by James Wyatt
Thoughts of Gaven filling her mind, Rienne drew Maelstrom from its sheath and looked down at the blade.
Gaven faced her in Jordhan's cabin, Maelstrom's gleaming blade between them. "The day you first touched that sword," he said, "you set a course for a much greater destiny. It's a sword of legend, Ree. Great things have been done with it, and more greatness will yet be accomplished. Can't you feel that?"
She still felt it, and she had come to believe-to hope, at least, or maybe to fear-that the rest of Gaven's words might be true, that she was the one fated to accomplish so much with it.
"You and Maelstrom are linked in destiny," Gaven said, "as surely as you and I are."
Tears streaming down her face, she lifted the blade above her head, gave a wordless shout, and joined the last charge of the defenders of the Mosswood.
The song of unmaking boomed from his throat, each note throbbing in dissonance with the protesting chords of the Gatekeepers' seal. Slowly his song bent the druids' harmonies, twisted their chords into terribly cacophony, and snapped the lines of the binding. The chorus of madness rose from deep below and echoed in his ears, giving strength to his voice. This was why the Blasphemer had come-the beginning of the unmaking of the world.
He crouched and cocked his head, listening. The mad chorus had been clear to his ears for hours now as the battle raged, but he was beginning to hear the high keening notes of a single voice raised above the others. Its song was at once a chant of war and a summons, drawing its kindred from across the depth and breadth of Khyber to come to the opening of the doorway.
I am here, Kathrik Mel sang in his wordless, tuneless song, and the door will soon be open.
The distant voice answered with a banshee's wail, portending the death of the world.
The defenders of the Mosswood advanced in grim silence. Elestrissa strode forward like a walking oak imbued with the primal power of her woodland home. The goliath kept pace beside her, resting a greataxe on one broad shoulder. Rienne had never seen a goliath in person before, but she knew of them-the wild mountain-folk of the western Reaches, more at home on snow-capped peaks than in city streets.
Both dwarves had shaggy boars by their sides, but one was a hazy spirit like the healer's bear while the other was real flesh and bone. Some of the shifters walked upright, but others switched between a crouching run and scampering leaps, pausing frequently to sniff the air or just let the group catch up. Rienne saw humans and elves armed with bows and clad in leather, and others covered from head to toe in plates of metal armor, holding finely crafted swords and heavy metal shields. It was as motley a collection of warriors as she'd ever seen, all united under the Mosswood Warden's banner to make a final stand against the Blasphemer.
Much like the Blasphemer's forces themselves, she reminded herself. According to Kyaphar, the Blasphemer had united members of many different Carrion Tribes under his bone-white banners, leading them in a common cause to conquer the lands east of the Shadowcrag and Icehorn Mountains.
Elestrissa's charge reached the bottom of the slope, and the sounds of the battle engulfed them-the clash of steel against steel or swords splintering wooden shields, the shouts of enraged warriors as they hacked into their foes, the roars of dragons and the great Eldeen bears, and the pitiful screams of the dying.
"For the Reaches!" someone near Rienne called out, and the rest of the charging warriors took up the call.
"For the Reaches!"
"For the Wood!"
Barbarians streamed toward them from both sides, having beaten past or broken away from the Eldeen soldiers that tried to hold the line. Several of the charging warriors slowed, readying to meet them, but Elestrissa urged them forward. "On to the Blasphemer!"
Lightning flashed in the sky, and Rienne looked up-half expecting to see a dragon breathing lightning down on them, half hoping to see Gaven's dreadful storm. Instead she saw Jordhan's airship skimming low over the battlefield, the fiery ring of its bound elemental bright against the smoke-blackened sky. As she looked, another bolt of lightning streaked down from a figure on the deck-Kyaphar or one of his druids, she supposed-and struck in the midst of a thick clump of barbarians, knocking them to the ground.
The barbarians closed around the heroes of Elestrissa's charge like the jaws of a dragon, roaring and howling as they swung their mauls and axes. Rienne was sheltered from the initial assault, surrounded by allies who prevented Maelstrom from meeting her enemies. Inevitably, though, the warriors on the edge of their ragged formation slowed, and as Rienne continued to advance she found room to maneuver, and Maelstrom began its whirling dance of death.
A plague-scarred barbarian thrust his leering visage in her face as she dodged his hammer's swing. His eyes went blank as Maelstrom bit through his flesh and found his heart. A shifter, his skin splotched with horrible burns, stumbled back, trying to dodge the flashing blade, but Maelstrom sliced through his throat and he fell on his back. A Carrion Tribe woman clanged two rough blades together in challenge, blocked Maelstrom's first slash, whirled forward in answer, then stopped dead as Maelstrom severed a tendon in one arm, took off the other hand, and finally sank into the barbarian's chest.
Elestrissa strode in front of Rienne, swinging her club back and forth in devastating arcs that sent barbarians flying away from her and crashing into each other, clearing a path to the Blasphemer. Rienne kept pace, but what had been a tight formation charging ahead started to thin as the warriors slowed to engage their enemies and some fell under the overwhelming tide of the barbarians. Maelstrom kept her moving forward even as it whirled and cut, jabbed and killed.
The elf just behind her, his two curved blades flashing in the firelight, stumbled as a barbarian's club swung low at his legs, and Rienne hesitated.
"Keep going!" he screamed at her, then the barbarian's club smashed his skull.
Maelstrom darted out and slit the Plaguebearer's throat, and Rienne left him sprawled across the body of the hero he had slain, the elf whose name Rienne had never learned.
Dragonfire leaped and roared at Kathrik Mel's back, adding its dissonant voice to the distant chorus down in Khyber. The howls of rage-filled warriors and the agonized screams of the dying sang his song of dissolution. The Gatekeepers' seal itself, groaning as its bindings weakened and broke, added voices to the song, a crescendo of chaos building to the inevitable climax.
He stepped forward, and the tread of his armored foot turned a new circle of grass to ash, adding the tiny dying breaths of the leaves to the grand cacophony. He looked down and saw a line of the seal, flaring with purple light in protest as the song tore at it.
The Blasphemer spoke a word that was no word, and fire erupted beneath his feet. Like lightning, the flames coursed along the ground, tracing the lines of the seal and igniting them. Fire licked the sky, burning through all the colors of the spectrum until it burned black and terrible.
The flames died, their fuel extinguished. The seal was undone, and the chorus of madness swelled in triumph. The keening voice surged louder as its owner rose to pass through the open doorway.
PART III
In the Time of the Dragon Below, the moon of the Endless Night turns day into night, and so begins the darkest night.
In the city by the lake of kings, the city scourged with his storm, the Storm Dragon becomes as the Devourer, and he opens his maw to consume the world.
Under the unlight of the darkened sun, the Storm Dragon lays down his mantle; he stops his song before it can be unsung, and so his storm is extinguished.
CHAPTER 31
Aunn gaped, trying to see past the deathless guard and up the stairs. Silence had fallen over the temple, and he was desperate to know what was happening on the upper floor. Why had Gaven killed an Aereni priestess? What was he doing here at all?
"You had better come with me," the soldier said, clutching Aunn's arm in his shriveled hand. His touch was ice cold and seemed to sap the strength from Aunn's muscles.
Without thinking, Aunn
wrenched his arm from the deathless soldier's grip and bolted past him up the stairs.
The soldier shouted, "Stop!" and then something in Elven.
Revulsion and terror impelled Aunn up the stairs. He leaped out of the path of the guard's poleaxe as it swung at his feet, vaulting up a few more steps to the first landing. The guard was still shouting in Elven as he scrambled up the stairs behind him, jabbing his spear at Aunn's feet.
A few more guards stood at the top of the stairs. Mostly their attention was focused upward, looking at something on the next flight, though one woman was drawing a curved sword and shifting to block Aunn's way. Aunn hesitated, but a clatter on the stairs at his feet warned him just in time-he hopped up as the other soldier's poleaxe swept under him, and kicked down, trapping the weapon against the stairs. The haft broke with a loud crack, drawing a string of Elven curses from the guard.
The guard at the top of the stairs barked something to her companions, but whatever was happening on the stairs above them must have been riveting-they barely gave Aunn a glance before looking back up. The soldier below him shook the axe head free of the splintered haft and repeated the eerie growl he'd made before. Aunn still hadn't drawn his weapon-he didn't want to kill any of the guards, but he was starting to wonder, as rational thought reasserted itself, how he could get out of this mess without the use of his mace. Not giving those thoughts a chance to settle in, he charged up the rest of the stairs, keeping a wary eye on the curved blade of the guard above him.
Instead of blocking his path, the guard fell back from his charge, and Aunn saw the other soldiers around her fall to their knees, heedless of any danger. He cleared the stairs, put his back to the wall, and looked past them.
An elf woman draped in a simple gown descended the last few stairs, carrying Gaven's unconscious form in her slender arms without apparent effort. Her face was a mask of death, tattooed to resemble a stylized skull, but her eyes were green flames. The other elves had their faces to the ground, ignoring him, and he decided to follow their example rather than draw the ire of this being. She reminded him of Senya's ancestor in the City of the Dead.
Senya!
Aunn looked up, and the elf's fiery eyes burned into his. Her head was shaven clean, the skull tattoo obscured her features, and her eyes were not the sapphire blue they had been, but this was unmistakably Senya.
"I know you," she said. Her voice was not Senya's husky purr, but a cool, clear song.
How could she know him? Senya had never known what he was, as far as he knew.
"You were with this one and my daughter Senya in Shae Mordai."
The terror that had gripped him through their entire stay in the City of the Dead returned, a cold hand on his heart. As frightening as the haunted City of Night had been, years ago, to a young spy on his first mission, Shae Mordai had been far worse, a place where the undead walked openly among the living. Senya's ancestor had been the most terrifying part of a truly horrible day, for in the brief moment when the burning eyes in her empty sockets had met his gaze, he had felt himself utterly exposed to her. It appeared that, somehow, he was facing Senya's ancestor again-enshrined in Senya's body.
"Senya?" he said quietly.
"My daughter is dying." She looked down at Gaven's limp form in her arms, as if suddenly remembering what she was doing. "You will help me. Come."
"Revered One," the deathless soldier behind Aunn said, "these men are intruders into the sanctity of your temple."
"Do you presume to bind what I have chosen to loose? You may assist us if you wish, but you will not stand in the way any longer."
Senya strode forward and started down the stairs. Aunn followed close behind her, giving the deathless soldier a wide berth. The soldier glared at him, clutching the haft of his broken poleaxe, but he obeyed Senya and stayed out of Aunn's way. Senya seemed to float down the stairs, still showing no sign that carrying Gaven's heavy body was the least bit difficult. Indeed, each step she descended-each step that brought her closer to the sanctuary at the heart of the temple building-seemed to increase the sense of power or presence that emanated from her.
The entry area at the bottom of the stairs was deserted and deathly still. Aunn wondered where the dozens of elves who had been there a moment before had gone, but then he saw them all gathered in the sanctuary, kneeling on the floor in silent prayer or contemplation. Senya walked directly to the sanctuary, but Aunn hesitated.
"Stay with me," Senya said, not looking back at him. "I need your help."
What is going on? Aunn wondered, hurrying to catch up.
In Shae Mordai, Senya's ancestor had been imperious, angry with her wayward descendant, and uncooperative. Now she was imploring him for help. Was Senya engaged in some elaborate hoax, pretending to be a representative of her ancestor in order to swindle her distant relatives? It didn't seem likely-Senya was a mercenary, not a thief. She could be manipulative, but she usually preyed on men's desire rather than their piety. And if all this was an act, it was a very convincing one.
The elves gathered in the sanctuary had left a path open from the door to a raised area at the far end of the room, flanked by smoldering braziers that breathed billowing clouds of perfumed smoke. Senya drifted between the kneeling crowds, an almost palpable aura of holy power surrounding her now that she was in her sacred place. The elves pressed their faces to the floor, and Aunn stumbled along behind her, not sure what to do but unwilling to be separated from the one person who accepted his presence in the temple.
Senya dropped to one knee and laid Gaven on the floor between the braziers. Aunn hurried to his friend's side. He hadn't noticed upstairs how ashen Gaven's face was, or the cut across his upper arm. Gaven was still breathing, but slowly. Aunn pulled Gaven's broken armor out of the way and examined the wound. Its blackened edges suggested the work of a poisoned blade.
"What happened?" he asked Senya. "Who did this?"
"I do not know," Senya said. "There was another body on the floor."
Aunn glanced at the door, and saw two elf soldiers carrying a body between them. Wisps of smoke still rose from the figure they carried. Elves kneeling near the door turned to look and wrinkled their noses.
An assassin? he wondered. Here? Why did Gaven come here at all, and how had an assassin found him here?
"You asked for my help, lady," he said softly. "What would you have me do?"
"Save Gaven."
Aunn pressed his fingers to Gaven's neck to feel his pulse. It was an excruciating moment before he felt a single beat. "Have you no power to aid him?"
"First I must heal this body. That will require time that Gaven does not have."
Aunn slid his healing wands from his pouch and chose the most potent of the three-the one he had once told Dania could bring her back from death's door. Remembering Dania's face and Tira's holy kiss, he breathed a silent prayer that its magic could help Gaven. He felt the wand tingle in his hand, and power coursed through his other hand where it rested on Gaven's chest. A blush of color spread at once across Gaven's face, and he drew a deep, shuddering breath.
Aunn sighed with relief and slid the wand back into his pouch. The wound on Gaven's arm had closed, and the blackened flesh was slowly regaining its normal color as the healing magic continued its work.
Gaven heard the sound of a great kettle drum, a single beat that echoed once, like distant thunder. He was walking on a stone floor between two rows of round columns. Shadows flitted behind the columns, hazy memories and indistinct visions that refused to resolve into defined shapes, sliding away from his gaze. He had a vague sense that his father was nearby, but his voice and his footsteps echoed in the great stone hall and drew no answer.
Another beat of the drum, louder, startled him. There wasn't supposed to be another beat, he felt, though he couldn't quite understand why he believed that. He stopped walking and looked around, behind him, and up past the towering columns to a star-filled sky, and another beat came.
The next beat was sof
ter, as though Gaven was soaring up and away from the great drum, but now it was a steady pulse, and he could feel it in his chest even after he could no longer hear it. He opened his eyes.
He lay on his back on a cold, hard stone floor. Someone or something was kneeling beside him, leaning over to peer at his face with blank white eyes. The creature had no face, just an expanse of gray skin with the merest hint of a nose and a lipless gash for a mouth, all surrounded by wild shocks of white hair. His first thought was that this was some sort of wraith whose task was to receive him into the land of the dead, for the room he was in seemed fitting for the marble halls of Dolurrh, the shadowy realm where souls were said to pass when their mortal life had ended.
But no, he felt quite alive, his heart beating strong and steady in his chest. And the faceless thing had broken into a smile with surprising warmth, which made its white eyes sparkle. "Gaven!" it said. "Welcome back to the land of the living. How do you feel?"
The voice was familiar, but…
"Who are you?" Gaven asked.
"Oh!" The face pulled back, and it seemed to take on more definition, fleeting through vague hints of a few other familiar faces. "I'm Aunn."
"Aunn?" The assertion made no sense at first. He knew at least three different faces that Aunn had worn-Darraun's, the one he had called Aunn, and Kelas's. Was this what a changeling looked like when he wasn't… changed?
"This is my real face," Aunn said. "I don't want to hide it any more."
Gaven's mind was beginning to clear, and memories washed over him. "What happened? Where's Senya?"
"Senya's right here." Aunn jerked his head behind him.
Gaven lifted his head and saw her, kneeling on the floor behind Aunn, her back turned toward him. Then he saw what she was facing-a temple full of elves!
"Thunder!" he breathed. "What are all these people doing here?"