“Yes,” she said.
There was another long and awkward pause. “I see you have a Beldarian,” Yavün noted.
“I see you have one too,” Thalla replied, and the look in her eyes unsettled him.
“I meant to tell you,” he said. “I wanted to, but … I didn’t think you’d understand.”
Thalla did not respond, which made him wonder if she still did not understand.
“I didn’t steal it,” he said, when the silence accused him.
“I’m not angry,” Thalla said. “I would have been, had you revealed it to me earlier. But I guess if you are a thief, then I am one also.”
“But I didn’t steal it,” he insisted. “I wasn’t in control.”
“But you are now?”
“I guess,” he said. “But I can’t give it back.”
“I know. Neither can I.”
“How did you get yours?” Yavün asked.
“From another Magus. He fell in battle, and I needed to fight. I needed to use magic, and I needed a Beldarian to protect me from the flames.” She turned away again, hiding another shame.
“I guess we’re both locked up in other people’s lives now,” Yavün said.
“Yes, I think you’re right.”
There was another long pause before Yavün felt he had to slay the silence. “You’re still beautiful, you know.”
She turned to him with questioning eyes.
“I mean, the scars don’t make a difference, to me at least.”
She gave a faint smile, and she might have given a bigger and more distinct one were it not for those scars.
The horses began to speed up, and when the galloping wind joined them, the conversation ended, though it still continued long in their minds, where there were other scars that a Beldarian could not prevent.
* * *
The battle between Corrias and Agon waged on, and there was little that Ifferon and his companions could do to help. They clung to hope, even as it seemed to be slipping away.
Then something happened that destroyed their faith almost entirely. Agon mustered all his strength, goaded by his pain, and seized the Sword of Telm from Ifferon. It grew in size until it fit Agon’s monstrous hand, and until it fit Corrias’ colossal heart, wherein it plunged.
“Begone!” the Beast bellowed, and Corrias faltered.
Délin gave a shout, and if he could have caught Corrias as he fell, he would have. But the father god collapsed upon the ground, and the world shook, and many souls shuddered.
Then Agon rose up and cast aside the Sword of Telm, which shrunk again in size as Ifferon ran to grab it. The Beast strode north, his monstrous feet crushing the earth beneath him, his monstrous arms reaching out to feel the air that he had not felt for so long. He marched off with his long and angry strides, and the company saw where he was marching to: the land of Boror.
* * *
In time Thalla and Yavün reached Ardún-Fé, and they were reminded of that time when they first met, and when Melgalés was taken from the world. The horses would not go into that damned land, and though they were exhausted, they fled as soon as Thalla and Yavün dismounted.
“Well, that’s not a good sign,” Yavün said.
Thalla did not respond. Her eyes were fixed on the bristle-like trees of the forest in the distance. Once the Harwood, now the Rotwood—it was a place of pestilence and death, and it was where Melgalés died, and where his body joined whatever else rotted away slowly there.
Yavün urged caution, and he was weak and tired, even more so now from their long journey. Thalla might have heeded his advice were it not for the mounting anger she felt as the memories of Melgalés’ passing came back to her, as if the floodgates had finally opened, and instead of a river of water bursting forth, there came a river of fire.
“I want to find and kill those monsters,” Thalla said, and she spoke this through her gritted teeth, as if they were another dam, holding back another fiery deluge.
And so she charged forth, racing over rock and leaping over log, and not even slowing as she passed into the spindly cage of the Rotwood. Yavün found it difficult to keep up with her, for she crashed through the trees like a monster of her own.
As they went deeper into the forest, they felt the familiar crunch of the undergrowth, and of the things that did not grow. The needle-like trees prodded through the crust of the earth, and they were barren of branches and empty of leaves. They offered little protection from the heavens, but the crispness of the soil below, and whatever lived beneath it, showed clearly that the rain rarely fell here, that even the weather did not like this place.
Yavün walked as Thalla stormed, and fear was a new companion, though only Yavün knew it, for Thalla was preoccupied with reaching the body of Melgalés, and destroying anything in her way.
Then Yavün yelped as something grabbed his foot. Thalla turned, with flames already forming at her fingertips. The youth was embarrassed to admit that it was just a piece of fallen bark that had rubbed up against his ankle.
Then something really seized him, and he saw the world turn upside down, until finally his eyes settled on a hulking mass of branch and twig, made bigger by the bones of countless victims. He cried out, and he struggled, but he had little energy to fight off the Karisgor that held him, that dangled him before its open maw.
Suddenly the wood set ablaze, and a great and terrible moan came from the creature as parts of it fell off, still burning. Yavün fell to the ground as the Karisgor fell apart, and a mountain of bones came tumbling over him. He cried again as he knocked some of the bones aside and backed away quickly to where Thalla stood, dripping embers.
Yavün sat down, panting for a moment. “You know, I wish I could do that. I’ve got the Beldarian for it.”
“I could teach you,” Thalla suggested. “So could Melgalés.”
“Not sure I have the stomach for it,” he replied, and he grimaced as he looked at the molten mess of what used to be a Karisgor.
“Let’s go,” Thalla said, and she turned to leave.
“A moment, please,” the youth begged. “I just need to catch my breath.”
Suddenly they heard the crashing of trees and cracking of wood from all around them, followed by a chorus of low-pitched moans.
“Breath caught,” Yavün said, as fear helped him to his feet.
They trudged onwards, and when the crashing sounds grew louder they then began to trot, and when the moaning grew closer they then began to run. The sounds mounted, until finally Thalla and Yavün halted suddenly as a wall of Karisgors greeted them. They turned, but another wall of beasts stood there, until finally they were caged, and all that was left were the sounds, and nowhere to run from them.
The groaning noises became quickly unbearable, and Yavün covered his ears. Thalla erected an orb-shaped shield around them, and this drowned out much of the terrible noise. Then, as the Karisgors trudged in, she let loose so much fire from the heavens and from her hands that her Beldarian began to strain, and Yavün wondered if perhaps she instead was really Fire, and his own Flame was nothing in comparison.
Blazing columns crashed down upon the Karisgors, and those that were not crushed were set alight, and those that were not burned were torn apart by many hands of flame. In a matter of moments the Karisgors were laid to waste, and all that was left was the rubble of their bodies, and a steady stream of smoke, like the ethereal substance of the dead. And so the forest was an even greater waste. Once the Rotwood, now the Ruinwood.
“I guess we didn’t need to run then,” Yavün said, but he caught Thalla as she suddenly began to fall.
“I’m fine,” she said, but clearly she was not. Yavün could see the dull complexion of her face, and the dull complexion in the beldar gem. The magic was taking its toll, and the Beldarian could only do so much.
They stumbled onwards, each hanging out of the other, for they were both tired beyond anything they had ever known before, as if they had in these past few weeks lived
the entirety of their lives. They did not admit it, but they were glad to spend some of this fleeting time with each other.
They wandered for a time, and then they came upon the clearing where their earlier battle with the Karisgors did not go so well, where Melgalés had called the creatures to him, that the others might escape. They could not help but wonder: if he had known that he was just as important as Ifferon, would he have so easily given up his life?
Yavün was surprised to see that the Magus’ raven still stood there, pacing back and forth, stretching its legs and flapping its wings from time to time. It turned to them suddenly and cawed, and its eyes brightened as it saw Thalla. It flew over and landed before her, where it flapped its wings again, though less aggressively. It said something in its tongue, but neither understood what it meant. Then the bird trotted back to Melgalés, and they followed.
The Magus’ body was half decomposed, and it was a grim sight to behold. His face had shrunken and darkened, and the skeleton showed through, revealing the frailty inherent in them all. His clothes were tattered, but mostly intact, and the only thing that took away a little from the sombre sight was the colourful beads plaited into his hair. They were the only colour in this ashen place.
Did he look peaceful? was what Thalla had asked Yavün so many weeks before. He had lied then, but he could not lie now. Melgalés was there to tell the truth.
Thalla collapsed before his body, partly from exhaustion, partly from sorrow, the exhaustion of the soul.
“You were supposed to be there for me,” she said, and she looked up and then down, as if she did not know where to address her words. She did not look at the remains.
Yavün stayed silent. Even though he had come to know Melgalés in death, and first did not even know it was him, he did not feel he had any right to comment. This was about remembering the man as he was while alive, not as he was while dead.
Thalla was not a poet or a bard, so her tribute came in the form of prose. “You saved me from the House of Hataramon,” she said. “You saved my life, and I could not save yours. You taught me magic, even though you did not want to. You took me as your apprentice, even though all the rules said you couldn’t. You were an Ardúnar, a Warden of Light, and you were a Magus, but you were a father and a friend to me, a teacher and tutor. You saved my life, and I could not save yours.”
As they sat there, Thalla releasing all her long-held pain and anguish, and Yavün feeling that perhaps he was unable to release his own, he began to ponder the meaning of Melgalés’ name. Perhaps it did not have the same kind of significance Yavün’s did, but it meant Memory Passage, and Yavün could not help but notice how, in some way, he only lived on in the passage of memory.
They buried the body, and the raven seemed confused, as if its master had just disappeared before its eyes, a new kind of magic for which it was not prepared. It looked around and began to peck at the dirt where Melgalés sat before, and then it looked at Thalla and Yavün and gave a sad shriek. So it was that the bird gave an elegy of its own.
Thalla wept, and though she seemed that she was all fire, she cried tears of water, and they were perhaps the first drops the starved soil of that place had seen in a long time. Every tear she had held back came flooding forth, and Yavün was also moved to tears, for he could not bear the sight of Thalla in so much pain.
“Come, child,” a voice came quick and sudden. “I’ve had plenty of time to count all the stars in my eyes, and though new ones won’t grow for me, no, they certainly will grow for you!”
They turned, and there stood Melgalés, shimmering in a halo of fire.
XVIII – THE BATTLE OF THE LAST WORDS
Back in Telarym, where Corrias died and Agon lived, there was no time for horror, no time to lose hope or linger in despair. The horror lay before them. The despair walked ahead of them. It was called the Beast.
“He is heading for Boror,” Délin said, and Ifferon could not help but think that the worry in his voice was less for the Bororians and more for Théos in Arlin. With Telarym now desolate and broken, Boror was the last true barrier to the knight’s Motherland.
“If he keeps this path, he will walk straight into Fort Onar,” Ifferon said.
“Fort Watchful,” Herr’Don mused.
“It’s less watchful now that it is abandoned,” Ifferon remarked.
“And thank Olagh that this is so!” Herr’Don cried.
“At least there are no people there to kill,” Ifferon said. “He will destroy a ruin.”
“And perhaps he will find a surprise,” Herr’Don said, and his eyes glinted, as if the Beast might open the box called Fort Onar and find Herr’Don inside.
“What do you mean?” Délin quizzed.
“All of the abandoned forts along our southern border have been lined with explosive kegs. They were designed to stop the forts falling into enemy hands when we retreated from them. Periodically they are checked and replaced, and so perhaps Fort Onar shall be watchful once again.”
“Can we lure Agon into the explosives?” Ifferon asked.
“Perhaps,” Herr’Don said, “though I am not sure it will stop him.”
Ifferon knew for certain that it would not. “But it may slow him. And that is our real weapon at this time until Thalla and Yavün return.”
“Let us rest assure,” Délin said, and his voice was grim, “time is the weapon of Chránán, the master of Agon’s master, and so it can never be our ally.”
“Yet Agon serves no master, and so let us hope that time is not his ally either!” Herr’Don said.
* * *
Though luck was not an ally, and time was more an enemy, the company found that there were new partners in their battle against the Beast. As Agon strode forth, crushing the ground beneath him and lashing it with his tail, the ground itself began to strike back, for here and there the rocks erupted, and out from the various chasms came the Moln. Some clung to his legs and slowed him, and some began to pound upon him like he pounded the earth, and like he pounded the ceiling of Halés for a thousand years. Others cast themselves at him as if they were flung from a catapult, and some began to erect themselves into walls ahead of Agon’s path, which he broke through with ease. None of this stopped Agon’s advance, but it slowed him, and though the company followed through a graveyard of rock, where the very gravestones were the heads of cloven Moln, it was clear that Agon’s strides were now slower than they had ever been.
In time they came once more to the Issar Chammas, the River Barrier, but it proved no barrier to Agon, who had broken through the greater barrier of his own bonds. He strode across it as if it were not there at all.
Though the river prophesied, it was not large enough to tell Agon of his doom, and so even as he crossed over it, it shrunk in size, as if it saw within itself its own end, and the end of all rivers at the vanquishing fires of the Beast.
To those that followed, the river spoke little of their fate, but some saw within its shallow waters what might await them in the coming battle, and what might await the world if it was not won.
Soon they came upon the border of Boror, another barrier that Agon passed through with little effort, and so the Beast passed into the kingdom without a king. Ifferon saw from the rage in Herr’Don’s face that he took this entry somewhat personally, as if indeed Agon had broken through the doors of Ilokmaden Keep. And so, it seemed, he might still do.
Fort Onar came into view, despite the dust of Agon’s heavy footfalls, which could not hide the great size of Boror’s largest fortress town. It was lucky for the company, and for all Bororians, that Agon made for this settlement, for it was the most sprawling and the most heavily fortified, and though it was now the most ruined, it also had the largest stockpile of explosive barrels, and so perhaps was the largest trap for the Beast. It was likely its sheer size that attracted Agon to Fort Onar, for he knew not that it was empty, or that it had been settled instead by a supply of booby-traps. He yearned for destruction, there was little doubt,
for even the ground below him cracked in agony beneath his heavy strides, and in Fort Onar he would find destruction by the barrel load.
The company followed, hiding in Agon’s monstrous shadow, which made upon the ground a moving mockery of the Molokrán, whom the company never knew they would no longer fear. The sun was periodically blocked by the Beast’s height and width, and though it threatened to break through the numerous clouds, as if to threaten Agon with its pinpointing rays, the sky was mostly bleak, as if it watched with cool depression as the Beast approached the great stone archway that led into Fort Onar.
And so the destruction began, for Agon crashed through the arch, and the bricks and rocks were thrown apart as if Agon himself was an explosion. The company were glad that they held back far in Agon’s train, for they would have been crushed by the falling debris.
When the rocks no longer rained and when the dust no longer blinded, the company clambered across the ruins of the archway and into the greater ruins of the fortified city. As soon as they entered, they scattered in all directions, looking for hiding places amidst the debris. They raced through the crumbled streets of Fort Onar, every now and then peeping their heads over wrecked walls and jagged pillars.
Ifferon felt his heart race ahead of him, as if to pre-empt each of his steps. For a brief moment he thought that perhaps as he forged ahead in one direction, his heart was trying to flee in the other, and though at one point he might have went with it, it now went with him—into the winding streets where Agon crashed through.
Ifferon turned a corner and pulled himself back sharply, for there a massive foot came crashing down, and he felt his body shudder from the force, and shudder from the presence of the Beast. He hoped Agon had not seen him, and yet knew that he must somehow attract the Beast’s attention, to lure him deeper into Fort Onar, where no granite walls could cage him.
From this vantage point he could see a few of his comrades racing further up the streets, and when he peeped his head around the corner he could see a beam of light that Oelinor shot into the air to lure the Beast towards him. Then Ifferon saw why Oelinor was so desperate to distract Agon, for the Beast had spotted Affon, who could not run as fast as Geldirana.
The Children of Telm - The Complete Epic Fantasy Trilogy Page 74