by Dan O'Brien
Such seething angst seemed ill-placed.
Leane restrained Fairhair with a touch of her hand to his chest. A reproachful stare shrunk away his anger. “He is the last of the Re’klu’hereun. They can hear the winds, the voices of the earth that call out but cannot be heard. If he has heard this from the winds, then I believe. As should we all,” she spoke in a very low voice, her eyes meeting T’elen’s.
The reality of the situation was much simpler.
Engineers from Culouth who were meant to maintain the machines of war had been called away to die in the cold. Long ago the Intelligence shackled humanity, never again allowing them free reign over the machines of war.
T’elen ran her hands over her hair. The braid that ran down her back was frayed. “If what Arile has spoken is true, then Culouth is as well without machines. The fire in the sky that scouts have witnessed is indeed Fe’rein.”
Xi’iom cleared his throat and stepped forward, hands behind his back. T’elen looked at him in annoyance. “Yes, Xi’iom, you were right that marching on the Stone Tower was a foolish idea. Now is hardly the time to gloat about it,” she snapped.
He shook his head. “That was not it at all, Field Marshal, though I am glad that you remembered my words. There is something else that warrants your attention, all of our attention,” he began. “There have been sightings of the Ai’mun’hereun.”
Leane placed a hand over her mouth. “Of my son?”
Xi’iom tilted this head, grimacing slightly as he did so. “Not exactly, Lady Leane. They say that they were visited by an ethereal being who spoke of bringing peace to Terra.”
Elcites nodded. “Some of the tower guards have seen figures in the night. They say that they are apparitions that whisper of the coming of the true Ai’mun’hereun.”
Leane bit her lip to keep from speaking. The joy she had felt from seeing her son was suddenly adulterated. She remembered his words: he only had a short time to speak to her.
Fairhair turned to Leane and frowned. He remembered her speaking of her son and he reached out to hold her, wrapping his arms around her shoulders.
She did not fight his embrace.
T’elen saw the exchange.
“What is the matter, Leane?”
“She saw…” began Fairhair and then looking to Leane he stopped. She met his eyes and nodded. Turning away, she broke from his embrace as he continued. “She saw her son several days ago. She says that he spoke to her and told her that he was in the underworld searching for the power of the Original Creator.”
T’elen moved toward Leane. “Is this true?”
She nodded, but did not turn around.
T’elen reached out with her hand to comfort Leane, but pulled it back before touching her. “I would have thought the men were going mad from being trapped here in Illigard for so long, but for Leane to see it as well…”
Xi’iom finished the Field Marshal’s thought.
“Then there can be only one conclusion.”
Arile threw something into the fire, a small pouch that crackled as it struck the flames. Tiny tendrils of smoke rose from it like the whisks of dragon’s fire. “If E’Malkai had found a way to talk to someone on this side, found only one chance, who do you think he would contact?” he called over his shoulder. Wafting the smoke into his own face, he blew out a column of smoke through his mouth and nostrils.
“Then what are the other men seeing?” queried T’elen.
He inhaled another cloud of smoke and exhaled with a grateful sigh. “They are seeing the coming of another, perhaps one who wishes to beat E’Malkai back to this plane,” reasoned Arile. With a shrug, he stood and turned to the others. “I do not have the answers to your queries. I can only pose questions. That is the way of the north. You do not always have the answers you seek, but you can create questions to seek the truth.”
“What can we possibly do about these hallucinations?” Fairhair spoke, breaking the tense silence.
T’elen smirked. “Nothing. We need to worry about the problem at hand. Culouth is no more than a day outside of Illigard.”
Shouting drew the Field Marshal’s attention.
The scout’s words were jumbled. He stumbled across the snow, his leather boots finding a hold on the slick ground only to lose his balance once more. Falling flat on his face, he skidded to a stop at T’elen’s feet. His face was buried in the frigid mush that littered the courtyard.
As he lifted his head, his face was adorned with brown snow like a comical beard that covered his entire face. His hand was clenched around a piece of browned paper. The exterior had been covered in oils to keep the snow and moisture from being absorbed.
“Field Marshal T’elen,” was all he could manage before T’elen bent down and snatched the piece of paper from his hand. She tore open the seal, the wax indentation a needless worry since they knew that Culouth was upon them.
She scanned the document, her eyes darting across the page as she read, and then crumpled it in her fist as the scout stood with the help of Arile and Fairhair.
He was robust for a soldier; therefore the relative size of his belly went unnoticed except that he was wearing a constricting uniform that accented the bulge of his midsection. His red stripe was faded and his face was covered in a thermal mask, the wooly exterior added to the comical dangling of icicles that hung from the loose strands of the material.
T’elen watched him with a predatory gaze.
“What is your name, soldier?”
“Odium. Private Second-Class Phillip Odium,” he stammered.
She shifted from the conversational tone that she had with the others to that of a commanding officer. “Where are you stationed, Private Odium?”
He swallowed hard, the bulge of his throat like a grape caught in his throat. “Scout Company Epsilon, Field Marshal T’elen,” he replied, saluting as he spoke her name.
She looked at him in annoyance. Knocking away his hand, she stepped closer. “Stop saluting like a fool and tell me that you saw. Not what is in this note, but what you saw with your own eyes,” she replied with a hard edge to her voice.
His wide eyes betrayed the fear that washed over him. He stumbled over the words as he spoke them. “I didn’t read––I mean I would never think to read correspondence meant for you, Field Marshal,” he almost cried.
She rolled her eyes.
Grabbing the man by the scruff of his outer cloak, she pulled him closer with a quick shake of his body, though the man was much larger. “Don’t be an idiot. I know that you didn’t read the letter. But you can probably tell me what was written because you were there in the field,” she snapped. Her patience was a thin, taut wire that was about to snap. He gulped again, T’elen’s face only inches away. Had he been another man, or this a different moment in time, he might have relished such an intimate affair.
As a soldier, he feared such an interaction.
“The army extends farther than the eye can see, hundreds upon hundreds of thousands of soldiers, perhaps more. We tried to sneak around the side of them to get an estimate, but it proved futile. There is a dark red cloud that hovers above them. Red and black, shadow and blood, that guides them,” he repeated, as if it were a practiced answer.
She released her hold on his cloak and he fell back, panting. “How far are they?” she queried as she thrust the rumpled paper into her pocket.
The scared look returned.
“I’m sure the letter explains it all…”
“They have sent me a fool of a courier. You have traversed the distance between their position and Illigard,” she spoke, her words laced with sarcasm and cynicism.
He stammered again, wringing his hands against one another. “They move as if they do not need rest or food. They are no more than a day behind me,” he replied with finality.
T’elen turned and whispered to herself. “A day.”
Xi’iom moved into the man’s path now, gripping him by the shoulders. “What about the scouts? What has hap
pened to them?” he pressed.
Odium looked down, defeated. “Dead, sir.”
Fairhair’s astonishment was unmatched. “A day? How can that be? They were more than three days away yesterday morning. How can they have covered so much ground so quickly?”
T’elen chuckled, not of mirth, but of the futility of the lieutenant’s words. “With Fe’rein as a master you will walk to the very ends of the earth. Until your knees give way, and even then you would crawl until he told you to stop. He has set his sights upon Illigard and there is no longer a doubt in my mind that he will not stop until we are all dead.”
Screams and shouts echoed from atop the walls.
They looked up as the archers pointed east. Though they could not see what the archers saw, or hear their words, they knew that Culouth had already arrived and with them came war.
ⱷ
The Tundra People
Higald stood outside the flapping main tent of the Fallen encampment. Just west of Illigard, it was higher into the mountains. As such, he saw what the archers were screaming about below. The dark lines of the Culouth regiment extended for what seemed like miles. Illigard was by no means a small place and was incredibly well fortified, but compared to an army that large it was just a matter of time before it would be worn down.
He saw the fire god the men on the field had witnessed. Fe’rein hovered above the Culouth host, shadow fire pouring from his body.
The Culouth soldiers swarmed around the sides of Illigard like insects and soon there was darkness at every corner of the outpost. Men fell underfoot to provide a human bridge across the moat surrounding Illigard.
S’rean stood to the far left of the Fallen chieftain upon a rock outcropping that jutted out farther over the cliff edge, a far more dangerous place to stand if the winds were fickle.
S’rean could not speak Fallen, but Higald could speak Utiakth. It was a language that he had acquired at the behest of his father when he was a youth, a time when it was believed that he would someday join Seth Armen, son of Evan, on the tundra.
He called across the gap, over the wind and snow.
“It is time.”
S’rean turned and nodded, his dark skin hidden beneath the equally dark skins of the Umordoc. “This is the end of the tundra people,” he called back in the tongue of the Utiakth.
It was said that the elder of the Utiakth was a Seer, and thus there was cause for Higald to believe the man’s words. “It may well be, S’rean, but I hope that it will be my grandest day in battle.”
S’rean smiled and pulled his sickle from around his back. The sharp edge of the blade seemed meek, much like the appearance of the Utiakth elder, but Higald knew differently.
The man was death on swift wings.
He was hatred and malice incarnate if war required it of him.
“We are all generals and kings in the Final War. May the Believer watch over the Fallen.”
“May the Believer watch over the Utiakth.”
S’rean let loose a primal bellow and leapt from the cliff edge, his movements as nimble as a youth as he picked his way down the mountainside.
The Utiakth followed behind him.
Their descent was silent and as spry and adroit as their leader.
Higald nodded once more, feeling the cold mountain air on his face. He loved that feeling, loved the fragrance of the cold. He pulled free his broadsword, a distinctive ring accompanying it, and extended it forward as the tundra people, the last remnants of a forgotten world, charged down the mountainside into a battle that could not be won in this life or the next.
ⱷ
E’Malkai
The gateway into the Grove was nothing more than a simple door. Upon looking at it, E’Malkai could not hold back his disappointment at its simplicity. “What in the name of the Creator is the point of having a door between two worlds? I would hardly call this safekeeping,” he chided, reaching out as if to knock on it.
Arivene grasped his hand in her two smaller ones and spun him to face her. “Sometimes you are such a child, Lord E’Malkai. You have aged hundreds of years since you passed into Dok’Turmel and yet, here at the gates of the very power you seek, you act like an insolent child,” she scolded. She let go of his hand and wrapped her arms around herself, turning away from him.
“I never told you,” he began.
She smiled, though her back was turned. “Mete and I knew what we were getting ourselves into. Mete wanders the upper levels of the Kien’jedai as we speak. He is very happy here.”
He moved closer, touching her arm with his hand.
“Why is that you were bound as my guide, Arivene?”
She sighed and turned.
Her lower lip quivered, eyes filled with tears.
Her chest heaved as she searched for the words. “I cannot.”
E’Malkai pulled her closer now and she laid her head against his chest. “Please tell me, Arivene, I need to know,” he urged.
She sniffled, her face wet against his tunic. “I was bound to you because I loved you from the first moment that I saw you. When the Shaman spoke to me that night, before he came to you, he said that in order for you to pass into Dok’Turmel that he had to know whether or not I loved you. He said the only way for you to find your way here was if someone loved you enough to be bound to you for eternity. It is because of that I now guide you to the Grove,” she cried, tears flowing freely.
He hugged her tighter, whispering in her ear, “I’m sorry.”
She pushed him back, enough so that she could see his face. “I am not. I did it because I knew that your life was more important than any feelings that I had. I was a young girl from the Fallen. Had I lived out my days, I would have married someone I did not love and then died young. The Fallen do not live real lives. Not real ones as you do in the sky,” she sobbed.
He did not know what to say to her.
She smiled as she saw his confusion. “There is no need for words. I was happy to love you as a mortal for the short time that I did. I may do so now for all of eternity. It is peaceful here.”
He grabbed her shoulders. “I loved you, Arivene. I swear that I did, but it did not seem like the time or the place for such a thing. I am sorry that I did not tell you when you were alive,” he replied, his eyes glassy as he looked at her.
She smiled and pulled away from him, smoothing out her dress and wiping at her tears as she laughed. “Thank you, E’Malkai. I felt the warmth in you when I first met you in the Fallen. I knew that you were a good person and now I can truly see why.”
E’Malkai smiled in return, gripping her hand tightly.
She motioned with her other hand to the door. The sorrow was gone and replaced with duty. “On the other side of this door is the path to the Grove. There is a being that guards it called the Polypheme.”
E’Malkai smirked at the name.
“Why do they call him the Polypheme?”
“I do not know. I have never seen him.”
He reached out and grasped the steel ring of the handle. It was glossy, as if it were polished to maintain the shine. The door was of simple construction, brown oak with dark black lines that ran vertically through it.
“What happens once I open this door?” he asked.
Her brow furrowed.
“You cannot leave until you have completed your journey.”
He turned to her; his hand still gripped the handle.
“You mean no matter what, I cannot leave?”
“I doubt that you would go to Dok’Turmel. You would end up in the Kien’jedai, or perhaps even as a champion of the Outer Circle,” she replied without realizing the youth’s intent. Upon seeing the serious look on his face, she continued. “Yes, once you choose to walk through that door, it is life or death.”
He regarded the door again.
“What do I do when I want to leave?”
She gestured with her hand to the way that they had just come. “The path will be apparent to you. The light o
f the Original Creator will guide you as it has guided me, if you defeat the Polypheme,” she added with a swish of her finger.
He arched an eyebrow as he looked back at her.
“Don’t think I can?”
She smiled. “This place is eternal, as is the Polypheme. He has never been defeated.”
E’Malkai pulled open the door, bathing him in a soft white light. He could hear Arivene gasp, but as he turned to see her he was blinded by the light. Emptiness greeted him and he could hear the door slam shut. He breathed out and felt the light infect his lungs, working its way over his body. Gasping for air, he felt his chest expand. He opened his eyes and the blinding white heat burned and then faded as the world came back into view once more.
The room he was in was not really a room at all.
There was no roof and the blue sky overhead looked like a clear day in some fairy tale. White sculpted pillars were set beside him and then two more in the distance in perfect alignment. The ground beneath him was matted and stained black, unlike the green all around him.
A white symbol was etched into the ground, though he could not make out what it was. He pushed himself from the ground with a grunt, the tremor in his head like an earthquake. Sounds of nature fluttered over him as he looked at the green hills.
The wind blew across the grass, swaying it back and forth.
Azure skies overhead were dashed only by billows of white clouds; some strung out and flattened and some bulbous like gaseous balloons. E’Malkai shook his head as he stood and felt for his father’s weapon at his side, sighing in relief when he found that the planedge was there.
His relief was short-lived as he saw the being called the Polypheme across the blackened grass. The creature was almost as tall as the pillars that were at the edges of the darkened square; almost twice the height of the youth. He wore a red mask across his face. He had three dark black lines like claw marks near his mouth.