Rise of the Fallen

by Robert Stanek

  His mother poured a full cup of the hot juice of the blue elder and set it before him. “You are angry,” she said, “This will soothe and calm.”

  He drank from the cup. His mother put a plate of anise fern, licorice root, and the fruit of the sweet chervil before him. “This will help you see more clearly.”

  He ate and waited. “Mother, did they agree?” he asked finally. “Will Shodjen and the other great houses oppose?”

  “Just like the young ones,” the queen said. “You never did care much for the long talk. Too many formalities and requisites for you. Yet a capacity for waiting is necessary in all things, and especially for working with those who speak with the forest’s voice. Learn this and perhaps your father and I can take the Long Walk.”

  “But I’ve a need,” Yarr said, “I’ve agreed to every condition.”

  “Indeed, and now you must understand as I understand. This place between places—” and as his mother said this, she swept her hand in a wide circle, “—cannot be forever. The Light of Élvemere dims and it is our people who maintain what remains. It is time. You must prepare yourself to become the Light of Élvemere, and then this place need be no more.”

  Death and darkness seemed to be his mother’s constant companions of late. Yarr pushed the dark mood aside, focused. “Is this what the ancient ones told you, mother?”

  “It is, by leaf and root, and all agreed. It is time.”

  “Time? Can it be so already?” Yarr asked, looking to his father, but the king’s thoughts were elsewhere. “What of the young ones? Surely, they did not agree.”

  “The ancients spoke with one voice, old and young alike. Even Traflekar while he sung your praises.”

  Memories of Traflekar swept over Yarr. Traflekar was one of the young ancients, a powerful oak, who had taken Yarr on many an adventure once he had been coaxed from his long slumber. He had introduced Yarr to the Fhur, the Spiraren, and the Entspiraren, had played games with Yarr in the forests and in the places between places. “Traflekar? Has he wed Ityeneria? Has he recovered? Is he well?”

  “As well as can be said of a tree,” said a voice that boomed and echoed throughout the pavilion, as the living oak that they sat before transformed from table to ent. The familiar face emerging from the wood was Traflekar’s, and his pleasure at seeing Yarr’s surprise was clear. “Lit-t-t-le Túr-r-ring,” the ent said, trilling his t’s and rolling his r’s as most of the older ents did.

  “Traflekar!” Yarr exclaimed, feeling suddenly the boy he had been when he’d last seen the ent. “It is you, and you look well! You will do this thing I’ve asked. Won’t you?”

  “I will, Little Túrring,” the great oak said solemnly, “and as for Ityeneria, I have begun, but the process is not an easy one. I’ve still some years of the proposal and some years of her response to manage before talk of marriage can begin. If she’ll have me, that is.”

  “She’ll have you,” the queen said, “But to the point, now. Let talk stray and we’ll all be old before we get back to task, especially when we moot among ents.”

  “You moot among ent,” Traflekar said, a hint of the forest’s song in his voice. “This ent has already agreed to help preserve what needs be preserved. All will be set in motion for when it is time.”

  “What of House Steorra?” Yarr asked.

  “The Sons of Jfe side with the Sons of Áthon,” his father replied.

  “What of the gatehouse?”

  The queen sighed, took a long taste of her tea. “The stones and pieces, yes, but it is not built nor can we allow it to be. They’ve yet to find the one who can build it, but the ancients say they are close, that the search for the builder ends.”

  “The time approaches,” the ent said.

  Sudden tears in his mother’s eyes spoke of her deep anguish over all that was coming, and though Yarr looked away it did not keep this dark feeling away. For a time after, silence held, and then King Enáthon Túrring said, “Windrunner has sired, a pairing of foals this time. One for you and one for your queen, I should think.”

  “Dierá, father, have you spoken with her?”

  His father did not answer. Instead, his mother said, “Akharran, the great queen. She has birthed too. Strong sons.”

  The unexpected words caused Yarr to retreat from his second self, and so it was that he returned to his first self awaiting the judgment in the colosseum. The roar of the crowd renewed as he turned about on his heel and faced the box seats for the honored guests and the noble few.

  He stood statue still, his arms raised, his voiceless expression mirroring all the bloody rage he felt. The ageless king, Zephyres, and his consort, Makhatar, studied him. To the right of Makhatar, in a place of honor, sat the son of Rnothen, the titan who had come to see his death. The disappointment in the titan’s expression was evident, and this disappointment gave Yarr hope that there was meaning in all things. He had no true power. He was as nothing to them, but his win this day was the titan’s loss. He was as certain of this as he was of no other thing.

  Makhatar gave first sign, pointing at the dirt. The crowd roared approval of her condemnation even as Yarr turned back and swept up the sword from the dirt. Arger, for his part, surely had no clue of what was coming.

  Yarr waited, sword and chain in hand. Now it was the ageless king’s turn to pass judgment, but he was distracted by something the titan was saying. Yarr had decided long ago that he loathed titans as much as he loathed ageless. Still, it was a special loathing that he held for this one, and this loathing burned in him as brightly as the trisuns burned in the sky above.

  He planned the sweep of the blade that would bring Arger’s end. The swifter and cleaner the blow, the quicker and less painful the end. He felt sorrow and remorse in those last moments. He had never promised the other he would live to see the next day. He had given hope, though, and hope snatched away was twice bitter.

  The titan stood, and so Yarr knew that the king had given away the honor of final judgment. He extended his arm. The crowd quieted. If the titan raised his hand to the heavens, judgment would end at odds—one against and one in favor—so the king would still get a final say. Otherwise, judgment would pass and Yarr must then do his work.

  Yarr took a breath, held it. The onlookers, growing impatient, began to shift in their seats. Some called for death; others, life.

  The king quieted all by standing. He turned to the titan, and death won out as the titan pointed to the dirt.

  “Be strong, Erlander,” Yarr said as he swept the blade around and severed Arger’s head from his shoulders. “Aegot knows you now.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Dierá turned her back to the railing. The red silk of her gossamer dress ruffled in the wind. Behind her the world was shrouded in darkness, as was much of the vast palace itself beyond the great glass doors leading away from the balcony.

  She listened to the young luvens finish the fourth and final movement of Wettilk’s Resplendent Pursuit. The resonant notes soaring from glass and wood told of an Alvish king who searched the across time and distance for the one who would become his queen, of how he used a song contest to bring her to him, of how he won her heart with his own composition, and of how he lost her to an unexpected storm.

  The melody lingered long after the final notes. Racing within her, it was ecstasy; it helped her transcend. Her soaring heart was all she knew for long moments. Eruption followed; release followed. The grandest release. She floated beyond; became one with all things. She saw the Élvemere that could be once more. She saw her people. She saw him—the one who would become the king of kings: Rastín. Rastín was not alone. She saw G’rkyr; it was G’rkyr she made love to. She loved him. She loved them both. But it was G’rkyr she chose.

  Reverie gave way to reality. The wind on her face she felt first. G’rkyr’s hand steadying her she felt next. “They return,” he told her.

  Dierá turned to the railing. The silk of her dress carried on the wind. In front of her, the shrouded
world was still. She took three long breaths, steeled herself inside; becoming ice and fire, for that was what they were together. She was ice; G’rkyr, fire. Upon her signal, the Keeper of the House ushered in a squad of Fedwëorgs clad in house regalia. In the midst of the Fedwëorgs was a chained Drakón of a nation she had only recently come to know.

  G’rkyr took up the chains. Dierá dismissed Nostik, the young luvens, and the Fedwëorgs with a wave of her hand. She commanded silence with no more than a look until the balcony emptied.

  “My endowments,” the Drakón shrieked, “Return them to me!”

  “Or what?” Dierá countered as G’rkyr applied his might to the immobilizing chains. This Drakón had but a sliver of the bearing of the Praxixian Prince. He was already lost to panic, reacting instead of acting.

  “You’ll never get the thing you seek. It will be taken from you over and over.”

  “You know nothing,” Dierá scoffed. She studied the Drakón. While most Drakón seemed to be akin to great winged serpents with scales, claws, and horns, these Drakón were different. Their pale blue heads, adorned with bushy crests, lacked true horns. Their long, broad wings sprouted from thickset torsos and their tails were exceptionally short. Their backs were a slatey blue and their underparts were dark green, with a deep blue band across the upper chest.

  “I know—I see,” the Drakón shrieked as the chains began to suffocate and crush. “You will never be together.”

  Dierá held up a hand. G’rkyr relaxed his plying of the chains. “We can continue this discussion in shadow or light. Tell me what you see?” Find resolve, she told herself. She focused her will to ensure her scent did not betray her eagerness.

  Enveloping herself in G’rkyr’s strength, she thrust herself and the Drakón into shadow. The domain she created was an elongated hollow. The silver glow from her gray eyes showed her inner fire.

  “You will tell me all,” she said. Tired of the games she played with captured Drakón, her voice carried an open threat.

  “I will tell you nothing.” The Drakón attacked, uncurling his neck and clawing his way down the narrow hollow.

  Dierá lost the calm she sought in fire and again became in her mind more Jurin than Alv. “What were yours are mine. I will never return them, and I leave you now. Alive in shadow but dead to all knowing save me. You will beg when I return for you, and you will tell me all I want to know.”

  The Drakón locked eyes with Dierá, spoke with another’s voice. “Tell me the story of the red ktoth. Please. Please.”

  Dierá fumed, left the Drakón in shadow, and returned to light, telling G’rkyr to bring in the prince. As the prince entered, he made a show of stretching his wings in the open air. Clearly the prince was pleased by Dierá’s expression, and that, coupled with the fact that she did not mask the scent of her gratitude, made him bold.

  G’rkyr clenched his hands into fists, ready to strike, but Dierá waved him off. Mechanically she compared the prince’s short wings meant for easy maneuvering and his huge claws meant for rending to the other. The difference was striking. One was a slayer; the other, a hunter seeker. “All was as you said it would be.”

  “My gift to you,” the prince said.

  Dierá reminded herself that Drakón were a breed apart and that they knew only how to rule. Try as she might to weed it out, this need was ever present. The trick was to figure out what exactly the Drakón wanted to master and control in the moment. “You knew I drew from G’rkyr and you wanted me to know greater power. You wanted me to know your power.”

  “And so you do.”

  “I do,” Dierá said, almost bitterly as she looked to G’rkyr. She said nothing of the fact that G’rkyr’s strength could flow and flow or of the fact that a Drakón’s strength came in waves.

  “Return it now,” the Drakón said matter-of-factly. From the way he spoke, Dierá knew it was the one thing he wanted in this moment.

  “I think not,” she said. “Much easier to cap and bind—yes—but also much easier to attach and trade—” Raw magic raged from her gaping mouth, her eyes, her outstretched fingers, snapping and popping as it enveloped the prince. “—sinews. His for yours. Yours I hold in trust until I choose otherwise.”

  The prince drank in the imbued essence. “He is not trained of the line. It will devour and destroy him.”

  “I know.” Dierá stared down the prince, almost daring him to continue, but he remained silent. “When we are on Cyvair, remember who holds the lines of your chains. Kill me, kill G’rkyr, kill him that I seek, and you’ll never be whole again.”

  The prince raised his neck, folded in his great wings while lowering his front quarters. It was a show of supplication but it came with a warning. “I do this as much for myself as because you compel me. Never forget that, Athania Dierá Steorra. If I did not wish it, this would not be.”

  It was a truth, and understanding it gave Dierá hope. “Nostik,” she called out. The Keeper of the House entered. “Show Prince Battikh to his rooms.”

  “Call me Takhbarre,” the Drakón said as Nostik led him away. “No need for formalities in this company.”

  Dierá glared. The knowing tone unnerved her. As it was meant to, she told herself. Two steps forward, one back. He is drakónus; you are Alvish. She stumped her way to the railing, spread her hands across the cool surface as she took in the grand view. The rising suns told of morning’s arrival and made bare her form beneath the silk. Feeling G’rkyr’s eyes upon her, she spun around. Her rising anger was as strong as any potion or charm could ever be, and she pushed it down to quell his lust.

  “Sing for me, Dierá,” G’rkyr said, moving to a seated position before her. “Sing for me, as you sang for him.”

  Dierá prostrated herself before the gargant but she did not sing. Instead, she reversed her body, putting her back to the cool, base stones. She looked up at him from this lowly position, her wide eyes filled with forced intensity. “And then?” she asked. Not waiting for an answer, she added, “Would you have me then?”

  G’rkyr’s eyes lit with sacred fire. He spoke his next words carefully, using the Alvish language and not the Jurin. “Your words are meant to wound, but I do not let them. What I feel for you is what I feel, and you know it as deeply but refuse it.

  “Take this victory. Taste its sweetness, Dierá. All that we’ve worked for is coming to pass. When we are done, Jurin and Alvs will be free. Cyvair awaits.”

  Dierá arched her back as she moved to a seated position and then spun around on the floor to face him. “My feelings for you are twice cursed. This thing between us is monstrous. You speak in Alvish because there are no words for such things in Jurin.”

  G’rkyr enveloped the whole of her body in one of his great hands. “You don’t mean it. You love me as I love you.”

  Dierá stood in his cupped hand, slipped the red dress from her shoulders and let it fall. “Jurin lust and covet. They don’t love. They don’t know how, so instead they own and command. A trait you share with the ageless.”

  G’rkyr hid her nakedness by closing his hand around her then masked himself in flame, leaving only the hand that held her outside its grasp. “And yet I do love, and I do because of you. You showed me kindness and I learned to love. I learned in spite of what I am.”

  “You are a monster; I am a monster. I have seen what our union brings, and it brings darkness. Your love for me will break you and damn you, and then you will damn me and break me. Our son— yes, our son—will divide all Jurin and break the Hundred Worlds even as we make it whole.”

  “You’ve dreamt of a son? Was he whole? Was he Jurin or Alv?” G’rkyr asked, his voice cracking with emotion. All flame extinguished, he said, “I would never damn or hurt you, Dierá. You have to know this. Hurting you would bring the thousand, thousands deaths upon me.”

  “Take Cyvair for me, G’rkyr,” she said, her voice steady and strong. “Strike at the Drakón heart. Do this with all the force of the Jurin peoples and we may be able to aver
t what comes.”

  “If Drakón have hearts, they do no beat as yours or mine do. Have you not learned that yet? The prince, he will take us through and into the city. It is what you said and it has taken so long to get—”

  He broke off as Dierá succumbed suddenly to great fits of sobs. “I’ve deceived you,” she whimpered. “Everything I’ve told you has been a lie. Follow this path and you will die a thousand, thousands deaths. All Jurin will die a thousand, thousand deaths.”

  “But you said this path brings freedom to the peoples. Jurin and Alvs above all others.”

  Dierá’s cheeks were streaked with hot tears. “This freedom you seek will be your end. In the ages to comes, none will even know Jurin once were.”

  “But I will be free. You said so, Dierá. I taste freedom now, but I am not free. To know the true taste, I will take on all the gods, sell my soul to D’rk’r the Dark, forsake the Merciless whose namesake I am—”

  Dierá stopped him with a withering look and said no more. Instead, she showed him everything, starting with little G’rkyr, and this sight awed him—but in the beyond, the great cities burned. The worlds burned. Dust and ash and fire filled the skies of the Hundred Worlds.

  “Lies, lies,” G’rkyr shouted. “No one can know what comes for a certainty.”

  Dierá spun the vision closer and closer. With the drau world wrapped around her, she stepped into the revelation and urged G’rkyr to follow. She stood with her back straight, her head level, even in the face of a raging gale that sought to sweep her from her perch atop the jagged cliffs. To the west, the wide bowl of a valley spread to distant foothills. Beyond the foothills, snow-capped mountains of blue-black rock stood as they had for millennia.

  Dierá was certain G’rkyr knew this place. It was Süttak, formal seat of the Three Hammers. The valley was home to Anaste, Eternal City of the Hammer, and Wënoste, Guiding Hand of the Warrior. Both sacred and both burned.

  “Lies, lies,” he screamed. The rage and pain in his voice caused Dierá to lose her hold on the Path. The vision faded. The world of the present returned.