They made love that night, in a barren pit in the lair of a dragon, and to Belli’mar Juraviel, it was more beautiful a place than under the stars of the night sky in Andur’Blough Inninness.
Much later on, when Cazzira awoke, she found Juraviel lying beside her, propped on one elbow so that he was looking down at her.
“I am bound to you more than you can know,” he said softly, running his hand from her chin, up the side of her face, and along her silken hair. “I am bound by love to exclude you from my desperate plan. I will not lead you to death, Cazzira, though I fear that death will catch up to me in the halls outside of Agradeleous’ lair.”
“She is only human,” Cazzira reminded.
“She is a ranger, and I am bound to aid her, and so I must try.”
“And when you are done?”
Juraviel looked away, considering the question honestly, then looked back to her, staring her in the eye, showing her his sincerity. “When I am done, I will return to finish my tale to Agradeleous. If Cazzira is here, then I will remain. If you are not, if you have found your escape, then I will return to Tymwyvenne to be beside you again.”
The Doc’alfar smiled and reached up to stroke Juraviel’s face. “If you do not, I will lead my people to war against Caer’alfar,” she promised. “Battle has been joined for less a reason than this!”
Juraviel bent low and kissed her again, gently, but Cazzira grabbed him tightly and pulled him right over, coming to rest atop him and kissing him with urgency.
A long while later, Belli’mar Juraviel called to Agradeleous to begin what he considered his final performance.
Cazzira watched the dragon leaning forward, every inch of Agradeleous’ sinewy, muscular, scaled frame tensed as the dragon awaited Belli’mar Juraviel’s reappearance from behind the mound of coins at the back of the large mound. The elf had been reenacting Nightbird and Pony’s escape from Mount Aida atop the mighty stallion Symphony. He had buried himself in the coins, thrusting his arm, holding a sword, skyward to represent the mummified arm of Brother Avelyn.
And then he had rushed off to the back of the huge chamber, scrambling over the furthest mound of coins.
The moments continued to slip away.
Cazzira sat back and relaxed, reflecting on the loss. She was surprised at the size of the hole in her heart, the sense of profound loneliness. She knew that Juraviel had acted in what he believed to be her best interest; they didn’t expect that Agradeleous would hurt her, after all, though Juraviel had just certainly placed himself in dire jeopardy.
Still, had she realized how painful this separation would be, Cazzira would have found a way to get out with him, to make that desperate run to the south.
She watched as Agradeleous’ expression went from intense eagerness to confusion to suspicion, to the mounting anger that only a dragon could exhibit. “Where are you, little one?” the dragon growled.
Agradeleous looked to Cazzira, who shrugged and tried to look as surprised as he. “Soon,” she assured the beast.
Agradeleous stood up and narrowed his eyes, peering all about the chamber, issuing a low growl all the while. He took a step forward, turning slowly, and began to sniff loudly. “Little one?” he asked again, the volume of his growl rising.
Cazzira started toward him, but backed away, noted that his iron-corded, scaly arms were trembling with explosive power.
“Little one?”
Several more moments slipped past.
Agradeleous spun suddenly on Cazzira, and with a quickness and power that mocked the Doc’alfar’s catlike reflexes, he scooped her up under one arm, took a couple of running steps, and leaped long and far, sailing into the pit. He dropped her unceremoniously to the floor and sprang away, his growl becoming a rock-shaking roar.
“Little one!” the dragon bellowed, plowing through the mounds of coins, sending treasure flying wildly about the chamber. Under one mound, he hit a rock, larger than his present bipedal form, and still his kick sent it skidding away. Not satisfied with that, Agradeleous reached down and lifted the boulder over his head, then hurled it the length of the room, where it smashed in half against the wall.
Behind the farthest mound, where Juraviel had disappeared, there loomed a small tunnel. Agradeleous started down, but stopped and sniffed the air.
The dragon backed away and looked up, to a second hole in the wall, a dozen feet off the floor, a hole that Juraviel, with his wings, could have reached.
Eyes narrowing again, Agradeleous sprang up into the hole, running along on all fours, his small wings curled up on his back, his short and thick tail straight out behind him.
Juraviel ran flat out, but the tunnels outside the chamber were not nearly as well lit from the orange-glowing lava, and despite his keen eyesight, the elf stumbled many times. Even if he had not lost his footing, he realized that he could not simply outdistance Agradeleous. He had to hope that the tunnel forked and branched off, many times.
He heard the rumbling footfalls coming in fast pursuit soon after, and stumbled along in the low light, knowing that he would be caught quickly, unless …
The elf breathed a bit easier when he came to the first fork in the trail, one branch winding down and to the right, while the main tunnel continued on straight ahead. Juraviel instinctively went for the branch, but stopped and changed his mind, guessing that Agradeleous would expect him to head down the narrower branch.
He ran on, as fast as he could, hoping that the fork had bought him some time. But then the rumbling behind him stopped, and a moment later, Juraviel heard snuffling sounds. He cringed and ran on—what else could he do?
And then came the dragon’s thunderous pursuit.
Several intersections gave the elf a bit of a lead, for at each one, Agradeleous had to stop and locate Juraviel’s scent. At one such three-way break, Juraviel ran for many feet down one steeply sloping path, coming to a ledge that dropped off into the darkness. Then he backtracked, and when he turned the corner to enter another of the tunnels, he used his wings to get him up to the top of the large corridor and scrambled along, high up on the wall for a long way.
Again he heard Agradeleous stop and sniff, then nodded with some hope as the dragon’s footsteps receded, then ended altogether.
Still, less than an hour later, moving in complete darkness, Juraviel heard the wurm’s pursuit again, closing fast.
Those lamplight eyes, he thought, and he knew that it wouldn’t take Agradeleous long to catch him, and likely devour him.
Around a bend, the corridor brightened again, and a short while later, Juraviel came to a wide chamber with an arching stone bridge, high above a river of flowing lava. Across the way, the tunnel continued out of the wide chamber. Quickly, he inspected the bridge, hoping that it was weak at some points and would not support the beast, but he understood soon enough that the powries had likely constructed this nonnatural bridge, and that it was quite secure.
Juraviel squinted in the orange glow, looking for some other choice. The air was thick with a sulphurous smell, so much so that he knew Agradeleous could not track him anywhere near here.
The elf had an idea. He looked to the side, to the distant wall, then looked down, gauging the distance against the height of the bridge.
Dragon thunder shook the ground, not so far away.
Juraviel sprinted sidelong across the bridge and leaped high and far, his diminutive wings beating furiously, catching the hot updrafts of the lava across the wide expanse. He hit the sidewall hard, but held on, crawling to an area shadowed by a jag in the warm stone. Then he ducked his head and tried to ball up as tightly as possible.
He heard Agradeleous enter the chamber, and then, hardly hesitating, rush across the bridge. He waited a bit longer, until the dragon’s heavy footsteps receded, then gradually came out of his curl, craning his neck to look back at the now-empty stone bridge. If he could only get to it and double back along the corridor …
That bridge was a long way from him, though,
and above him, and he knew that if he tried to leap from the wall and fly back, he would surely plummet into the lava.
So he crawled along the wall, using his wings to lighten his body and make the climbing easier. Inch by inch, Juraviel worked around toward the wall with the tunnel through which he had entered the large chamber, closer and closer to the arcing bridge. If he could get right beside and beneath the span, he believed that he could leap up and fly enough to scramble atop it.
Inch by inch.
He came to one particularly smooth and difficult expanse of wall and paused, gathering his strength. Then, ready to half fly and half scramble across, the elf set himself and took a deep breath.
“There you are!” came Agradeleous’ roar, from not so far away. The dragon’s voice seemed enhanced now, even more powerful than Juraviel had heard it a short while before. And the elf saw his own shadow on the wall before his face, as those terrible lamplight eyes cast their glowing beams over him.
He turned his head slowly, but stopped and just closed his eyes, noting the edge of one huge leathery wing, for the dragon was back in its true, monstrous form.
“Treachery!” Agradeleous roared, and the sheer volume shook Juraviel free of his tentative grasp. He scrambled and beat his wings furiously, but he could not find any solid holds. His fingers bloodied as he raked at the stone, and he kicked hard, trying to set his feet.
But he was falling, without the strength to stop or even slow his descent.
He thought of Tuntun, then, an elf maiden who had been his dearest friend of old, and he marveled at the savage irony that his ending would be so eerily similar to hers.
Chapter 20
Parallel Journeys
“YOU MUST LET GO OF YOUR ANGER,” PAGONEL SAID TO BRYNN.
The dark-haired woman looked at the mystic hard. “I saw Ashwarawu die.”
“I saw many die,” Pagonel replied. “I saw you almost die.”
“I saw my parents die,” Brynn countered, her lip curling in this dark game of one-upsmanship.
“You must let go of your anger.”
“How can I forget …”
“I did not ask you to forget,” the mystic clarified. “Never that. We each are a composite of our experiences, good and bad, and to release any experience from our thoughts diminishes who we are. Do not forget. Do not dull the images. But do not let those images inspire self-destruction.”
Brynn looked at him as if she did not understand.
“Anger dulls the consciousness,” Pagonel explained. “Anger sets you on a path that you cannot easily break free of, even if common sense dictates that you take another course. You watched Ashwarawu die, but he died, in part, because he was blinded to the reality of the Behrenese trap, partly because of pride and partly because of anger.”
Brynn considered the words for a few moments, and did not disagree. “It will be difficult to raise another band to battle the Wraps.”
“That word rings foully off your lips, Brynn Dharielle.”
She looked hard at the mystic.
“Wraps,” he explained. “A word of belittlement, a word to dehumanize your enemy.”
“Belittlement?” Brynn echoed incredulously. “If given the chance, I would kill every Wrap … every Behrenese,” she corrected, seeing the judging scowl.
“Would you? Would you kill a Behrenese child? A poor mother? A man who has never lifted a weapon against To-gai? Are you so hardened by the bitterness of defeat that you have changed fundamentally from that woman who recoiled at the thought of finishing off Behrenese warriors who lay dying in the sand?” Pagonel stopped and smiled, then chuckled aloud at Brynn.
Brynn looked away, but she couldn’t resist. The mystic was right—again!—and she felt foolish indeed at her fiery declaration.
“Consider your feelings honestly concerning the Behrenese,” Pagonel advised. “Recognize that they are not all of one mind, and not all deserving of retribution. Recognize that they, even those you hate the most, are human beings, are creatures with hopes for themselves and for their children not so different from your own.”
“Do you ask that I abandon my cause?”
“No. I ask that you remain truthful to yourself. Nothing more. Your path will not be bloodless, should you walk the road of war again. There will be a heavy price to be paid, for the Behrenese and the To-gai-ru. Is that cost worth the prize that will be freedom?”
“It is!” Brynn said without the slightest hesitation.
“That is all.”
Pagonel turned and walked away from her then, leaving her standing on the short stone bridge connecting two wings of the Walk of Clouds monastery, far, far above the floor of a deep and misty gorge.
With just a few words, the mystic had changed her line of thinking, had shifted her perspective—just a bit, but in a direction that Brynn was already thinking might prove to be very productive.
She knew that this would be but one of many, many lessons Pagonel and his brothers and sisters of the Walk of Clouds would teach her in her stay there.
“I am often struck by how similar we all are, though we paint different labels upon our common beliefs, different names upon our common gods, and enact different rituals to reach the same elevated state of consciousness,” Pagonel remarked as he exited the darkened room to face the eager Brynn Dharielle.
Brynn looked at him curiously, surprised by his smugness, and more than a little disappointed. She had just taken one of the greatest chances in her life, had just shown to this mystic who had become so dear to her during the last few weeks at the Walk of Clouds one of the greatest secrets of the Touel’alfar. Her teaching of Oracle to Pagonel was a huge expression of trust, for the gifts that Lady Dasslerond’s people had shown to Brynn were not to be passed along. She had expected that the mystic would be overwhelmed, would walk out of the room with that same look of disbelief upon his face that Brynn had worn in her first successful Oracle, when she had communicated, she believed, with the ghosts of her dead parents.
He had been in the room for a long time, and Brynn was certain that he had succeeded in reaching a height of intensity, a level of consciousness that transcended the bounds of mortality. And yet here he was, obviously less than impressed.
“There is only one direction, after all,” Pagonel started, but he looked at Brynn, whose face showed her disappointment clearly, and paused.
“You know of the Abellican Monks of Honce-the-Bear?” the Jhesta Tu asked a moment later.
Brynn nodded.
“They derive their power through use of gemstones that they consider sacred.”
“The ranger who trained beside me was also being trained in the use of the gemstones,” Brynn remarked, and Pagonel nodded.
“The Yatols view the stones as sacrilege.”
Again Brynn nodded. “And the Jhesta Tu?”
“We have used them.”
“And were you impressed enough to incorporate them into your religion?” Brynn asked, a bit sarcastically, given the mystic’s quiet attitude toward Oracle.
“Jhesta Tu attempt to find the same powers as the gemstones offer, the same power that your Oracle offers, within ourselves,” the mystic explained. He walked over and tapped Brynn on the forehead. “There is as much magic and power in here,” he said, and then he surprised her by running his hand down her face, down her neck, between her breasts and over her belly, all the way to her groin. “A line of strength from there to there,” he explained stepping back. “This is the core of your life energy, your Chi, and few are the people who can truly come to appreciate the power of that energy.”
“Only the Jhesta Tu?” the somewhat shaken woman asked.
“Only a very few of the Jhesta Tu,” Pagonel explained. “And only after years and years of study. Internal study.” He reached down and untied the black sash from around his waist, holding it up before the woman. “The Belt of All Colors,” he explained. “It is the symbol of understanding. Three in the Walk of Clouds now wear it, and of the o
thers, well exceeding one hundred in number, perhaps a handful will one day find the enlightenment to earn this sash.”
Brynn reached up reverently to touch the belt, and only then did she see that it was not truly black, but was comprised of fine fibers that ran the length of the color spectrum.
The woman sat back as the mystic stepped away, replacing the sash about his waist. Despite her prior understanding of who this man, Pagonel, truly was, his remark caught her as arrogant at that time, almost belittling her years of training with the Touel’alfar.
“And what is Oracle beside such achievement?” she asked, her voice thick with sarcasm.
Pagonel laughed at her. “It is a very great thing, a precious gift, and a long stride along the road toward enlightenment.”
Brynn’s expression grew confused. “You seemed less than impressed,” she said.
“There is a group giving themselves to the wind this morning,” Pagonel said to her. “Come. I will show you our Oracle.”
“Giving themselves to the wind?”
“Come,” Pagonel said, holding out his hand to her. “As you shared Oracle with me, so I shall share this with you.”
Intrigued, Brynn took the mystic’s hand. He led her out of the monastery through a door that she had not seen before, exiting the back side of the building. Before them was a single trail, ascending the mountainside. They set off at a brisk pace, with Pagonel leading Brynn at a trot at times. A short while later, still climbing along a bare rock face, the pair spotted a line of a half dozen mystics in their orange-and-red robes, high above them.
“It is getting cold,” Brynn observed.
“That is the point.”
Brynn stopped abruptly, and Pagonel pulled free of her hand. He, too, stopped, and turned back to regard her.
“What is this?”
“Ever impatient,” the mystic observed, and he gave a great sigh and a greater smile. “This is one of the rites of passage through the Jhesta Tu order. Though most of my brothers and sisters who are able to give themselves to the wind are older and more experienced than you, I believe that you should try. Your training has been amazing, I would guess, if you have perfected the meditation you call Oracle.”
DemonWars Saga Volume 2: Mortalis - Ascendance - Transcendence - Immortalis (The DemonWars Saga) Page 148
