“Time for the puppet show!” The harlequin demon began cackling. It flapped its hand, and like a limp, wooden puppet being animated, Balin’s arms flopped and he said in a caricaturized voice, “Get them! Get them all!”
Raygar and his men hopped, flopped and flapped like marionettes around Egret as the jester fluttered his fingers. Others began to descend upon Etheil.
“Die! Die! Die!” chirped Balin, hopping like a puppet jerked by strings from his saddle.
Etheil saw Egret taken asunder by a sea of Dark Star Knights. He flourished Firebrand, but he could not in good conscience attack. These men were not themselves. They were being controlled by witchcraft. “Egret!” he yelled.
He watched as arms wrapped around Egret’s neck and waist; fists gripped his arms and legs.
Balin hopped in his saddle, his arms flapping, his jaw moving up and down like it was made of rigid wood, “You wanted to know what the Dark Holds are? How about you find out!”
The other Councilmen all began bouncing in their saddles, laughing.
“Egret!” yelled Etheil.
“Flee!” he heard Egret shout. “Flee before it’s too late! Warn Dagrir! Warn everyone!”
The Keepers began prancing up toward Etheil. He turned, just in time to see the jester’s foot rising up to stomp him. Without a thought, Etheil leapt from the bridge just as the foot crashed down. With every ounce of strength he had, he swirled his gravitational powers around him. He felt his power lightening his body, but he was still falling too fast. He felt the wind whipping against him; saw the green of the fields below coming up on him. The very fabric of his body burned as he desperately flexed all the power he could muster. He felt the swirling force encompass him. He felt the branches of a tree scrape his face and body, and then his legs crumpled and the breath was knocked from his lungs.
Etheil opened his eyes. He lay upon the ground for a moment, a terrible pain in his legs and waist muddling his consciousness. He rolled over onto his back. Above he could see the bridge. He saw that terrible, monstrous jester upon it; its wide, yellow eyes staring at him, its cackling filling the air.
Etheil tried to pick himself up, but fell back, hitting his head upon the ground. Then, a short distance away, he saw Warmouth laying upon the grass. He reached out his arm and dragged himself forward, inch by inch. Finally, the sword was in his grasp, and his fingers wrapped around the handle.
Etheil screamed in pain as he struggled to his feet the best he could, using Firebrand and Warmouth as crutches. It was difficult, as the swords sunk into the earth. He didn’t know how he did it, the world a blur of agony, but he got to his feet. He could feel his shins and femurs bend when he put too much weight on his legs. He growled as he took Warmouth from the ground and hobbled forward a step and then collapsed.
Etheil lay upon his back. High above he saw that monstrous harlequin and all his puppets making their way into the southern citadel. They were coming for him, he knew. He turned his head. There was a creek nearby, he could hear its trickling waters. He managed to get Firebrand back in its sheath, and he tucked Warmouth beneath the belt of his scabbard.
“Ahhrgh!” Etheil clenched tears from his eyes as he rolled. He rolled again and again, his legs burning. With another scream he rolled and his body plopped into shallow water. He felt the coolness rush beneath his armor, and for a moment the pain in his legs ceased. But only for a moment. He rolled onto his stomach. He was facing the direction of the creek’s current, and it headed eastward toward the line of the forest. He reached out his arm and pulled himself forward, the current helping to push him, and his body sliding on the muddy bottom. Now he used both arms and pulled himself along as quickly as he could, letting the creek take as much of his weight as he could.
On the air drifted that horrible giggling.
— 39 —
Dreams
Infinite blackness spread out in all directions, lit by a single, tiny spark that scintillated out into many points. The white brilliance of that last star was mesmerizing to Eulalee. In dreams such as this she would stare at it for hours, though she never dared approach, for she was terrified of what came for it. She watched from her place beside the earth and moon as a great dragon flowed like a current of darkness toward the star. It was blacker than the emptiness of space that surrounded it; a lightless void of immeasurable size that writhed in the boundless scope. The sight of the dragon was as enthralling as the star, though she would always turn from it if its eyes began orbiting toward her. The eyes were frightening and terrible. They were twin suns that burned as if in their death throes, wanting to consume everything in their fiery avarice. She didn’t know why the creature invaded her dreams, turning them from pleasant dances across the earth and moon into nightmares, but she knew why it was out there. It was there to devour the stars.
Every time a star fell her dream was the same. The black dragon tore it from its place in heaven and it crumbled like so much sparkling dust between its claws. When Eulalee was just a little girl there were a few dozen stars and in her dreams she would skip across the heavens, taking in their warmth and light. Today there was but one left. She didn’t know how long it would take the dragon to reach it, but once it did there would be nothing left in her dreams to return here for; nothing left to watch; no more warmth in the heavens to take in. The thought of a cold, dead expanse wasn’t very appealing to her and she wondered if she would ever come here again. She also wondered what the dragon would come for once the final star fell. Out of the corner of her eye she caught the sight of the earth and moon, and she shivered and turned from the sight of the beast.
It was then that Eulalee saw blue eyes, like twin gems, staring at her from behind the edge of the moon. Apparently not keen on her having taken notice, Eulalee saw pointy ears flatten and the face ducked behind the silver disc of the moon. Curious, Eulalee floated toward the moon and a sapphire wolf striped with amethyst bounded from it and into the heavens, leaving a trail of glittering dust in his wake.
Eulalee smiled. She floated toward the wolf and he watched her with suspicion, his head held low and his front leg out, ready to bolt away at any moment. “Hello.” said Eulalee. She reached out her hand. “Who are you?”
The wolf swished his tail and licked his maw. He made a whine and turned toward the earth.
“Please, don’t go.” said Eulalee. “I won’t hurt you.”
The wolf gave pause and returned his aquamarine eyes to her.
With her hand out before her, Eulalee drifted slowly toward the strange wolf. She wanted to stroke her hand through his fur and pet him. She had never seen the creature in her dreams before, though somehow he seemed familiar to her. “It’s okay.” she said softly as she came closer to the wolf. “I won’t hurt you.” Eulalee stretched her fingers out, but just before she was able to feel his fur, the wolf leapt from her range, leaving a trail of sparkling dust. The wolf barked at her.
Eulalee laughed as she waved her hand through the glitter he left. It felt like sparks, warm and pleasant to her fingers. She looked at the wolf and laughed again as she moved toward him.
The wolf barked again and bounded some distance from her.
Eulalee closed her eyes and breathed deeply as she swam through the sparkling dust of his pawprints, bathing in its soothing effervescence. She opened her eyes and looked at the wolf and he let loose a couple of playful barks and began dancing around her. A huge smile stretched across Eulalee’s face and she spread her arms wide and twirled, letting the wolf’s stardust swirl around her body. The wolf barked again and Eulalee reached out her hand, but the wolf slipped away before she could touch him. Laughing, Eulalee gave chase.
The wolf swished his tail to the right as he turned left, throwing Eulalee off. Then he circled back around her and Eulalee smiled as his soft tail caressed her cheek as he past. “What’s your name?”
The wolf barked at Eulalee and leapt
, bounding over her head. She reached her hand up into the bow of falling glitter and then turned to him. He was sitting a short distance from her, a long tongue hanging from his jaws and something of a smile upon his muzzle.
“My name is Eulalee.” she said, crouching low. She held out her hand and the wolf’s eyes fixed on it. “Won’t you let me pet you?”
The wolf seemed to appraise her for a moment, and then he stood up and slowly padded toward her, leaving more trails of stardust as he came. His big, black nose filled Eulalee’s hand as he buried it in her palm, his breath wuffling as he took in her scent. Then she felt the warm wetness of his tongue between her fingers.
Eulalee smiled brightly. “There you go.” she said softly as she brought her other hand up and slowly stroked behind his ear. The wolf looked at her and Eulalee cocked her head as she took in his face. It was so expressive that she was certain he was something more than just a beast. “You seem familiar. Have we met before?”
The wolf made a whining sound and turned his head left toward the empty blackness of space. He seemed to point into the distance with his nose.
“Over there?” asked Eulalee. “What’s over there?”
The wolf turned back to her and whined some more. There was something in his sad expression that suddenly gave Eulalee understanding. “Over there? We met over there?”
The wolf pressed his head against Eulalee’s chest as if wanting a hug, and Eulalee obliged by wrapping her arms around his shaggy body. “I don’t remember that dream.” she said.
The wolf pulled back from her and fixed her with his eyes. She couldn’t be sure, but the wolf seemed as if he were contemplating something; as if he wanted to say something to her. She supposed that wolves could speak in the abstract realm of dreams and she stroked her hand over his body and said, “What is it, boy? You can tell me.”
The wolf’s nostrils flared as he took in a breath. His jaws began to open, his lips moving as if they possessed the articulation for speech, but then his eyes fixed on something behind her and he padded backward and barked.
Eulalee craned her neck around. In the blackness there was a faint glow that began to resolve into a blinding-white form. Eulalee raised her arm to her head and closed her eyes, and when next she opened them, she saw Erygion encompassed by the glow of his Caliber. At his side was Karinael. They appeared diaphanous, like one of her drawings hanging on a sunny window.
“Eulalee! Eulalee!” cried Erygion. His voice sounded so distant, as if it had already traveled an eternity through the vastness of space.
Eulalee smiled faintly at them and gently waved her hand. For some reason Karinael made Eulalee feel shy. Eulalee drifted back from them, wanting to return to her games with the wolf, but Erygion beckoned to her again.
Eulalee heard the wolf whine. She turned and saw him nod at her. He nudged his head in the direction of Erygion and Karinael and then nodded at her again and let out a happy-sounding bark. And then he turned from her.
“Wait, don’t go!” cried Eulalee, but it was too late. The wolf bounded toward the bright, blue orb of earth and disappeared.
Eulalee turned back to Erygion and Karinael. She didn’t know why the two Saints were showing up in her dreams. It had started with Erygion not so very long ago, after he had told her he was leaving for Duroton. She had a nightmare where Erygion was sinking into a watery abyss, being drowned by a creature with black tentacles. In her dream she had pulled him from the monster’s clutches, but she didn’t remember much else, although that terrible, yellow eye in the dark water still haunted her. Over the last couple of years she had become friends with Erygion and she figured the dreams were a symptom of her missing him and wondering if he was okay.
“Eulalee, you must listen to me,” urged Erygion. “There is something you must do.”
“I know.” said Eulalee. “I’ve kept your secret.” In many ways, she said it to reassure herself. Before he fled Sanctuary, Erygion tasked her with something she didn’t know if she could fulfill, and didn’t know if she could keep secret. Maximiel had nearly stumbled upon it the day he threw Preil from her window. Perhaps it was the burden of this secret that was eating at her and manifesting Erygion within her dreams? “Have you made it to Duroton yet? I’m going to receive my Call to Guard. The Holy Few told me that they are going to have Nuriel apprentice me.”
“Eulalee, you must be careful around Nuriel.” said Karinael.
It was common knowledge at Sanctuary that Karinael and Nuriel had been good friends in their youth, and that Nuriel apprenticed Karinael as a Saints Caliber. Eulalee assumed Karinael appeared in her dreams as a product of having been told that she would apprentice with Nuriel too. A few nights ago Erygion and Karinael had appeared in her dreams to ask her to shepherd them to a Saint named Hadraniel. Eulalee didn’t understand the encounter, but her dreams were often confusing. She had stopped trying to make sense of them long ago.
“Eulalee, our time grows short.” said Erygion. He and Karinael drifted toward Eulalee. “You have to listen to me. There is a woman named Celacia in Duroton. You need to try to reach out to her with your Caliber. You need to find her, and guide Hadraniel to her.”
Eulalee moved away from them. She didn’t have time to be drawn into another strange dream right now. “I have to go. Nuriel is receiving her honorific today and I want to watch.”
“Eulalee, wait!” cried Erygion as she continued drifting back from him and Karinael. “Our time dwindles! Please, listen to me while you can! Reach out to Celacia with your Caliber! You can find her! Reach your Caliber toward the place of death!”
Eulalee shook her head. Erygion knew her Caliber had the ability to touch upon the realm of the dead. He had tried to get her to find Celacia before, but Eulalee was terrified of that realm and she walled it off from her Caliber. Whenever she touched upon it she would be flooded by a thousand disparate voices, each one wanting something from her. Eulalee had heard the stories of Saint Asriel who had the power to hear the whispers of the dead. Asriel disappeared from Sanctuary many years ago, and it was rumored that she had gone mad and thrown herself from the peaks of Mount Empyrean. The last thing Eulalee wanted was to end up mad.
Eulalee shook her head at Erygion. “I’m sorry, I have to go now.”
“Eulalee, wait!” cried Erygion, but Eulalee drifted from their sight, disappearing around the silver disc of the moon.
Eulalee’s dream now shifted, and she found herself but a grain of sand floating before the colossal, turbulent, burning-white wrath of the lone star. Pressure waves of radiant energy spilled over her, whipping her crimson hair back and cascading out in all directions across the heavens. Eulalee smiled and spread her arms wide, taking in the star’s warmth and energy. But then a coldness engulfed her.
Eulalee spun around. In the unending blackness of the heavens, that immeasurable shadow encroached upon her and the star. Even from this distance the dragon’s head was all consuming, and the star was but a fragile bauble to its greatness. Its eyes were like dying suns—massive, fiery, fierce and full of molten wrath. They focused upon Eulalee, and she found herself frozen in terror.
“Little thing,” it spoke, and the power of its voice sent ripples coursing across the surface of the star. “I once warned you that the hour was late, but you did not heed my words. You should not have come here. The end is nigh!”
The beast’s jaws opened wide. Its fangs were the very pillars of the universe; its throat the lightless void of nothingness. Eulalee screamed as her body was ripped into a cloud of atoms, spiraling into a crushing, inescapable doom.
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
Eulalee sat up from her desk with a start, her chest heaving beneath her steel breastplate. It took her a moment to realize she was in her dorm room with the gray light of an overcast day streaming through her window. The curtains fluttered with a chilly, mountain breeze and Eulalee shivered b
eneath her gown. She dropped the pencil that was in her hand and rubbed at her eyes. Then she looked down at what she had been drawing before having dozed off. It was a picture of a black serpent. Its clawed hands were wrapped around a star and its jaws wide to devour it.
With a frown, Eulalee rolled up the drawing and set it aside. She looked back at her window and sucked her bottom lip as she contemplated whether or not she should actually go through with her plan to sneak into the Saints Garden. Rumors had spread throughout Sanctuary that Saint Nuriel was to receive her honorific today. The ceremony was known as the Cremation of Burden, where one of the Saints Caliber was given an honorific title for a special accomplishment, and the burden of the deed was cast away. Like a Call to Guard ceremony, it was a private affair and very few were allowed to attend. Eulalee, of course, had not been invited but she did know of a way in which she could catch a glimpse of the ceremony. Nuriel was her favorite Saint, and would also soon be her mentor. She couldn’t let the chance to see Nuriel receive such an honor just slip away.
But there was something more than that. The ceremony would also offer her a glimpse of Holy Father Admael in the flesh. All her life she had longed to see him; to gaze with her own eyes upon the face she thought she could remember when she was just a baby. Those memories of a kind, loving, old man with hands as warm and delicate as a summer breeze were so real, yet so much a dream, she couldn’t determine if they were authentic.
Her dreams were often like that: so real but so strange that they just couldn’t possibly be true. Much like the one she had just had, with that strange, blue wolf. She swore she could still feel the tingle of its stardust in her hands. But that couldn’t possibly have been real. Her dream of Admael, however, was different; it wasn’t so abstract. She was certain she had been held by him as a baby. And Eulalee just knew that if she could be in his presence she would know for sure if it was real.
Eulalee sighed. It was just after noon now, and the ceremony would be starting within the hour. She tapped her finger on her desk. Over the years Eulalee had found a few chances to slip into the Gardens and sneak glimpses of Admael during other ceremonies, but she had always thought better of it, not wanting to risk getting caught. The punishment would be severe, she knew, but today was just too much a temptation.
Here Shines the Sun Page 74
