Einin said, “We should have a plan for when the walls fall.”
“Azmon has stretched his forces to the point of breaking. We’ve talked about this. Ironwall and Telessar will not fall like Shinar.”
“But this city, Westrend. What languages do they speak?”
“This is the end of civilization. The Norsil destroyed what was left of the Old Gadaran Kingdom. They finished a decline that was hundreds of years in the making. No one can reclaim the Lost Lands.” Dura rocked her chair and kept her gaze on the window. “Tyrus, it is time for you to train the champions.”
“Of course, mistress.”
He left them alone, and the silence dragged. Einin busied herself studying the map, but she knew most of it by heart. She made mental notes of all the little clues people gave her.
“You will not take Marah from me,” Dura said. “She is too important, and Ironwall is the best place to keep her. She should be in Telessar, but Azmon moves against them.”
“She is my child.”
“You are not her mother.”
“I am a Lady of Narbor and her cousin.” Einin controlled her temper. Dura Galamor was a commoner by birth with power and the ear of the king, but Einin refused to be her slave. “The empress entrusted her to me.”
“The seraphim brought her to me. Peace, girl, I won’t argue it. You risk her life if you take her beyond the walls. Azmon is dangerous but overextends himself, and while we fight him here, the continent of Sornum rebels. This is a game of patience.”
“We should make plans in case—”
“You never listen. This is why your lessons are so slow. You refuse to learn, trying to bend everything to your will. Any fool can wear a crown, but a true ruler understands the value of patience.”
“Why won’t you tell me the truth? Where are these students coming from?”
“Do you know what they risk to come here? Have you any idea how difficult it is to travel to Ironwall safely? No. Because you will not listen.”
“The bone beasts will come.”
“They will.”
“We must prepare.”
“We are.”
Einin reprimanded herself as she heard her voice rise. Although she tried to avoid it, they had the same argument again except Dura threatened to take Marah away. She struggled to breathe more easily despite being imprisoned in a tower like a common criminal.
“You work yourself up needlessly. There are no beasts on the plains.”
“When we see them, it will be too late.”
“When was the last time you practiced your meditation?”
“Yesterday, with you.”
Dura clicked her tongue. “You must practice three times a day.”
“We don’t have time for this.”
“All we have is time. Remember: patience.” Dura smiled with an infuriating amount of pity. “Kneel and control your breathing.”
Einin’s eyes darted around the room. She had the mundane furniture memorized, had counted the stones in the walls and boards in the floor during long hours spent rocking Marah to sleep, but she found nothing to help her win her argument. Why would no one listen to her? The king abandoned her. She protected the heir of the Roshan Empire, her own cousin, yet Dura kept her secreted away from the court.
“Kneel.”
Einin knelt. Dura instructed her to relax her shoulders, deepen her breathing, and find a focal point in her mind. Einin had never been able to do the last part. Her thoughts jumped around like a grasshopper, flitting from one idea to the next, always coming back to the war. The idea of escaping conjured lists of supplies and possible routes to safety. She tried to blank her mind and failed. Dura’s words distracted her. Einin understood patience, but not at a time like this.
The next day began with language lessons. Einin sat on a rug with Marah, who stacked blocks while Dura perched on a stool and leaned into her staff. She quizzed Einin about the blocks, which listed things that seemed pointless: animals, rocks, plants, castles, rivers, weapons, and armor. Dura chose blocks at random, asking Einin to name the rune, give its Kasdin and Nuna names, and build phrases. Blocks for bear and castle became a game of “bear standing outside the castle,” “bear walking outside the castle,” and “bear sitting inside the castle.” Marah didn’t speak but knew enough to grab the correct blocks.
“Why do we do this?” Einin asked. “You said I cannot learn sorcery.”
“The runes became the basis for all language. If you know them, you can learn many dialects. They are the beginning of knowledge.”
Dura talked endlessly about the roots of words and historical trivia and claimed to know the lineage of dynasties based on the intermarriage of names. Dura walked to a shelf and picked through stacks of scrolls and tomes. She loved her collection and had no limp in her stride as she pored over her volumes.
“Here it is.” Dura handed her a bound volume. “Scan the first lines. Tell me the words you recognize.”
“Is this monster?”
“Read it to me.”
“Shephir?”
“A good guess. It means betrayer or, more literally, oath-breaker. It became an insult, long ago. You know its more modern form.” Dura waited for Einin to guess. “Shedim, the demons of the Nine Hells. This book is the short history of the first two wars of creation and the Age of Chaos that followed.”
Dura gestured for the book and read a passage telling the story of the creation of people, which angered the angelic host and caused the First War of Creation. “The angelic host became two factions: the seraphim, who defended God, and the shedim, who rebelled.”
“What of the Second War?”
“That was a dark time. Some of the Sarbor left the heavens and hells, to live on creation. They became the grigorn, abandoning their wings and walking among the animals and the people. Soon, they created kingdoms and wanted to be worshiped. They mated with the people and the beasts.”
“Creating the Demon Tribes.”
“Not just the tribes, but also the nephalem. The elves and dwarves. The Second War was fought by mortal armies on behalf of the angels and demons. They sought control of the gates at the Top and the Bottom of the World.”
Einin stifled a yawn.
“Am I boring you?”
“I learned these stories as a child.”
“The songs leave out much. Books are better. You will learn to read this before you think of leaving Ironwall. Then you might be able to talk to people at the market.”
“When I leave isn’t up to me. We leave when Rosh invades.”
Dura’s eyes hardened. They had a brief staring contest before Dura thrust the book at her, insisting that she take it.
“You are lucky Azmon wants Telessar first,” Dura said. “Else we might have to discuss our living arrangements in more detail.” She went to her office and returned with a slate of black stone and a piece of white chalk. “I want you to read the words you know and copy the words you don’t. After you fill the slate, bring it to me, and I will explain them. We work through it, page by page, until you have read the story of creation.”
“But why this book?”
“Because it ends with the Third War of Creation.”
“I’ve never heard of a third war.”
“It hasn’t happened yet, but maybe then you will understand what Azmon wants and why it is pointless to run. You have heard of the Last Seven Battles?”
Einin remembered the old songs. The world would end with seven battles that decided the fate of creation. She found it hard to believe that the future might be written in an old book. As she considered it, she realized the possibility was absurd.
Dura asked, “Do you know why Azmon wants Telessar?”
“No.”
Dura tapped the book. “Read this, and you will.”
Einin hated being talked to like a child. She might look young, but she had stood beside an empress in an empire that spanned the four
corners of a continent. She had helped Ishma maneuver the great Roshan houses against each other. Dura should summarize the important bits, but that was not her way. She had more knowledge than her betters and used it as a shield. Although Einin lacked the power to stop Dura, she understood the tactic. Reading a book in a foreign language was an impossible task, but it filled the empty hours of the day.
DREAMS AND DEMONS
I
In his nightmare, Tyrus fought an ocean of monsters. The ground smoldered, and clouds of smoke obscured the horizon. Everything tasted of ash. His battered armor hung in pieces, offering little protection while hundreds of bone beasts swarmed him. They were dead creatures, designed to shred their prey with bone plates for armor and black leathery skin. Weapons covered their bodies: fifteen feet of horns, claws, and fangs. Red flames burned in empty eye sockets. Their hatred glowed, and they drooled for his blood, fighting each other to eat him, while flying beasts blotted out the sun like a colony of bats.
He had nowhere to run.
For over fifteen years, he had led the beasts into battle, destroying cities, armies, and all that opposed him. He had never seen so many in one place, and the wrongness had texture. The nightmare seemed real, but like the others, he fought in slow motion. A strange lethargy muddied his movements.
Sword in hand, he fought against the impossible. Kills meant nothing with a swarm churning around him. Their animal howls drowned out his screams. Blood and pain burst from all his limbs. The nightmares were never this vivid. He should be dead and dismembered, but the beasts toyed with him. One flyer dove low, black wings folded tightly. Tyrus saw his chance and vaulted from a dying beast to the back of another, clawing his way onto its shoulders. They grabbed at him, but he jumped free, high enough to catch the flyer’s foot.
Tyrus recognized the nightmare. Every night he relived this fight. He watched himself climb the flyer and fight Lilith. Wind tore her black robes into flutters as she sat in the saddle, raving that she was the Bone Queen of Rosh and casting fiery orbs at him that burned off his hair and blistered his skin. For a moment, he wrestled the reins from her and thought he might land until she did the unthinkable. She used a fire orb to kill the flyer. The wings went limp. Forward motion stalled, and vertigo twisted his stomach as the dead thing plummeted. She clung to him, cackling like a lunatic.
“What did you do?”
“We die together, Tyrus.”
“But why?”
“Azmon won’t find anything to play with.”
He slashed her throat to get away. The ground grew closer with each heartbeat. Trees rose from the smoke; he hated trees. Wind tore at his eyelids, and there was nothing to do but hope the impact killed him. Each night, he survived it again. Hundreds of spells, etched into his flesh, gave him unnatural life, but they did nothing to blunt the pain.
“Please wake up.” Tyrus closed his eyes. “Please.”
He struck the trees with a crack of bone and wood. Wood flayed his flesh and splintered all around him. The roar of breaking branches followed him down the trees. The vividness of the pain bothered him, as though his nightmares punished him. With a jarring thud, the falling stopped.
Broken tree limbs showered over him. Beneath the rubble, he wheezed through punctured lungs. The blackness offered respite, as though the end neared. His runes fought to repair his mutilated body, and he heard someone rooting through the pile. Soon, Klay would find him, and the surgeons would sew him back together. The darkness grayed as branches were pulled away. White light blinded. The figure he saw was too large, with wings and golden hair. Tyrus saw an angel.
“Ramiel?”
“That sniveling slave won’t help you.”
Tyrus struggled to move, to run, but his broken body tortured him. The pain should make him wake. Why wasn’t he awake? The angel had black wings.
“Mulciber?”
“My general.” Mulciber snarled as he inhaled. “My third in command, the only one to bear all my runes, do you think to hide from me? I will find you. If I have to burn creation and sift the ashes for your bones, I will find you.”
The crash had mangled Tyrus’s body into pulp. He could not move, except to blink his eyes and wheeze. Normal people would die or bleed out. His heart should stop. He should be dead. He had never guessed the runes would torture him like this, and pain blurred his vision as he croaked a complaint.
“Kill. Me.”
“You ask for mercy?”
“Please.”
“When I betrayed the Seven Heavens, I was punished with an eternity of torment. Cast out, renamed, forgotten. They turned me into a monster and called me Moloch.” Mulciber grabbed Tyrus’s face, grinding broken bones together until Tyrus howled. “And now you dare betray me? How shall I punish an oath-breaker? The angels would leave you chained in the Nine Hells.”
Tyrus whimpered through watery eyes. He should be dead. Mulciber’s angelic eyes burned with fire, and his ivory skin peeled away. Beneath the beautiful face lay another bone beast, the worst of the brood, with horns and glistening fangs. Tyrus trembled.
“Look at me, my Lord Marshal. You will never escape my wrath. You think you betrayed Azmon? Who do you think Azmon serves? Who do you think is the real power behind Rosh? You are my general. You are my Lord Marshal. And you are pissing me off.”
Darkness washed over him, and he panicked. He should die in a great battle against a worthy foe. To drown in the dark, to lose it all for nothing, was a pointless death. If he had a sword and something to fight, he could at least die well. He deserved to die fighting, not gasping in black muck.
“You will… not… leave.”
The voice became distant as black liquid covered his ears. Tyrus choked on the stuff, and it chilled him. Regrets washed over him and left him wishing he had done more with his life than kill people. He wanted a second chance. The demon’s ferocity penetrated the darkness.
“The seven battles begin… you are mine… eternity… punishing you.”
II
Tyrus bolted awake, covered in sweat. In the darkness of his room, wool blankets clung to him like towels. His hair was matted to his forehead, and he probed his ribs, seeking out breaks. A dream, but unlike any he had experienced in a while. He rubbed his face and still felt Mulciber’s claws digging into his cheeks. Not a dream or a nightmare but a message.
Mulciber hunted him?
He climbed down the stairs of the tower. His runes allowed him to see in the dark as though a full moon cast the night with a bluish-gray glow. Dura’s students had gone to sleep. No candles glowed, and no sounds could be heard as Tyrus left the tower. Outside, he stood on the ramparts, at the top of the Gadaran mountains, and listened to the wind howl. Most of the countryside was dark. Clouds blocked out the stars and moon, and beneath the tower, the sprawling fortress of Ironwall rested in shadows. Tyrus spotted a few fires for guards on the walls.
He chided himself for not standing closer to the ramparts. The wind chapping his face brought back the memories, though, and he had to steel himself against them. Closing his eyes, he sensed the vertigo of the fall. Any minute, the trees would hit him. The ground remained steady, but his instincts mistrusted it. He edged closer to the rampart and hesitated as though the mountain might toss him into the abyss. With a shaky hand, he grabbed the cold stone.
Of all the battles he had fought—against monsters, beasts, men, and demons—the idea of falling down a mountain inspired the most fear. He glanced over the edge and had to close his eyes. The height terrified him, and he rested his forehead against the stone.
He should have died. Instincts betrayed him, leaving him a trembling fool. Fear of heights—could there be a more useless fear? Howling wind drained the blood from his face, but he must confront it. He fought the things he feared, and he always won. This was a battle like any other. Morbid curiosity pulled him to the edge again, and the sheer drop tempted as it revolted.
He had confronted this drop for
a year, and the nightmares grew worse. If Mulciber was this angry with him, what had the demon done to Empress Ishma? He looked eastward, toward the black shadow of Mount Teles, the tallest mountain in the world. Somewhere behind that peak lay the city of Shinar and the Roshan army. He wondered whether they had discovered her treason, and he imagined the interrogators setting hooks into her flesh. He blamed himself. At the time, he had chosen to help her daughter escape, but he should have found a way to help them both.
Unable to sleep, he dwelled on memories from an older time, before the beasts had infested Rosh, before he had lost everything, when he had been Ishma’s guardian.
Tyrus remembered the courtyard of the Narboran palace. The cobblestones were crowded with hundreds of servants, horses, and lancers, all waiting to escort Queen Ishma to Rosh. Emperor Azmon had sent Tyrus as a gift; the Lord Marshal of Rosh became Ishma’s guardian, and he surveyed the caravan, trying to estimate how long it would take to travel to Rosh.
The moment Ishma stepped into the palace doorway, the courtyard hushed. The morning sun glinted off the palace stone and cast a radiant circle around the young queen’s figure. She wore a green robe with a scandalous neckline. Her black hair cascaded around her bare shoulders. Golden thread embellished the green silks, and it glinted in the light. She had the confidence of a young woman in her prime, aware of every entrance she made.
She cast a knowing look at Tyrus. The young princess had been a famous beauty at twelve, but by twenty she had inherited a crown and developed a body that inspired songs. Her youthful skin glowed, and she had a bounce in her step. Every piece of silk and scrap of gold was hung about her curves to accentuate them. Her fame had spread to the four corners of Sornum after she negotiated a truce with Azmon. Their marriage ensured peace between Rosh and Narbor, and bards wrote more songs about the Face That Won a War. Tyrus turned to his mesmerized men and barked orders.
Out of the Grave: A Dark Fantasy (The Shedim Rebellion Book 2) Page 4
