The Wizard's Heir

by J. A. V Henderson

  “We shall continue to hope for better than the best, then,” declared Sianna.

  “And we shall continue to fight for our hope for better than the best,” answered Piachras. “We still have our strength and our liberty: the enemy has not triumphed yet.”

  Stuart nodded, looking to the heavens as if for a sign. The clamor of battle was beginning to arise again from the front, and all around them, the waters of the moat had dropped to little more than a trickle.

  A shadow passed over the sky. The trumpet sounded from the pinnacle of the tower and continued to blow with the greatest urgency. Stuart and all those below began to wonder what had gone wrong with Haleth up there in the tower. What was it?

  From every side, the armies of the north—Tomerian and Lossian, goblin and Tryphallian, Surthian-Narrissorean and Brolethirian—began their attack. They marched down out of the ashes of the city into the moat or across the bridge, up over the stone wall into the ranks of the surviving defenders. Spears and arrows swarmed the moat, turning it into blood. Swords and axes bathed the stone wall and the walls of the moat with slicks of treacherous blood. Stuart, Sianna, Piachras, and Lady Anaerias rushed into the battle, shoring up the lines with all their might. On the north side of the tower, Lady Anaerias fell, the last of her line, surrounded by Lossian soldiers. On the south side, facing the bridge, Sianna was pulled down by a Tomerian spear and brought back to the tower by two of her soldiers. The sky continued to darken. The trumpet on the tower continued to blow and blow.

  “This is the end,” thought Stuart. “This is the end.”

  VIII.iii.

  Saria burst out of the snow with a gasp for air and sprang alive, glancing to the back, to the front, to the left, to the right. Lightning glimmered across her eyes like an afterimage of Morin’s spells. Where was she? It seemed to be a mountain somewhere, covered with snow, with day on one side and night on the other. The mountain rumbled.

  Next to her, Alik bit back a groan and looked up. Beyond them were Morin, Krythar, and all who had been nearby: Xaeland, looking around in confusion; Jevan and Heao; the body of Deran. The light cooled in Morin’s hands to reveal a pyramidical crystal the size of a human’s head: the Stone, reunited. “Arise now, my servant!” he cried, his gleaming eyes fixed upon the prize. “Gheosasi’ia!”

  But Alik arose from the snow facing him and shouted out, “Stop, Master Morin: you are not knowing the what you do.” Morin was not in the mood to argue, but simply muttered something to the Stone and sent a flash of fire arcing toward Alik. The snow around Alik stirred up in a sudden blizzard, dousing the fire. “This cannot be,” Alik urged him.

  The ground lurched. A rain of stones shot toward Alik from every side, but Alik merely bowed his head and murmured a short command, and the stones all slid to a halt in the air before him and turned back. Morin ducked. “What are you?” he shouted. “Feel the united power of the Stone!”

  “If you would honor your father you must abandon his evil,” Alik answered. “Let go of the Stone!”

  The Stone burned like fire in Morin’s hands. Waves of energy rippled visibly into it from every direction. The lines of creation bent in toward it. Morin dropped to his knees. “Look out, Alik!” warned Saria. Saria and Xaeland both ran toward Morin, but the closer they came, the slower they went, till both were pressed down to the ground.

  The ground lurched again, as though the whole world had moved. Alik fell backwards. A deafening roar filled the world and reechoed from every direction. A blast of icy air swept over them and the sky dimmed. Alik could sense the presence of some ancient mind nearby—it was beneath them! He could sense its singleminded hunger to devour compounding with Morin’s thoughts of power, totally assenting. Images of worlds devoured, their fires gulped down into its endless hunger…images of scales, of wings unfurling, of teeth craving to consume, of the wizards, tiny below, entrapping him in the Stone’s deathly sleep: the stellar dragon. He realized, suddenly: they were flying.

  The mind of the stellar dragon and the mind of the emperor wrapped together. The dragon was nobody’s servant and it sensed the means of its release in the Stone, whose energy was bound around it like impenetrable chains. Its mind touched Alik’s, and both recoiled. It found Krythar’s mind—wounded, dark, craving, dragonlike—and entered in. Krythar, groveling at the feet of the emperor, darted glances all around. “Whe’ a’ my drakes? Whe’ a’ they?” And he spoke out a word that Alik knew meant, “The drakes should be coming here.”

  Morin slapped Krythar hard with the back of his hand for touching the power of the Stone. Krythar fell backwards, but the air split sideways around them, and from out of the clear sky drakes began to appear in the dozens. But they were not flapping, swooping, diving in for the kill: they were floating, falling, lifeless, pierced with arrows, heads and wings severed—the vengeance of Aerisia. “My drakes!” cried out Krythar. “My drakes! My drakes!” Krythar rolled over in the snow. Ice blinded him. Wind ripped over him. He slipped in the snow and slid away, away…. But the dragon would not let him fall: not yet, not while he was still in chains. His fury built up like the power of the shards, built up to exploding, and his hands clenched onto the plate scales beneath him with the power of that fury.

  All this was in an instant: then Morin stood over Alik triumphantly, glowing with the power of the Stone. “Now ye’ shall die by it,” he said, and he held up his hand, proclaiming a command, “E-Bria kavai’ia!” His hand filled with solid white glowing energy, expanding larger and larger.

  Alik whispered, “Ce jcazflahstaea’ia,” although he wasn’t sure if that was a word, then closed his eyes. “Grace of Caimbrand, hold me together now,” he prayed. He felt the ball of energy strike him square in the chest, felt pain radiating instantly everywhere—then nothing.

  “No!” cried Saria, jumping on Morin frantically. He threw her off like nothing. He was filled with power. Xaeland crawled toward him but could barely move. Alik dead and the shards united to Morin? It could not be. No, it could not be.

  But Alik was not dead. He sat up. Morin eyed him impatiently and summoned another ball of energy. The ball glowed and quivered with red sparks, then at Morin’s command, rocketed toward Alik and crashed straight into him. Alik glowed for a moment with energy, but was unharmed. Astonished and terrified, Morin summoned up the energy of the Stone, repeating the words of the spell over and over again. Alik climbed to his knees weakly. He sensed the dragon leveling off. The wind beat at them all frigidly. Alik absorbed a third and a fourth blast and a fifth.

  “Enough,” he declared. “You shall be silent,” he declared, gesturing at Morin. Morin opened his mouth but no sound came out. The energy he had in his hands, a ball almost as large as himself, he hurled physically at Alik. Alik glowed white all over. Morin fled. Alik advanced, gleaming like the sun. Morin tripped in the snow and scrambled to his feet, then fell again. The wind rushed over them. Thoughts flashed back and forth in the dragon’s mind. Alik did not look but sensed mountains: the Haven. He did not see but he sensed Krythar cowering.

  Krythar erupted from the snow behind Morin. “Winds! Winds!” he cried out, “Haeofvarai’ia veae! Blowing them away! Blowing them away!”

  The winds shifted. A stiff gale picked up suddenly, sending gusts back and forth across the back of the dragon. The dragon rolled with the force of the wind, first almost imperceptibly, but then more and more strongly. Krythar’s eyes were wide open, his mouth dripping. “Lightning! Lighting them! Bhakai’ia, bhakai’ia! And snow! Snow, hyosse diaezavee’ia veae! Ha ha! Ha ha! Ha ha!” Out of the blue a bolt of lightning flashed toward Alik and disappeared. Heao and Jevan, Xaeland and Saria were dragged back by the wind.

  Reach out to me, Alik thought to Saria. Reach out to me, he thought to Xaeland. Heao and Jevan blew off the side of the dragon into the air. “Veaet raegavee’ia yir zoraeb,” he commanded: They shall fly like eagles. As he glanced down, he saw the mountains rising up toward them, nearer and nearer. He spotted the smoke rising from the ha
ven of Taravon. The dragon was so huge, he realized, it could cover the whole distance from Morin’s capital to the haven in a few beats of its wings. He touched the mind of the dragon, cold and vast. Release his mind! he commanded it—but the dragon rumbled in denial. Little did it think of the power of a human mind, compared to its own ancient powers. What match were they for it, who had consumed worlds? It sorted through the general’s mind for the command words for hurricane and hail and found them.

  The sky roiled blue and black, churning together. A slash of rain fell across the dragon, then a dragging gust of wind that flattened out all but Alik. Snow from the dragon churned up into a sudden white-out, into which poured as though from nowhere a rain of massive hailstones.

  They were not from nowhere. Alik could feel the fabric of the world wrinkling and pulling taut to the point of tearing. In the flurry around him he could see nothing with his eyes, but beyond he could sense the presence of the Well of Night and the crumbling tower of the wizards with its machines of rifting and its den of snakes settling back into their winter sleep in the ghostly blue light. Hailstones dissolved around him. Moist water wet his lips. Mist coated him from head to foot. The dragon began to descend.

  There was panic below. The prince of Tomeria and the generals around him tried to rally their troops. For a moment they remained, uncertain, watching the stellar dragon nearing, blotting out the sun, filling the sky as though the mountains were being stretched higher and higher, bending closer and closer as though the mountains were falling on them. All for a moment—and then the jaws of the stellar dragon began to open, wider than the valley, and the armies began to break, one by one, until even the grand prince was not fear enough to counteract the falling terror. Only the remnants of the armies of the haven remained, already past despair and with no place to fall back to. Stuart stood. Piachras stood. The trumpet in the tower ceased blowing. All of the soldiers of Ristoria, of Emeria, of Therion and Anthirion and of all their allies stood, facing the sky. Nessak Lamartos and Gradja Marrann stood, the general slowly taking off his uniform shirt and dropping his badges and honors on the ground.

  Above, Krythar laughed. He laughed, and the blizzard swirled around him. He laughed, and time skipped around him. Folds of space and time crumpled around him. He laughed, “Come to me: come to Krytharion the Great, and I will devour you all into me.”

  Pelted by hailstones, Saria found her way to Alik. Around him, no hailstones fell, no wind moved. He radiated power. Her hair stood on end. The energy seemed to touch her as well. She was afraid to touch him.

  “Saria,” he said, reaching out to touch her, “Go. Everything is complete. You must go now.”

  “I won’t see you…,” she objected.

  “We will surely meet again,” he said. “It is written.”

  She felt a current of wind take hold of her. It hit her so hard she could not even exclaim. She flew up into the air, and in the flash of a moment, all around her was white. She shut her eyes, expecting death and giving up her life. But instead, she found within herself something light and feathery. She was flying.

  Snowblind, hail-battered, numb from head to foot, Xaeland heard in his mind the distinct message, “Capture the emperor and jump free.” The words came in the same way Caelhuin once communicated to him without words…but this was not Caelhuin, could not be, could never be. This was Alik…or else the dragon…or else Krythar, through the Stone. But why would they want the emperor? Still…that doubt. But he had seen Alik glowing with the power of the Stone—or rather, with a power that overruled the Stone. He had to trust him.

  Slowly it seemed, he drew himself up into the whirlwind by will alone. “Show me the way,” he called out in his mind, shutting down the chaos of the pain battering him up and down. He stumbled and caught himself, slipped on the icy plates of the dragon but crawled on.

  Morin had not fled far. He had found a spine protruding from the dragon’s back, a plate as tall as a house and wide enough to half-shelter a dozen men, and he was holding on for his life. When he saw Xaeland, despair filled his eyes. He struck Xaeland as little more than a child…but he knew what this child had done. Without a word, he reached him, struck away the hand that went to defend, and lifted the emperor by force of will alone.

  Morin slipped out a dagger and stabbed at his attacker’s heart. Xaeland deflected the blow partially with his free hand, but the blade jammed into his side. He pulled it out and hurled it away. Just as quickly Morin produced a second dagger and jabbed at Xaeland’s belly. The knife stuck. Xaeland ripped it out and slashed it through the tendon of the emperor’s arm before throwing it away as well. “Come on,” he growled, hauling Morin out into the wind and hail. Morin grabbed Xaeland by the neck with his good hand but Xaeland tore the hand away and crushed it in his own. “It’s time to go,” he rasped.

  Hail battered over them. Xaeland slipped, but he did not let go. The dragon was diving. They were headed nearly straight down. The wind caught hold of them, a gust so powerful the dragon rolled nearly onto its belly—and then they were flying free.

  A lash of energy whipped past, a stray thread of creation manifesting as a wave of lightning. It caught, crackled, and broke free again, waving wildly through the sky. The floating lines of the crumbling rift caught it up and dragged it down toward the old tower, toward the Well of Night. One snake slithering along the rim of the well suddenly flattened out horizontally and disappeared. Alik watched places and times flickering by, whispering slowly and softly. Another thread of creation broke free. He could see stray looters scampering in the marketplace of Anthirion City, withering shrubs wilting in the heat where the waterwood once was, a plane filled with wreckage. He could see darkness and stars, a field of ash, a field of rubble, a field of stars, and bones. A dragon’s eye shot open, staring at him. The stellar dragon. For a moment he seemed to see a city of glass filled with rifters, all looking at him. A third thread broke, and the Collapse began.

  Alik was struck by the simplicity of it, the beauty of it. Rainbow streams of light poured into the point of the rift at the Well of Night beginning with the royal purple, then the freest and purest of blues, then every jungle shade of green, then sage yellow and faithful orange, then blood red deeper and deeper until there was only the predestination of red remaining. With all his power he called out for the rift and was already connecting to it and the mass of the dragon opening up to swallow it all. Now, he thought: it must be sealed—ngobras-rn.” The Stone flashed light—so much light! Krythar burned and the colors of the Stone ran out in every direction, grasping onto the threads of the Collapse and sealing them back into place.

  On the ground all fell flat as the dragon’s jaws opened to swallow all. Stuart fell on his back, his eyes to the air, and he saw a rainbow flash through the sky and seemingly through the mountains and trees and through himself, into the old tower. The dragon seemed to shrink as though funneling into an invisible sink. Its jaws came to a point above the top of the old tower, and the old tower caved in. Dust and stone billowed up and sucked down into a point somewhere below. A lash of energy or claws struck the new tower, and the upper section of it toppled. Then there was a flash of light, and the dragon and Alik and storm and hail and drakes and all were gone. A bright blaze streaked across the sky to the east and to the west and to the north and to the south and then was gone almost before it appeared.

  The mist began to fall. Clouds eddied through the patchy sky above, some one way, some another. People began to rise, staring toward the place where the dragon had disappeared. The people inside the tower started pouring out, the sick and the injured with the nurses and children around them. Stuart found Sianna and embraced her.

  “What happened?” she asked—but he only shook his head and kissed her.

  The moment the Stone left the world, sound returned all at once to Morin’s mouth. “No!” he wailed. “No, no, no!” He thrashed violently in Xaeland’s arms, reaching for the place the dragon had disappeared. Xaeland held on. For a moment
, despite everything, his consciousness slipped and he was revived again by the air roaring past him. He held on. The ground closed in: the broken tower jutting up toward him, past him…the moat, the armies like ants growing larger and larger—or was he growing smaller and smaller? He struck the ground, felt his legs shattering as he rolled. Morin rolled free, still shouting and wailing and babbling, words Xaeland could not understand, if they had a meaning at all. He lay facing the sky. Shadows came and hurried away: who, he knew not. Alik, wherever you are, it is finished, the thought went through his mind. He felt a hand press him, and he imagined it must be Alik though of course it couldn’t be. Things blurred; then all went into light.

  Saria gazed down into the valley from a high outlook on the east. For days she could only stare and pray. Below, a monument arose over the body of the page knight, Xaeland the Freed, and for other great leaders who had fallen in battle. Riders went back and forth under a flag of peace between the city and the camps all around. Even from that distance she could make out the emperor when he was dragged forth to the meeting tent of the peace. Even from that distance she could make out the noble but bent figure of Stuart the Scribe, Prince Sovanov of Tomeria and his former general, Gradja Marrann, and Jevan, Arran Delossan, the Man Who Struck the Emperor.

  A tree rose up from the edge of the lookout above her. Squirrels came and went in its branches, and sometimes a small bird would alight to sing its song before going on its way. She ate some of the seeds left by the squirrels while she waited, she knew not for what, and others she planted. The tree was dying, she felt, and on the third day the roots gave way beneath it and it fell, lying halfway over the cliff, held only by a few remaining roots. Then moved in the carpenter ants, the borers, the worms, the fungis, and the molds.