“You will have to face the dark elven power within you,” said the Watcher. “If you can defeat it, if you can overcome it…perhaps you can yet avoid transforming into an urdhracos. Perhaps you can become something else.”
“Like what?” said Mara.
“I do not know,” said the Watcher. “I fear it has never before been attempted in the history of this world.”
“That is not reassuring,” said Mara.
“It is all I have the power to do for you,” said the Watcher.
“Thank you,” said Mara.
“May God and the saints be with you,” said the Watcher.
He vanished into the mist, and the blue flame grew brighter. Mara took a deep breath and drew a dagger in either hand, the familiar weight of the weapons both comforting and disturbing. She had killed with these daggers before. Yet she was an assassin, not a warrior. She struck from the shadows. What was she supposed to do here? Fight the darkness within? Overcome it in a knife fight?
The blue flame dimmed, and a little girl stepped from the mists.
She was gaunt and thin, clad only in rags, her pale blond hair a ragged nest of grease and dirt. Bloodshot green eyes filled with hunger and madness turned towards Mara and narrowed.
Mara gasped and stepped back.
The child was her. Mara as she had been, years ago, after her mother had died and she had wandered alone in the wilderness.
“What are you?” said Mara.
“I am you,” said the girl in a croaking whisper. “You as you were. As you could have been.” Her eyes turned black and bottomless, like the eyes of the Artificer, the Traveler, the Matriarch. “And as you could yet be.”
She changed, her thin body twisting and distorting, her clothes crumbling as black scales sheathed her limbs. Her black eyes blazed with crimson flame, and hundreds of jagged spines erupted from her armored hide, each one dripping with poison. The creature moved forward with sinuous, serpentine grace, its movements deadly and efficient.
An urhaalgar.
The dark elves of old, the Matriarch had told her, had used the creatures as spies and assassins. With their stealth and speed, they could infiltrate their foes with ease, and the poison upon their spines was utterly lethal.
The urhaalgar raced forward in silence, clawed hands reaching for Mara.
She danced aside, moving as the weapon masters of the Red Family had trained her, and dodged the creature’s first swipe. The urhaalgar wheeled with fluid speed, talons reaching for her throat, and Mara ducked and rolled. The ground blurred beneath her, and she came out of her roll and slashed. Her daggers cut through the scaly hide like cloth, and black blood leaked from the wound. The urhaalgar threw back its head and screamed, the first noise it had made.
Mara took advantage of its distraction to drive one dagger into its left eye and another through its throat. The urhaalgar shrieked once more, the scream dissolving into a liquid gurgle. The creature shuddered, went limp, and collapsed motionless to the ground.
Mara stared down at it, breathing hard. She had killed it. But she was a killer. She had always been a killer, even before the Matriarch had recruited her into the Red Family.
It was who she was.
The urhaalgar dissolved into swirling black smoke, a twisting mass of shadows. It looked a great deal like the darkness that had flowed around Mara when she had fought the transformation. The writhing smoke rose up, spreading into a towering column of shadow.
And then it flowed into her.
Mara stumbled back with a gasp, an icy chill washing through her. The chill passed in an instant, and when it did, she felt…stronger. Colder. Faster.
She looked at her hands and saw the shadows coiling around them, saw the ghostly shape of insubstantial talons around her fingertips. The veins beneath her pale skin pulsed and shimmered with blue fire.
The transformation was continuing.
“No!” shouted Mara. “I will defeat you. I will not succumb! I will not become a monster!”
The echoes of her defiant cry faded away, absorbed by the swirling mist.
“It is too late, you know,” said a woman’s voice, low and sultry.
Mara whirled, and saw a woman step out of the mist.
It was herself. Or, rather, a slightly different version of herself. This version of herself was more muscular. Mara knew this because the duplicate wore only a close-fitting cuirass of crimson leather that left her arms and most of her legs bare, the muscles shifting beneath the pale skin. The red-armored woman carried a short sword in her right hand and a dagger in her left, and she turned a mocking smirk in Mara’s direction, a glaze of red light covering her green eyes.
“And just who are you?” said Mara, circling the red woman.
The duplicate smiled. “I am you. As you are now. The killer, the assassin. As you could have been, had you been wise enough to obey the Matriarch, to see that she was your superior. If only you had obeyed, you might have been spared this fate.”
“And what fate it that?” said Mara.
“Why, this,” said the red woman.
She charged at Mara, stabbing with the dagger and swinging with the short sword. Mara kicked aside the stab and caught the sword in a cross-parry with her daggers. Steel clanged and shivered, and Mara retracted her daggers and slashed. Her duplicate danced aside, laughing like a madwoman, the crimson gleam in her eyes brightening.
“How weak you are!” said the red woman. “How pathetic. Killing is your nature! Embrace it and you can be strong. Resist it and you shall be overcome.”
Mara glared at the duplicate. “Try it.”
“With pleasure,” said the red woman, her voice a purr.
Again she attacked, slashing with the sword and stabbing with the dagger. Mara retreated, trying to stay ahead of her opponent’s longer reach. Yet it was not hard. The strange coldness gave Mara speed and strength, and the red woman was not a skilled fighter. Soon Mara saw the pattern to the red woman’s attacks.
Then it was only a matter of time.
Again the duplicate repeated her pattern, and Mara moved first. She stepped past the slash and stabbed her daggers. One drove into the duplicate’s chest, piercing the leather armor and sinking into her heart. The other plunged into the red woman’s neck. She shrieked, stumbled to her knees, and dropped her weapons.
“Fool,” croaked the duplicate, blood bubbling from her lips.
“You will not take me!” said Mara.
The red woman laughed.
“I have already taken you,” said the duplicate. “You have already transformed. For I am you. I have always been you.”
She shuddered and lay still, her lifeless eyes staring up at Mara…and she dissolved into black smoke and shadows.
Mara stepped back in alarm, trying to shield herself, but it was no use. Again the shadowy smoke flowed into her, filling her with cold, with strength, with speed. She looked at her hands in horror and saw the blue fire shining brighter in her veins, the immaterial claws around her fingers growing more substantial.
And she could hear the Artificer’s song inside her head again, even in this strange dream-world. It was still faint, but growing stronger.
“No,” said Mara, her voice reverberating with new power. “No. I will not transform. I will not become a monster! I will not!”
“Foolish girl,” said another voice, a woman’s voice of unearthly beauty. “You need not transform. You are what you always have been. Only now shall you realize it.”
Mara looked up as a shadow descended from the mists over her head.
A winged shadow.
The urdhracos, one of the mightiest creatures of the dark elves, landed a dozen paces away.
She wore armor of overlapping black steel plates, the gauntlets tipped with razor talons. The great black wings furled behind the urdhracos like a cloak of darkness, her pale blond hair blowing around her head. The eyes were bottomless pits into an eternal black void, and the face was unearthly beautiful, a face that c
ould madden with its terrible cold beauty.
Mara’s face, altered.
Transformed.
“Who are you?” said Mara, her voice unsteady.
“I am you,” said the urdhracos. “I am you as you soon shall be.”
Mara shook her head, her pulse pounding in her ears. “No. I refuse. I refuse!”
“As well to refuse the sunrise and the sunset, to refuse the rain and the drought,” said the urdhracos. “Or the beating of your own heart and the blood flowing through your veins. I am you, Mara daughter of the Traveler. I am what you are meant to be. I am what you shall become.”
“No,” said Mara.
“You are a killer,” said the urdhracos.
“I am not,” said Mara.
The urdhracos laughed. “Liar. You are a killer. And soon you shall understand when the Artificer’s song fills your blood and you kill at his will, every life that you take at his command filling you with joy beyond all understanding.”
“I will stop you,” said Mara.
“Shall you stop yourself?” said the urdhracos, flexing her talon-tipped fingers.
“I will,” said Mara.
“No,” said the urdhracos. The creature sounded almost sad. “You will not. Soon you shall understand.”
The great black wings flexed, and the urdhracos sprang into the air.
Mara wheeled, her daggers ready as the urdhracos spun over her head, bobbing and weaving with grace and speed. Some part of her mind, the part that listened to the Artificer’s song, whispered that such power was hers by right, that she need only surrender and claim it. Another part of her mind screamed against such a course, warning that it would devour her forever. And a much larger part of her mind kept track of the urdhracos’s erratic flight, watching for an attack.
Instead the urdhracos shot higher, hovering for a moment. Then she looked down at Mara, her mouth yawning wide. For an absurd moment Mara wondered if the urdhracos intended to sing at her.
Then she remembered something the Matriarch had told her. The urdhracosi had been made in imitation of dragons.
And dragons breathed fire.
Mara raced to the side as the urdhracos loosed a long blast of yellow-orange flame. The cone of fire swept across the ground, vaporizing the grass and turning the tangled roots of the trees to smoking charcoal. Mara ducked behind one of the towering black menhirs. The flame washed against it, the stone growing hot, but the pillar shielded Mara from the fire.
At last the flames winked out, and Mara spun around the pillar, daggers ready.
The urdhracos swooped toward her in a black blur, claws extended and reaching for Mara’s throat. The winged creature moved with terrible speed, but the cold shadows burned through Mara, giving her the speed to match. She ducked under the slash of the talons and stabbed with both her daggers. The blade in her left hand skidded off the black armor, but the dagger in her right hand darted between the armored plates and sank into the urdhracos’s flesh. The creature hissed in fury and beat its wings, springing back into the air.
Mara whirled, trying to keep the urdhracos in sight as the creature spun and twisted over the trees. The wings gave the urdhracos an advantage that Mara could not match. Sooner or later the urdhracos’s fire would return, and then the she would need only hover and roast Mara like a piece of meat on a spit.
And then…
Mara blinked.
What would happen if the urdhracos died here in this strange dream-place? Would Mara die in the waking world? No – the Watcher had said she had to face the darkness within her. Her past selves and the urdhracos had to be manifestations of that darkness. If she killed them, if she slew the urdhracos, then perhaps she could overcome the shadows of her dark elven blood.
Yet when she had killed her past self and her present self, they had dissolved into shadows, transforming her further. Was there no escape? If the urdhracos slew her, would she transform? And if she killed the urdhracos, would she absorb its power than then transform?
The urdhracos dove for her again, and Mara had no more time for thought. She dodged the swipe of the black claws, but this time she aimed the slash of her daggers at the urdhracos’s right wing. The wings looked like black leather wreathed in shadows, but Mara’s daggers tore through the strange material and the right wing collapsed. The urdhracos plowed hard into the ground, and Mara sprang for the kill. One of her daggers started to bite through a gap in the black armor, but the urdhracos hissed and rolled away, regaining her feet.
For a moment Mara and the urdhracos faced each other warily. The urdhracos’s talons made metallic rasping noises as she opened and closed her hands.
“I will not yield,” said Mara. “I will not.”
The urdhracos shook her head. “Fool. You cannot deny what you are.”
“I will not be a monster,” said Mara. “Not while I have strength left to resist.”
“Fire cannot war against itself,” said the urdhracos. “Water cannot drown itself. As you shall soon see.”
She lunged at Mara, and Mara retreated, dodging and blocking with her daggers. Sparks flew when the urdhracos’s talons raked against the daggers’ blades. Once, twice, three times, the urdhracos attacked, and then Mara caught her foe’s left hand on her right dagger, raising the hand up.
Then Mara spun and drove her remaining dagger into the urdhracos’s exposed armpit.
The creature threw back her head and screamed as the blade sank into her chest. Mara ripped the weapon free, the dagger glistening with black slime, but the urdhracos fell upon her back. Mara tensed, preparing for another attack, but the urdhracos lay helpless, her body trembling.
“Finish it,” said the urdhracos, her beautiful voice a faint whisper. “Finish it and become what you were meant to be.”
The Artificer’s song thundered inside Mara’s skull, growing louder, the veins beneath her hands burning brighter.
She hesitated.
Perhaps the urdhracos was the manifestation of her dark elven blood. If Mara slew it, she would be free of the shadows. Or would she? Killing the other manifestations had only sent their power into Mara. If she killed this manifestation, would that be the final step of her transformation?
Yet if she did nothing, the urdhracos would recover and kill her.
“Why do you hesitate?” whispered the urdhracos. “Finish it and claim your fate.”
“If I kill you,” said Mara, “what will happen?”
“You cannot kill me,” said the urdhracos.
“I killed the other two,” said Mara. “No, that’s not right, is it? This is a dream, a symbol. I can’t kill them. I can’t kill them because…”
Her voice trailed off.
She couldn’t kill them because they were her.
Fire could not fight against itself. Water could not drown itself. There was no one else here. Only Mara.
And the shades she had fought were her.
It had been useless. The Artificer had been right. This had always been her fate, no matter what she did, no matter how hard she struggled. To become a monster, a killer.
And yet…
She blinked, a strange thought coming to her.
Killer and monster. Those were separate things. She had always been a killer, ever since her mother had died and she had been forced to defend herself. Yet Ridmark Arban was a killer, too. Kharlacht and Caius and Gavin were killers, and they were warriors, not monsters. Mara had killed for the Red Family, had been a murderer. Yet she had been a killer before that. It was in her nature, in her blood. Just as the nature of a wolf was to hunt.
But there was a time and place to kill, an hour to lift the sword and an hour to put it down.
Mara had murdered…but that did not mean she had to kill unjustly.
Did the mean she had to become a monster?
She lifted her head and saw the others staring at her.
The child, the red woman, and the urdhracos stood in a half-circle, waiting.
“You are me,” s
aid Mara, “and I am you. I’ve always thought the dark elven blood was…like a disease, a blight, something I had to fight. A poison I had to keep bottled up. But I was fighting against myself all those years.” Her eyes widened as understanding came at last. “That is how the transformation works, isn’t it? Our soul is divided, warring against itself…and then the dark elves can conquer it and make it a slave.”
“But unified,” said the ragged child, “what would become of us?”
“The cord of three strands is not easily broken,” said the red woman.
“Let that which is unified,” said the urdhracos, “be never torn asunder.”
“We are…no, I am a killer,” said Mara. “That is in my very blood. But I will use my nature for justice, as I have seen Ridmark do. I will not be a monster.”
She spoke in her usual quiet voice, but the final word thundered through the forest.
The ragged child, the red woman, and the urdhracos all transformed into pillars of blue flame. The fire flowed into Mara, and she stumbled back with a gasp. As the flames entered her, the strange cold and strength drained from her limbs…but the Artificer’s song faded away.
And a new song echoed through her thoughts.
“What is happening?” said Mara, looking around as the forest began to burn with blue fire, cracks of blue light spreading beneath her feet.
“You did it.”
Mara turned her head, saw the ghostly, translucent image of the Watcher, wavering as the mist billowed past them in a hurricane wind. The old man looked awed, uncertain, perhaps even a little frightened.
“You changed the course of your transformation,” said the Watcher. “It is starting.”
“The song,” said Mara. “What is the song?”
“I think,” said the Watcher, “I think that is your own song you hear.” The ground began to shake. “I don’t know what is going to happen next. I don’t think this has ever happened before in the history of the dark elves. May God and good fortune go with you, Mara. If you live, tell no one of me. But if you live, I think we shall meet again at Dragonfall.”
The blue fire exploded, the thunderclap tearing the world in half.
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Frostborn: The Iron Tower Page 26
