Passage to Glory: Part Two of the Redemption Cycle

by J. R. Lawrence

  Another vision tried forcing its way into his mind, one of people going from house to house, person to person, trying to convince them of the lies of the Shadow Queen. An emotion of anger came with it; those who were against her will were liars themselves, trying to lead away innocent people into the shadows of the world, exploiting their strengths and revealing their weaknesses, all because they wanted more power. For a moment, Nel’ead almost agreed with the emotion, but than realized where it was coming from and quickly put it out.

  The Shadow Queen, through her mouthpiece, would lead away every person who heeded these visions. Alastra had willingly given herself to the Shadow Queen, hadn’t even paused to question her safety or the risks of what she was doing, and was enjoying the flow of power passing through her every day and every time she let the wicked goddess use her.

  Nel’ead could remember when Gorroth had told them of the Shadow Queen taking command of the Branches of the Urden’Dagg Tree, and saw again the broad smile upon Alastra’s face. Nel’ead knew, then, that he had made the mistake.

  He lifted himself up onto his feet and looked upon the thing that had once been his sister. Alastra was already changed. Her mesh armor was gone, replaced by a ceremonial dress of black and red and silver, and the purple silk cloak of the Urden’Dagg was no more. She wore instead a black cape and cowl, a red spider sewn in its middle, and strange designs of silver were up to the tip of the hood.

  Her sword was replaced by a slender wand, glowing red at her side. And between her upraised palms was an orb of bright white, spinning and increasing in size, made from thousands of silk spider threads.

  Nel’ead realized the situation, knew that orb to be made up of the Threads of the Web of the Shadow Queen, and that he had to destroy it in order to save Dril’ead and those who were with him. He didn’t know why this new sensation of care for Dril’ead had come over him, replacing the want to kill the aristocracy of Vulzdagg and end its place among the Urden’Dagg Tree. By the wicked intentions of Alastra had revealed to him the truth of his father’s death. It was no more Vulzdagg’s fault than it was his own. And if Dril’ead were to be killed, it would be Nel’ead’s fault for not saving him from an undeserved end.

  He began to walk forward, toward Alastra, and leveled the point of his sword with her exposed chest, directly above her heart. But he had to remind himself that what he was looking upon, what he had to destroy, was no more his sister. Alastra had become a monster. She had allowed her body to be used, her mind to be twisted, and her bent conscience to be lied to. And she gloried in the false power that the Shadow Queen gave her, while the real power was using her to destroy the world, and Nel’ead had to tell himself this as he drew back his sword to plunge it forward into her.

  The ball of silky threads suddenly imploded, shacking the entire room, and Nel’ead hesitated a moment too long.

  His sword came forward to barely touch her clothes, and then he was jerked backwards and held in midair, Alastra’s arms now aimed at him.

  “I gave you the chance to have what I now have, Nel’ead!” she said evenly, her voice full of power and wrath. “But you have thrown it away, thrown your very soul into the depths of lies and deceits, and now must pay the price. Retribution is the Shadow Queens!”

  The orb floating above her continued to warp into various shapes and sizes, sucking into itself and then blowing out, each time a new wave of anguish released into Nel’ead. He groaned, tried to turn out of her magical grasp, but was held firm.

  “It’s a lie,” he moaned over the roaring sound of the orb. “Your power, it is only a lie. You are nothing with it. Without it, you could have stopped this thing from happening. You and I, together, could have saved our people from the lie that has deceived you.” “No, Nel’ead Swildagg, in that you are wrong,” Alastra said. That evil grin and gleam returned to her once fair features, now mingled with a terrible beauty. “Nothing has deceived me!”

  21

  The Only One

  Dril stopped suddenly as a wave of anguish came over him, and he lifted a hand to the side of his head as he felt the cavern tip below him. They were in a corridor, the tunnel from the luminescent waters just a few yards behind them, and were surrounded by stalagmites, some intersecting with the stalactites overhead. Juanna, leading the party, had told them that the walls of Grundagg were just beyond this grouping of cavern growth, and that now was the time of greatest silence. But hardly passing into the cavern, his own people following close behind, he had been stabbed by a sudden and unexpected pain.

  Deep in his mind, Dril thought he had heard a distant scream of suffering.

  He leaned against a stalagmite, waiting for the episode to pass, and the nearest soldier stopped and approached him cautiously.

  “My lord, are you all right?” the soldier asked.

  Dril paused, studying the feeling, and slowly looked up at the fighter. “I’m not sure,” he said, “but I must pull through.”

  “Maybe we should rest,” said another Vulzdagg, coming up behind them. “We’ve been running for a good half hour or so, and I’m beginning to feel how you look.”

  Dril nodded, though he doubted the fighter was sharing his pain. It had not been caused be exhaustion, he knew. But was he looking as bad as the soldier indicated?

  Juanna, noticing the hesitation and backward glances of those following her, stopped and turned back, and saw that Dril’ead was no longer following. She started back to where he was now sitting at the base of a stalagmite, holding his head between his hands, and slowly the Vulzdagg’s were grouping round him. Naomi pushed through the throng and knelt beside him, placing a hand gingerly on his shoulder, and looked over her shoulder at those surrounding them.

  “Back up, all of you, and give him some room to breathe,” she commanded them, and slowly they backed away, obeying her orders. To Dril she asked in a sincere tone, “Is something troubling you, my lord?”

  Dril’ead slowly shook his head. But when he looked up into Naomi’s face, she noticed his fatigue.

  “We will rest here for a while,” Juanna said, standing above them, and she tore her eyes from off Dril’s features. “But not for long. Grundagg patrols will be coming round any time, and I do not expect them to receive us with kindness.”

  Dril winced and sat upright. He breathed in sharply once, and then twice, shutting his eyes tight.

  “The pain,” he gasped.

  Naomi took her hand from off him and turned to look up at Juanna’s concerned stare. “Can you spare any water for him?” she asked.

  Juanna, still staring down at Dril, did not answer right away. “We...” she began, but then shook the distractions from her mind. “Yes, right here.”

  Juanna reached to her side to retrieve her water skin, but Dril’ead put up his hand to stop her. “No,” he groaned. “No water will help me. Save it... I feel the pain of another who is suffering.”

  Naomi and Juanna exchanged concerned glances, but Juanna put her water skin away.

  “We must kneel, all of us together, and pray to whatever diety there is who has the mercy to listen,” Dril said, his voice quivering in anguish. “Quickly, gather the troops.”

  Naomi rose and did as he requested, silently signaling for all to come round. In a moment all the soldiers of Vulzdagg, Yaldaa included, came round the stalagmite on which Dril laid against. By the word of Naomi, all of them, even Juanna and Yaldaa together, knelt in a large but tight circle with Dril.

  “But who are we to pray to?” one of the soldiers asked, deeply confused. “If the Urden’Dagg has abandoned us, and this new deity of the Shadow Queen is out to destroy us, then who are we to call upon?”

  “Whoever else is left to listen,” Dril answered, his voice becoming increasingly weak, and all eyes turned to him.

  Dril read their expressions, and realized why they were staring hopelessly upon him. His appearance, the way that he laid against the stalagmite like a corpse, would not heighten their spirits. So he pulled his legs in und
er him, kneeling on his knees and toes, and straightened up as best he could. The pain was there, of course, but he kept his eyes on their glowing orbs to distract himself from it.

  “Come now,” he said to them, “Pray with me.”

  And folding his hands before him he closed his eyes, allowing the pain to come back over him, not even trying to fight it back. He let it flow, let the sense of failure overwhelm him, and listened to the scream of unending torment repeat itself over and over again. But he did not relent. He continued to kneel, to feel, to listen to the message that the unexplained anguish was trying to tell him. Where was it coming from?

  A memory came to him, answering that unspoken question, and he was again standing in the courtroom of Swildagg, being accused of things he had never done or heard of. He saw the faces of the nobles of that Branch, read each character for what he or she was, and remembered the fear in the young girls eyes. She was afraid of something, possibly of what was to come, and remembered how he had killed Jastrum. She was afraid of the mistake they were making, of the doom they were signing upon their own lives, and that they were the guilty ones.

  And then Nel’ead’s face was upturned toward his sister, even as she upraised the bloodstained knife of the Basilisk, evidence of the crime his father had committed, and realized the tension between the two siblings. The scream suddenly became apparent, and Dril could feel it radiating from those eyes of hate in Nel’ead’s face.

  But now Nel’ead was suffering in the greatest of torments, crying out in rage and in pain, the monster that had once been his sister holding him aloft before the merciless goddess that had taken hold of the Shadow Realms. The scream was that of Nel’ead Swildagg.

  Dril’ead slowly opened his eyes to look upon those in the circle with him, and saw that they were muttering and whispering their own prayers; begging for mercy, asking for forgiveness, and silently listening to the sounds of their empty thoughts. He shut his eyes again, content on finding the answers to what he had to do, now knowing in whose pain he was sharing.

  A thought than passed through his mind, a distant and bleary thought that he couldn’t discern, and he caught hold upon it before it could pass. He studied it, studied his feelings when pondering its sensation, and slowly began to realize what it was.

  Nel’ead Swildagg was in great hurt, even dying, and Dril’ead had to help him overcome their suffering, and, despite Dril’s efforts, the unlucky few who followed him would perish. All of them, everyone who opposed the evil in the land, would die, leaving him alone to fulfill his destiny.

  Dril’ead Vulzdagg was the only one who was going to live.

  He opened his eyes and met the eyes of all those in the circle with him, all eyes unblinking and undaunted staring back into his. Some were filled with tears; others with a newfound determination to fight. But all seemed to know what Dril’ead knew: Dril’ead would live, they would not; they were going to die, Dril’ead was not.

  Dril was the only one.

  *****

  When the unexpected, and very unexplainable, vision passed from the minds of all the people, Razbaar, standing among the crowd of those who had stopped to watch in shock as Lamina tore her cloak, stumbled to one side in faint instability. Even Lamina, standing before the doors of the citadel, was down on one knee in dizziness.

  Razbaar shook his head in bewilderment. This wasn’t supposed to happen! He thought. The Shadow Queen must be aware of our doings here, and this is but a plight against us.

  But he couldn’t waste time with any attempts to understand the origin of the sights he had seen, the vision of himself trying to dissuade the citizens of his city from the prospects of the Shadow Queen, and also that of Dril’ead Vulzdagg charging through the tunnels bordering their lands. Whatever the prince of the Vulzdagg city was attempting to do, in secrecy or not, everyone in all the Shadow Realms was aware. And also Razbaar’s intentions were now put down.

  But that could not stop him from what he knew he had to do, from what he knew Gregarr had died for. He could not, in any sense, give up what he had begun before the doors of the citadel.

  So tearing his own cloak from off his back, arousing bewildered stares from those around him, those who had regained their conscience after the initial shock of the visions, and pushed his way through the crowd to stand at the middle most steps to the to doors of the citadel.

  Holding his torn cloak aloft he cried in a loud voice, saying, “Behold, ye citizens of Grundagg, what has become of us!” and he threw it down into the street beside Lamina’s.

  “Like the cloak his torn from off our backs,” he continued, in a more reasonable tone, “so is the dignity and power that the Urden’Dagg had given us long ago. Who are we now, creatures that turn on our own kind for no better reason then to appease the authority of a Shadow Queen, just because she has claimed power over us? I say unto you, no power has she gained over me, or any of those who will stand beside me!”

  Those few who he had invited to his home, Balaf and Rixir among them, slowly made their way to the front of the gathering and did as Razbaar had done; tearing their cloaks from off them and tossing them into the street. Some others even, those who would oppose the Shadow Queen, stepped up and tore their own cloaks away and threw them to the earth. And, with the example of these before them, others began to rip their cloaks, curse the name of the Shadow Queen, and walk over the still growing pile of purple spider-silk cloaks to stand upon the steps before the doors of the citadel.

  There were those who would not, either in fear of the punishment that their leaders would surely put upon them, or because of their newfound loyalty to the Shadow Queen, no one could say for certain. But they turned round and departed the street, leaving those who openly opposed their leaders to stand where they stood, and would not return to that place until all was through. They had all felt the hate of the Shadow Queen toward those who did such a thing.

  The doors to the citadel began to slowly open. Eldrean and Elemni, followed by Lady Grundagg, came forth from the halls of the citadel with a numerous number of soldiers surrounding them. Lamina stood upright and faced the stern expressions of those who came upon them, and reaching to her belt she felt for the grips of her daggers, but Razbaar stopped her.

  “Who is it among you fools, among you exiles creeping from the depths of hell, has done this thing?” Eldrean demanded, her guards shoving aside any of those who stood in her path, and she stopped to look upon each face in the throng of people. Her eyes last fell upon Razbaar.

  “Who is it among you?” she asked again, her gaze locked upon Razbaar, as if knowing him for who he was. “Or are you too much a coward to admit to your sins?”

  “Not a coward,” Lamina growled. She moved to step up to Eldrean’s mocking expression, but was halted by Razbaar’s firm grasp.

  “Do not,” he warned her in a low voice. Then turning back to Eldrean he said, “No, not a coward, as my true friend here has stated... I am he whom you look for!”

  For all that he knew, for all that his grief for Gregarr could tell him, someone somewhere had drawn a sword.

  *****

  “No!” Dril’ead said again, his tone becoming more and more persistent in his determination to keep these, his friends, safe. “No, I will not allow it! I will not be the one to lead you to your death! I will not be the only one! I cannot!” he stopped, then, choking on his words, and broke out into tears.

  He sobbed, the grief for Gefiny coming back, the grief for Vaknorbond and for Neth’tek, for Razarr and for Leona’burda, all of his dear and mighty friends and family.

  “Nel’ead Swildagg needs our help,” Naomi said to him, urgently, pleadingly. She, too, was weeping.

  “Whatever happened to dying for glory?” muttered a single soldier, “for fighting for a cause worth dying for?”

  “That chance is yet before you,” Dril answered the anonymous question, his voice wavering tirelessly. “It is before all of you! Go to Grundagg! Save the people there, the millions of lives th
at can be used for some greater purpose yet to come. Juanna, go and save your people!”

  “My lord,” Juanna said to him, “I will not be parted from you. None of us will.”

  “But... But you can’t!” Dril was desperate now. He leaned forward, beating his fist against the stone floor, and growling as if fighting some inner battle. “Please! Hasn’t enough blood been stained on my hands? Oh great glories above, ancient and forlorn, what are we to do?”

  “Whether we go with you or not,” another of the soldiers said, his head bowed and eyes shut, “We will die.”

  “Nothing can change that,” another added.

  “It isn’t in our power,” said yet another of them, “and it isn’t in yours.”

  Several of them began to weep, but Dril wasn’t sure they were tears of fear or remorse.

  And then from out of the shadows came the clicks and whistles of crossbows firing down upon them. Those farthest across the circle from Dril fell first, darts thudding into their chests and necks, and they looked up into his eyes, a bright gleam of triumph shining in their wet orbs. Others cried out, taking up their weapons and rolling aside from the others to conceal themselves in the stalagmites; however, some simply charged the shadows from whence the darts sped from.

  Dril was motionless, however, his eyes locked on that of the youngest of the fighters with him. The child wore the robes of a mage, green and brown, the colors of Vulzdagg, and several darts were poking out from their folds. The child, the youth Dril’ead had trained in the ways of combat, had been hit many times.

  Skandil did not take his eyes from Dril even as he felt his strength fading away, his source of life, that energy that controlled his body, moving from him to some other place. A welcome glow began to emanate from Dril’ead, warmth beginning to fill his senses, and all at once it was taking him away, carrying his broken spirit from that place of sorrow and despair.