“I can bring her to you,” Azariah said. He gestured to the girl oblivious to the tear in the fabric of reality mere feet away. “I can pull Aullienna through this gate, returning her to Dezrel not unlike what Ashhur did to us Wardens. Do you still believe I have nothing to offer? Or would you deny yourself the dream of every grieving parent that lived before you?”
The elf froze, her grip upon the staff so tight her fingers had turned white. She stared at her deceased daughter, a wave of tears beginning their descent down her slender cheeks. Azariah stepped closer, and he softened his voice. He had once been a comforting presence to the suffering. He could be so again, if it suited his needs.
“You could play with her again,” he whispered. “Watch her grow as she was meant to grow. Think of it, Aurelia. She could meet her sister. She could cuddle in the arms of her father. The trauma of exiting the eternal lands will fade from her mind, I assure you, the comforts of the Golden Eternity drifting from her like a pleasant dream. All you must do is give me your promise that you will let me escape. My life, for the return of hers. It is more than a fair trade, given that I offer you the impossible, and you offer me only what would take the snap of your elven fingers and a few deceitful words in the right ears.”
Aurelia stood before the portal, openly weeping. Her hand hovered in front of the entrance, fearful to touch it as if it were made of fire. Stroking the cheek of her daughter, Azariah realized. Wishing her fingers touched warm skin instead of air.
“I’ve missed you,” the elf whispered. Haunting sorrow clung to her every word. “You’re just as beautiful as I always imagined you’d be.”
So close, Azariah knew, she was so close. She just needed one last gentle push.
“How could you turn down such a gift?” he asked. “I give you the opportunity to see your daughter again. Do not forfeit this over misguided pride or a faulty sense of justice.”
Aullienna looked to some unseen thing in the distance, and the sight of it stirred a joyful laugh. This was it, Azariah felt certain. She would accept. The laughter broke her. The elf’s entire body shivered as if stricken by a fever. Her tears fell without ceasing, that childish laugh unsealing a thousand memories Aurelia had long buried beneath grief and time. No matter how strong her resolve, Azariah knew his temptation was successful. How could anyone choose to willingly endure such sorrow when given a chance to rectify it?
Yet Aurelia somehow turned away. It looked as if it caused her physical pain, but she put her back to the image of eternal calm. The staff shook in her grasp. The change that came over her was like watching water turn to stone. It was like watching humanity created from clay in the time of Paradise.
“To think you would ever believe me so selfish,” she said. “Velixar would be proud of your honeyed words. I have prayed over her pyre, Azariah. I have mourned, and given her my sorrow. I would not return her so she might suffer anew. I would not ask her to feel death’s sting twice. In this second life you promise her, I see ashen skin, jagged teeth, and withered wings. I deny you, Azariah. I deny your gift, for it is no gift at all. You offer me nothing I shall not one day already have. Without you, I shall meet my daughter again, only it will be on verdant fields that stretch beyond the horizon, in a land without anguish, hunger, sorrow, or loss.”
“Don’t be a fool,” Azariah said, vainly trying to salvage the situation. “After all the sacrifices your family has made, is it not fair that you be rewarded in kind? Will you not heed my promise?”
“You once promised you would conquer Dezrel with Ashhur’s grace,” she said. “You indeed brought conquest, but there is no grace here, only a cruel mockery meant to save your own life. I will have none of it, fallen one.”
She slammed the butt of her staff against the tower floor. A shockwave rolled with it, so heavy it flung Azariah to his knees and toppled reams of books from the bookshelves. The thirteen runes surrounding the portal exploded into chalk. The image of the Golden Eternity flickered once and then faded, the portal sealed away with a loud, shrieking hiss.
In the sudden silence, the sound of steel drawn from scabbards was deafening.
“You’re a real bastard, Azariah,” Harruq Tun said. He stood at the doorway, having entered at some point when both Azariah’s and Aurelia’s attention were focused on the portal. “And just when I think you can’t sink any lower, you find a way to fall so deep into the dirt you should be popping out through the roof of the Abyss.”
“You would refuse it too?” Azariah asked, scrambling back to his feet. “You, who has carried Aullienna’s name like chains across your neck every day since her death? You, who used her very memory to split the sky and bring us rushing forth to Dezrel’s salvation?”
The half-orc twirled Salvation and Condemnation in his hands and joined his wife’s side.
“Stop talking, angel,” he said. “She made the right choice. She always does.”
Azariah summoned fire and ice about his hands as he steeled himself for battle. Taking on either foe would be a challenge, but it appeared he need not do so alone. The glass panes above him shattered, and amid their colorful shower his Executor descended. Judarius’s enormous mace slammed downward to obliterate the half-orc. Harruq blocked the blow, his reflexes ever-perfectly honed. The entire tower seemed to rock from the collision of their weapons, but Harruq did not relent. His legs tensed, and he shoved Judarius back.
“Need to try better than that,” the half-orc said.
Judarius hovered beside Azariah, and he cast an unpleasant look to his brother.
“I pray you weren’t seeking to abandon me here on Dezrel.”
“We are all abandoned,” Azariah said. “You were meant to prevent them from reaching the castle.”
“Our foes are ever the slippery ones.” Judarius glared at Harruq. “You’ve been lucky before, half-orc, but your good fortune ends this day. Dezrel will not fall into mortal hands.”
Aurelia’s magic gathered atop her staff in the form of brilliant golden fire. Beside her, Harruq grinned for the first time since entering the tower.
“You know what, Azariah?” He clanged his swords together, the red aura about them shimmering with bloodlust. “I’m going to kill you both, and when I do, I promise you, it’s going to fucking hurt.”
“No, Harruq, not both,” Aurelia said, as much savagery showing in her eyes as her husband’s. She grinned a devilish grin as orbs of fire swirled about her, summoned by a mere twitch of her fingers. “Azariah asked that I deceive the world by claiming I charred his corpse to ash, and with all gods and goddesses as my witnesses, I shall make a truth out of his desired lie.”
30
Jessilynn sprinted up the steps to Mordeina’s castle, her bow and quiver thudding against her back. Her eyes locked on Dieredon, who had landed near the cast entrance and rolled halfway down the steps. The panic threatening her mind was so overwhelming she refused to acknowledge it. Every thought ceased to be as she ran to him. All other distractions, she denied. No noticing the way his legs were bent entirely wrong from his fall. No looking at the blood pouring from the savage gash across his chest. No dwelling on if the wound and fall had been fatal. Just run. Just close the distance.
She arrived at his side and dropped to her knees. Her hands pressed against the wound. Warm blood flowed beneath her palms. “You…you’ll be fine,” she pleaded. “My prayers, they’ll—they’ll heal you.”
“No, don’t,” Dieredon sputtered, blood coming out along with his words. He tried to push her aside. She refused him, pushing back when he went to remove her hands.
“I can,” she said. “I will!”
He lay still beneath her, though if he was accepting of her help or simply lacked the strength to fight, she did not know. No time to find out. Her eyes closed and she bowed her head, begging to her god for aid. All her life, she had trusted Ashhur to be with her, to watch out for her, but now more than ever she needed him. He’d been there for her when she was trapp
ed with the wolf-men. He’d been there with her throughout her childhood, during those difficult early years at the rebuilt Citadel. He’d be with her now. He had to. He had to.
“Please, Ashhur, I beg you,” she whispered, keeping her hands pressed to the wound. She dared not watch. She dared not look for the holy glow. “Heal this wound, my god, please. Mend the flesh. Make right the body, so the soul might remain.”
There should have been a soft, gentle ringing in her ears, or the distant ringing of bells. Jessilynn lifted her gaze. She still saw the blood. The wound remained. The only distant sound she heard was the clash of swords and the cries of the dead as the fallen fought their war against Ashhur’s remaining loyal angels.
“It’s not your fault,” Dieredon said. He grabbed her elbow and clung to her with the last of his strength. “I didn’t...I didn’t want you to blame...yourself.”
The color drained from his body faster than the blood pouring down the steps. Tears blurred Jessilynn’s vision, and she angrily wiped them away with her sleeve. The blood was cloying to the touch. The smell of it overwhelmed her senses. Sonowin’s hoofbeats clopped upon the stone behind her, the faithful steed coming to inspect her master, but Jessilynn could not spare the horse any attention.
“No,” she said. “No, these prayers, I–I–I just need to try to—harder.”
She pressed her hands to the wound and pleaded for Ashhur to hear her once more. She begged for healing magic. Deep down, she refused to believe herself abandoned here and now. Not when victory was so near. But the words she spoke, they remained just words, just air. No light. No power. As the elf grew more and more still, his breathing shallow, she couldn’t even form the words anymore. She sobbed over him, trying not to hate herself, and failing.
“Don’t,” Dieredon said. He put a trembling hand to her chin and slowly lifted her head so she would cease the prayer. “You were ever...a perfect student.”
Sonowin leaned down over the elf, her wings folded in against her sides. Her nose brushed his face, and he patted her jowl, smearing the white of her hair with his blood.
“I’ll miss you, too,” said the elf. Despite it all, he coughed out a weak laugh. “It’s...it’s funny. These steps...I belong here. Foolish Haern. Took my place for...for nothing.”
His hand went limp and fell to the stone. The elf breathed his last on the steps of Mordeina’s castle. Jessilynn collapsed, her strength completely gone. The months of travel, of fighting, of bleeding to save innocents only to watch them slaughtered by beast-men or fallen angels, broke her completely. She wept over Dieredon’s body, but her tears and sorrow could not overcome the rage that swallowed her. Her hands clutched Dieredon’s shoulders as she looked to the war-torn sky.
“Are you there, Ashhur?” she asked the raging battle. “Are you with us? Or must we suffer alone?”
Angels and fallen clashed, fought, bled, died. Was Ashhur with them?
“Will you not let me save even those I love?”
Fury brought her to her feet. She could not see Ashhur in the sky, but she could imagine him up there. Had the sky not split? Did the Golden Eternity not lurk behind the blue curtain? All her rage, all her broken fury, she projected to the unseen father she had envisioned guiding her throughout her life. Her voice might mean nothing against the cacophony of war, but she offered it anyway.
“Are you even listening!” she screamed.
“No,” said Darius. “He is not.”
Jessilynn spun around. The dead paladin stood at the base of the steps, his form faintly illuminated with the same blue-white glow that had once shone from her holy arrows. His long blond hair waved in an unseen wind. His dark armor was gleaming, his face handsome and without a scar or blemish. All the world dimmed at his presence, and it seemed time itself slowed to a crawl. Darius pressed a hand to Sonowin’s neck, comforting the grieving animal. What joy Jessilynn might have felt at his presence was muted by the body at her side and the battle overwhelming the human capital.
“Is that possible?” she asked, suddenly regretting her outburst. “He’s...he’s a god. He’s our god.”
Darius pressed his forehead to Sonowin’s, then left the horse’s side to climb several steps to where Dieredon lay. He looked upon the body with a mixture of sadness and pity.
“Because his eyes are fixed,” he said, and he pointed up the castle tower. “In there. Upon the battle he eagerly awaits.”
“I...I don’t understand.”
Darius put a hand on her shoulder. His gaze never left the elf’s body. “He and Karak were once one, and will always seek to be one. This was destined from the very first moment they set foot upon the world of Dezrel. They have fought this battle, not once, not twice, but a hundred times. Karak and Ashhur, Bardaya and Velixar, Bernard and Melorak, Harruq and Qurrah, Cyric and myself, and now Ahaesarus and Azariah. Over and over, they dance. Over and over, they war. It has changed him, Jessilynn.”
“A god can’t change,” Jessilynn insisted. “Ashhur is the same as he has always been.”
“And yet we preach that Karak changed once he was given the sinful and traitorous to rule amidst his fire.”
“This...you can’t be right. Ashhur hasn’t changed. He watches over us. He loves us.”
Darius smiled, and she wished she could have known him in life. She wished she could have walked alongside him, learned from him, and known him as something more than the stories her mentor had told.
“Jessilynn,” he said. “If that were true, that Ashhur’s eye never strayed...do you think I could be speaking with you? Could I, a soul of the dead who should be in the Golden Eternity, instead linger here on Dezrel?”
It was an argument she could not defeat. Long had the teachings of Ashhur insisted there were no such things as ghosts and hauntings, for such implied that Ashhur was not master of the afterlife, or that Celestia could somehow lose track of something so divine and important as a soul. Yet here Darius stood, and if he were not a gift from Ashhur...what else might he be? What else could it mean?
“I still don’t understand,” she said. “How is Ashhur different? Do we not still feel his blessing? Has he not given us strength and guidance?”
“Means to an end,” Darius said. He looked to the sky, and when she followed his gaze, she saw Ahaesarus flying through the air wielding the paladin’s former blade in warfare against the fallen. “Strength, so we may find victory. Guidance, so our light outshines that of Karak’s darkness. That’s all that matters now to him. Not salvation. Not the love of his children. Only victory in his name. So long as we believe our righteousness is defined by our victories, we will ever confuse the two.”
The paladin shook his head. He looked so divine, and yet so broken.
“It will continue,” he said. “Again and again, this cycle never-ending. And I fear that when Ahaesarus strikes Azariah down, it will only be yet another stepping stone in their war. Ahaesarus will become king, and the newfound power will corrupt him as it always corrupts. Once he has become what he hated, another loyal follower of Ashhur will rise up to prove his faith is stronger. Dezrel will never move on. Karak’s followers will stir, and then two more champions shall clash. This dance, this cycle, this war, however you wish to name it, has refused to cease even at the end of the world. The splitting of the sky did not end it. What now shall be the cause?”
Jessilynn trembled. Such confessions from a loyal paladin, whose faith she had never doubted, filled her with a fear that ran deep down into her bones.
“If you’re right, then Ashhur did not used to be as he is now. There was a time he meant what he preached of forgiveness. He sought peace on Dezrel, did he not?”
“Despite the perversion of facts the fallen have told you, yes. There was once a peaceful Paradise.”
“And Ahaesarus himself once walked this Paradise, this land without war, at his god’s side?”
“He did.”
Jessilynn took Darius’s hands into hers.
So many times in her life, this specter of a man had come to her when she needed support most, but for once, she felt it right to give something back.
“Then Ahaesarus knows that was ever the goal. He knows the gods sought to grant us happiness, life, and love. There’s still a chance to end this, Darius! Ahaesarus isn’t too far gone, I know it! Caught up in this war, he’s only forgotten.”
A faint smile tugged at the sides of Darius’s mouth. He leaned down to kiss her forehead. The touch of his lips was like fire to her skin. He whispered to her, his words so powerful it seemed the entire world quaked along with them.
“Beloved child, if that is true, then remind him.”
The paladin disappeared. The muted colors of the world returned to their painful, stark vibrancy. Jessilynn lifted her bow, and she looked to the nearby tower. It was that tower Darius said Ashhur’s eyes were fixed upon, so that would be where she went.
“I am a poor replacement,” she told Sonowin, who stood protectively over the body of her slain master. “But will you give me one last flight?”
The majestic beast clomped her hoof and nodded. Jessilynn had always wondered how much the winged horse understood. Perhaps it was far more than she first guessed. Jessilynn climbed atop her back, wrapped her hands about her neck, and held on as Sonowin’s wings spread wide. They took to the air, only this time she did not try to fire her bow. She had her destination, and nothing could stop her.
There was no space for Sonowin at the top of the curling steps winding their way outside the tower, so she slowed to a hover just beside the enormous door. Jessilynn hopped off and turned to face the beast. Sonowin neighed twice and wiggled her head. Somehow Jessilynn felt certain she knew exactly what she wanted.
“Thank you,” she said. “Return to him if you must. I’m...I’m sure he’d be honored.”
Sonowin neighed one final time and then curled back around toward the steps far below. She would watch over her master, even in death. Perhaps it was the only way the winged horse knew how to grieve. Jessilynn envied her. She wanted nothing more than to collapse and weep over the dead, but there was no time. The door was already cracked open an inch. The sounds booming from within were of battle, and a moment of caution had her peek inside instead of entering.
The King of the Fallen Page 30
