by Alison Baird
Jomar gaped at her, then approached the other man hesitantly. “Damion! I still can’t believe—Damion?” He reached out, touched his friend’s shoulder. It was solid, warm.
Damion took hold of Jomar’s arms and looked into his eyes. “Yes, Jo—I’ve come back.”
Relief flooded Jomar’s mind at the firm grip of those hands, and at the sound of the voice—the same as the deceiving Mandrake’s, but imbued with a very different personality, safe and familiar. The man was not his face or voice only, but his underlying essence. There was no mistaking it. Still, Jomar was full of questions. “But—how? How? We all thought you’d died.”
“I am half-Archon. I never knew it before. Archons can’t be killed, not altogether. My mortal self could be destroyed, but not my immortal one.”
“Yes . . .” said Lorelyn softly. Jomar turned to stare at her. Then she asked, “Damion, do you know what is going to happen?”
Damion shook his head. “Archons don’t ordain the future. We only foretell it.”
“Isn’t that the same thing?”
“No. Imagine a company of travelers who come to a range of hills, blocking their view of the country ahead. The people who live on the hills tell the travelers that the country beyond is full of difficult, rocky terrain: they can see it from the hilltops. Should the travelers be angry at the hill dwellers? They only survey the land from a higher point of vantage: they did not make it as it is. And neither do we shape the future. We see the way ahead, better than mortals can. But the path they take through that arduous terrain is up to them. There is no fixed road. The Archons simply foresaw a role that I could play, shaping events to come. They knew that Ailia needed protectors. It’s why you and I were allowed to return.”
“Return?” Jomar was still bewildered. His relief was subsiding in the surging storm of his thoughts. “Lori? What’s he saying?”
Lorelyn looked at him: this man who had never flinched from any sort of danger, whose strength of will and body had borne him through ordeals that had destroyed many others. But now he looked to her almost like a child, his dark eyes troubled, his usual brusque confidence stripped from him. She felt a great stirring of love and tenderness for him. “Jo, he means I am half-Archon too,” she told him.
Again Jomar stared from one of them to the other. Then he turned away.
“Jo? What’s wrong?” Damion asked.
Jomar spoke without turning. “You’re not human. Either of you.”
“Why do you say that?”
“You aren’t what you seem—you never were. And now you’ve been changed completely, Damion. Turned into something—else.”
“Jo, whatever I am now, I was born human. So was Lorelyn. And I haven’t really changed—that much.”
“So—is this just a shape you’re taking at the moment? What do you really look like now?” Jomar demanded
“What do you really look like, Jo?” Damion smiled.
“I don’t understand.”
“Is this all you are—what you see in mirrors, your skin, your hair and eyes? Or are you something more?”
“I suppose you mean this soul you were always going on about when you were a priest.” Jomar shrugged.
“Exactly. We are two souls, two spirits, each represented by a material form. But we are more than that. What you see now was never more than a part of me, never the whole. The same is true of you. Still, the El envy mortals. To walk freely through the material plane, to pick up a pebble in your hand, to own that reality, to know danger! Matter rules you, you say: but that also means it belongs to you and you to it; you possess it as no Archon can. They obey a pact that forbids them from interfering. Now I too am bound by that ban. That is why I could not reach out to you and explain to you what had happened. You had to come to me. I was allowed to send you dreams, no more.”
“Yes, Ailia dreamed a good deal of you. But she called on you before, in Zimboura. And you didn’t come to her,” Jomar accused.
“It wasn’t allowed. She still thought she was calling on a mortal man. For a summons to be answered, the summoner must understand that she or he is calling on an El.” Damion started to walk back up the beach. “But we must leave this place. The Emperor has come to Mirimar, and has sent his Loänan guards to bring Ailia to him. Look—there is Auron, coming for you.”
They watched the golden dragon gliding low over the white sands. “You can’t just—grow wings, and fly there yourself?” Jomar queried, half-seriously.
Damion shook his head. “No—not here. The Pact limits what we can do on this plane. Ana could not get herself to Trynisia, and Elarainia had to build a flying ship to reach Mera. Come, now! Auron will fly you to Mirimar. I will go and find Ailia, and bring her too.”
Damion watched as they walked reluctantly to the waiting dragon, then he walked on along the beach. He understood their bemused state of mind, for he too felt dazed by his transition. After the pure harmonies of the Ether, the world of sensation had been an assault: a roar of sound, a blinding light that only slowly resolved into shapes and colors, all of them devoid of meaning. The constant communion with the other Archons was gone, cut off; he was alone, a universe unto himself, lonely and afraid. Soon, he knew, even his symbolic of memory of the Ether would be gone, receding before the onslaught of the material plane.
But he would remember his mission. Ailia, he thought again. There was pain then, as his fingernails dug into his palms. Pain, fingers, palms—the words were beginning to come to him. Man, he thought. That’s what I am: a man. He still staggered at times like a newborn foal, his own legs strange to him. He had not been aware of his first transition long ago, his infant’s brain being too small and unaware to hold the strangeness, the confusion, the terrifying isolation of incarnation. He forced himself onward, seeking Ailia.
He came upon her at last, a mile down the shore. She lay where she had emerged from the waves, her body sprawled face-up on the sand, her bare feet laved still by the soft curling foam of the surf. He stood for a time looking down at her. He suddenly recalled the picture he had hung over his bed as a boy, of the knight rescuing a maiden from a dragon. He wondered if this meant he had always known his destiny: to save Ailia from Morlyn.
Presently she stirred, and opened her eyes. “Was it only a dream?” she said aloud.
“It was real, Ailia. I am here.”
She gave a cry. He knelt by her side, and took her in his arms, rocking her gently as if she was a child.
The terrifying, exhilarating flight and chase, the return of Damion—it had all really happened, Ailia realized. She gazed up at him: at his eyes blue as the Arainian sea, and shining with the same reflected light. Or did those irises gleam with their own inner radiance, like her enchanted sapphire? Her thoughts reached out to touch his, and knew his mind. It was he, her beloved Damion returned at last. And the other one—her adversary—had fled this world.
“Oh Damion, you came to me! You heard my call!” She embraced him in turn, holding him closely, while he stroked her hair. For a long time they rested in each other’s arms. At last she drew back to look at him again. “I saw you, in the Ether—but you were winged there, like a seraph.”
“I tried many new forms there. But here I will move among mortals, and for that the old form is best.” He smiled, his dear familiar smile, but she sensed a sadness in it.
“Damion, aren’t you glad to be back?” she asked, looking into his eyes.
“I am glad to be back with you.” He put his arms about her once more, and helped her to rise. “You are safe, and so is Arainia—for now. But this war has only begun, and you must rest before we all meet and decide what is to be done next. Look: the cherubim have come to carry us home. We must return to the city.”
EVERY BELL IN THE CITY of Mirimar rang, and every banner flew; people ran into the streets, living torrents of many colors that flowed and roared as the flight of dragons and cherubim swept high above them toward the palace. They were filled with joy: Ailia’s retreat to the sou
th had spared their city from the assaults of the enemy, and the Arainian army had also returned from Mera victorious. Mandrake had fled the system, and without his leadership his followers too had withdrawn. And now, to the awe and delight of the Arainians, the Celestial Emperor had also arrived, his palace of adamant descending out of the clouds to settle on the earth. Its crystal towers rose now from the broad fields to the north of the city, gleaming in the light of the waning stars and the Arch of Heaven: for here the day was not so far advanced.
The crowd awaiting the Tryna Lia in the great central court of the palace was smaller but no less joyful. The king ran forward and took Ailia in his arms as she dismounted from Falaar’s back. Seeing his glad face, she knew with a pang that she must tell him the whole truth about his vanished wife. For now, she only listened to him. “The enemy is departing! They will not dare march against you again. And our forces have triumphed in Mera! But another, most amazing thing has happened,” Tiron said.
“Yes—the Emperor is here. I saw his palace from the air.”
“He has brought the Dragon Throne with him also. And a gift from the salamander-people of Arkurion: a veritable mountain of their wool and scaly hides. The Nemerei have it now, and are seeking to make armor from it for our soldiers.”
“So Lorelyn succeeded! She told me she and Auron tried to persuade them.”
“Yes. I only hope that the Nemerei will find a way to take away the odor: the materials smell like all the rotten eggs in all the worlds! But you must rest now, and get your strength back.”
Ailia would not rest however, but went straight to the crystal palace with Auron to see Orbion. It was strange to see the familiar glassy walls and towers rising now from the once empty field outside the city. As she drew near to it, her eye caught a glimmer of white off to her right, and she turned to see the pale shape of a Tarnawyn in the midst of a little copse of perindeus trees. It was keeping pace with her as she walked, its head raised high on its long, graceful neck. There were scars showing dark on its flank.
“It has fled its world,” said Auron. “The Valei are hunting its kind like beasts, for they have always hated the Tarnawyn. But the unicorns have portals of their own, and paths they can take through the Mid-Heaven. This one has come here to do you honor.”
Then Ailia remembered what it was said of the Tarnawyn: that they appeared to rulers at the beginning of a reign, as a sign of Heaven’s approval and benediction. Did this creature, too, desire her to take the Dragon Throne?
When she entered the cloud-hung palace she saw that Orbion wore his true form, a great white dragon: his snowy-maned head rested on his foreclaws as he lay curled about the Dragon Throne. She walked onto the dais and into the circle formed by the great bodies of his Imperial dragon-guards, a huge living temple-space roofed and pillared with gold by their outspread wings and strong clawed legs. The cherub monarch Girian was there also, with his head and his wings bent low and his golden crown lying between his forepaws.
Auron followed her onto the dais. As they drew near to the old ethereal dragon he opened his eyes, and she saw that the blue orbs were sunken and dull. The Celestial Emperor raised his head with an effort. “Ah, you are come! I feared I would pass into the Ether before seeing you,” he said, in a voice like the dry hiss of wind-blown sand.
Ailia knelt before the huge head, tears coming to her eyes. “Son of Heaven, please! Linger a while longer, if you can. We still need you—your wisdom and knowledge—”
“Loänan do not choose the time of their passing, any more than other mortals.” The dimming eyes looked steadily into hers. “My time has come—indeed, I have prolonged my life with sorcery for as long as I could, in the hope that you would come to me. Before I go, I would see you claim what is yours. If you do so, all will be well. I know this: many things seem clearer to me, now that I draw nearer to the Empyrean.” He laid his head down again and Ailia sensed his living aura waning.
“Don’t go!” she cried in a panic. “Wait but a while—there is so much I would ask—”
“Take the throne.” It was but a whisper, hardly audible now.
Ailia obeyed. Stepping forward, she went to the great golden chair and seated herself, her hands resting on the carved dragons’ heads of the armrests. Orbion’s eyes closed. A long tremor passed through the silvery body, and then the dragon lay still, his ragged breathing silenced.
“He is gone,” said Auron gently. “We will take him into the Ether now.”
The dragons raised their heads, beat their wings and gave voice to their grief in ringing, bell-like cries. Auron joined with them. The beating wings sent little breezes flowing through the crystal hall, and the majestic, booming chorus went on for many minutes before dying away. A throbbing silence filled Ailia’s ears in its place. Then Auron cried, “All hail the new ruler, appointed by the Old Ones! Long live the Celestial Empress!”
The dragons cried out again as Ailia remained seated on the Dragon Throne. Looking toward the open door, she saw the unicorn standing there, its horn held high like a sword in salute.
SHE NEXT WENT THROUGH THE healing wards where the injured warriors lay, and spoke to them. Ailia had no healing gift, and all her other powers were spent; but her very presence caused many an injured patient to revive. But she was beginning to feel very weary herself.
She walked back out into the forecourt of the healers’ building, and through the crowd of the patients’ friends and kinsfolk. Many were talking together, but here and there she was aware of pockets of silence in their midst. One such cell of quiet centered on a girl who sat on a bench, her face cast down, white robes torn and dirty. Ailia recognized the face under the dark brown curtains of hair: it was one of the Nemerei she had met at Melnemeron. What was her name . . . ?
Kathia, that was it. “What is the matter, Kathia?” she asked.
The young Nemerei lifted a tear-streaked face, then made as if to rise. Ailia stopped her with a hand on her shoulder. “Oh—Your Highness, I didn’t see you. But I have lost—I have lost—” Her face crumpled. She could not yet break through the walls of her sorrow’s self-containment.
Ailia sat beside her. “Who are you talking about?”
“Lothar,” she whispered. “My Lothar—he’s dead! They brought him back, but he died—in there. I couldn’t save him—I have no healing art.” She began to rock back and forth. “I could do nothing! I wish that you had been there, Trynel. Then you could have raised him to life, as you raised your Damion.”
“Is that what they are saying?” exclaimed Ailia. “I have no such power, Kathia. No one has. Damion is half-Archon, and when mortal children of Old Ones die they are able to linger within the Ether, becoming like their immortal kin. But for other mortals who die—no one knows what their fate is. They do not go to the Ether. It’s said there is another plane above both Ether and matter, the Empyrean, and there the souls of mortals dwell with the Maker of all things.”
The girl’s dark head dropped to her white-clad knees, and the wash of her sorrow struck Ailia like a wave, bringing an echo of her own former grief. “You loved him.” The head nodded, but the only answer was a sob. “I didn’t know him well—but I know he was a fine, and brave, young man. I am so sorry, Kathia.”
“I wish I had died too!” the girl whispered.
“No—no, don’t say that! The pain is real—but it will not always hurt as sharply as it does know. I promise you it won’t.” But Kathia wept on, and Ailia could give no other comfort save the bodily contact of her encircling arms. The girl’s anguish, like a fever, must run its course. At last Ailia rose, and leaving the girl to her circle of concerned friends, she walked slowly away.
Tiron observed this, and was troubled anew for his daughter. She cannot detach herself from the pain of others, her father thought. Such a one was never meant to go to war. She has too much imagination. Wars are begun by those who cannot imagine another’s pain. What will become of her?
“Ailia’s bodily weakness is no defense against
temptation. If anything, the desire of the weak for power is all the greater,” one of the Loänan had said.
“But it may give her more sympathy for the weak,” Damion had answered.
The priest’s reappearance had indeed filled the people with amazement, and birthed the rumor that the Tryna Lia had restored him to the realm of the living. Their awe grew with the mysterious manifestations that accompanied Ailia’s return to Mirimar. Once again the land was awash in reports of visions and marvels. The Archons were drawing closer to the frail barrier that separated their domain from that of mortals.
On the next high day a service was held in Halmirion’s Chapel of Elarainia Queen of the World, in thanksgiving for the deliverance of Mera and Arainia. The rites themselves were the same as always: water, the sacred element of the goddess, was brought to the chapel in vessels of crystal and blessed. Ailia and the sibyls then drank of the water, and the remainder was sprinkled over the heads of the worshippers to symbolize the fall of life-giving rain from heaven. But now these rituals held a deeper meaning.
The sibyls led a procession with the Stone into the Chapel, singing the Cherubic Hymn:
The stone approaches,
behold, the host of Heaven accompanies
the stone into the temple.
And suddenly the chapel was filled with luminous elusive forms: flying figures that swept overhead, pale robes and shining wings, along with the very real cherubim that marched before and behind the procession. The sibyls themselves were filled with wonder; trembling, they conveyed the sacred stone into the sanctuary where Ailia received it. The shining forms were seen to swarm around its light, like moths around a lamp, and the air was filled with a pale pearly radiance and a sweet ethereal singing. Many there claimed that Ailia too seemed radiant, as if her spirit showed through her flesh.
At the conclusion of the service the ethereal form of the Bird of Heaven flew up from the Stone and circled about their heads, singing with the sound of many voices raised in unison.
