Shadow Dawn

by Chris Claremont

  Khory nodded. “Saw you coming. Figured I’d wait.”

  The altar was where all the elements of the battle crashed together. As they approached, Elora could make out a glow at ground level, a defensive sphere of energy whose blood-hued shades rippled like fine satin in a breeze. Directly above it the rising column of fairies came together as clouds do to form the anvil forms of thunder-heads, so innocent and beguiling in the one incarnation, puffballs finer than blossoms of unspun cotton floating through space. In the other, they form the embodiment of violence and destruction, giving birth to thunder and lightning, torrential rains, and winds of such fury even stone houses could not stand against them.

  She remembered something a Highlander she knew had told her when she was cooing over the dogs that jogged happily at his heels: “A pup alone is a wondrous thing,” he said of his mixed-blood herders, “but put two together, they’ll sure an’ find a sheep to kill.” Because then they were a pack and became subject to hereditary imperatives that overruled the character of the individual.

  Alone, a fairy was the quintessence of loveliness. In this mass, they roiled together with such intensity the construct they formed couldn’t hold a wholly stable shape. It was meant to be vaguely human, with correct extremities in pretty much the proper arrangement—allowing of course for the horns and wings and tail—but the details couldn’t remain constant from one moment to the next. Each new arrival altered the blend, which in turn had a cascading effect on the final result. The changes never ended, so many occurring in so short a span of time that Elora couldn’t bear to look at it. There was nothing tangible on which to anchor her perceptions, it was like trying to keep her balance on a floor composed of nothing but marbles and ice. Merely trying made her eyes burn and her head ache.

  Like swimming with firedrakes, she thought.

  The figure cried out and the sound it made was worse than the sight of it. There was no single voice, but a chorus of every creature that composed its being. It had no coherent form of its own, but was an amorphous compilation of this horde of fairies, crushing themselves so tightly together that their individual luster blended to cast the illusion of something greater and more terrible.

  As with any great enterprise, there was a commensurate cost. The fairy that blazed most brightly does so for the briefest time, and these were burning with an intensity that seared the eye. That made the melody of their blended voices as unendurable as their glow, for within the mass, individual songs suddenly vanished, as did the light that signaled that fairy’s life force. They were dying, one and all, killing themselves willfully—gleefully—in defense of this most holy ground. Any creature not of their own kind who trespassed on this hill tonight was an enemy, and therefore to be destroyed without hesitation or mercy. Within the globe of energy, a sorcerer’s last and most desperate line of defense when all the other spells of protection had failed, was the person responsible for this sacrilege, the object now of the fairies’ greatest hatred.

  When Elora started forward, belatedly aware that she was next to naked, clad in her belt with its traveling pouches, from which hung the tattered remnants of her shorts, the fairy conglomerate swept out an arm toward her, casting a blistering lash of raw energy across the curve of its foe’s globe. Rainbow fire exploded on the surface of the globe, tendrils striking back at the assaulting arm, Elora crying out in sympathetic horror as they left avenues of shadow in their wake. Tiny bodies rained down to carpet the stone like ash. She recognized the nature of those defenses, they were the same that had attacked her in the fort when she’d called out to Ryn. Yet she took no pleasure in the discovery that she’d run her prey to ground, and that the fairies’ enemy was also the sorcerer who’d enslaved her friend.

  Above her, those countless scores had no sooner perished than their place was taken by hundreds more, and the bolt of fire which struck toward Elora was tenfold more powerful than the one unleashed against the globe.

  With a desperate cry, she shoved Khory to cover beyond the circle, but there was no time for her to follow. She staggered as the blast washed over her, but that was mainly from the shock of contact. She thought there’d be pain, sufficient to dash her shrieking to her knees for the brief moments allowed her before she was utterly consumed.

  Not a thing.

  On either side, rock blistered, slagged, exploded under the terrible onslaught. Elora remained untouched, unharmed.

  In amazement, she stared down at herself while the conglomerate howled frustration and redoubled its efforts against the figure within the globe. She believed she’d been cut more times than she cared to recall, yet there wasn’t a sign of it on her skin. Dried blood on the loincloth, yes, but not even the ghost of a scar elsewhere.

  She sensed movement, caught a glimpse of Khory slinking from cover to cover, called out to her to stay clear. This was a moment for Elora alone.

  An avenue led from the perimeter to a circle of station stones, and from there to the heart of the ancient shrine. Elora took a breath to compose herself and then set off with a formal and measured cadence, approaching the altar with all due respect and solemnity.

  At the station stones, she paused, ignoring (though it was blessed hard) the monstrous creature that loomed so high above the tor, it now dwarfed these sarcen stones that in their turn dwarfed her, and the now visibly shrunken (though no less colorfully bright) globe of fire huddled at the base of the one that stood at the head of the altar.

  Lifting her arms to either side, stretching her hands, she found she had just enough height to brush her fingertips over the lower surface of the gateway plinth.

  “Revered heart of grace,” she said, and wished for something more majestic than her husky and broken voice. “I come in peace. I mean none harm, I do none harm. I ask your welcome.”

  She didn’t know what to expect by way of reply, didn’t really expect one at all, and so wasn’t surprised when none was forthcoming.

  Elora drew about herself the same dignity she’d have projected in any royal palace, with herself gowned and coifed to the eyebrows, and took the twenty steps that brought her at last to the basalt center court. It was easier to ignore the battle now that she realized none of the weapons could do her harm.

  She stood before the altar and repeated her invocation.

  There was no sense of foulness when she placed palms flat on the worn and pitted slab. Alone of all the aspects of the shrine in view, it showed full evidence of its tremendous age. Whatever was intended here by the person in the globe, it had not come to pass.

  Then and there, Elora took a slow, steadying deep breath. She shook her hands in a vain attempt to stop their trembling, frightfully aware that if she was in any way wrong about her invulnerability she’d only find out the hard way. A last and final lesson in humility.

  She put her back to the creature, aware of a tickle of sensation along her spine as she stepped forward into the path of its bolts. She strode right to the edge of the glowing sphere, spared a moment to kneel and lay her hand in sorrow and apology on the scored and savaged rock that had borne the brunt of the damage.

  Then as easily as strolling through an open doorway, she breached the sorcerer’s wards and passed through the globe.

  Within crouched a woman twice Elora’s age, garbed for war, in a pose that suggested cornered predator more than human being. Soft leather garbed her snugly, a costume designed as much to distract the eye as for comfort and ease of movement. It was dyed the color of rich red wine, more black than scarlet. Spike-studded gauntlets reached to her elbows, boots to the top of her knees. She wore a tunic laced as tight as any corset, slashed in battle to reveal a layer of fine chain mail sandwiched between those of leather. Elora had no doubt the woman was armed to the proverbial teeth, but knew as well she hadn’t strength or concentration to spare to draw a single one. All her efforts and resources were devoted to the maintenance of her wards. The slightest relaxation
and she’d join her comrades. Elora understood, as did this Maizan sorceress, that their agonies would pale to insignificance compared with hers.

  It was a beautiful face, she saw, though now to Elora it seemed haunted. There were great dark circles beneath her eyes, which themselves appeared sunken within their sockets, eloquent testimony to the toll this struggle was taking. The battle was literally eating her alive. She lacked the nigh-inexhaustible numerical reserves of her foes. Fairies could be easily replaced on this slaughtering ground, not so the substance of the woman’s own flesh. Her cheeks were deeply hollowed as well, and there was a loginess to her movements, as though every particle of her was pulling against the resistance of a great and growing weight. Full lips, pressed thin and bloodless from strain, elegant hands made more for holding a dancing partner at court than a sword.

  Beside her on the ground lay Ryn. Alive, and to Elora’s eye unharmed.

  “You’ve lost, Maizani,” Elora told the woman.

  “Never.”

  “Take my hand.”

  “Rather have your heart.” Defiance had its moments, this wasn’t one of them.

  “Are you surprised at their resistance? This is their home. Whatever you had planned, the fairies want none of it.”

  “There’s a new order in the world. They have to move aside.”

  The woman grabbed for her blade. Elora tapped her on the breastbone with its point.

  “How—!” the sorceress gobbled.

  “Magic.” It was nothing of the sort, really. The sorceress was too fixated on the need to maintain her wards. By the time she noticed what was going on around her, Elora had stolen her sword.

  “You’re not magic, you’re not even human.”

  “There’s been enough bloodshed, and too much damage done already.”

  The woman’s expression changed, twisted by a burst of comprehension. “I know you,” she hissed.

  “Yield.”

  “This is your companion, that’s why we took him. We hope to lure Drumheller to his doom, but you’ll do just as well.”

  “I’m not the one here who faces doom.”

  “I have his spirit, I have his”—and the way she spoke the word made it a curse—“soul.”

  “And I have you,” Elora said, with a calmness she didn’t feel. “Fates willing, if you’ve wit to realize it, I can be your salvation.”

  “His life for mine, is that it?”

  “I’m not the only one you have to deal with, remember.”

  “You don’t speak for them, you’re nothing like them.”

  “Consider those my advantages. You haven’t much time to decide, you’re weakening with every breath.”

  “This World Gate must be closed!”

  “Why? There hasn’t been the power to sustain a Gate here in longer than the Daikini race has even been alive.”

  “No matter. It was a place of power once, can be so again. That must never be! Limit the access of the Veil Folk to our world, limit their power over it. Over us!”

  “Is that what Mohdri told you? Is that what you believe he wants? The spells you cast don’t simply seal World Gates, they strip the land of its magic and deliver it to him. He’s betrayed you—so you can betray the world.”

  “Liar!” she screamed. “We’re saving the world for our people, for our children!”

  “What about the Veil Folk? Isn’t this their world, too?”

  “They have proper domains of their own, we Daikini this one alone, what right have they to pieces of ours?”

  “That may be true for Greater Faery and those who dwell in the Circle of the Spirit. But this is sacred ground for Lesser Faery. They’re partly of the Veil, but mainly of the world. They’ve as much right as we to live here.”

  “Then why haven’t they ever offered to share?” There wasn’t hatred in the woman’s voice, although she well and truly snarled her words. To Elora she seemed more like a child who’d spent too long staring through a set of gates at something wondrous and untouchable, heartsick and crying out in sorrow because no matter how hard she begged, she’d never be allowed through.

  “We’re not arguing over toys,” Elora told her with a gentle but matter-of-fact tone. “Not possessions of any kind. We are all of the world, on both sides of the Veil. Diminish a part, we diminish the whole.”

  “Words.” Another snarl, thick with rough contempt.

  “Your companions are dead. Is that what you want, to join them?”

  “I’m willing to die for what I believe in.”

  “Then you die for nothing.”

  “Kill me, then, you silver bitch, and have done with it, if you’ve the courage!”

  Elora shook her head. “There’s been enough killing. You want to show me courage, try living! Try building something, creating something.”

  “Stop it. I don’t want to hear any more. Leave me be!”

  “There are beings out there who love their lives as much as you do yours. They’re immolating themselves, like moths on a furnace flame, to get to you. I walk away, they die, you die. I refuse to accept either.”

  “You’re a fool, then.”

  “Then I’m a fool.”

  The bubble around them creaked, as though from the pressure of some great wind, and a moment later the Maizani groaned in sympathetic pain as the force deployed against her shields made itself felt within her body. She was breathing in deliberate pulses, almost akin to an automaton, each breath proclaiming her will’s domination of her flesh. Yet in stark defiance of that state of being, her sunken eyes were awash, tears of sorrow streaming across her proud, ravaged cheeks. She knew her life was done, and she was afraid.

  “There’s a time for every death,” Elora told her. “And somewhiles even a purpose. This isn’t yours.”

  “You’re trying to trick me!”

  Elora snorted.

  “You’re a sorceress,” she said, trusting her instincts to guide her words the way they did her songs. “If you’re any good at all, that means you’ve touched the glory. I can’t work magic. I’ll never know, but I’ve heard sorcerers speak of it.” Thorn spoke of it only in the most simple terms. The words weren’t important, Elora understood that now more than ever. What mattered was the light that gleamed deep in his eyes, like a lighthouse beacon against the darkest nightfall, and the joy that gathered around him as snug as his most favorite quilt. To touch the glory, he told her, was to know wonder, and from there find your way to the heart of the dream.

  “Remember the joy of that moment,” Elora cried out, “the sense of hope, the surety that all things are possible. Where’s that wonder”—and she waved her arm to encompass not simply the interior of the sphere but the battlefield hidden beyond—“here?”

  Elora reached out to the woman, but held short of actually touching her.

  “Your heart knows the truth,” she said. “Your soul knows. This is wrong. You are wrong. And you should stop.”

  She saw a tremble ripple across the other’s chin that she took to mean assent, for in every other aspect the woman appeared to be carved from stone, as immovable and eternal as the rocks of the tor itself.

  With that, Elora simply stood up to her full height, bringing the crown of her skull up against the substance of the energy field.

  With a pop much like a soap bubble, the globe burst, its substance fast-fading in a shower of firefly particles, leaving a scene dominated by the ghastly greens and blues generated by the fairy creature towering above.

  The globe had comprised a circle with a diameter of roughly twice Elora’s height. The boundary itself was marked by a wall of ash, the remains of fairies who’d sacrificed themselves in onslaught after futile onslaught, creatures the size of dust motes piled as high as Elora’s hips and considerably farther back.

  Without the globe to restrain them, the entire bulwark c
ollapsed inward, with a soft shooshing that sounded louder than any church carillon in the sudden hollow silence. The spillage flowed like mercury across the earth, almost to their feet, and Elora blinked back tears of her own at the sight.

  So many hopes—the thought came to her, not one she had herself but overheard from another—so many dreams. Lost.

  The creature stretched its great arms to the heavens and roared in triumph. The Maizani took no notice as she stroked trembling fingers across the fairy remains, barely touching them, the wake left by her hand moving through the air enough to stir them into a dance that was a pallid and poignant reminder of what they’d been capable of when alive.

  Did fairies come to dance for you, Elora thought, the night of your Ascension, when you touched the glory and claimed the fullness of your natural power? Is that what you’re remembering?

  “What have I done?” the woman breathed. “What have I done?”

  “WE WILL HAVE VENGEANCE,” thundered the great mass overhead.

  Elora took a step sideways to place herself between it and the sorceress, and shook her head, painfully aware of how hard her heart was suddenly pounding and wishing as suddenly for a whole host of things, all of which would place her as far as imaginable from this place and this moment.

  Then, in the face of the creature’s fury, she smiled.

  “This is a place of passion,” she told the fairies, and felt the faintest tingling in her toes as the stones below remembered what that meant over countless eons, “but most of all, of peace.”

  “IT IS NOT WE WHO HAVE COME TO DESECRATE THIS HOLY PLACE. WE ARE ITS DEFENDERS, ITS CHAMPIONS!”

  “And you have done that work well. But the danger is past.”

  “Suppose We say different.”

  A single voice, single face, emerged from the verdant radiance to take a stand before the altar. He viewed the scene with a proprietary air that marked his rank, his true place in the scheme of things, far more eloquently than any crown. He stood shorter than Elora, though not by much, and not so broad as a Nelwyn, though she could see strong similarities in the shape of his body and the structure of his face. His robes seemed to be formed of leaves, and since it was late in the growing year he was a riot of autumnal color, russets and scarlets and golds. Long hair the color of mahogany was woven into multiple braids, though his beard, by contrast, hung loose. Elora spied the tiny heads and bright eyes of fledgling birds poking out from its thicket.