From high Althar he has come, to Iraldas returned,
Halés he has shunned, the Gatekeeper he has spurned.
Éala, fair Éala, from death he has adjourned.
The Father of the Living, the Father of us all,
And Father even to the dead, cloaked in burial shawl.
Éala, fair Éala, veiled by no shroud or pall.
In the Céalari Court, he rules all right and just,
And here on Iraldas the most, in his rule we trust.
Éala, fair Éala, rekindled from the dust.
The leader of the gods, and the one to whom we prayed,
He has returned to the world, to aid in our crusade.
Éala, fair Éala, spoke “life,” and death obeyed.
Délin bowed his head. “For Corrias,” he said, but he was not mirthful. He did not look up to the giant eyes of his patron god, but looked upon the closed eyes of Théos, still laying silent upon the stone bed that might one day be his tomb.
Thúalim placed his hand upon Délin’s armoured shoulder. “It is a worthy gift the boy has given the world. He will rest in Halés knowing what good he has done.”
Ifferon could tell that Délin was not comforted by this. The eternal afterlife of the soul in Halés always seemed like a fable to the grieving, a shallow offering of some semblance of life in the great shadow of death.
“I failed you,” Délin whispered. “I could not save you.”
The world might have been made a safer place now that Corrias had been restored, but to Délin it did not seem like a better place without Théos. The knight had never known a grief like this before, and he found that all the virtues of his training were no defence against it, that even in his full armour he felt exposed to the endless attack of anguish, the incessant strike of sorrow.
Then Délin’s gaze was seized by a sight that astonished them all. Théos’ fingers began to twitch, and then his eyes opened, though he squinted against the sunlight. He took what was perhaps his first breath in weeks, and he lay like a newborn surrounded by an extended family who were all joyous to see this sacred birth.
Délin ran to him and took him up into his arms. The boy’s arms were weak, but he hugged the knight in return, and he turned what little energy he had into a beaming smile.
The crowd around began to cheer loudly, perhaps louder than they did for Corrias, and the god felt no envy, for he finally understood their plight and their compassion. To the people of Iraldas the resurrection of a single child was as important as the resurrection of a god.
When Délin finally finished his embrace, the boy looked straight into his eyes, those eyes that showed immense and unmeasurable joy, and he said, “Sóthurthú ima.”
“You saved me,” Elithéa translated. Though the guards still held her, she was smiling. All were smiling. Even Corrias smiled, though few saw it on his face in the clouds.
The glee that Délin felt was unmatched by any other, bar perhaps Théos, who basked in his new life like he had never done, free from the responsibility Corrias had unwittingly imposed upon him, free from the expectations of the world and that deep unwavering feeling that he was not living up to them. Now he could be a child again, and all that was expected of him was that he would play and have fun, and in time grow and learn about the wonders of the world.
Théos took off the pendant that carried his name. It was a name to some, but a role to others. He was a child to some, a weapon to others. His parents had willingly abandoned him to his fate, that Corrias might incarnate, and many conspired in this ungodly act.
Théos placed the pendant in Délin’s right hand. It was heavy, like a burden. The knight looked at it for a moment and thought about what it meant to the boy: sacrifice, slavery and servitude. Délin swore to himself now that there would be no more sacrificing of the innocent, no more slavery of the weak, and no more servitude of the poor.
The boy looked knowingly into Délin’s eyes, and the knight knew what to do. With the strength he had mustered from his years of training, he cast the pendant over the high walls of the Mountain Fortress, where it tumbled down the rock face, landing in a deep, dark mire. Leaves fell from nearby trees, landing upon its fading surface, burying it forever.
* * *
The festivities continued long into the night, and when they broke for sleep, they resumed again in the morning. Word began to spread from the Mountain Fortress to the lands around, and so as one celebration waned, another one began in another place, where the supplies of food and drink, and the energy for merriment, had not yet been spent.
The cleaning of the blood stains, the tending of the wounded, and the repairs of the broken fortress all seemed like small labours now, for the spirits of all were lifted as Corrias began to move around the mountain.
Délin finally slept willingly, and Théos lay within his arms, clutching the toy tree he had been gifted, a replacement for the tree that he would never become. Ifferon thought that Délin would now have pleasant dreams, that his honour had been rewarded, that his faith had been restored, and the cleric knew that the knight’s dreams must have been good when he saw a faint smile upon his lips as he slumbered.
Ifferon began then to have pleasant dreams of his own, and he felt finally that some good had been born into the world, that they had achieved this miracle against almost impossible odds. They had walked the road to rebirth, and though it was long and winding, and though there were many pitfalls along the way, they had reached their destination, and all the darkness that had come before was worth it.
He enjoyed watching the festivities of the others, seeing their smiles, feeling their happiness, and knowing that fear did not dance with them around the fires, that hope and courage were there instead. He thought that perhaps even those in the Underworld watched the scene unfold, celebrating in their own way this double victory of the people of Iraldas, of this challenge to Halés, this defiance of death.
* * *
In Halés, there was no celebration. The Gatekeeper had revealed to the Waiting what had transpired up in Iraldas, but the events did not reduce their incarceration—it just meant it would be longer before others entered Halés and were possibly faced with the same long wait.
Melgalés, however, was cheerful. With Teron finally gone and Corrias restored to the world, it seemed like the forces of good were finally turning the tide.
In another part of Halés, things were different. There were parts not illuminated by the lanterns of the Gatekeeper, places where souls were so lost that they envied the condition of the Waiting—for the Endless Lost had nothing to wait for, bar perhaps the second death.
There was a dreadful silence in the deeps, the kind of silence found in the midst of a thousand screams. This was a place where tension lived and thrived, for if there were some waiting to enter the Halls, there was something here waiting for a different, darker thing.
Then suddenly came a roaring and a rumbling, and a crashing and a crumbling. Pillars became pebbles, and boulders became dust. There was a din like no other noise heard by the living or the dead, a tremor not even felt by those who perished in the greatest of earthquakes or the most violent of volcanoes.
Then everything turned to darkness, as if the very light of all things had been blotted out, as if the sun and the moon and the stars never existed, and as if the light of fire was only a figment, a pale flicker in the annals of the dark.
It was then, in the darkness and amidst the din, that the Beast arose. Those who felt it first did not feel it for long, for they were consumed by him, and they knew the second death as if their life and death was just a glimmer in the chronicles of the shadow.
Now there was just one fire in Halés, and it was the fire of the Beast. The flame and fume and fury of Telm was as nothing. It was pain and torture that kept the fire burning deep inside the abyssal heart of the Beast. And his fire was mounting, until all who looked upon him, matching his torment with their terror, saw a glimpse of the nightmare that awaited the waking
world. They saw a hulking form, yet it was ever shifting, and they saw a fleeting flash of a mangled face, and it was haunting. And even as their second death came hastening, the echo of that memory marred their very essence and left a scar upon the world.
I – THE RATTLE OF THE CHAINS
The sound of celebration poured down from the Mountain Fortress like a landslide. Few slept that night, or for those that followed, and even the people that dozed uneasily heard the horns and drums in their dreams, and their slumbering lips joined in the joyful and boisterous songs that were so different to a bedtime lullaby.
Yet few were angry at the noise, for it was a welcome one in place of the dreary silence that had come before, when all was full of apprehension, when the quiet itself seemed to dread what might come next. And so the people rejoiced and celebrated as loudly as they could, and they were so deafening in their merriment that none of them noticed that there was another sound—a dark rumbling in a faraway place, a dull quake that suggested it might one day not be so far away.
Ifferon sat by the eastern windows of the Fortress, staring out at the gigantic figure of Corrias as he slowly and carefully moved about the mountain. He shimmered as he moved, and at times it seemed to Ifferon that he almost faded into the surroundings. He wondered if this was a repercussion of his decision to incarnate in Iraldas, if it meant that he was not truly there. That might be so, but still he trod carefully, unwilling to step upon anyone that might have been one of his followers.
“He is a sight to behold,” Délin said, stepping up beside Ifferon with Théos in his arms. He looked younger and less dishevelled than before, for he had shaved his beard and trimmed his hair, and now his armour sparkled after a vigorous polishing.
“Yes,” Ifferon said, the best he could manage. No words were good enough to describe the immensity and majesty of Corrias. Yet part of Ifferon felt concerned, for great though the father god was, there was a monstrosity out there that seemed greater still.
The knight pointed out to where Corrias drifted, and Théos pointed at the god in turn.
“That was you,” Délin said.
Théos looked at him blankly. Then he shook his head. “Éala,” he said.
“Does he remember anything?” Ifferon asked.
“I am not sure,” Délin replied. “He remembers me, it seems, but I am not sure it is even possible to remember sharing a body with a god. Perhaps that is a good thing.”
Ifferon nodded. “Yes, perhaps.” At times he wished that he did not remember that he shared the blood of a god, even if it had diluted over many generations, and felt weak within his veins.
“We did good,” Délin stated firmly. “Much evil has been undone.”
“I cannot help but feel that the worst is yet to come.”
Délin looked at him with grim determination. “Whatever comes, we will face it.”
“Do you think Corrias can defeat Agon?” Ifferon asked.
Délin sighed. “No,” he said, and the word almost fell from his mouth like a leaden weight. Its echo was like the strike of metal upon the ground. “Corrias is many things that I admire and stand for, but if the stories of old are true, and I have no reason to doubt them, then he is not truly a warrior. It was Telm, and Telm alone, who defeated Agon, and so perhaps we still depend upon him.”
Ifferon feigned a chuckle. “What a job he has, even in the grave.”
* * *
Geldirana trained with Affon, teaching her how to ward blows, to parry, and to strike with ferocity. They both employed real blades, and both of them came away with real cuts and slashes as a result. Whenever the girl would falter, she would receive another grazing wound, and Geldirana told her, “You will not err that way again. Let the pain be your promise and the blood be your oath.”
Délin and Ifferon watched this for a time until Théos ran off and returned with a wooden toy sword in his hand. He looked up with eager eyes, glanced at the Garigút woman and girl fighting, and looked back to the knight with that same pleading gaze. There was a hint of happiness in his eyes, but also a hint of sadness, as if he expected that Délin would refuse.
But the knight felt he could not disappoint the boy now, and so he called to one of the guards, who brought him a wooden toy sword of his own. He took it and was surprised at how light it was, and how small it was, and how harmless it was. He was too used to his broadsword and two-handed sword, and it had been over forty years since he had last held a training sword. Even that was heavier than the toy sword he held now.
Délin pointed the sword towards the boy, who smiled broadly, as if the gesture was an expression of praise. The knight gently tapped the child’s sword, and Théos struck back softly, and he laughed and giggled. His attacks were weak, his posture was wrong, and his force was lacking, and yet he was doing everything right for what they were really doing: playing. Each strike was followed by a chorus of laughs, and Délin wished that every sword fight was filled with so much glee.
So they “battled” for a time, with Théos hopping to and fro, trying out new moves, and trying desperately to copy the moves that Affon was making across the way. He made what he must have thought were frightening noises, and Délin feigned fear and offered his surrender.
* * *
“Quite the little knight,” Ifferon said as Délin and the boy retired from exhaustion. Though Théos could not quite understand Ifferon’s words, he still smiled, as if he understood the intent behind them. He sat down beside Délin, clapping the toy swords together as if the battle still raged on.
“He has much potential,” Délin said, and he nodded to Théos as he might to one of his brothers or sisters in the Knights of Issarí. Théos nodded back. “Your daughter has much potential also,” the knight added.
Ifferon looked back to Affon, who was clearly wearied, but refused to give up as she battled Geldirana in what to some might have looked like a real battle. Ifferon knew well that for the Garigút such training often was.
“I would rather she played than fought,” Ifferon said. “She is not much older than Théos.”
“Perhaps that is something to discuss with Geldirana,” Délin suggested.
“I am not sure I have the right.”
“You earned the right when you became a father.”
“And I gave it up when I abandoned both of them.”
“You cannot give it up if you did not abandon them in your heart,” the knight said.
Ifferon shrugged, as if he was not altogether sure what his heart felt. Perhaps it was back at Larksong, still hiding within those monastery walls.
Théos stood up, leaving the swords behind, and he stretched up to the window, barely tall enough to peer over, and he placed his chin upon the stony sill. From there the wind trickled in and ruffled his grassy hair.
“He never had a family,” Délin told Ifferon quietly, despite Théos knowing very little of their tongue. “His one true family are all the other Children of Telm.”
“And you,” Ifferon said.
Délin smiled. “And me.”
“Will he ever live a normal life?”
“I do not know, Ifferon. I cannot imagine it is possible to share a body with a god and not be in some way changed by that. Nor, indeed, is it possible to come back from death entirely unscathed. But I hope he can live a life with love and joy, and so not be weighed down by the worries you and I are left with.”
“I wish that was a life I could live,” Ifferon said.
“If we defeat Agon, it is a life we all can live,” Délin said. “But sometimes we must give up a little of our own that another may have more of it. We never truly lose out, however, for there is much joy to be found in the joy of others.”
Ifferon nodded and smiled. The merriment of others since Corrias’ resurrection had certainly lifted his spirits, even though a part of him still felt overwhelmed by the role he was supposed to play, and the forces he was up against.
“I had not quite considered what I was really fighting for,”
Ifferon said, but he looked to Geldirana and Affon at the western side of the courtyard, where they were feasting and talking, and smiling and laughing. It had been so long since he had seen Geldirana rejoicing, and now he realised that though she might no longer have love for him, she still had an abundance of love for their daughter.
“So I guess the old fight for the young,” Ifferon said.
“Yes, but the young also fight for the old.”
“I wonder how Elithéa feels,” Ifferon said. “We were almost at the point of ruin.”
“Almost,” the knight replied. “But it is when we are on the edge that we show who we really are, and whether or not we are honourable. She chose not to mar Théos’ acorn, and so we are indebted to that choice, even if there should have never been a choice to make.”
“I wonder if things can be repaired with her.”
“That will be up to her, another choice for her to make. Yet we all have choices. Today we have victory, but tomorrow is less certain, and all we can do is hope that what we sow this day we can harvest on the morrow. There are so few of the Children of Telm left, and yet every one of you counts beyond measure, and will count much more if Agon ever looks upon the sky once again.”
“The problem is that Telm never killed Agon,” Ifferon said. “The best he could do was imprison him in Halés, and to do that he had to give up his own life. That does not bode well for the rest of us.”
“Perhaps not, but we have not yet faced Agon in battle. Hopefully we never will, but if that day does come, then we will find out how strong Telm’s blood really is, and how strong the blood of your friends and allies are.”
Théos backed away suddenly from the window, as if he had seen some horror outside. He turned sharply and ran to Délin, pawing at his arm. “Daramath,” he cried.
“What is it?” the knight asked, but Théos only repeated the Ferian word.
The Children of Telm - The Complete Epic Fantasy Trilogy Page 56