A Clash of Fates

by Philip C. Quaintrell

  The king had enjoyed every minute of his time with Inara since her return to Illian, but it had been all too brief. Fate continued to intervene and find some new way of separating them. There was a growing part of him that feared the war would rob one of the other before the end.

  “You are watching for her too,” came Reyna’s distinct voice. It was melodic and soft and drew the northman’s attention to his side, where she had quietly joined him.

  “I have been watching for her all my life,” he replied dryly. “Why should I stop now?”

  Reyna glanced up at him before returning her emerald eyes to the plains. “I am sorry to have seen Gideon and the others set off without you. Time is against us.”

  Vighon considered looking down at the elf, who had been like a mother to him, but he couldn’t deny the sting of being left out of such a pivotal discussion, especially when it resulted in The Rebellion losing a dragon. Instead, he kept his gaze distant and said, “I have spoken with Asher.” His response turned the queen’s head. “I know this weapon they have gone to retrieve offers Alijah some kind of redemption. Or, at least, that’s what you’re hoping for.” As Reyna made to speak, the king continued. “I would have sanctioned such a mission,” he clarified. “Though I realise neither you nor I command the likes of Gideon Thorn and certainly not Ilargo. But I would not have objected.”

  Reyna took a moment of contemplation. “Inara would have,” she remarked.

  “You’re not wrong,” he replied, well aware of her feelings, or lack thereof, where her brother was concerned.

  “I thought,” the queen pursued, her sight moving away, “given everything he’s done to you - taken from you - that you would want to see Alijah dead.”

  Vighon swallowed. “I would be lying to you if I said I hadn’t dreamt of killing him. Many times. I would settle for Malliath’s head,” he continued. “But I could live with Alijah in chains.” His last comment had the queen’s head whipping around to look up at him again.

  “In chains?” she echoed, her tone incapable of disguising her dismay.

  Vighon met her gaze. “What else?” he asked. “His crimes against the realm demand punishment. Chains and a locked cell are the best I can do. And I will face opposition from those who want a more… permanent punishment.” Reyna looked away but the wind could not steal the stray tear from her cheek before the northman noticed. “What had you desired?” he enquired softly.

  “The fancies of a hopeless mother I suppose,” she muttered. “I had dared to dream, should he be made to see sense, that I could take him back to Ayda. Without Malliath…” Her voice faltered before she found her courage. “Without Malliath he will be mortal again. I know it is more than he deserves, but I would have liked for my son to spend his final years among the trees of The Amara. A simpler life.”

  Vighon recalled, with painful clarity, the young man Alijah Galfrey had once been. “I’m not sure even he would allow that. If he truly saw himself for the monster he has become, I think he would want to be locked away. Perhaps worse.”

  Reyna’s shoulders sagged and her head dipped down to her chest. Vighon didn’t hesitate to reach out and pull her into his embrace before more tears streaked down her face. He was sure to keep his back to the camp, concealing their moment.

  The king’s shoulders bobbed with a silent chuckle. “What are we doing talking about the future? Has there ever been a more uncertain thing? The realm of magic is crumbling to ash and our enemy has but to wait it out. If we lose the dragons our fight is over. Then it will be us in chains… or worse.”

  Reyna pulled back from his chest, her beautiful eyes marred with redness. “There will be a future for us all. Illian has never known a better king than you. I am so proud of the man you have become. I weep because I know you will find victory and it will come at the cost of my…” Unable to finish her words, the queen patted his chest. “You have overcome more than any king could bear. And with Inara by your side, there is nothing the two of you will not accomplish together. Your fates have been entwined since you were children: that much I have always known.”

  Vighon squeezed her hand. “So much of who I am is because of you and Nathaniel. I owe you both everything.”

  Reyna finally managed a smile. “You owe us nothing,” she insisted. “You are the man you were always meant to be.”

  The northman took her kind words as best he could, sparing a glance at the distant plains. “How is Nathaniel settling into his new title?” he asked, naturally thinking of the man he had long measured himself against.

  “He hates it,” Reyna replied with a degree of amusement.

  Vighon enjoyed her lighter tone. “Wearing a crown is never what you expect. You think the whole world is yours and you can do what you like with it, but it’s quite the opposite. Your world is small. Your every step is watched. Your every word written down. It will take some adjustment on Nathaniel’s part. I suppose he never considered the possibility of being a king.” The northman noted his companion’s pensive expression. “You miss her,” he surmised, without saying Adilandra’s name.

  Reyna slowly nodded. “Growing up, my mother often told me the qualities required of a queen, more so than those required of a princess, as I was. I would always tell her how little it mattered when she would be queen for all time. I can see her face now, as if I was back there with her. She knew. Somewhere deep down, she always knew. My mother was a better student of history than me - she knew there had never been a queen for all time. I should have listened to her lessons,” Reyna lamented. “I just never thought she wouldn’t be here.”

  “You are already a good queen,” Vighon reassured. “You have had the respect of your people and mine for many years. Nathaniel too. My own deeds as king pale in comparison to what you have already accomplished for both Illian and Ayda.”

  “In this future you doubt is to come,” Reyna suggested, “we will have to be more than good kings and queens. Ours is an alliance of two shores. The realm is going to need piecing back together, on both sides of The Adean.”

  “If only it were just Illian and Ayda,” Vighon contemplated. “Erador will fall into war without Alijah and his Reavers to keep order. We cannot ignore our neighbour.”

  The queen made to speak on the matter when her gaze shifted away from the northman and down the eastern line of the camp. Vighon turned to see Faylen and Captain Nemir astride a pair of galloping horses. They broke away from the camp and crossed the plain to join them.

  “Why do I have a bad feeling?” the king pondered.

  “I share it,” Reyna replied, stepping away from him to greet her High Guardian. “You have news, Faylen.”

  Their horses came within feet of the king and queen, though Faylen was already leaving her saddle behind before the mounts came to a complete halt. “Your Graces,” she began with a quick bow of the head. “Word from our scouts in the east: Reavers are departing Whistle Town and Galosha.”

  “Departing?” Reyna queried.

  Faylen clarified, “They have been sighted on mounts of their own ilk, all heading west, towards us.”

  Vighon felt his jaw tense. “Galosha is a large city - there must be hundreds of Reavers stationed there. Any word from the scouts in the south?” he asked, concerned they would be attacked on more than one front.

  “We didn’t have the numbers to set up a relay line of scouts to the south,” Captain Nemir told him. “We have heard nothing from those dispatched.”

  “We were wrong to assume Alijah intended to wait this calamity out,” Faylen continued. “He means to press the attack while we care for so many wounded.”

  “That makes no sense,” Reyna reasoned. “If he meant to destroy us he would have stayed and done so.”

  Vighon turned away, his gaze fixing on the north once more. He couldn’t hide his concern from the woman who had all but raised him.

  “You think Alijah knows of our plan?” the queen concluded from his expression alone.

  “If he does,�
� Vighon replied, “he could only have learned of it from Inara and the others.”

  “I’m sure they remain unharmed,” Faylen offered. “They have Athis with them.”

  “Unlike us,” Nemir countered. “We have enemy forces advancing on our position and now we have no dragons to assist us.”

  Vighon cast his eyes over the sprawling camp, all the while his grip tightened around the sword of the north. Only the dead would dare to face an army - even half an army - comprised of elves, dwarves, humans, and Centaurs. But it was the dead they faced, and the dead feared nothing.

  “Who among them isn’t hungry?” Captain Nemir continued, having followed the king’s sight. “These freezing winds are enough to take the fight out of anyone, never mind empty stomachs and aching wounds. Between the cold and our dwindling rations, this rebellion is a pale shadow of what it was only days ago.”

  Vighon knew the elven warrior was voicing their collective fears, but he didn’t need to hear it now. “Fight or die,” he told the captain, his tone full of foreboding. “That has never changed and I see no reason why it should now. We will rouse any and all among us who can hold the line, and we will hold the line. My men have not seen battle and nor have I; we will defend from the front.” The king raised his hand and beckoned one of the guards keeping watching over him from afar. The Namdhorian only looked too happy to get away from Sir Borin, who stood sentinel beside him.

  Reyna glanced at the pit, on the other side of the battlefield. “We should focus our defence around the doorway. We have to secure passage for the Drakes.”

  Vighon faced the Namdhorian soldier who quickly approached. “Find Captain Dardaris and have him inform Commander Rolgoth of the Battleborns that I must speak with him immediately.” The soldier bowed his head before running back to the camp with his orders.

  The queen issued commands to Faylen and Nemir, sending them out to spread the word. “Even if Alijah has emptied Whistle Town and Galosha,” she said, watching them ride away, “the number of Reavers will be in the hundreds, not thousands. We can face that.”

  “We have to,” Vighon said boldly. “The future of the realm depends on us saving that tree.” He lifted the sword of the north halfway out of its scabbard, dismayed by the absence of the flames that had always licked at the silvyr. “We cannot count on magic in this fight.”

  “Inara and the Drakes may yet return before the Reavers arrive,” Reyna pointed out. “Then we will have magic and a dragon.”

  There was a voice in the back of the northman’s mind and it was not so quiet in speaking its fears. He considered the strong possibility that the Drakes wouldn’t help them. And, if they did, there was no guarantee that they would heal the tree with their sacrifice, their deaths only adding to the great loss.

  The king sighed. “Then pray that they return with all haste.”

  Reyna turned to him, her own fears laid bare. “Pray to what?” she wondered.

  Vighon looked up at the sky and narrowed his eyes. “To whatever keeps testing us.”

  40

  Out of Time

  Three days after arriving in The Evermoore, Kassian Kantaris could feel what precious time they had slipping through his fingers as the realm of magic collapsed on itself. After the sun had set and the moon held sway over the night, the Keeper had begun to weather a sense of panic, fearing they would be too late.

  As the hours and days had pushed on, more and more Drakes had arrived, filling the clearing and spilling out between the trees. As their silent presence grew, so too did their calming aura swell. They stood motionless, like the trees around them. Every one of them was touching another, their outstretched hands creating a web that spread beyond sight.

  As Kassian walked among them, ducking under their arms and weaving between the trees, his fascination was beginning to get the better of him. It was clear to see that the Drakes possessed a form of communication that required no more than physical contact. The inquisitive mage that had always dwelled within him was curious to experience it for himself, and see if it worked on other races.

  Presented with a tall male Drake, his horns thick and dark against his pale skin, Kassian removed one of his gloves and held up a hesitant hand towards his bare shoulder. At the last second, his fingers curled in and he retracted his hand until he was sure the Drake’s eyes were closed, like all the others. Confident he remained unobserved by any of them, the Keeper held out his hand again.

  This time, he gripped the Drake’s shoulder.

  The shadowy Evermoore dropped away as he was sucked from reality and consumed by streaking stars. He was moving faster than anything he had ever seen yet he couldn’t feel an ounce of resistance against his skin. His final destination was an indefinable place of colour and sound. Only his consciousness inhabited this new plane of existence. That was until the voices filled the space. So many voices. They all spoke at once, yet Kassian was able to understand them all.

  “The realm of magic is dying.” Adan’s familiar voice was the strongest among them, his words looped on endless repeat. “The tree is burning,” he continued. “If that realm falls, so too will this one.”

  Kassian was bombarded with sights and sounds from Adan’Karth’s memory as he showed every Drake what he had witnessed in the realm of magic.

  “It is not our place to save or protect the realm,” another Drake replied. The smallest amount of focus from Kassian revealed the Drake’s name to be Laga’Thak. The Keeper knew that if he delved a little deeper he would see all of her memories too.

  He withdrew, however, when he heard the voices of five others say, “You have been corrupted by their ways.”

  “Ours is not a path of violence,” another added.

  “Listen to him,” Laga’Thak’s voice insisted, opposing her own previous comment.

  “What do you propose?” another female voice asked.

  “It would be a peaceful existence,” a gentle male voice opined, as if they already had the answer.

  Kassian listened a while longer, lost to it all, until he finally understood why their collective discussion made no sense to him.

  They were all speaking out of time.

  For those who were just joining the extraordinary forum, the conversation was in its infancy, even though others had been talking for days. Some, it seemed, were nearing the end, having heard and seen what happened to Adan’s hand when he touched the tree. While Kassian knew it was Adan’Karth’s plan to become one with the tree, adding his magic to it, he could sense that many of the Drakes were coming to that same conclusion before he explained it. He took that as a good sign.

  The whole experience was maddening to the Keeper, whose human mind was struggling to inhabit an environment that didn’t adhere to a linear construct.

  “There is life in the tree,” Adan was saying, his words overlapping his older ones. “But what life could we expect if we do nothing? The tree would surely perish and with it our magic. Without magic, would we not be forced to live as humans? To defend ourselves like humans? We would descend into madness and violence. If we save the tree, we do not just save ourselves, but everything else too.”

  “We will die if we do nothing,” a deeper male voice added to the collective. “The essence of dragon flows through us like water courses through a valley. Without magic, I believe we would simply die and become one with the forest.”

  “We don’t know that,” another Drake countered.

  “We could live,” Laga’Thak said, her opposing comment nearly two days old.

  “We could survive,” a softer voice put forward.

  “We do not live to merely survive,” Laga’Thak replied, though her response was very recent now, contradicting her earlier opinions. “We live to be in harmony with magic.”

  Adan’Karth’s voice pushed through the ether. “Could we really live with ourselves knowing we could have done something, but chose to do nothing?”

  Laga’Thak made to respond when her consciousness turned on Kassian. Th
e Drake poured her mind into his and saw all that he was and all that he had been. “You do not belong here,” she said simply.

  Before the Keeper could respond, his presence was ejected. His mind felt like it was slammed back into his body and with it a wave of nausea assaulted him. He staggered away from the tall Drake he had been touching and leaned against the nearest tree. After succeeding to keep his stomach in check, he straightened up and became aware of the freezing cold again. How long had he been standing still for, his muscles idle?

  Working his way back to the clearing, the centre of the Drake-web, Kassian discovered that Adan’Karth was still at the heart of it all. He had been standing on that spot for two days, never once pausing to eat or drink the supplies Inara had brought back from Vangarth. A quick count informed the Keeper that seven other Drakes were currently touching Adan and each of them was being touched by three more and so on.

  Just the sight of them made Kassian feel weary. He returned to the small fire of his makeshift camp, nestled between the Drakes. It took more time than he would have liked to warm up again, though he was hesitant to define it as warm. He decided he was simply less cold than before. At least, he thought, his appetite was coming back.

  While consuming his flat bread and cold sausage, the Keeper heard a pair of feet crunching through the snow. This wasn’t unusual and didn’t give him pause, as Drakes had been appearing at all times of day. When the footsteps grew closer, however, he had cause to look over his shoulder.

  Inara Galfrey.

  Her red cloak was dark in the firelight of her torch. Kassian only needed a quick look at her face to know that she hadn’t found restful sleep in days, if any sleep at all. He was thankful to see her though. Besides the calm emanating from the Drakes, there was an eerie silence that permeated the forest from dawn till dusk that made him feel isolated. He also liked the food she brought him.

  “Please tell me you stopped by a bakery on your way here,” he pleaded in a hushed tone.