Badron scaled the distance with ease. My legs, though, locked up. I cried out in pain. I began to slip off the griffin, sliding back against his wings, toward the ground far below.
Badron slipped over the edge of the cliff and seized my wrists. It hauled me up over the edge.
Kree’Ah released his hold of the cliff, diving below and sailing over the city.
I limped a few steps and nearly fell. Riding a griffin may sound heroic in stories, but it makes it difficult to look heroic after the flight.
Badron moved to support me, but I waved it off. I knew that seeing a white goblin would not help my cause. I took a moment and strode as best as I could into the Colonnade. Into a parliament of kings.
There stood the Parvian patriarch, the Cassuni and Garrendai kings, and Jayan. I saw the leaders of the Fahalla and Hadrisar elves. Representatives from Delodwenar and Jaed were present. Now that I was here, every human, elven, and dwarven nation was represented, except the Graz. This was what I’d expected the last time I’d been here. When the Sargon had sent me on this story.
And now, we would end the story with a parliament of kings. We would end this story the way it should be ended.
Was I bowing to their forms even now? Would it strengthen the stories?
Time enough to deal with that later, after Garethen’s forces were pushed away. Here, every story was true. And every story said that if Garethen fell, his armies would fall. All I had to do was present the canteen and have it sealed away. And then I could visit the Library and begin the taming of the Tales. And if they would not be tamed, they could be burned.
I strode into the kings’ midst. “The war’s won.”
The human kings stood as I called out, startled.
“Adal? How did you…?” Jayan shook his head, bemused.
My companions entered the Colonnade. Lazul had his axe drawn, and Abani her blade. Both looked as if they expected goblins to enter at any moment. The sounds of battle weren’t distant. Men shouted, and I thought I could even hear the stories the elves were weaving.
I looked to the assembled kings. “The battle?”
Padokat of Garrenda answered. “We all arrived only hours ago, to find the city attacked from the east. We had moved in from the west. The Chariisi used their magics to erect barriers against the enemies, but they have no effective offensive spells. We’re attempting to push the foes back, but we can’t move our troops through the city quickly enough.”
I smiled. Padokat had dropped the pretense of friendly host and was all business. I said, “Then we’ve arrived just in time. We have the ability to defeat them all.” I held up the canteen. I looked to all the others, raising my voice. “We journeyed to Ban Maraseth to uncover the Fallen Lord’s plans. We did not find the answer. What we did find was greater by far. Sword Dancer Abani slew Garethen, and the Fallen Lord crumbled to ash. I captured him here, in this canteen. I have the ash of the Lord of Deceit; he cannot return now! Not from this place! We shall seal this canteen away so the ash can never escape!” I was shouting at the end, my heart racing. We had won. The story complete. The ending reached.
The canteen trembled. I lost my grip. The canteen spun out of my fingers and plummeted to the ground. The top popped off. Ash scattered across the marble floor. The kings backed away, avoiding the spray of fine dust. I dropped to the ground, desperate to cap the canteen.
Too late.
The ash circled the floor in a sudden gust. A hand grabbed my shoulder and pulled me back. Yolian restrained me.
The dust continued to swirl and rise in a tight column, circling faster and faster. A hot wind brought in more ash, as if carried from a great distance. I realized Garethen was not returning in his place of power in Ban Maraseth.
Garethen was returning here.
I didn’t know how or why. It shouldn’t have been possible. But he was.
“No,” I breathed. I had just made everything far, far worse. For here, every story was true.
Garethen. The Lie-Bringer. The Father of Serpents. The Drought King. Here, he would be every evil of every story. Here, there would be no stopping him.
I was the Keeper of Tales, though, wasn’t I? Couldn’t I tell a different story? If Garethen was what I was destined to become, if I could tell a tale like he did, if I could change what was real with just my words—
“Garethen’s ashes remained ash. He did not reform!” I shouted.
My story failed.
Behind me, weapons were drawn. Yolian chanted in that old language, as did all the elves. I drew Northwind.
A flash of light, and there before us was the black-clad lord. Everyone recognized him. Some fell back, trying to get away. Jayan drew back his harpoon to strike.
Garethen saw him. “The Spireman King dropped his weapon at the wrong moment.” And as he spoke, so it happened. Jayan released his weapon too soon. It fell to the marbled floor and shattered.
Yolian and the other elves sent their words against him.
“The elves fell silent at my sight; the fear lay upon their hearts so thick.” And it was so.
Lazul hurled his axe. The weapon sailed through the air in a deadly arc, but Garethen stepped aside and let it pass by.
He glanced at the dwarf. “The dwarf’s feet got in his way.” Lazul fell onto his back, and though he struggled to stand, he could not rise.
The Dark Lord turned his gaze to me. “I must thank you, Keeper of Tales. I could not enter the city unless I was brought by a friend of Chariis. I couldn’t be reborn here in my old home unless my ashes were carried by someone who had been blessed by Tor himself. I have you to thank, my brother.” He bowed to me.
Brother.
No. This was the Fallen Lord. Whatever freedom he had in my dreams, whatever truth he might have spoken there, this was not the same man. This was the conniving one who had sent all his armies against Chariis. It was his fault so many had died in Parvia. It was his fault so many had fallen in the yearly goblin raids.
This was not the time for mercy. No, I must strike now.
Northwind was in my hand. I swung once, down, onto his head. Garethen calmly stepped out of the way. I swung again, a wide arc that should have disemboweled him. He stepped clear of the blade. A third time I attacked, lunging at him. Again, he sidestepped it.
“Naeharum Adal, you are the Keeper of Tales. I come with peaceful intent for you. Will you hear me?” No black-edged words left his lips this time. He could not force me to listen.
“No!” I roared, swinging Northwind again. But my anger was stronger than it should have been. He had spoken truth to me.
The stories. This is how the stories went, wasn’t it? The unlikely hero must battle the Fallen Lord. I hadn’t done it in Ban Maraseth, and the stories must have their way, mustn’t they? I must be angry.
But this wasn’t how the stories went, either. Garethen could never enter Chariis. We had brought him here to be buried. This should have been the victory.
But I wasn’t planning on keeping the stories, was I?
Did they know what I planned for the Library?
Abani flanked the Fallen Lord, striking with her curved blade. Her ghostly mate was there as well. Garethen looked at him. “Unless you wish to serve me, you will stop attacking.” The shadow seemed to have been struck by his words, and Abani danced alone. Somehow, though, the Fallen Lord kept stepping and bending and dodging out of the way of our attacks, as if it were a simple thing.
I saw what happened outside.
Our armies, thin as they were under the attack, were falling back. Behemoths of Thesairh’s race advanced on the wall of words, battering at it with fists like stones. Our reinforcements leaped through the wall, attacking bravely with sword and bow and mace and axe. Dwarves and men and elves attacked as one. I couldn’t see their faces, I did not know any of their names, but they were brave in the face of the monsters they meant to slay.
The many goblins and the other fell beasts fell back. They bowed as a new player entered the
battle. Even the behemoths, the generals, bowed to them.
The Blue Riders appeared. Their horses stepped through the carnage of the battlefield. The riders held their reins in one hand, the other on the pommel of their saddles. The Blue Riders opened their mouths and began to eat.
Back in the Colonnade, Garethen fell to one knee, a hand over his heart. “No.” He said it under his breath, and he said it in fear. His eyes shot to mine. “I ask sanctuary.”
My last strike went wide of the still form. Abani, too, ceased her attacks.
Garethen spoke quickly. “Forgive my duplicitous ways. It is the way I am, the way I have been for so many ages. The way the stories formed me, Adal. I needed to be here. To be protected. From them. All I told you, all the games, even sending my forces away, was to this end. So I could get here, to safety.” He was gasping now. “The Kaerun, the Blue Riders mean to consume me.”
Shouts of pain rang out from the battlefield.
Garethen pleaded, “I am unaccustomed to begging. Naeharum Adal, you are the Keeper of Tales. You are now the Lord of Chariis. You are the Sargon. You alone can grant the protection I need. This is the only place the Kaerun cannot enter, unless invited or the city itself falls. Just as it was for me. Please, I beg you, do not cast me out!” Tears ran down his face. He extended pleading hands.
I was the Sargon?
No. He had said I would be the next Fallen Lord. Was he lying then or lying now? A Keeper of Tales would seem to be more like the Sargon. Was this a time of upheaval? Would the Blue Riders be the next Fallen Lords, and I be the Sargon battling them?
It didn’t matter. Not right now, at least. The battle. I had to find out how to defeat the Blue Riders.
I kept my voice as even as I could. “Can you tell us how to slay them?”
He trembled. “I do not know.”
Inside me, Cerulean stirred. Her shade appeared beside me, and the others backed away. The ghostly form spoke. “He is afraid of death. He is afraid that these things will take him to where I am.” The shade fixed Garethen in an intense gaze. “Everything dies,” she whispered. Then Cerulean’s form vanished.
I hauled Garethen up to his feet by his silks and shoved him toward the exit of the Colonnade, toward the battle line. He shook. All the others followed. The dwarves were ready to attack; the men were clearly terrified, and the elves even more so. We walked through the lines of archers. We walked past lines of pikemen. We walked to the lines of spellcasters. From here we saw the Blue Riders devouring the wall. Word by word, the golden strands were flowing toward the riders and vanishing into blue flame. Word by golden word, the wall grew weaker, the Blue Riders stronger. They were not hurrying. There was no need. About them lay soldiers that had tried to attack them, their bodies like frost-covered stones.
I threw Garethen onto the ground on our side of the wall. He trembled as he saw the riders. From here I felt their cold, dead breath and heard their whispering. They stopped eating the wall to speak to one another. Then one dismounted and bowed to the Fallen Lord. “Greetings, Keeper of Tales of Ages Past.” It turned and bowed to me. “Greetings, Keeper of Tales of Ages Yet to be Born.”
Lies. More and more lies. More and more circles and stories, and I was sick of it. I looked at Garethen. “What are these?”
He trembled. “They are the Kaerun. They are the devourers of tales. Once they were stories. They were dying when I found them. I nursed them back to health and taught them how to consume their own. I pointed them to your lands, thinking to weaken your bonds by destroying your ties to land and to each other. I thought they might be able to devour the stories protecting Chariis so I could enter it again. I was wrong.”
The Blue Riders watched. The battle continued around us, around this bubble of calm.
“They mean to rule,” Garethen continued. “They took away my armies. They led my generals. I was a prisoner in my own palace. Now they mean to devour me as well. So, I used the last of my power to bind them to the generals and send them away, hoping in lands of light they would be defeated. I twisted events to ensure someone would come to Ban Maraseth who would be able to bring me here, to safety. My power is spent; I am no threat to you now. Grant me sanctuary!”
So. This was his doing. He admitted it. It was not my fault Korah was dead; Garethen started this story by trying to conquer all stories. Not my fault. His fault. His is the guilt. I saw Korah’s face. I felt Cerulean stir within me. I narrowed my eyes in disgust. “Why were they devouring the wall if they cannot enter the city?”
“Their goblins can still destroy it and destroy the hope of all the world.”
I looked at the Blue Rider. He looked back at me and seemed to laugh. Suddenly, the whisperings of the other riders crescendoed in my ears. They’d stopped eating. Their words whispered through a chink in the wall, just a tiny hole, but large enough for words to squeeze through. I shouted, but it was too late. The dark words wrapped around Jayan, and he was filled with rage.
“You would use us to defend you from your own creations!” He struck out with his blade. Garethen dodged, but then Lazul attacked, and then Padokat.
The kings shouted over each other. Garethen continued to plead for mercy in stuttered half sentences, but his attackers did not hear him. Their eyes were blue with flame, and they would not relent. Again and again they struck out at him. Others joined in as well until there was nowhere for Garethen to turn.
He was desperate now, a wild look in his eyes. “Please, you don’t know! They will destroy everything!”
The others circled ever more tightly about him. He reached out toward me, still pleading.
And then Jayan struck true.
The Fallen Lord shattered to ash.
The wind lifted him, but the Blue Riders’ words turned the breeze. They gathered the ash to themselves, blue flames licking at the pieces.
And then even the ash was gone. Consumed. Blue flames burned brighter.
One of them looked to the generals, and that raspy, whispery voice returned. “Continue the attack.”
Chapter Fifty-Seven
And so began the battle of Chariis.
The goblins charged the glowing wall, teeth gnashing, green skin sweating, armor jangling, battering against the wall, pushing against syllables, shoving against sharp words, forcing their way through. They flung themselves toward the defenders. They failed. Wave after wave of goblins fell. Their bodies began piling.
Countless reinforcements arrived to defend the walls of Chariis. The Blue Riders, the Kaerun as Garethen had called them, seemed to realize that they could not devour the walls fast enough. They stopped trying. They merely watched.
And me? I shook. Garethen gone. It’s what I’d wanted. I’d wanted to bury him. This was even better. He was truly, irreversibly gone.
But the image of my older brother still swirled in my head. The idea of my son, grown, married, a father. The world that Garethen had given me ever so briefly.
The Kaerun said he was once the Keeper of Tales. Were they telling the truth?
Had Garethen been speaking the truth to me; in that place he didn’t have to lie? That place where he could escape stories? Was it possible?
I was so old. I was in a battle. Now was not the time. I backed away from the wall of words and refocused. There were people here now. People with flesh and blood. People that needed protecting. People that needed leading.
I looked at the other kings. The blue had faded from their eyes. We retreated to the Colonnade to hold council on the siege. They all took their spots.
Darius and Abani sat together, representing the Parvians. Lassao of Cassun sat there, and Padokat and Daragen sat together. Lazul sat with two other dwarves whom I did not recognize; one was from Delodwenar, by the armor, the other from Jaed. I still saw no dwarves from the Graz. Yolian sat next to his leader Rahian, and Elayan of the Hadrisar elves sat alone. All these sat around the center of the Colonnade. And Jayan. Jayan sat alone.
Behind them I saw more forms. To o
ne side Kree’Ah preened feathers. Beside him sat Kereh’Kah, the striped griffin who had been matched to Daragen. His keen eyes watched the entire assembly.
Only one person drew near the being that sat opposite the griffins, far behind the races that occupied the center of the room. Badron chatted to itself in a language I could not understand, heavy in sibilants and gutturals. Galatea sat near it. She wore Korah’s white cloak.
I quickly looked back to Jayan. He watched Galatea with an unreadable expression.
I tore my eyes away from my friend and looked instead on the two remaining empty seats. One belonged to the King of the North, where my father and his father and his father before him had sat for generations. The other belonged to the Sargon. The throne where Sargon Tor had presided over every council of every story for an age.
My legs moved without my thought. I stood in front of the Sargon’s seat. I turned and gazed out over the kings. I sat. This was where I belonged now. This was what Tor had chosen me for. And I wasn’t nervous.
What had the stories done? Transformed me? How had they done this so quickly, so completely, that I fit so easily into their mold? No wonder Garethen had wanted to control them. No wonder he found some way to twist them into the Kaerun. No wonder he’d wanted to destroy them. Their power was too great, and he had wanted to break them.
Just as I did.
I forced myself to focus on those in front of me now. This was still not the time for such thoughts. Now I had to do what was necessary to survive, to defend the city and our people. There would be time to deal with the stories later.
I took a deep breath before speaking. “You heard what Garethen said about me? How I am Lord of Chariis now?”
No one answered.
But the ancient words etched on the pillars of the Colonnade: They glowed. The calligraphy swirled around my place on the floor. The words listened to my declaration. There were a few stories about Tor as Lord of Chariis appearing to everyone in the city in times of darkness. The words embedded in the Colonnade performed their task. All who fought for good would see me now and hear me if they so chose. The council of kings and companions heard me, but now I addressed every soldier who gathered here.
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