Veil of the Dragon (Prophecy of the Evarun)

by Tom Barczak

  A fateful sigh lingered upon the wind. Above the empty sands of the valley floor the gray clouds pulled away, leaving behind a pale, unbroken sky.

  The ground quivered beneath the Dragon’s voice. “How many times do you think Grace will save you?”

  Chaelus stumbled to his feet. The pain of his wound harried him. He felt the dark tendrils of the Remnant’s poison already lacing through his veins. He felt the Dragon’s poison that was already there racing to meet it.

  Between the two was only the void his own failure had left. The Giver had saved him once more, but there was nothing left in Chaelus to remain. And the Dragon still lived, and so it would when he died here.

  Sand barred Chaelus’ throat. “Enough so I would see you revealed before me.”

  The windswept sigh fell away.

  “Then so be it,” the Dragon said.

  Sinuous fissures twisted between the open pits scattered across the valley floor. The sands poured into them like water. The tremors grew. The ground heaved and buckled. Like a web, like the sinuous tendrils beneath the skin of the fallen, the cracks laced together into one, and as it widened, strange sounds, at once beautiful and poisonous in their appeal, whispered up from deep within its bowels.

  Chaelus drew back, regretting the challenge he had only just made.

  The beckoning sounds from beneath the ground descended to a hush.

  Rock, sand and broken bones exploded beneath Chaelus. The ground fell away. He flew weightless. Then the stench of spoiled musk, ash, sand and the broken ground, and the loss of all hope, returned to him like a hammer blow.

  He trembled beneath the blood, pain and sand that veiled his vision. He trembled beneath the shadow that towered over him, swaying like a whore just unveiling herself, rising up from the vomitus chasm from which it came.

  It was the Dragon unveiled.

  The Dragon bore no head, had neither limb nor wing. It was blood red, glistening and wet, and ceaseless in its motion. It lashed against the sands, coiling about itself. The substance of its skin rippled across its length.

  Chaelus listened for the call of the Giver’s voice. He listened for even its silence amidst the growing cacophony of madness. But the only silence he heard was the sound of its loss.

  The Dragon slowed before him.

  “You will not find this so easy,” it said. “The Giver has no hold over me here.”

  Within the space of a heart’s beat the Dragon’s shadow poured over Chaelus like oil, covering him as it coiled around him, its flesh cutting deep wounds like unseen blades of frozen steel. It flung him down. The broken ground exploded against him once more, sending dust and sand and bone skyward.

  Within the space of a heart’s beat, the entirety of the Pale trembled in the Dragon’s shadow. Chaelus felt it. He saw it through the veil of shadow that covered him. It hovered across the length and breadth of the Pale like a tapestry of a dark story that had already come to pass.

  Blood and sand caught within Chaelus’ chest and mouth. Coughing and spitting, he expelled what he could. He pressed himself upright, but his shoulder collapsed under the pain. Its flesh had already gone cold, like Al-Aaron’s arm. He trembled within its frozen grip.

  Chaelus collapsed onto the sands. There, within the hollow sound of his own heart’s beat, he watched the breadth of the Pale begin to fade.

  ***

  Al-Mariam drew her legs up close. Her fingers clutched within her robes, her nails digging deep, the simple spun cloth protecting her from herself no less so than the chainmail coat she wore protected her from sword and spear.

  Yet she feared neither sword nor spear.

  The bare gray stones of the Abadain whispered like ghosts as the wind struck them from the brooding sky above the Karagas Mun.

  The fires of the Khaalish burned around her in their shared encampment upon the ancient battlefield through which, it seemed, they had only just passed. The ruin of the Line stared back her, a ghostlike apparition waiting like the memory that it was, just beyond the fires’ light.

  Their debate about staying so near had been short-lived. Al-Hoanar’s protestations had broken down quickly. They couldn’t hide from the storm they’d aroused. That and the simple fact that the souls they had saved would not survive without rest.

  Still, the fires and their warmth gave her no comfort.

  Their only remaining hope, Chaelus, had left them. Whether she believed in him or not, it was he and his faith alone that stood in the eye of that storm; a barbarian possessed by the spirit of the Giver.

  Al-Mariam didn’t want to believe in him. She wanted to hate him. But she couldn’t anymore, because she did believe in him. She believed in him because her brother had been returned to her. She believed in him because she saw herself within Chaelus’ eyes.

  The eyes of the young girl Chaelus had raised shifted restless behind their mantle. So young, she could have done nothing herself to have been brought to this. Yet she and the older man, like poor Al-Aaron beside them, still slept the sleep of the dying. Sounds not words drifted fitfully from the lips of each as they waited, each of them in their own way waiting for death.

  It was the same for each of those laying beside the hundreds of campfires around them, at rest with the Khaalish warrior who raised them from the cenotaph; the same Khaalish warriors whom the Giver, whom Chaelus, had turned. It was at the urgent press of Michalas that they had done so. Willingly, even as the black stone of the tomb collapsed around them, the Khaalish had saved all of those whom the Dragon had taken there.

  But then again, nothing had been what she’d expected.

  Al-Hoanar leaned down to her. His armor creaked against the mournful whisper of the stones. He bowed his head before Michalas. His eyes burned red from care. “Sleep while you can,” he said. “This is a place we shouldn’t linger.”

  Al-Mariam nodded. She smiled. She wiped at her eyes with her cloak. She could say nothing to him. Al-Hoanar had stood with her against the Dragon’s Hands. He had stood alone against the Fallen Ones, after she herself had fallen in her anguish.

  Al-Hoanar knelt beside Al-Thinneas where he lay in death beside her. The murmuring of Al-Hoanar’s prayer drifted along with the mourning of the stones.

  Even in death, Al-Thinneas’ dignity didn’t suffer. A veil of gossamer draped across his eyes. Beneath it, the Khaalish had painted their strange ghost face upon him. Red feathers lay scattered across the furs they had draped over him. His Gossamer Blade lay at rest upon his chest. Their guards stood in honor around him.

  Al-Thinneas had been her guardian, even when she had let no other man near. He was, at least until now perhaps, the only man she had ever loved.

  Michalas lay stretched out at her feet, clothed in Khaalish furs. He lifted his hands before the fire. He had still said very little to her, but at least he was with her. At least he was safe now. But then, she knew now, he had always been.

  Still, she could not stop crying.

  ***

  Michalas held his hands out to the warmth of the small fire. His fingers still tingled with the memory of the fire the Angels had lit upon him. Just like it, the glow from the camp fire consumed them, as well as the night around them, even as its embers slowly died.

  One who was but could not be.

  One who could not be but was.

  Ras Dumas had taught him the words of prophecy. He had taught him what they meant. They were about him, and the one to come after him. At the time, Michalas had been unsure as to which one he actually was. Now he knew, and to those who still felt doubt, it would not be long before they would understand it too.

  Ras Dumas had told him once that there was no quality that could be found in circumstance. A circumstance was neither good nor bad. It simply was. Its quality could only be found in the threads of the lives that bound them.

  In this Michalas had never known struggle, only the constant trust in the Angels who guided him. His own struggle would come soon. He knew it. It would come for all of them, an
d had already begun. The threads of its tapestry had already been woven.

  One to Teach and One to save

  The Mark of the Dragon upon him.

  He passed his hand over his brow to the scars which the Hands of the Dragon had given him, over the mark that the Angels had placed there. The mark they had already changed, just as they had changed him, just as it would still be changed on the brow of Chaelus, the one he shared it with.

  A cold, wet kiss touched his cheek, and Michalas looked up into the storm-wrought sky. Beneath it, the mountains trumpeted out fire and smoke. The sky shifted upon itself until at last he could see scattered snowflakes floating down, glowing red by the light of the Dragon’s fire burning beyond the Karagas Mun.

  Michalas turned towards his sister. She only half saw him, though a smile still turned at the corners of her mouth. She could not understand yet. But she would. A curl of her hair slipped across her face and she did not pull it aside. Her eyes, still wet from her tears, looked past it through an impassioned veil. Her mind and her heart looked at other things.

  Born for us to die for us

  Because only the fallen may rise.

  Chaelus would fail. He would fail because he must. But even Chaelus didn’t know this yet. He couldn’t. Neither the Angels, nor the spirit of a lifetime past that possessed Chaelus could show him this. But the Dragon wouldn’t stop until Chaelus knew.

  The Dragon must defeat him. Then, and only then, would Chaelus become the one he was meant to be.

  Chapter Twenty Four

  Loss

  The Dragon’s eyeless face lowered towards Chaelus. The flesh at its end peeled away. Bestial jaws broke out like a jagged bone fist, opening and closing, hovering over him. Its breath reeked of jasmine and decay.

  “Still you’re too foolish to understand,” the Dragon said. “I am Gorond. I am the Dragon. I am more like you than you know, and you are more like me than those you serve claim you should be. I am you, and you are me, and I suffer for my want of you. Just as you suffer for me.”

  The Dragon’s coil tightened around Chaelus. It lifted him up to his knees. His breath burned within him. His fingers paused as they brushed against Sundengal’s hilt where it had dropped amidst the sands.

  Pain slurred his speech as he whispered, “No.”

  Chaelus cried out. He cried out at everything.

  Seizing Sundengal, he brought its length down into the Dragon’s flesh. Darkness billowed from its skin, pouring across the captured light of the storm and seized Sundengal’s blade.

  The Dragon’s coil tightened again. Its whisper filled him, just like it had always done, like it had done with his father, pulsing within him, a bitter whisper in the dark. The Dragon’s mouth lowered to him, its teeth extending forth, the skin above them curled back in a sneer. It wavered just above his heart.

  “It’s a pity,” the Dragon said, “for you could have taken such pleasure in this.”

  The Dragon entered him like a fist, slicing through his armor. Agony tore through his chest.

  Chaelus’ consciousness wavered. The sweet smell of jasmine mingled with the memory of his lost life.

  Sundengal grew heavy in his hand.

  He could do nothing more against it. He was beaten. There was nothing left, no Giver, no fire, no hope, that would save him.

  Only the fecal odor of jasmine remained.

  ***

  Chaelus watched his blood pool across the flagstones. They felt cool against the fire upon his brow.

  Yet the flagstones weren’t real, only another illusion of the Dragon that had already claimed him.

  Chaelus felt the Dragon’s whisper around him and through him. It still whispered his name, from every shadow and crack where it lurked.

  A man stood with his back towards him, facing Chaelus’ throne. It was the throne of Baelus now, but it was not Baelus who stood there. A silver mask rested on the small table beside him, flickering in the torchlight of his hall.

  “You’ve failed, Chaelus, Roan Lord of the House of Malius,” the Dragon said, but it was Chaelus’ own voice that spoke.

  Once more, if nothing other than to meet his own end, Chaelus pushed himself up to his knees.

  The Dragon turned towards him. “Meet your prophecy fulfilled.”

  Chaelus stared into his own face, but darker eyes stared back at him. It was the face of the man he had been when he was king. Sundengal hung from his waist. He, the man, the Dragon, smiled at him.

  Chaelus staggered to his feet. He scarcely heard the whisper that escaped his own lips. “No.”

  “I am you, and you are me,” the Dragon cooed. “And I love you more than vanity itself.”

  The Dragon stepped down to him from the wide steps of the dais beneath his throne. “It’s an opportunity that most fail to seize. What would you say to me then? What would you say to yourself?”

  Chaelus backed away. Revulsion filled his throat at the sight of the thing before him. “I’m not you, Dragon.”

  “But you are,” the Dragon said. “It is the one thing you have always failed to see, even at the darkest heart of your suffering. Such is your vanity.”

  “Then take my last breath and end this,” Chaelus said.

  “No. You will not escape me as your father did. No, my love, I would not suffer such loss for you. If you will not serve me, then your suffering shall be my reward, and it shall be greater than anyone has ever known, greater than everything you have ever lost before.”

  The Dragon drew Sundengal’s twin from its scabbard, walking in a tight circle around Chaelus, dragging the sword’s tip against the flagstones.

  “No,” Chaelus said. “I won’t fight you.”

  “Then your failure is complete.”

  “No,” Chaelus said. “I said I won’t fight you. I never said I wouldn’t release you.”

  The scraping of Sundengal’s twin upon the flagstones stopped. Chaelus watched his own face turn askew towards him. He watched the dark soulless eyes of the Dragon behind his own widen.

  “You can’t …” the Dragon began.

  Some moments last longer than others.

  In a single motion, Chaelus brought Sundengal to bear. Its edge hovered, or at least seemed to, waiting upon the Dragon’s neck, Chaelus’ own neck, before finally passing through. The sharp whisper of its steel resounded like a clarion call, of blood and prophecy, of lives lost and regained from the shadows around him. It ended beneath the clamor of Sundengal’s twin as it dropped upon the flagstones.

  The Dragon fell to its knees. The steel and leather and flesh of its husk crumpled. Shadow poured from its neck like blood and fume. Its head rolled away, trailing oily shadow. Chaelus turned away from his own dead stare.

  The whisper of the Dragon fell silent.

  ***

  The shadows around Chaelus bled into light.

  Michalas stood alone beyond the broad waters of the Shinnaras.

  The morning sun etched its rays across the river. Thinning ribbons of ebon hue streaked amidst clear blue water.

  Chaelus felt the presence of spirits beside him. They were the spirits of the fallen, now raised; their thankful sighs resting upon the air, not lingering but passing, no longer the remains of what the Dragon had made them.

  Michalas smiled from beyond the mirrored water. His crown had changed. It showed black like Chaelus’ own, stark now against Michalas’ alabaster skin.

  The Shinnaras brushed gentle against the polished stones of its bank and against Chaelus’ boots as he stood there. Amidst the thinning darkness of its waters, he looked to his own reflection and the alabaster crown that now adorned his brow. It had changed too - becoming what the child’s had been.

  Chaelus looked back. Like the waters, the darkness of the Karagas Mun and the Valley of Magedos beneath it had thinned. Beyond them, where Chaelus had seen the Dragon’s minions turn in ire upon the horizon, darkness still remained. There, the storm clouds rose in a spiral high above, the Dragon’s fire still burning at thei
r heart.

  The Dragon, and its darkness, would return.

  “It’s not over,” Talus said.

  The glow of the Giver washed over Chaelus from where he stood beside him.

  “But now your true task may begin.”

  “Is that why you left me?” Chaelus asked. “So that your vessel would fail?”