“We have come to it,” Patient said, holding up his staff and coming to an abrupt halt. “The Hold wherein we will find the living fire.”
Albino checked his surroundings for an indication of where the Hold was. He felt confused. “Do you mean that this—this cathedral is the Hold? I thought you said that no one can step into it.”
But the shepherd thrust out the key and turned it in the air. “Click!” Then the floor trembled and rose beneath them, raising them far above to a platform that had been invisible from the ground level. “Hurry! Get on the platform before the floor recedes.”
Following Patient’s advice, Albino jumped forward just as the stones on which he had been standing dropped hazardously out of reach. He found himself standing opposite a wooden door about eight feet high and five feet wide. A heavy iron chain stretched across it and an inordinately fat padlock had been fastened to it.
Patient held out his staff. “Hold this for me.”
Taking the wooden stick in his claws, Albino held it gingerly. “I don’t know why you bring this thing with you. It only gets in your way.”
The shepherd chuckled. “My friend, if you were human then you would understand that age has a way of catching up with you and that a staff can be more than a little helpful at times.” He grabbed the padlock and rattled the chains. “Hold on!” Turning the key in the padlock he dropped the chains and the wood door swung outward.
A whoosh of hot air forced Albino to close his eyes for a moment. He dug his claws into the platform as some kind of force tried to push him off.
“Stop,” he heard the shepherd say. “Enough!”
The storm passed and Albino opened his eyes and relaxed his muscles. Before him lay a chamber ablaze with fierce flames. Patient stood before it and reached back even as Albino held out his staff.
“The powers of a penitent prophet never die,” Patient said as he took a step toward the Hold. “They live on without him and, yet, bound to him. Once given up they yearn to return to their master, but they are not allowed to do so. Today I have come to close off this danger to the world, this threat to mankind’s existence:
“A power of evil rises from the ashes of his master’s doom, a threat upon the world grows in strength. He gathers the corrupted and the evil to himself, preparing for a war upon Subter-ran that will subject it under him. To what will men turn when this evil threatens their existence? Do they have a champion, a man who can match the evil brought against him?
“I see the youngest daughter of the great white dragon, pure and beautiful, won by a man of her choosing. She gives her life and brings a child into the world. A child of hope, an offspring of the dragon. But the enemy seeks out the offspring and draws near to snuff out her flame.
“Will none go to her aid? Will all stand and watch as she is destroyed?
“I see a sword blazing in the hands of her deliverer! Fierce and glorious, he stands between her and death. The sword given to men by the dragon prophet is in his hands. Lo! It has the living fire—the powers held from time long past. It is he, the son of the traitor.
“Take now the weapon and arm the deliverer!”
Albino beheld a mighty sword rise from the midst of the Hold. Its blade was long and elegant, double-edged. Its steel mirrored everything without flaw and flames entwined themselves around the blade, wreathing it in red and yellow fire. The sword’s guard was semi-transparent, like crystal, and a gold vine wrapped it and passed below to the handle, reinforcing the leather gripping.
Patient slid his hand over the sword’s pommel and curled his fingers around its handle, then drew it out, stepped back, and watched the heavy wooden door close. The chains tangled themselves across the door and the padlock fitted itself into their links before snapping shut.
“Take this!” Patient tossed him the sword. “The prophecy was meant for you and the sword is yours to give to whomever you choose.”
Catching the sword in one hand, Albino waited for the cathedral’s floor to return for them. As the tiles rose next to the platform, he leapt onto it and it began to descend, leaving Patient behind. Spreading his leathery wings, Albino shot up and past his friend, curling his tail around Patient’s torso and flinging him onto his back.
“It is time to depart, my friend.”
He streaked downward, pulled his head back and landed in front of the entry doors. Patient dismounted and opened the doors. As he did so, they saw a swirl of light and a portal opened before them.
“Our way home!” Albino roared victory but he had turned his face upward again. There, hovering in the air around the citadel spires was a host of human figures wrapped in dark veils, silent and unmoving. In their midst was a body dwarfing all others, its spiked tail wrapped around its shiny, black-scaled body. “Valo-rian!” he growled.
Patient slapped him across the head with his shepherd’s staff. “Leave him be! We’re getting out of here.”
The portal grew in size and prepared to swallow them and at that moment Albino heard the faint tinkle of metal as the key slipped through Patient’s fingers and fell to the stone floor. He grabbed for it but missed. The key vanished and reappeared inside the energy dome atop the pedestal. “No!”
A whirlwind of color caught him up. He felt his surroundings disappear and saw the light of day fill the darkness. Moments later he found himself standing outside of the ancient ruin deep in the forest. Rain pummeled him again and the portal vanished behind him. Patient stood next to him.
“Do not worry,” the shepherd said. “The sword is what we really came for. It is the key to the future, and the Shield of Purity will prevent anyone else from obtaining the key.”
“And what if someone else manages to get past that shield?” Albino growled and looked at the spot where the portal had been.
Patient furrowed his brow. “If someone managed to get past the shield—” He glanced at the sword. “Then that weapon would become as any other sword and its bearer would be left vulnerable.”
“Great! So we have a weapon and a prophecy that are useless! And what if Letrias finds out about this? He is crafty and may figure a way to get the key.”
“Not if we keep this incident a secret.”
“You mean don’t tell anyone?”
Patient started walking into the trees but he called back over his shoulder. “Yes. That is exactly what I mean!”
They left the forest. Patient kept gazing upon the mighty sword and smiling. “I always believed that Living Fire could save many lives. Today the events we will put in motion have the potential of proving me true.”
The rain stopped and the clouds thinned before a stiff wind that howled through the forest. The dragon crouched as Patient climbed onto his neck, then he spread his wings and pulled himself into the sky. He soared eastward to the Western Wood. Spotting the waterfall and woodland pool, he descended, gently landing in the meadow.
Patient dismounted. Not even the starlight cascading down the high waterfall could tear Albino’s eyes away from the white robed shepherd. The man stepped into the pool of water formed at the waterfall’s base and waded deeper. The water rippled around him. In his hands the sword of living fire burned, the tip of its beautiful blade barely touching the water’s surface.
The scales along Albino’s spine shimmered as a cool breath washed over him. The trees around the presence of an unseen One blossomed and shed their leaves then grew new ones. The grass warmed and shivered.
“We are all here, Patient.” Albino spat flames into the misting night air.
Another voice boomed out beside him. “Let’s do it, Patient. I grow weary of waiting.”
A smile snuck across the shepherd’s face as a breeze pushed his hood off his head and his long white hair freely flowed behind him. “Patience, my friends.” But he raised the sword by its handle, above and before him, longingly gazing upon its flaming blade, then slowly lowered it into the water, and stabbed it into the depths until it was hidden from view.
Beside him, the dra
gon felt the presence of the other One depart.
He nodded to Patient as he slogged out of the water and obligingly dried his robes with a wave of his clawed hand. With not a word more, the shepherd climbed onto the dragon’s neck, and Albino spread his wings to depart.
MAN OF THE WILDERNESS
It was the night of Ilfedo’s seventeenth birthday. Heat radiated throughout the room from the fireplace. He dropped his hand to feel the long box set across his legs, the gift he’d been forbidden to open until after cake was served. To his left sat his mother, blond hair dancing and green eyes glimmering in the candlelight. She beamed at him, clasped his hand in both of hers, then she turned to meet her husband’s lips for a quick kiss.
Rising from his rustic chair, Ilinor, his father, pushed it back from the table and stood with a pewter mug held in his hand. “To you, our friends, our neighbors.” He nodded at the half dozen smiling faces looking up at him with rapt attention. “And to you, Ilfedo”—he grinned at his son—“on this most momentous day of your life, a day I hope you will look back on as not only the day that you entered manhood, but also the day that you recommitted yourself to uphold your family name, the name of Mathaliah, with honor, for as long as you live.”
“Here! Here!” The other three men sitting at the table scrambled to their feet for a moment, and clunked their mugs to his.
“And to my wife, Larkspur,” Ilfedo’s father continued, resting his hand on her shoulder and looking down into her eyes, “who has raised for me a son of whom I am proud!”
At this, two women seated across from his mother raised their mugs. “Here! Here! Here!”
Ilfedo’s face warmed as his mother kissed his cheek, then stood. Three lads now marched into the dimly illuminated room. They’d been his friends and playmates since childhood, ever since their parents had banded together to “Tame the wilderness” and “Get out of the overpopulated coastal towns.” His father had headed the expedition, much to the horror of his fellow countrymen who’d warned him that the western parts of the Hemmed Land were no place to raise a family and certainly not the place for the descendants of the tiny nation’s oldest family, the family of Mathaliah, to establish themselves.
True, the western half of the Hemmed Land was home to some old beasts that had been known to tear men in half, but it was also hunters’ heaven—for those, like Ilinor, who dared explore its wild forested hills.
Ilinor preferred bow and arrows—sometimes a javelin— while on the hunt. A finely crafted, sleek long bow hung over the large stone fireplace behind the kitchen table in their three-room log cabin. The kitchen table had been stained red with the blood of Ilinor’s many kills. Below the bow, on a wooden peg driven between the fireplace stones, hung the quiver full of steel-tipped arrows on wood shafts. Ilinor had acquired a large quantity of the lethal arrowheads from the smiths in the coastal towns before making his departure.
His three friends marched stiffly toward Ilfedo, carrying his cake. Ombre stood nearest him, walking sideways with both hands supporting the cake’s wooden dish. His hazel eyes twinkled merrily, and the corners of his mouth twitched as if he was having difficulty keeping his face straight.
Broad-shouldered, sandy-blond haired Honer held the center of the cake dish. His gray eyes met Ilfedo’s for an instant before looking to his right where sat a couple whose sandy-blond hair and matching gray eyes left no doubt that he was their son. Fletch, of the family Pithion, sitting with his wife Adara, glued their gazes on their son. Honer’s seventeenth had come and gone a year and a half ago.
To the couple’s right sat a solid-built man with his hands clasped on the table. Jevnar of the family Ernalia. His wife had died two years ago and, though a very nice middle-aged woman back on the coast had tried to draw his eye for a while, he’d eventually decided that no one would take his dead wife’s place at his side and had remained a widower. Ombre was his only child and they lived in a tiny cabin a considerable distance south of Ilfedo’s parents.
The man smiled a small smile at Ilfedo when he saw him staring, and Ilfedo smiled back, then glanced toward his cake, feeling that he had somehow intruded on the man’s private affairs.
Beside Honer, Ganning held the last third of the cake dish. He was a bit of an oddity from the rest, boyish yet sober, dark haired, yet blue eyed. His parents occupied the seats beside Jevnar.
Every other step Ganning took dropped his head and shoulder down by at least a couple inches. His gimpy left leg had been with him from birth. But Ilfedo knew that the boy’s limp deceived many people into underestimating his physical abilities. He had seen Ganning run over a wet forest floor with hardly a sound, notch an arrow to his bowstring and bring down a deer within short order.
In fact, all the boys hunted and fished, following in their fathers’ footsteps. Though, of late, Ilfedo’d preferred hunting with a sword. Unconventional it might sound—his father at first objected—but Ilfedo liked the maneuverability the sword offered him. Swing, throw, stab—the options seemed limitless.
Slaps on the back from his friends, smiles from the adults gathered around—a thumbs up from Jevnar. Ilfedo relaxed into the party, enjoying the warm love of his home.
He cut the cake into slices … each one large enough for two men.
Larkspur passed out the cake, and Ombre said the chocolate and vanilla flavor was just perfect. She patted Ombre’s head affectionately, then turned her back to the cabin door and passed cake to Jevnar, her smile magnetic.
The next moment a furry, black mass smashed through the door, razor sharp claws wildly cutting through the air. Never had Ilfedo seen a larger bear, nor, he vowed—as blood spurted from his mother’s back and her face paled—would he ever see one alive again.
Horror froze everyone at the table. Everyone, that is, except Ilinor. Throwing himself across the table, he yelled like a madman as his wife collapsed in his arms. Her eyes closed, and he yelled wildly.
He pulled the chair from under Fletch Pithion, dropping the man to the floor, and smashed the heavy wood across the black-furred face. In the few moments that it took for this to happen, the bear shook its head and opened its mouth, latching horrifically with its fangy teeth onto Ilinor’s neck and dragged him, bleeding to death, onto the floor.
Everyone sprang into action, grabbing whatever weapon happened to be closest at hand. Adara smashed the cake over the bear’s head, while her husband swung his chair after it. Jevnar sprang onto the table, pulling down Ilinor’s bow, slipped two arrows from the quiver, and drew it back, then released the projectiles into the beast.
The bear thrashed Ilinor around on the floor, tearing limb from limb, and it struck down the would-be-rescuers with one massive paw.
Ilfedo screamed, rage mixing with sorrow as he tore into his birthday box. The gift he had known would be contained therein, shone back at him in the firelight. Highly-polished metal glinted in the firelight. He snatched up a three-foot long sword of simple yet solid composition, its blade honed to a deadly point.
He stepped over his guests, the box falling to the wood floor, his fist gripping the sword’s leathern handle. His father lay dying, his mother—already dead.
The bear swatted at him. He upswung his new blade and drove its point through the bear’s paw. Then, with all the strength he possessed, he stabbed the beast’s face.
Ilfedo watched the bear through blurring vision as it fell, the blade stuck through its paw into its head, and he released his hold on the black leather grip.
Kneeling beside his mother he held her wrist. No pulse. He called her name, knowing that he’d been too late. Nothing beating in the heart that had loved him as only hers was able.
Ilinor’s voice called him and he wept as he held his father’s hand and gazed into the glazing eyes. “Father?”
“Your mother … is she?”
At this, Ilfedo completely broke. He wept until he ran out of tears. Then he sobbed until his heart felt ready to break.
A tear formed in Ilinor’s eye a
nd rolled off his face. “You are—alone—my son. I am …” Blood dribbled from his mouth. “I am sorry.”
A strong hand clasped Ilfedo’s shoulder. He felt someone else’s tears falling onto his neck. Jevnar said, “No, Ilinor. Not alone.”
The room lay in shambles, but the weeping faces of his friends all around, shook from side to side, affirming Jevnar’s statement. “Not alone.”
Ilinor struggled, spitting blood as he grasped Ilfedo’s shoulder. “You are a man now, my son! But—you need a father—regard Jev-nar as such. He—loves you—I know that.” He rasped out another breath. “Remember your Creator—honor the family name—” He breathed in one last time, and his eyes closed in death.
Hours passed. No one stirred.
Evening came, darkness fell, midnight passed. Still the mourners lingered, unmoving.
When Yimshi’s first light broke upon the forest, the mourners wrapped the dead and formed a blood-stained procession, taking the bodies of Ilfedo’s parents to a spot deep in the forest. They cut down one of the larger trees, carved out a rustic coffin, and placed Ilinor and Larkspur together inside of it.
Deep in the earth they buried them, covering the grave with rocks so large it took all three grown men and Ombre, Honer, and Ganning to move them.
Ilfedo remained there that day—and Jevnar stood with him, while Ombre wept almost as much as he. The emotional wounds were deep, he knew. It would take time to heal. But he would, heal.
Ilfedo accepted a large wooden mug from the innkeeper. The potent juice of the wild grapes slid refreshingly from the mug, over his tongue and down his throat. He set the mug down, sliding his hand along the slippery bar. Thanks to the crackling wood in the fireplace, heat drove the dampness from his unkempt, shoulder-length hair and the clammy clothes clinging to his skin.
“Have you come far?” The innkeeper, a towel thrown over each of his narrow shoulders, drowned the mug in soapy water and pulled it out, drying it with one hand while his dark eyes remained on Ilfedo.
Swords of the Six (The Sword of the Dragon) Page 18
