by Jim Galford
Varra glanced nervously between Raeln and On’esquin, twirling the knife in her offhand. She backed up until her foot reached the outer wall, then looked over at the four zombies that remained still nearby. “Is not even worth making them try,” she mused softly, shaking her head. “My orders are clear, betrayer. I am to run. I wish we could fight now, but I must go deliver the messages.”
Varra shoved Raeln at On’esquin and then ran for a window near her. Before she reached the window, she flung her hand at On’esquin. A flash of lightning shook the room and blew out the windows, but when Raeln opened his eyes, On’esquin stood exactly where he had been, though he frowned more deeply, if that were possible.
“Are you finished, child?” he demanded, taking another step.
Blinking, Varra nodded vigorously, turning part-way before blowing Raeln a mocking kiss. She then hop onto the broken window’s sill and disappeared into the night.
“Get her,” Raeln begged, crawling toward Greth. “Before she gets away.”
On’esquin hurried to Raeln’s side and helped him stand, putting Raeln’s arm around his shoulders to support his weight. “Couldn’t if I wanted to,” the orc admitted, glancing at the window the girl had gone through. “The sparks you saw me put on a sword wouldn’t do anything to her. She can’t hurt me and I can’t hurt her, but she doesn’t need to know. I doubt even Dorralt does, in all honesty. If he does, he won’t want his underlings to know specifics, unless they have a chance of winning.”
They moved across the room slowly, Raeln’s legs barely supporting him. Finally, they arrived at Greth’s side, and On’esquin let Raeln kneel there, stepping back to give him room.
Greth was a mass of burned fur and blood, but when Raeln reached for him, he cracked open one eye. Coughing, he reached up and tore the leash off of his muzzle and weakly threw it several feet across the room.
“Greth,” Raeln said, unsure what he really needed to say as he looked over the cuts and burns everywhere, “what can I do?”
Shaking his head slowly, Greth reached over and grabbed Raeln’s hand. “Unless you or the orc can heal, not much,” he told Raeln, then began coughing. Before the fit ended, blood covered all of Greth’s muzzle. “Too much…bleeding.”
From behind him, Raeln heard On’esquin say, “The girl and the dragon have already left, I’m afraid. I saw them take flight the moment you walked away. It’s just us, and I am no help in this matter. There is no healer here to help.”
Raeln screamed in frustration and tore at his shirt, thinking to use it to stifle the flow of blood, but stopped as his eyes darted from one wound to another, unsure where to apply pressure. There was dark blood everywhere. A pool had begun to form around Greth, soaking through the floorboards from more injuries to his back. It looked like a lot of blood, but Raeln had seen men survive worse with proper care.
“I can’t feel my legs and everything else hurts,” Greth admitted, pushing away the cloth Raeln held. “The little girl beat me up good. Ribs…are broken, I think. Back, too. Can’t feel…below ribcage.”
Raeln clasped Greth’s hand with both of his, thinking furiously for anything that might help. “There’s a healing circle in Lantonne,” he said excitedly. “It won’t take much of a healer to fix this if we can get you there. The good ones can even raise the dead. We just need…”
“We need to…not chase stupid ideas. The circle…was in the tower,” Greth said, smiling despite the frequent pauses to stifle coughs. “You are not…taking me through an army…of undead. The tower is…smashed. Plus, we have…no healer.”
Glancing back to where On’esquin had been standing, Raeln saw movement on the porch as the man departed, leaving him and Greth alone. Somehow, he had even taken the four zombies away without Raeln noticing.
“What do I do?” asked Raeln, sitting down hard. Tears welled up, but he fought to keep them under control. “How do we fix this?”
Greth let out a strangled chuckle and shrugged. “You can’t fix…everything, Raeln.”
“If I had magic…”
“The healers are…all dead, so that’s…not really an answer. She’d have…killed you, too.”
“Then we do this the old-fashioned way and patch you up and hope for the best.”
Greth rolled his eye and then glared at Raeln. “My back…is broken,” he pointed out, then struggled to stop another coughing fit. “If that isn’t enough…lungs are filling…with blood. I’m going to drown…in a damned…human house.”
The next cough left a stream of very fresh blood running down Greth’s lower jaw, confirming what he had said. Greth looked up at Raeln and sadly smiled. “An hour or two…is what you wanted…to ask. Maybe less. All of it…in misery.”
“Stop telling me this, Greth.”
“No,” Greth replied, clenching his jaw tight as more coughs shook him. When they passed, he added, “I’m a warrior. Let me die…as one.”
Raeln buried his face against Greth’s shoulder, trying to ignore the situation by blocking out the sight of it.
“Let me…die how…I want,” he told Raeln firmly and looked pointedly down at Raeln’s dagger, still in its sheath. With his free hand, Greth tapped the hilt but said nothing else.
Weeping, Raeln drew the dagger and clutched it to his chest with one hand, squeezing Greth’s hand with his other, and prayed for a miracle. The old gods walked the world again, the greatest city in the land had fallen, and legions of the dead marched the plains…would it really take so much to ask for one life to be spared?
Chapter Twelve
“Prophecy”
On’esquin has returned to me and watches as I dictate the visions that now appear to me. He is not what I thought and has shown me who our real enemies might be.
I only hope it is not too late to stop the coming destruction.
Two must stop the world from being torn apart, while others must stop someone I once held dear to my heart. This I have seen.
- Scribbled note in the lost prophecies of Turess.
“He does not believe us,” Ilarra told Nenophar as Raeln stalked away to the northern part of the encampment.
Does it matter? the dragon asked as reply, his voice confined to her head to ensure he was not heard by Raeln. You wished it hidden from him, so I assume you were prepared for him to be upset.
Ilarra nodded and leaned her head against Nenophar’s flank, thankful for his support. Watching Raeln leave had nearly broken her heart, but it was unavoidable. She dearly wanted to say good-bye before they left, in case they did not return.
“You were saying, before he came, why it is we are on such a short schedule?” she asked, brushing her hair back from her eyes after a gust of wind blew it there. The rain continued to fall out past Nenophar’s sheltering wing. “Explain what you did that has you this tired.”
The dragon’s nearest eye narrowed as he glared at her, but Ilarra met his stare with one of her own. Finally, he backed down. You needed magic. Throwing spells at you would have destroyed you, as weakened as you were.
“Then how did you remedy that?”
You do not need to know.
“I want to know. Tell me.”
I recreated the bond you had with Raeln…with myself.
Ilarra stood straight up, wishing Nenophar was in his elven form so she could slap him. “What were you thinking?” she demanded, forcing herself to keep her voice lower than she wished in case Raeln was still within hearing range. “Dorralt wants a dragon. If he gets one, he’s effectively a real god, not some tattooed idiot playing at being a god. Binding yourself to me means…”
It means if I lose control of the shield on your mind, he will at least have a chance of gaining some degree of control over me as well. Trust I understand the risk, he answered hurriedly. Between funneling this much magic into you and fighting Dorralt off, I am nearly ready to slumber for a hundred years or so, but doing so will ensure he has control over us both. I cannot sleep again until Dorralt is destroyed.
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nbsp; Ilarra stared off toward where Raeln had left, making doubly sure he was gone. “You said I was still dying,” she said after a minute. “What does that mean for you? What does not sleeping do to a dragon?”
Nenophar’s reptilian grin looked more like a snarl. That is not my fate, to be controlled by a human. I finally realized the riddle of the prophecy even Turess did not. You dying first causes one disaster; me dying first causes the other. By using that foolish bond you made with your brother, I ensure we die at the same time. I found how to cheat the predictions.
“Good. That’s something at least.” Ilarra could not help but laugh at the simple answer to something as complicated as a prophecy. “You said you could find a way to slow or stop the cloud and maybe the elementals?”
Nenophar nodded. Do you understand what we face out there, Ilarra?
“Not a clue. The last thing I remember is your brother being grabbed by the cloud, my healing Raeln, and then everything’s a blur. I think I saw the tower fall and crush part of the wall.”
That was the arm of the earth elemental lord, not the tower, corrected the dragon. Most of the city was decimated by the lords doing battle, though I can feel some of them moving away in different directions.
“Some good news.”
Not in the slightest, he replied. Slowly, Nenophar sat up like a dog, though he kept his long neck arched to bring his head near her. The cloud is a weakening of the barrier between our world and of the source of all magic. It craves to touch only magic, and where it can reach through into this world, it will consume anything it can find, destroying anything it does not find acceptable.
“Your brother…”
Dragons live off of the magic that courses through us like the blood that flows through mortals, he went on quickly when she mentioned his brother. It sustains us and keeps us alive for as long as we choose to go on. To that cloud, my brother was familiar, a being of nearly pure magic to be consumed and brought home. Now that it has found magic in this world, it will push harder against the barrier until it collapses and magic itself turns on us. It will tear this entire world apart, seeking magic to consume.
Ilarra blinked and stared, unable to think of a decent reply.
Nenophar continued. The elementals are pure magic, but of a different kind than belongs in this world. They pull their power from realms largely the same as the elemental, rather than from where we get our magic. They can spend the rest of eternity fighting for control of Eldvar, and they likely will. It is their nature. While they battle, that cloud will destroy everything else, seeking to trap and consume the elementals themselves.
With them near the cloud, there was a chance they could be lured into it. That would destroy them, but make the cloud even stronger, shredding much of the remaining barrier. It would hasten the doom of the world, but buy us time.
By leaving the area, the elementals are encouraging the cloud to push farther out, to try and find them and more dragons. It might seek out the Turessians, who also fled the area around Lantonne. The longer it touches this world, the more it shreds the fabric of fate, until eventually even the land itself will have its threads burned away. This world will die ablaze and the elementals will simply return to their homes.
We face war on three fronts now, all of which can easily kill either of us.
Ilarra sighed and paced, the rain hitting her but leaving no chill. After a minute of thinking, she turned back to Nenophar. “You don’t have a plan to stop them all, do you?”
No. I was hoping you did.
“If we run, taking all these people far from the cloud…”
Then within a month, I will weaken and you will crumble to dust, taking me with you. Dorralt will use your memories to find my fresh remains, and then he will be strong enough to face one elemental at a time. The cloud will destroy him and all life in Eldvar soon thereafter.
“What would you need to get rid of the cloud for good?”
Nenophar laughed at that. Turess asked the same thing, when he first allowed the cloud to seep through. I would need more power than I have at my disposal. Even with my mother helping, I doubt we could do it. The explosion would cause other effects, but I believe, if done properly, the hole between worlds can be closed in a fashion. It will fester and scar, but it will heal. We would need to convince the intelligence that guides the cloud to abandon its efforts to enter this world by believing it has consumed the greatest source of magic available to it. Even if we managed that, the aftereffects are beyond my ability to imagine.
A thought occurred to Ilarra, and she reached up to touch Nenophar’s nose. “Do you trust me, Nenophar?” she asked solemnly. “You once asked me to trust you…can you do the same with me?”
I gave up immortality to help you, knowing how this all will end. We are well beyond trust.
“What did Turess tell you about this?”
Nenophar pulled away from her, looking away before answering. He said he saw a scaled god choose to cast aside his mantle and fly headlong into a burning sky to spare the child from misery. The way I brought him to see the visions had him rather…disoriented…so the descriptions tended to be rather abstract.
“So I am the child?”
“No,” came another voice behind her, laughing deeply. Turning, she saw the orc who had been silent for an hour watching her and Nenophar. She had nearly forgotten he was there. “His people refer to mortals as children. To a dragon, saying ‘the child’ is the same as saying ‘humanity.’”
Nenophar’s glare toward the orc, confirmed what he was saying.
“Can you hear what we were saying?” asked Ilarra, realizing Nenophar had been speaking directly into her mind.
The orc nodded, throwing rainwater off of his hood. “I cannot hear the words, but I get the tone and hearing your side, I can guess at his,” the man replied, grinning. “You are one of the special ones, I take it? One of the ones mentioned?”
Nenophar snarled, only broadening the orc’s grin.
“Special ones?” Ilarra asked, confused. “Who are you, orc?”
“That doesn’t really matter right now,” he answered, rolling a leather bundle in his hands. “Dragon, what did you tell her about when she should have died?”
Glancing at Ilarra without moving his head, Nenophar looked back to the orc. “I made up a story, as Turess asked.”
Ilarra’s cheeks felt suddenly warm with anger.
The orc put the leather object away. “We can dispense with that now. Ilarra, you were actually supposed to die long ago. The Turessians are destroying the fabric of fate—I’m certain the dragon has blabbered on about that to no end. This has killed hundreds of thousands of people who were not meant to die anytime soon. A very few have had their lives extended by the war, when something the Turessians did altered their fate. You are one of those, and by proxy, so is your brother. That makes three I have found, though probably only two of the six I am supposed to track.”
“What does that mean?” she demanded.
“On its face, absolutely nothing. You got a few more days out of your life than you should have. It happens from time to time when immortals get involved. In this case, my old master predicted a handful of should-be-dead mortals would need to be alive to make a difference when this war went out of control, though I have no idea why. The dragon and I were supposed to keep that from even being an issue…”
“But we failed,” added Nenophar.
A distant rumble drew Ilarra’s attention the northwest, where flashes of lightning were continuously lighting the region as though it were day. When she looked back to the far side of the clearing, the orc was gone.
The lord of air has found a target to unleash his power on, the dragon said sadly. As they become more entrenched, the attacks will become more violent.
“Then we need to hurry,” Ilarra told him. “I have an idea. Stay here. I need to talk to someone. Something you said sparked an idea.”
“Ilarra…”
“Stay!”
> Nenophar lowered his head, but then seemed to snap out of his obedience. Snarling, he advanced on Ilarra, freezing with an uncomfortable look on his face as he got near her.
“You can’t attack me, remember? From what Raeln’s told me, it feels like trying to hit yourself,” she said, grinning as she put her hands on her hips. “You bonded me with magic. Your fault, not mine. Now stay, even if you don’t like it.”
Despite Nenophar’s glare, Ilarra turned and walked away, her boots sinking into the deepening mud with each step. The rain quickly soaked her dress, but in a way, it was a good feeling after the hours of delirious agony as her skin had decayed. The dazed state had allowed her to ignore much of it, but what she remembered of the pain was something she dearly wished she could put aside.
She continued away from the tents and the building where Raeln had gone to be alone with Greth until she felt she was far enough from anyone else that they could not see or hear her. Giving one last glance around to be sure, she closed her eyes and relaxed, opening herself up to the magic flowing through both Nenophar and her.
“Dorralt,” she whispered, half in her mind and half aloud. “I want to talk.”
Seconds passed, before something entered the back of her mind like a shadow. “I had not expected to hear from you, Ilarra. You survived the elementals. Good work, that. After this many years, I do love it when someone surprises me.”
As soon as Dorralt began speaking, Ilarra could feel him scratching at the barrier Nenophar had built against him in her consciousness. She pushed back, straining to keep him at bay as she talked.
“The dragon is bound to me, the same way I bound the wildling,” Ilarra told Dorralt and felt him ease his attack. She could sense curiosity from his end, and she smiled, knowing she might have him hooked. “He forced it on me to spare me the pain I was in, but I believe you might have use for this. I am tired of feeling as though I am about to die. Bring me back in so I can feel whole again.”