Glass and Ashes

by Bard Constantine

  “You lie! You would turn me into one of your beasts… one of your Gigeron. I do not need your aid. I survived because I am strong.”

  You are strong? Her laughter silently rang in his head. For eons I have scourged worlds, boy. Yours was not the first. It shall not be the last. I existed when your ancestors huddled in caves and feared the sound of the wind. I will remain after your world is blasted to powder and all memory of its existence is forgotten. Your ignorance is amusing. You are just a boy. A poor, ill-bred, misbegotten mortal child with delusions of destroying the eternal.

  Talan felt cold fingers grasp his spine and squeeze tightly. “No…”

  Mockery bled from her words. There is nothing for you Beyond this place. You have been chosen to serve, and serve you shall.

  What ripped from Talan’s throat was something between a roar and a shriek of anguish. The Queen’s words collided in his mind and shattered in jagged, glittering shards. His knees tottered, his muscles turned to water as he desperately sought something to counter the slide to oblivion, to the undeniable assurances that she so casually related.

  He felt it within, the flickering blaze that she had tried to extinguish, tried to smother with her flood of oppression. He let the hatred blaze once more and fill his veins with fire. When he raised his head, he felt her shrink back from his gaze.

  “You will not break me. Your Gigeron are slain, yet I live. They fear me because of this.” He raised Muse before him; it shimmered almost blindingly. “You fear me because of this!”

  The Queen shrieked in rage. Talan felt something slam into him, solid as bricks yet invisible as air. His breath exploded from his lungs as he was crushed against the rainbow-hued wall and held as though by a giant fist. Muse fell from his hand and clattered uselessly on the ground.

  Foolish boy. Did you truly believe that your makeshift control of the Focus would allow you to best me? I can do things that your feeble mind cannot even begin to fathom. You will become my slave, bonded to me mind and soul. You will be my prize possession, my most valuable servant, after I instruct you in lessons of pain.

  His body twisted unnaturally, wracked by agony as though rusty daggers stabbed into him again and again. As he writhed in the unseen grip, the Queen’s voice laced razor wire across his mind.

  Youwillobeyyouwillobeyyouwillobeyyouwillobeyyouwillobeyyouwillobey…

  Talan howled with laughter.

  What is wrong with you, boy? In his head he could hear her astonishment. Have you already lost your mind to madness?

  “Don’t you see?” He grinned fiercely through the haze of torment. “There’s… nothing more… you can…do to me. I am… beyond your… pain. Nothing can hurt me anymore than I’ve already been hurt. You are… powerless!”

  He Focused, and the force that pinned him dissipated. Muse hummed and flew to his hand as he landed.

  “It is time,” he said. “Time you saw the end of your days.”

  He flew. Up the petrified mound he raced as the Queen shrieked in outrage. Muse sizzled and slashed the glaze of regurgitated mineral; it cracked and split apart, exposing the thousand withered, wriggling legs. Eggs and larvae spilled across the floor, and her shrieks grew louder until the sound filled the entire chamber. Her scream still lingered even after Muse severed her head from her body. The terrible sound ceased only when the monstrous head shattered like brittle pottery against the flagstones.

  Talan landed lightly beside it. For a moment he gazed upon the hideous monument before he called to the fire that waited impatiently outside. It rippled into the chamber, licking up the eggs and larvae that writhed agonizingly as the flames devoured them. The Queen’s corpse cracked and popped like the driest, most flammable wood. Talan stepped out of the chamber as it erupted into a sizzling inferno.

  The children still battled the last huddle of Gigeron. He lifted his hand with a weary sigh. The same force the Queen had used on him flattened the knobby creatures; they shattered against the walls before they could utter their death cries. Talan walked over to examine who it was the children had fought so hard to protect. What he saw almost caused his heart to shatter in its cage.

  The body that that was strewn across the rubble was Skye.

  Chapter 7 –Pyrrhic Victory

  She was limp and broken, a doll trampled and discarded by a vindictive child. Numbly, Talan gathered her in his arms. He trapped the sob that swelled in his chest, held it fluttering helplessly inside. It was too late for tears, too late for regrets. All of his rage, all of his vengeance washed away in the face of his sorrow. He had destroyed the Queen, yet her mocking laughter still rang in his mind.

  Even in death, she still defeated him.

  “We tried to stop them,” one of the dirty-faced children said. Tears carved tracks down his cheeks. “They were too strong for us.”

  “It’s not your fault,” Talan said, his voice hoarse. “The fault is my own.” Skye felt light as a bag full of broken feathers, and he wanted to howl until his voice shattered. Instead he gazed at the throngs of children that had gathered around. There were more than he had allowed himself to see; row upon row of anxious eyes stared at him, forbidden hope flickering in their wide, haunted eyes. They were his responsibility now. His burden.

  His treasure.

  “We leave this place.”

  The ascent was long and laborious, but the taste of freedom gave them fuel that strengthened their limbs, boosting them up the jagged stairs, up out of the pit of shackles and broken spirits. At last they rose from the depths, blinded by a brilliance that some of them had forgotten existed, something that shimmered like the brightest of jewels.

  Daylight.

  They spilled into the banquet hall, where they interrupted the Faelon in the midst of their dancing and feasting. The cherubic creatures cowered and shrank back in terror from the swarm of dirty, tattered children led by a blood-spattered demigod cradling a body in one arm, and in his fist a sword that shone like the sun.

  The Faelon fled, taking to skies and dashing out the doors, overturning tables and scattering bejeweled goblets of food and drink in their haste. Talan let them run, though in his heart he wanted to slay all of them, to shave off their wings and hear their screams gurgle in their throats.

  But his vengeance was spent, his hatred tempered by the price he carried in his arms.

  He walked with eyes straight ahead, ignoring the overflowing tables of delicacies, the tainted spoils of the Faelon as he led his people to the walls of the city.

  He lifted Muse and Focused. The walls groaned in protest, but yielded to his command, glittering curtains of stone that parted before him. The children raced past, out beyond the city where the colors were faded and the air thick with the smell of redwood giants. Talan came last, carrying Skye. The walls of Albriktan sealed behind them, cutting off the view of the Faelon who huddled far back, watching with terrified eyes.

  Talan turned, and his breath caught.

  For his Focused eyes saw the face of the City; the dull, cracked and ashen walls, the fractured and ruined edifices, the blasted spires. Red, throbbing veins laced the seams; blood vessels with probing electric eyes that pierced flesh and marrow, and sighs of oppression that shuddered the buildings with every gust of the wind.

  Talan lifted Muse before his face and Focused every ounce of feeling he had inside, all the grief and despair and hatred until the sword effused so brilliantly that light was all that existed. He hurled the blade with all of his strength.

  It span through the air, humming a hymn of loss and vengeance and redemption. It flashed even brighter as it struck the heart of the City with the brilliance of a thousand lightnings.

  The scream of the City was almost human as the glass cracked and splintered until the tallest spire fractured; then Albriktan collapsed in glittering shards. It reverberated, a shattered crystal bell that folded upon itself, tumbling into the hive of hollowed foundation that the children had carved for so long.

  As the children shouted and
cheered, Talan gently laid the body of Skye upon a bed of grass and smoothed her hair from her face. Something grazed down his cheek and spattered across her brow. The tears that he thought had burned out so long ago flooded from his eyes.

  The heavens wept along with him, rain streaming from broken clouds as if sharing in his grief. The rain fell gently, until the dirt was washed from Skye’s face and her seraphic features were cleansed entirely. Talan wept a sea of tears; for innocence lost, for torment and pain, for hatred’s vice on his heart, for the blood he had shed.

  But most of all, he wept for Skye.

  Chapter 8 –The Vow

  The rain ceased only when the Talan’s grief abated, and the tears no longer fell. He closed his eyes, focused on the memories of her alive as though somehow he could will her back into existence. But when he opened his eyes, she lay still and lifeless as before.

  “So the boy has returned,” a familiar voice said. “Foolish no longer, I see. A strong, courageous warrior boy now.”

  A man clad in layered shades of gray strode from the forest, a grizzled wolf at his side. It was the same creature as the fox and the lizard. Talan knew, though he couldn’t say how. What were their names? He frowned in concentration.

  Reynar. Reynar and Ash.

  Talan stood. “You. You deceived me. You knew I would be captured inside the city.”

  “I tricked you?” Reynar raised an eyebrow. “I warned you not to go inside, did I not?”

  “Yes, but…” Talan blinked. “…you left the key.”

  “The key fell from the tree, young Talan. You were the one who picked it up.”

  “But…” Talan fell silent, confused. “Why did you tell me of treasure when you knew I would try to seek it?”

  “I knew that you might try. The future is not open to me, nor the intentions of the heart. I can only surmise–nothing more. Indeed there was a treasure to be found.” He gestured to the crowds of children. “And so you have brought them out.”

  Talan frowned, feeling anger flicker in his heart. “If they are so precious to you, why did you not rescue them?”

  Rain clouds gathered in Reynar’s eyes. “The gate was too small for me, Talan, and their walls unable to be scaled. Their defenses were unlike any man has encountered. I could have gathered an army and laid siege to the city, true, but they would have destroyed the children before surrendering them. They swore that many time when I tried to treat with them. No, lad, the rescue could only come from the inside. You have gone through many pains to come through triumphant. For that, I am sorry.”

  Talan looked around. “Where are we? Where is the town?”

  “It is gone, Talan.” Reynar’s gaze was saddened. “When you entered the city, you entered a realm where time moved differently. That is why the children never aged, no matter how long they had been held captive.”

  He gazed at their surroundings. “The town where you dwelled has long been devoured. They knew, you see. They made the Pact, that in exchange for the leisure and ease of living, their firstborn children would be sent to serve the Faelon. Some were deluded, thinking they sent their children to a better life, yet that did not excuse their betrayal. And they paid the price, for when their resources were spent, they wasted away as the City moved on. A fate they deserved, no doubt.”

  Talan turned away as the tears fell unchecked. Skye lay at his feet, cold and still.

  “Can you… do something for her?”

  Sorrow graced Reynar’s face when he looked at her. “Death is beyond my reach, Talan. I am sorry.”

  Talan nodded, almost choking on a sob. “It was my fault. I chose to fight the Queen when I could have saved Skye. He placed a hand over his face. “I could have saved her. I would do anything to have that moment back.”

  Reynar laid a gentle hand upon his shoulder. “You must not destroy yourself over what you cannot undo. Skye is gone, but the other children live. You are the one who brought them out. Now you have the chance to live a life for yourself. I cannot say how your captivity has changed you. That you must find out for yourself. Your life is your own, now. I leave you to it, young Talan.” He turned toward the forest, the wolf at his heels.

  “Wait,” Talan said.

  Reynar paused.

  “What must I do?”

  “Watch over the children, Talan. They are your people, now. Find the color that was once in your eyes. Dream of what was lost, but be content in the present. Bury Skye, but never forget the sound of her voice. Live, Talan. Live, and be at peace.”

  Reynar’s voice floated from the shadows of the wood. The man himself vanished like mist.

  Talan turned and beheld the crowd of children who looked to him with the future in their faces. He realized that Reynar spoke the simple truth. They would have to be looked after. He was the only one they had.

  They helped him bury Skye on a hilltop, planting an apple sapling as a marker where the wind rustled the grasses. Talan stood there a long after they departed, remembering the shimmering blue of her eyes, the comforting softness of her touch.

  “I’ll come back for you.” He knew how hollow his words were, but his voice hardened with resolve. “I’ll come back for you. Whatever powers I have… I will master them. I’ll use them to change our fate. To change what happened to you. I swear it by the sun above, Skye.

  “I swear I won’t let it end like this.”

  He turned away to where his people waited and led them away. To the lands by the Sea they traveled, far away from Skye’s burial mound where only sorrow lingered. In time orchards of apples were all that remained of the great and terrible city of Albriktan.

  Somewhere in those groves of fruit-bearing trees Muse patiently waited, whispering future tragedies to the wind until Talan’s inevitable return.

  More By the Bard

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  About the Author

  Bard Constantine was found in a wicker basket by a blind samurai who trained him in the ways of honor and mart
ial arts expertise. After wandering the earth for wisdom and saving many lives, Bard settled down in the USA and fought for the disadvantaged while posing under the cover of a fiction writer. In time writing became second nature to him and he decided to pursue it on a more earnest basis. When not fighting for truth and justice, he can be found in his fortress of solitude tapping away on his laptop, churning out tales of gritty futures and far-flung fantasy for your enjoyment.

  Some of the above may be exaggeration or outright lies, but Bard prefers to call it ‘storytelling’. More info can be found at his official website, http://bardwritesbooks.com