Medophae’s progress was torturous, but he eventually closed the distance. He tried to say something, but he choked and blood came out of his mouth. He swung his half sword. Vaerdaro caught Medophae’s hand and twisted it. Bones snapped. Medophae spat blood upon Vaerdaro’s chest. The Sunrider laughed and lifted Medophae off the ground by his neck.
Medophae’s hands fumbled against Vaerdaro’s face, trying to grab his neck. Vaerdaro continued to laugh.
“Where is your mocking now?” Vaerdaro said, and slid the greatsword through Medophae’s stomach. “I want to hear your taunts now.” A shudder wracked Medophae’s body, and he coughed. The black fire leapt about them both. Medophae twitched, then hung limp.
Mirolah gave a strangled cry.
Vaerdaro pulled his sword out, still holding Medophae up by the neck. The Sunrider turned him this way and that, like he was inspecting a shank of beef.
Vaerdaro flung the body across the room. It hit the weakened gallery, and the whole thing finally fell, burying Medophae under tons of stone and a cloud of dust.
Mirolah cried quietly, head on the floor. It didn’t matter anymore. Nothing mattered anymore. They had lost. He was dead.
Vaerdaro’s footfalls scuffed the stone as he approached and stopped in front of her.
“I was thinking...” Vaerdaro said. “If I am to be the god of the Neverending Plains and Amarion, I may need one of your kind, like the Spirit, who can twist the natural order.” He lifted her shoulder with the toe of his boot, then kicked. She rolled onto her back. He stepped on her chest and drove the air from her lungs.
“What do you say, unholy woman? Swear fealty to me, and I will let you live.”
“Let me live, and I’ll find a way to kill you,” she said through her teeth.
Vaerdaro pursed his lips. “Very well.”
He brought his boot up over her face. It crackled with black fire.
But it did not descend.
Vaerdaro grunted. His foot seemed stuck in midair, ablaze with black fire. He strained to bring it down, but he couldn’t.
With a cry of frustration, he stepped away from her, and he could control his foot again. The black fire faded. Mirolah wearily pushed herself up on her elbows.
“What?” Vaerdaro growled. He stared at his hands in disbelief.
In the silence of Vaerdaro’s shock, Mirolah heard a very quiet sound, like a spoon scraping against rock.
She looked at the crumbled gallery. A small stone at the top tumbled down the pile to the bottom.
Vaerdaro followed her gaze.
A larger stone shifted, slid down the pile to the bottom.
“No...” Vaerdaro murmured.
A tall, flat slab rose up and fell longwise over itself. Through the settling dust, Mirolah saw an arm burst up. It burned with golden fire.
“Medophae,” Mirolah cried. Relief washed through her like warm water.
Medophae shrugged, and stones skidded away from him. Golden fire crackled about him. He climbed out of the debris and set his feet solidly on the floor.
“No!” Vaerdaro shouted.
Medophae strode out of the dust. The cut across his chest was a huge scab. The hole in his stomach had closed.
“You and Zilok had him fooled,” he said through clenched teeth. “He thought you were me, but he sensed the difference when you stabbed your sword through me, when you stabbed him through me. What else did you do, Vaerdaro? What last crime did you commit that made him turn from you?”
“There is no he! I am the Golden King!” He charged, swinging his greatsword in a huge arc.
Medophae waited for the attack. At the last second, he held up his fist, and the godsword exploded to life. Vaerdaro’s greatsword shattered upon it. He staggered forward, off balance. Medophae grabbed him by the chin and yanked him up, bringing their faces level.
“He doesn’t like you, Vaerdaro,” Medophae whispered. He shoved Vaerdaro backward. The Sunrider crashed to the ground near Mirolah.
Medophae watched the truth dawn on Vaerdaro. He crouched down onto his hands and feet like a cornered rat.
“Leave now, Vaerdaro,” Medophae said. “Go back to the Neverending Plains.”
“This is a trick,” Vaerdaro said. “Another of your tricks!”
“No. It’s Oedandus’s will. He wants to kill you, Vaerdaro, for using him. I can barely hold him back. Go now.”
“You’ve tricked me into giving up my power somehow, but you will give it back. You will give it back!” Vaerdaro sprang upon Medophae, but Medophae caught his wrists. The Sunrider’s face turned red as he strained. Medophae slowly pushed Vaerdaro to his knees.
With a strangled cry of rage, the Sunrider leapt away. Spit gathered in the corner of his mouth. “You’re unholy creatures,” he hissed. He took two quick steps back and grabbed Mirolah by the hair, yanked her upright. He yanked the dagger from his belt, held it to her throat.
Mirolah took a swift breath as he bent her head back.
“Don’t,” Medophae said sadly. He didn’t seem scared. “Go your way. We will let you leave.”
Mirolah changed the threads of the knife and blunted the edge.
“You may kill me,” he growled, “But she dies first.” He pulled the useless knife across her throat.
He only got halfway. His arm froze, unmoving. A flicker of black fire flickered across his forearm. He screamed.
Vaerdaro backed up, looking about himself in horror. The black fire surged away from him in a streak, then returned like a striking snake. Vaerdaro screamed again and spun across the floor. He slammed into the stairs of the dais.
“No,” Medophae yelled. “Oedandus!” He started forward, as if to shield Vaerdaro. “It was Zilok—”
Medophae stopped as if he had hit an invisible wall. His arms went wide, palms upward. He threw his head back and opened his mouth, but no sound came.
Snakes of golden fire leapt off Medophae, turning black in mid-air, then struck Vaerdaro again and again, passing entirely through his body. He screamed and shook with each strike. Soon, his body rippled like a pennant snapping in the breeze. The scream became inhuman, like it was rising from a deep well. He and Medophae floated in the air and the fire streaked between them, like lightning between two clouds. With every exchange, Medophae burned brighter and Vaerdaro became more insubstantial, rippling like a mirage.
Finally, the Sunrider exploded like a popping log. Medophae swirled within the maelstrom of Oedandus’s fury, the black fire returned to him and changed to gold once more. Mirolah could hear Medophae shouting, but as with Vaerdaro, it seemed to come from far away.
She struggled to get to her feet, reaching out to him with her ethereal fingers, trying to help. Would Oedandus attack Medophae? What was happening?
But before she could even try to do something, the unnatural wind ceased, and Medophae fell to the ground.
73
Orem
Orem’s legs burned as he continued moving them back and forth, pushing hard against the rock. His ankles were bound with thick rope, and his movement was hampered by the length connecting those ankles to his bound wrists.
“Come on,” he whispered, sawing as quickly as he could manage. The sharp chunk of rock he was using had blown off the scrying pool Zilok Morth had been gazing into before he bathed the Sunrider in flame. Orem had seen where it landed and waited. He hadn’t dared to hope he’d have a moment alone, but it had finally come. They were all gone: the Sunrider brute, Zilok, even the creepy, bald, tall man who kept saying, “Yes, my master,” to, apparently, no one.
Orem hadn’t wasted a single moment of his luck. With torturous struggles, he had moved his bound body as close to the rock as he could. He was connected to a ring set in the wall, but if he stretched, he could reach the chunk of rock. He had kicked it until it was braced against the wall so that he could put pressure on this sharp edge.
He felt the rope begin to fray, so he ignored the burn in his thighs and went faster. The rope gave, freeing his ankles,
and loosening the entire binding. He gasped. Now he just needed to lock his legs around that stone and pull it close enough for him to get his hands on it—
A wisp of a breeze seemed to flutter over his mind. Orem twitched, looking toward the door. Nothing.
“Come on, come on,” he said, wrapping his ankles and feet around the stone. It looked a hundred pounds at least. He pulled, the rock tilting toward him, but he slipped. The rock thumped back.
“Dammit!”
Good… the word whispered in his mind.
Orem went still. The hairs on his neck stood up. Zilok Morth. The spirit was back. He looked at his ankles, wondering if he could hide them, hide the progress he had made. He pulled his knees up, tried to scoot his ankles behind himself.
It is good… the voice whispered in his mind again. A heavy hand seemed to grasp Orem’s brain. Blue lightning flashed inside his mind.
He thrashed.
“It is good I kept you,” Zilok’s voice said, no longer a whisper. It was as strong as if the spirit was hovering right next to Orem. “Even I didn’t know how I would need you, but now it all comes clear.”
“No!” The blue lightning became black ooze, and it felt like it was coating him, trickling down from the crown of his head to his temples and forehead, down behind his ears. “No…” Orem whispered.
“You have such fervor. Such desire. Be calm, Portnoy Orem,” Zilok said. “I am about to grant your dearest wish. You have always longed to be a threadweaver. I am going to make that possible.”
Orem bowed his head. “Yes, my master.”
“There, isn’t that better?”
“Yes, my master.”
“Good. Well, this was an unmitigated disaster. But what is failure if not an opportunity to learn?”
“As you say, my master.”
“Yes, Orem. As I say...”
74
Medophae
Medophae stood on the red beach alone, tears running down his face. Blue-green waves stretched back farther than the imagination, continuing to the end of the horizon. The wind whipped through his hair, and clouds bunched on the flat, blue horizon. A storm was coming.
His waves of grief came, one after the other, and he let them. He remembered standing on the balcony of Tyndiria’s castle just like this, thinking these same thoughts. A lifetime ago.
He remembered the cage he saw around himself then. Orem had tried to free him with dreams. Tyndiria had tried to free him with kisses. But only when Zilok stripped Medophae of Oedandus, only when Mirolah had reminded Medophae of what he had wanted to be as a young man, did the cage door finally open.
He remembered what it was to be a man again, rather than an immortal. A man suffered. A man made mistakes. A man was broken. But the sun rose on a new day, and a man could make new choices. A man could change.
Because of Oedandus, Medophae had remained stuck in the same horrible mistake he had made, unable to change the past, and unable to move on. Orem had berated him for it. Tyndiria had begged him to let her help. But Mirolah rekindled the memory of what it was to need that change, the thrill of leaping into the unexpected. She had brought hope back into his life.
Now that hope filled him when he looked at her. There was a future, and she was his.
And so...
Medophae opened the pouch and let the ruby fall into his hand. Mirolah had found the gem on the dead body of Zilok’s servant, the tall one with no name who wore the X harness. As ever, the ruby was warm.
Does that mean you are alive, my love? I do not know. I cannot know.
A sob wracked him.
“I cannot help you, Bands,” he whispered. “Gods, I hope you understand. I had become nothing. I fell into darkness so deep I forgot what light was. But I can see it now, and if I don’t follow it now, I never will. I’ll return to nothing again.” He paused. “I wish you could hear me. I wish I could see your face. Of all the betrayals I have ever made, this is the worst.”
He stood.
“I will love you always. When forever takes the lands, I will stand at the edge of time and cry out that I loved you...” He choked on the words.
He shouted as if he were leading an army into battle and cocked back his arm. Golden fire danced about his trembling muscles. Moments dragged by as he struggled with himself.
He snapped forward, hurling the stone to the horizon. It flew straight and far, through the light of the setting sun, flipping over and over, flashing red until he lost sight of it.
With an anguished cry, he fell to his knees and sobbed.
The sun set, and a storm came, vicious and wild. Lightning danced on the ocean. The dark clouds roiled low, pelting the earth with sheets of rain.
Eventually the storm spent its fury and moved on. Clouds parted, the stars came out shone down upon him, shuddering with wave upon wave of grief.
He was still hunched over, weeping like a wounded child, when Mirolah came for him in the night. She brought a blanket, and she wrapped him in it.
She sat next to him as the sun rose over the mountains behind the white castle of Calsinac. She said nothing. Sometime around midday, he reached out for her hand, and she took it.
They rose together, and she led him up the beach.
Epilogue
SARAPHAZIA
The whale rose silently, head above the waves, and looked toward the distant shore. It was so far away that mortal eyes could not see it. They would only see her mighty waters, but Saraphazia could see whatever she wanted to see. Medophae had cast away his gemstone, letting it go at last. He was in love again. With a human. He had solved the Red Weaver’s riddle and broken the fearsome enchantment.
Saraphazia dove deep. She descended through the fathoms quickly. It was as black as a starless sky when she reached the bottom of the True Ocean. Even her greatest whales could not dive this deep. They would be crushed by the weight of the water, but this was her ocean, and she could do whatever she wanted to do.
She hovered above the ruby that had come to rest in those dark, soft sands.
Red light flashed, and suddenly a thousand bubbles burst outward. She manipulated the threads, holding the dread weight at bay.
A light-green dragon with dark emerald bands circling her neck emerged in a flurry of bubbles, as did Saraphazia’s curly-haired, curly-bearded brother. Saraphazia shifted the threads to protect Randorus Ak-nin Akli Forkandor—or as the humans called her, Bands—from the water. For any other dragon, contact with the True Ocean was death, but for this dragon, Saraphazia made an exception.
Tarithalius looked around himself, saw her, then grinned. It disgusted her how much he loved that weak human form, flashing those white teeth all the time as if he was proud of them. Unlike Bands, Tarithalius didn’t need her protection. He cheerfully inhaled a lungful of water and started to speak, but she left him on the bottom and swam quickly through the water with Bands in tow.
Bands burst through the surface of the water and drew a long breath. She spread her wings and flapped urgently away from the True Ocean as if it was poison. Her long, sinuous neck curved around as she tried to get her bearings.
“You are safe,” Saraphazia assured her. At her command, a portion of the ocean stopped moving, becoming as solid as rock. “You have my permission to alight.”
Bands hesitated, then landed gently onto the indicated spot. She neatly folded her wings.
Tarithalius arrived a moment later. He broke the surface and flew into the air, his golden armor gleaming, standing as if someone was going to paint his portrait. He landed on the plot of still ocean.
“Well, that was an experience,” he exclaimed.
“Quiet, Thalius,” Saraphazia said.
Bands stared at the horizon. She had not moved since she had landed.
“Would you like to see them?” Saraphazia asked.
“Yes, if I may,” she said politely.
She gave the dragon her vision, enabling her to see miles away as though it was ten feet. The lovers sat on the beac
h together. Medophae pressed his palms to his head, crying. Mirolah sat next to him, patient, silent, her head bowed.
“He loves her,” Bands said. Saraphazia wasn’t certain what emotion floated on the dragon’s voice. Non-whales were so difficult to read.
“Of course. The enchantment could not be broken unless the riddle was fulfilled,” Saraphazia said.
“I forget, what was the riddle again?” Thalius asked.
Saraphazia snorted. A geyser of mist shot into the air. “My idiot brother... Perhaps you should go back into the gem for another four centuries.”
“I only remember things that pertain to me.” Thalius grinned, showing his teeth again.
“It does, if you had the wit to see it. Do you think you were thrown into that ruby by chance?”
“Who would want to imprison me?”
“Who could?” Saraphazia turned her tail to him.
“Not Avakketh?” Thalius said incredulously.
She didn’t answer him. Thalius was such a dullard sometimes.
He pursed his lips thoughtfully. “Well, I suppose I shall have to pay him back for that.”
“Unless you forget.”
“Oh yes, which brings us back to the confounded riddle. It certainly took our boy a long time to figure it out.”
“He couldn’t figure it out. If he had figured it out, he couldn’t have solved it. A human cannot force himself to fall in love,” she said. “Idiot.”
“Ah! The answer was love, was it?” Thalius scratched his beard.
Saraphazia closed her eyes and wished him away. He didn’t go anywhere.
Bands’s clear voice recited the riddle that had kept them imprisoned for four hundred years. “You must give to someone that which you have already given away. And you must cast away what now sustains you,” she said quietly.
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