Hemlock And The Dead God's Legacy (Book 2) (16 page)

Soon she emerged out into the nameless void, and the cleansing fire of the Creator called to her.  It burned and roiled below her, and as she descended toward it
, the pain of its approach gripped her in a familiar embrace.  But she experienced a sudden melancholy.

“Oh Creator, why did you fashion us so that we might taste this ecstasy, but only allow us to sip from its cup?
  Now I drink deeply from your draught.  Didn’t I do this to get closer to you and the wonders of your creation?  But now your great fire burns me instead of warming.  I do miss flying through the fire as the Griffin does.  But I can’t go back.  And you are gone now.  Gone forever.  Still, I can soar above your fire and remember.  And this void is my true home now, for better or worse.  My brothers and sisters on the far planes must rue the weakness of your fire there.  And now they can never return—for it takes more energy to fly inward than outward.  I could never live without the full power of your fire.  Without it I am nothing,” she thought to herself.

But she knew that she couldn’t stay out
there forever.  Soon the power she had gained from her feeding would wane and then fail.  She would be forced to return to a world and recuperate.  She felt a longing for the age of the Dead God when her right to hunt those who lacked Imperial citizenship had been declared by law.  She had soared in the void regularly then, and her life had been an intoxicating tincture of freedom and fearlessness. 

But now these wizards tormented her.  They claimed to be descendants of the Dead God, but they were puny
, and their ambitions were petty and cruel.  Could it ever be like it was in the days of the Dead God?

“DuLoc!” cried her unconscious, as it had done many times in the past.

But he had been banished to an outer plane.  To journey there and rescue him would be beyond perilous.  It would nearly be suicidal.  But what choice did she have?  She knew that the Griffin was right—Zaringer and his newly revealed invisible wizards would eventually slay her.  And they wanted her to betray the Griffin—a sister to her kind, though she hated to admit that.

And there were further complications.  She had long ago planned how she could rescue DuLoc, but it would involve several perilous steps.  First, she would have to travel close to the outer worlds to retrieve a Wand of th
e Imperator from the set of three that maintained the banishment of the Creator’s Tower from the City.  Next she would have to fly that Wand to the outer planes, locate DuLoc, and deliver it to him.  Then she would have to face the extreme test of endurance and return to the City from the outer planes, against the flow of the maker’s fire.  Finally, she would have to figure out a way to stay alive for the decades or even centuries of City time that might pass until DuLoc was able to return from the slow time of the outer planes.

Despite the insane difficulty of this plan, she soon found herself soaring away from the City and toward the first step of the execution of her plan.

Worlds flew by her at dizzying speed—for she flew with the current of the maker’s fire.  Some worlds were ringed with deep, colorful cloud patterns; and some were barren, lifeless rocks.  And she was aware that most of the worlds were host to the beautiful dance of life that played out on their surfaces in a derivative multiplicity whose scope befuddled even the wisest of minds.

Clusters of worlds formed galaxies around her, their scale as incalculable as the breathtaking speed with which she now travelled. 

Eventually she judged that her flight—which had now gone on long enough that conscious thought had atrophied and fallen away from her—had taken her to the so-called middle worlds, wherein was hidden the Creator’s Tower.

Using a form of perception that had carried over from her original incarnation as a griffin, she scanned the worlds in the vicinity for the telltale emanations of the Dead God’s
magic.  Detecting it, she veered toward a deep blue world which was ringed with three large moons.  Massive beams of magical power radiated from each of the molten moons toward the planet below.

She flew close to one of the moons, its fire seeming mild in comparison to the maker’s fire
, even at this distance from the City.  She dove directly into the molten rock, and, closing her eyes, she was able to resist the great heat as she swam toward the interior of the sphere.  She approached the Wand by feel, as the power it omitted was copious compared to anything indigenous to the worlds in this part of the great, spinning lattice of planets.

She stopped when she felt the wand directly in front of her.  She had a concern that the removal of the Wand might destabilize the
Creator’s Tower and cause it to warp back to its natural position in the City in the center of Hemisphere Lake.  If that happened, she had no idea what the repercussions would be.  Would it further rollback the magic of the Dead God?  Could it reverse her transformation into a Dragon?  She had no idea.  But time was short and she was desperate.  She clutched the wand with her front claw and fought the resistance of an invisible force that moored it.  The force gave way, and the Wand came free in her grasp.

There was a thunderous shockwave from the planet below and the molten rock around her burst away
, opening up sudden pockets of empty space, and eventually gaps in the cooling rock, which revealed the star field surrounding her.  Soon all of the previously molten rock had hardened to stone and was flung out into the void as millions of asteroids.  Many of the asteroids burned up when they contacted the blue atmosphere of the world below her.

She braced herself for further effects
, but none were apparent.  She was reassured to sense the magic of the Creator’s Tower still present on the planet below.  It felt like its alignment had shifted, but it was still intact.  One less thing for her to worry about.

She now braced herself for a flight to the outer worlds.  Some part of her feared she might encounter her long lost brothers and sisters out
there in the faded oblivion of the Creator’s dimmest dreams.  What would she say to them?  Would they entice her to stay and become a foul shadow of her current self: free but greatly diminished?

She thought she would be able to sense their approach, and she knew she would be faster than them.  She would simply evade them and whatever corruption they might try to infect her with.

With a flap of her wings she sped toward the weakened glow of the maker’s fire.  She knew that she had to conserve her energy for the return trip.  Despite her urge to accelerate more quickly, she let the comparatively lazy field of the maker’s fire do it for her.  Even the pain and discomfort caused by the maker’s fire was so weakened that it did not focus her as it normally did.

As she soared into dimmer, darker worlds, she began to fear that DuLoc might have given in to the taint of these worlds.  But by his perception
, he would have only been out here for a short time.  Surely one of the Dead God’s lieutenants would have the endurance to fend off despair and insanity for a time while the prospect of rescue might still ignite some hope?

She reflected on the thought of a strong-willed DuLoc for so long that it began to feel uncomfortably like a prayer to the Creator.  But she did not stop meditating on it for fear that some darker and more disturbing thought might replace it.

The wait became interminable and the weak current of the maker’s fire became increasingly obscene.  All around her, dim worlds seemed to call out in mockery of the City and its comparative order.  She thought of the Dragons that had decided to come out here to escape the increasingly predatory tendencies of the wizards.  She began to doubt that they even lived any longer.  Were she ever to be stuck out here and unable to return to the City, she thought that she would just ride the maker’s fire out to the edge of existence and allow herself to be consumed by nothingness.  Better that than a pitiful existence at the fringes of creation.

Just as she began to fear that the gentle voices of madness were beginning to speak to her, she sensed the presence of DuLoc.

She flew to the world where he was mired—a grotesquely faded world with ochre clouds.  Descending into the air of the planet, she saw that the surface was composed of a series of undulating mountains that rose and fell thousands of feet in waves.  Their surface morphed from a sandy, salt-like substance when they were in motion
, to a more stable slate during the brief periods when they were static.

She descended to the place where DuLoc sat and hovered over it as it rose and fell. 
DuLoc’s stare was vacant and he sat unmoving, except when he sank into the sand as it rose.  In these moments he waded to keep himself near the surface so that he would not be trapped as it solidified.  Then as the slate hardened around his hands and legs, he would break himself free.  She saw that the palms of his hands were raw and bloodied, but his blond, curly locks were still vibrant, and his skin tone was tan.  There was no food or water in sight, but he had survived without it.

It was a long time before he took notice of her, and she hesitated to disturb his stupor for fear of damaging his mind—even given the urgency of her return trip.  When he finally spoke to her, his speech was halting
. “Are you…real?”

“Yes, I’m real,” she responded in his mind.

“Many delusions in this place… I figured I’d wait for a time to see if you were one of them.  But you just flew there in front of me.”

“I’ve brought you the means to return to the City,” she said, showing him the Wand that she held.

He waited a long time before responding. “Why?”

“I desire a return to the Imperial ways.”

“How long have I been here?  Does the Imperator yet live?”

“A long time.  And, no, he is gone.  And after him
, his Son has come and gone.  And after his Son, many generations of descendents—each baser and meaner than the last.”

“What a pity.  I had wished to ask him why he betrayed me—even though I already know the answer.  My crime was to
believe everything that he taught me, and to question it when it became contradictory.”

“Your destiny is now to return the City to the order of Imperial law—so that the City may prosper,
and my kind may assume its natural place in that order.”

“Have you faded so much that the diluted descendents of
the Imperator can threaten you?”

She was angered by his remark, but suppressed it as she remembered the life and death struggle she was about to undertake.

“I have risked my life to give you this chance to return to the City.  Remember me when you come back. Remember the justice of the laws of the Dead God—but also remember the fire of the Creator.  You will need that fire to survive the long journey back.”

She held the Wand in front of her and offered it to DuLoc.  He took it and hefted it from hand to hand.  He traced a pattern below him and soon he took flight with the Dragon.

“Can you bear me back?” he asked.

“I’m too weak.  We’d never make it.  You will have to make the trip alone.”

“You are called Azeoloth, if I am not mistaken?”

“Yes.  You remember.”

“Farewell, Azeoloth.  And thank you.  You will be richly rewarded upon my return.”

As she flew back into the void, she looked down and saw DuLoc adjusting his clothes as he hovered in the air.  His
tricorne hat had remained attached to him by virtue of its chin strap.  As he donned it, she admired the strong glow of his eyes as she sped away.  Soon all she could see was that glow, and then that, too ,was gone.

He was still strong.  He would make it.

But her true test was just beginning.  She flew far, far away from the lines of the maker’s fire—farther than she had ever flown.  She feared that she might be drawn away into the emptiness and become another lost soul in the field of twinkling stars that surrounded the lattice of worlds.   But the opposing currents of the maker’s fire were nearly imperceptible at this distance and would not hinder her flight for a time.  She began to churn her wings.

Moments became hours and
worlds whipped by around her.  She still had strength, but she was already approaching the point where she would normally seek the shelter of a world, and a long rest and a feeding.

Doubt assailed her at every turn, but the memory of DuLoc and his glowing eyes sustained her.  He would return and she would watch as
Zaringer either knelt in submission to him or was slain.  She dearly hoped it would be the latter.

As she continued to fly, a desperate pain filled her senses.  She desired nothing more than to descend to a nearby world to rest, but she knew that her momentum was her only chance.  She would never regain the strength to establish the speed the she had built up or the distance from the maker’s fire.

Soon even thoughts of the return of DuLoc could not sustain her.  Her mind became unmoored and soon she began to question the purpose of her suffering.  She no longer cared about the City, about her mountains or her favorite mountain perch.  In the end, reduced to her lowest denominator, her thoughts turned to the Griffin.  Her friend—no, her sister.

As the worlds flew by
, she realized that she was not a lord over them as she had thought—she was just an exponent of them, and still a part of them.  She experienced an intense affection for everything that she beheld, even as her already unbearable pain intensified.  Even the people of the City became dear to her in that moment—even the wizards.  They were all flawed creations—fundamentally constrained, but not less dear for it.  Constraint!  It was the one thing she couldn’t bear to think of, yet here she was, delirious with pain and embracing it.  The wisdom of her sister, the Griffin, became apparent to her.  Her own folly became equally clear.