Veil of the Dragon (Prophecy of the Evarun)

by Tom Barczak

  Michalas knew the truth even then. He knew it the same way he’d always known everything. Like the release of his breath, he knew why Ras Dumas had come. He even knew why Ras Dumas had taken him, and he knew Ras Dumas would begin to change on that very day, at the very moment Ras Dumas touched his brow.

  But what he’d never known was why. He only knew what the voice of the Angel had told him - that everything was as it should be. And it had been, ever since he could remember. So he’d forgotten his sister, just like he’d forgotten everything except what the Angels had asked of him to do. He’d even pressed away the agony of her screams – until now.

  The warm breath of the Angel whispered against his cheek. The sun of her glow washed over him. The cold stones awakened beneath him. The Angel whispered the same word again – the same word she had then, on the day before Ras Dumas came, the day the Angels left their mark upon him.

  “Wait,”

  Michalas opened his eyes to the night shadows where he waited. The Angels were gone. He ran his arm beneath his nose and then dried himself. The chill of the stones returned beneath him. Hopefully their warmth would come back again soon.

  Beyond the edge of the ruins, the barbarian horde waited. Ras Dumas had said they would come. They came from the east, summoned by the Dragon again to lay waste to the kingdoms of the Northern March. More than that, they came to destroy the only ones who could defend against the Dragon, the ones to whom Ras Dumas had once belonged, the ones who still bore the Gossamer Blade.

  Yet the barbarians were afraid; afraid of the Dragon, afraid of the ruined city by which they waited. They heard the spirits of those who suffered beneath its stones. No. Until the Dragon released them against the Servians, they would come no closer to it than they already had. He was safe from them here.

  Michalas looked up towards the darkened sky. The carrion birds had stopped searching for him. The Hands of the Dragon had found him, and they would be coming soon.

  He closed his eyes again. Darkness descended amongst the colors left behind his eyes, the ghosts of the campfires that still danced there.

  Beyond them, another light, a blue light, fair and bright, billowed and flamed. It was getting closer. It felt familiar. Whatever it was, it would come to him soon.

  Then, above the distant clamor of the barbarians, he heard it; not one but several voices, coming from the fair blue flame. One of them sounded like his sister.

  ***

  “Wait.”

  Al-Mariam’s words hung upon the air and tasted on her tongue like blasphemy.

  The auburn mantle of dusk had settled into a grayish night. It was neither black nor moonlit, but rather a haze of some pallor in between that hung thick in the air around them. Yet this wasn’t what terrified her.

  The number of campfires beneath them had grown as they followed the length of the Line. The ivory spire of Ras Dumas still rose ahead of them, now glowing like a beacon flame from the light of the fires spreading out along the river’s edge before the ruined city beneath it. The number of campfires had grown and with them, the number of soldiers who tended them.

  Ahead of them, the Line fell with the ground to cut at last between the gray stones of the ruined city. Canals, black as pitch, radiated out from the tower’s foundation to the edge of the ruined city, where the Khaalish encampment waited for them on the open plain between the river and the Line.

  She felt the press of her sword’s hilt against her palm, and the simple promise it held. Chaelus had taunted her with it and she had reacted angrily towards him. But he had been right. She had seen it, as she had washed its taint from Al-Aaron’s skin.

  Al-Aaron’s pale face and gaunt eyes bore no sight, of anyone or anything. His malaise had deepened since reaching the Line and the only thing he had left to bear, it seemed, was more suffering.

  And now beneath them an army gathered. An army of men who would freely be permitted to do what others of their kind had done before. She felt the weight of her blade and the strength and protection it held for her. For this she had taken her vows, and her vows kept her from stopping the men doing what others had done before. And the Khaalish army barred the path before them.

  “I believe we’re mistaken in our quest,” she said.

  Al-Thinneas turned to her. “What do you mean?”

  “The army gathering here is greater than any of those borne by the Lords of the Northern March. You need but ask the one we follow. But they haven’t come for them, at least not yet. They have come to vanquish another foe first; one that the Dragon fears more, one that will be powerless against the Khaalish. They’ve come to destroy what is left of the Servian Order. The Mother must be warned.”

  “Of the Khaalish at least, she’s correct,” Chaelus said. He returned up the descent of the happas ahead of them. His gaze pierced her as it set upon her. “But the object of our quest hasn’t changed.”

  Al-Mariam tightened her hand across her sword grip, useless as it was. Her fear swelled into anger. “And so many you would willingly have suffer for it.”

  Chaelus turned away. “There is at least one among my people who still keeps vigil. They watch. They will know and they will warn them.”

  “If not, then I pray they may know the debt in blood that was paid before them.”

  “Enough,” Al-Thinneas said. “A promise was made to bring you to Magedos. That is what we’ll do, though our protection of you seems to be wasted.”

  Al-Thinneas’ stare was no less weighty than Chaelus’ as he turned upon her. “Of ourselves, and our brothers, we must have faith that it will not be.”

  “She’s still correct,” Al-Hoanar said. “An army still holds the Shinnaras and its crossing. The valley of Magedos, the place where the Giver fell, lies beyond the river, within the shadow of the Karagas Mun. I doubt the Khaalish will let us pass through freely. I doubt that it would happen without blood being let tonight.”

  “It’s not in the Valley of Magedos where the Dragon waits,” Chaelus said. He turned to them. The crystal stare of his eyes glowed like blue fire, the glow of a man possessed. “The Khaalish serve the Dragon out of fear. They will not pass where it dwells. It’s why their encampment sits beyond the city’s ruin, beyond the reach of the shadow of the Tower. There we will find the Dragon.”

  The glower of Chaelus’ stare subsided. It softened as it turned upon Al-Mariam. Within it she saw the face of her brother, Michalas.

  “I tell you that blood will be spilt there,” Chaelus said. “And it’s there that blood waits for one of you.”

  ***

  Chaelus closed his eyes and breathed.

  Like the aura which whispered upon his flesh, Chaelus felt the whisper of the Giver’s voice like a constant echo within him.

  Sometimes it was louder than the others.

  Sometimes it was distant, but it was always present beneath the voices of those around him. More from a sense of knowing than words, the Giver’s voice allowed Chaelus to sense the soul of each one, the secret truth which they often did not even know themselves. It was the same truth that Al-Aaron had tried to show him, what now seemed a lifetime ago. Now, Chaelus saw all of it, both the shadow and the light.

  To be possessed by the spirit of the Giver was also to hear his own voice speak words that were not his, and to know he held no power to stop them. Like a flaxen boat upon a storm-wrought sea, he was tossed to the will of the Giver’s spirit. At times the sea was quiet and sometimes it was not, and just as if he were such a boat on such a sea, Chaelus suffered little hope he would survive the ordeal.

  No lord or king was he, to be a victim to this. Yet had he ever been, with the bitter whisper of the Dragon set upon his ear?

  The campfires of the Khaalish horde multiplied against the dark mirror of the Shinnaras. The thousandfold voice of the Khaalish legion which kept them pulsed within him.

  Chaelus had tried to keep their voices away. They had come to him slowly at first, like a rivulet finding its meager way across parched and arid g
round. Drowning out the voices of the dead as they had, he welcomed them at first. But their little gorge cut deep as it widened, and as the ground fell away along its banks, the harsh and savage voice of the Khaalish horde billowed over him.

  Yet one voice remained over all. It was the voice of Al-Mariam’s brother, Michalas, like a whisper of the words of prophecy which bound them together.

  One who was but should not be.

  One who should not be but was.

  The sense of him brushed over Chaelus with the softness of the child’s voice. Like the one which had summoned him from his death, like the voice of Al-Aaron, it called to Chaelus, revealing its owner to him, letting him know that Michalas waited for them amidst the ruins of the city.

  Chaelus sensed Al-Mariam behind him, her shadow and her light shifting in their muted veils within her. He had done what he could for her. Her anguish at least was now checked in place by the only thing she would allow to pierce its depths; her love for her brother.

  Chaelus had done nothing to check his own grief. Not even the breath of the Giver’s voice had breached the silence left within him in the wake of Al-Aaron’s fall. Even with all of the Giver’s knowing, he felt chastened that he could do nothing for the one who had saved him.

  Bathed in the light of the moon’s fire, Al-Aaron had stood fearless before the Dragon, the Dragon Chaelus knew he would have to face, that he was going to face now - alone. Al-Aaron was the only one who could help him. Chaelus had tried to reach him, to save him, to make him see, but even all the Giver’s knowing did little to assuage the fact that in this, he had already failed.

  A crumbled gatehouse waited before them, like a ghost of the one at Roanwaith. In darkness and silence it guarded the happas where it passed beneath the palisade that had warded the eastern approach to the city. Its making was a blasphemy to the purity of the Line in whose shadow it leaned. The wattle and plaster that remained upon its higher reaches hung from it like scabs. Its wood rotted around its murder holes and machinations above.

  As Chaelus passed beneath them, he let go of the thoughts and the voices to which he held. He watched them fall in his mind’s eye like motes amidst the thousands of others that now clamored against each other, each vying for his attention, to catch a glimpse of the eternal breadth of the Giver’s voice. He watched them pass until only one voice remained, the only voice that feared him.

  The familiar eyes of Ras Dumas’ ivory spire stared back at Chaelus, but not in silence. The tower was a mirror of his own, of his father’s, and the whisper of the Dragon, and his past, echoed through its stones.

  Chaelus passed his hand across his brow as the burning of the Dragon’s Crown quickened against him.

  ***

  The ghost of Figus cooed at him, his thin eyes twinkling. The stare of the dead Khaalish warrior crawled beneath them.

  “Do you see?” Figus said. “Do you see what I mean?”

  Al-Aaron pressed his face against the cool stone of the gatehouse. Its chill crept like a salve through his bones and drew against his skin until the fire within him fell away. His shattered arm hung from him like a stone.

  “You can feel it, can’t you?” Figus said. “You can feel their disbelief like a boil upon your tongue.”

  Ahead of him, Chaelus led the other knights across the desolate court, past the putrid and rotting stables and towards the rising gray stones of the dead city. The clamor of the dead had succumbed to the murmuring babble of the Khaalish host beyond the wall, but the eyes of the dead Khaalish warrior burned beneath those of Figus before him.

  “You’re alone with this.”

  Al-Aaron drew himself upright, his legs trembling. The dim shadows of the black sores whispered beneath the skin around his bandaged wound. Dark tendrils laced already between his fingers and, he was sure, up the length of his arm towards his heart. The burning of his fever washed over him.

  The ghost of Malius stepped out from behind the gatehouse. His expression was dour but the gentle bearing of his eyes remained. “Time is running short, my love. You mustn’t fail me. He’s right that you are very much alone with this.”

  The ghost of Malius thinned into shadow.

  Where Malius had been, Al-Thinneas stood. He knelt before Al-Aaron and took his arm within his hands, pressing it gently along its length. Al-Thinneas looked up at him. His eyes were grave, but a smile broke across his lips.

  “Let me walk beside you,” he said.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Ghosts

  “Mother?”

  Michalas winced as his small whisper scraped against the listening night.

  His memory of her looked as it always did. Nearly. She stood looking out from the court below, the flowering gardens of Tulon that she loved surrounding her, the colors of the blossoms matching the warm blush of her skin. Her face resembled the Angel’s face. Tonight, her armor and gossamer blade glowed like a halo with the light captured from the distant campfires, just as it had on the night Ras Dumas had come, and she’d been taken from them.

  This time, her hair was as black as a raven’s quill, just like his sister’s.

  “Mariam?”

  This whisper drew louder than the last, sounding out amongst the ruins like a smithy’s knell. Michalas flinched again.

  Her eyes opened and a drifting pale washed over her. The flowering gardens withdrew. The chill of broken stones returned. Yet she remained. The ghost of his sister turned to him.

  Michalas turned and ran.

  The singular roar of the carrion birds and the clamoring eyes of decay erupted around him. The broken leaves and spent husks of insect and vermin swirled about him in a breathless vapor, scraping and clawing against his skin like the sack cloth he had hidden in. The numbing cold made the chill of the stones seem warm.

  Yet all of it – the Dragon or its minions – boded better than the ghost he’d seen. They’d made her just as he remembered, just as he’d chosen to forget.

  His sister’s scream carried across the night and echoed through the ruins. With it came the jeering cries of the men who’d taken her.

  The empty eyes of the broken ruins stared over the shattered maze of stones. The paths twisted through and between alley and close and empty hall.

  Beyond their jagged mouths and against the pitch of night which surrounded them, the great white wall that cut across the city watched him in glimpses amidst the ruins. It followed him, glowing just like the Angels, just like the memory of his mother, and the ghost of his sister from which he fled.

  The tremor of his sister’s footsteps echoed behind him.

  The narrow walls of close and cloister yielded to an open court. The glowing chastity of the wall stood unveiled before him. A captured sliver of moonlight from above broke free.

  The harsh light of the Khaalish camp fires burned beyond the open sally door at the base of the wall. Their babbling voices waged war with the rising cackle of descending crows swirling to rest on the parapets and sills above.

  The beat of Michalas’ heart held its own against the sound of the closing footsteps.

  The billowing cloud of decay loosened and then divided, each of its twin parts coming to rest within the shelter of the two paths leading back into the ruins.

  The Hands of the Dragon gathered themselves from their miasmas.

  The Left Hand was veiled, the filth of its ragged cloak swirling about it. The ivory and silver raiment of the Right Hand hung unfettered and untouched by its gale.

  Beneath their cloaks, both wore scaled armor like the flesh of their master. The bile of their twin faces glistened beneath the wrapping of their veils from the light of the Khaalish fires. Upon their brows, the steel-shod bits of their crowns stayed dull and hollow like the empty holes of their eyes.

  Michalas wavered where he stood.

  The tremor of footsteps surged behind him. Even their sound was just as he remembered. He could still feel the heart that drove them, chasing him through their mother’s garden long ago. But he h
eard – no, felt – another with her as well, like a blue light in the darkness.

  The Hands of the Dragon stepped towards him, their festering storms still swirling around them, the spiked iron heads of their maces dragging, grating on the ground.

  Beyond the open sally port one of the barbarians stared at him, a stark shadow against the glow of the camp fires. The spear he carried dropped silently to the ground. The barbarian’s outcry carried out amongst the ruins, just as Michalas’ cry had.

  “Ghaardi! Ghaardi!”

  ***

  Al-Mariam looked in wonder as silver moon light tinged with blue rained down over her brother. An omen in the storm-wrought night. His gaunt ghost stood shaking and naked, a bleached crown inscribed upon his barren head, the crown of the Dragon, a ghost-like mirror of the one that Chaelus bore.