When Dragons Die- The Complete Trilogy Box Set
Page 139
Aradma breathed deeply.
“If you do this,” Keruhn said, “consider what this means.”
Aradma cast her gaze down, away from Tiberan’s waiting body. She turned her back to him. “If I do this… it will break Keira’s heart. I love him too much. Once, he turned away from me out of love when he saw my happiness with Kaldor. How can I not do the same?”
“Indeed,” Keruhn said. “Who are you to break their family? You want Tiberan, in spite of it all. Who are you to take that for yourself?”
Aradma snapped her gaze back to Keruhn, feeling slapped.
The Horned God’s countenance grew dark in anger. “I believed in you, but I was wrong. You have been given more power than any mortal in this world, and you’ve shirked your responsibility. You fail to act—you always fail to act—until it is too late, and then you overcorrect. Who were you then to decide the Vemnai needed to be broken, only to abandon them? Who did you think you were to bring Athra into the world to cover up your failures, never mind what others might suffer? Who do you think you are now, to contemplate saving the world? You have not earned this. Are you going to take control of the gods and bend the world to your will, your image? If you do this, would you not be any different than the Black Dragon?”
Aradma shuddered with frustration. “But the gods are lies!” She stared at Tiberan, tears forming in her eyes. She wanted to kiss him, make love to him, possess him. But that didn’t matter. She worried out of fear, for the question of his love and her future with him, and his family now… but none of that was relevant to this one opportunity to find balance—
“There is no balance through Artalon!” Keruhn snapped. “The only hope for balance is to walk away and hope your friends do the same.”
Aradma sucked in a breath. Her friends… Anuit would dominate the gods for the purpose of safety. Arda would dominate the gods for the purpose of peace.
And my purpose?
Truth.
Aradma laughed suddenly.
Keruhn stepped back, confused.
“Control!” she said. “But for whose purpose? That is the riddle, isn’t it?”
Keruhn regarded her oddly. His empty eye socket swirled with light.
“I see the truth of things,” she said. “It is my nature. Truth is nature. What is real, what exists. It is the heart of my strength, and if purpose is for truth, then it is no one’s purpose. And everyone’s. No one owns truth but truth itself.”
Keruhn responded very slowly, very quietly. “And how can you know that you will hold true to truth’s purpose and not be corrupted by your own desires?”
“You have strange insight for a god,” Aradma said. “But your test failed. You brought me through my mortal past and tried to convince me that my failure has been acting for others. But my failure has been not acting. Fear, false humility… almost a sense of self-hatred for my power and how others saw me. I wanted to be left alone, and I ran from the world.”
Aradma pointed to Tiberan. “My desire for him brought me to disregard the Vemnai. I abandoned them. I should have challenged the Matriarch openly. I had the power to do so, and if I had lost her, I might have convinced others. But I was too scared to hurt her to be honest with her. And now, I’m too scared to hurt him to be honest with the world. No more.”
Aradma channeled and let the foliage gown fall away from her. Naked, she approached Tiberan. His eyes stared into the distance, focused deep into the Void.
A soft, pure laughter came from the god. “Well done, old friend,” Keruhn said. “You pass the final test. I was worried my faith in you had been misplaced. It took you long enough.”
Aradma glanced at him over her shoulder. “Do not presume to call me friend,” she said.
The image of Keruhn wavered and diminished, shifting into the body of a small gnomish woman. She wore her usual black leather outfit, but her head was bare of its usual eyepatch. Her empty socket swirled with the emptiness of the Void and starlight.
“Kristafrost,” Aradma stated dryly. Somehow she was not surprised. It made sense how the gnome could be in so many places and always know so much.
“You almost forgot the truth of your being,” Kristafrost said. “Do you know what your greatest failure was?”
“Not living up to myself,” Aradma said. “My problem was that I withdrew and almost let you convince me that I’ve done nothing for the world.”
“You’re not perfect,” Kristafrost said.
“No, indeed not,” Aradma agreed. “My greatest failure was abandoning Sidhna out of fear of mortality.”
“When you were the dreamwalker.”
“Yes. That was me.”
“You submitted yourself to Klrain’s torture for a thousand years to buy Valkrage time.”
Aradma nodded. “How could I not?”
“You forget this too quickly. You thought your failures as Aradma overshadowed this? You withdrew from the world because you were scared of your own power, and with good reason.”
“A part of me remembered my mistake with Sidhna. Power alone doesn’t make one right.”
“No,” Kristafrost agreed. “You had power then, but in that moment, when you saw what happened to Eldrikura and Archurion as their avatars surrendered their power to Aaron, you acted out of fear, not truth. And Sidhna paid for it, and then the rest of the world as they fell to the Shadowlord’s rule. But you paid for your sin and made it right. You endured Klrain for a thousand years. Were it not for you, he would have awoken, and Aaron would have been defeated.”
“My life here has given me insight. More than I had before.”
“And your life here as Aradma was only possible because you sacrificed yourself a second time. You gave your life to save the world from sharing the Otherworld’s destruction.”
“That was Graelyn.”
“That was you,” Kristafrost said, “at least, you were a large part of that.” She nodded towards Tiberan’s waiting form. “And him. The two of you were one being then, the Green Dragon, and you offered your life to the world. You didn’t know sparks of you would survive as seelie.”
“No, I didn’t,” Aradma said, remembering.
“And I saw your character here in Artalon when you first came,” she said. “You provided a center for your people. You healed the seelie minds, helping them find balance with the Fae. You saved many of them from the kind of madness that Athaym provoked in the unseelie. I knew then that you and Tiberan were special among your people, that you held the greatest sparks of Graelyn. I knew that you would help fulfill my plans… I was so disappointed when Valkrage ‘killed’ Tiberan. He was gone, and you withdrew from the world. Really, I can’t blame you for that. You were meant to touch the world, but you were also a mother, and you had to learn that.
“And the little things, too. You made a lot of mistakes with the Vemnai, but they are free now because of you. Their men are no longer subjugated, and wives and husbands can love each other. And then in Windbowl, you shared your power with anyone who came seeking it. Seelie, humans, darklings, it didn’t matter: you made druids of all who would learn.”
Aradma regarded the gnome curiously. “You watched me for so long and lived as Kristafrost with Ezzie. How? It is difficult for gods to manifest, yet you lived among us.”
The gnome giggled. “Faith is currency for us gods. It’s amazing what the Kairantheum lets you do when you believe in others, and you give more faith than you take.”
Aradma chuckled. “Wealth of the spirit,” she said. “Yinkle would appreciate that.”
Kristafrost grinned. “I never cultivated worshippers or runewardens but made you all the objects of my adoration, my love. The other gods come to Ahmbren without releasing their power. They fear mortality. I put godhood aside when I live as Kristafrost.” She spun. “And really, how awesome have I been? Way more awesome than prancing around as a stag-horned naked man. Really, what were people thinking when they gave me that form in their prayers? This is the truth of my being.”
The gnome put her fists on her hips. “I like gnomes. Gnomes were bronze dragons who gave up power and size for,” she gestured to herself, “awesome. They intrigued me so much, I preferred this to being a god.”
“You figured out how to escape the Kairantheum.”
Kristafrost shook her head, somewhat sadly. “No,” she said. “Almost, but no. My fate is tied to the Kairantheum. But I know you’ll do the right thing. Of all of them, you alone will see the truth of Artalon, and the truth of the way ahead. Freedom lies in truth. They are inseparable, and I know you won’t let any attachment or distraction divert you from truth. Good luck, my friend. Don’t prove me wrong.”
Kristafrost winked her good eye and then faded and disappeared.
Aradma stood alone now with Tiberan. She sighed, coming to peace with what would be. “I’m sorry,” she told Tiberan. She wondered if he could hear her. “I didn’t want it to be this way between us, but I will return the freedom and truth of Ahmbren’s people to themselves.”
He didn’t respond. His face remained still, transfixed on some distant horizon. And then her heart melted and lofty thoughts dissolved under passion’s flood.
Oh, Tiberan! She touched his face, tracing the line of his lips with her fingertips, and then the surface of his beard that covered his jaw. Her knees gave, and she stumbled slightly, catching herself on his shoulders. She crawled onto him and sat with knees bent touching the sides of his hips.
She remembered the last time they had made love. It had been here in this city, in Kristafrost’s guild hall, the night after they had found Keira’s brother and returned him to his family. Aradma had been pregnant with Odoune’s child, and Tiberan’s warm hands had caressed her belly as she sat atop him through their lovemaking. He had accepted her and the unborn Fernwalker inside her, totally and completely.
She now looked into his eyes, and her heart thudded. I know I’m doing this for the world—I know the violation of Keira’s trust—I know this act is not for Tiberan and me. It is not for us!
Tears fell from her eyes onto his cheeks. But I want this. I love him so much. I will not pretend I take no joy in this. Her fingers snaked around the roots of his antlers, feeling their smooth grain. She kissed his forehead, and then his lips, and then, looking into those blue eyes with their glowing sparks of gold, she lowered herself, and took him easily into her body. She slowly and softly moved her hips, pressing down into him with rising pleasure as he responded to her rhythm. She didn’t say anything, just gazed into his open eyes as their breathing rose and fell together.
She tried to stay calm, focused on the purpose of their congress, but his breathing quickened, and his arms reached out to hold her, encircling her waist and back in a firm embrace. She let her head fall forward onto his shoulder, overcome by their rising ecstasy, and she whispered her little gasps into his ear, taking his earlobe in her lips. She had waited so long for him, thinking he had died, and then she had found love in Kaldor, only to lose him after a few short months. And now, after ten years of torture at the hands of the Black Dragon’s remnant, she had survived, and she had found Tiberan again. “I love you,” she whispered into his ear. “I love you, I love you.”
Then he started. His body went into a spasm, and she pulled her head back. His eyes snapped into focus and met hers, and in that moment their souls met.
Their spirits conjoined as they climaxed, and Aradma’s mind melted, falling out of her body and into the city. Her awareness suffused all of Artalon, and she became the city.
She floated in the purple void without body or form. She felt Tiberan through and around her, connecting her to Artalon, but it was her mind that guided them.
And she felt the promise of a new life within her. A new child to be born at the Turning of a new age.
She had a choice, in that moment, before Artalon completely seized her focus. She considered preventing conception, of waiting until Tiberan and she could be together.
But she allowed it to be. She was the Seal of Life.
And in doing so, in the creation of life, the final barrier fell away and her mind opened to Ahmbren’s expanse.
There at the root of it all, she saw Artalon’s purpose. She laughed. So simple. Not what any of them had expected.
I can speak, and everyone on Ahmbren will hear me. All of them. Nothing more, nothing less.
She focused and prepared to choose the words that would be heard in the minds of every living being on the planet. It was now up to her to inspire the prayers of Ahmbren’s people. That was how one could control the gods. What Athaym had wanted to do through despair and death, she would do through hope and aspiration.
And now that she understood the Kairantheum, she knew it had reflected mortalkind’s choices all along. She would present them a new choice, a new possibility. All they needed was someone to show them the way.
She remembered something she had learned long ago, confronting the Moon Goddess atop the rock spire in Vemnai.
Impossibilities cannot exist.
It became clear. She knew then what she would say to the world. Some of them wouldn’t understand. Some of them would be angry. But she knew in her heart that some of them would walk through the door she offered. People would choose truth over fear, people like Oriand and those she had inspired through Aradma’s Legacy.
For a brief moment she paused and considered turning away for the sake of those who weren’t ready.
And then the dreamwalker’s memories flared vividly, the agony of a thousand years of torture at Klrain’s hands, and then afterwards, sacrificing her life to save all of Ahmbren from the falling shards of the shattered Otherworld. She remembered the pain of being rent asunder as the Dragon flew between the two worlds and the Otherworld shards lanced through her being.
Aradma hardened her heart against those who might cling to fear. She chose to stop treating the world as if it couldn’t handle truth. She decided to stop punishing those who would stand proud for the sake of those who chose to cower.
She now understood why Keruhn had placed his hopes in her. She shared his faith in mortalkind.
I did not give myself to this world so it could rot in darkness. We are all better than this.
Aradma was going to kill the gods.
38 - A New Charge
Child of the universe, my brother, my sister: for the sake of life, and joy in life, and for everything you have been, and everything you might yet become, I ask that you hear me now. Know that we are connected, in this moment, across the world, every living man, woman, and child. I ask that you open your mind and heart, for I offer the possibility of hope and freedom, no matter what race, land, or people we call home. We have our differences, but it is those things we share in common that allow you to hear my words. We hope and we fear. We love and we hate. We dream. We imagine. We feel. We think. No matter your creed or culture, we are all coparticipants in this world’s life.
Long ago, those who meant well captured our dreams and aspirations and used them to shield us against the uncertainty of the unknown. The gods emerged from our hopes, our dreams, and our fears. They protected us from the dread of our own ignorance. Our stories and myths became so real for us that we forgot this greatest truth: the gods did not create us. We created them. All of them. Even yours.
Through them, we deluded ourselves. Our superstitions and prejudices were reinforced and given power. We have been bound in slavery for thousands of years, when we could be so much more than we are now.
We have forgotten the truth of our being.
We can be better than who we are now. We can achieve so much more than we have. We are creatures of deep feelings, but so too are we rational beings. Our greatest ability, our highest calling, is to think.
That we live is precious, and the only rational response to life is joy. Live not for the sake of existing, for existence alone requires no thought or effort. Live for the sake of living! Know the truth of your being, the expanse of your greatness, and live for the purpose of exultation in life!
There have been many thinkers through the ages who have spoken of what is good and what is evil. Some carve out rules and laws, and they say: “This! This is what is good, and to deviate from this is what is evil.” But then, whose rules? And on what are they based? Whose gods? Whose hopes and fears? If this is good, then good has no truth. This way is the delusion that what we think ought to be is more real than what is.
Others have said, “That which helps me is good, and that which harms me is evil.” But then, your good is evil to another, and your evil is good to another. If this is the case, there is neither good nor evil. This is the delusion that good and evil depend upon perspective.
I say this: truth is natural. I reject the delusions of the past and aspire to a new paradigm that says: Good is that which reveals the fundamental truth of the universe. Evil is that which conceals the fundamental truth of the universe.
We are all beings capable of free thought. We all have the means to learn, to understand ourselves and our connection to the world around us, and in doing so we achieve the freedom to decide who we will become. Know yourself, discover your world, and if I would charge you with one thing, it would be this: Be true to yourselves, and be true to each other.
Faith in the gods has held us back from knowing the truth of our beings. They, and those who serve them, would have us as slaves. They need us, feed on us, no better than parasites. The idea of a world without gods may frighten some, but I believe in all of us. I believe in what we can achieve. I believe in our greatness. Life is worth living. Life is worth loving.
Join me in this love affair with life.
We have a chance. Here. Now. If you would be free of them forever and claim the right to shape destiny for ourselves, to think our own thoughts and feel our own feelings, stand in your hearts and pray with me, to your highest power, your own inner nature, the truth of your own being: For the sake of my life and joy in life, I will not surrender my will to any god, nor will I allow any god to surrender its will to me.