Sunset of Lantonne (94 page)

Opening his eyes a little, Therec smiled. “Mine are the wrong hands, so long as you continue to vie for control, Dorralt. I give you nothing.” Whirling the staff, Therec slammed it into the stone floor with a boom that echoed through the tower’s central shaft.

Below, Mairlee stopped her attack on the nearly broken wall of magic to look up.

Nenophar stopped climbing the steps, intensely watching Therec.

“I don’t have the power to destroy the staff, and anywhere I send it, he will find it in time,” said Therec, turning just enough that he could look at Ilarra. “Thank you for letting me speak to my family one last time, Ilarra. I know what I have to do now. Denying the enemy a weapon is as important as a victory in battle. The world will curse my name for generations, but I spare them far worse fates.”

Touching some of the engraved symbols on the staff and using a voice that seemed to cut through every other noise, Therec said, “Air, earth, fire, and water…I call to you to honor your promises to Turess. You will each do one thing for me, as you pledged so long ago, and then never again serve my people, no matter who calls.”

The winds whistling through the broken tower came to an abrupt halt, silencing the keep. The only sounds were the crackles of stones shifting and the faint scrapes of the dragon’s claws on the walls.

“You are now at war with the undead army,” Therec said, tapping his forehead against the staff. “That is all I ask. Do this and you are free, never again to be controlled by mortal man.”

For long seconds, nothing seemed to happen. Then, Ilarra began to hear the distant sounds of battle change into screams and shouts outside. Whatever was happening, Therec could see it from where he stood, smiling sadly as he watched the city below. The pressure of both Dorralt’s attempts to exert control over her and Therec’s wife and son faded away abruptly. Pain overtook her senses as she became acutely aware of the stone still lying on her broken leg.

“I’ve done all I can,” Therec told Ilarra, eyeing the staff before tossing it aside. “There is nothing left here for Dorralt. He will go elsewhere, but not before he tries to get revenge on the city. I’ve not saved anyone here, I’m afraid.”

She struggled against her pinned leg, trying to make it move, but she was still weak from Dorralt stripping her of her magic. She could feel he had stopped siphoning it away from her, but it would be hours before she was at full strength again.

Therec looked down at Ilarra from his perch on the broken wall. “Nenophar will be able to help you once his current form mends itself sufficiently. Dorralt showed me enough about him to know he genuinely tried to help Turess, so I believe he will help you. He cares about mortals. Perhaps too much.”

“Therec, we need to get out there and fight the Turessian army,” Ilarra pleaded, then realized Therec’s skin had paled. The veins in his neck had darkened within seconds, almost as black as the tattoos on his face. “Therec?”

“Dorralt is upset,” he explained, holding up a hand to examine. “From what I was able to learn when he took over, I would say I am dying. There is no magic left in me, and no way I can help you anymore, Ilarra.”

Behind her, Ilarra could hear Nenophar stumbling up the steps, but she could not force herself to look away from Therec. Soon, cracks opened in his drying flesh, though they did not bleed.

Therec seemed entirely unbothered by the wide gashes opening in his skin, saying almost to himself, “I saw many of the lost prophecies of Turess in those last minutes when Dorralt took over. He had them all this time, hidden away from the council and anyone else who could have helped. Still, there might be hope yet. I have to believe those stories Turess told on his deathbed were true, even if Dorralt tried to stop them from coming to pass. This war can be won if we don’t lose sight of the prophecies.”

“What prophecies, Therec? What did he see? What do we need to do?”

Turning to answer her, Therec’s attempt to speak came out an airy wheeze as his throat crumbled away, leaving a gaping, bloodless hole. He touched his neck, then gave her a sad smile and shrugged. His hands began to turn to dust, trails of ash falling away with even the slightest movement. Bowing his head politely as he had on the day they had met, Therec’s body began to entirely fall apart, collapsing into a heap of bones, ash, and clothing.

Ilarra could not find words or thoughts as she stared in hopeless shock at the remains of Therec. The man had fallen under Dorralt’s control, making all he had done no worse than what Ilarra was capable of. He was what she would be, soon enough. Either a pawn in Dorralt’s games or a pile of ash when he grew tired of her. Any hope that might have existed in the prophecies was gone with him. Nenophar had spoken of them but seemed to know very little.

She was so wrapped up in the dust blowing away from the bones in the wind that Ilarra did not notice Nenophar at her side until he had already pulled the large stone block off of her leg. The pain flooding into her leg snapped her out of her contemplation and forced a scream from her lips even before she realized what was happening. Falling backwards, she clutched at her knee, as far down her leg as she dared touch, knowing how bad the rest must look.

“Ilarra, look at me,” Nenophar insisted, squeezing her hand and positioning himself so she could not have seen her leg if she tried. “The pain is an illusion. You need to ignore it if you’re going to heal.”

The pain was more real than any Ilarra had felt in a long time, letting her know just how weak her body was. She could not see any blackening of her veins or paling of her skin, but she doubted there was enough magic left in her to restore her leg. The agony of it all made it impossible to concentrate.

Tightening his grip on her hand, Nenophar put his face near hers. “You don’t die here, Ilarra,” he told her, sounding concerned enough she knew he doubted his own words. “Not here, not now. There is much to do yet for both of us. Cling to your life.”

“Do it without me,” she whimpered back, squeezing her eyes shut against tears. “If I heal, I’ll find you.”

The crunch of footsteps on the bits of rock strewn over the steps made Ilarra look up, wondering if they were about to be attacked by another Turessian. Instead, she saw Mairlee had returned to her human form and stood over Ilarra, examining her with clear distain.

“Let the elf die, son,” she told Nenophar, no longer seeming to even care that Ilarra was there. “Your brother fights the army of the dead at the walls of this mortal place at your request. I would have us leave here before things grow worse. We have done far more for them than we should. There is a limit to all things.”

Nenophar kept his eyes on Ilarra, clasping her hand with both of his as if trying to keep her from getting away. “Mother, you know leaving will doom us as surely as anything. This is our fight, too. The prophecies bound our fate to the decision to help—”

“This has never been our fight. The mortals caused this, they can finish it. We must let them fend for themselves, as we always have. Prophecies do not bind us, and I will not commit myself to further risks here. There will be other ways to mend the pattern.”

Ilarra saw Nenophar’s jaw clench angrily, but he took a moment to calm himself before speaking. “Can you see the fates of any mortals in this city?” he demanded, finally looking toward his mother. “We passed hundreds of them on our way in. Tell me what the threads of fate have in store for any one of them. Look at her. Look at me. What does the fabric have in store for us?”

Nenophar’s mother sneered, but said nothing.

“They have no written fate, just like the immortals,” Nenophar went on. “The Turessians have no thread of fate left, but I don’t believe they can change the intended path of so many, no matter how they try. You know as well as I do, when this happened the last time, we were at risk. It happens again. The undead are not the threat…either that hole in the world or what Therec just summoned is the real danger.”

“You made promises to that human all those years ago to prevent this. I told you it was a waste of your breath then, and this only proves it. We will fight our own battles, not theirs.”

Ilarra reached up with her other hand and touched Nenophar’s face, startling him. “What is she talking about?” she asked him, trying to keep his attention. Her leg had begun to stop throbbing, though as soon as she realized that, the pain returned.

“Turess convinced me to read his fate in exchange for years of service,” he explained, lowering his eyes. “Normally, it would be a simple matter. Mortals are easy to read…but he was not. All of those who came with him had no set ending, as if someone had carefully pulled their threads from the tapestry of fate without disturbing those around them.

“I tried to give the man an answer, but I could not without lying to him. He asked for a new payment for the service he had already done. Turess begged me to give him the chance to see the patterns of fate like my kind do. He wanted it for one singular purpose: to find a way to undo the mistakes of his life that would inevitably harm his people.”

Mairlee snorted and crossed her arms, looking very much like she wished to beat him for misbehaving. “My son gave in to the mortal’s pleading,” she noted dryly. “For some reason, he feels guilt over killing the man. A mortal must be at the verge of death to have any hope of seeing the workings of fate. The human died in agony, like they all do. Why this matters so much to Nenophar, I will never understand.”

“Because he saw my death!” snapped Nenophar, his voice echoing through the keep. “He saw the dragons die. You, my brother, and I…all of us will die if certain things happen. We are being woven back into the fabric of fate, and all of our kin will be pulled back in eventually if we do not stop this. If we do stop it, the results will be devastating to the whole world. There is no good ending from this.”

Ilarra sat up slowly, cringing as her torn and battered leg flared with fresh pain. From what she could see, the bones had mended, but the flesh was still a mess of drying blood. “What can we do?” Ilarra asked both dragons. “How can we prevent this from getting that far? You heard Turess’ prophecies. What did he see?”

Nenophar glanced toward the hole in the wall of the tower that Therec had been looking out when he died, easing his grip on Ilarra’s hand. “I heard only the few prophecies Turess thought pertained to the dragons. This is one of them. I already know what is happening out there. I can feel it in every fiber of my body, matching what Turess told me centuries ago, what I refused to believe and thus was unable to prevent. Go see for yourselves.”

Using the wall to pull herself up, Ilarra had to put all of her weight on her good leg and the wall to keep from falling. Her right leg was completely numb, aside from the occasional flare of agony when she let it touch the floor.

To her surprise, Nenophar’s mother took her other arm and helped her climb the stairs. “We may not see the merit in helping mortals,” the woman explained as they slowly ascended, “but we are not above recognizing worth, even in the lowest of creatures. My son worries about you, so your life has some meaning to me through him.”

Keeping her voice low, Ilarra replied, “He worries because I am a weapon against the Turessians. I know my place here.”

“You know nothing, like so many other mortals,” the woman answered, smiling. “I always told him not to spend so much time among your kind. When we do, we begin to forget what we really are. Some of my brothers and sisters have let themselves fall into the eternal sleep out of unwillingness to see any more mortals die while they go on living. My son lets himself care too deeply and…” The elder dragon’s words trailed off as they reached the gap in the wall. As she stared out at the city, the calm, emotionless expression on her face fell away and was replaced by the look of one who has just seen their own death coming.

Ilarra knew she probably had a similar expression, but she could not be bothered to try and hide it.

Sections of the inner city’s wall had already fallen, and undead poured into the east and west parts of the city, overwhelming the defenders and killing everything in sight. There seemed to be no end to the creatures flooding the streets as though a dam had broken.

To the north, the gates still held, but the defenders were surrounded by undead from the breaches elsewhere in the city. Standing with them on the outside of the wall was the third dragon, furiously tearing at the undead trying to get through its armor and thick hide. Vast swaths of the area near the wall were burned black, a testimony to the long fight the dragon had engaged in before resorting to claws and teeth.