They were bedeviled by more cracks and cinder cones all through the night. When morning came, sickly and wan, thunder rolled behind them and didn't let up. An immense herd of animals swept toward them across the grass. The three of them ran until the beasts were nearly upon them, then ducked into the woods to struggle through the vines and thorns instead. The herd wasn't of a single species, but a score of them, prey and predators mixed together as they fled from whatever new plague now touched the earth.
The leaves that hadn't been stripped by storms drooped on the branches, starved of sunlight for many days. Dante didn't think the day could get any darker, but it couldn't have been noon when it fell as gloomy as twilight, and dimmer yet within the forest. It felt as though time itself had been brought to an end and they soon lost all track of how long they had been walking and how much more might be ahead of them.
Dante spent this time trying to think through the logistics of how to bear more goods and materials with them to the Realm (for even basic tools were about to become more precious than gold), and where they might settle themselves within it, but his thoughts kept drifting. Between that and the darkness, he wasn't completely surprised when, during a short rest in what might have been the late afternoon, he looked behind them to discover they'd already walked past the tree that housed the portal to Yent.
The land and sky around them was still erupting with light and fire, yet the tree was unharmed, and as they approached it nothing looked to be awry. Nonetheless, Dante had the urge to pull the nether to his hand, and did so.
He entered the portal. After the chaotic ruckus of Rale, its starry walls and perfect silence was so shocking that he came to a stop, causing Blays to bump into him from behind.
"Forget which door you came in through?" Blays said. "Here's a hint: it's the one you're standing right next to."
Dante grunted and headed toward the far end of the tunnel. Halfway along, he glanced back and stopped again. "Where's Gladdic?"
Blays drew the rod from his belt. "I knew something didn't feel—"
Gladdic flew in through the doorway in a burst of robes, catching himself on hands and knees as he landed. "Stop staring, you idiots! Get through the portal!"
Dante took one step toward him, then turned and ran toward the doorway to Yent. Gladdic pounded down the tunnel behind them. Reaching the other end, Dante came to a stop, grasping the shadows with both hands. And watched as an immense head and neck entered from the Kalabari side of the passage.
At first he took what he was seeing for the shadow-dragon. Yet where that one's features had been as simple and unfinished as everything else in the Becoming, this creature sported huge sharp eyes the color of just-cut blood and a pair of spiral horns that swept back from its head, and its lean body was covered in tough blue scales.
Blays shot forth the spear. "Where the hell did you find that?"
Gladdic ran as fast as he could, robes streaming behind him like spiderwebs on the wind. Fire seared down the passage. Dante threw a cloud of shadows down the tunnel. As soon as they passed Gladdic, he shifted them into a horizontal pillar of flame, slamming it into the dragon's breath. The air behind Gladdic burned brighter than the sun. He ducked his head and threw his robes up over himself as the fire rolled over him. But the worst of it had been snuffed out, and as he straightened upright, just a few wisps of smoke trailed from his clothes.
Dante drew forth a second round of nether, but Gladdic was already upon them. He and Blays grabbed hold of him and rushed out the doorway.
They winced and shaded their eyes against the brightness of the Yenten sun. Both Maralda and Carvahal were standing just across from the portal, as if they'd known precisely when the mortals would arrive.
"Arm yourself!" Dante said. "There's a dragon!"
Carvahal strolled forward. "And there is where it's going to stay."
Dante scrambled beside him and spun to face the doorway. "How can you be so sure?"
"Because if it tries to come in here, then I'm going to wear it as a coat." The god considered Dante, face going sober. "The Titan has fallen."
"You already knew that. I've been trying to reach you about it the entire time we were traveling here."
"You'll have to excuse me for ignoring you. I've been rather busy turning things upside down looking for another way to save your world."
"You have? What have you found?"
Carvahal shook his head slowly. "I found nothing. This was the only way. We knew that from the beginning."
"But what about the vision you showed me?"
"A mistake, I suppose. It happens."
Dante let out a long breath. The sun warmed the jungle's broad green leaves while colorful birds and bugs flew among the branches and flowers. "One of my leaders had another idea. Maybe it wasn't a vision of Rale. Maybe it was a vision of the Realm."
Carvahal cocked an eyebrow at an angle only a god could achieve. "You're talking about evacuating your people."
"Would the gods allow it?"
"That isn't a thing I would bother to ask them about. It's something that I would just do."
"But will they keep waging war on us? Even after Rale and its afterlives have been undone?"
"You should know by now that we are never of one mind about anything. Some will likely be heartened to see you escape your fate. But Taim and whoever else has gone back to him will hate how your presence reminds them of their failure in crafting your world. They'll try to stamp you out."
"Will we have any hope?"
"Any? Sure. All you have to do is hurt them badly enough to convince them they're better off letting you have your little scrap of land. And you seem quite talented at hurting people." Carvahal glanced off into the sky. "Just don't be surprised if they expect certain concessions from you."
"Such as?"
"That will depend entirely on how angry you've made them during your fight to stay in the Realm. Taxes and tribute of some kind, guaranteed. Taim will almost certainly insist on turning you into a vassal state. You defied him too loudly and too well for him to leave you free."
"That's the best we can hope for?" Blays said. "A life of servitude in a foreign land, as we try to build something from nothing?"
"You can always hope for more," Carvahal said. "But that's why it's called hope. If you're expecting to lead the same kind of lives you had in Rale, don't be surprised when you look back and see that you've found nothing in the Realm but bitterness and resentment."
"We don't have a choice." Dante noticed that he was still holding onto the shadows he'd gathered to use against the dragon. He let them go. "We'll just have to make the best of it that we can. It might get better for our descendants, some day."
He meant the words, and was deeply relieved that Carvahal thought Nak's idea could work out. Yet it still hurt to think about. He had spent his life fighting for Narashtovik, both to free it and to lead it back to greatness, and he'd barely had a decade of independence with the city before it had all been taken away from him. He wanted to rage against the gods who'd done this, but he found that he was much too tired.
"I am sorry it has come to this," Carvahal said gently. "We gave you tens of thousands of years before the coming of this day, at least. I think that was worth the War of the Forging, and the lives of the Four That Fell."
"Taim will want to start over," Maralda said. "You shouldn't let him."
"I may not have any choice." They stared at each other, exchanging a look Dante had no hope of interpreting.
When it became clear they weren't going to say more, he cleared his throat. "Maralda, right now the only way for my people to get to the Realm is to cross through the Becoming. That means more will die when so many have died already. Can you redirect the portal there to send them directly to the Realm instead?"
She gazed off to her left. If she'd been her panther, her tail would be flicking. "Maybe. But I've burned through much of my powers. If I do this, it will be the last doorway I'll be able to alter for a long time.
Make sure it's the one you want."
"We won't need any others. And after this, there won't be anywhere left for any portals to go."
Maralda nodded. "So be it. Start praying that the damage you've done to Olastar isn't too much for me to overcome."
"The realm the portals are in? How have we damaged it?"
"The portals are a part of it. Each time you've torn one of them apart, you've torn a hole in Olastar itself."
The idea stirred in all three of the mortals' minds at the same time, as if it was willing itself into being, less like a thought and more like some great creature assembling itself from the raw matter of the world.
"If Olastar can be damaged…" Blays started.
"…can it also be destroyed?" Gladdic finished.
Maralda froze. "Why would you want to destroy it?"
"Oh," Carvahal said. "My."
"Nolost relies on Olastar to reach Rale," Dante said. "If we can collapse Olastar, we can stop the entity from destroying our world."
Maralda had gone very pale. "You don't understand what you're saying. Ripping Olastar apart wouldn't just isolate you from Nolost and the Becoming. It would isolate everything from everywhere. Rale would be cut off from the Realm as well."
"I was afraid that would be true. But what other choice do we have?"
She advanced on him in a blink, her dark hair flowing about her face, her silver eyes aflame. "I said you don't understand. Doing this would isolate you from the gods. For all time. No human would ever know the gods again!"
Her presence was overpowering and Dante had to fight with every fiber of his being to stop himself from turning his back and running away from her until he could no longer see her.
"We're not the ones who wanted this war," he said. "If that's the price that must be paid, the fault lies with Taim alone."
"You are thinking like a human. It would be better for you to forfeit Rale and return to the gods-realm than to curse all your descendants to the coldness of an existence cut off from your creators!"
Dante shuddered but somehow stood his ground. "I know that you always thought it was a mistake—a cruel one—to separate us from the lords of the Realm. But I've been to your world. We're standing in it right now. That's how I know that we weren't made for this world, but for our own. Let us fight to survive, Maralda. And let us fight to survive where we belong. If you won't give us that chance, then you never deserved to know us at all."
"You fools," she whispered. Silver tears rolled down the goddess' beautiful face. "I will do as you ask—and I will help you damn yourselves for all time."
FROM THE AUTHOR
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The Twelve Plagues (The Cycle of Galand Book 7) Page 52
