Pillars of Dragonfire (18 page)

Meliora nuzzled him
again. "I'm real. And I fly here with you. And I love you, Vale, my sweet
little brother."

He bristled.
"Sweet little brother?" He smiled wryly. "I don't know if anyone
would call me sweet."

The thought popped into
his mind, unbidden:
Tash would.

It seemed like Meliora
could read his thoughts. She smiled at him sadly, raised her eyes, and gazed at
the stars.

"She looks down upon
us, Vale," she whispered. "The woman we love, the woman we miss, the
woman we will never forget. Tash is up there, and we'll see her again, and we'll
sing of her in the halls of Requiem." She paused. "No, wait. Those
are the wrong words. Tash is not just some heroine for our people, a figure for
legends." She looked at him. "She was a woman you loved, who you
lost, and I have no words of proper comfort, and I cannot ease that pain. All I
can say, Vale, is that I'm sorry for your loss, and that I love you dearly, and
that I'm always here for you. Some shadows do not pass. Some hurts do not heal.
All we can do is kindle new lights—together."

He gazed at those stars
above. It seemed to him that Issari's Star, the eye of the dragon, gazed down
upon him, that the silvery light was sad yet loving.

You too gaze down
upon us, Issari, you who returned me to life, you who still blesses us.

"The stars never
forgot us," Vale said softly. "I realize that now. They were with us
always, through our long captivity, and the souls that dwell there wept for our
pain. Those stars are real, and so are the spirits who dwell there. We will
make them proud, Meliora. You and I. We will lead our people on, and we will
rebuild our home, and we will raise new temples for those stars, and—"

"Enough!" She
nudged him. "Forget talk of great nations and legends. What matters now is
you. And me. Brother and sister. All right, little brother? Don't make me slap
you."

He couldn't help it. He
grinned, and his pain seemed to wash away with that grin, and he knew: Things
would be all right. There was still joy and family and love in the world.

"If you slap me,
I'm going to annoy you to death. We little brothers are good at that, you
know."

She growled. "We
have many years of bickering to catch up on, don't we?"

Vale laughed—one of
the very few times in his life he had laughed, all of them this year. "We
do and we will."

They flew onward,
brother and sister, leading a nation of dragons. The sea spread below and the
stars guided their way until morning.

 
 
TIL

Across ruin, desolation, and
a wilderness of death they had traveled, sometimes flying, sometimes crawling,
passing through fire and ice to finally come to this place. And there, past a
veil of haze in the south, they saw it.

Til's tears fell like
the rain.

"The southern
coast," she whispered.

The rain fell before
her in warm curtains, and mist floated across the forested hills and valleys.
The sun glowed behind the veil of clouds. There was no snow here in the south,
and the air was rich, warm, scented of trees and soil and the distant sea. A
healthy smell. The smell of life. A distant city rose by the water, still
leagues away, a day's walk. Only a few of its towers rose through the mist,
overlooking the sea.

"We made it."
She hugged her brother. "We reached the coast. We'll find safety
here."

Bim stared south with
her, the rain streaming down his hair and face, washing away the dirt of their
journey. His makeshift patches of armor, strapped across his furs, gleamed wet,
and he rested his palm on the pommel of his sword. For the first time in
months, perhaps in years, hints of hope showed on his face. It was subtle;
anyone else would have missed it. A slight widening of the eyes. A slight
upward twist to the lips, soon gone. A slight flush to the cheeks. But Til was
his sister, and she could read him like a priest reading the old scrolls.

Finally I see life
in him.
Her tears mingled with the raindrops.
His soul is not crushed.
He's not a roaming dead. He still dreams. He still can feel hope. He still can
be a boy.

She squeezed him
between her arms and mussed his hair. "You see that city in the distance?
That's Lynport. An ancient, legendary city of heroes, Requiem's southern jewel.
What say we go explore?"

He didn't move from the
grassy hill they stood on, just kept staring south through the rain.
"There'll be seraphim." His voice was soft, cracking. "There are
always seraphim."

She nodded.
"Maybe. Maybe a few. But maybe some other survivors too. Other Vir
Requis."

Bim lowered his head.
"Or maybe just more dead."

Til turned him toward
her and stared into his eyes. "Listen to me, Bim. Yes, we might find more
seraphim here, and we might find more dead. And maybe we won't find any other
survivors, and maybe the city will be swarming with enemies. And if that
happens, we'll move on. We'll travel along the coast, moving westward, until we
find a place. A cave maybe, not just a temporary hideout, but a real home. A
place where we can fish, forage for fruit and berries, and live here in the
warm south. Far from the Overlord in the north. Far from danger. We can still
find a life here. The rebellion might be over, but our lives are not."

Bim nodded. "I
never wanted the rebellion," he whispered. "All I ever wanted was . .
. to do what you said. Find a cave we didn't have to run from the next day.
Find a life away from danger. Just a place to . . . to live. Day by day. Breath
by breath. Without a war, without a quest, without even a hope. Maybe that
sounds sad to you, having no hope. To me it means just living in a quiet place.
In peace. You only feel hope when you're afraid. Hope is our cure to pain. I
want our pain to end. And not in a cage or grave. Just in a quiet place where
it's warm."

It was the most he had
said in weeks, perhaps in years. Til held her little brother close, nearly
crushing him against her, and kissed the top of his head.

"We'll find that
quiet place," she said.

They kept walking
through the wilderness as the rain fell. Unlike the north, a land of maples and
oaks and birches, here in the south grew many twisting pines. On a grassy hill
they found wild apple trees, and they filled their bellies. When several
mourning doves took flight above, Til shifted into a dragon, rose for just an
instant, and grabbed the birds. She roasted them with her dragonfire, and she
and Bim enjoyed the meal in human form. They walked onward.

As they crossed the
last few miles toward the sea, they encountered many remnants of old Requiem,
the kingdom that had sprawled here five hundred years ago. An aqueduct snaked
across the hills, taller than a dragon but only a few hundred feet long, ending
with a pile of bricks. On a hilltop rested the capitals of columns, carved as
dragons, but the pillars themselves were missing, perhaps stolen years ago. A
massive statue lay fallen in the grass; once it must have stood as large as a
palace. It was carved as an ancient, bearded king clad in a flowing robe—King
Aeternum, founder of Requiem.

As they talked here,
Til tried to imagine what life had been like before the seraphim. The splendor
of Requiem would have covered these hills, but the true glory would be
above—thousands of dragons in the sky, for the sky had always been the true
domain of Requiem, even more than her forests and mountains and rivers. That
sky was as lost as the land below. Even as she walked here, Til saw the distant
light of halos—seraphim flying.

She and Bim crouched at
once, hiding in the tall grass.

"Seraphim are
here," he whispered.

"I count only
five." She smiled. "Not too bad. And look, they're already flying
away. And I see none over that city."

They both peeked from
the grass, staring south. The distant ruins were closer now. Til had never seen
ruins in such good condition before. From here, a few miles away, she could see
buildings—real buildings, several stories high, and towers of stone that
soared toward the sky. She was used to seeing the cities of seraphim, and she
knew their slender, graceful architecture. But here ahead were the ancient
structures of Vir Requis, carved of marble and many columns.

"A city of Requiem
still stands," she whispered. "Lynport did not fall to the
seraphim."

Hope kindled inside
her. Could it be that . . . that Vir Requis still lived here? Many of them?
That they had survived, defended this city through the ages, protected a small
Requiem in the south?

The sun was setting by
the time they reached the city gates, and no more seraphim had risen. Long
shadows spread across the land, and crimson stained the sky. In the distance,
still a league away, the sea whispered.

The city rose before
the siblings.
No, not 'rose,'
Til thought. Lynport seemed to
loom
.
The city gates were like the mouth of a stone beast large enough to swallow
dragons. The portcullis had long ago rusted away, leaving only shards of metal
like teeth. The walls were pockmarked and stained with old fire. Beyond them
rose steeples, towers, and many roofs, but while from the distance they had
seemed fair and gleaming in the rain, in the sunset Til now saw that they were
decrepit, crumbling, full of crows. No doors filled the gatehouse, but Til
could see only shadows beyond. Wind moaned, expelled from the city like icy
breath, ruffling her hair.

"The city is
alive," Bim said, and once more that dead look returned to his eyes.
"The city is afraid." He turned toward her, eyes blank, staring at
Til yet through her. "We must leave this place."

Til couldn't suppress a
shudder. The wind moaned again, racing through the city and emerging from the
gates, almost forming words.

Shoo . . . shoo . .
.

"Maybe you're
right," Til whispered.

She turned away from
the gatehouse, facing north again, and cringed.

The sun vanished behind
the horizon, but new light flared in the distance. Chariots of fire. A hundred
or more, moving in from the north, patrolling the wilderness. Seeking her.

"On second thought
. . . the city isn't looking that bad now." She cringed. "In fact,
creepy place full of shadows to hide in? That sounds pretty good."

She grabbed Bim's hand
and began pulling him toward the gateway.

"Til . . . are you
sure?"

"No." She
walked toward the shadowy gateway. "But I know that outside is fire, outside
is light, outside is the wrath of the seraphim. We spent many days running,
seeking the smallest of burrows—under logs or boulders or bushes. Here is a
full city of burrows." She loosened her grip on him, realizing that she
must have been hurting his palm. "And we might still find others, Bim.
Let's go exploring. We are creatures of starlight and dragonfire. We need not
fear the darkness."

The chariots of fire
crackled behind them, moving closer. Clutching their swords, the siblings
stepped through the old gateway, entering the city of shadows.

A dark cobbled road
stretched ahead, lined with brick buildings. In the distance, the black towers
rose toward the clouds. The rain stopped and mist floated through the city like
ghosts. The moon was but a haze in the veiled sky, its faded light the only
illumination. Til could barely see more than the outlines of the buildings.

"Should we turn
into dragons?" Bim whispered. "We can light our fire."

Til stared ahead into
the shadows. She couldn't see more than a block ahead. It seemed to her that the
mist was a living creature, scurrying down alleyways, peering from behind every
building. The wind moaned, so lifelike that for an instant Til was sure a
figure was whispering ahead. Something thumped in the distance, just a soft sound,
barely audible, soon gone.

"No." She
shook her head. "We don't know who lives here. We move quietly, hidden in
shadows. We find a place to sleep. Just until the daylight."

They stepped deeper
into the city, moving between old brick buildings that rose several stories
tall. Taller structures rose behind them, dark steeples cutting across the dark
sky. It was hard to see in the shadows, but the buildings seemed dilapidated,
no curtains or shutters in their windows, no doors in their frames. All wood
and fabric had rotted away, leaving only craggy stone. No lanterns or hearths
shone. If anyone lived here, they lived in darkness. When Til trailed her hand
against a brick wall, it came back covered in soot.

"Fire burned here
long ago," she whispered. "Dragonfire."

"Let's find a
place to hide," Bim said. "The seraphim are coming."

The siblings glanced
behind them. The city walls loomed there, blocking the view of the wilderness.
The gates revealed nothing but darkness beyond. Til couldn't even hear the
chariots of fire anymore.

"They're not
coming," she whispered, daring not speak any louder. "They don't enter
this city. They never enter. That's why it's still standing. They never
destroyed Lynport."

She looked ahead again,
staring down the shadowy road toward the dark skyline. All her life, Til knew
ruins to be crumbling piles of rubble—perhaps a few standing columns, perhaps
a section of aqueduct, maybe a single tower or two, but no more. In the north,
that was all that remained of Requiem. While Lynport was certainly crumbling
and old, the city still stood. Rotted, yes. Lifeless, perhaps. But still
standing.

Why did the Overlord
never destroy this place as he did all our other cities?
she wondered.

"I don't like this
place." Bim clutched her arm. "We need to leave. Now."

Til shook her head.
"There are seraphim outside. This city is safe. We—"

The wind shrieked,
ruffling their cloaks and hair, drowning Til's words. Mist swirled and shadows
danced in alleyways and dark windows. Clattering sounded in the distance,
echoed, and faded.