The Sceptre of Storms

by Greg James

  He crumpled to his knees, hanging his head, his body completely limp. E’blis then drew back the hood of his robes and revealed his true face to Sarah—the glistening, fleshless skull with scarlet eyes burning within its sockets.

  “I see you, O Flame. But the time for our final battle is not yet. Until that time, fare well.”

  The glass of the mirror cracked in a hundred places and Sarah threw herself to the ground as it shattered into countless fragments. A moment of utter stillness and silence fell over the chamber.

  It was broken only by the bereft sobbing of Mikka Wyrlsorn.

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Jedda stormed down into the dungeons of Highmount Palace. She snapped the lock of the torture chamber and strode in to be confronted by the shuffling shapes of the Mind-Reavers. They turned as one, raising their tentacles at her. Their snouts began to writhe hungrily as they drifted across the flagstones towards her. They could feel the pain and darkness inside her, they thought that they would feast well on this one. Jedda wasted no time. She lashed out with her sword, shattering the rusted sconce holding one of the blazing torches mounted on the chamber walls. With her free hand, she caught it as it fell and set about the Reavers with fire and sword. Cutting through the soft jelly of their limbs and then thrusting the torch into the wound to cauterise the tentacle before it regrew. It would have been a simple enough matter to touch the fire to their robes and send them up in flames, but Jedda had a debt to repay and so she took her time. Reavers collapsed, limbless and spasming onto the ground, their tentacles flailing wildly in gestures Jedda recognised as their surrender. But still she bore down on the demons that had stolen her sister’s mind. Perhaps when they were all dead, Venna would be restored. She could only hope.

  She beheaded each Reaver with a piercing cry on her lips. As she set the torch against the bleeding stumps, ensuring that no head would ever blossom again from the foul leaking jellies. She felt tears welling in her eyes again as she set fire to the bodies and stood back to watch them burn away to nothing.

  ~ ~ ~

  Returning to the court, Jedda saw Fellfolk pouring in through the great doors. There were not enough fighting men and women among the courtiers to fight this horde.

  “People of Highmount, if we must die, we take as many of them with us as we can!”

  They answered her with shouts and clashes of their swords.

  To the death then, Jedda thought, once more.

  Then a great wind from behind almost knocked her from her feet. Jedda turned, fearing she had left a Reaver alive.

  But it was Sarah. She was not walking on the ground but in the air. A sphere of flickering flames enclosed her, but Jedda could see that it was pouring from her eyes and mouth. The girl in the fire moved her hands through the air, the gestures guiding the sphere until it hung in the centre of the court. The Fellfolk horde seemed to flinch as one away from the pulsating orb. Then a voice spoke from within it.

  “I am Sarah Bean. I am the Living Flame.”

  With those words, she threw her arms and head back and the sphere burst open, sending a rain of fire down over the court. It did not burn Jedda or the people, but it set Fellfolk and Phages alight by the dozen. They ran screaming, trailing smoke and fire as they scattered through the palace gates into the city of Highmount, where they would burn away to nothing. As the cries of the dying dead receded, Sarah lowered herself to the ground and the fierce glow of the Flame disappeared.

  Sarah stood before Jedda with a smile on her face, despite everything.

  “You were able to control the Flame.”

  “Yes, this time. I’ve got a lot to learn, and it’s still anger and fear that let it loose more than anything. But yes, this time it worked.”

  “I don’t have enough men and women to pursue them into the city and drive them out.”

  “I will go. Malus is still out there.”

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Sarah strode out of the gates of Highmount and looked up into the grey sky.

  “Malus! Show yourself, or are you afraid?”

  “Afraid!” The word was roared from on high, and the sky darkened as the form of the Necrodragon came sweeping down from atop the crags of the Northway Pass.

  “Little Flame, why did you come back? You evaded death twice already. Surely you know there cannot be a third time.”

  “Oh, I think there can, Malus. Do you recognise this?”

  Sarah held up the Sceptre of Storms.

  Malus grumbled in his throat and his nostrils hissed acrid gouts of steam. “I will immolate you before you can use that object.”

  Sarah spoke the words that the Flame had raised from out of A’aron’s memories. “Shai’da’kre’aa! Sha’qoo’lo’qoth! Avrea’kel’ka!”

  Malus spat fire as Sarah brandished the sceptre. His flames evaporated into the air. He rose up on his haunches and his great tail lashed at Sarah. Out of the ether, a phantasmal horse’s limb struck the tail away, and Malus fell back with the first genuine cry of pain Sarah had ever heard him make.

  One of the most beautiful animals she had ever seen stood before her—a slender and regal horse. Its pale, shimmering body contrasted with its jet black mane. Its mother-of-pearl eyes shone like small suns, and there was a dark hole in its brow. Sarah held out the sceptre to the animal and it lowered its head to her. She set the base of the sceptre in the hole and felt it settled there. Little lines of lightning rang along the fluted curves of the horn, leaving a smell of burnt ozone in the air. He was Adraxis, the last of the Unicorns, returned from the dead by the hand of the Flame, just as Malus was raised from the dead by the hand of the Shadow.

  The ground shook mightily; Malus was recovering from his fall.

  The Unicorn turned to Sarah. “Ride upon my back, child. Wield the Flame. And we shall bring this Dragon down.”

  Sarah climbed onto Adraxis’ back and held onto his neck. He cantered down the steps of Highmount and stood among the ruins as Malus reared up out of the rubble. The eyes of the Dragon fell on the Unicorn and Sarah heard it bellow a single word: “Traitor!”

  Then Malus was charging, dwarfing the Unicorn and its slight rider.

  Banks of fog swept in from nowhere, and for long seconds Sarah could not see. She feared that she was dead. But then, as the fog cleared somewhat, she realised she was not, and that they were facing Malus as a creature of the same size.

  “Illusion will not save you from my fire! Great or small, everything burns, Adraxis.”

  Adraxis snorted and his hooves clashed against the ground. Sarah felt his words in her mind. Ready the Flame, child. The battle is upon us.

  Sarah took the hilt from her belt and raised it high, feeling the Flame flow into it, igniting the empty air into a blade of whispering fury.

  Adraxis charged.

  Malus charged.

  Sarah swung the Sword of Sighs over her head, a wordless battle cry on her lips.

  They came together with an almighty crash. The earth shook. Great cracks ran through the Northway as the mountains all shuddered down to their roots. The horn of the Unicorn had pierced Malus, and the Necrodragon’s howl of agony tore the air apart. Sarah struck with the Sword of Sighs, but Malus turned it aside with a swipe from one of his clawed forelimbs, dissolving the flaming blade into sparks for a moment before it reshaped itself with a shrill cry of its own.

  Adraxis gored Malus, driving the Dragon back and back again until his gigantic spine crashed against the burnt remains of the Plainswall. Sarah could see the remnants of Plainstown being trampled into dust beneath stamping hooves and scrabbling claws. An aurora of lightning burned around Adraxis, and his horn pulsated with white-blue light, making Malus howl again.

  Sarah remembered how Malus had been struck down by the lightning in the storm before. The part of her that was A’aron remembered that Dragons were the masters of fire while Unicorns were masters of the lightning and storms.

  Malus recovered himself, and leaning his serpentine neck forward,
closed his jaws around the neck of Adraxis. The Unicorn whinnied in its throat and struck at the Dragon with its forelegs. Hooves battered uselessly against the iron-clad scales of the beast. Malus breathed searing fire to cauterise the wound, making Adraxis scream. Sarah could feel the strength leaving her steed, and she knew that she would die without him. She rained blows down on Malus’s head, but the Dragon was unmoved; instead, he clamped his jaws all the tighter around the throat of his victim. Adraxis kicked and thrashed as the razor teeth worked their way deeper into him. Soon, they would shear through the remaining flesh and muscle, tear out his jugular and the last Unicorn would die once again. Sarah let the blade of the Sword of Sighs die out. It was a weapon too crude for what she had to do. She fastened the hilt back into her belt and reached out instead with her bare hands.

  “You think to heal him as you once ‘healed’ me, Flame?” Malus growled. “Surely, you know that I was not so injured and that your healing was an illusion?”

  “I know that well enough, Malus,” Sarah said. “These hands are for you.”

  She grasped the Necrodragon by the temples, closed her own eyes, and let it flow. And this time, she did not hold back. She let the Flame come in all its force and flood into the darkness that was Malus. So much darkness, so much emptiness, that the Flame could burn on there endlessly with all its fire and fury.

  “Let me go, A’aron!”

  She could feel it saturating her. Her skin sang. Her hair floated, every strand of it illuminated and bright. Her eyes and mouth were furnaces of the purest light. And Malus was beginning to smoke and smoulder. He let Adraxis go.

  “Unhand me, Firespawn!”

  Malus was turning grey and ashes were falling from him onto the ground. The black beast of the Nightlands moaned as cracks of fire ran across its being. Still Sarah did not let go. This had to be done. She hated doing it as much as she hated Malus.

  “O Flame ...”

  “Die, O Malus. Go to the world where the other Dragons wait for you. You were too deep in His Shadow, too dark and too empty to return to us. But the Flame burns eternal and you are no longer bound to His Shadow. Go on now. Go in peace. Be forgiven.”

  For a moment, the form of Malus turned pristine white and the lines of fire criss-crossing his being shone with amethyst, cerulean, and jade. His teeth, claws, and horns became gold and his eyes shone like the finest silver dawn. This last time, he was beautiful again. He was Sula.

  He turned his eyes on Adraxis.

  “Forgive me, old friend ... brother ... I was weak and I fell into darkness.”

  “In another life, in another world, it may have been I who fell,” Adraxis said. “Go now as you lived, O Sula, in light and flame.”

  And so the last Dragon fell to earth as a torrent of snow-white ash and bones.

  Sarah sat back on Adraxis, gasping, regaining her breath. Her hands fell on the wounds decorating the Unicorn’s neck and collarbone, and as they did, light escaped from her fingers and wound around the holes and bites in the shimmering flesh. Slowly and steadily, the wounds closed themselves, and Sarah found herself smiling.

  “I can do it. I can heal as well as make things burn.”

  Adraxis dropped Sarah back onto the steps of the Highmount Palace.

  “You have done well, O Flame. You set my old friend free from His Shadow. Now, I can join him in the Lands Beyond. Dragons and Unicorns were once as kin, perhaps we can be so again in the life that comes after.”

  “You can’t stay with us, Adraxis? Help us fight the Fallen One?”

  “The dead should stay dead, O Flame. The practices of the Nightlands should not become those of the ones who struggle against them. Such mistakes have been made before. See that you do not make them again.”

  “I won’t, but I wish you did not have to go. Too many lives have ended already, and I think this war is only just beginning.”

  “Then know this, O Flame. There is no end. There is only the journey from one world to another. And there is no knowing what is there waiting for us as we pass over, except that there is light in the darkness and darkness in light. Fare well, O Flame.”

  “Fare well, Adraxis.”

  The last of the Unicorns turned away from her, and with each step that he took, he became fainter and fainter until he was no longer there.

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Sarah wandered through the halls of the palace and found Jedda sitting in one of the bed chambers. Lying in the bed was Venna’s frail form.

  “I’m sorry, Jedda.”

  “She didn’t come back. We executed all of the Reavers in the palace and she didn’t come back.”

  Her younger sister’s white eyes stared blankly away into the middle distance. Sarah leaned over her and felt for a pulse and for breath. The girl was alive but comatose.

  “He promised. He said she would not be harmed, but His servants have taken her mind and given it to Him.”

  Sarah laid her hand on the princess’s shoulder.

  “I will kill Him for this betrayal. I will drive my sword through the Fallen One’s heart.”

  “If he has one,” Sarah said. “I will be with you on that day, Jedda. I made a promise too, and I mean to see that the Fallen One makes good on it.”

  Jedda looked up at Sarah and offered her a wan smile. “Together? As before.”

  “Yes, as before.”

  “We will do it, Sarah.”

  “Yes. We will rescue Venna’s soul from the Fallen One.”

  Though Sarah hoped she sounded as confident as her words, she wondered if Jedda was entertaining the same doubts. To cross the border of the Nightlands and attack the Shadowhorn was something else.

  Suicide, Sarah thought, leaving the word itself unspoken.

  ~ ~ ~

  A quiet descended over the court of Highmount, but it was not comfortable, nor peaceful, despite the living once again finding themselves in charge of their city. The Fallen still held the lands beyond Highmount. The battle had been won, but not the war.

  Jedda sat on the throne, uncrowned, and Sarah stood before her with a handful of Earlfolk. The other courtiers were being pressed into service repairing the city outside as best they could. The war would come again to Highmount, and it would come soon. Of Mikka Wyrlsorn, there had been no sign besides a few rags scattered in the glass fragments that remained of his mirror. His absence was a worry but there were greater concerns.

  “Our work isn’t done,” said Jedda. “We have retaken Highmount, but the Fallen One still has the Three Kingdoms under his sway and we have no army with which to drive him out, or to stop him retaking Highmount.”

  “There is a way that we could acquire an army, my Princess,” said one of the Earlmen, General Kella, an older man with scarred cheeks and a heavy brow.

  “Yes, and what is that, General?” Jedda asked.

  “Lo’a’Pan.”

  “Lo’a’pan? You want to negotiate with the Kay’lo?” said Sarah.

  “My Princess, my Lady Flame, we have no other allies to call upon. And if you recall the old words of war, the enemy of mine enemy is my friend.”

  “Then I will go,” said Sarah.

  “No,” said Jedda. “We will go. Gather as many men and women as you can to defend the walls, Kella. With the Sword of Sighs, we can travel from here to Lo’a’pan in a matter of moments. We can bring a Kay’lo army back with us by the same route.”

  “My Princess, the Kay’lo will not have forgotten the last war. Their hatred of us runs as deep as the rivers beneath the Mountains of Mourning.”

  “Perhaps so, but they are as much at the mercy of the Fallen One and his armies as we are. The Three Kingdoms and Lo’a’pan need each other if we are to survive.”

  “You do not have to convince me of this, My Princess, but you will have to convince them.”

  “Which is why I will be taking the Living Flame with me. If they do not heed my words, then perhaps they will heed hers.”

  As Sarah listened to the discussion b
etween Jedda and the Earlfolk, she realised that it was one thing to burn and smash things, but to negotiate and bargain, that would be a true test of her strength and will.

  I hate politics, she thought.

  ~ ~ ~

  Outside the gates of Highmount, something pale, bitter and beaten staggered into the ruins and undergrowth of the Grassland Plains, muttering to itself in fitful gasps. Clutching a battered mask of iron to its disfigured face. It might have been what was left of Mikka Wyrlsorn, seeking a hole in the ground where it could curl up and die. Or it might have been something else, a harbinger of darker times to come.

  “If they will call me Wormtooth,” it said to itself, “Then Wormtooth I will be.”

  Soon enough, it shuffled away, passing out of sight and was forgotten.

  Epilogue

  Kiley Bean drove away from Raulerson Hospital feeling numb.

  Momma was gone.

  The cancer had taken her during the night, after all her months of struggle. She had been holding on because she wanted to see Sarah again, just once. The doctors said she had been talking of Sarah before she died, that Sarah had visited her in the hospital, although no one had signed in to the hospital under that name and no one remembered seeing a blonde girl with violet eyes. The doctors had told Kiley that unfortunately dementia could come on in the final stages and might lead to someone seeing and hearing things.

  Maybe that’s why she gave up, thought Kiley. She thought she’d seen Sarah, and so she let go.

  “And now, I’m alone,” she said, as she walked back into their house. So quiet now. Malarkey, their cocker spaniel, was dozing on the powder-blue couch. He was getting old, grey and scraggly. Kiley kicked off her sandals and padded over the carpet to him. She sat down next to the old pooch and scratched behind his ears. He made a contented grumbling sound in his sleep.

  “You’ll be gone soon, too, won’t you, old boy? Then, what do I do, eh? What do I do then?”