Veil of the Dragon (Prophecy of the Evarun)

by Tom Barczak

  “Only because you poison him just as you did me, just as you did to our father, just as you do to me again now.”

  Magus held out his hand. His whisper descended. “But you could save him, and in doing so save everything, if you would just return with me.”

  Chaelus closed his eyes. Fire burned upon his brow. He opened them to the brightness of a noonday sun, and another memory summoned against him.

  The war sky had faded. The fires had gone and the smoke had yielded at last. But the whisper of Magus continued. “Let this be your rightful day.”

  Sunlight glinted off shield, helm, spear and bridle upon the ridge above him. His Guard waited there, radiant. Their stone faces worn smooth by the pride of their feats, of the test that lay behind them and of their faith in their liege as well. The once white ruins of his father’s House rose above them, the blackened stone and timber of the great tower now reclaimed. Now he could rebuild what his brother and his father had both so miserably lost.

  Chaelus spurred Idyliss to meet them. It was a new day. The bodies of the dead could stay behind him.

  Al-Aaron’s grip upon his arm brought him back.

  “Walk,” Al-Aaron urged. The strength of his voice still persisted beneath its tremor. With his voice, the weight of the river and the morning light returned.

  The Remnants’ shield wall had withdrawn but it still waited before Chaelus, motionless in the shadows upon the shore. They had not closed the gap where one of their number had fallen. Magus held his beast in check beyond the open portal.

  With a simple rush, Chaelus could end this with Magus impaled upon his blade. The whisper silenced and his kingdom returned to him. A new day.

  His hands trembled around Sundengal’s hilt.

  Al-Aaron stood beside him, his gossamer blade burning with blue fire. “Do as I say and we will pass through them. Or don’t, and all that you love will be lost.”

  The voice of Magus sounded, thin and malevolent, as he led his mount into the shield wall’s gap. “Don’t think you can win this, child.”

  “We will pass by you.”

  “There will always be struggle with you,” Magus said. “Don’t think you can be freed of it.”

  “Perhaps, but there will be no struggle here. Not on this day.”

  Magus turned his silver face to Chaelus as he continued to speak to Al-Aaron. “You can’t escape, little prophet. Already your own end quickens. When it comes for you at last, you will know that I have him.”

  Al-Aaron lifted his sword before him. “Follow me, Chaelus. Don’t look back. Don’t give your attention to it.” Wrapped in a halo of blue, Al-Aaron pressed forward towards the gap and Magus beyond.

  He paced forward until the nostrils of Magus’ beast flared only an arm’s width away from him. Rearing its head, it retreated without command from its master. Slowly, inexorably, the steed fell backward, matching each forward step that Aaron took. The Remnants held motionless beside them, the black shield wall paling as the mist deepened.

  Chaelus pressed down the fear and shame gnawing within him. Alone, Al-Aaron had saved him once more. Chaelus tightened his sword grip and followed, focusing on the light of the boy’s blade as Al-Aaron clambered up the crumbling slope, the glow obscuring the enemy around. The silver child’s face of the Dragon disappeared within its aura as Magus pulled away.

  Yet still he felt him near. It was like the mingled clamor of insects, all of them calling to him, threatening him, seducing him. A single whisper turned at once into thousands. A thousand whispers, a legion, at once turned into one.

  Behind him, the roar of the river broke as something stood against its wake. Chaelus looked back. The river and its bank stood empty. The mist had perished. The defeated Remnant was gone. So too were Magus and the shield wall through which they had only just passed.

  Chaelus spun back to Al-Aaron, who waited, leaning exhausted against the base of the cliff. A narrow crevasse broke across its surface. Within its depth, a steep stair, carved from the heart of the rock itself, climbed high towards the summit above them.

  Chaelus stopped. “They’ve vanished.”

  Al-Aaron inclined his head. “They’re no further than they just were.”

  “Then tell me, how does flesh and bone disappear?”

  “It doesn’t. And you don’t listen. The Dragon has only taken itself back to which it came. The seed of the Dragon revealed. You would do well to heed my warnings. I don’t give them lightly. I only hope you didn’t summon them back to us.”

  Weighting himself against the cliff, Al-Aaron ascended into the depths of the crevasse.

  Chaelus returned Sundengal to her scabbard.

  The promise of blue sky offered itself between forest and bleached stone above. Broken stones littered the steep and narrow stair. The steps leveled only slightly as it neared its summit, wrapping around the ruined base of a small tower rising out of the cliff and hidden from sight below. The watch towers had long since gone to ruin. Wildflowers and tall grasses grew amidst its scattered stones and within the small clearing about it.

  To the south, the Northern March fell away in gentle rolling waves to the majestic gray peaks of the Albanjan Mountains. Beneath their northern end, where forested hills climbed to meet them, unexpectedly, the white spire of the House of Malius presented itself as a distant glimmer of reflected sunshine a hundred leagues away, a wayward beacon against the shadow that consumed it, and all that Chaelus had left behind.

  To slay the Dragon and win his kingdom back, he thought. But it was his father’s kingdom, wasn’t it, and it was Baelus’ now. It was a kingdom he never wanted. So why did he do this?

  Because of blood spilt on fallen snow. He did this because he had killed his father. Because, in the end, it was not a whisper in the dark but he himself who had brought ruin down upon his father’s House. Perhaps, in some way, it would be his atonement.

  Around the little clearing, the woods pressed in but hesitated to consume it. At a place where the forest thinned, a marker stone lay toppled. The words inscribed upon it told the name of this place. It was in the lost language of the Evarun, unspoken since before the time of the Expulsion. Few men could read it.

  Hallas Barren.

  “The Gate of the Fallen,” Chaelus translated as he walked nearer. His voice trailed off. Beneath the marker’s shadow Al-Aaron lay crumpled, hidden amidst the tall grasses.

  ***

  “Al-Mariam,” said the Mother.

  Al-Mariam looked up from where she knelt in the hollow. The Mother stood alone upon the narrow path. The gentle blue of her shawl, set apart against her pale robes, shone like a jewel against the long and dappled shadows of the forest.

  “Yes, Mother,” Al-Mariam replied as she lowered her eyes. She set her gathered timbers down and walked towards her.

  The Mother reached out to her, her thin fingers barely visible beneath the sleeve of her robes as she touched her chin. “Come with me.”

  “I’m honored, Mother.”

  As Al-Mariam fell in beside her, her Teacher slid her arm around hers.

  “Someone passed the Hallas Gate. Al-Aaron has returned to us.” The Mother raised her face, clearly waiting. “I see you have nothing to say to this.”

  “What you would have me say?” Al-Mariam asked.

  The Mother squeezed her hand. “Don’t mock me child, you are far too dear for that. Speak your heart. Isn’t that what you always do?”

  Al-Mariam smiled inwardly at the Mother’s affection, tempered as always by the guilt of disobedience that burned within her. “I fear my heart fails me.”

  “And it will, if that’s what you wish. But I choose to believe that grace is much wiser than either you or I may ever be. Its works are often, but not always, unseen. I have trust you will keep your vows.”

  “But my heart hasn’t emptied of its need.”

  “Nor should it, for its path is what led you here. But it’s not the only power that guides you. If it is, then fear for your brother y
ou must, for he will surely perish. Our faith is everything, or it’s nothing. This is what you fail to understand.”

  Al-Mariam sighed. “Then pray I may trust for now.”

  “I do. The Younger will be here soon.” The Mother withdrew her hand, dismissing her. “Go and find Al-Thinneas. I’ve already sent him to welcome Al-Aaron, and the son of Malius whom he’s returned to us.”

  Chapter Six

  Shadow

  Chaelus wiped his brow. Blood stung his eyes. Scars traced his arms from the path he’d cleared through the tangled wall of the forest.

  He carried Al-Aaron over his shoulder. The boy had scarcely moved, waking only once since Chaelus had taken him into his arms and entered the woods. The boy’s words even then had only been as faint as his breath.

  The forest itself was endless. The trees, ancient and bent, stood ever closer together. The sky, as well as the path they’d set upon, had disappeared. Tall pine had given way to the tangled branches of savage oak, their limbs hanging low and conspiring with the thick underbrush below.

  The woods held silent save for the thrashing of his club, retrieved from the forest floor. No animal, bird, or creature spoke; perhaps driven off by the noise he made, or perhaps it was as it seemed, and nothing lived here at all. Shriveled berries and withered leaves were the only signs of life so far. Even the smell of decay and the vestigial carrion life it held had passed from here. Only void remained, like the void of death Al-Aaron had raised him from.

  It shattered beneath the flickering red seal of a message, seen by the memory of a candle’s flame.

  Chaelus’ fingers floated just above it, like they had when he’d received it; the summons from his exile with the Lossons. Chaelus’ touch lingered just above the seal of his father’s House, his chest tightening. Such a small thing to bring such dread upon his heart.

  Chaelus shook his head until the vision fell away.

  Al-Aaron moaned upon his shoulder through his fever-drawn haze.

  Then the cold brush of winter fell.

  Chaelus’ hand trembled over Sundengal’s hilt. Its blade, struck red with blood, lay where it had dropped through the snow between him and the crumpled form of his father. Baelus sobbed beyond him, his face turned into the snow, refusing to look. The other seven Roan Lords remained motionless around them, their faces indiscernible, their silence frozen upon the ice-filled air. Chaelus swallowed hard as he tried to control his fear.

  A breeze stirred the snow upon the field until the blood beneath it disappeared. The murmur of the Roan Lords echoed around him as, one by one, they bowed before him.

  Chaelus turned his eyes away. His breath caught still within his throat. The dour wake of the forest returned around him.

  Behind him, a bitter sigh resounded through the bent and broken wood. The forest was speaking. Behind him, the path he’d only just cleared had gone. From the trees, shadows bled like oil, folding down amidst the branches.

  His breath held like a vapor.

  The Dragon’s whisper splintered across the frozen air.

  “It is time.”

  The ground shook. Cracks swallowed root and branch, the same shadow rising up from them with a nauseous sputter. The shadows pooled.

  Chaelus stumbled back. The knotted wall of the forest pressed against him.

  A black serpent rose from the ebon pool, towering over him, its skin flowing like oil over the darkness swirling within it. Its eyes were voids, darker even than the pool which spawned it. Its body lashed and coiled upon itself. Dark wings spread out from it like rain.

  Chaelus’ brow burned with fire awakening within him. The frozen air pressed like a vice against his skin. Beneath it all, his strength surged. The Dragon stood revealed to him at last, with no polished mask before it. Here, in this place of promised hope.

  He lowered Al-Aaron’s silent form to the ground. The boy’s eyes shifted beneath their lids. Chaelus drew Sundengal from its scabbard. His stomach churned, but neither vision nor oblivion claimed him. His heart raced. If this was to be the time, then he would let it be.

  “Then let us end this,” he said.

  The Dragon reared up. Its maw opened rows of sharpened bone.

  With both hands, Chaelus hurled Sundengal’s edge at the Dragon’s flailing middle. Sundengal struck deep, passing through the coils. The Dragon screamed with the cry of every nightmare Chaelus had ever known.

  And then another voice, a lighter voice, spoke his name.

  “Chaelus.”

  Bright and supple, like a cymbal, the voice descended in a light from above. Three spirits hovered there, their beauty clothed only by the light which veiled them. The Dragon recoiled beneath them. Chaelus shielded his eyes against their glory, screaming out a voiceless cry against the wind which surrounded them in a shuddering gale.

  The leftmost spirit smiled. “Chaelus, all that has come before you has passed. The shade of your life has fallen.”

  The rightmost inclined her head. “You have died so that you may be given new life, a sacrifice so that others may live.”

  The center one drew down to him as she reached out her hand to his brow. “But one more sacrifice still remains before your summons. The sword of your past must be broken.”

  At her word, Sundengal shattered in a blinding thunderclap. Chaelus’ arms crumbled like sand beneath the blow. Amidst the still resounding chime of falling steel, Chaelus opened his eyes. The spirits were gone. Only the Dragon and its shadow remained, and it seized him in its coils. Its jagged maw rushed over him, swallowing his sight.

  ***

  Michalas’ foot slipped. His knee slammed hard. Wet stone raked against his skin. His fingers and arms, cold and distant, pulled away from him a little more. Soon they would fail him.

  He winced, pressing his body tighter to the cistern wall from which he clung. The sewer churned beneath him. Water dripped across his bare scalp, stinging his eyes and the still open wounds above them. He squinted at the small unreachable circle of light above.

  The Angels hadn’t freed him only to leave him here to die, but he couldn’t escape through the sewers. He knew what its waters held. There had to be another way. He looked up to the distant spot of light above. The Angels would show him.

  He searched with his feet across the slick stones.

  He didn’t notice when his fingers failed, he only felt the blood pounding in his head as they grasped out to darkness. The slick stone scraped hard across his shoulders and legs as he fell, tearing his skin as he tumbled downwards.

  He landed as fast as he’d fallen. The hoarseness of his breath and the pounding of his blood resounding in his head, keeping silent the sounds of the sewer that was, thankfully, still beneath him.

  Hope trickled through his pain. His legs hung limp beneath him but wet stone pressed against his chest. He stretched his fingers, awakened by the bile clinging to them, gingerly across the surface of the ledge. No answering press of stone turned them away.

  Michalas’ trickle of hope flowered.

  His arms trembled as he reached out further. The frozen touch of water within the tiny seams of the stones greeted his fingers. Tears streaked across his cheeks as he wedged his hand into them. He pulled himself forward. Stone scraped across his back and his head. Finding another handhold, and then another, he pulled himself deeper into the unexpected passage.

  Webs, their denizens gone, clung across his face and arms. This was a secret place, a forgotten place. Michalas smiled.

  A frozen wind brushed his cheek with a familiar sweet and caustic smell. His smile faded.

  A shaft of light split the darkness ahead of him, piercing from the left through a small hole, illuminating the passage before it. An eye had been carved around the hole, along with harried script, sometimes faded, sometimes not, of places and names now lost. The webs wavered in the air like ghosts, carried by the sick-smelling breeze.

  Upon it, he heard the Dragon’s voice.

  “It is time.”

  “But t
he One hasn’t been returned,” said another, more caustic voice.

  “The blood and failure of Malius runs deep,” the Dragon replied. “The son of Malius will return. If not the elder, then I will take the next in line. The Fallen Ones will rise to complete their service to me. The failure of the servants of the Giver will be complete.”

  “But what of the other?” a third asked with a languid hiss. “What of the One we didn’t expect?”