The boulder rose from the lava, fifty feet tall, black and craggy. Elethor flew toward it, narrowly dodging another shower of lava. He landed on the rock with a grunt, claws clacking against stone. Lyana landed beside him.
Elethor perched upon the rock, tail curled around it, as fire rained from the stone ceiling like falling fireflies. Lyana lay beside him, her head against his neck, and he folded his wing over her. He dared not return to human form, not as lava still boiled around him, spreading for leagues.
"Are you all right?" he asked Lyana, voice soft.
She nodded, smoke rising from her nostrils. The firelight danced on her scales. "A few burns, that's all. I'll be fine."
"I don't mean the burns."
She looked up at him, eyes like sapphires the size of apples.
"I don't know," she whispered. She lowered her head and nestled against his neck. "I miss him, Elethor. I miss him all the time. I keep thinking how… if Orin were still alive, he'd know what to do. He'd rally the troops, tell me how to fight, and…" A tear streamed from her eye. "And I wouldn't feel so lost, so alone."
Her words dug into him, a shard of ice. Orin would know what to do. Orin would fight. Orin would save us. But how could he, Elethor, the younger son, the lesser prince—how could he inspire such love from his people… from Lyana? How could he be a good king to Requiem, and a good husband to Lyana, if he too felt so lost, so afraid?
"I miss him too," he said, voice cracking. "But… it's up to us now. We must know what to do, how to fight, how save our home. And we will, Lyana. We will save Requiem."
His words sounded trite to him. As a king, he would have to inspire, to lead, to galvanize. He wanted to sound as wise as the ancient leaders of Requiem from the stories—the legendary King Benedictus who fought the griffins, or the great Queen Gloriae who slew the tyrant Dies Irae, or Queen Lacrimosa who led Requiem in the Battle of King's Forest.
But I'm not like them, he thought. I'm just a sculptor. And I still miss and love Solina, the very enemy who attacks us.
Lyana nestled closer to him, her breath hot against his cheek.
"I… I think I now know how you felt," she whispered. "When Solina left, I mean. You loved her. And you lost her. The pain must have been so great, tearing inside you. I cannot think of greater pain." She lowered her eyes. "I'm sorry, Elethor. When Solina left, I was glad. I scolded you for loving her. I mocked you for your pain." Her eyes glistened with tears. "I'm sorry."
They huddled in darkness as lava gurgled around them, fire rained, and the stone walls shook and cracked. A fountain gushed by the boulder, nearly spraying them with lava, then crashed back into the sea. They huddled closer, scales clanking, and wrapped their wings around them as a tent.
"Yes," Elethor whispered. "I hurt when she left. And I hurt when she returned. I loved her for so long, it's hard to switch to hating her, even now, even when I know that she killed my father, my brother, and so many of our people. I… I hate myself for it, that I once kissed her, wanted to marry her, spent years pining for her." He closed his eyes. "I'm the one who should be sorry. You were right, Lyana. You were right all along about her, and about me."
How had he come to this place? A moon ago, he would never have thought it possible. Solina, the love of his life, was now his greatest enemy. Lyana, the girl who always scorned him, now huddled at his side, his betrothed and future queen consort. Requiem lay leagues above them, past tunnels of terrors he had never imagined could exist. His life seemed so mad now that his head spun, and he could only cling to this rock and to Lyana, and he felt lost.
"Come, Lyana," he finally said. "We'll fly again. Maybe we'll find the Crimson Archway today… and the Starlit Demon who's locked behind it."
They flew over the fire. They flew for hours through the great caverns of the Abyss, down tunnels where lava rushed, over great forests of bones, through chambers where smoke blinded them and the howls of ghosts filled the darkness. Finally, when their lungs burned and their wings could barely flap, they emerged from a tunnel into a great cavern the size of a city.
"Stars," Elethor whispered, feeling sickness rise inside him.
The cavern was a league wide and tall, carved of craggy rock. Pillars of stone stood like ribs, and rivers of lava coiled. A mountain rose in the chamber's center, pale pink and knobby. When Elethor squinted, he saw that the mountain was made of bodies—thousands of them, maybe millions, naked and interwoven.
"Who are they?" Lyana whispered, flying at his side.
Elethor didn't know. He saw the bodies of men, women, and children, skin pale and hairless, eyes staring, mouths gaping. Were they dead Vir Requis? Were they but a nightmare? Nausea rose inside him, and the stench of death filled his nostrils, spinning his head. Suddenly he was sure he would see his father and brother there, dead and naked, eyes staring. He gritted his teeth, forcing down his sickness.
"Look, El, on top of the mountain!" Lyana said.
An archway rose atop the mountain of bodies, carved of craggy stones. When they flew closer, Elethor saw that blood seeped from between the bricks, painting them red. Mist and shadows swirled inside the archway, casting black light, like a portal to a storm.
"The Crimson Archway," Elethor whispered. "The path to the Starlit Demon."
They flew up the mountain. Countless bodies lay below them, famished and limp like discarded chicken skins. Elethor narrowed his eyes and soared toward the archway. It looked just wide enough that, if he pulled his wings close, he could shoot through it. Whatever shadowy land it led to, and whatever enemy waited there, he would face it.
He was only seconds from flying through the archway when a creature rose from the pile of bodies.
At first, Elethor thought that the bodies themselves were rising upon the mountaintop. Then he realized that the creature had lain there all along, but was as naked, fleshy, and famished as the bodies. Fifty feet long, its skin hung loose on knobby bones. It had the body of a great cat, furless and starving. Its head was the head of a woman, but much larger, the size of a carriage. Her face was pale and stoic, her eyes golden and feline. Her torso, nude and stitched from collarbone to navel, rose to block the archway.
Elethor thrust his claws forward, beat his wings mightily, and slowed to hover in midair. He growled. Lyana flew and hovered by him, fire flickering between her teeth. Elethor's heart beat against his ribs.
"Who are you?" he demanded of the creature. "Name yourself."
The beast watched them, a soft smile on her lips. Her eyes glimmered gold, and a trickle of blood dripped from her pale lips.
"I am Herathia," she said, voice hissing like wind, "the Guardian of Crimson, the Sphinx of the Abyss, the Protector of the Starlit Demon. You cannot enter, King Elethor Aeternum of Requiem, Son of Olasar. The way is forbidden to you."
Elethor flapped his stiff wings, refusing to land upon the mountain of bodies. The thrusts of air sent the smallest bodies, mere babes, tumbling down the mountain.
"Stand aside, or we will burn you," he said to the sphinx. "The Starlit Demon is a servant of Requiem; you will not block our way to him."
The sphinx tilted her head. The stitches running up her torso shifted, and blood seeped from them, trickling between her breasts to her feline paws. She snarled, baring sharp teeth stained with blood. Human heads filled her mouth, rotting, faces twisting in anguish.
"The old kings of Requiem placed the Starlit Demon here, long before the griffins attacked your halls, before your ancestors raised columns of marble, back in the days when your people lived feral, digging underground for shelter and knowledge. It was as a behemoth, devouring all, bringing evil upon the world; its starlight seared flesh and its wrath tormented and broke the minds of those who fought it. I am the Guardian of Crimson! I protect the evil of the beast. I move for none, not even for the spawn of those who placed me here. Leave this place of shadow. Return to your land and leave the darkness to rustle below the earth you till."
Lyana growled deep in her throat. "I kn
ow of you, Herathia! You lie. You are a riddler. We keep scrolls of your trickery in Requiem. You guard the way with riddles. I've read of them."
The sphinx turned her feline eyes to the blue dragon. "Lyana Eleison, daughter of Deramon, I do not merely ask riddles. I kill with riddles. If I ask you my questions, you will fail to answer. You will die. You will join the bodies at my feet, a million souls who thought they could answer me. They now form my bed. Turn back, Lyana and Elethor. Leave this place and do not tempt me; my words are poison and will cost you your souls."
Elethor stared at the bodies in disgust, still not daring to land upon them. "Do you mean… you asked these people riddles?"
The sphinx nodded. One of her stitches tore, and pus dripped from her. "They failed to answer."
Elethor growled. He had no time for this. His people languished underground while Solina attacked; he could wait no longer. He let fire grow in his belly.
"They did not have dragonfire," he said, roared, and blew a jet of flame.
The fire spun and slammed against the sphinx. Lyana howled and added her fire to Elethor's. The inferno roared, white hot. The bodies on the mountaintop burned. The heat blazed against Elethor's eyes, blinding him. He kept spewing his fire, wings fanning it, as much as he could muster.
Finally, after long moments, the flames died.
The sphinx stood upon seared bodies, unharmed. The stitches along her torso had melted, revealing a gaping cavern full of severed hands. The skin around her wound, however, was as pale and sagging as before.
"Do you think mortal fire can burn me?" she asked. She narrowed her feline eyes, bared her teeth, and raised her claws.
Black lightning blazed from them. A bolt slammed into Lyana. She gasped and fell. A second bolt crashed against Elethor's chest, and pain suffused him. He opened his maw to roar, but found no breath. Agony spread across him, clutching at his throat, crushing his innards. The pain was so great, he lost his magic. His wings and scales vanished, and he thudded onto the mountain in human form. Black lightning raced across him, raising smoke, and finally he found his voice. He screamed in anguish. Lyana twisted on the bodies beside him, also back in human form, sparks twisting around her like serpents. She wept and screamed.
"Enough!" Elethor shouted, tears streaming down his cheeks, and with a flash, the lightning vanished. He doubled over, gasping for breath and trembling. Lyana coughed beside him, on hands and knees, head lowered and hair dangling in a red curtain. He crawled toward her over the bodies, his knees digging into their flesh, and raised a trembling hand to touch her hair.
"Lyana," he said, voice hoarse.
She coughed, struggled to her feet, and stood atop the bodies. Legs shaking, Elethor stood up beside her. The sphinx dwarfed their human forms. She towered over them, an implacable sentinel of bone and skin and stench. Her golden orbs, each the size of a human head, glimmered down at them.
"Turn back, children of starlight," the sphinx said, voice deep as the sky. "You will not pass my door."
"We will pass!" Lyana shouted up to her. "Ask us your riddles, Herathia, Crimson Guardian. We will answer them. We will not fail."
The sphinx bared her fangs. Blood rained from her mouth. "Very well. I will ask you my riddles. And you will ask me yours. We will take turns like the great riddle masters of old. If I cannot answer your riddles, I will let you pass." She licked the blood off her lips. "And if you cannot answer mine… your bodies will lie forever at my feet."
DERAMON
He stood, stiff and aching, and lowered his head. The smoke stung his eyes and his gut felt colder than the heart of winter. His men stood at his sides, staring at the ground. His wife stood ahead, eyes raised, praying to the ceiling as if stars could still shine upon them.
"May the Draco constellation bless their spirits. May their souls find their way to our starlit halls."
Adia closed her eyes, whispered last words, and nodded. Ten of Deramon's men began shoveling dirt into the ditch, covering the dozens of bodies. They had dug this crevice into the floor of a narrow, earthy tunnel, using makeshift shovels from broken axes and helmets.
This is no proper burial for warriors of Requiem, Deramon thought, jaw clenched. They deserved to be buried in a field of grass and flowers, or burned in a pyre like the great warriors of ancient days. Not this. He looked away, grimacing. And yet he knew they had to bury them somehow, and fast. If they began to rot, disease would spread, and more in these tunnels would die.
Adia sang softly as the dirt mounted, covering the bodies' limbs, then torsos, leaving the faces for last. Deramon had seen too many young men buried in his life, and they always buried the faces last. A bitterness caught in his throat, half a laugh, half a moan. It's as if we hope that, as we shovel on the dirt, the dead might still awake and cry for salvation.
His throat constricted. Noela was wrapped in a shroud when I buried her, he remembered. At least I never had to see her face—the soft, innocent face of a babe—covered in dirt. It had been thirteen years since his daughter's death, but the pain never lessened. If Noela truly waited among the stars, Deramon prayed that his fallen men would find her, protect her, and comfort her until the day they buried him too.
When the bodies were buried, Adia whispered, eyes damp. "As the leaves fall upon our marble tiles, as the breeze rustles the birches beyond our columns, as the sun gilds the mountains above our halls—know, young child of the woods, you are home, you are home. Requiem! May our wings forever find your sky."
Deramon mumbled the prayer with the rest of his men. Would they ever see sky again? He did not know. Did the souls of the fallen truly rise to the Draco constellation, dine in ghostly halls among the great kings of old? Deramon did not know that either. When darkness surrounds you, belief in light comes hard.
An image flashed through his mind, churning his gut: his eldest children lying dead in a mass grave, earth piling up upon them. Bayrin's face was pale, a gash running down his cheek. Lyana was as beautiful as ever, as beautiful as the day she'd been born. Finally earth would cover their faces too, leaving them to rot underground. Deramon gritted his teeth and clenched his fists, banishing the image.
They're still alive, he told himself. Bayrin was brave and clever; not as hardened as some guardsmen, but quick-witted, resourceful. He would know how to survive, how to protect the princess. Lyana was just as clever, and swift with the blade; if anyone could survive in the Abyss, that shadowy world beneath these tunnels, it was her.
Deramon rubbed his shoulder; it still blazed from where Solina had cut him. Worse was the shame of failing to kill her. She was mine, he thought, stomach roiling. He had only to swing his axe one more time, and he could have slain the Queen of Tiranor, ended this war, and sent the invaders fleeing. And yet he had failed. He had let her wound him, let her reach the armory, burn the wounded, claim the upper chambers. He lowered his head, eyes narrowed to slits.
"Deramon," came a soft voice. Adia approached and placed a hand on his shoulder. She stared at him, eyes soft. "You should rest. When is the last time you've slept?"
He sighed and held her hand. "Time? It has no meaning in the dark. It might have been a day, maybe three days, maybe a week." He turned away from her and nodded at two of his men. "Baras, Ilvar, follow. We will inspect the lines."
They walked through a narrow, clammy labyrinth. The tunnels were darker and rougher down here. In the upper levels, passageways were wide and sturdy, their floors cobbled, their walls smoothed, their ceilings held with columns. Up there, archways led into fine chambers: the library, the armory, the wine cellars, and more. All these had fallen to Solina. Here, in the deeper levels, only crude burrows wound. Some were natural caves. Others were abandoned mines where the ancients had dug for iron and gold. All were as cold and dark as wormholes.
His men lined the walls, holding spears and swords; most were bandaged, burnt, and bloody. Survivors sat and lay at their feet: frightened children, mothers holding babes, and old men and women who whispered and
wept. Every Vir Requis over age thirteen now stood as a soldier, even those who'd never swung a sword. They bore the steel of their fallen comrades. As Deramon walked down the lines, inspecting them, they stared back with solemn, deep-set eyes. Many were mere youths—boys who had never shaved, kissed a girl, or dreamed of war.
So many gone, Deramon thought as they walked. Once, he had commanded a thousand men of the City Guard, warriors to defend Nova Vita. Two hundred of those men now stood here; the Tirans had killed the rest. Once, five thousand more warriors, King Olasar's Royal Army, had fought for Requiem; they had burned over King's Forest. Once, fifty knights had defended the realm; now only one remained, his daughter.
So many burnt. So many dead. Even if Bayrin finds the Moondisk, and even if Lyana wakes the Starlit Demon, how can we recover from such loss?
Soon Deramon turned around a bend and reached the barricade, a pile of boulders and pikes blocking the upper chambers. Fifty men stood here, clad in plate armor, swords drawn; they were as many as could fill this tunnel. Silence blanketed the darkness. No more screams rose from above.
Good, Deramon thought. May our men who fell captive find some peace in death.
"Garvon," he said to one of his captains—a gaunt man with one eye, a white beard, and a splintered shield. "How is the guard?"
The man bowed his head. A cut ran down his cheek, freshly stitched. "Quiet, my lord. The Tirans have made no attempt to break the barricade for hours. They're regrouping; many of them are wounded too."
"They will attack soon," Deramon said, voice hoarse. Stars, if they have more of that dark magic that broke our first barricade, how will we hold back the tide?
Garvon nodded, gripping his sword. "We are ready for them, my lord. We will hold them back. And if they break through, we will fight them in the tunnels and cut them down in darkness." He raised his chin. "The upper chambers are wide; they could burn us there. Here in the narrow depths, they will fall."
A Dawn of Dragonfire (Dragonlore, Book 1) Page 19
