Lords of Rainbow

by Vera Nazarian

  Ranhé briefly glanced at the one who was now Elasand, at his bright aura (she could not bear to gaze long at him, but not because of the light). She stepped back, lowering her bloodstained sword, while a hundred different feelings rushed through her, underneath her impassive surface.

  The cries of wonder rose to shut out all sounds of battle in the square. The Qurthe were falling back toward the center that was Dirvan. They rallied round several of their captains—those faceless fierce warriors wearing crested helmets. And yet there was no leader to direct them, despite their terrifying superiority.

  No leader, only a memory of a shadow. . . .

  And soon, no memory at all.

  He rode the pale animal they had given him, stiff-backed because of the weight of the ceremonial black armor that had been meant for a dead man’s burial, not a living relic’s triumphant advent.

  His thoughts, still muddled. Or maybe it was the constant overpowering optical illusion of encroaching blindness, or intense claustrophobic perception of dark and light, black and monochromatic gray. No matter where he cast his gaze—even when he glanced up through this cream-thick fog in the air at the strange pale weak mockery of a sun—all he could see was this singular storm-hued landscape of unrelieved gradations of day to night.

  No, this monochromatic sepulcher of universal twilight was not his world.

  The men, mindless with awe and a kind of worshipful fear, had taken him to a secret place in Dirvan—yes, he still knew Dirvan, recognized it for what it was, the heart of the City. Although what surprised him for a moment, made him pause with dizzy consideration of reality, was the number of bridges overhanging the old Arata Canal. In his time there had been only two, to the north and south, to minimize traffic through the Royal Outer Gardens, and for a greater degree of security. Or so he’d been told by his advisors—he, who was a well-loved young King. In his time, there was a wider line of ceremonial distance drawn between the Royal House and Aristocracy, and the rest of the City multitudes.

  In his time.

  And what in all gods’ name was this? When was this? How many decades had passed? How many hundreds of years? Millennia? For, a world cannot change its fundamental nature to such an extent, in less than some time period off the human scale, a stretch of existence unimaginable. . . . Or, so he thought.

  Somewhere in their secret hiding place, which led below ground into a strange network of catacombs, he was greeted by a group of startled people, armed and ready for combat, who looked at him with awed dilated eyes filled with almost childish emotion. There, he had his first taste of water in centuries, in a small cup that a young woman had carried up to him with trembling fingers.

  The water had tasted cool and bland. A dash of hueless silver in a translucent glass. Somehow it reminded him with a pang of his former life.

  “Are you at war?” he had asked them in a hoarse stiff voice of an ancient (and they wondered at his archaic speech and dialect). “Who is the Enemy of this City?” And then, with a shy pause, added, “And who rules the City now in my place, who is your present King?”

  They looked at each other, expressions unreadable, faces dim in the underground twilight. “We have no King,” they said (and he wondered at the strange unfamiliarity of some of their words and pronunciation). “You were the last one we’ve had. There is a Regent of the Grelias, but he has gone somewhere, having been taken by the Enemy, and thus lost to us.”

  “The Enemy,” he repeated, looking intensely into their faces. “Who is it?”

  But the silence in their eyes was peculiar. And then, after a long pause someone said, “Your Sovereign Grace—we do not know. . . .”

  At which he frowned, drawing together his fine pale brows in emotion for the first time since awakening to this gray nightmare. And for the first time, he winced in pain (again, that cancer eating at his insides).

  “If you do not know the nature of your Enemy,” he spoke then softly, “why do you fight at all?”

  “We don’t remember. . . .”

  And then Alliran Monteyn, seeing only integrity and confusion in their faces, asked another question that he finally dared voice.

  “Why is it,” he said, lifting his gloved hand up to examine it momentarily in comparison, a hand upon which danced a constant multi-hued field of static, “why is it that all I see around me is a gray world? And yet, I know I am not mad, nor am I blind, for there is a glimmer around me of light, of color. Can you also see it? Why has happened to the world? Where is the fullness of color?”

  “Color? You mean, this?” said a man, and suddenly a ball of orange light came to hang at eye level before him, out of the thin air.

  Alliran Monteyn stared at it, at the floating ghost of the sun before him in shocked silence, never having seen anything like it, nor imagined such a disembodied essence of light.

  “No . . .” he replied, “Never like this. This is wrong. . . .”

  “You mean, Your Sovereign Grace, color like the miraculous dancing light that surrounds you?”

  “I do not know . . . What is it that you see around me?”

  And then he knew it. “You fight because of this, do you not?” he said loudly then. “You fight because you know that you lack this truth, this essence? Take me to the battle, then! I must see it for myself, see this Enemy, and do what must be done!”

  And they obeyed without question, with awe, for the first time in all their lives, for they once again had a fingerhold upon that ancient essence, a small first glimmer.

  They had again a King.

  The harsh guttural battle cries of the Qurthe, the shrieks of the Bilhaar, the sound of cold iron beating against steel, the moans of the wounded, the hiss of breath out of dying lungs—the sound was one sound, one unique manifold sound of war. And it suddenly eroded into quiet. Then, silence stood at the scene of battle, except for the occasional helpless groans of those already dying.

  The Qurthe war machine halted, and the City resistance forces too. A universal pause, and like waves upon a thunderous ocean they parted ranks before a figure of brightness.

  Elasirr stood with a transfigured gaze, watching the approach of a man in dull antique armor, as dark as that of the Qurthe, riding atop a pale gray mare. And yet, the outlines of his form were as bright as all the colors ever seen, all dancing around him in eddies of light, a field of fine static.

  He wore no helmet, and the weak sun shone down upon his long abundant hair, pale and metallic, and much like Elasirr’s own luxurious mane.

  His face was young. Now that it was animated with life, and no longer a wax effigy, the face was that of a youth, quite a bit younger than the Guildmaster, and in his early prime.

  And yet the face contained a paradox. Youth and antiquity. Wizened knowledge and a stamp of innocence. The ages had played a trick upon him, imprinting time itself in the shadows below his eyes, in the deep gaze. While at the same time, youth broke through to continue its journey that had been oddly interrupted for centuries.

  And light had also marked him with the essence of a bygone age. It stood around him, the endless ceaseless living flicker of glory, the mother-of-pearl meandering energy, wrought of color and sharpness.

  It was the soul, the essence of the world.

  A bit of the Rainbow.

  And he, the ancient King, had brought it back with him, into this newer place of dull silver shadows, a world with a weak gray sun.

  Elasirr took a step toward him. But there were no words in him, nothing to utter, in the face of wonder.

  But the one who had been Elasand came forward, past the stricken blond man, and his own outlines were sharp with a fine glimmer of utter brightness that was white.

  He stretched his hand in welcome, saying “Come!” to the King on the pale mare.

  And suddenly, all could see him, the one that was now Elasand, all recognized his brightness. For, the veil of apathy had come off, and they could now glance several degrees deeper into the fabric of the world.

 
A swell of voices, a shuddering breath of the crowd. People looked upon the two bright ones. Those of the Qurthe soldiers who were nearest, blinked, drawing hands to their faces to lift the visors off their dull metal helmets. They too stared, ebony foreign eyes out of swarthy-skinned human faces.

  “Come!” Andelas said again, and he walked to meet the King. “You are here, and thus, I am here also.” And saying that, he took the bridle of the mare, stopping it, and gazed up at Alliran Monteyn, with warm brilliant white eyes.

  The King met the gaze of a man who had come before him from the parted crowd, who was different somehow, alien and yet familiar. And now, this man was before him, was stretching his hand toward him, and involuntarily—the King could not help it—his own hand, clad in dull ancient armor and gloved in chain-link, came forward.

  The King leaned down from his saddle (while blood began to sing in him, and a dull rushing of a faraway river, a crystal stream flowed in his temples). And then he put his hand forward, and took the outstretched palm of the stranger.

  The world convulsed.

  No, it was simply a bolt of electricity rushing through him—through them both. An involuntary moan came from the King’s lips—or was it the other’s lips, or maybe, from the lips of everyone present.

  Rushing . . . The world, rushing, spinning into one complete thing . . . connection . . . two circuits of energy joining, reestablishing the once broken link.

  All is right now . . .

  All, as it should be.

  “Who are you?” said Alliran Monteyn, still holding the hand of the stranger, then releasing it unwillingly, straightening again in his saddle.

  But the other only smiled. Raven-dark hair framed a pale beautiful alien face.

  And then the King felt the sudden change within himself.

  A lightness. . . .

  The touch had healed him. For, there was no longer the dull pain, not a trace of cancerous malady within him. As though it had never existed.

  “You know who I am now,” softly replied the stranger with the raven hair.

  “Yes!” uttered the King. “You are the Lord of the Rainbow!”

  “And you are the King whose time is now!”

  A roar of the crowd.

  “It is time!” cried Andelas, stepping back from the King, stepping away from all. His figure, sharp with the outline of light, began to grow brighter suddenly, and the aura around him extended several feet beyond. It glared, incandescent, eclipsing the sun overhead—it, poor sun, had been long forgotten by all—and it illuminated faces of soldiers, simple and ordinary, and yet different today.

  Because for the first time in their lives, they were illuminated with white light.

  They stared, all of them, Elasirr, Ranhé, Masters of the Light Guild, Bilhaar, and commoners. They looked, and their pupils narrowed protectively from the new radiance. They gazed, and they could see the Tilirreh in their midst, and the ancient King.

  “You have healed me. Just as it was promised to me,” said Alliran Monteyn to the one that was Andelas. “And yet, I have been brought here for another reason, I see now. Not a personal reason, as I first was told, back in another time.”

  “My gods,” whispered Elasirr suddenly. “It is the paradox that they had told us about, when we were within their own worlds. . . . The paradox of existence. One could not be without the other. That’s why none of the Tilirr could return before!”

  Ranhé, standing a few feet away, looked at him, seeing his face simultaneously illuminated by the glory of the one who stood before them, and by the dawning of understanding.

  And she smiled on the inside, because she had known this for some time now, ever since she first touched white.

  “True,” said Andelas to the King. “I healed you because that is in my nature. And yet, without your presence in this world, I could never have returned on my own, no matter that all of you mortals called me as one! It was you, taken from a place and time of Rainbow, who had anchored me here, in this time and place, in this world. For, you carry a part of myself inside you. And by healing you, I heal and reinforce myself. Thus, I am fully present among you once again. And the gates are open. We come now, in our fullness, and we bring with us the Rainbow!”

  The incarnated god turned his human face up to the dull sunlight, and let the wind sweep over him, bathing him with its soft presence.

  “Tilirr!” cried the god to the skies, and in the silence of the place of battle, his voice of a man carried out and beyond, became a shrill cry of a hawk, a whisper of a hummingbird, and then trailed off in a breath somewhere far, on the wind, and resounded in the mind.

  “Lords of Rainbow! I have come here before you, and I call upon you to return!”

  “Werail!”

  Ranhé blinked, because there was a bright flash, and it struck her eyes with intensity, with real pain.

  A flash as bright as the world.

  Red.

  There was a burning upon the face of the sun. They looked up as one, the soldiers, for the sun was now a fireball of strange intense crimson, an impossible sight. It had become a great red orb, pulsing with volcanic brilliance.

  The sky bled red, a flood of it, fading out into monochrome black at the edges of the horizon. And it was a smooth transition, for the light blended evenly, was swallowed and integrated by the very fabric of the air above them, sank and permeated the cloudless abyss overhead.

  A man stood before Andelas, a great figure of scarlet, somewhat transparent, for one could see through him to the other side, like a ghost. And yet, he was no shade, but a warrior, dressed in ancient armor—armor that was far older than that of the King himself, armor out of the deepest antiquity of the human age.

  At last, impossibly, I come! thundered Werail, and his face ignited with a fierce smile of joy. He reached forward eagerly, and Andelas touched him on the fingertips, drawing him in, pulling him by one pale white hand. In that place where they came together was a small spark.

  And in that instant, all soldiers who lay bleeding on the field of battle were given an instant of recognition. They looked and saw that the blood which flowed from their wounds, which gleamed wet upon their blades of steel, which poured in rivulets upon the ground of the square, was red—blood was red in nature, not ebony. They saw it now, as clearly and impossibly as only moments ago they had been blind. They saw that it had always been thus, this blood. It held color inside itself, the color of pain and intensity, of passion and life. Color was anchored within it, and they recognized it now, the richness. . . .

  The red one laughed then, with a deep bass of power, and began to dissolve literally into the air around him, spilling eddies of scarlet fire. Only echoes of his voice remained for moments afterward.

  But the world remained red, and the sun pulsed like a heart.

  Andelas, bathed in the red blood glow, said, “Melixevven!”

  Another explosion, this one orange, and in place of Werail stood a slim young woman with tight curls like dandelion, and a mischievous volatile smile. She cried with laughter, reached forward to touch Andelas, and a tingling spark flowed between them. She giggled with pleasure, and drew her transparent arms up to feel the sun’s warmth upon her tangerine skin. The sun pulsed in succession from red to orange, while the sky was persimmon in zenith, and flowed in perfect homogenous transition to blood red at the horizon.

  It is good to be back! exclaimed she of the pixie smile, and her voice bubbled like a spring, bringing smiles to their lips, and a definite hue to their skin, like warm summer peach. Melixevven spun, hands outflung, and her little girl form dissolved also into the air, in a funnel of a bright tornado.

  The world was in a dichotomy of orange and red, a universe of flame.

  Andelas gazed at the flames of the air, and said, “Dersenne!”

  And there was universal gold. The sun bubbled forth topaz light like a bowl of boiling honey, and in seconds it spilled evenly, permeating the sky.

  It shimmered, and became his hair, st
reaming outward to the edges of the horizon, and the man-in-the-sun smiled down upon them, then suddenly began to fall. . . .

  The crowd in the square shrank involuntarily, breath struck from each man or woman, for the sensation of vertigo was incredible—sky rushing toward them, or they, the whole of Tronaelend-Lis, flying up to meet the sky.

  And Dersenne transformed as he fell, growing smaller, growing mortal, and then landed with his feet on the ground, the size of a human man, clad in nothing but his long sun-hair. He took the hand of Andelas, and in that instant pale yellow lightning fractured the honey sky with hairlines of power.

  Ranhé thought she saw him pause and look at her for a moment, with intimate eyes, gifting her with the essence of inspiration, so that she wanted to laugh and weep simultaneously, and yet could do neither. She stood at Elasirr’s side and watched the god silently, her face impassive and stilled in the profundity of experience.

  And she thought she heard the whisper in her mind, I am here now, always. Always, within you. Therefore, be yourself!

  Then, like a bit of amber, Dersenne’s form dissolved also into the air, leaving the sun rich like that same amber stone.

  The sun now pulsed with a wider spectrum of red, orange, and yellow. And Ranhé suddenly saw another instance of the yellow, saw it shining forever, in Elasirr’s bright hair.

  Andelas lowered his gaze upon the earth below him, and spoke, “Fiadolmle!”

  There were green fireworks in the sky.

  Somewhere in the ranks of the guildsmen, a woman’s voice burst out in a sob of emotion. Erin Khirmoel sat in the saddle, tears streaming down her cheeks, underneath the metal visor of her helmet, for she was seeing the green rich velvet sky of her dream, her childhood dream fulfilled. . . .

  Elasirr looked on into the distance where Dirvan sprawled in the heart of the City, and he saw the fireworks of malachite rain down upon the Gardens, and the color blend with the growth of cypress and cedar, green supplanting black. The trees were suddenly brilliant olive, and the grass danced in the pallid light like a carpet of jade.