by Alison Baird
As the others closed on her she called his name.
“NO!” SCREAMED LORELYN.
Not an instant of time had passed for the Tryna Lia’s companions. Lorelyn had nearly completed her cry of denial; the others still stood grief-stricken and helpless, unable to tear their eyes from the spectacle.
The dragon reared, releasing its grip on Ailia’s body, wings beating the air. The reflected star glared from the blackness of his eyes, and his jaws were flecked with foam. From the depths of his throat a rattling cry came. The long dark head swung to and fro, the tail coiled and uncoiled as though possessed with a life of its own. Again he raised his claw as if to tear at the girl’s lifeless form; and again the claw halted in midair, clenching and opening convulsively. Then the head ceased its jerking, lunged down and closed its jaws on its own forelimb, tearing and rending its own scaly flesh with its fangs.
“What is he doing?” exclaimed Lorelyn.
The black dragon’s head swung around and down, biting at its own armored breast savagely. Blood flowed from the wounds. The jaws that nothing could withstand met the impervious scales—and were stronger, for never had Valdur imagined that he might do harm to himself.
“He’s mad,” said Jomar in slow wonder. He pointed with his sword to the shapes of shadow. “Look! They’re fading!”
They watched the shapes wisp away. Nothing stood now between them and the figures of Ailia and the dragon.
“Now!” shouted Jomar. He and Lorelyn ran at the dragon, their blades swinging.
“Stop,” cried a voice.
Damion turned at the cry, and going to Ailia he knelt beside her. She was alive, propping herself on one elbow, the other arm outstretched. “Don’t,” she gasped, “there’s no need—he is gone . . .”
The dragon began to shrink, to change. Its color turned from black to fire-red. And then in its place a strange figure lay there, a man with a scaly face, horned and taloned. Blood from wounds to the throat, neck, and chest flowed freely over the tattered rents in his dark robe. The face, its eyes unfocused, turned toward Ailia. The panting mouth strove as if to speak. Ailia rose to her feet and rushed to the monster’s side. She held the hideous head in her lap, stroking the shaggy dishevelled mane, and wiped away the blood from the face, weeping quietly all the while.
“Ailia,” said Jomar.
“Let her be,” said Damion.
“But—the monster—”
“It’s Mandrake. Valdur is gone,” said Damion. “He fled from the pain. He never could endure suffering, as mortals do.”
For a time in that vast ruinous place there was no sound but for Ailia’s quiet sobs. Leaning forward, she spoke into the dragon-man’s scaly, pointed ears words that none of the others could catch. But as he heard them, Mandrake opened his filming eyes and fixed them on her face. And as the others watched, once more he was transformed. The wings, and tail and horns, were gone, absorbed in the shadows, and the scales sloughed away while a human face began to emerge slowly out of the monstrous countenance. He extended to her a claw, and it became more human in shape as it reached for her. She put out her own hand, and the claw touched it and became a hand also. Her other hand went to his face. She kissed him, passionately, first on the brow and then on his mouth. At last it was Mandrake the man who lay there, a monster no more but beautiful as he had been before his possession. “I called on him,” said Ailia. “And he came to me.” She had known the very moment when the Dark One departed in defeat. “He took command of his form again, and wounded himself to drive Valdur out.”
Mandrake spoke, his voice a rasping whisper. “I have known you. I have seen the stars, the worlds with all their wonders. I feel no regret now that I lived.” And then his eyes closed, and he was still. Her head bent low over his, hiding both their faces with her falling hair.
Suddenly there were ethereal forms all around her again: Eliana, and Andarion, and the golden-haired figure of her mother. Elarainia spoke to her daughter: “Ailia, my dear, do not weep. It is over. He has saved you, and you him. He is at peace now. The enemy is gone from him, and from Talmirennia. Valdur truly is a prisoner now, for his spirit has no house on this plane and must join his material form in the black star forever.”
Brannar Andarion’s face was haggard with grief. “We will take my son’s body back into the Ether with us. That is how the greatest of the Nemerei choose to pass from the world, and that is how we shall honor him.”
And Ana said to the Tryna Lia’s companions, “Ailia’s powers were always her weakness, never her strength. The temptations they offered were nearly fatal to her more than once. In the end it was her courage and compassion that saved her and all of you, not the sorcery that was a stumbling block to her from the very first.”
The figures began to fade away from sight again. The body of Mandrake was gone. The Princess knelt alone on the ground, her arms empty. “Ailia,” said Damion softly, “Ailia, come home.”
She looked up at him, tears still streaking her face. Her lips moved soundlessly.
“I can take you to where there is no pain,” said Damion, kneeling beside her.
Her head drooped, came to rest against his shoulder. Then, slowly, they stood together. And it seemed to Jomar and the rest that in the next moment it was no longer the two familiar figures that stood there, but two radiant forms, winged with white fire, and their eyes burned like stars. Only for an instant did the mortals see the vision, as they held their hands up against the unbearable intensity of the light. And then the two figures were no longer there.
Those that were left stood still for a moment. Even Taleera could find no words to say. A cold wind crept across the silent ward, from the ice-clad mountains high above.
“Let’s go,” said Lorelyn. “Now! I hate this horrible place!”
It was dark, but Jomar could tell that she was crying. He stooped, picked up the Star Stone where it lay upon the ground, and together they climbed onto Auron’s back. Then together they flew away while silence once more settled on the court of night.
21
The Celestial Empire
THERE WAS GREAT REJOICING IN Arainia when the friends of the Tryna Lia brought the Star Stone to Halmirion. In the city of Mirimar it was as though all the year’s festivals were being held at once: the streets were hung with banners and silver stars, bells clanged from every tower, lamps and candles glimmered from eaves and tree branches, and fireworks were set off in the streets. People ran about embracing strangers, dancing around bonfires, splashing in the fountains, shouting and singing from rooftops and balconies. The stellar war was over! The Tryna Lia had conquered her adversary! Exactly how it had happened no one was sure: there were many conflicting reports. Ailia had fought Mandrake in a duel and slain him—Ailia had fought his whole army single-handed and won—the host of Heaven itself had come to her aid. Only when the days passed and it became apparent that the Princess was not going to return, did the mood grow more somber. News of her withdrawal into the Ether traveled swifter than light through the worlds of the Celestial Empire. The crystal palace in the field outside Mirimar sat empty, the Dragon Throne unfilled. Yet Ailia was still the ruler of Talmirennia: since she had not died, there could be no other claimant. There was some talk of placing an image of her upon the throne, like the statue of her mother in the chapel of Halmirion, though this idea was soon discarded. Talmirennia, it seemed, would have no mortal ruler.
The sibyls conferred with the father of the Tryna Lia, and at last a decision was made: the Moon Throne was left empty, while the crown and scepter of argent were placed on the Dragon Throne. There anyone could come, to look on the Stone that was once more set in the crown, a token of the Old Ones who still watched over the Empire from afar but would never again rule Talmirennia or its creatures. From now on they would rule themselves.
ONE EVENING NEARLY TWO YEARS after the last battle, the friends and family of the Tryna Lia gathered in the gardens of Halmirion. King Tiron had since departed to live in the forest b
y Hyelanthia, where he could be near the lingering presence of Elarainia, and the palace had become a guesthouse for visitors to Mirimar and its shrines. Among the guests staying there at that time were Jomar and Lorelyn, Ailia’s foster family from Mera, and the woman Mag from Nemorah with Twidjik, as well as Auron and Taleera—who took their human shapes, so as to be able to converse with the members of the group who were not Nemerei. They talked together in low voices of all that happened in the great war, and what they themselves had seen and done, while Dani and Lem played with the amphisbaena upon the lawn.
Auron said, “Without Mandrake to hold it together the Valei empire has crumbled. The goblins have all gone back to fighting one another, since they are no longer afraid of their ruler. King Roglug has been proclaimed the new Avatar, against his will and much to his alarm. The last I heard of him, he had fled to some far-off world. The cherubim will not pursue him, saying he is too unworthy a quarry for them. The Darklings have no desire to war with us now that they are without a true leader.”
“And so are we,” said Lorelyn sadly. “I know Ailia would say that we don’t really need her anymore. But it just won’t be the same without Ailia and Damion. I miss them.”
“So do we,” Jaimon said, and his relatives nodded and murmured. Jemma put her hand on her brother’s shoulder.
“We miss her also,” the amphisbaena chittered, raising his front head. “She made us feel safe, always.”
Lorelyn leaned down and scratched Twidjik’s ears. “How is it with you in Nemorah?” she asked.
It was Mag who answered, for the benefit of Jomar and the other Merans, “The Overseer has lost much respect in the eyes of his people. He did not slay the dragon-god, as he boasted he would do. He brought the destruction of their city on them instead, and many blame him for that. They see now that Ailia’s ways were wisest. We are ruled by a council, appointed by the citizenry, and we are building a new city by the shore of the sea. Mai and Teren will raise their children there.”
As Mag was speaking, Lorelyn noticed a pair of figures approaching from across the lawn: a fair-haired Elei woman and a man. The latter was tall and regal, with a grizzled beard, and he carried in his arms a small boy perhaps two years of age. Jomar and the others noticed Lorelyn staring, and they too turned and saw the new arrivals. Then, as the Meran family and Mag and Twidjik gazed on in wonderment, the other four made obeisance to the man.
“Andarion,” said Auron, “you honor us.”
The king set down the child, and stood smiling at them. “I am but a man now, as other men. I have chosen to remain mortal, and not linger in the Ether when I depart this plane. I begin a new life now, in which I hope to redress past errors.”
“Majesty,” said Taleera, “Ana spoke the truth: you have nothing with which to reproach yourself.”
“Have I not?” he asked. “It was my treatment of my son that brought about his end, and nearly destroyed Talmirennia. Only the Tryna Lia prevented it. I do not return to claim my kingship, but to live the peaceful life I should have pursued from the first. I dwell now in a world of the Elei, and I have wed”—here he turned with a smile to the lady by his side, who returned it—“and am a father once more. This is my son. I intend to love and care for him, and so make amends for my neglect of Morlyn, which caused such sorrow for so many.” He took from around his neck an amulet with a dragon on it. “This was found in Morlyn’s undersea castle, in the world of Nemorah. It is all I have of his.”
“Mine,” said the boy, reaching up for the gleaming thing with his small soft hand. His father gave it to him.
“Yes, it is yours. You see?” Brannar Andarion said to the others. “Can a soul come again into the world? Strange things may befall those who bear Archon blood. But I believe it has come to pass: he has a new life, and a new body that does not owe its existence to the intrigues of Valdur and the Loänei.”
“Mandrake?” said Lorelyn. The boy turned and fixed his large blue eyes on her.
“It is not the name we gave him at birth,” his mother said. “But he will answer to no other. I knew when I first looked into his eyes that this was an old soul.”
“Extraordinary!’ said Auron. “I have never heard of such a thing.”
“If only Ailia could know this!” sighed Lorelyn. “It would have made her happy.” She watched as the child went to join the two other boys in their games.
“There, I am sure she will, if she does not know it now,” soothed Taleera. “We must not speak of her as though she had died.” But at her words a little silence fell, and they spoke no more of Ailia.
Sometime later, when all the others had gone into the palace for their night’s rest, Lorelyn and Jomar continued to sit alone, watching the stars emerge from the deepening sky. “What will you do when your life ends?” Jomar asked presently. “You’re half-Archon too. Will you just die like Andarion, or stay in the Ether the way Damion and Ailia have?”
“Stay in the Ether?” said Lorelyn. “No. I want to know what lies beyond it. This Empyrean, or whatever the Nemerei call it. Why should I hang about the Ether when you die, and your spirit passes on? No! You’ll go nowhere, Master Jomar, that I can’t go too.”
Jomar looked at Lorelyn, her blond head shining silver-gilt in the light of the stars and the Arch of Heaven. It had grown long, flowing down to her shoulders. She seemed to him in that moment more beautiful than ever before—this woman who could be like an angel if she desired, dwell in the eternal paradise of the Ether; but would instead give this up, choose rather to be as other mortals. He put his arm around her shoulders—and then, hesitantly, almost shyly, he reached out and twined a lock of her hair around his forefinger, where it gleamed like a ring of bright metal. “Lori—I’ve been thinking,” he said. “Of going back to Mera, to my people. They still want me to govern Zimboura, and Kiran says he’s tired of being king. I wondered if you’d like to come with me.” He kissed her. “To rule by my side.” And he added, with his look and touch, To be with me always.
She moved into his embrace, with her answer already in her eyes.
“ALWAYS YOU RETURN TO THE mortal plane,” said Damion.
He and Ailia stood together atop a high hill, in the world where Damion had first encountered Andarion. The desertscape surrounded them: craggy buttes and rippling dunes, under a sky thick with stars and scattered with moons showing various phases. The land was desolate for the most part, without so much as a thornbush to break its monotony of sand and stone. The water that had carved out its dry gullies must have vanished many eons ago. In the far distance they saw, rising high into the sky and glowing in the moon’s light, towers and pinnacles and pyramids so huge that Ailia had taken them at first for more mesas and buttes. They looked old beyond reckoning, like those she had seen in Ombar, pitted and scarred and crumbling. About them was the only remaining vegetation and a gleam of water: a last oasis of lingering life. Ailia thought she could see, carved on the side of one ruin, the half-effaced forms of winged colossi.
She and Damion were never apart now. Sometimes they wore ethereal likenesses of the fleshly forms they had worn when in the worlds, but for the most part they went formless and free, as pure essences within the great surging seas of quintessence that made up the Ether. No mortal language could describe their existence then, though Ailia often wondered how she might try to explain it. The old senses of the flesh were gone: sight and hearing and the rest. Yet there was something of all of them in the ecstasy she now knew: as if she listened to soaring strains of music; gazed on pure light; tasted bliss; and touched other El, in a way that did not merely connect her to them as a handclasp or a shared thought might, but made her utterly at one with them.
Damion was her tutor now, for during her time on the lower plane she had begun to forget her true nature, and needed to be taught again what it was to be an El. It was good, she felt, to return to the Ether’s light and harmony, leaving behind the darker, lower realm where suffering and sorrow reigned. But she began to wonder if per
haps she had changed too much while she was in the lesser Heaven. Somehow, she felt drawn to the lower plane still, despite all that it had done to hurt her. Damion did not feel the same. To him the Ether was home, and a welcome release from the troubles of his earthly life. She could not make plain to him how she felt, for she did not quite understand it herself. But it was true, what he had said: she kept leaving the Ether to visit the material worlds, disguised as a sylph, or a cherub, or a dragon. Often he joined her. Once she and Damion had been swans, flying above their own white reflections in a world of clear turquoise waters that had never yet known any life of its own. And they had walked in their own forms on a planet that had no sun, but wandered freely through the heavens. On its lightless plains there were living crystals—terebolem the ancients called them—that glowed with their own radiance like venudor, and released emanations of bright quintessence like tongues of fire. Talmirennia was full of wonders.
Now Ailia sighed as she gazed on the sky of Meldrian. “What is wrong?” Damion asked.
“I keep thinking of those poor souls I saw in Perdition.”
“Souls are only held in thrall to Valdur by their own consent. He persuaded them that they could not leave: but it is not true, and now they have seen that for themselves. Mandrake was able to break free by helping you; others may follow his example. The idea of escape has been planted in their minds now. If they seek it, then Perdition will be emptied, and all the enemy’s spoils taken from him.”
This thought comforted her. “The light there in the sky—is that the dawn?” she asked presently.
“Yes—but a dawn like no other you’ve ever seen. Here you’ll see not one sun or two or three, but all the suns of Talmirennia in their glory.”