by Alison Baird
She recalled the account of Orendyl, and the old woodcuts in the Kantikant. “I do not wish to see it,” she said shuddering. “It is over, and for that we can be glad.”
“No: it can live again, here and in other worlds. The glory of my new empire will be greater even than this!”
The fear that had been growing in her seized hold of her mind; in sudden horror she sprang back, away from the tall portal, away from Mandrake. “No—this doesn’t sound like you! Not the Mandrake I know. You wanted an end to war. Valdur is doing this—tempting you, trying to take you. Resist him!” She shivered, looking at the great blue star hanging over the mountains and the black nothingness its fires embraced. “This is still his place, though he is confined to Vartara. He can reach you here.”
Mandrake looked at her, a thin smile of contempt on his lips. “Fool,” he said. “You speak of things you cannot possibly understand.”
Ailia stared at him. He continued to look at her, with the pupils of his eyes wide and black, and the thin smile that was not his own. “So—now you know. It was time that we met face-to-face, Tryna Lia.”
She touched his mind—and felt again the same dark dominating will she had encountered in Nemorah, that she had taken for the sorcery of its world-spirit. But Elnemorah was herself only a slave and a channel for its influence. The One was manifested in the Stone, and of it all things living or unalive were a partial expression; but this Power did not allow things to be themselves: it took and devoured them, and made them into images of itself alone. Syndra, Naugra, Khalazar, and now Mandrake, had been possessed by it utterly.
She cried out, her voice high and shrill: “Where is Mandrake? What have you done to him?”
“That creature has served his purpose. It was my intent that he should bring you here, where you and he are weak and I am strong. At long last I have a material form again. When I was cast into the black sun, it claimed only my corporeal frame. My spirit has lodged here, in the bodies of my mortal Regents—bodies too frail to withstand my full powers. Unlike this body I made.”
She regarded the black-eyed prince with something of farewell—more, of grief—in her gaze. For it was a kind of death she was seeing. “Mandrake, no,” she whispered.
“Give me the Stone,” he said, advancing.
“No.” Again she retreated, throwing a quick glance behind her. He was forcing her toward the open window.
“Give it to me. It will go in my diadem, where no mortal can ever again lay hands upon it: the emblem of my triumph.”
“No!” Turning, Ailia flung herself out the window.
Icy wind shrieked past her as she plummeted, prevented by the Iron Diadem from taking any other form. But its influence would fade as she fell, and she could gain the power of flight before she hit the ground . . .
Then there was a thunder of giant wings, and the dragon was upon her.
THE FRIENDS OF THE TRYNA LIA had gone to wait in the ward below, gazing up at the grim tower.
“What is going to happen, Damion?” asked Lorelyn. “Was it really—he? What will he do now?”
“I don’t know,” Damion said softly. “Only one thing is certain: no power in Talmirennia can stop it now.”
Lorelyn fell silent. Jomar looked up at the black sky, at the stars that lay beyond Lotara and Vartara. It was true that these far-off, glimmering lights embodied intelligences older than time . . . I never believed in you before, he thought, but I know now you really are there. Ailia needs you, needs your help. Don’t fail her now. Don’t let anything happen to her! The stars gave no answer. For his ears they made no celestial music, nor ever would. He tried again. I thought I might be able to kill him for her, and I was wrong: I know I can’t. So you see, it’s up to you now. If you’re so powerful, then do something. Save her!
“What is it?” said Lorelyn presently. “I keep seeing things all around us—little flickers and flashes of light, and moving shadows—but when I look straight at them there’s nothing there.”
“It’s beginning,” said Damion in a low voice. “Powers are being unleashed here that you can’t begin to imagine.”
“That is true,” said a voice. They turned and saw the ethereal form of an old woman standing there behind them, her face lined and solemn. It was Ana; and Greymalkin was with her, standing at her feet. “You are brave to come here,” the transparent figure said, “but you have done all that you are able to do. You can have no part in what is to follow.”
“It is as she says.” Another ethereal figure appeared, tall and majestic with gray-golden hair and beard. He needed no crown to show them that he was a king.
“Brannar Andarion,” said Damion, recognizing him, and bowing low.
The others stared at the figure, and then back up at the keep. They realized that though they had proven strong in other battles, they were less than the lowliest foot soldiers in the war that was about to be fought here: above them were the great captains and princes in this struggle, the Archons of the elements, the worlds and the stars.
Suddenly they spied a figure standing in the black opening high above. It looked very small at that height, and ghostly, its long white garment fluttering in the wind.
“It’s Ailia!” Lorelyn started forward. Jomar stopped her with a hand on her arm. “Ailia, Ailia! What is it? No, of course—she can’t hear us, with the iron!”
Ailia leaped out of the embrasure. Her gown, its sleeves and hem tattered, flowed loosely around her as she fell headfirst through the air. Her long hair was unbound, flowing behind her. She looked so small, so utterly helpless, that Jomar gave an agonized moan.
“Ailia! We can’t just stand here! We’ve got to help her! One of you, fly up and catch her!”
“She’s not just Ailia,” said Damion, a touch of pride in his voice. “She’s a power, Jomar—and now she can command other powers.”
Lorelyn’s voice caught on a sob. “She looks so alone.”
As they watched, something stirred in the shadows of the window above. They saw the form of a night-black dragon emerge, like the darkness come to life. It too leaped forth, wings drawn in close to its sides, diving straight at Ailia.
Ailia flung out her arms as she fell, the wide sleeves blowing back so that her arms showed thin and white. Her hands moved upon the air. Light flowed from them toward the monster, but the rays were deflected as if by some unseen shield.
Lorelyn turned in distress to Damion, and saw that he and Ana and Andarion wore expressions of concentration. They are helping her, she thought, comforted. Giving her their own power.
The dragon seized Ailia in his claws. But again a white blinding light flared forth, so that it seemed as though he held lightning in his grasp, or a star. They plunged through the air together. Then at last he roared and released her, and she dropped—a mere dozen feet above the ground. She landed on her feet, stumbled and fell to her knees. Then she struggled back to her feet again. The dragon pulled out of his dive and soared upward.
“Now they will fight,” said Ana.
King Andarion spoke in tones of sorrow. “My doing. This is all my doing: Morlyn is my own flesh and blood. Without me he would never have been.”
“You have nothing with which to reproach yourself, Majesty,” Ana replied. “You are not the first whom Valdur has used and deceived. But look now, they are coming together.”
“Just the two of them? No armies, nothing?” Jomar asked.
“Each of them is an army, Jo,” Damion said.
AILIA WHIRLED AROUND, SEARCHING THE desolation for her foe. Then she saw the dragon that had been Mandrake perched upon the curtain wall, black under the blue star. He roared a command, and firedrakes flew up in a mass of clamoring wings from the brimstone deeps of the great pit, and there were a million shadows within the ward: shapes springing up everywhere as he summoned them, demons of this world and others that materialized at his whim. Elombar was there at their head, clad in armor, leading them as their captain into battle. An army marched toward her, ma
de up of grotesque figures neither human nor animal, summoned out of the Ether to war with her.
She called on her own powers, and felt them course through her as through a channel. And there were radiant forms, figures with shining faces and trailing wings, encircling and protecting her. But still the dark host marched upon her.
DAMION AND THE OTHERS GAZED on the field of battle.
“I see—things out there,” said Lorelyn. “The shadows—and lights—like armies fighting—”
“Yes, I see them too,” Jomar said.
“The hosts of Heaven and Hell,” said Damion.
They saw a bright light glowing out on the plain—the Stone in Ailia’s hand.
“It’s all happening just as the old stories said it would,” Lorelyn whispered. “The Princess and the Prince, the Stone, the dragon. But our enemies have their own prophecies, haven’t they?”
Damion nodded, but said nothing.
They watched as the Stone’s radiance wove to and fro in the midst of the battle. Above the fortress the firedrakes soared upon the night wind, the black dragon wheeling in their midst.
“They must come together,” said Damion, as if to himself. “This only delays it.” He watched as vapor flowed from the dragon’s form.
Light and shadow rippled and surged across the ward. There seemed to be to the anxious onlookers more darkness than light.
“This is the place of his power,” said Ana. “The Dark One made sure that the duel happened near the seat of his strength, to upset the balance.”
“Fight him, Ailia!” cried Lorelyn. There were tears in her eyes. “I always believed our side was sure to win—that it was all ordained . . .” Her voice died away as the full horror of uncertainty seized her. Jomar laid a hand on her arm.
“It’s not over yet,” he said, his voice rough.
Ailia stood still as the spirit-forms swirled around her. A vast blue-edged cloud boiled above, filled with flickering lights and bellowing with thunder, looming in menace over them, as if it were alive. Long tongues of lightning streamed between it and the towers of the Citadel. Then, amid the fitful flashes, she saw a dark shape emerge from the cloud’s depths. A Loänan, its once red scales and streaming mane now turned cinder-black, its eyes blazing with infernal light. She readied herself as the dragon came swooping down, trailing filaments of vapor from the edges of its wings and settled upon a pinnacle on the outer battlement.
The celestial armies drew back, making a circle about the two pivotal figures in their strife. Damion and the others watched at the edge of the battlefield.
Ailia faced the dragon, her breast heaving, and hands clenched at her sides. The doom—Mandrake had feared nothing could defeat the doom, and he was right. She felt despair like a leaden weight, drawing her down into black depths. Slowly, she advanced.
He leaped down and advanced toward her on foot. The dragon’s eyes—Mandrake’s eyes—stared at her, black ringed with burning gold: like the horrific hole in the sky above, framed in fire. Mandrake’s eyes, but not his spirit. Something else stared at her out of those black swollen pupils. She saw herself, white and minute, reflected in them—small and lost in the darkness that did not end with his eyes. She backed up and he stalked her, until she stood at the very brink of the pit.
But she was not abandoned. She felt her mother’s sheltering presence, and knew it had always been there at the edges of her mind. Other spirit-presences hovered and enfolded her. She lifted her gaze again, hating the thing that had taken Mandrake from those eyes. There was strength in her—not a match for the power before her, but power of a different kind. To take a dragon’s form herself, to try and fight, would only delay what she must do. She reached out with her thoughts, touching the black malice of the mind within the dragon, seeking Mandrake in a last desperate appeal.
And then the dragon was upon her, charging, reaching out with talon and fang. The Star Stone was knocked from her hand, and rolled away upon the ground.
THE PALE, SHINING FORMS OF the Archons of the light vanished, like candle flames that had been extinguished: only the shapes of shadow remained. Ana and King Andarion were no longer there. The radiance faded from the Star Stone, where it lay on the edge of the chasm. Damion and the others drew nearer to the place where the Princess lay, no longer caring about their own danger, drawn to the motionless form that lay before the dragon. Was Ailia dead? Her face was nearly as white as her robe.
And then they saw her stir. She moved her head from side to side, moaning, but did not revive. As they watched in horror, the dragon raised his talons to strike. A wall of shadowy shapes surrounded him: they could not enter that dark circle and give aid to Ailia. Auron and the cherub circled above, but they could not penetrate the barrier either. The dragon lunged forward, and his claws closed on Ailia.
“No!” screamed Lorelyn. But there was nothing she could do: her sword and her courage were useless now.
AILIA WOKE IN A DARK place.
She seemed to see a sky above her, filled with a dull light. It was featureless, without any sun, moon, stars, or clouds to be seen. Its color was indefinable: too pale to be called red, too hot to be gray, it yet had some of the qualities of each. It was like the color seen against one’s eyelids when daylight shines through them. Ailia sat up and looked about her. She was in a wasteland, bleak and barren, empty as far as the eye could see. And yet she felt that she was not alone. A presence was there, watching, hovering . . .
“Who are you?” she whispered, rising to her feet. “Who is there?”
The Presence that she sensed answered, “Dost thou not know? I have been with thee all this time. Do not be afraid. Nothing can harm thee now. Behold me: I am Athariel, lord of the Heavens.”
A shining shape coalesced out of the murky air a few paces away from where she stood: a radiant figure, with golden hair and crown, snowy robes and wings. Never had she beheld a beauty so pure, so unsullied by pain or sorrow. Ailia bowed to the ground, overwhelmed. This was the very highest of the high Elyra. “My lord—”
“Daughter,” the Archon said, “thou hast come unto join us in the High Heaven. Here I must leave thee, for even I may not remain.”
Ailia straightened and stared. “High Heaven—what have I done, lord, to deserve so great an honor?”
“My daughter,” said the seraph, “thou hast died.”
“Died,” she whispered.
“This is Death, Ailia Elmiria. These are the celestial lands that the souls of the dead inhabit. And thou art now one of them. Thy mortal form was destroyed before thy spirit could reclaim its Archon nature. Thou hast lost the fight, but do not despair. Thou shalt have thy reward all the same.” He pointed, and she saw now faint flickering forms, like the shades of men and women and other beings. They were standing still as statues, or wandering aimlessly about.
She lowered her gaze, unable to look at the milling souls. She had pictured High Heaven as a place of beauty, not this dull colorless waste. Was this what awaited those who died—no glorious afterlife, only a shadow-land of phantoms? And she had failed in her task. What reward could she possibly merit?
The Archon seemed to hear her thoughts. “Thou must put aside all thou thought thou knewest,” he said, “and accept this fate.”
Ailia made herself walk through the crowds of phantoms. There were figures of people long dead, servants of the enemy whom she had seen fall in battle. She saw Naugra there, and Syndra, and Erron Komora, but they looked at her without recognition, their eyes vacant. It was terrible: within these ghostly forms the Light still lived, and was with them imprisoned in the darkness—like bubbles of air trapped in a mire. She could not accept it. Her soul rebelled.
Ailia turned and looked at the Archons’ bland beautiful face, the face that had never known suffering. “You are well named the Deceiver,” she said, “Valdur Elvatara.”
The angelic figure changed, expanded, metamorphosed into a towering shape of scales and fangs, curling claws, wings vast and dark as night, jaws th
at drank in the light. The black dragon towered over her, growing ever larger and darker, sprouting more heads from its neck like a hydra: monstrous heads with fangs or tusks, scales or bristles, no two alike, all hideous. A command roared forth from the multiple mouths, and in answer a figure that had been lying in a heap upon the ground leaped up, as suddenly as a puppet on strings. Ailia gasped. It was Khalazar.
“I am the God-king!” the apparition cried. “Worship me, and you will be spared!” His eyes were wide open, mad and blind; he spoke not to her but to some imaginary audience. “I am Khalazar! Worship me!”
Ailia shuddered. This was heinous, cruel beyond bearing. Valdur was mocking his own deluded thrall. And those other phantoms, they were all the same, each locked in a separate hell, moaning and gibbering. She could endure it no longer.
“Stop!” she cried. “This place is not real, it exists only within Valdur’s mind! You can leave if you want to!” But they only babbled on, incoherent, drowning out one another so that she could catch only stray words here and there: “It was none of my doing! Will no one listen? You know I meant for the best, always . . .”
“Free yourselves!” she cried. “He has no power to hold you against your will!” But the maddened spirits would not hear. The many-headed beast bellowed again, and they all turned on her in a mass. Horror was all around her, wraiths and demons with leering mouths crowded upon her. Wherever she looked there were more of them, legions without number. Ghostly hands groped for her. She called on Damion, on Ana, on her mother, on all of her friends in turn. None answered: they were far from her in this unending nightmare, this pit of despair. Then she glimpsed, at the edge of her sight, the one figure in all the wasteland who had not moved at Valdur’s command, but still stood motionless and alone.