by Alison Baird
Sorrow hung about her, a thick engulfing mist. He tried again. “Damion—Damion . . .”
“I know,” she said.
“I’LL KILL THEM ALL!” Lorelyn cried.
She and Jomar stood alone in the lengthening shadows of the garden. “The whole rotten, miserable crew—Morugei, Valei—I’ll kill them for this!”
Jomar saw the savage gleam in Lorelyn’s once clear and innocent eyes, and was disturbed. She looked, for an instant, like a terrifying stranger and not the woman he loved. “No, Lori!” He stepped toward her, caught her wrists. She shook him off. “You’re a Paladin. If you kill for revenge you’ll have to do penance. Remember?” he pleaded.
“I don’t care!” she said wildly.
He caught hold of her again and she struggled in his grip, then suddenly sagged against his chest and cried—not like a girl but like a man, in great wrenching sobs that shook her whole body.
“Listen,” he said when at last her grief had subsided. “Khalazar’s already paid his debt. You saw to that, you and Marjana.”
Lorelyn looked up at him with red-rimmed eyes. “Mandrake’s alive still. So help me, he’ll pay for his part in this. You can fight him now, Jo—you’ve got the Star Sword. And I’ve brought Damion’s back with me—the adamant sword that belonged to King Andarion. It’s wounded Mandrake twice before—he’ll feel it again, Jo, and may the third blow do what the first two didn’t!”
His arms tightened their hold on her. “An oath, Lori! When everything in Mera is settled, you and I will go after him together. We’ll hang his head over the door of his own temple. Let his subjects worship him then!”
Lorelyn’s bright blue eyes stared into his, fierce as flame. “Agreed!” she said.
From a high branch in one of the tall perindeus trees, where they were both perching in bird form, Taleera and Auron watched as the two young humans walked away toward the palace. Presently the firebird spoke within Auron’s mind. The danger is not yet over, and the harm that is done I fear cannot be reversed. Mandrake has taught Ailia to use her Loänan powers—powers that she is not yet ready for, that she feared to use when she was in her right mind.
Auron’s own feathered form, an ercine with keen night-piercing eyes, shifted uneasily from one foot to the other. But she is in her right mind again, he replied. He has no influence over her anymore.
That makes no difference, Auron. She has tasted those powers now, and she remembers what it was like to wield them. Who can say she will not be tempted to take draconic form again, and to rule the elements, now that she has the knowledge? That is how Mandrake himself fell, remember. Ana was right. Ailia’s powers were always a danger to her, and she cannot unlearn what she has learnt. What will become of her, and all of us?
Auron made no reply. They sat together in silence as the dusk around them deepened.
MANDRAKE PACED ALONG THE PARAPET of the Loänei castle, his cloak flowing around him like a shadowing cloud. Once again destiny had intervened at a crucial moment. Or was it his own fault? Had he been as blind as Khalazar?
The former God-king’s body, he heard, had been hung by the crowd on the same gibbet on which Gemala had been displayed, giving rise to a popular jest in the Zimbouran marketplace: “Khalazar has risen above all other men!”
“Do you know what they are saying?” one of the surviving goblins had told him after fleeing Mera. “They say that Damion truly was an angel, as the Moharas believed. Now that there will be no more sacrifices and Valdur’s temple is abandoned, they say this was a plan of the Zayim all along! That he sent one of his angel servants to the altar, to be a divine substitute for all the human victims who now will never have to die upon it. The Zayim himself denies this, but most people cling to the fanciful tale and love Jomar all the more for it. They will never retrieve Damion’s body: the sacrificial well shaft is too deep. So they are saying that he simply vanished, moving onto a higher plane. Even Farola, the blind priest who slew him, says this.”
“The killer of Damion would say anything to save himself from the mob’s wrath.”
“Not so, for he would not change his tale, not even under torment. Farola declared that after striking the fatal blow he heard a sound like the rushing of a great wind, and then the body was gone from the altar. And he says that in that moment something smote him lightly upon the face, so that he flung up his arms. Then he felt it one more time, on his hands—a thing like a feather-fan; but even as he grasped at the thing it was no longer there. He does not know what it was. The people say, of course, that it was an angel’s wing, and that Damion was in that moment transformed to his true shape, and departed for the heavens. As for the priest’s halfwit acolyte, he would say only that he saw a great light that hurt his eyes, and made him close them and cower.”
“The testimony of a blind man and a simpleton,” said Mandrake. “But they will believe.” And it was true, in a sense. Damion Athariel had indeed been transformed into something more powerful, something that no weapon could destroy. That Zimbouran archpriest did not slay a man, he birthed a god. If Damion was hard to deal with as a man, how much worse is he now as a divinity! He lives, forever and ever, in the mob’s imagination.
And he will be enshrined in Ailia’s heart and mind, until she herself dies. An ideal beloved, who will grow in memory ever more perfect, ensuring that she will never love any living man again . . .
His own anguish was suddenly unendurable. He reached out to Ana through the Ether, along the delicate cord that was her bond with him, the bond he had always chafed against. But now there was no one there: the cord had been severed—at her end, not his, this time. She had abandoned him to his fate at last. He was beyond forgiveness now, as Ana had warned. Ailia had given him a chance at peace, and he had in the end proven unworthy of it. There could be no reconciliation. Forgive him—for his part in her beloved Damion’s death? She would surely destroy him—and she could do so now. He himself had shown her the fullness of her power, even taught her to take draconic form. And his pity for her—that fatal flaw!—had allowed Ailia to survive her sojourn here, and escape him in the end. His one chance to eliminate her—the chance that she herself had given him—was now gone. When he and the Tryna Lia met again, it would be as two powers equally matched, in a duel that would end only in death for one or the other.
Mandrake fled blindly down the staircase, out into the inner ward, then stumbled and fell his length on the ground. He looked up at the sky, saw the constellation of the Worm with its red eye glaring down. There was no escape. Ailia was back with her guardians. The Star Stone was in her hands again. If only there really were a Power of some sort, a dark primal power one could call on, adding its strength to one’s own . . . “Help me,” he whispered to the shape outlined in stars. He regretted the words at once: they seemed to hang dark as smoke upon the still air, to stain it and accuse him. They were an admission of weakness, and worse, of belief. Belief in Valdur—not a long-dead Archon, but the god of the Valei! Had he really come to this?
He took his dragon-form, casting weakness aside, and winged away from the castle into the night.
THE BLASTING HEAT OF THE SUNS woke him. He stretched, became aware that he was lying on something hard: a surface of stone. He had returned to man-form.
A voice was speaking nearby.
“A worthy vessel,” it said. He opened his eyes, blinked up at the figure of an aged man, whose crude features suggested he was at least half-goblin. Mandrake sat up, and realized that he was naked. His robe lay discarded on the ground a few paces away: he must have clawed it from his body when he reverted to man-form. Why could he not remember?
He looked about him. He could not recall coming to this place. Broken ruins lay everywhere, the remains of some ancient city from before the time of the Loänei. They were half-buried, and a few leagues away a vast volcano raised its smoking cone—the author of the city’s destruction.
The old man continued to look down at him, smiling and nodding. “Yes—a fitting ve
hicle for my Master’s will. You know that you are his now.”
Mandrake stood. He had little patience with human notions of shame and modesty, but something in the old man’s gloating look made him reach for his robe and cast it about him. The wizened creature chuckled. “Ah, it’s too late now! You can’t take back what you’ve given. You’ve made your bargain and must keep it.”
“I don’t know what you’re mumbling about, old man,” the prince snapped. But a chill ran through his flesh, though the air was warm.
The aged man waved a clawlike hand at the large rectangular stone on which Mandrake had been lying. “You know what that is, don’t you? It’s the high altar of the old temple, Valdur’s fane. He was worshiped here, along with Elnemorah, before your dragon-kind came. Victims were offered up to him on that stone slab, long ago. And now you’ve offered yourself to him: a living sacrifice.”
“Don’t be foolish,” said Mandrake shortly. “I had no knowledge of what that stone was.” But how did I come to be lying on it? he wondered, unsettled.
“You’re afraid,” the old man accused. “You needn’t be. With your self-offering will come great honor, and power too.”
Mandrake stood still. “Power?” he repeated sharply.
“But of course.” The man pointed skyward. “Even now, whole armies of Morugei and firedrakes await your command. You can lead us to victory!”
“He speaks the truth,” another voice said. Mandrake turned. There in the ruins stood the two ethereal forms that Naugra had summoned into Khalazar’s throne room. Elazar and Elombar. He lifted his hands in a futile warding gesture.
“Stay back!” he cried. “Is that you, Naugra? Do you mean to threaten me?”
“Fool. We came to help you. You are our prince, our chosen champion. Your father and mother were two of the most powerful Nemerei who ever lived. You bear in you the blood of Archons and of Loänan. You are the culmination of the Master’s greatest plan, your parents the unwitting instruments of his will. You will defeat the Tryna Lia!”
“No,” he rasped. “I will not do it. I will not be part of your schemes any longer!”
“Then you will be slain by Ailia and her followers. Do you think they will let you live, renegade Nemerei and dragon-spawn that you are? The warriors Jomar and Lorelyn have sworn publicly to slay you with the iron sword and blade of adamant, and hang up your head in your own temple. The Loänan and cherubim are ready to make war against you, and they have the support of nearly all the worlds. You can die like a beast backed into a corner, or you can fight, and live. It is your choice. We will aid you—but you must proclaim yourself the Avatar.”
Mandrake’s head came up. “Very well. I will fight—but only for myself, do you understand? Never for Valdur!”
An enigmatic smile touched Elombar’s lips. “It is the same thing,” he replied. Nearby, the old man cackled with glee.
Mandrake turned away. “I agree to your terms.”
“Done,” said the apparition. And in Mandrake’s ears the word had the ring of a knell.
FOR WEEKS NOW IT HAD RAINED in Mirimar, though this was not the season for it: an effect of Ailia’s grief upon the climate, it was said. The faithful believed that her goddess-mother mourned with her. There had been no word from Ana, who seemed to have gone into hiding with her Nemerei, but the old shaman of the Mohara had been in communication with Arainia’s sorcerers, apprising them of all that took place in Zimboura. “Many claim to have seen visions of Damion in the ruined temple,” Wakunga told them. “They await the coming of the sky goddess to grieve for the earth god and make the desert bloom with flowers, as the prophecy foretold.”
“She must go to Zimboura,” Marima told the court. “He is right. I feel here the hand of destiny.”
Lorelyn shook her head. “She won’t! Do you think she would ever go to that place? She was so close to Damion!”
Ailia had not left her room in days, and it was feared that she was ill. Swans and Elei, so a popular saying went, mate for life. If one should die, the other will not be long in following. Ailia had long ago made her heart’s choice in Damion, and in her mind at least she was paired with him forever. Alone in her chamber, Ailia raged at Khalazar and Mandrake; she railed even at Damion, for going to Mera when she had begged him not to—for giving up his life when she needed him desperately. Then with her anger spent grief would overwhelm her again, sweep her down into depths where there was neither light nor hope. Sometimes in her dreams Damion would come into her room and sit by her bed. She could clearly hear his voice as he spoke to her, telling her it had not really happened, that it had all been a misunderstanding. And then she woke up, as she always did.
Soon the longing arose to cease waking, to dream on without any interruptions of reality.
One dismal night she could not find sleep, but tossed and turned ceaselessly, yearning for a sleeping draught to give her the escape for which she longed. At last she rose from her bed. The room was blue with moonlight: quietly, so as not to disturb the sleeping Taleera, who was perched on a chair nearby, she pulled on her robe and left the bedchamber. Benia was slumbering in the outer chamber, slumped on the divan: Ailia tiptoed past her and opened the door to the passage. It was empty.
She walked in her bare feet along the carpeted hall, passing by her father’s door. No light showed beneath it, but under the door of her mother’s old chamber a crack of warm radiance glowed.
He must be in there. She would talk to him, seek comfort in his arms and gentle voice. Ailia knocked softly, then pushed the door open. “Father?” she whispered.
The room was a rose-colored cavern of warmth and light, the curtains drawn before the windows, the lamps lit. Her father was nowhere to be seen.
But the room was occupied.
A figure sat in a chair by the window: a woman clad in a simple rose-pink gown that fell to the floor. She had long golden hair, gleaming in the lamplight, and it too reached her feet. Her head was bowed, her face lost in the drooping cowl of hair.
Ailia stood transfixed. “Mother?” she choked.
The woman raised her head, and there was the face from the portrait on the wall—the blue eyes, the smooth white skin and fine features. But no: her mother could not look like this, not now. Even an Elei woman must show some signs of change in twenty years. “I’m dreaming!” said Ailia bitterly, forgetting how she had longed to do just that.
The woman held out her hands. “Elmiria—daughter. Come to me.”
And then Ailia no longer cared if it were a dream or not. She ran to the woman’s arms and buried her face in the silken lap, the soft falling hair. “Mother—Mother, you’ve come back!” she sobbed.
“Daughter, I have never left you. Oh, my dear child, I would gladly have suffered all this in your stead. But take heart! For all hope is not lost.”
Smooth hands cradled Ailia’s face, brushed her tears away. On the right hand something shimmered blue: a star sapphire set in a ring. “I am in the Ether now, and so too is your Damion. He has not left you forever. Look.” She reached out, pulled the silk curtain away from the window. One lit tower window shone through the night beyond. “He awaits you in the Ether, like me. You shall see us both again before all is over.” Elarainia took the star sapphire ring from her finger, and gently slid it onto Ailia’s. “It is your own ring, the same I bequeathed to you long ago. Receive it again, and remember,” she said, and leaned forward to kiss her daughter’s brow.
The room faded. Ailia was rising through layers of soft radiance, up toward a brighter luminosity. Was this the Ether—or High Heaven? Was she dead, too? Her eyes opened to light, a blurry blaze. And now a shape was taking form out of that luminosity—a bird-shape, with plumage of fiery hues, its plume-crowned head sunk upon its breast. The Elmir? Then she was in Heaven—she would see Damion again, be with him once more! They would never be separated again . . . But as she sat up eagerly, she saw that it was only Taleera, roosting on her chair; and the light was that of the morning sun blazing in
at the window. She was still in bed. Despair seized her mind, a crushing weight. But her body was young; it welcomed the renewal of life in its limbs. With treacherous eagerness it recovered itself, stretching and moving almost of its own volition.
She felt a sudden sharp pang of compunction at the sight of the sleeping Taleera. The firebird looked exhausted, but she had not put her head beneath her wing, fearing perhaps to miss any sign of returning life in her princess. Taleera, and Auron and her father and friends—what worry and misery had they been suffering as she slept? Then through the window she saw the black banners flying from each tower, and recalled that she herself had ordered this display of public mourning. “It was a dream, just a dream. Mother is gone, dead, and so is he . . .” Not only dead, she knew, but vanished beyond recall, leaving not even his body to bury.
No light would shine at his window across the way, ever again. Ailia rolled over, tears welling in her eyes. Then she started, sat bolt upright staring at her right hand. Her eyes went wide, though she made no sound.
On her ring finger the star sapphire glinted.
Impossible. She had lost it, left it behind in Mandrake’s palace in Nemorah. How then could it be here, on her hand . . . ?
She leaped to her feet and tore through her rooms, waking a startled Taleera. “Ailia—merciful Heavens, what is it?” the firebird squawked. Ailia paid her no heed, did not even hear her. She flung on a chamber robe and burst out into the corridor. Jomar and Lorelyn were standing there, keeping vigil along with the door guards and her father. They all gaped at her.
“Damion isn’t dead!” she cried.
They stared at her in consternation. Barefoot, wild-eyed, and disheveled, she looked half-mad. “Ailia,” began Tiron tremulously, “Ailia my child—Damion is gone—”
“Yes,” she gasped, “gone—that’s it, gone but not dead! I have seen him, and Mother too. I was right, she’s not gone and neither is he!” She turned to the guards. “Tell the people I have recovered, and am going to make a journey.”