Before darkness took him, he blinked a final time, marveling in his delirium. He saw the clouds behind the rider breaking, a slender ray of sunshine carving its way through. He knew it was only an imagined feeling, but it seemed the sunlight warmed his cheek, the first time since long before the war had began.
It shines for me, he wanted to believe. It knows I never wanted Tyberia. It sees I never believed in Malog. The sun knows everything. I’m not the Emperor’s any longer.
Grae boots clouded the rest of his sights. His eyes closed, his pain fled, and sweet oblivion dragged him down into a place no storm could follow.
Dust
The rain of glass roiled from the Orb cavern, settling upon all surfaces. Garrett could only close his eyes and wait for it to end. He knelt in the absolute night of the grand vestibule, the flame of Lorsmir’s blade sputtering at his feet, the bones of countless guardians piled in a great circle around him. The tinkle of obsidian shards filled his ears, the black dust invading his every pore. He hardly breathed as the remnants of the Orb blanketed him. Without the scuttles of the dead, the clash of swords, and the raging of the storm, the citadel felt void, and the rain of glass like the only thing that existed anymore.
I should not be alive, he thought. Yet here I am.
When the worst of the black rain ended, he clutched Lorsmir’s blade and arose. His Dageni raiment was gone, gathered at his ankles like a crater made of dead men’s ashes. His tattered shirt, ragged pants, and half-rotted boots were saturated with obsidian flakes. He shivered and felt the powder slough off. It stung wherever it touched his wounds, mingling with his blood like salt. Cold and lightless, Lorsmir’s blade hung limply in his hand. It felt heavier than before, its edge gone dull. The flame will never return, he knew. A wonder it did not go cold the moment Dank died.
The Orb dust settled. The silence was serene. A razor of light from the fortress’s gate sliced through the smoke and glimmered on the floor. The sun is shining, he realized. The rain has ended. Alone in the shadows, he roamed the wide spaces between pillars, searching for the stairs to the Orb cavern. He came to the archway, where the obsidian dust was thickest, and he peered into the cavern. Where once the Object had lorded was only an abyss, a chasm so deep that when he tossed a chunk of rock therein, he never heard it strike bottom. Satisfied, he turned away. That his wounds still bled and his companions were slain made no real difference anymore.
We did what we set out to.
The Object is no more.
At peace, he wandered away from the cavern. All of Furyon sat between him and home, and so he walked without urgency, his footfalls causing little clouds of ash to erupt into the air. No sense in despair, he told himself. I will walk until I starve or the Furies catch me. He strode half the length of the hall. He hoped to find the bodies of his companions, but the chamber was too large and the shadows too deep. Nearer the gate, when the sunlight caught his face, he paused while his memories were still sharp. For each of the fallen, he offered a moment’s prayer.
Saul. Wise and even-tempered, and always so full of questions. Another era, another life, you and I might have been the best of friends.
Marlos. Full of fire and bluster. You knew Dank’s mind even if you did not say it. You railed against everything, but in your heart you knew this was the right thing to do.
Dank. You told a thousand lies, and yet the one truth was enough. We should be thankful knowing you and your slayer were the last of your kind.
And Endross. Too brave for your own good. I saw the horn, same as you. I knew you would find it. I knew you understood what had to be done.
He set the dead aside, but after taking two steps toward the sunlight, he halted once again. His eulogy felt somehow incomplete. The face of another floated through his mind. The dark-haired girl, her eyes like slate and lips like coal, adhered to his heart closer than all the rest. Through all the smoke and swords and death, it was hard to remember whether he had actually seen her, or whether she had existed solely in his mind. A ghost, perhaps. But ghosts do not wield swords, and spirits are not so beautiful.
He wanted to leave into the light, but faced the darkness instead. The only sound he heard was his heart’s slow thrum. He felt unlike himself, oddly hesitant. After all, he had not seen the shadow girl die. Marlos was dead, run through by the guardians. Dank, Saul, and Endross were somewhere in the abyss, perhaps even still falling. But the girl might still be here. Unless she was only a ghost.
“You there,” he called into the shadows. “Show yourself.”
Something had moved beyond the edge of his sights, or at least he thought so. He heard a cough, or the echo of one, or the memory of one. It was not a guardian’s rasp or a Furyon chant. It sounded throaty, like that of someone who had breathed too much of the Object’s dust. The razor of sunlight was paler now. A passing cloud, perhaps. Or more rain coming.
Nearly blind, he walked with one palm outstretched until he touched the cold surface of a pillar. He reached out to the crumpled shape lying at the pillar’s base, and his hand came to rest upon a bare forearm, moist with sweat and blood, but warm. He hoped it was the shadow girl, but knew in his heart it was not.
A hand groped for his sleeve. The fingers were slick with obsidian dust, the grasp trembling. He nearly struck the hand off at the wrist with Lorsmir’s blade, but then heard a voice weakly say, “Garrett? Is that you?”
He knew the voice. Gruff, yet not, he thought. Hard as a hammer, but kind. He supposed he should have been surprised, and yet of all his companions to survive, this one seemed most likely. “Saul. You live.”
“Garrett. Goodness.” The air fled from Saul’s lungs. “Of course I do. And you…how did you? The dead are all dead, I think. I must’ve slept in a bed of their bones. The shadows are all gone too. Ah, but it hurts. The damned wind. I feel cut in a million places.”
“I will not ask how you made it.” He helped Saul to his feet, and the light from the gate caught the delirious man just so. Half Saul’s face was black with ash, the other pale and streaked with blood.
“Garrett.” Saul staggered. “My head is soup. It’s good you’ve no questions. You were never much for them. Where are we?”
“Still in Malog.” He squared Saul’s shoulders. “The Furyon fortress.”
“Right. Of course. I hate this place. Endross is gone. He blew the horn. Did you hear it?”
“I did. Everyone did.”
“Hard-headed, that knight of ours. I knew he’d do it.” A lone tear made a pale river through the dust caked on Saul’s cheek. “I saw the horn. I remembered. I wish I knew how he got through the darklings. I had the feeling someone helped him. I hoped maybe it was you.”
“Not me. I was delayed.”
Saul’s focus seemed to sharpen. “Not you? No, it couldn’t have been. Another darkling then. A girl. She did something. I saw fire and flying bones. And when the world fell apart, she dragged me out of there. A little slip of a thing, but so strong.”
“A girl.” He felt a pit yawning in his stomach.
“Did you see her?” Saul asked.
“Perhaps. I am not sure.”
“You would know if you had,” said Saul. “She had a face like one of those statues in Lord Emun’s hall, white like marble. The rest of her was all skinny arms and cold hands, but she was a woman; that much I know. She probably died with the others. I remember Dank told us that if the Object failed, all its horrors would pass.”
“She was no horror.”
“A ghost, if not a horror. You said you weren’t sure if you’d seen her.”
“I am not. It does not matter. Follow me. We need to leave.”
He led Saul into the intruding slice of sunlight. Saul trudged after him like a man twice his age, battered and bruised and pin-cushioned with all manner of bone fragments. In the light, he watched as Saul knelt and pulled the slivers of bone one by one from his arms and legs. To his credit, Saul cried out only once, even as a dozen ropes of his blood trickled on t
he floor.
“Water…” Saul shivered when it was done. “I’d kill for a sip.”
Garrett looked to the gate. He expected a host of Furyons to burst in and put an end to him, but there was nothing. “Water is the least of our worries. It rained for two weeks on the road. The floods will remain.”
“Aye.” Saul sagged. “Not that it matters anyway. We’re dead men.”
Saul tried to stand, but his pain forced him to kneel and catch his breath. Garrett stood in the sliver of light, his shadow long and sharp as a Furyon sword, his mind darkening. He supposed Saul was right. The rain was gone, the sun gleaming, and all the darklings destroyed, but home was far, far away, and Dank, his only guide, was lost far beyond the mortal coil. Only after a long while did he think to move again. He remembered he was still alive, and decided he had no intention of being dead, not yet. “We are done here,” he said. “The Object is destroyed. Dank and Endross and Marlos are dead. You and I must go, if you have it in you.”
“I do,” answered Saul. “For all that it matters.”
He pulled Saul to his feet, steadying the wounded man as he rose. A last swipe of obsidian glass from his shirt, and he stepped toward the light. The sun shined even brighter than before. Its long golden lashes glittered against the pillars, illuminating the floating dust like stars in the night. He held out his arms as he walked, basking in the golden glow, feeling warm for the first time in weeks. “A long journey to get home,” he said to Saul, who seemed to gain in strength as the light grew stronger. “I intend not to die in Furyon.”
Twenty steps closer to the gate, he heard Saul stop behind him. “Garrett, can we really just leave after all of this? Do we know? Do we know for sure it’s dead?”
“I do.” He stopped in his tracks. “I saw an empty space where it was seated. Nothing was left. The dead will stay dead, and no one will come here again. Even the Furies hate this place, or so Dank told me. With the Object gone, they will become themselves again. They will stay far away from Malog, at least for a while.”
“You say it as if you know it for sure,” said Saul. “Like knowledge, not a belief.”
“I say it because it is true.”
The weary man of Elrain caught up to him, and he swore he saw the hint of a smile in his eyes. “I just wish I had my staff,” Saul grumbled as he passed. “Might make the trip home a bit easier.”
The two walked together to Malog’s doors. The journey was not as long as he remembered it, nor as full of death and swords. Halting between the gates, he saw the sun as he had many times dreamed it, but had not glimpsed since the Furyon beach. The columns of cloud and shadow were vanished in the sky. The wind was but a breeze, warm and lively, and the heavens bluer than any ocean. Saul was first to exit, plodding onto the puddle-pocked earth beyond the gates. Garrett wanted to follow, but remained on the threshold.
“Come out. Too dark in there,” Saul shouted after him.
“In a moment,” he replied.
Saul shot him a bewildered look. Garrett paid it no mind. Until the figure behind him emerged from the darkness, he meant to stay on the threshold between light and darkness. From pillar to pillar he had spied the spirit’s dance. He had heard the patter of her bare feet like a mouse’s upon the floor, and had seen the shadows shiver when she cut through the razor of sunlight. He stood with his back to her, listening to the sound of her approach. In the worming tunnel, he remembered her. Against the darkling swordsman. She was no ghost. She followed us the whole while.
He waited, deaf to Saul’s complaints, until he heard the patters right behind him. His heart felt heavy in his chest. He knew what he hoped for, but dared not to think it possible.
A moment more, and she came to him. Her whispers floated to his ear, fluttering in the shadows at his back like a butterfly’s wings. “Will you leave me here?” she said. “I will stay if you ask me to.”
He kept his back to her. He knew her voice better than the sounds of the wind and rain, but doubted she was real all the same. “Do not be foolish,” he said. “We would never leave without you. If you are real, you may follow us as far as we can make it.”
“I am real. I only wish I remembered my name.”
She was so close he swore he heard her heart thumping. Her breath tickled his neck, her scent like rain consuming his senses. “Your name…” he said. “I know it. Though I wonder why you are here. And how.”
“As do I,” he heard her say.
He faced her.
She was the creature he expected, only different. Where once her scarlet locks had hung from her head like strands of fire, inky lashes tumbled down her shoulders, tangled as ropes on a sunken ship. He remembered the leafy hue of her eyes as it had been in Gryphon, but the greens were gone now, altered to so profound a grey shade he swore he saw a storm gathering therein. Even her raiment was not what he expected. Fair greens and pure whites were absent, and a waifish gown of black gossamer clinging to her like a second skin.
“You say you cannot remember—” he began.
“…my name,” she said softly. “Where I come from. What this place is and how I came to be here. All of it…lost.”
“You come from Cairn. This place is Malog, the heart of Furyon. Your name is Andelusia.”
The sun seemed to shine brighter on her face. She bounced on her tiptoes, a small smile budding on her lips like a flower in springtime. She pushed the dark hair from her cheek, and the hardness in her eyes began to fade, hinting at the glimmering green they used to be. “Yes. They used to call me Ande.” She remembered. “I am from Cairn, and I know you. We were friends, you and I. I know the one behind you too. His name’s Saul. I remember it now. I was in Gryphon, in a castle, and I was in love. Was it you? I cannot recall… I know I came to the mountains with you. It was raining on a hill. You gave me a dress. Oh, the dress…I should not have lost it. But then there was a war, and everyone left. And then I walked into the valley, and wicked men found me…”
“The Furies brought you here,” he told her. “No one but you will ever know why. We thought you were dead…or worse.”
Her gaze fell to her feet. “The worst part is; I do not remember anything after…I…” Her voice cracked. “There was a pale soldier in the mountain country. I see his face in my mind; he lives in my nightmares. His hair was as dark as your shirt, and his skin like death. His men were the ones to catch me, I think. He put me in a cage. But then someone else took me away. A gentleman, or what passed for one at the time. At least, I thought he was a gentleman. He must not have been if he brought me here. But then…how did I get here? How long has it been?”
In the back of his mind, he heard Saul ask, “Who’s that? Who are you talking to?” But he never answered. Andelusia was here, and little else mattered.
“Saul,” she whispered the name. “If I remember right, he always has questions.”
“He does. Once he sees you, there will be more.”
She smiled and embraced him. Her quickness took him off guard. She clung to him like air at first, and then sank into him like a warm stone falling into cool water. Lorsmir’s sword fell from his fingers, cold iron clattering in a puddle of water. She smelled the same as ever, her hair like fresh rain beneath his nose. For time unknowable, she held him so tightly he never wanted to move again.
By the time she peeled away, she was weeping. “Garrett, I am sorry. I never knew what would happen. No one should ever have had to come to this place. Not anyone, not ever.”
“It was worthwhile,” he said. “We came to put the Object to rest, and we did it.”
“The Object?” She looked perplexed.
“You do not remember it. You will. It is a hard thing to forget.”
“The Object.” She glanced to Malog. “You came here to destroy it? All this way? Just the few of you?”
He nodded. “Many lives were lost, and doubtless many more thousands at home. But for us to find you is something more than we hoped for. Saul and I needed a reason to carry o
n. You will be it. We have to get you home. There is someone in Graehelm who will want to see you.”
She took his hand and entwined her fingers with his. He saw her slender smile and the pale gleam in her grey eyes, and his heart turned to putty. I could love her, he realized. I already do. I always have. I could take her from Graehelm. We would never have to return.
As soon as he thought it, he felt an ocean of guilt crash into his gut. He felt foolish, and he cast the notion out. Rellen, he remembered. She is his. If he lives, and he must, I have an oath. I will bring her home. It is the only way. He felt cold inside, though she seemed not to notice. Her smile brightened like the dawning sun, and he felt the gloom inside burn away.
Her fingers fell from his. He noticed her lips were no longer black, and he swore he saw green flecks blooming in her eyes like budding leaves. “We have to go,” he told her. “We are still in Furyon, and far from anyone who knows us. I am hurt, Saul as well. The others are dead. I do not know how, but we have to make it back to Graehelm. I need you to be strong.”
“I will be.” She wiped away a tear. “If you promise you will tell me everything.”
“I promise.”
He felt smaller than ever in his life as he walked away from the gates of Malog. The citadel, a great black behemoth, loomed like a mountain above him. He looked up to see the sunlight lancing it in a thousand places, but not truly illuminating it. Forever dark, he knew it would remain. When the world ends, this place will be the last thing standing.
With Ande trotting just behind him, he came to Saul, who greeted him warily. “A stowaway?” Saul grimaced. “Seems hardly the time. We’ve no food.”
Down the Dark Path (Tyrants of the Dead Book 1) Page 79
