The Legend of Asahiel: Book 03 - The Divine Talisman (56 page)

Htomah glanced at Quinlan, who appeared mostly befuddled. With that, his own suspicions were confirmed, all doubt removed. Maventhrowe had known what he was doing, first in sowing the seeds that would lead Htomah to the Hrothgari, and then in allowing Quinlan to be the one sent in pursuit. The head Entient, then, was not nearly as blind to the unfolding chaos as Htomah had feared. Though the question remained…

“Why? Why succor me in this, if it was a path you would have rather I not taken?”

Maventhrowe smiled wanly. “So that you would not undertake a more disastrous one. You were so impatient, so dead set on action. The harm caused here—by all of you—is little enough when compared to the havoc you might have wreaked elsewise.”

“Time lay critical,” Htomah insisted, vexed anew. “It still does—more so now than if we had responded earlier. Yet now I learn you kept us preoccupied even longer, on a course you presumed would afford us little. What, then, have you come for? What do you mean to achieve with all of this?”

“We have come because the final piece of this conflict has fallen into place—something you yourself would have seen, had you waited long enough.”

Htomah scowled, wondering what that might be. All at once, it struck him. “Ravar,” he said breathlessly.

“I have descried His purpose in this, from the words shared between those who have met with Him. Our Sword-bearer, Torin, serves now a quest ridden with lies.”

“Torin? But he was killed, possessed. Unless…”

“You have missed much, my friend. Torin is shed of the Illysp influence, yet even now stands to do as much harm as good. We must prepare ourselves for his choice, for if compelled to act as I believe we must, it will needs be with a strength united.”

The tension had fled Htomah’s body, his limbs gone slack with surprise, disbelief, at these revelations.

“Will you join us, my brothers?” Maventhrowe asked. “Will you renew your faith in my guidance? Will you follow me now on a journey of significant peril and even greater magnitude?”

“What of Killangrathor?” Quinlan countered abruptly. “The Hrothgari were told that the dragon was raised as an Illychar, to wage battle against us.”

Hreidmar had indeed been quite furious at that, Htomah recalled. Though the dwarven king had held careful check on his composure, it had infuriated him to learn that they had not been warned of the monster’s emergence. The honest answer, of course, was that Htomah and his pursuers had set forth from Whitlock before that particular calamity had unfolded. In light of other misjudgments on his part, however, Htomah could not fault Hreidmar or his people their intense skepticism.

“Killangrathor has found his peace,” Maventhrowe replied, setting that fear to rest. “His shadow will not threaten us, though there are others that shall.”

“The Hrothgari,” Htomah said, glancing back at the valley floor. “I vowed not to abandon them.”

Maventhrowe’s thin smile turned sad. “For good or ill, the fortunes of dwarf and man are now inextricably tied. What they might do for themselves may well be determined here. What good
we
might do them must be determined elsewhere.”

Htomah felt a rending within. For too long now, he had been tugged in different directions by similar needs. Like a frayed rope pulled taut, ready to snap.

“I need your strength, my brother,” Maventhrowe insisted. His focused gaze seemed especially bright and piercing amid the crisp mountain air. “The end comes, and it comes swiftly. Will you go with us to meet it?”

Htomah glanced at his fellow renegades, then at the wall of brethren he had betrayed—blindly, it now seemed, when before he had thought himself the only one able to see. “The outcome hinges upon the Sword-bearer’s quest?”

“Though he does not fully realize it, yes.”

“And are we to aid, or to hinder?”

“The answer to that will depend greatly upon him.”

Nothing more would be revealed, Htomah realized, until he had made a decision. Though frustrated by the other’s staunch evasiveness, he imagined it must be so.

“To the end, then,” he agreed, and wondered immediately where that might take them.

D
O AS YOU MUST,
A
SAHIEL.

A shallow surf churned about Torin’s feet, chewed to foam by the jagged limestone shore. The Sword felt unusually heavy in his hand. He stared into Ravar’s great, unblinking eye. At this proximity, it engulfed him, a doorway into the Abyss.

He turned to look at Annleia, who stood nearby, but saw only sullenness in her guarded features.

The Orb is needed
,
if she is to do this.
Ravar’s soundless voice reverberated within his head, within his chest, carrying the weight of eternity.
She cannot go forward without it.

That much had been explained to him. What
hadn’t
been explained, what he found just as difficult to fathom, were the unspoken consequences of mutilating a living god.

A token it is to me
,
no more
, Ravar insisted.
I will not be blinded so easily.

There was no escape from that depthless, penetrating gaze. Ravar’s eye, though small for His body, stood taller than Torin. The leviathan lay half submerged at the shore’s edge, eye lowered so that the waves crashed and surged about its base. The other—on the opposite side of His gargantuan head—was naught but a hollow socket, crusted over with barnacles. The Dragon Orb, Torin had been sickened to learn, came from just that: the eye of the Dragon God. That was why He had but one more to give.

Only,
give
wasn’t the correct term. Ravar had made it quite clear that they would have to take it.

Hesitation merits you nothing. Why wear her trinket around your neck
,
if not to remind you of that lesson?

A sudden heat filled Torin’s veins. He went rigid, then drove the Sword into the center of that giant eye, ripping downward. A clear jelly gushed forth. Despite His bold taunts, Ravar clenched, His titanic form stiffening in pain and denial.

It was too late to stop now. Torin dug deeper, carving through the gelatinous mass toward the eye’s center. His stomach roiled, and he feared it might betray him. For a week now, he’d had nothing to eat but mussels and oysters and other, creeping shellfish—whatever they could harvest from Ravar’s body. There had been no fuel for a fire, save for some dried clumps of seaweed, so they had eaten their meals raw. Just as well, since their water had run out three days ago, forcing them to subsist on the juices trapped within the meat
and shells of the sea creatures they fed upon. Though he’d kept it all down, his stomach’s strength wasn’t what it normally was. There was little Torin was looking forward to more than roasted meat and a flagon of springwater.

The sooner he was finished here…

He felt it now, a strange pulse through the Sword. Of its own will, it seemed, the blade angled wide of where he directed it. The talisman understood his intent, as always, and would not let him damage the true prize with all his hacking and slashing. He turned his head and drew one last deep breath before plunging into the ravaged eye, groping with his free hand. He came upon it almost at once: the hardened, marble-like object that nested at the core of Ravar’s remaining eye.

The Dragon Orb.

He sheathed the Sword and wrapped both arms about the Orb. It was large enough that his fingers did not quite touch as he embraced it. With his own eyes clenched protectively, he scraped and tugged until the Orb came away against a slurp of protest.

Torin stumbled backward swiftly, wading through the spilled vitreous, nearly tripping when he reached the shore. He managed to hold his feet, but spun at once and dropped to his knees within the surf. He set the Orb down carefully, then scooped up a double handful of ocean and hurriedly scrubbed his face.

He came up spitting jelly and seawater, eyes stung by salt. Annleia was beside him now, one hand resting upon the Orb. Pearl black, like the nest from which it had been torn, with a surface as smooth as polished glass.

Ravar moaned. Torin looked over his shoulder, dripping, at the ruin of the Dragon God’s eye. It was no longer black, but gray and clouded. Half of its jelly lay like a mudslide amid the churning waves, leaving the once-rounded cornea to sag like a windless sail. A handful of tiny crabs had scuttled forth already to inspect the damage.

You have what you need
, the monster told him.
Go and make what use of it you will
,
what use you can. Pray this is the last you see of me
,
Asahiel.

On that much, Torin readily agreed. Relief turned to alarm, however, as the behemoth’s head lurched skyward. Torin’s neck craned after, and he was momentarily spellbound as this lord of the deep hovered like a reared serpent and snorted at the briny air. Slowly, He began to sink.

“We have to move,” Annleia urged.

Torin snapped out of his thrall. Already, the waves had climbed from his ankles to his knees. He helped Annleia to scoop up the Orb, then took it himself, thinking he might move faster alone. She did not argue, but led the way. He hurried after as best he could, slogging awkwardly through the churning waters, scarcely able to see by stretching his neck and chin over the Orb’s crown. Though he felt the ground rising beneath him, the tide seemed to follow as it rose.

Twice he stumbled, once falling to a knee. But he grimaced and held on, staggering stubbornly ahead. Only when he finally caught up to Annleia, perched atop a sandy shelf, did he pause as she did to peer back at the sea.

Ravar had gone. In His wake, the ocean roiled and spat, fighting to restore its more natural rhythms. White-capped waves rushed in all directions, crashing into one another and sending geysers of spray skyward. Overhead, the stony heavens seemed to press heavily, hunkered down upon the world.

With Annleia at his side, Torin waited for the Dragon God to breach once more, to offer one last glimpse of His awesome presence. Even now, it did not quite seem real. They had spent eight days upon His back, crossing the ocean in less than half the time that might have been required by sail. Yet it seemed more likely that it had all been a dream than that they had actually ridden that awesome form, spoken with it, been charged by it to shut away the Illysp before He destroyed them all. It felt as if they might still be standing upon Yawacor’s shore, rather than Pentania’s. Despite the wracking chill of sea-soaked clothing on this overcast morn, it warmed him within to imagine it so.

A stray gull winged out upon the waters from some cliffside nest, shrieking at the empty sea in challenge. Other seabirds began to follow, no longer frightened, apparently, by what had driven them off. Torin watched them for a moment, then glanced down at the Orb resting in the sand at his feet.

It was the only reminder he needed as to what had actually occurred. The warmth drained from his blood, and he shivered.

“We should build you a fire,” Annleia suggested, “and dry those clothes.”

Torin shook his head. “We need to keep moving,” he argued, teeth chattering. “I’ll keep just as warm, and we won’t be wasting time.”

Annleia frowned. She had been doing that a lot, lately, ever since their conversation with Ravar in that isolated cove. Something in her perception toward him had changed that night. He had tried to get her to admit it, but had been unsuccessful thus far. The more he had pried, the tighter she had closed up against him. Soon enough, he had surrendered the attempt. She had any number of valid reasons to dislike and mistrust him. The only wonder was that she had not shown him a colder shoulder before.

She looked now as if she might insist on drying him first, but shook her head instead, as if to indicate that the choice was his. His eyes followed hers to the Orb.

He wished at once for a sack or net of some kind with which to carry it. Though the talisman was surprisingly lightweight, its sheer size made it cumbersome. Nor was it going to grow lighter across the many miles and leagues that stood before them. And yet, he wasn’t going to get anywhere while complaining about it.

“Wait,” Annleia said, as he knelt to scoop it up.

“For?”

“There is a better way. Ravar explained it to me, just last night.”

Torin scowled, but decided not to argue. The Dragon God had shared not a single thought with him during their voyage. No more instructions, no more taunts, no more riddles. Not until they had reached this isolated stretch
of coast upon Kuuria’s southern shore had that silence been broken. He had asked Annleia more than once if
she
had managed to coax anything further from Him, but all she had admitted before now was,
I have tried.

Then again, she hadn’t yet revealed to him all that she had learned during their initial conversation back in the cove. Of that he was convinced. Her evasions had been obvious, with statements such as:
You know what He wants you to know. Let that be enough.

It seemed he had little choice.

He stepped back, allowing her room to approach the Orb without him hovering over her. He wondered what she intended. Some form of magic, no doubt. In his eyes, so much of her was defined by its use.

He hugged his shoulders, arms across his chest, in a feeble effort to ward off the cold. The wind had picked up, blowing sand, bending blades of sword grass, knifing through his wet tunic and breeches. Whatever she meant to do, he hoped she could finish quickly.

She knelt beside the Orb, legs folded beneath her, and placed her hands upon its surface. She spoke to it as she might a child, soft and soothing. Her tone was singsong, her words archaic. Though he understood none of it, Torin found his muscles loosening in response, his eyelids growing heavy. Were this a better time and place, he might have curled up for a moment’s nap.

Nothing discernible was happening with the Orb. Perhaps this was a waste of time after all.

“I can manage as far as Wingport,” he insisted. “Once there, we can…”

He trailed off as he noticed sweatlike beads forming upon the Orb’s surface. He glanced at the sky, but saw no rain. Nor did it appear to be ocean mist or gathering dew. The beads were growing larger, bubbling up from within, already joining to form streams and droplets that trickled down around the spherical edges.

Neither pearl nor glass, after all, but a porous surface filled with at least some manner of fluid. It seeped out faster now, from all around, darkening the sands beneath.

But once it was gone…

“How will you restore it?” he asked.

Annleia responded this time, albeit without turning or opening her eyes. “A few tears are all that is required. Hush, now.”

As these
tears
drained, the Orb began to shrivel like a dried fig. Torin thought of another question, but decided to respect her wishes and remain silent. While the Orb continued to shrink, his thoughts shifted instead to the manner in which it would be used—or how it
had
been used, if he was to recall Ravar’s emphasis. To trap the Illysp and Illychar, Algorath and his Vandari followers had first closed all tunnels into the cavern in which the rift had been opened. A lone opening was left, high in the cavern ceiling, an altar constructed, and the Dragon Orb planted upon it. Magic, fueled by the power of the Sword, was used to activate it, bringing the seal to life.

But that did not explain how every last Illysp and Illychar had been lured into the cavern to begin with. That was where the Orb’s power truly came into play. Like the lens of a spyglass used to direct and magnify the sun’s rays, so was the Orb used to focus the light spilling from the interplanar cleft through which the Illysp had come, and to seek out all beings native to that realm. Once sighted, Illysp and Illychar alike were drawn into the Orb via magical rents, then spit out below, into the darkness—sealed away for as long as the Sword held its power.

When Annleia had first explained this to him, she had done so slowly, uncertainly, as if only to measure her own understanding of what was expected. He had asked her to explain it again several times since, until he finally felt as if he grasped the overall concept. Even so, Ravar had been right: To Torin, it all sounded rather unlikely and incomprehensible. But it was all they had, and better that than a futile reliance upon his own limited command of the Sword’s powers.

Besides, there was really no need for him to understand the specifics of it, the magics involved. He had his own concerns in simply getting them there—in overcoming the warnings that Ravar had laid out for them. He would let Annleia worry about the rest.

The Orb had shrunk already to the size of a pumpkin—and the transformation showed no signs of slowing. The smaller it became, the faster it shriveled, weeping freely now in thin cascades. When it had reached the size of a pinkfruit, Annleia uncorked her empty waterskin. Hefting the withered Orb in one hand, she held the skin beneath it, to catch the underlying runoff.

At last, when the Orb was no larger than an apple, the flow of its tears bled away to a trickle. Annleia’s waterskin was perhaps half full when she replaced the stopper and let the skin hang back in place.

“Better,” she proclaimed.

Torin could only shake his head in wonder, his amazement shadowed with skepticism. The Orb no longer bore any resemblance to the glasslike sphere he had first laid eyes upon in the ruins of Thrak-Symbos—the one he had inadvertently destroyed. This looked more like a fist-sized walnut, all dry and wrinkled and misshapen. Easier to carry, sure, but had it been weakened in any way? Or would it still serve as needed when the time came?

Too late now. The task was already done. Time now to turn their attention to the next.

Annleia found an empty drawstring pouch and placed the Orb within. She stood, then, and secured the artifact at her waist, leaving behind a patch of wet sand and sloughed jelly. When she looked at him, her features were solemn, expectant.

“To the north, He said.”

Torin nodded. Wingport.
Your friends will be found there
, Ravar had told them.
Do not expect a warm welcome.