Here there were no birds or dragonflies, no gardens or trees, no warmth. She lived in a palace now, but it was built of ice. The floor, the ceiling, the columns that rose two hundred feet tall; nothing but ice, cold and glimmering and cruel to her southern bones. She could see the sun through the ceiling, blurred and small, but even it seemed cold, like the glimmer of icicles.
She walked across Whale Hall, her slippers silent. Few elders came to Whale Hall anymore; it was an ancient place where ice crystals rose like a whale's ribs. It had become her sanctuary, her place of prayer. At the edge of the hall the ceiling was thin, and sunlight fell like raining fireflies. Memoria knelt in the sunbeams, the ice hard against her knees, and closed her eyes. She wrapped her seal furs around her, this raiment of exile, and whispered to her stars.
"If you're up there, Kyrie, know that I love you. If you watch over me from Draco's stars, hear my words." She hugged herself, and her eyes stung. "I love you forever, little brother. I miss you every day."
She heard footfalls behind her, opened her eyes, and turned to see her second brother. Terra was walking toward her, clad as always in his old armor. Frost coated the filigreed plates, his horned helmet, and the silver scabbard of his sword. He wore a walrus moustache in the style of the bellators, Requiem's noble warriors; he was the last of their order, but still clung to their symbols. A fur cloak draped over his shoulders, a single piece of the north over his steel garb of southern glory.
"Sister, I worry for you." He sighed. "You spend hours here, speaking to him every day. I miss our brother too. I loved him. But... Memoria, how do you know that he hears?"
Memoria stood up and glared at him. Terra was tall and broad, and she was short and slim, but she glared at him nonetheless. His hair was fair like hers, but already white kissed his temples. His eyes were brown like hers, but sadder, she thought; weary eyes that had seen too much. He was two years her senior, thirty this winter, but looked forty. Youth's hope and grace had left him. She remembered him a dozen years ago, always laughing, bronzed from working in their vineyard. She had not heard him laugh since.
Not since our baby brother left us, she thought. Not since Kyrie died at Lanburg Fields. My sweet, small Kyrie, the light of our family... forever extinguished, forever a hole inside us.
"Kyrie's spirit shines among the Draco stars," she said softly. "I know he can hear me. So I speak to him, and I will speak to him every day. You should too, Terra." Tears stung her eyes. "Kyrie needs your prayers too."
Terra sighed again. His hands closed around hers, gloved in leather, warm despite the cold around them. "Sister, I was a knight of Requiem. I devoted my life to helping the living. I know nothing of the dead." He squeezed her hands. "Today the living need us. The icelings are hungry. We must fly. We must hunt."
They walked down the hall between its columns of whorled ice. They stepped between two crystals, then walked through chambers that rose three hundred feet tall. Crystals glimmered around them, larger than dragons. Through towering windows, like windows in a cathedral, Memoria saw a thousand more palaces. They spread for a league across the iceberg, built of ice and snow, glistening like stars. Most of those palaces were abandoned now, she knew, only ghosts left to haunt their halls. Only two hundred icelings lived today, but their ancestors' palaces still stood, their ice never melting, their beauty never fading.
These remaining icelings glided around Memoria between the columns. Their sealskin robes swayed, and their hair was white as snow, even the hair of the children. Their eyes were azure, like clear pools under the sun, and they bore whalebone staffs crowned with their birth crystals.
Memoria wore furs now too—her woollen clothes from Requiem had gone threadbare years ago—but she bore no staff like the icelings. Like her brother, she wore a sword of Requiem at her hip, a glimmering shard of steel she had named Luna Nova.
Why do we still wear these swords? Memoria thought, as she thought every day. We swung them in Requiem's tunnels, in darkness too narrow for dragonfire. But they couldn't hold back the enemy. They couldn't save our parents... and they couldn't save Kyrie. So many times, Memoria had wanted to toss her sword into the ocean, watch it sink forever from her memory, but she could not. She was still a soldier, even after all these years, even as Requiem lay in ruin. She still had a soldier's pride.
"Sky friends!"
The words echoed across the hall. Memoria looked up to see Amberus, the Elder of Elders, walking toward them. His flowing robes hid his feet; he seemed to float. His beard was so long, it trailed five feet behind him like a wake. A necklace of icicles hung around his neck, and he held a staff crowned with a garnet the size of a man's heart.
"May your hunt today bring you much fortune," he said, "better than the days before it." His bony fingers tightened around his staff. He looked around at the other icelings, who moved silently between the frozen chambers. "They do not run or laugh, not even the children. They are hungry. They are thin."
Memoria bowed her head. "We will fly far today, Amberus. We will fly close to the Jet Mountains, but we dare not fly beyond them."
The elder's eyes darkened. "If the giants keep eating, we must abandon the Ice City."
Memoria's eyes widened. She gasped. "Abandon it? But Amberus, the icelings have lived here for a million years, since the dawn of ice. How could you abandon it?"
Amberus swept his arms around him, his bracelets of icicles clinking. "We have already abandoned it, sky child. Countless icelings once lived here. Two hundred remain, their bellies tight. I will let no more starve. The day will come, and we will have to leave, to move north, to the very feet of the Jet Mountains where seals still gather. We cannot let the giants eat so many. Their appetite is greater than that of snow craving clouds."
Terra placed a hand on the elder's shoulder. "Do not move north, Amberus. The giants hunger for more than seal flesh. You know how many icelings they've killed for sport. You cannot fight them."
The old iceling shook his head. The icicles strewn through his beard chinked. "No. But you can. When you take the sky spirit forms, you are mighty warriors."
Memoria took a deep breath. "May it never come to that. Let us fly on one more hunt. The giants would not eat all the seals, or they too would starve. There are more. We'll find them." She turned to her brother. "Come, Terra, we fly."
Even here, a thousand leagues north from her home, the Draco stars blessed her. Memoria drew her magic, the magic of Requiem. Scales flowed across her body, green like the forests of her home, glimmering in the morning light. Wings grew from her back. Claws, white as bone, grew from her fingertips and toes. She flapped her wings, took flight as a dragon, and flew between ice columns into the sky.
Terra shifted too. Soon he was flying beside her, a bronze dragon with white horns, his scales frosted. They flew north, leaving the Ice City, gliding over sheets of ice and snow toward the cruel Jet Mountains that marked the end of the world.
Memoria breathed deeply, relishing the wind. True, it was too cold here in exile, at the northern fringe of the world. And true, she missed seeing forests and rivers below her, not endless leagues of white. But at least she still had flying. To spread wings, feel fire tickle her nostrils, dive and swoop and be free... this was happiness to her.
"Do you remember how we'd fly with the herds?" she called to Terra. He flew at her side, gazing forward with those brown, weary eyes. "Do you remember how we'd sing as we flew over Requiem?"
He did not answer. She knew he remembered, but Terra preferred to forget. Let him seek solace in the ice, she thought. My solace remains in the whispers of warm, southern past.
They flew for a long time, over gleaming sheets of ice, dunes of snow, and boulders that rose grey and black like ancient goblins turned to stone. The world was white, grey, and black. Her green scales, and Terra's bronze ones, were the only colors for leagues.
At noon, the Jet Mountains appeared on the horizon, great walls of black stone, ice, and snow. The home of giants. Memoria had
never seen a giant, but she had seen their footprints, three toed and six feet long. She had seen the blood, bones, and offal they left behind after killing those icelings who ventured beyond the Ice City. And she saw them in her nightmares, shadows always at the corners of her eyes.
"Memoria, look," Terra said. He gestured ahead to a sheet of ice behind a ridge of boulders.
She looked, and her heart leaped.
"Seals!" she said.
A dozen of them, fat and lazy on the ice! This was rare. This time of year, seals normally swam under the ice, and Memoria had expected long hours of searching for their breathing holes. To find a dozen on the surface.... She laughed. If she caught them all, they would feed the icelings for days. Their fur would make warm blankets and clothes; their bones would be carved into blades, buttons, and needles; their sinew would make thread; their teeth would make necklaces and bracelets. This was a treasure.
She dived toward them, reaching out her claws, her heart racing for the hunt. Flames flickered between her teeth. Terra dived beside her, his claws extended.
The seals weren't fleeing.
Memoria frowned. They weren't moving at all.
Something's wrong.
She landed, claws digging into the ice. Terra landed beside her.
"They're dead," Memoria said. She nudged one with her claws. "But there's no blood, and they're gutted. Who would do such a thing? Kill seals, and place them on the ice, and...."
She froze.
Terra finished for her. "Bait," he said. "Whoever did this was laying out bait."
Memoria looked wildly from side to side, seeking giants. They must have done this.
"I see nobody," she whispered. She sucked in her breath, prepared to blow fire at any enemy who might appear, but she saw nothing for leagues; nothing but plains of ice.
Terra frowned. "I hear something. Listen."
She listened, and she heard it—a low rumble beneath her feet. The ice creaked. Memoria opened her mouth to speak... and her magic vanished.
She gasped. Her wings pulled back into her. Her scales disappeared. Suddenly she stood on the ice as a human. Terra's magic vanished too, leaving him human and looking just as confused. He tightened his jaw, drew his sword, and stared from side to side.
"What happened?" Memoria whispered. She had never heard of Vir Requis losing their magic. She too drew her sword. The ice shook wildly now, and a shriek sounded from below it.
"Let's get out of here," Terra said. "Go!"
But before Memoria could move, a hole burst open in the ice, and three creatures emerged from underwater.
Memoria screamed.
They were dead bodies, bloated and pale. But no; they were not mere bodies, but creations, sewn together from bits and pieces. She saw the stitches holding their limbs and heads to their torsos. Even in the cold, they stank so powerfully that Memoria gagged. The creatures squealed like walruses. Blood stained their teeth. Their fingers ended with the claws of bears, and those claws swiped at Memoria.
She leaped back and lashed her sword.
Memoria had been a soldier once. She could still fight, even in human form. Her blade severed the creature's hand, but it kept charging. It barrelled into her, snapping its teeth. Its claws slashed her shoulder.
Memoria fell onto the ice. She kicked one creature's head. Its neck snapped back, and worms spilled from its mouth.
"Agnus Dei," it hissed at her. "Dies Irae wants you, Agnus Dei. He sent me to you."
What is it talking about? Memoria drove her sword's grip into its face, crushing its nose and knocking out its teeth. She scrambled to her feet, swung her blade, and sliced off its head.
She turned to Terra, and saw him swinging his sword, battling two more creatures. His eyes were narrowed, his jaw tight; he was the bellator again, a knight of Requiem. He had shattered one creature's face, but it was still trying to bite. Memoria ran and slammed her sword into its head. Blood and maggoty brains spilled, but the creature only laughed.
Pain blazed on her calf. Memoria looked down, and saw the head she had severed. It was biting her. She screamed, kicked it off, and hacked at it. The head cackled. She stabbed again and again, breaking the head into a jaw, teeth, bits of skull, but still the head moved and gurgled and laughed. Memoria kicked the pieces into the hole in the ice, and they sank. The rest of the body kept creeping toward her. Memoria screamed, stabbed it, and kicked it into the hole. It floundered, and its fingers grabbed the rim of ice. She sliced them off and kicked them underwater.
Terra was swinging his sword, keeping the other two creatures at bay. His mouth was a grim line under his moustache. Frost covered his blade; it glinted like a shard of ice.
"Kyrie Eleison," the creatures hissed at him. "We come to kill you, Kyrie Eleison. Our lord, Dies Irae, commands that you die."
Memoria growled. How did these creatures know her dead brother's name? How dared they utter it? Memoria shouted, her heart racing, her head spinning. She leaped to her brother's defense. Their blades swung together. A severed arm leaped from the ice, clutched her shoulder, and scratched deep. Memoria ripped it off and tossed it underwater.
Terra was wounded too, she saw. Grooves ran down his armor, revealing bloody flesh. What kind of creatures can claw through steel? Still he fought, eyes narrowed, until the creatures were cut and crushed like butchered seals. The fingers, feet, heads, and other pieces kept writhing and trying to attack. Memoria and Terra kicked and stabbed, tossing them into the hole in the ice, where they sank.
Memoria kicked the last finger underwater, then leaned over, struggling for breath. Blood covered the ice. The stench of rot made her gag.
Kyrie.
She looked at Terra. Blood dripped from his wound. He stared back, silent.
Kyrie Eleison.
Tears stung Memoria's eyes.
"They... they spoke of Kyrie," she whispered and trembled. The memories flooded back, so powerful that her head spun, and for a moment she was back in Requiem, back in the war that had flooded her home.
"Kyrie!" she had cried, weeping, a youth who had seen too much fire and death. "Kyrie, where are you?"
The bodies had spread below her, thousands of them, covering Lanburg Fields. Where was her brother? Where was Kyrie?
"Kyrie!" Terra had cried too, searching the bodies with her, until they found the remains of a burned child, and wept over it, and buried it, and fled... fled here to exile, to endless ice, to endless memories.
Kyrie Eleison, the rotting demon had said.
Kyrie. My baby brother. The light of our family.
"What were those things?" she whispered, eyes stinging. She stared at the hole the creatures had emerged from. Her wounds ached and bled, but she ignored them. "Why did they speak of Kyrie?"
Terra's breath frosted before him. He stared darkly at the blood upon the ice. "They must be Dies Irae's new pets, something even worse than griffins. These creatures were built to kill Vir Requis. That's why we couldn't shift around them."
Memoria hugged herself. A chill washed over her, as if she'd swallowed too much snow. "So the war still rages. He's still hunting dragons."
Terra lowered his head and clenched his fists. Icicles were forming on his moustache. His voice was strained. "It's still going on. We've been hiding for eleven years, and the war still rages. And now it's here. He found us, Memoria. Dies Irae found us."
She shook her head, her heart racing, and she could barely see. Could it be? After these years... is it possible?
"The creatures were seeking Vir Requis, yes," she whispered. "But not you or me. They called me Agnus Dei. Does that name sound familiar?"
He stared at her. "Of course. Agnus Dei was our princess. I met her several times—a young girl with a mane of black curls. She gave me a favor, a single bluebell, before the battle of Draco Murus."
Memoria nodded. "You see, Terra? These creatures were seeking Requiem's survivors. We're not the only ones." Tears filled her eyes. Something halfway between sob and laughte
r fled her lips. "Others lived and fled into hiding too, Terra. The princess Agnus Dei did... and so did our brother."
KYRIE ELEISON
The mimics charged uphill, howling.
The Vir Requis fired their arrows. Shards of flame shot through the night. Screeches rose from the mimics, and two fell burning.
"Keep shooting!" Lacrimosa cried, an unnecessary command; they were all already nocking new arrows. Four more flaming arrows flew, and more mimics fell.
"Burn, that's right!" Kyrie shouted, excitement pounding through him. His fingers shook and his heart thrashed. The smoke stung his eyes and lungs, and the flames drenched him with sweat. He loaded a third arrow. This was no dragonfire, but it would do, he thought. He could still burn and kill these creatures.
A swarm of mimics reached the ring of fire that surrounded the ruins of Draco Murus. They tried to cross, but leaped back and hissed. The Vir Requis fired arrows through the flames, and the mimics screeched.
"Break the fire," howled their leader, the towering mimic with arms sewn together like strings of sausages. "Into the flames. Scatter them."
As Kyrie kept firing arrows, his stomach knotted. Mimics plunged into the ring of fire, tossing logs left and right. They burned, screamed, and fell. Others replaced them.
"Kill them, those ones!" Kyrie shouted and shot a arrow. He hit one mimic who was scattering the burning logs. His arrow entered its head, and it fell.
"Stack more logs, quick!" Lacrimosa shouted. She ran toward the broken ring of fire. Three mimics were stepping through it, grinning and drooling. They swiped their claws at Lacrimosa.
Kyrie ran, dropped his bow, and grabbed a torch. He swung it and clubbed one mimic's head. It screamed and lashed claws. Kyrie leaped back and swung his torch again, and the mimic burned. Bugs screamed and died inside it.
The twins leaped forward, thrusting burning javelins. Claw marks ran down Agnus Dei's thigh.
"Seal the ring of fire, stop them from entering!" Lacrimosa shouted, face flushed, hair damp with sweat. They all began tossing burning logs into the breach, and soon new flames crackled, showering sparks.
Song of Dragons: The Complete Trilogy Page 53
