Lords of Rainbow

by Vera Nazarian

  In her mind, his name had become strung together.

  “You . . .” whispered the dark serpent. “You are . . . different. Like myself. Who are you?”

  elasandelasandelasand. . . .

  She said nothing, but simply breathed forth the soft encroaching dark, like tendrils of rich twilight, letting it flow and wind softly like cobwebs around the outline of the Enemy.

  And then, she forced it like a knot, to gather and cling to his own darkness, and mold it, move it farther away.

  The cloud of twilight that stemmed from Feale and massed around them all began to shrink. She forced it, forced the dark back upon him, clearing the air for several feet, so that again they could see the weak sun overhead.

  “You are not strong enough . . .” the Enemy whispered then, appearing to stand before her, so close that she could see the dull phosphor of his eyes.

  And with that, he swept her into absolute night.

  There was no frame of reference. Ranhéas Ylir stood in a black void, feeling no ground beneath her feet. Her lungs took in some thickness, no longer air. She was growing cold and numb. And the darkness that she was manipulating had grown beyond her embryonic scope. And yet, through it all, she could still see his eyes, glowing, and he was all around her, on the inside of her, enmeshed within the very fabric of the dark.

  Within her mind.

  No!

  Nothing matters.

  She sees herself small and young, as she had been. Mother crying in a locked room. She can hear her father’s droning voice which she hates and pities, for he is only ill, and his cruelty is not his fault. She feels the prickly stubble on her cheeks, and the sudden utter stifling sense of destiny, of being unable to escape it, the damned hair, ever, this—unable to escape the confines of her own body which she hates. She is not a woman, and yet she is. It, the hair, makes her untouchable, hateful.

  It sets her apart.

  Or maybe it widens her range of self; womanhood stretches into maleness and the lines are blurred, the same way as light stretches deeper into the shadows and then becomes darkness. It is a movement past the ordinary boundaries into the enhanced elevated place approaching union.

  She hears the voice of the Phoenix, Be yourself.

  No, she sets herself apart, hates herself, with the only shred of dignity, for that is all she can do to live.

  She does not want to live now.

  Nothing.

  “I am you,” whispers the Enemy. “Look deep, and find me within yourself. You are made of the fabric of my being. You are mine, had always been. How can you fight yourself?”

  Be yourself, the Phoenix speaks, beginning to weep.

  And Ranhé weeps also.

  I cannot fight myself, and yet I cannot be myself!

  She shudders with sobs, bends forward, down, becomes fetal, small.

  What are you?

  The Phoenix regards her.

  And Ranhé, grown small and sobbing, thinks.

  If my right hand, which is myself, strikes against my will, I will lift my left hand and cut off my right, she thinks. It will hurt. . . . It will hurt unbearably. And yet, I must.

  If darkness is at the core of my heart, of my being, then I must rip it out. And if in doing that I die, so be it.

  And she takes it, takes the darkness, the Enemy, that which has always been a part of herself, that which she hates, gathering the night within her (hatred against the self, against that dark void, seethes inside even now, while the Phoenix screams), and she smothers it tight with her will. And as the black recedes, deep somewhere, deep, deep, so does her being, her self, the Enemy. . . .

  And as Ranhéas Ylir strikes inward, she smothers the deepest part of herself that is darkness, smothers and kills herself. With herself, she is without mercy, up to the very end. . . .

  The Phoenix dies then, choking in the last embers.

  She dies also.

  elasandelasAndelasAndelas . . . Andelas.

  Dies.

  Andelas!

  In the darkness, from the implosion-death within her, comes a sudden brilliant flash.

  The simplicity of balance.

  The flash explodes, apparently from inside her, and no other place. Burning her dead retina, searing her with a moment of unique realization.

  Andelas!

  And from the Phoenix-self unfurling its great new wings of flame, Ranhéas Ylir is reborn.

  It was bright, very sharp and bright. She saw it, akin to the face of the sun. Only, this was more intense.

  Brighter even than the sun.

  Clearer than the sun, in its greatest moment of zenith, superimposed upon the cleanest cloudless sky.

  A light of infinite purity, one that she had never seen before.

  White.

  Somehow, she knew it, without ever having seen it before. She knew that white had also been within her always, hidden deep, and it represented the only constant against which she drew unconscious comparisons of all other visible light. It came now, surging into her being in place of the personal dark that she had destroyed, or rather, learned to control. . . .

  For, in that place, there could never be a vacuum.

  Either a predominance of light or dark. Black or white. One or the other.

  Or maybe, an equal measure of both.

  White was now reborn into her outer conscious, born of the deepest darkness, and in antithesis to it. She herself brought it to the surface, having dug it out of the morass of ancient inborn truth that hides within the most acute places of us all.

  She had broken through, in that instant of chaos. As a diver returning from a fathomless unexplored lagoon, she came back with a pearl of white. For, her will had refused to succumb to the nothing, to the suicidal force. Instead, a new reality was created around her, filling the vacuum, and she brought the new reality with her into the world.

  Andelas! she cried, equipped with a wider awareness, filled with the sudden fullness of her new self that was both female and male, light and dark, giving a name to the source of light and thus anchoring it in the present, Andelas, deliver me!

  And the source of the brightest glory answered her, at the same time as it began to expand, obliterating the darkness, defusing it into paler hues of twilight, and then into the palest gray shadow, adding a sudden extra dimension to the known spectrum, at its extreme edge of brightness.

  I am here, said a voice inside her mind, a voice without character or definition or human reference.

  Perfect, and utterly alien.

  And then, she was back in the present reality of the battle, her eyes still carrying an afterimage of white, imprinted forever now in memory, and never again to be forgotten or put aside, never again to sink back into the personal dark.

  And with the filter of white, standing permanently in her eyes, she looked at the Enemy, at the dull suddenly insignificant glow of his eyes.

  He—it, the Enemy—cringed suddenly. Meeting that gaze that had just come back imbued with the richness from another world, his own eyes narrowed, seeing in her that what was so bright and deadly. The eyes blinked, once, twice.

  And then the phosphoric eyes closed for the last time, and Feale began to fade.

  Yes, fade. . . .

  Light and effervescent as thick twilight vapor. As simple as a shadow fades in the blooming of true light.

  At the same time, a shudder went through the corpse of Elasand, who lay at her feet, and she felt some brightness leave her in a burst of inner energy, and enter him, fill and imbue him with something tangible.

  Elasand’s chest convulsed, then took on a rhythm. The body began to breathe, and his wounds closed up in a blink of pale radiance.

  He breathed. He raised his head, and then raised the rest of himself, propping his weight on his elbows, then rising slowly and yet effortlessly to his knees.

  Elasand stood upright.

  Only a step away, his bleeding half-brother stared at him incredulously, forgetting his own hurt, seeing only the miracle.r />
  But Elasand, standing up tall and suddenly perfect, was no longer anything or anyone they had once known.

  His bloodied helmet had fallen from his head, and his long hair came about his shoulders in a mass of clean raven flow. He stood, and turned in Ranhé’s direction.

  She looked at him and saw his eyes.

  They were different.

  “I am here,” repeated Andelas. “You have found me deep within yourself. You have remembered. You have called me back, and I am here at last.”

  CHAPTER 19

  The sun was illuminating him, the upright body of a man who had been Elasand, and who was now someone else, a Tilirreh. And yet, sun itself was much too dim upon his form. It paled next to the steady aura of never before seen brightness which stood about him, an inch away from his skin, igniting his outlines with acute contrast of a new color that they could not name.

  At the same time, there was a pale vapid shadow of darkness, only a few feet away, and even now it was fading into a ghostly insignificance. That shadow had been the Enemy, Feale.

  “What are you?” whispered Elasirr harshly. “What has come to pass?” He attempted to rise, holding back an outcry of pain, and Ranhé, herself like a dreamwalker, moved toward him, and took him around the waist, helping him to stand upright. There was a deep bleeding gash running from his shoulder all the way to his chest on the right side of his body, having pierced the old chain mail.

  But the hush which had fallen over the battlefield at the appearance of Feale had come to an end. The Qurthe, foot soldiers and cavalry, had thrown off the stupor that their Twilight One had cast over the entire square, and now were again striking at the resistance forces of Tronaelend-Lis.

  And yet, it was rather strange, for they seemed not to notice the bizarre disintegration of their dark lord.

  As though they did not remember him existing.

  Elasirr glanced at the tall warbeast that had borne Feale, and now stood dull and motionless, just a few steps away, without a rider. Even it did not appear to remember or miss its master.

  Beyond were more Qurthe cavalry. And among them—Elasirr suddenly remembered—somewhere beyond the forest of their darkness, were the Regent and the young Lissean Grelias, both in unknown condition, both still prisoners of the Qurthe. Making a supreme effort (for one of his lungs was damaged and was rapidly filling with blood—even now he could feel it stifling him), Elasirr cried out in a loud voice that was immediately cut off by a fit of involuntary coughing, “Bilhaar! If any of you hear me, help the Regent and Heir Grelias! They are here, you must help—”

  “Quiet! Stop moving like that!” growled Ranhé in his ear, her arms firm around his waist and shoulders. “You’ll bleed faster, you damned fool! They already know about the Regent. Marihke, Gilimas, others are on their way. . . .” And then she added, in an alien voice, her face averted, “Why did you take the blow meant for me? Why did you save my life, Lord Guildmaster?”

  “Be silent yourself!” he gasped angrily, and blood came seeping from his lips, as he was again overtaken by coughing, was growing dizzy.

  “You are hurt,” said the voice of Vaeste just behind him, but the speaker was someone else.

  Coughing, Elasirr turned around, stared at him, eyes narrow with pain. “And you should be dead,” he whispered. “You are not my brother!”

  “He is one of the Tilirr,” said Ranhé softly.

  “Indeed! The corpse is a god? I don’t know what you did—either of you—but the Enemy—where is he?” Elasirr turned to her again, speaking with short breath.

  But she had no time to reply, because in that moment, the nearest Qurthe soldiers were upon them. And Ranhé, still supporting Elasirr with one hand, leaned forward awkwardly, and picked up someone’s sword—any sword from the ground.

  “We may be quite dead within seconds . . .” hissed Elasirr, grinning through his agony. “But at least, be kind enough to give me one of my own swords also—there, this is one. . . . On the other side, at the feet of this unnamed god who stands immobile, inhabiting my brother’s poor body.”

  Ranhé leaned forward again, bending at the feet of the Tilirreh (even now she avoided facing him, avoided looking into the eyes of the one who had died and torn out her soul once already—no need to see the once intimate face that was now remote and alien), and picked up a Bilhaar sword, then handed it to Elasirr with a stinging intense look. “I will stand and fight for you now,” she whispered. “There’s no need for you—”

  “You are hurt,” repeated the Tilirreh.

  “I am bleeding like a pig, yes,” retorted the Guildmaster. “And so are a thousand others. Who are you, O Tilirreh?”

  And the god in Elasand’s form neared him suddenly, saying, “I am Andelas.”

  And then he reached forward with one gauntleted hand, past Ranhé, and placed it directly upon the gaping wound at the shoulder of Elasirr.

  Warm lightning. . . .

  Marihke and several other guildsmen neared them from both sides, engaging half a dozen Qurthe warriors, while Elasirr stared in wonder at the pale familiar face only inches away from his own, and watched white light gather and run from the hand of the Tilirreh into his own flesh. With it came warmth, and an abundance of energy. He was growing strong again.

  Ranhé let go of him—which he didn’t even notice now, being able to stand on his own—and was fighting a mounted Qurth who appeared to be a captain, from the crest on his helmet. She struck at the legs of his beast, and skillfully managed to divert him away from where the Guildmaster stood vulnerable. At that point some of the mounted Bilhaar came to her assistance.

  Warm flow of electric current . . . warm. . . .

  “Andelas!” whispered Elasirr with a mixture of mockery and wonder. “How is it that you are here among us? And now, of all times?”

  “She called me here,” replied the Tilirreh with a soft smile of Elasand’s face, while warmth continued coursing through his fingers. “And is this not the best time?”

  There was joy on the pale transfigured face of Elasand-Andelas, and he cast one bright glance aside, to look at a faintest shadow that still shimmered quite near them.

  “Feale . . . It’s he, isn’t it? You did this to him? What manner of illusion, or madness, or nonsense is this?” spoke Elasirr. “And yet, I still see what is left of him, a shadow—”

  “Sh-h-h. Do not use his name. Even though he is no longer anchored here, naming him still has the strength to invoke and make him linger. And that is no longer a thing for this Age,” said Andelas. “I cast him out. He is now no longer of this world, and may not return while I am here. He is not dead, for like me, he cannot die. But it’s now my time here, my millennium once again, and not his. The end to Twilight.”

  Elasirr breathed a strong fierce deep draught of air into healed lungs. Blood had long ceased flowing from him, and his chest, beneath the torn mail and soaking bloodied undershirt, was smooth and scarless, with only a silk sheen of pale short hair.

  “I thank you, Tilirreh,” he said dreamily, looking into Elasand’s beautiful pale eyes, seeing only his half-brother’s face, a face that had brought out so many conflicting emotions in him before. A face that now tugged at some painful nerve.

  And then, something else strange happened. From afar came a rumble. It had begun to build gradually, and now it echoed in waves throughout the square—the sound of voices upraised, and yet a sound lacking the raw agony of battle. Soldiers cried in excitement, and it was a different sound, filled with hope and a kind of wonder.

  Marihke, with his impassive Bilhaar precision, had just finished off another enemy soldier, striking cleanly with the sword to sever flesh and bone. He was soaked in midnight blood. Now, he drew back, reining in his horse, pausing to wipe his face and beard with the side of his gauntlet, and addressed Elasirr, who stood immobile, still linked with the healing touch of the one inhabiting his brother’s flesh.

  “My Lord Guildmaster! They say something unbelievable is taking place!
Even our enemy is moving aside! There, over the bridge of the Arata, someone miraculous approaches us!”

  “Who is it?”

  “They say,” another one of the Bilhaar cried out, “it’s the King! The last Monteyn himself has come back! He has awakened and come to deliver us from the invader!”

  Elasirr froze.

  “Take my horse, my lord,” urged Marihke. “You will be able to see better!” As he spoke, Marihke barely glanced at Elasand standing next to Elasirr, as though there was nothing unusual about the sight of Lord Vaeste alive and in perfect health, only minutes after he had been lying dead on the ground.

  In that same instant, a few steps away, something had faded completely. A shadow of a shadow.

  And then, nothing.

  No memory of it in the minds of all, except for Elasirr and Ranhé. Apparently they were also the only ones aware that Elasand was now someone else.

  “Look at the strange colors coming from him!” exclaimed Nilmet, pointing to the figure in the distance. “His form seems to be on fire with light!”

  Oddly, he did not appear to notice the other wonder right here in front of him, the strange auric color surrounding Lord Vaeste. Indeed, thought Ranhé, how brightly white he burns!

  “I don’t understand,” whispered Elasirr, and glanced at Elasand in shock. “Is it your doing, Andelas?”

  In Elasand’s face, the alien eyes appeared to smile.

  “No,” said the god. “This is strictly your doing. You set this in motion.”

  “Set what in motion? When I broke the glass on that casket, nothing happened! I stood and called him, and howled at his grave! And he lay there, cold and dead!”

  But Elasand-Andelas was now silent, and observed Elasirr out of pale alien eyes.

  Elasirr frowned, wiping sweat from his cold brow, and stood holding a sword that Ranhé had handed him. Fortunately, no enemy soldiers seemed to be moving at him; the Bilhaar and the Masters of the Guild had effectively surrounded him in a circle of safety.

  And thus, Elasirr allowed the implication of the new possibilities to come over him all at once, like a psychic avalanche, daze him, stifle him. For indeed, their world was once again turning upside down within the span of minutes.