by Lee Roland
Sethos…Sorath of Ataro.
With her dragon’s eyesight, Maeve could see his corpulent white body quite well. He had dressed himself in a pale robe, and in his arms, he carried a book. She had an idea which book it was.
Maeve tried again to join the battle when Claire touched the threads of magic that belonged to the witches of Elder and called that power to her. So compelling a call that it forced Maeve out of dragon shape and back into her witch’s body. Maeve thought no witch could be more powerful than Tana, but she knew now that wasn’t true. She doubted even Tana could contain the sum of magic Claire, the High Witch of Elder, drew into herself.
Claire’s calling came on and on and drove Maeve to her knees. How much magic could the High Witch draw without destroying them—or herself. And Maeve knew without a doubt, that’s what she intended to do. Magic required a sacrifice, and Claire would draw as much as she could, release it, and seal the spell with her life. She couldn’t defeat Sethos in the factory, though, but now she had a source of more power.
Claire continued to siphon more magic. Could Maeve help her? The magic of dragons and witches, while the same, was incompatible in use. The High Witch couldn’t draw upon the dragon’s power—but Maeve could. My queen, Haven called her.
Haven fought as Yarrow did, on the ground, breathing fire and shielding demons and ogres.
“Haven?”
Haven acknowledged her call with a whisper, and she told him what she required. His magic poured into her. He needed to retain some to continue the battle, but he was bodily invulnerable to most of the troop’s weapons. He would give what he could. He must have told the others because more power began to pour into her, enough her body tried to change back to dragon shape. She fought it and allowed Claire to draw on the dragon’s strength. Dragons didn’t use magic—Dragons were magic, embodied in flesh. On and on, Claire called until she held more power than any witch since the drowning of Ataro. What convention, what standard drew the line between a witch and a sorceress? Power set the rules and power—
Claire released her burden.
A blinding flash hit Sethos and the massed bulk of his army. The spectral waves Claire released drew the air of Elder into a maelstrom, and the night roared as all Iameth bowed before the High Witch’s deadly sending. The battle ceased as they huddled together and waited for the tempest to end or Elder to be destroyed.
Maeve rolled on the ground, buffeted by the magic storm. Twice it forced her in and out of dragon shape. It cut through her consciousness until she teetered on the edge of madness. It ended with an abruptness that staggered her.
She rose clumsily to her feet and changed to a dragon so she could see everything. Sethos’ dead-alive army, the factory’s smoldering ruins, and solid acres of rock and earth billowed over Elder in a massive, roiling black cloud. In an amazing feat of magic, Claire had torn molecules of matter apart. She’d reduced it all to a fine powder. The wind came and lifted it higher. Merisin’s gift. It drifted away from Elder and toward the mountains.
All hail the High Witch of Elder.
Harlan knelt on the ground with an unconscious Claire in his arms. An ache rose in Maeve’s heart. Would she lose what she had gained?
She scanned the battlefield. Only those zombie troops engaged in close face-to-face battle with the Iameth remained. The enemy soldiers had lost their will to fight, though. They staggered and swayed like drunkards. The dragons, ogres, and demons returned to savaging them.
Maeve searched for Sethos. His body lay in a twenty-foot circle of shining glass, as if someone had dropped a crystal plate on the battlefield. She groaned when he twitched, then moved. The disc, etched with runes, must have been a shield. An eight-thousand-year-old sorcerer had to be an expert at shielding himself. In an amazing feat of magic, he’d survived the blast. How much power did the sorcerer have? Were they still doomed?
Harlan helped Claire to her feet. Alive, but Maeve knew her effort had drained her, and she would work no magic without rest.
Maeve would fling her dragon’s body on Sethos. This time she would offer her life to both Inaras and Merisin. She lifted her wings, but again a force like a giant hand seized her and held her in place. Her mind raged against the unknown, unseen puppet master who jerked their strings.
A movement on Maeve’s left caught her eye. Flor, with her snakelike dragon’s body, slithered with fantastic speed from Tana’s house, across the meadow, through and over the remaining zombie troops, and straight toward Sethos.
“Flor, what are you doing?” Maeve screamed.
“Fulfilling my duty as Scion of the House Manahuatal, sister. Do not interfere.”
Maeve struggled and lashed out at the force that kept her from going to Flor’s aid. Who held her like that. Inaras? Merisin?
Flor stopped two-hundred feet from Sethos, turned her head downward, and opened her mouth. Something dropped to the ground. Immal’s box, the ashes of Flor’s High Witch.
With the book in his arms, Sethos danced across the glass shield and gathered power. His laughter echoed through Maeve’s mind, and she knew the others heard it too. He would hurt them.
Flor’s apricot and cream-colored body stretched in a circle around the box. To Maeve’s amazement, she caught her tail in her mouth. The circle without end.
Sethos stopped laughing.
A shadow formed within the ring of Flor’s body. A shape without shape, the absence of color, neither black nor white. It rose like a spectral giant and loomed a hundred feet above the battlefield.
Sethos ran. Off the crystal plate, he hurtled his bloated, bleached body across the ground, though Maeve didn’t know where he could be going. There was no place in Elder for him to hide.
The insubstantial form standing in the circle of Flor’s body took defined shape.
Immal. A young Immal as she might have appeared thousands of years ago when they called her Piron. Merisin’s whisper in Maeve’s mind confirmed her guess. He also gave her a hint of the grace and beauty the sorceress sacrificed to save the Iameth.
Immal…Piron…reached out an enormous hand and, like a child picking up a toy, scooped up Sethos or Sorath, her ancient enemy.
When the spectral giant lifted him up, he fought. Lightning crackled around them, but contained by a dragon’s body, the witch storm didn’t spread.
A tear appeared in the fabric of Elder—a ragged slit in the air, a window into another world. A world of black and gray stone that chilled Maeve’s heart, for she’d heard Flor describe that place. The Chiuato, the death land, an alien landscape in all its bleak glory.
Flor released her tail and scrambled away.
Piron, gripping a struggling Sethos in her hands, stepped into that window. As she did, she shrank to human size.
Sethos screamed—a scream that echoed between two worlds, and carried the force of a spell. The tear in the fabric of Elder gaped and stretched wider to cover the fleeing Flor. In an instant, it closed, dragging Flor into the place she feared most. As it faded away, the meadow reappeared and only a circle of dead earth indicated the place where Elder and another world met.
A dragon shrieked and roared in rage and sorrow.
Raymond.
Chapter Forty-Six
The sound raked Maeve’s ears and mind as Raymond flew to the place where Flor disappeared. His thick talons tore at the earth as if he could dig his way between worlds.
“Raymond.” Maeve, still in dragon form, called to him.
He refused to answer. All that came from him was a terrifying flood of rage and pain.
“Raymond!” Maeve demanded his attention.
Nothing.
“Yarrow?” Maeve had to have help.
“Yes, beloved.”
Maeve gave Yarrow a mental picture of what she wanted, and he told her how to do it. With his help, she reached out and seized Raymond’s mind.
Raymond froze. Compelled to listen, Maeve spoke to him.
“Raymond, we will find her. She told me of that
place. There’s a door, a portal and we’ll find it”.
He collapsed. Rage changed to sorrow as he lay on the ground, mourning his lover.
Maeve ran to his side. She didn’t dare fly, but her dragon shape traveled fast across the ground. She nuzzled his face with her own and tried to console him, promising him again that they would find Flor. When Haven arrived, Maeve left Raymond and hurried back to Claire. Harlan was helping her into the car that had brought her to him. Alex was with them. She lowered her head to look at Claire.
Claire gave her a weak smile. “I’m fine dear. I need rest, that’s all.”
Alex came forward, eyes wide with wonder, as he gazed up at Maeve. He held up his hands as if he wanted to touch her, but didn’t dare. Maeve had suspected that Alex was special. Not Iameth, but another kind of magic held him. Could he possibly hear her?
“Alex?”
He jumped. “I know that place,” he blurted out. “I know it. My grandfather…in Arizona…”
Maeve received a jumbled picture from Alex’s mind. An old man and a petroglyph walled canyon. Wasn’t that what Flor described?
“We’ll talk later, Alex.”
For all his exposure to Erik and Sethos, Alex still looked like a kid who walked into a living fairytale.
****
Maeve sat beside Yarrow and surveyed the battlefield carnage with dragon’s eyes. The Iameth had joined to battle Sethos’ army of zombie troops. Now, each race had come to claim their dead and deal with them by their own customs, and after that, the dragons would burn the remainder. Tonight, each group would mourn and consign their brave warriors to Inaras. How strange to see Shost weep as she cradled Pong’s body in her arms.
Maeve cried for Flor, just as Raymond had, but she’d sensed the heavy hand of fate around the Na’thumatal witch. Flor was with Piron though, and Piron’s power had opened a gate between worlds to drag her ancient enemy out of Elder. Sorceress and dragon-witch were bound in ways Maeve did not attempt to understand. She would find Flor though, Piron too, and this time she would put friendship aside and demand answers. Sethos—Sorath—had to be dealt with if he lived.
“Beloved?” Yarrow rubbed his face against hers.
“Yes, Yarrow.”
“Come and fly with me.”
Yes, she would fly. Yes, she would fulfill the dreams and hopes of a lifetime. It was more than dreams come true, of course. Sometime soon, her life and her friend’s lives could depend on her skill in the air.
Yarrow left the ground in a single graceful leap. He circled and called to her. Maeve pushed up, flapped, teetered on her toes, and belly flopped again. With Yarrow’s gentle coaxing, she tried again, and this time succeeded. Her wings still wouldn’t work in unison. The short flight from Tana’s had been a downhill glide—much easier than flying.
“They are not arms, beloved.” Yarrow’s voice carried a hint of amusement. He circled above her, as she wobbled her way across the battlefield. Yarrow winged higher, circling. Maeve stayed low, within a hundred feet of the ground.
She concentrated on flying and didn’t see the zombie soldier until he rose from a pile of bodies in front of her. When she did see him, it took her mind a fraction of a second to recognize him for what he was. Another fraction, and she realized he had shouldered what appeared to be a four-foot piece of pipe.
Should she change in mid-air and make a smaller target, try to dive lower or…time ran out.
Two flashes—one at the end and one right in front of her eyes.
Yarrow.
Yarrow had thrown his body between Maeve and a missile, a weapon created by the worst of human kind. Her dragon lover hung in the air for a moment, and dropped. The ground shook when he crashed among the bodies.
Maeve folded her wings and plummeted to the earth. As she landed beside him, she glanced toward the zombie soldier. The ogres were tearing him apart, but it was too late for Yarrow.
He lay on his side and had no mark upon him—except for the black edged hole gaping in his copper-scaled abdomen.
“Yarrow?”
“I am here, beloved, but I must leave you. I too, have fulfilled my duty.”
Maeve wanted to scream as Raymond had. Flor’s duty had torn her away into a place she feared and hated. Yarrow’s had killed him. She wanted to cry out to Merisin. Beg him to save Yarrow.
“No, beloved.” The finality in Yarrow’s voice stopped her.
Yarrow’s eyes glowed. “Remember me, my queen.”
Maeve lowered her head to his. “I will remember you, my love.”
Yarrow’s golden eyes closed.
Maeve sensed the Elementals close by, come to witness the passage of one of the greatest of their children. For ten-thousand years, from Ataro to Elder, Yarrow had lived, loved, and watched over the Iameth. Yarrow had given Maeve his love, his memories, and now his life. Born of fire and magic, Lord of the Sky, Master of the Winds—Dragon.
Chapter Forty-Seven
Somewhere beneath the copper scales, lay Yarrow’s lifestone. The other dragons arrived and Maeve heard their song with her mind and her body. They sang of sorrow and passion, of joy at the return to the Circle of Souls. The song roared across the threads of magic, and the Elementals joined the melody. It pierced Maeve body and mind, and the stone she held in her mouth, her and Yarrow’s dragon tears, melted away into her and settled near her heart. It became her own lifestone, the bearer of her soul. Power grumbled inside her, then settled down to a restless whisper, ready to burst forth in a cyclone should she set it free. Witches didn’t have lifestones, but the dragon Maeve would carry a part of Yarrow with her always.
Yarrow’s body flickered with psychic fire—a funeral pyre of magic.
“Maeve?” Haven spoke with a heavy voice.
“I’m okay Haven.”
“No, you’re not, but you will be. Of the old ones, the original children of Merisin and Uriel, only I remain. I feel sorrow, but it is not for Yarrow. I am past tears now. You are young and have not yet met the mate of your soul. I do not know where you will find him, but it will not be in Elder.”
Maeve gazed into his unfathomable dark eyes. “If not Elder, then where?” She asked the question, but the image of the ebony eyed dragon in the cave came to mind.
Haven caressed her face with his again. “Will you stand the deathwatch? Yarrow’s power and magic were ancient, and it will take time for him to be absorbed back into the Great Master’s body.”
“I’ll keep watch.”
Night had fallen, and Maeve settled down on the grass and changed back to human form. When she did, she became aware of the filth around her. The dead were no longer animated and they littered the ground like broken toys.
“Inaras,” Maeve whispered. Her lifestone, the dragon tears, amplified the whisper along the spectrum of magic.
“Yes, Sky Daughter.”
“Would you clean up this mess? Please, I don’t want it around him.”
“Yes, Sky Daughter.”
The earth around Maeve quivered. It churned and bubbled like a boiling cauldron, heaving the zombie bodies like spineless dolls and rolling them over and over until they dissipated into the Mother’s body. Inaras’ voice rippled through the night. A song of homecoming, for the earth welcomed virtuous and wicked alike and readied them for their next journey.
The roiling earth stilled and held its breath for the cycle’s next phase. Inaras’ song changed as she whispered a single word—grow. The meadow grass beneath Maeve heard the cry and obeyed. The night filled with the scent of spring as root and blade multiplied and spread, until the battlefield bore no witness to Sethos’ desecration. Nothing remained except the pain in the hearts of those who loved and lost.
Tana walked across the fresh grown field, sat down beside Maeve, and offered her a blanket. She’d brought Harriet with her and placed her in Maeve’s arms.
“She wanted to see you,” Tana said.
Maeve saw tears in Harriet’s eyes. “What’s the matter little chicken?
”
“Hurts,” Harriet whispered.
Tana shook her head. “I’ve done all I can. She’ll recover, but she’s sore.”
“Not me.” Harriet sounded insulted, and Maeve knew it was her own pain Harriet spoke to.
“Yeah, it hurts, Harriet. And it won’t go away for a long time.”
Orcus landed on the ground beside them. Tana winced when he changed to a jaguar and laid his head on Maeve’s knee.
“Show off,” Harriet grumbled.
Maeve smoothed the harpy’s feathers. Yes, Harriet would recover, but the greatest battle since the fall of Ataro had forever changed them.
Clouds covered the moon, and Maeve realized that she could see everything around her. Shades of gray, Flor had called it. Her dragon self could see in the dark where her witch self could not.
What was she, dragon or witch? She posed the question to Tana.
“Why, both I imagine. Perhaps like Flor. She’s witch and dragon. I’m really peeved that they didn’t tell me about you.”
“It’s done. Don’t worry about it.” Was she giving Tana advice?
“It’s done,” Tana agreed.
“Who did we lose besides Yarrow?” We, us, the Iameth, Elder, all threads in the same cloth.
Tana lowered her head in sorrow. “Twelve witches, ten demons and fifty ogres have rejoined Inaras.”
“Chaos?” Maeve heard the alarm in her voice. Would she lose another part of her life?
“No, he’s fine. We’ll recover, all of us.”
“Are you telling me I’m spending too much time mourning?”
Tana shook her head. Her voice was gentle as it had always been, warm and loving. “No, love. You’re young. You’ll live a long time, and you have much pain ahead of you. We, your mother and I, aren’t inured. We’ve simply learned to place our sorrow to the side and deal with it later.”
She grasped Maeve’s hand. “I feel guilty that I thought ill of Claire, but I wish she’d trusted me. I know I spoiled her. I was so proud of her, of her power, but I never dreamed she’d be so strong.”
