“Sir Tyrcamber,” said Rilmael, and there was a deep weariness in his voice. Like he had just seen a tragedy that he had seen many times before and knew he would see many times again. “I am sorry.”
Tyrcamber managed to find his voice. “Kill me. Please. Please.” The words coming from his mouth sounded rough, distorted, probably because of the fangs jutting from his lips. Even the act of speaking sent pain through him as the fangs sliced into his lips and cheeks.
“I can, yes,” said Rilmael. “And I shall if that is what you choose. But there may be another way.”
Tyrcamber stared at him, suddenly angry that the Guardian would dangle hope in front of him at such a moment.
“What?” rasped Tyrcamber.
“There may be a way,” said Rilmael. “A path that neither ends in your death nor in the destruction of the Empire. As unlikely as it seems now. I think you may have the strength to walk that path. But I will not lie to you. There will be pain. Pain such as few among mankind have ever experienced. With the time we have left, I cannot possibly describe what you will face. In your scriptures, the trials of Job would seem like an unpleasant afternoon by comparison. But if you walk this path, there may be hope.” He paused, silver eyes unblinking. Even in the grips of his torment, Tyrcamber felt the age and weight of those eyes and the ancient mind behind them. “Yet it is your choice. If you wish, I will slay you now, and you will be spared this trial. But you must choose now.”
Tyrcamber almost told the Guardian to kill him. The pain had redoubled while the Guardian was speaking, and Tyrcamber wanted to fall to the ground and scream, except he didn’t have the strength for it. And he knew it would only get worse. He couldn’t resist the transformation of the Malison ripping its way through him, and once it finished, he would not be able to refuse the Valedictor’s mighty song. The only thing to do, the sensible thing to do was to let the Guardian kill him right now.
And yet…
Something within Tyrcamber snarled at the thought of dying. And the Guardian had warned him. Rilmael had said that his decisions might alter the fate of the Empire. Tyrcamber was a knight of the Order of Embers. His duty was to defend the Empire, even if the Empire seemed about to fall. If there was a way, any possible way, he could yet help defend the Empire, then he had no choice but to take it.
No matter what it cost.
And when Tyrcamber looked into Rilmael’s silver eyes, he felt the cost would be immense indeed.
Tyrcamber forced the words through his burning throat. “I…I will do it. The hard path. If there is a way…if there is a way that I can stop all this…” He jerked his head at the shattered gate and the vast army surging towards Sinderost. “Then I have the duty. I must.”
“So be it,” said Rilmael.
The words seemed to carry a heavy finality to them, like a priest saying the final words of internment over a burial.
Or a carpenter driving the final nails into a coffin.
“Then let us move at once,” said Rilmael, jamming his sword into its scabbard without cleaning off the goblin blood first. “This will feel a little strange, Sir Tyrcamber.”
Tyrcamber tried to say that he couldn’t feel worse than he already did, but he only managed a violent, racking cough. He spat out a mouthful of blood upon the flagstones, and he saw that the blood was glowing with golden light.
Rilmael’s hand closed about his shoulder, and the Guardian cast a spell.
The world ripped apart around Tyrcamber, and he screamed.
He felt as if he had been ripped into a thousand pieces while simultaneously falling through a bottomless pit. The sensation could not have lasted no more than a second, yet it seemed to rake at him for a thousand years.
Then it ended, and Tyrcamber let out a cry that turned into a cough, more blood falling from his mouth.
Except this time, he spat the blood onto green grass, not flagstones.
The racking cough passed, and Tyrcamber looked up and blinked, baffled despite his agony.
He was no longer in Sinderost, and the silence after the roar of the battle was shocking.
Come to think of it, Tyrcamber had no idea where he was.
He knelt on a grassy, stony hill, the sky fire a sheet of writhing yellow-orange flame overhead. To his right, he saw more rocky hills, their sides cloaked in long grasses. Atop some of the hills stood structures built of the white stone the cloak elves used in their construction, towers and houses and colonnades, all of them ancient and crumbling. To his left, Tyrcamber saw a vast expanse of rippling water, the sky fire reflecting in its surface, and the smell of salt filled his nostrils.
“The ocean?” he croaked. “Where…where are we?”
“Guardian’s Isle,” said Rilmael. He stooped and helped Tyrcamber to stand. Bits and pieces of Tyrcamber’s clothing and armor fell to the ground, wisps of smoke rising from them. More golden blood dripped from Tyrcamber’s body. “My home.”
“Your home?” said Tyrcamber. Rilmael urged him forward, and Tyrcamber half-walked, half-stumbled, leaning on the Guardian for support. His boots disintegrated, and his clawed feet ripped at the turf. He glanced at his feet and was horrified to see that patches of his skin had burned away to reveal hard golden scales. “I thought…wasn’t Cathair Kaldran your home?”
“I am the Guardian of Cathair Kaldran,” said Rilmael. That familiar dry note entered his voice. “That doesn’t mean I am necessarily welcome there. The council that governs the cloak elves has not always appreciated my advice. Few people know of this island. We are west of Mourdrech but east of Roxaria.”
“I…never heard of this place,” said Tyrcamber. They headed towards a tall hill that overlooked the ocean. A single slender white tower rose from its crown. “I thought the xiatami would have conquered this island.”
“They would,” said Rilmael, “but my magic discourages visitors. Hurry. We don’t have much time.”
Tyrcamber stared to answer, and then another spasm of agony seized him. He stumbled, and he heard a metallic scream from his back. Rilmael seized his arm, helping him to stay upright, and Tyrcamber shot a glance over his shoulder.
Gleaming bony spikes had risen from his back, ripping through his armor and clothing. He had seen similar rows of spines on the backs of dragons before.
“Come!” said Rilmael. “We must hasten.” He guided Tyrcamber up the stony hill, more pieces of ruined armor and clothing falling away as waves of pain rolled through him. The door at the foot of the tower was open, and Rilmael led him inside.
Tyrcamber found himself in a large cylindrical chamber, the walls built of white stone, the floor of polished green marble. The claws at the end of his toes tapped against the floor as he stumbled inside. Interlocking rings of magical symbols had been carved into the floor, and niches lined the round walls. And inside the niches…
Tyrcamber froze in horror, staring at the niches.
At the back of every niche was a mirror the size of a large doorway, and in those mirrors, he could see the hideous nightmare that he had become in the last few moments.
The transformation was well underway, and the bulging distortions in his limbs and torso had ripped away his clothing and torn apart his armor, leaving him naked. Tyrcamber stood a good two feet taller now, almost as tall as an ogre. Enormous patches of his skin had torn open or burned away, revealing golden scales that looked like metal. Black talons jutted from his fingers and toes, and black spikes from his spine. His jaws had jutted out, filling with white fangs. Golden fire blazed in his eyes and shone in his veins like some sort of hellish map.
“Where?” croaked Tyrcamber. “Where are we?”
“The Chamber of the Sight. It is time,” said Rilmael.
Tyrcamber tried to ask another question, but only a horrid growling noise came from his mouth.
His jaws had changed too much for him to shape words.
Another wave of pain rolled through him, and he screamed and fell to his knees. In the mirrors, the golden fire in his
eyes and veins blazed brighter, and Tyrcamber felt his mind lose its grip on itself. The final transformation was taking hold. Tyrcamber screamed for Rilmael to kill him, to strike him down before it was too late, but his throat could only make roaring noises.
The golden fire flashed through the chamber, blinding him.
When it cleared, his humanity was gone.
His body felt like a prison of alien flesh, and in the mirrors, he saw what he had become.
An immense dragon, fifty feet long from snout to tail, great black wings furled upon his back. The jaws in his elongated skull could bite a man in half without difficulty, and his scales were like armor, his talons like daggers. Tyrcamber felt the horrible fire burning with him, and he knew he could unleash it at will.
And the Valedictor’s song thundered through his skull, so loud that it overwhelmed Tyrcamber’s mind.
He felt it dominate him, felt its iron fingers sink into his brain. Tyrcamber turned, and he saw Rilmael staring at him, horror in the Guardian’s expression. The song of the Valedictor carried no words, but words were not needed. The Guardian was an enemy of the Valedictor.
The Guardian had to be destroyed.
Rilmael stepped back and started to cast a spell. Tyrcamber intended to remain motionless, to let the Guardian kill him. He had become a monster, and the world would be better off without him. The only way to escape was to let the Guardian strike him down.
But the song of the Valedictor compelled him, and Tyrcamber moved with the speed of lightning.
His tail cracked like a whip, and it struck the Guardian in the chest. The force of the impact threw Rilmael across the chamber, and he struck the wall with enough force that Tyrcamber heard bones break. Rilmael slumped to the floor, stunned, and Tyrcamber turned his head, opened his jaws, and unleashed his fire.
The blast of flame engulfed Rilmael. Tyrcamber just had time to hear Rilmael scream, and then the roar of the flames drowned out everything else.
When the fire cleared, the white wall of the Chamber of the Sight had been stained black. The twisted, smoking husk that had been Rilmael, the Guardian of Cathair Animus, lay slumped against the wall, smoke pouring off his limbs.
Tyrcamber had just killed his friend.
***
Chapter 5: Dragon Fire
Tyrcamber tried to scream, but only a dragon’s furious roar came from his jaws.
Rilmael had been the Guardian for far longer than the Empire had existed, had guided and counseled every Emperor since Sinderost had been founded. He had taught the Seven Spells to the men of the Empire, and if not for his aid, humanity would have destroyed itself or succumbed to the Malison. He had been Rilmael’s friend, and his advice had helped Tyrcamber survive the fights at Tongur and Tamisa and Falconberg.
And now Tyrcamber had just murdered him.
He would have killed himself if he could have just found a way.
But the Valedictor’s song filled him like thunder and fire, and he could not resist it, no more than he could have ordered his heart to stop beating. And that terrible song commanded him to come to the dark elven lord’s side, to serve his true master.
Tyrcamber turned towards the door, his claws rasping against the floor. He was now too large to fit through the door, but that didn’t matter. He breathed fire at the archway until it glowed and began to drip like a candle, and he smashed his way through. The molten stone felt like rain against his scales. Tyrcamber tried to turn back, tried to think of a way to at least bury Rilmael’s charred corpse, but the song drove him on.
He ran on all fours to the bluff at the edge of the island and leaped, his black wings unfurling behind him. Both his vast wings and the fire burning within him propelled Tyrcamber with terrific speed, and he hurtled to the north, flying between the sea and the sky fire.
A few hours later he came to the southern Empire, flying over the River Bellex where it flowed into the sea, marking the boundary between the duchies of Roxaria and Talgothica. Tyrcamber fought within the prison of his body, trying to crash into the water, or at least into the ground. If he hit hard enough, the impact would kill him.
But the Valedictor’s song compelled him onward, almost as if iron hooks had been driven into his skull and pulled him northward.
His flight carried him north, and soon he flew over the city of Sinderost. The New City was nothing but ashes and stone shells of houses and churches, and the Valedictor’s host poured through the shattered gate. Tyrcamber saw that the assault across the river had been successful, that the Valedictor’s host had crossed the River Bellex and claimed the eastern walls. The shattered defenders had withdrawn into the Old City, but Tyrcamber didn’t think they could hold. One massive attack from the Valedictor’s host and the city would fall. The Valedictor would be in a superb position to repel the host of the western Dukes, and they might not even attempt the crossing. Without the Emperor to lead them, the Dukes would turn on each other, and the Valedictor would destroy them one by one.
The Empire was dead. It had died a few hours ago. It would just take a few years for the corpse to stop moving…and for the Valedictor to finish enslaving humanity.
Tyrcamber tried to turn for the Old City, to join the defenders fighting to hold the Imperial capital. But he could not resist the Valedictor’s song. He flew over Sinderost and then began circling down. He saw the goblins and the ogres and the muridachs staring up at him with wary curiosity. They were cautious, but they were not afraid. They knew their lord was the heir to the Dragon Imperator, that he would command any dragons who had drawn this close.
He landed forty yards from the Valedictor and his great black dragon, his claws gripping at the turf. The black dragon’s head turned to stare at him, and Tyrcamber felt the hate radiating from the glowing golden eyes. Somehow Tyrcamber knew that the dragon had once been human, but like him, it had succumbed to the curse of the Malison. And unlike Tyrcamber, it had happened centuries ago. The long years of enslavement had driven the dragon mad, destroying whatever remnants of sanity it still possessed.
Maybe that would be Tyrcamber’s fate if he lived long enough.
The Valedictor gazed at him, and Tyrcamber felt the full power of the dark elven lord’s will pour into his magic-corrupted body. Perhaps a rabbit caught in the gaze of a hawk felt this way. If Tyrcamber had fought for a thousand years with every ounce of strength he possessed, he could not have resisted that terrible will.
“Well,” said the Valedictor in his deep voice, both musical and terrible. “What have we here?”
He gestured and levitated himself from the back of his black dragon, his dark cloak swirling around him. His blue armor clanked a little when his boots touched the earth. The Valedictor strode towards Tyrcamber, and a dozen armored ogres fell in around him like bodyguards. A dozen lesser dark elves and umbral elves followed the ogres. Tyrcamber wanted to attack, wanted to burn the Valedictor and his party to ashes. The Valedictor was the greatest threat the Empire had faced since the fall of the Dragon Imperator.
But Tyrcamber could not move, and the Valedictor’s will held him in pinned place.
“A new-made dragon,” said the Valedictor, stopping a few paces away. His eyes were solid black, filled with a bottomless void, stark against his alien, pale face. In his right hand, he carried a staff that looked as if it had been made from ebony and red gold, its top crowned with a crystalline orb that gave off a harsh crimson light. Tyrcamber felt the power radiating from the thing and realized that some of the Valedictor’s ability to dominate dragons so easily came from the staff. “On your belly, slave.”
Tyrcamber’s limbs obeyed without hesitation. He flattened himself against the ground, pressing himself against the earth. The Valedictor walked in a circle around him, his advisors and bodyguards following.
“An exceptionally powerful dragon, as well,” said the Valedictor. “You must have been a human of rare magical talent. A pity for you that no one managed to kill you before the Malison overcame you. Still, it is just
as well. You shall make a fine beast of war.”
With that, the Valedictor levitated up and sat upon Tyrcamber’s back, at the base of his serpentine neck and between his shoulders. Tyrcamber wanted to thrash, to throw the Valedictor from his back, but the dark elven lord’s will was implacable as steel.
This, then, was to be Tyrcamber’s fate, to be ridden like an animal as he had ridden horses for years.
The Guardian Rilmael had been wrong. Tyrcamber’s destiny hadn’t been to decide the fate of the Empire. But, then, Rilmael had been wrong about his own fate, hadn’t he? Surely the Guardian hadn’t foreseen that his own fate was to perish in dragon fire.
Nor had he foreseen that Tyrcamber’s fate was to transform, lose his humanity, and be enslaved to the Valedictor.
In the depths of his mind, he felt his sanity start to give way, and he screamed in horror and tried to fight. But the Valedictor’s power would not let him disobey, and the aura of the dark elf turned Tyrcamber into a puppet of meat.
The black dragon let out a snarl, glaring at Tyrcamber with loathing. The creature hated its master, but the dragon also nonetheless did not want to be displaced. It would kill Tyrcamber if it could.
Tyrcamber would let it. Anything to be released from this torment.
But he realized that wasn’t likely, and that his hell was only just beginning.
The Valedictor let out a contemptuous laugh. “Jealous?” The black dragon cringed from the Valedictor’s scorn. “Fear not. Do not humans desire equality above all things? Does not your kindred yearn for all others to be as miserable as you are? Now humanity shall all be my slaves, and none of my thralls shall be higher than any other.” Again, he laughed, the sound rich with spite. “Indeed, I understand the nature of humans. If you are hungry, you would rather that other men be hungry instead of feeding yourself. And soon all humanity shall know equality once they wear my chains and collars.”
The Valedictor gave orders to his bodyguards and dark elven vassals. Part of his army had moved into the New City, but the rest of it was waiting outside the shattered walls. Now the Valedictor’s entire horde began to move into the dying city of Sinderost. The Valedictor sent a mental command to Tyrcamber that stabbed into his mind like a hot knife, and he had no choice but to take to the air, bearing his new master aloft.
Malison: Dragon War Page 6
