“That,” Délin said, “you should not fear.”
“You do not get it,” Ifferon said. “Everyone expects me to act like some sort of god, to have all these powers and strengths, and I just can never live up to that. I am just a Man, Délin, just a Man with all of our flaws and weaknesses. If you cut me the blood of a god does not seep out; the blood of a Man does, and if I lose enough of it then I will die like any other. I feel less that I have inherited the greatness of the gods, but rather that I have inherited a burden.”
Délin shook his head. “I think it is you who do not understand, Ifferon. A god is not invincible or infallible. A god is not all-powerful. The Céalari have flaws like we do, because we were made in their image, and if the sculpture is imperfect, then so is the sculptor. This is not a disrespect to them, for you know well that my faith is my shield, and my honour my sword. Did Telm not die? Does Issarí not lose her vitality with each passing day? Did Aelor not make a fatal misjudgement when he trusted the lies of Molok, and do his people not die because he misjudged the potency of his magic? Gods can make the mistakes of Man, and Men can do the good deeds of gods. So we are all part of this together, and this is why all of our actions are so important, because to someone in this world we are a god, whether it is a child or a student, or just some one in need of support, someone to hear their prayer. So we offer our ear and our heart, and maybe this is why we were created, and maybe this is why we must fight for our fellow Man.”
Ifferon nodded. His heart was comforted, but his mind refused all comfort. He sat with Délin for a while, until finally he could barely see the silhouettes of the birds as they fluttered around in the darkening sky.
* * *
Thúalim worked tirelessly through the night, summoning storms and conjuring clouds. It seemed to the others that his hair would periodically spark, as if struck by miniature bolts of lightning, and when it was not being singed it was sent affray in a flurry of wind. Others went to sleep and the watches of the night were changed, but still Thúalim toiled, so that all who slept there dreamed of the works of weather.
Ifferon dozed uneasily, despite his many years in the monastery, where the storms of sea battered against the walls of his tiny room. He had not had as restless a sleep since the nights before the attack on Larksong, where the rumour of war made even the dead restless. He twisted and turned until the rock beneath him burrowed into his back, and its ache was somehow a comfort, for the pain was a reminder that he was still alive.
When dreams finally fetched for him, he saw many strange things. He saw a man atop a mountain, inviting lightning to strike, and he was a beacon to all around. He saw an army sneaking through the night, and the thunder masked their footfalls. He saw wood and steel, rock and iron, and he heard the clink of metal and the click of cogs—until finally the lightning was no longer from the sky, but blades clashing across the mountain, and the thunder was no longer from the clouds, but from the heaving catapults that swarmed the ground below. The drums of war joined the cacophony, and then an even harsher beat echoed from the Beast deep beneath the earth, urging them all to their deafening end.
When day finally came, Ifferon was relieved to be woken from the worries of the night. The sleep had wearied him, however, and he did not feel rested. From the sleep-clogged eyes of others, it seemed that they did not rest well either.
There was a sparse meal, while Rúathar surveyed the lands around. He sent up birds, and he went from window to window, staring eagerly into the fog that surrounded the mountain. Ifferon joined him and Thúalim, curious about how effective this latest ploy had been. From what he could see, or rather what he could not see, the sky had fallen upon the mountain, masking it in a thick veil of mist.
“So it has worked,” Rúathar said with relief. “The clouds will hide us.”
“But only for so long,” Thúalim said. “I do not have the energy to keep them here forever. Nature will fight me, and I expect the sorcerers of Agon will do too.”
As news broke across the mountain that Thúalim’s magic had been successful, it seemed that the cloud upon their minds had lifted. The rumour of safety began to spread, combating the long-standing rumour of impending doom. Some people began to emerge from the bunkers and cellars, and emerge from their gloom, and even the most entrenched haters of overcast weather now welcomed the dull, grey blanket that wrapped around them and kept away much crueller things.
As the people of the mountain rejoiced in their new fortune, Ifferon spotted something that brought new, darker clouds to his mind. Every so often there was a small break in the fog, and the seconds of clarity felt like long, arduous hours, for there upon the plains around the mountain, emerging from the forests all around, were tiny figures pushing and shoving great catapults towards the Mountain Fortress. The siege had begun.
X – THE MEETING OF FIRE AND WATER
Deep beneath the belly of the earth, below the graves of Men and the roots of Ferian trees, lay the Halls of Halés, the realm of the dead. There a rock harder than the stone of the earth was hewn, and there a fire hotter than the flames of a hearth burned. There also were chasms and chambers built by the Elad Éni, the gods before the gods in the Time Before Time, and none could escape the fate that awaited them in the Underworld—not even the Beast Agon, chained in the darkest depths beneath the deepest delvings.
None of the living could enter this land, and yet those who wandered there might not be truly dead, for it was thought that there is a link between this world and the next, and there are some who get lost on their way to the Hall of their fathers and mothers, and they endure the Long Wait, ageless and timeless, yet not without the pain of the dead. Yet there are some who test time and fight fate, and they risk all against the peril of the second death.
Melgalés awoke from a slumber not unlike that he enjoyed each night when living, but now it seemed that he awoke from the dream of life, knowing now a life in death. His bones did not ache like they did in the mortal world of Iraldas, but there was a hurt of soul that seemed much more real to him now, and he knew immediately that he was not enjoying the infinite rest that had been promised by so many, be they cleric of Olagh, Knight of Issarí, worshipper of Corrias, adherent of Aelor, or follower of Éala.
The rock beneath Melgalés was warm to the touch, yet it was a different kind of heat to that which he felt when huddling by a campfire or in the tender embrace of another. It was like experiencing a memory, feeling the echo of a sensation that had almost been forgotten. Yet all of the Magus’ memories were there, the joyful with the cruel, and it was another reminder that he had not yet entered the Hall of his final fate.
So I am dead, yet not worthy to enter my resting place, he thought. Suddenly he was aware of a great presence around him, which seemed to upset his mind, for it was everywhere and nowhere, until at least it settled behind him, and he felt as though he had spoken his very thoughts.
“Only the living judge such worth,” a voice older than time, or perhaps the voice of time itself, bellowed in the chambers.
Melgalés turned sharply, and it was almost as though he turned within his own body, for movement there was of a different kind to that in the land of the living above. His agile eyes settled on a draped figure, dark and vast, standing tall before a huge iron gate. The Magus suddenly realised he was sitting on the last step that led up to this giant entrance.
“You are dead,” the voice whispered, and it was the many voices of all spent souls. “But there will be no rest for you while you are restless.”
Melgalés clambered up, and simultaneously he realised that he was always standing, for time is but a memory to the dead, who are no longer bound by its chains. The figure looked at and through him, and its robes seemed to sink endlessly, even deeper than the ethereal rock that acted as a floor in this place, right down to dangle above the head of the tormented Beast.
“I know you,” the Magus said to the figure, and he realised he was rolling a bead from his braided hear between his finger
s, a crumb of comfort to one needing no sustenance.
“You are one of the few who study stories about me,” the shape said with a shift in form, as if to mock those tales, “but I know the truth of you.”
“The Gatekeeper,” Melgalés stated, and now the figure seemed to shrink slightly in size, as if the mere mention of the title gave the Magus some measure of power over it. “The last of the Elad Éni, the Old Ones.”
“So you know my office, but no more,” the Gatekeeper said, but it shrank again, for it knew what Melgalés knew, and thus it knew that the Magus had long studied the tomes of past Magi, even Elathon the Many-minded, who some say won a battle with Death, delivering many texts from the afterlife that presented the keys that many craved, yet few could carry. And so the Gatekeeper was aware that Melgalés knew a whole lot more than just the office of this fabled figure.
But knowledge alone is nothing in the face of the Gatekeeper, and Melgalés found a mind more powerful than any he had battled with. He knew not why he fought, for so many passed through the gate, even now as he struggled, and they simply gave in to what awaited them. But for Melgalés his doom was not within the doors of the Halls of his ancestors; instead he was left to linger on the threshold.
To the world of Iraldas, a Magus was powerful. To the world of Halés, a Magus was like any other: another soul ushered into the crowded Halls. Melgalés felt suddenly despondent, knowing deep inside the very essence of his being that he was somehow trapped.
“There are many prisons,” the Gatekeeper said, as if sensing his predicament. “Your body was one of them. The world of Iraldas is another. You have been freed from your captivity by the jailer called Life.”
“To be imprisoned by the jailer called Death, yes,” Melgalés said, “and his apprentice called the Gatekeeper.”
“So you have not lost your mirth, at least,” the Gatekeeper replied. “Yet if you think your present situation is a prison, then you know not what faces others. Listen closely and you will understand.”
Suddenly the caverns became deathly quiet, and Melgalés strained his ears to the edge of hearing. Then he heard it. The rumble. The rage. And he soon realised that he was even closer to the dwelling place of the Beast Agon. As he heard the echoes of the agonising wails, he realised that the prison of the Beast was not just the deep, dark cave with the thick, iron chains—it was the entire world.
“It is frightening,” the Gatekeeper said, though he did not sound frightened. “Agon is like a remnant of an ancient power, but then there were others more ancient and more powerful, so the darkness did not seem quite so dark then. Yet perhaps you will look upon your own bonds with a little more favour.”
“Perhaps,” the Magus said, “but I do not need to know the pain of another to understand the pain of my own, no, I do not, and the bonds that bite my own flesh will always feel more painful than those that bite another.”
“While the bonds still bite the other,” the Gatekeeper said, and Melgalés felt a shiver through his body, like the rumour of the second death.
The Magus paused, but as he thought now of his own bonds once more, the Gatekeeper became aware of his musings. “You wonder why you sit on the doorstep,” the Gatekeeper said.
“Yes,” Melgalés admitted. “Yes, I do. Have I not earned my reward?”
“Your reward?” the Gatekeeper quizzed. “Why should you be rewarded? You failed at living. You lost that game, so you lost your life. What have you done that deserves a reward?”
“I saved lives,” the Magus said. “I helped people. I was a guiding light to some—yes, to some.”
“Then maybe you will be a guiding light for some down here,” the Gatekeeper said, “for it is dark here on the doorstep, where the Waiting wander.”
“What am I waiting for?” Melgalés asked.
“Your soul,” the Gatekeeper said, and suddenly the Magus became aware that a part of him was missing, a part that was necessary, and yet a part that did not need to be fused to him to exist. “Your soul is in your Beldarian,” the Gatekeeper continued, “where you left it, where you housed it so that it would be safe from the world. And it is safe, so safe that even you cannot touch it.”
“I was taught that the soul is only housed there, that it is released when broken.”
“When broken,” the Gatekeeper said, and he almost smiled, if he were capable of such.
Melgalés sighed. “So I die, yet my Beldarian lives.”
“Yet if your Beldarian died, you would have died. Is life for one not enough?”
“It is not, no, not if I am chained here.”
“I see no chains,” the Gatekeeper said. “I hear no rattle.”
“But I feel them, yes, I feel them.”
“You will pass into the Halls when your Beldarian is destroyed,” the Gatekeeper revealed. “And there you can have your … reward, if you call it such.”
“So I linger here in the hopes that some beast will chew upon my Soul Pendant?” Melgalés asked. “What if it is buried beneath the soil and not even the weight of the world cracks it?”
“Then you will be waiting a very long time,” the Gatekeeper said. “And Chránán will smile in the Void, and his smile will stretch across the universe, where Time is called Lord.”
Melgalés’ despondency grew deeper, and he became aware that the Gatekeeper was gloating in his gloom, delighting in the devilry of death, to which Melgalés had no magic cure. He had supped from the Elixir of Life as an Ardúnar, and yet still he died, and part of him regretted that he had offered himself in sacrifice so that Ifferon and the others could live.
“So finally you think of others,” the Gatekeeper said, “and yet in so doing, you think more of yourself.”
“Mock me for my thoughts,” Melgalés said, “but you cannot mock my actions. I might now yearn for life, but I gave it up willingly for a noble purpose.”
“Who decides that your purpose was noble?”
“The forces of good,” the Magus said.
“What forces are those?” the Gatekeeper asked, and his voice became darker. “Do you mean the Hadari, the children of the gods, who included Molok the Animator, who tortured Agon into existence? Or do you mean the Céalari, the gods themselves, who rebelled against their own gods, launching a great war across Althar, and committing great atrocities, like the Harrowing of the Heavens, where many of the Elad Éni were tortured and killed, until finally Chránán and his court agreed to imprisonment in the Void, to avoid further bloodshed, only to be betrayed by Corrias, who slew the remaining Elad Éni? Tell me, Melgalés, where the forces of good were, and why they watched on?”
“I have no answer to that mystery,” the Magus replied.
“So a Man of the Mysteries is finally silent,” the Gatekeeper observed. “Here then is an answer to a mystery you are seeking, and perhaps the answer will give you more mysteries to solve.
“Your Beldarian is in the hands of another, yet you already knew that deep down, for you can sense him—and, in time, you will be able to see him, spying through the shewstone of the beldar gem.”
Melgalés felt the name slipping almost involuntarily from his lips. “Yavün,” he said.
* * *
Yavün awoke to what he thought was his endless drowning. When finally his panic subsided, he opened his eyes, but flinched as a drop of water splashed in them. Then another drop came, and another, until finally the ringing in his ears subsided enough that he could hear the constant drip, the somnolent splash that almost lured him back into whatever aching sleep he had just stirred from.
“We thought you would never wake,” came a voice like a woman drowning.
“I said the young fish cannot live out of water,” a male gurgling voice answered. “Throw him back, I said.”
“Don’t throw me back,” Yavün pleaded, the words sputtering out with some of the water and salt that still lingered in his mouth.
“He breathes,” the male voice said. “Reel him in.”
Yavün su
ddenly felt a coolness on his arms, and then even more suddenly he was pulled up so that he sat upright, his body aching, the water still blocking his vision. When finally his eyes adjusted, he flinched again, for he thought he saw two watery figures standing before him. He rubbed his eyes briskly, with what little energy he had, but their fluidic form only became clearer.
“We are not sharks,” the man said, though his voice was toothed like one. “The little fish is land-shocked,” he added. His mouth was almost like a fish himself, and every so often a tiny bubble of air would wander from it to the ceiling. Yavün stared at it, half-disgusted and half-entranced. It seemed as though there was a thin film that shaped the body of the Taarí figures, but inside was mostly water, and in the centre of their chest was a small glowing blue light, perhaps the equivalent of a heart.
The woman seemed worried. Before Yavün could fully gather his wits, she had fetched a bucket of water and thrown it into his face. “Can you breathe better, fish?”
The chill of the water struck Yavün’s senses, and suddenly he was very alert. As the water struck his face, it was like a tsunami to his mind, bringing back the tumbling and splashing, the steaming and frothing, and the suffocating panic of the liquid fray.
“Am I dead?” he asked. “Is this the place you go to when you drown?”
“Is he dead?” the man asked, and his inflection suggested he was just as curious to know the answer as Yavün was. “If he does not swim, does he live at all?”
“You are alive,” the woman said, placing her aqueous hand upon his shoulder; it felt much lighter than a hand of flesh. “He is alive.”
Yavün did not feel alive, and the location he was in offered little comfort. It appeared to be a cavern of some sort, deep beneath the earth, with a river running through it. It was cold and damp, and it was dark, save for the glitter of strange lanterns here and there, and the faint glow of the man and woman before him.
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