Pillars of Dragonfire (5 page)

Meliora summoned her
magic and soared as a dragon.

She rose high and cried
out, her voice rolling across the camp.

"I am Meliora
Aeternum! I brought you the Keeper's Key, and I freed you from your collars,
but the danger has not passed." She flew across the multitudes below,
letting them all hear. "The cruel Ishtafel was dealt a blow, but if he
still lives, he's licking his wounds, and he's building a new army. If he's
dead, then whatever heir Saraph places upon the throne will hunt us. We will
fly fast. We will continue fleeing."

She could see the fear
in them. That was good. They needed to be afraid now. That fear twisted
Meliora's own heart.

"You are free now,
children of Requiem!" she said. "You are free warriors, no longer
slaves. And you will fight to see Requiem again. Our kingdom lies across many
miles. Even as the dragon flies, Requiem lies a moon away, and many dangers
wait along that path: armies of seraphim and creatures even darker. And even
should we reach Requiem, we will find nothing but ruins."

The crowd murmured
below. Some cried out in anguish.

"But we will fly
there nonetheless!" Meliora said. "Because Requiem is our home. It
has been our home for five thousand years, since our ancestor, King Aeternum, raised
a column in a birch forest. That column still stands! It awaits us. We will
seek it across the miles, and we will be a proud nation again. This I promise
to you, Vir Requis. I will lead you to our land. I will lead you home."

They cried out to her,
hundreds of thousands, the last survivors of an ancient race. "Meliora the
Merciful! Praise Meliora!"

She blew a pillar of
white fire, a twin to King's Column in the north. "Follow, children of
Requiem! Follow my light. Follow me home."

They all rose from below,
dragon after dragon, ascending into the sky. They flew behind her. Freed
slaves. Proud warriors. A nation.

"Not bad,
Mel." Lucem flew up to her side, the sunlight bright against his red
scales. "Could have used a few puns, maybe a couple dirty limericks, but
overall not a bad speech."

Meliora rolled her
eyes. "You and your dirty limericks."

The red dragon grinned.
"Want to hear a few new ones?"

"No!" She
spurted fire his way.

They flew onward, and
behind them the children of Requiem followed, covering the sky.

 
 
VALE

As the nation of Requiem
flew above, Vale and Elory stood below on the hill, both in human forms.

"I wish I could
take her with us," Vale said.

Elory held his hand.
"I do too. But the journey is too long, too perilous."

"She belongs in
Requiem." Vale had to force the words out of his tight throat.

"Maybe she already
is in Requiem," Elory whispered, looking up at the sky.

But Vale did not look
up. He looked down at the ground, down at her. At Tash.

She lay there, wrapped
in his cloak, her face so pale, so fair. Vale knelt and stroked her long brown hair.

"I love you,
Tash," he whispered. "I know that I'll see you again someday."

Elory knelt at his side,
and she placed her hand on Tash's. "And I love you too, Tash," she
whispered. "Goodbye, sweet friend."

You saved my life,
Tash,
Vale thought, stroking her cold cheek.
You gave your life for
mine. And . . . I never had a chance to love you enough. Our last few days, we
fought, we hated, we hurt each other. But know that I forgive you, that I love
you. Know that for all eternity, Requiem will know your name, know of your
sacrifice.

Finally Vale looked up
at the sky.

You gave me new
life, Issari, our holy priestess. You told me that a battle awaits me. Yet I
would have lost my battle if not for Tash. Why do I linger on, hurt, so many
scars upon me, and she lies here, so fair, so cold, no gift of life given to
her?

Yet the Priestess in
White was silent. Perhaps Vale had no power to summon her the way his father
could. He was no priest, no wise man like Jaren. Perhaps Issari had never heard
his prayers, had never seen his pain. Vale did not know. He did not know why he
kept living as so many died—as thousands of Vir Requis remained here, buried
in Saraph.

Maybe I've not yet
faced my battle. It hurts. It hurts to go on. To live without you, Tash. I will
fight on, but I don't know if I can bear this pain.

He shifted into a
dragon, and he dug a grave, and he gently placed Tash inside. She was far from
Requiem here, but Tofet was too far to see too. The land was burnt now, but in
time grass would grow here, trees would rustle, and flowers would bloom again.
The river would flow through life, and birds would sing. This place would be
beautiful come next spring, a good place for her to rest.

As he placed dirt onto
the grave, Vale swore that if he survived the journey, and if Requiem was
rebuilt from ruin, he would return for her bones, and he would place them in a
coffin carved from Requiem birch, bring them to rest in the land of her
forebears, and someday he would rest at her side.

"Sleep well for
now, sweet Tash," he whispered to the grave.

Still in human form,
Elory leaned against his scaly neck, and she patted his long snout.

"I know that you
hurt, Vale. I know that it hurts more than you can bear. But I'm with
you." She kissed his cheek, her lips soft against his blue scales.
"And so is Father, and so is Meliora, and so are all in Requiem. We all
love you, prince of dragons."

She shifted too, and
they rose into the sky together, a blue dragon and a lavender one. They flew
with their people, taking some pain with them, leaving some pain behind,
heading onward to hope and light and a dream of home.

 
 
ISHTAFEL

He lay in the bloody field,
convulsing, screaming.

He rattled in their
cart, crying out, begging them to kill him.

He thrashed in his bed
as they placed ointments upon him, roaring that he'd kill them all, vowing to
kill himself too.

Meliora's halo had
burned him, leaving a scar across his face. Now dragonfire—roaring,
all-consuming—had washed across him.

He screamed.

He wept.

He thrashed in pain.

He lay in his palace, Ishtafel
thought. The walls spun around him. He fainted. He woke, fresh bandages across
him. He stumbled out from his bed, seeking a blade, seeking a rope, seeking a
way to end his life, but he ended up falling to the floor and trembling.

He slept. He dreamed.

In his fever, he was
back in Requiem, flying through hosts of dragons, traveling through the
tunnels, slaying the demons one by one in the darkness, watching his soldiers
die.

"They fled,"
he whispered, tasting blood. "The weredragons fled me."

He stumbled through the
halls of his dark palace, dripping, his bandages trailing behind him. He tore
them off one by one, leaving a wake of puss and ichor. No more servants filled
the palace; all had fled. Those seraphim who still wandered these halls saw
him, gasped, and fled too. One woman fainted.

"A mirror!"
he shouted. "A mirror!"

Yet they would bring
him none. He limped onto a balcony into the searing sunlight, and he raised his
arms before him, and he laughed. Dripping, melting arms, the skin gone. When he
touched his face he found nothing, and he screamed.

He stared into the
northern distance. They had flown there. They were gone.

"Twice you burned
me, dragons," he spoke into the distance. "But I still live. I am a
god of fire. You cannot kill me. You only strip the flesh away, leaving my soul
stronger, tempering me like iron in a forge."

Iron.

Ishtafel sneered.

"Bring me iron and
gold!" he shouted.

He summoned his
chariot, and he rode in fire, a thing of flames, and his steeds took him to the
city smelters. There he entered the darkness, and he stood before roaring fires
that melted metal in a cauldron, and he laughed.

"Forge, men! Forge
and hammer and temper."

The cauldrons boiled
and hammers swung, and Ishtafel laughed.

On a dark night, he
stepped out from the pit, and he walked through the city, clanking, thudding.
All who saw him fled. Down cobbled roads he marched, between obelisks and
colossal statues, making his way to his ziggurat.

"A mirror!"
he shouted as he stepped into the palace.

Finally two soldiers
approached, bearing a tall bronze mirror, and knelt, shivering. Ishtafel stared
at his reflection.

He wore new skin—skin
of metal. A mask covered his face, drilled into him, shaped as the face he had
once worn, the face now gone. Gilt covered the iron. More metal covered his
limbs and torso, sealing him inside. His wings spread out, the feathers burnt
away—wings of raw leather, tipped with black claws. They almost looked like
dragon wings. His halo still blazed above his head, brighter than ever.

"Now I am truly a
god," he whispered.

He beat his wings. He
soared off the balcony. The ziggurat's platinum crest streamed behind him, the
place where he had nailed up the weredragon prince—the prince he would still
catch and break.

"My army of light
failed," he whispered, beating his naked wings. "The dark seraphim
failed. It's time to summon . . .
them
."

He soared until he
reached the Eye of Saraph, the engraved eye upon the ziggurat's triangular
crest, the great watcher of the empire. It stared from within a sunburst,
larger than him, ever guarding his domain.

"Hear me, Eye of
Saraph!" Ishtafel cried, hovering before the engraving, his wings spread
wide. "For long you watched over us, and now I call you to cast forth your
light. Raise the beam! Shine your column to call your children home."

Slowly, the great stone
eye began to open.

At first only a slit
shone with terrible light, nearly blinding Ishtafel. Then the eye opened wider,
exposing its innards, heat and light more terrible than the cauldrons of molten
metal that had forged his new skin. A beam of searing, golden light slammed
into Ishtafel, bounced off his armor, and blasted skyward.

Above, the storm clouds
gathered. Clouds rarely gathered in the heart of Saraph, this dry southern
land, but now a maelstrom brewed, the color of bruises. Lightning flashed.
Thunder tore across the land. And still the light flared, passing from the eye,
through Ishtafel, up into the sky, shattering the heavens.

A second great
eye—this one dark and swirling—opened above.

"Descend,
children!" Ishtafel cried, laughing, arms and wings spread wide.
"Join us in this world, ones of Edinnu. Fall, fall from the heavens, fall
and rise in new glory!"

Above him, they
shrieked, his old pets, barely visible in the clouds, eyes like stars,
collapsing, rising again, blaring out with terrible hatred. Their wings
darkened the sky.

"Fall and slay
dragons!" he shouted.

From the heavens they
fell, covering the land, coating temples and palaces like tar, shrieking out in
rage and hatred, a song for the blood of dragons.

 
 
TIL

They travelled through the
snowy forest, shivering even in their thick cloaks, moving fast, daring not
stop.

We must reach the
southern coast,
Til thought as she trudged onward.
We must live. We must
find the sea.

"I'm cold."
Walking at her side, Bim hugged himself. His teeth chattered. "Can we
build a fire?"

Til shook her head.
"No fires. Not yet. Not until we're sure we've lost them."

She looked around her,
seeking any sign of pursuit. The trees rose all around—maples, oaks, and many
birches. Ice encased the branches, topped with snow. Fallen logs, branches, and
roots lay everywhere, twisting like a city, white and brown. When Til looked
up, she saw a blue sky between frosted branches.

No seraphim. No
Overlord.

Yet the memory wouldn't
leave her. Again and again, she saw it before her eyes. The Overlord, a god of
light, his halo like the sun, his armor golden, a figure of splendor and
holiness. Again and again, she saw the deity's lance driving into the black
dragon, slaying her father, turning him from a dragon into a man again—a man
skewered upon the shaft. Even in the cold, Til suddenly felt hot, as if the
chariots of fire flew around her again.

She shook her head,
banishing that memory, yet her father's words still echoed in her mind.

Take him to the
coast. Find others.

"Til, can I remove
my armor?" Bim said. "The metal is too cold. Can we build a fire
soon?"

She looked at him, and
pity filled her. The boy was too thin, too pale, his breath frosting. A decade
ago, when Til had been that age, things had been better, she thought. A
thousand Vir Requis had still lived in the ruins of Requiem, eking out a life
in tunnels, caves, and forest camps. Yet now food was scarcer, shelter harder
to find, and they were always moving, never spending two nights in the same
place. Always seeking others, finding none. The past five years, since the
tragic uprising against the Overlord, had thinned their family down to raw
bones, leaving haunted eyes in gaunt faces, stiff fingers that never strayed
far from the hilt, haggard legs that knew to always trudge on, always keep moving,
keep seeking.

"Another
league," Til said. "And we'll build a fire, and we'll tell old
stories."

They moved on through
the forest, shivering in their cloaks. Soon Til saw prints in the sand, raised
her eyes, and descried the rabbit ahead between the birches. Silently, she
nocked an arrow in her bow, and she pierced the rabbit with her first shot.
They saw no other animals; this paltry meal would have to do.

"There will be
more food on the southern coast," Til said to her brother. "It's warm
there, Bim, and no snow falls, not even in winter. There are plenty of deer on
the plains, and the rivers aren't frozen and many fish fill them. All other Vir
Requis survivors will have traveled there."