Veil of the Dragon (Prophecy of the Evarun)
Page 11
The knotted mass of a fallen tree bordered the path, nestled amidst moss and undergrowth. The forest loomed over him, tangled and dense, the trees closer here than he had seen since his passage to this place. Beyond the rotting log, a small path climbed up through the stunted mounds pressing up between them.
Two statues of gray stone, set apart from the gaunt white ruins of the valley, rose from pedestals on either side of the narrow path. Their faces had been removed, not by time, but by vengeance or regret. Chisel marks had left unmistakable traces upon them, leaving them silent to the act as they waited, their gossamer-bound swords still held in both hands, pointing towards their feet.
The path climbed unmarred by the malice of the wood itself. Yet darkness still claimed it, cloaked from the light of the moon, the caryatids alone standing to guard whatever secrets it held.
Chaelus climbed over the log and between the reach of the two solemn guardians. A cold wind whispered past.
The mounds, half buried tombs of gray stone like that of the statues, lay scattered across the hillside. Dark holes stared back through their moss-covered portals, the passage through which the souls of their owners had once been let to pass. The branches of the forest hung dark and saddened about them. Another, smaller path led off between them. The chill of the place deepened as he passed.
Near the crest of the hill, the forest opened. The gray ghosts of ruins reached up into the moonlight.
Chaelus stepped up onto an open court. Another statue, one the height of two men, sat on a pedestal at its center, looking northward.
Chaelus followed along the curved edge of the broken walls. To the north, the heights of the forest stopped beneath them. Beyond them, beyond the bare gray hills of the Abadain, the sky trembled above the black wall of the Karagas Mun, no longer a distant vision.
The statue stared northward with empty eyes, his weathered face lost like those at the base of the hill. His hands rested upon the sword within his lap. The tip of the blade had broken off, but traces of lines still remained upon it to reveal the image of the binding it was meant to portray. Worn steps, carved into the front of the statue base, led up to him, as if the Servian Knight portrayed there had climbed up to sit upon the chair himself, before his flesh had become stone.
The remembered footfalls of Cullin drew close behind Chaelus. He lowered his hand to Sundengal’s hilt.
“Do you know the story of this place?” Cullin asked.
Chaelus turned in silence.
Cullin stepped out like a ghost from the path. The silver sigil of the House of Soloth, a chalice over a setting sun, hung pronounced amidst the furs over his chainmail coat. At his waist, his broad sword hung unsheathed, its steel blade bound by gossamer.
The eyes in Cullin’s stoic face smiled. “It’s here where you’ll find the loneliness that awaits you, my friend.” He placed a red fruit, clutched within his hand, to his mouth. Its juices fell fast between his fingers. “Chaelus, of the Roan House of Malius.”
“Tell me then, when did you abandon your own?” Chaelus whispered, nodding to Cullin’s gossamer bound blade.
Cullin barked the briefest of laughs. “No, I am no cleric of this. But I am no fool either. I am only their guest, one who will not share in the ignorance and folly of our brethren. As we speak, the gates of the Evarun stand open for the Khaalish to again pass freely through. But to the north, an even greater darkness stirs, one I do not claim to understand but one I fear more than I do my own death. The Line which guards against the Dragon has been broken. Those who watch it have fallen. So I have come here to watch it myself.”
Damp leaves lifted up around them as a gentle breeze awoke. The smell upon them wafted stale, reminding Chaelus of the graves he had just passed.
He stiffened. “This place is forgotten.”
“No,” Cullin said. “It’s waiting. It is the Mont of Col Durath, the Gray Chair. This, my friend, is the Watchtower of old.”
“What does it wait for?”
“For the signal fires to be lit again. It waits for the return of the Giver, the One, the one who will return them to their purpose. There are even those who believe it waits for you.”
Cullin seized Chaelus’ hands in his own. A smile cut across his face. “It’s been long since we’ve met, my friend.”
Chaelus backed away. “Since you betrayed my father’s House.”
Cullin’s voice lowered. His eyes narrowed. “There are many things for which many of us must be forgiven.” He stepped forward. “Yet I did not betray your father, Chaelus. I was with many who grieved at the loss of both Malius and his House, but I could no longer stand beside you and watch you take the same path as he.”
“It would seem that his House isn’t lost yet.”
Cullin shook his head. “To your brother, Baelus, and all who knew you, you’re dead. They remain ignorant to the truth of this. Already there are some who have begun gathering their colors to him.”
“I seem to remember that my father trained Baelus in war and the Measure well.”
The corner of Cullin’s mouth turned down. “Hold no doubt that there are many who follow Baelus closely. Already they circle like vultures, waiting above him. I’ve kept watch over him, as closely as I’ve been able.”
Chaelus turned away.
“Your father’s loss was not by my hand,” Cullin said. “Nor do I believe it was by yours. Your father’s death came long before breath ceased to come from his lips. I’ve been told you’ve already seen enough to know this.”
Chaelus felt a dull pain.
“If you knew this,” he asked, “why didn’t you stop him? Why didn’t you stop me?”
“Because he wouldn’t see, because you couldn’t see, just as I couldn’t see, as young Baelus still can’t see now. I know that you know the whispers he hears.”
“He won’t hear them much longer, even if I fail.”
Cullin placed his hand upon Chaelus’ shoulder. “I’ll leave you here amidst the solace of the stones. But the truth that you seek isn’t here. It lies with the dead that wait beneath you. There is more in this than you know, Chaelus, Lord of the Roan House of Malius. Your path has already been laid. To gain what you seek, you mustn’t turn away from it.”
“I don’t want this.”
Cullin turned away. He raised his head to the night sky. “Then leave it, but don’t mourn the passing of all that’s been given to you. Your desire will succumb before the truth, just as you will if you continue to seek your own solace. If nothing else, know it was for this that your father fell.”
Beneath Col Durath, the mist parted from the narrow path amidst the tombs. Yet the chill of the place remained. The path ended before one of the mounds, a tomb set apart from the others. Small white flowers crowned its top.
Chaelus passed his hand over his brow and his own dark crown that sat there.
No opening broke the surface of the door’s bright white stone, nor was it as aged as its companions. It glowed against the night between the damp leaves pressing against the virgin moss growing upon it.
Chaelus fell to his knees.
He drew his hand across the face of the tomb, pressing the leaves gently aside as his fingers traced the fluid engraving beneath.
Aalyanna
Chaelus cleaned the remaining leaves and moss away until only the fluid script of the Evarun that spoke his mother’s name remained.
Around it circled a seamless script with neither beginning nor end. Chaelus had seen it before, had copied it even from the pages of dusty tomes in the halls of Lossos. It was a blessing; one, it was said, that the Evarun reserved only for their own.
Chaelus picked one of the small white flowers atop his mother’s tomb, and yielded to the memories he knew were no longer his alone.
Chapter Twelve
Blood and Prophecy
In solemn splendor, the Servian Knights lined up along either side of the narrow path, their heads bowed over the pommels of their upraised swords.
; White robes covered their chain mail coats, the symbol of the prostrate cross struck red upon their chests. Around them, the last remaining leaves fell like solemn motes in the dawn light filtering down between their Gossamer Blades, the glimmer of their steel mute beneath the fabric which held them.
The Servian Knights recited prayers in the tongue of the Evarun, the words and the notes of their voices resounded with hope and mourning.
The Mother, in black robes with her deep cowl drawn across her eyes, waited at the line’s end. Maedelous stood opposite her, his legion lorica ill-fitting and worn and from an age already passed. The Gossamer Blades of both hung at their waists.
Chaelus waited as the Servian Knights who were to lead him passed by; not two, but four of them.
Al-Thinneas bowed his head. “The Happas Servius will take us north to Magedos and your purpose there. We’ll make for Hallas Barren, the northern gate, by day’s end. The way isn’t hard, but there our rest will end. Beyond it the broken wilds of the Abadain hold sway.”
Al-Aaron drew up close behind Al-Thinneas, permitted, somehow, by the Mother to come. Much of Al-Aaron’s pallor had withdrawn with the night’s passing. It was as if his belief in the Nephelium alone had healed him. Yet beneath his unexpected vigor, Chaelus knew that the Dragon’s shadow still burgeoned inside Al-Aaron, just as it had in him, unseen and unknown. He could only hope that the boy who had raised him from the cenotaph’s dark well remembered this too.
Chaelus seized Al-Aaron’s shoulder. “The Dragon’s poison still claims you.”
Al-Aaron pulled away. Though his pallor had diminished, he was still weak and his eyes had lost much of their glimmer. Only the sternness, that was never intended for a child, remained.
“Why do you do this?” Chaelus asked.
“Because I promised to,” Al-Aaron murmured.
The woman named Al-Mariam followed Chaelus, but not the cause he served. Chaelus watched her keep her stare away from him. He waited as the scent of her lavender passed. For whatever reason, the Mother had sent her to come as well, and Al-Mariam’s quest, for now at least, was hers alone. Just so long as her blade remained that way as well.
Al-Hoanar, the Goarnni, was last among the four. His blade – a spigot, one of the gladatorial weapons of his people – hung upon his armless side. Gossamer bound the spigot’s thick stabbing blade but did little to hide the not so subtle promise of the hand’s breadth spike protruding from the back of its hilt.
Al-Hoanar slowed as he passed and murmured, his voice muffled by his thick braided beard. “The wards which protect this place only guard against the darkness we bring. They do nothing against the darkness we take with us.”
The shadows of the upraised swords danced over Chaelus as he followed the four Servian Knights. At the procession’s end, the light touch of the Mother’s hand rested upon him. “Be still,” she whispered. “Be wary.”
The piercing stare of Maedelous, and all the whispers it brought, along with the unexpected warning of Al-Hoanar and the Mother, pursued Chaelus as he passed.
Still sunlight undressed the shadow of the white road beyond them, beyond the Garden of Rua. Gray rock slopes ascended alongside it into the still dark shadows of the forest.
Few words passed amongst Chaelus and his new companions as the forest of Sanseveria diminished into a thin cloak that struggled over the rocky hills and falls of the hillocks of the Abadain.
Few thoughts passed through Chaelus. Even the normal wariness that kept a man alive spoke nothing to him. Perhaps some of the peace of the Garden remained, or perhaps just a veil.
The shadows of the day shortened, then grew.
Twinned ivory stone columns welcomed the evening’s call in the shape of languid trees, rising from either side of the Happas Servius as it climbed a hilltop. The columns’ sinuous arms reached across from one to the other, forming an arch above the path.
The full moon rose. The rusting light of the sun passed to mark the lapsing of the day. Soft gray shadows reached away from the stones and scattered bones that lay across the open courtyard beyond.
Chaelus let his hand fall to Sundengal’s hilt. His fingers tightened over it as the dying sun gasped upon the dead faces there.
Beyond the arches, Al-Thinneas set his pack beneath a broken wall. “Here’s where hope fled.”
Al-Hoanar grunted as he settled next to Al-Thinneas. “It’s where they fled.”
In silence, Al-Aaron continued past. Al-Mariam did as well, disappearing into the shadow of the trees beneath the ruin.
“The Evarun and the Gorondians were once a single race,” Al-Thinneas said. “It’s said they were born from a time before even the Dragon itself. But their hearts weren’t the same, and it was from their hearts that the Dragon came. The Evarun wept as they watched the Gorondians fall, seduced by themselves, seduced by the Dragon’s call. The Evarun wept for them, but they wouldn’t share their end. Confident in their piety, the Evarun retreated to a place where they believed the Dragon’s shadow couldn’t find them.”
Chaelus knew the story well, having scribed it many times before. He stared, distracted by where Al-Aaron’s silhouette climbed alone to the ruins’ summit.
“It’s not unlike the Servian Knights’ own lament,” he offered.
Al-Thinneas gave a quiet smile. “I have thought so myself, but have spoken little of it. Perhaps this is another reason why you’re here.”
Al-Hoanar stared at Chaelus. The Goarnni’s face was humorless, but nonetheless thoughtful.
“The Gorondians wouldn’t let the Evarun go,” he said. “Amongst the dead here are the Evarun who stayed behind to fight them, so their own people could be free. That we don’t follow them is a lament all its own.”
Al-Aaron stood away from the rest of them, looking out across the growing gloom of the rugged hills, his pack thrown down to the stones beside him.
Chaelus approached him.
“There’s much you haven’t told me,” he said.
“There’s much you don’t need to know,” Al-Aaron replied.
“I would decide that.”
“Would you?”
“I would know what I face.”
“I wonder,” Al-Aaron said. “Or would you turn away? Would you, if you knew that you would die again before your task is complete, if you knew that you would never again sit upon your white tower’s throne?”
The voices of the Nephelium drifted through Chaelus like fallen snow. “I know that you lie to me now, just as you lied to me then. Why did you awaken me?”
“To help you fulfill your destiny.”
In Chaelus’ mind, snow fell and froze. Whispering cracks spread out across its surface. He trembled from the chill of it.
Al-Aaron turned away. His voice was just as cold. “There are many different kinds of death; death of self is the rarest of these. I believe that your death will be the greatest of them all.”
***
Al-Mariam pushed past scrub and branch, dropping her bundle at last where wood gave way to sky.
Raising her face, she breathed in the cooling air, feeling its answer deep within her. Her limbs loosened, releasing their wear from the day’s march, her neck and fingers rolling free from the tensions her thoughts and feelings had forced upon her.
She breathed again, allowing the peace of the moment to settle within her.
Resting her hand upon Aela’s hilt, her fingers released in a single motion the binding which held the blade to its harness. The sudden weight of the sword felt good, powerful within her hands. Raising it up before her, Al-Mariam balanced her weight against it.
Moonlight illuminated the blade, the gossamer dressed faint against it, her face captured along with another’s within it.
Al-Mariam spun on her heel, her blade a flash that ended taut before her.
Chaelus stood unmoved well beyond Aela’s tip at the edge of the clearing, a mixed look of respect and amusement lurking in his dark eyes. “So you are a warrior after all.”
Chaelus approached her, sadness replacing the amusement in his face. “Such a spirit cannot be contained.”
Al-Mariam’s feet shifted upon the stony ground, but she did not, or could not, she would not lower her blade.