“A Shaper,” she breathes with a flash of recognition, as much thought as whisper, using the common term for metamorphs, and then, in awe and wonder, “By all the Blessed, a Dragon!”
Everyone else present, she notes, is joined by delicate strands of golden glitter, which leap toward her from the seats as she passes each row in turn, only to fizzle to less than dust as they come near. Likewise the boy is also untouched. The strands wind around him as if he isn’t there, with a clear separation between them, while those around the others become more tangled with every moment. And the notion comes to her of cocoons growing on some monstrous web.
A stillness settles on the hall, and the quality of light begins to change. The warm and gentle radiance of torch and candle is gradually—but ever more rapidly—eclipsed by a silver splendor from above. Elora can’t see; a half-dozen stacked collars lock her head in place, allowing minimal tracking from side to side, and down, but never up. Even if she can manage a look, her view will still be blocked by the brim of her headdress. She knows what it is regardless: the full moon, Elora’s moon.
The apex of the domed roof of her hall is a skylight, composed of clear and stained crystal, displaying the seals of the Twelve Domains all binding and interweaving together to form that of the fabled, long-hoped-for Thirteenth. Hers.
She wants everyone to stop looking at her, she wants to be left alone. And she has another vision, of a life to come more awful than what had come before. Year after endless year locked in her aerie, so great an object of veneration that none stop to think she might be a living, breathing, needing person as well. The looks of joy and adoration change before her eyes; they care nothing for her, only for what she can do for them. Each has their desires, and see Elora as the means of their achievement.
She shudders and watches the room turn to silver as the skylight catches and intensifies the moonglow, pitching it straight down to the dais below, where it reflects again and again off the curved walls until the chamber is lit to a fair semblance of day. But the quality of light is different and she recognizes from the first, without knowing how or why, that the difference is significant. The sun’s radiance is one color among many; the moon’s, none at all. Its pale radiance bleaches the brightest hues present—those of her own costume—of their glory, denying even the absolute contrast of chiaroscuro. No black, no white, but variations on what lies between. Edges lose definition, abstract highlights cast the most familiar of objects and people in disturbing new guises, so that nothing seems anymore quite what it truly is.
She never thought much about light; in truth—and this realization brings a sudden, sour taste to her mouth, the bitterness of opportunities lost—has never thought about much of anything. When light is present, she can find her way about, see what she’s doing and where she’s going; when it isn’t, she occasionally stumbles. This isn’t like that at all. The light is tangible, it has a weight, a presence that she doesn’t like. She feels as though her headdress is a skylight, same as the roof overhead, only this one gives free access to her soul. As one set of glassworks lights the room, so does this other one illuminate all the secret places within her.
It hurts. No one warned her any part of the ceremony would hurt. Of course, this ceremony has never been held before, so how was anybody to know, but she isn’t much interested in that line of reasoning. A throbbing in her temples, at the base of her skull, down the column of her throat. A tingling numbness in her fingertips, an ache across the front of her chest. She keeps her eyelids mostly closed, because she fears if she tries a decent look at things, her innards will flip over and take her with them. Her stomach clenches at random intervals, and more than once she chokes back the taste of bile.
She thinks she says something, is sure she hears a voice that strangely resembles her own, but only Willow is speaking, offering a wink when he sees her peeking, winsome counter to the formality of phrase the ceremony demands. Words she’s heard before, but can’t properly place because everywhere she rummages in her head is suffused with this damnable light. It’s as if she’s going blind in the vault of her own memories.
“Agthuar duatha kedthel endrai…”
She smells burning, opens eyes wide—the devil with protocol and procedure—but sees nothing amiss in the room about her, save that the shapes and faces of the guests have lost all distinction, fading to a nearsighted blur that paradoxically leaves the strands that bind them sharply distinct.
She looks within her mind once more, bursting through door after door in a desperate search to find the heart of the conflagration. Discovering to her horror one that opens onto nothingness, where once she knows had been memories of her earliest days.
All is silver, she is silver, her figure stiffening within as her costume imprisons her without. In her own head at least, she’s always been able to run free, the form and figure of Self far leaner and stronger than the body she despises. Only that supposed strength is no longer of any use to her as flesh grows hard to the touch and more difficult to move. Earlier in the ceremony, she thought herself a statue; now she is fast becoming one in fact, and terror washes across her like a tidal race as she thinks of how helpless she’ll be when the process is complete, and how easily another might reshape her image to their own designs. All her growing life, she’s had no control over the fate of her flesh; she is a child, a stranger in a strange land, bereft of all who’d been her friends and champions, and unable to find any to take their place. Her mind, though, has always and stubbornly remained her own.
Until now.
Is this the ceremony? she cries to herself in horror. Is this what the Prophecy is all about, that I lose everything that makes me, me?
The reply comes with a ferocity that shakes her to the core, because she never suspected she had such defiance in her.
“No,” she says, not realizing she speaks aloud, that small, simple word casting a spear into the heart of the complex construct of power Willow is building about her.
He doesn’t believe his ears, he stumbles over the next phrase, has to repeat himself, and there’s nothing friendly or gentle any longer in his eyes as he wills her to be silent.
In response, she clenches fists and teeth, lips stretching wide with the effort it takes to mouth that single word again.
“No!”
He slaps her.
She stares, slack-jawed. In her whole life, no one has ever struck her; she is the Sacred Princess Elora, such things simply are not done! Tears burn her eyes. Willow ignores them, ignores her, honing the focus of his chant ever more sharply, as though it alone will cut through any further resistance. She looks around as much as she is able, her manner that of a hind run to ground by dogs, but sees not even a hope of salvation. On every face is a smile, and she feels a sick sense of abandonment. They aren’t going to do a thing to help; so far as she can see, they consider this the most wonderful, transcendent of moments.
All the promises, all the affirmations of love and worship, nothing but lies.
Only the dragon’s face shows anything contrary. He watches the scene play out like a judge, waiting to discover if she’ll stay with the role that has been cast for her or strike out on her own.
There’s disappointment in his eyes; he doesn’t think she will.
Streamers of argent fire swirl about the dais, cast down from skylight to floor, ringing her like the burning bars of a cage. These, too, have been stripped of color by the moon, their presence defined more by an absence of darkness than any projection of light. They begin to spin slowly about her, as though she’s become the eye of a whirlwind, each ribbon drawing closer together as the whole group closes on her. By the time they reach her, they’ll be a solid wall of flame.
She trembles, memory coughing up an image from her backbrain, as rich in vibrant hues and textures as the present moment is absent of it. She lies in a bowl, unable to move, swathed in linen silk, bound tight with straps of leather, the air rippling
with banners of fire so intense they’ll consume flesh and spirit both. Someone outside her field of vision cries Words of such Power that they present themselves with physical force, like lightning and thunder, the one transcending all properties of light as the other does of sound, so that the sensations are felt as blows rather than simply seen or heard. There is an aching need to the Words, a desperate craving that reaches out through the fiery manifestations of them, like Death Dogs straining at their leash, eager for the chance to hunt and kill and feast.
“No!” she cries, in a voice so full it cracks and to her surprise makes the fire curtain shimmer, the way its cloth counterpart would when struck by a blast of wind.
More so, and this is a greater surprise to her and Willow both, the word is accompanied by an action, a hand thrown forward, palm first, to bat away the flames.
Mistake. Being of the moon, they cast a fire that’s cold but inflicts no less intense a burn. With a scream that mixes startlement and pain in equal measure, Elora snatches back her hand and cradles it against her breast. The heel of her palm is black and blistered, the hand itself gripped with a terrifying numbness that reaches well past her wrist and makes her fear that her very blood has frozen in her veins.
Elora isn’t sure what happens next; it certainly comes from no conscious decision on her part. Even as she gathers her wounded hand to herself, whimpering at the thought of worse to come when the curtain sweeps over the whole of her, her body moves of its own accord, tucking her head forward and down so that the headdress will be the first of her to meet the flames. She kicks forward like a runner from the starting post, no elegance to the motion, has an awful sense of clothes burning, hair burning, a faint lash of winter down the length of her spine…
…and then she’s clear, Willow before her, a moment for her to note the shock and disbelief on his features before she plows into him and knocks him from his perch, the pair of them tumbling full-length from the dais.
“Selfish headstrong bloody little cow,” her godfather and protector squalls, again in that voice that isn’t what she remembers from him yet that sounds eerily familiar nonetheless, his own hands lashing out to take her by the front of her smoldering gown and pitch her back toward the flames. “You’ll ruin everything!”
“Let me go!” she screams back at him, beyond panic. “Leave me alone!”
She’s made her supreme effort; it isn’t enough. He has a strength that goes far beyond his frame, backed by a purpose that transcends anything remotely human. Her clothes remain her prison, they won’t allow her decent movement, and even if they did, she doesn’t know how to fight.
He sets her on her feet, just as he would a fallen doll, and she knows his next move will be to thrust her back into the furnace. She will burn; he will not.
“Why?” she sobs. “Please,” she begs.
“For a world that must never be” is his reply. “The sacrifice of One, for the salvation of All.”
“You heard Elora Danan, Deceiver,” says a new voice, seemingly from nowhere. “Leave her alone!”
In an eyeblink, the two on the dais became three. To Elora, Thorn seemed to pop up from solid stone; events moved with such speed there simply wasn’t time for her to notice the black blotch that blossomed against the silver-suffused floor (and, to be fair, she had other concerns to occupy her). Thorn struck Willow behind the knee and, when the taller figure staggered, boxed both his ears to force him to release the girl. A quick grab for her, to pull her past him and out of harm’s way. Then, at the last, a matter of giving the fiend a taste of his own medicine, by grabbing the scruff of his neck in one hand, his belt in the other, and heaving him forward into the flames.
He went in, he didn’t come out the other side.
Thorn’s eyes were bright, both from the excitement of the moment and the effort of sliding himself through the body of the castle, and he sensed he must look more than a little mad himself as he stood before the girl.
“Elora Danan,” he said.
“I know you,” she replied, but the confusion in her voice meant she hadn’t fully put together the particulars of that realization.
“I’m a friend, I’m here to help.”
“Little Nelwyn fool,” cried the voice of a God announcing Armageddon, “you’ve done more harm than you can know.”
The column of fire was gone, and with it all semblance of Willow Ufgood’s humanity. The face and the form hadn’t changed, at least in basic shape, but flame had taken the place of flesh, and Thorn thought—to both horror and fascination—that he’d come face-to-face with yet another Demon.
“And now,” the Deceiver told him, with a smile that was terrible to behold for all the torments it promised, “you’ll pay the price.”
“I won’t let you harm her,” Thorn said, projecting an implacable determination he didn’t truly feel. His adversary seemed to sense that lack of resolution, for the Deceiver’s next words…
“As if your desires matter, Peck.”
…were followed by a bolt of withering flame that corroded stone to powder where it struck and would have done the same to Thorn himself had he not dived aside, and yanked Elora with him. Thorn looked for the portal through which he’d arrived but saw it gone as well, sealed by the same attack.
The Deceiver didn’t give them any respite. A sequence of bolts this time, one for Thorn, the other Elora. His, Thorn allowed to tumble him backward over Elora’s prone body, in such a way as to entangle the pair of them in her massive train. Which in turn prevented him from blocking the second bolt as it sizzled the Princess from end to end until the outermost robe collapsed on emptiness, all within it utterly consumed.
The Deceiver seemed genuinely amused, a delight echoed by the watching crowd, who raised their voices in a cheer.
“Don’t mind them, Peck,” he said with a dismissive wave that left a trail of cast-off flicker flames behind it. “They see only what they believe is Elora Ascendant.”
“You’ve a rare gift for lies.”
“Look who’s talking! I’ve seen the disappearing pig trick before, old friend, it’s long lost its power to fool me. That blast was meant to capture, not destroy. So make it easy on yourself and show me where you’ve hidden her.”
Thorn skibbled on fingers and toes, like a cat ready for a fight, a sideways crab scuttle that put a little more distance between him and the Deceiver and brought him farther around the circle. His thoughts were racing, gathering data the way the brownies did souvenirs, building a picture of his adversary as quickly and comprehensively as could be managed. He was at a disadvantage from the start, because the Deceiver was evidently familiar with him, enough to call him a “friend.” He knew of Thorn’s skill at sleight of hand, but not where the girl had gone. That meant limits. Most disturbing, though, was what he’d said just as Thorn had arrived, about sacrifice and salvation; not simply the words themselves but the tone he’d used, as though this was a positive act, a necessary death.
The air had grown increasingly chill, so much so that Thorn could see his breath and feel goose bumps raising from every quarter of his flesh; the more intensely burned the Deceiver’s flames, the more they drew every scrap of warmth from the room. Almost as though he was re-creating this chamber in the moon’s literal image, transforming it into a desolate, frigid wasteland decorated with the semblance of life, but not life itself.
“I have no time, Peck, and less patience. Return the child. Her destiny was ordained before the world itself was born; give her leave to embrace it.”
“No.”
“I’m her protector, Nelwyn.”
“Another lie! I know the enchantments you work here, Deceiver, you want her life and soul!”
“And if I do? Are they not the smallest sacrifice for the future? There is more at stake than you could possibly comprehend; your interference is the cause of eternal desolation, not its end.”
Thorn rounded on the guest
s, to face Angwyn’s king and Cherlindrea.
“Majesties of Earth and Air,” he cried. “It’s not supposed to be this way!”
“Says who?” challenged the Deceiver. “Have you some special insight into Prophecy?”
“I know what’s right,” Thorn snarled, taken aback by his vehemence, “and this is not! You are deceived.” He addressed the crowd once more, deliberately turning his back on the blazing figure on the dais. “Elora is betrayed!”
“A wasted effort, Peck. They no more hear you than the child. I am Salvation, not her.”
Despite himself, he had to look, drawn by a force of command such as he’d never before heard, as inexorable and irresistible an attraction as those that held the world together. The voice was honey, water to a thirsty man, love to one who’d never known it. The flames were indeed all-consuming, but from their ashes would come the rebirth of something better. The old hatreds, rivalries, conflicts would be burned pure, even the most primal concepts reduced to their essence, shapeless clay awaiting a Maker’s fingers to give them proper form. To eyes and ears, it made perfect sense; to heart and soul, a dream worth dying for.
He saw a dazzling smile that had nothing whatsoever to do with the face around it and couldn’t help answering in kind. When he’d first entered the room, his colors were his own, a stark and earthen contrast to the argent majesty that had subsumed the rest. Now he’d grown more pale than not and found his strength of purpose fading as well. He knew that was important, but it didn’t seem to matter.
Shadow Moon Page 27