand, gazing into her face from which consciousness had fled. She touched her throat, finding the struggling pulse.
Brilliant green light flared around Willodarus as he strove to place a stasis on Talons before she could die. The small semblance of humanity fell away from him, leaving only his glowing eyes. Energy pulsed around his eyes, spreading in leaves and vines of sparkling light. He worked quickly, feeling the way her heart slowed towards stopping. When he was within seconds of completing his work, her heart stopped and her soul lifted from her body, trailing a fraying silver cord.
"No, no, not yet!" Willodarus caught her soul. It struggled frantically in his grasp like a small wild creature, crying out to Hadjys. But in the sacred precincts of Willodarus' palace, the Dark Judge either could not hear her or would not answer. The elder god refused to release her, and she could not get free.
"Dynarien and Edouina need you," he told her soul. Talons quieted in his grasp at their names. "Give us time to look for help before you take flight." He pressed her soul gently back into her body, and then snapped the stasis into place. He touched her head. "If only you had had some Nordrei blood, I could have bonded you to a tree and you need not have died at all. You would have made a fine dyradrei. But you
might have found that form too limiting. Many of them do."
Willodarus walked tiredly away, starting toward Dynarien's rooms, when he sensed another of the Nine reaching out to him and turned into the garden instead. He went to the scrying pool, gazing into it as Kalirion's image appeared in its clear depths.
* * * *
Kalirion went to the speaking pool beyond the holadil trees in his garden of eternal springtime, where flowers bloomed year round in every shade of blue and trees fruited in rainbow colors. "Willodarus," he called into the vapors rising from the pool. "Willodarus!"
The spirit-form of the old treeman appeared. "What is it?" he asked in his deep, gravelly voice. "I am very tired."
"Your daughter Jumped to me, dying. A sa'necari arrived with her, caught in the act of raping her. I killed him. I have pulled her out of danger, but the babes she carried are slain and our son LorenRain, who was with her, is missing. The sa'necari have found a cache of the ancient weapons. And Dynarien – she thinks he may have been slain."
"Dynarien is in Imralon. He is terribly hurt and his fate is uncertain. His beloved, Talons Trollbane, has been murdered."
The Sun God's face twisted into a hideous, burning mask of rage. "I will have vengeance. I will destroy these sa'necari."
"As will I. Send Dynanna home to me. I will send out my birds, gryphons, and swan-mays to search for LorenRain."
"It will be done."
"We may not find him alive, but we will find him."
"Thank you."
* * * *
For a dungeon cell, it was not entirely unpleasant. The straw was fresh and fragrant. The air was very warm and comfortable. They had a barred window just out of reach that allowed in plenty of sunshine. Jimi sat staring at the massive door, which had a tiny shuttered window that could be opened only from the outside to view them. He had never even imagined being incarcerated, especially in so foreign a land as this. In the aftermath of the battle and all the stress of the past months, he did not have the energy to school the apprehension from his face and manner. Not even for Jysy's sake.