Confluence
Satinka thrust her head into the enormous rotunda, her mouth gaping open as she trumpeted her rage and bloodlust. The sound was deafening; Caelith felt the sharp stabbing pain of it deep in his ears. The sound also chilled him. Satinka was by far the cruelest of the dragons in the Five Domains, and no human in all those lands was more hated by her than his father.
No, he realized, not his father; their father. The story of Galen’s battle on the Election Fields was legendary; how he used the Deep Magic to disrupt the war. That battle was supposed to determine which of the other dragons were to mate with Satinka; but Galen had spoiled it and Satinka had not gotten her brood. If Ekteia had made it known to the Dragonqueen that both of Galen’s sons were here, nothing could have stood between Satinka and her most delectable revenge.
Jorgan stumbled backward, tripping over the debris and falling painfully, his back against the floor. Satinka snapped toward the clamor, her enormous head rearing back, drawing in air to fuel the flames of her terrible breath.
Caelith adjusted his stance, finding his footing. Conjuring up whatever was at hand within the dream, he lashed out, lightning and hail exploding from his fingertips, slamming against the jaw of the dragon. It deflected the dragon’s head just as she released her spew. She bellowed at the insult, her gargantuan talons pulling fitfully at the stones of the dome, desperate to reach fully into the ancient hall and tear at her prey. The flaming discharge continued as her head reeled, its inferno circling the chamber overhead, its blistering heat radiating down on the instantly illuminated room.
Caelith saw clearly the frescoes, illuminated in the light of the dragon’s flame.
“Jorgan!” Caelith shouted. “We have to do this together! Help me!”
Caelith looked around only to realize he was in the open, exposed.
He dropped the bronze globe from his hands, diving for cover behind a huge fallen ceiling stone.
Aislynn felt exposed. The device was nearly assembled. All she needed to do was slide the spindle properly back into place.
“I am sorry, Aislynn,” Valthesh choked from where Gosrivar held her and tried to comfort the badly wounded Seeker. They were at the foot of the broken pillar, the stone faery moaning over them both. “I should have told you. Should have trusted you.”
“Yes, but trust was never one of the stronger qualities in your family, was it, Valthesh?” Shaeonyn interjected. As she stepped forward, Aislynn could see that part of her cheek had been torn away, exposing a rotting jaw and gray teeth underneath.
“But we always keep our word,” Valthesh gurgled, red-flecked foam gathering at the corner of her mouth. “I found you, after all.”
“How very tragic you won’t be able to keep all your promises.” Valthesh sighed. “Your father thought he could stop me—it was his hand that killed me to begin with—but imagine my surprise when a little upstart Seeker from such a tiresome house as Qestardis called my soul out of torment and gave me form once more? To be among the living again and to find that I had powers like her own; it was a great gift this Sharaj has given me. Oh, and to be rid of the burden of truth! It allowed me to pay your father back for taking my life, Valthesh, and now it seems I get to take yours as well. How sad for you.” She smiled, baring the charred, rotting region of her cheek.
“You killed her father?” Gosrivar asked quietly.
“Well—yes, I did,” Shaeonyn sighed, “although it is difficult to remember after so many. One tends to lose track.”
“Why?” Gosrivar asked in horror.
“It was my duty,” Shaeonyn replied sharply, deep, painful sarcasm seeping into her voice. “My great duty to my great house! I spied; I seduced; I killed; all in the name of Lady Milindral and to the greater glory of House Mnemnoris. And when I was of no more use to them, I was betrayed to her father of House Vargonis so that he could destroy me and save them the embarrassment. But I knew my own past, old man! I knew I would have to face Aelar the Enlightened One for an accounting of my life. I clung to this existence with a will of steel rather than face his judgment of my soul.”
“Ularis was from House Mnemnoris,” Aislynn spoke, taking a step back. The device rested nearby but there were several pieces left to be set in place. She could never complete it before Shaeonyn stopped her.
“Ularis was foolish,” Shaeonyn said dismissively. “Of all the people Lady Milindral could have sent after me, he was no challenge at all.”
“Another death?”
Shaeonyn shrugged. “What’s one more—especially with so much at stake? Give me the device.”
“You missed a spot,” Aislynn said.
Shaeonyn stopped, reached up with her hand to the blistered hole in the side of her face, and smiled with minor discomfiture. “How embarrassing of me,” she demurred, gesturing over the regions with her fingers. In moments she was whole again, the perfect, chill beauty Aislynn had known.
Aislynn cast a quick glance behind Shaeonyn. There were but fifteen of the Black Guard remaining. Obadon had done well against so many. Yet it was Deython, the Commander of the Dead, standing behind Shaeonyn, that she looked at most carefully. He held in his hand the sword she had given to Obadon not so long ago. His blank eyes were focused on Aislynn as she spoke, listening carefully to everything she was saying.
“So, are you saying that there is a life beyond this one,” Aislynn responded carefully, taking another step back, “and judgment that you are most anxious to avoid?”
Shaeonyn took a purposeful step toward the Oraclyn. “Why should the dead submit to anyone’s verdict? Here we shall remain for all time, living out eternity without fear of retribution.”
“And what of those who do not fear such judgment?” Aislynn asked. “This device was broken; it may have freed you from responsibility for your past, but it condemns all the other souls of the Fae from reaching their enlightenment.”
“We must all die sometime, Aislynn,” Shaeonyn said quietly, taking another step toward the Princess, her hand rising slowly over her head. A black globe was forming about her hand, a whirling mass of insectlike winged creatures growing in size and number. “What do I care for enlightenment? We shall rule all the face of the world, for there is nothing more inevitable than death! It is time for you to join us, Aislynn—you and your friends. Then I shall undo here what you have done; we will have cheated the gods!”
“But what of the spirits of those who seek the enlightenment?” Aislynn pleaded, taking a final step, her back pressed against the moaning stone faery of the pillar. “We are all flawed; what about them?”
“It’s just a black unknown,” Shaeonyn breathed. “Better they should live forever in shadows. Better they should never know enlightenment.”
Deython let out a terrible cry. Shaeonyn turned. The Commander of the Dead was lunging toward her with all his strength. She loosed her magic on him, encasing him in a deadly globe, its winged members biting him as it tried to tear chunks of flesh from his body. But Deython was of the Black Guard pearls and his body was formed of the sea made solid. He reached quickly around behind Shaeonyn’s neck, grasping it firmly in his left hand. His right hand thrust forward with the sword.
Shaeonyn cried out in horror.
Aislynn leaped out of the way, falling hard on her side, her hands still clutching the pieces of the device.
Deython’s momentum carried them both against the broken pillar. The blade of the Soulreaver sliced through Shaeonyn’s body and deep into the pillar itself.
“Free!” cried the stone faery from the stones above them. The stone began to bleed brilliant red from where the Soulreaver had penetrated the stone. “Blessed Aelar! We are free!” With that the stone faery crumbled, its lime cascading down around Deython.
The Commander of the Dead stepped back. Shaeonyn’s body, maintained by the Deep Magic for many years, lay pinned by the sword to the pillar. Her hair had fallen to wisps of white, thin and pale, and her skin became mottled gray, pulled back from her lips in a hideous grin. Her eyes were vacant sockets of fading light. Yet, even as Aislynn watched in horror, the head lifted up, its bony hands reaching for her.
“No,” Aislynn said firmly, a shudder running through her.
She turned back to the device and slid the last pieces quickly into place.
Satinka’s head recoils, but I know it is more from the shock of my blow than from any real damage. She pulls backward in her panic, dragging down the entire northern wall of the rotunda. Dust fills the vast hall, and I cannot keep myself from coughing. I am having trouble seeing, yet there are figures that seem to be moving nearby. The winged woman and the demon! Each of them are here—or some form of them, for once again I seem to be both in the world and in the dream at once. Each of them holds a bronze globe like the one near my feet. I see the pedestal through the dust in the air.
Both of them seem to be placing their own globe-shaped devices on their own pedestals.
I reach down and set mine on my own.
BOOK OF CAELITH BRONZE CANTICLES, TOME IX, FOLIO 1, LEAF 86
Thux woke up. He could hear the sounds of battle outside, the shouts and songs of the ogres and the dull thud of the titans beating down the outer walls of the city.
“How extraordinary,” he thought. “I wonder if it is possible to actually fix something that doesn’t exist?”
He drew himself up to sit on the throne in the dim hall. He examined the ball critically for a moment, found the appropriate symbol, and pressed it.
Instantly, the hall was ablaze in light. Thux smiled and encouraged himself. “Well, that’s promising!”
When he placed both hands on the bronze globe before him, Thux suddenly felt himself become lighter and lighter. The walls around him became transparent and smaller. It was as though he were becoming the entire Trove, his legs its foundations and his arms their towers. It was an odd sensation to be sure, since he now felt that he had eight legs and an equal number of arms at his disposal. As he thought about it, he found that he was rising higher and higher into the air on his enormous legs, the massive titans before him looking more like toys than imposing machines of war.
I wonder if I might just kick them over? he thought.
Lithbet decided the battle was going well. The outer wall of the city was breaking apart nicely and, other than a number of unsightly dents in her fine titan, the local ogres—while no doubt capable of squashing any of her goblin Technomancers like bugs if they were outside of their titans—were no match for them inside their titans. Just a few more hours of smashing walls and the whole thing would pretty much be over.
Sad, really, she thought; there just was not much challenge left in combat any longer. You take your big old titan out on the field and smash whatever you need to smash in order to take whatever you want to take. Not a great deal of strategy was involved. Still, she would add the victories to her credit—after all, no one cares how you won so long as you win.
“General!” her driver squawked. “Come quickly!”
“Oh, what now,” Lithbet whined.
“Probably wants to know when the victory dinner is scheduled,” Istoe sniffed. “Say, when is the victory dinner scheduled?”
“Tonight after dusk,” Lithbet replied, climbing out of the mouth of the titan—her command headquarters—and up the ladder to the right eyeball. “Well, what is it, Smesh? Are the ogres making faces at—”
Lithbet stopped, her jaw dropping.
Behind the inner wall of the city, the buildings seemed to be lifting up, rising higher and higher. Long arms rose out of the towers around the perimeter of the inner city, their clawed hands nearly a hundred feet across. Rising farther, the city stood on eight mechanical legs like some titanic beast. Dirt, bricks, and stone cascaded from the edges of the city as it continued to rise even higher into the evening sky. Soon the base of the buildings cleared the wall, revealing a stained metal dish on which the entire center of the city was apparently built.
“The city,” Istoe gulped next to Lithbet. “The city is a titan!”
“What shall we do, General,” Smesh asked nervously.
Lithbet gulped. “Does anyone here know how to surrender?”
Caelith stumbled through the debris, panicking for a moment, unsure where he had dropped the bronze device. He caught a glimpse of it, however, and quickly snatched it from the ground.
“Jorgan!” Caelith shouted. He could hear no reply; he only hoped the Inquisitas was still out there somewhere. In a few steps, Caelith reached the pedestal. He could hear Satinka pushing her way through the fallen wall. In moments she would be near enough to smell him.
Caelith placed the globe firmly down on the pedestal.
The light from the Pillar of the Sky unfolded, radiating outward from the globe, a wave of power that suddenly swept the dust from the hall with painful clarity. He could see the dragonstaffs lining the walls, the eye of each glowing brightly in the light of the bronze globe.
At once, Satinka saw him standing in the center of the room. She pushed herself further into the hall, her rows of razor-edged teeth separating in anticipation.
“Jorgan!” Caelith called out, stepping backward from the pedestal, not daring to turn away from the slathering maw that approached him. He raised his arms, trying to find one last breath of the Deep Magic within.
Then Satinka shuddered and stopped moving toward him. The great dragon convulsed and shook—unwilling to go back and unable to move forward.
Caelith stood breathing heavily, his arms aching.
Satinka’s head drew back, her eyes filled with pain and rage. With jerking motions, she retreated, pulling herself back through the gaping hole in the collapsed wall to the surrounding courtyard. Then, with a mournful cry, she opened her wings, dragging herself upward to the rim of the courtyard wall and perched on the great platform at its crest, her head bowed down.
Jorgan stepped up beside Caelith.
“I may have been mistaken,” he said shakily, the dragonstaff glowing in his hand.