Volition, it seemed, had
disappeared. The world went on
regardless, Elu thought; the endless comings and goings of men and beast
remained the same. Winter passed on
into spring as it always did – the coolness of short dark days gave way to
damp, blue hued light, not the strong golds and saffrons that came with
summer. Freshness was born into a
thawing world again; the weeks had stolen the snow, and replaced it with the
first showers of spring, and new bursts of flowers.
And Elu and her companions, it
seemed, moved according to the same sort of law; that of constant movement, of
inescapable inevitability. Strange
then, that their future and that the outcome of their quest should be less than
certain. Strange that the force that
propelled them knew no direction, no certainty. The idea of Fate held Elu like the walls of a prison, drawing her
further and further into a tunnel she could not flee from. Listlessness and indifference gathered over
her mind like ashen clouds of rain.
Want, hope and desire seemed pointlessly futile. The trails of life seemed unaccountably
mundane, trodden by so many blind sheep, leading only to the same place. And yet, despite all that the word Fate
implied, Elu knew not where she was going, nor where her end might be. She simply walked.
Presently the dark green and rocky
plains that characterised Rofaçilin petered out, and gave way to soft land
carpeted with lush, tall and verdant grass.
It was as though the soil in this place fed upon a different sustenance
to that of the northern lands; the vegetation was thicker, richer, its flowers
brighter, its trees broad yet elegant and sculpted. The air was damper, yet sweeter; it seemed as though a winter day
had never bitten through these sunny lands.
The sun shone palest of yellows, bathing the fields in a pallid, almost
silvery light. Dewdrops glittered like
crystals upon the leaves of tree, grass and bush. This was Nithall, the kingdom of the sephira.
“At last we draw close to our
destination,” Ifith breathed, a wan smile touching her dusty face, worn by the
ravages of malnutrition and hunger.
Elu looked up, her eyes scouring the
endless fields skirted by forest as far as the eye could see. No man, no hut marked these lands. It seemed a world free of blemish, of all
physical life, like some green yet ominous wasteland. The beauty of apathy lay upon the uncultivated land, the sprawl
of the forests, the coils of weeds. She
found it hard to believe that anyone inhabited this country, wild and untamed
as it was. Nature itself seemed to be
the only denizen of this ever-growing wilderness.
“And there,” Ifith continued softly,
with a tone both of awe and deep deference. “That is Mount Ithris, and the
ancient halls of all our race.”
And even as Ifith said the words,
Elu saw, clawing up out of the horizon as though growing like some great and
antiquated animal from the bowels of the earth, a mountain the colour of silver
grey, its peak shrouded in wisps of cloud and mist. As they journeyed onward the mountain unfurled before them,
taller and taller, slender and more graceful than any other natural edifice Elu
had ever seen. On and on it kept
climbing, thrusting itself like a silver-clad finger into the very skies
itself, challenging those upon the earth to match its power to reach even unto
the world of the gods. Where its summit
lay, Elu could not tell. Where it ended
and the blueness began was indiscernible.
“It is the tallest peak in the lands
of Fithandani,” Azuril said to a wondering Elu and Nim. “And when the sephira
first came to Nithall they worshipped it as the greatest thing upon this
earth. So awed were they that they
built their homes into the sacred mountain, and later a great palace, which
they named the Hall of Brinith in honour of their first lord and king. In their eyes its peak reached even unto
Arinfól and the gods. To the ancients
it seemed as though the mountain was the only physical connection between this
world and the next.”
“Like a bridge,” Elu breathed,
holding a hand to her eyes as the sunlight caught her gaze.
“Yes,” Azuril nodded, “A bridge,
just as Tenamer the Star River was and is.”
Ifith was silent as she listened to
these words. None of the others saw
what she saw – an image in her mind, the last vestige of a childhood memory;
her, riding in a saddle before her father, hearing the tears her mother had
quietly shed; and of turning back and catching one last glance at that glorious
peak, the symbol of her people, before it was swallowed up by the earth, never
to be seen again.
Despite the closeness of their
destination, a weariness had grown over them.
For too long now their food had dwindled to nothing but hard roots and
stale, rock-hard bread. Their water had
run dry, leaving them with no alternative but to drink from lakes and muddy
pools. Sleep had evaded them. Ifith had been ill for two days now, but had
complained little, insisting that they drive on. Now that the sight of Mount Ithris lay before her, something
seemed to have gone out of her, and she lay almost flat against the neck of her
horse, eyes half-closed, thoughtful.
Elu’s throat burned. Faintness
gripped all of them except Azuril, whose golden eyes roved his surroundings
with the sensitivity of a hawk.
And the mountain never seemed to draw
any nearer.
On they travelled, for hours
perhaps, Elu could not tell. She could
not even tell whether she had fallen asleep at odd intervals, her mind was so
heavy. Even the horses were beginning
to lag, despite being stout and hardy of nature. Only Nim remained wide-awake, staring about her with dagger at
the ready, her mind and face alert.
Though their minds and hearts were full of foreboding at what would meet
them in Ithris, they pressed on with a single-mindedness that Elu did not
feel. Only sleep would have been
welcome now.
At last they reached the base of the
mountain, curling up into a darkening sky above their heads, so very far
away. Elu was so tired that she saw
little. She was vaguely aware of
figures, dark and imperceptible, peering down at them from ledges in the crag
and rock. Then Ifith, striding forward
into a clump of tall grass, falling over with exhaustion and allowing herself
to give into sleep. And then Elu
herself sliding off her horse and finally doing the same.
The next thing she remembered was
the sky again; then she realised it was not the sky, but rock – strange,
glimmering, blue coloured rock. The air
was cooler and crisper than it had been on the plains; she drew in a breath and
marvelled at it. She had the odd
sensation of being rocked back and forth.
Perplexed, she moved her head and attempted to speak.
“Where…?”
A head popped out from seemingly
nowhere and stared into hers. It was a
male face, thin and long and graceful as Ifith’s.
“Do not worry, ithnel. You are alive and
well. We are taking you to a safe
place.”
“Good…” Elu murmured and then fell
back into a deep sleep.
Later, there was the scent of many
plants and herbs and shrubs – thyme and rosemary, sandalwood and pungent
eucalyptus, all woven into a single fragrance so strong and stimulating to
Elu’s tired nerves that she was roused from sleep almost immediately. She opened her eyes with little difficulty,
and with all vestiges of sleep reft from her.
She was able to look at her surroundings with a clarity that she had
been bereft of ever since she had left Mosdren.
What she saw was not unduly out of
the ordinary. She was lying in a plain
but comfortable bed – the coverlets were white and pristine, the material soft
and finely woven. The room she was in
was wide and spacious. It seemed to be
carved of pure rock; hewn as though in the form of a cave of old. But there was much natural light, and from
where this emanated, Elu at first could not readily discern. To her right was a small table made of
polished wood, and on this was set a steaming bowl of water. From the steam that rose so steadily upward
flowed the pleasant, menthol fragrance of the various herbs. To her left lay Nim in her own bed, still
quite unconscious. And at the end of her
bed sat a woman, busily sewing at a ragged garment that Elu noticed as her own.
“Ah,” the woman spoke cordially as
she finally noticed that Elu was awake “You have awoken.”
She said nothing more, but bit into
her thread, cutting the strand, and then securing her work with a deft
knot. She was a woman early in the
winter of her life, with a merry face scarred little by the lines that came
with years; her frame was thin, but not bony; her ears were tapered in the
manner of the sephira and her skin bore the faint tone of the leaves of the
forest. Elu sat up. At last, it seemed, she had reached the Hall
of Brinith.
“Is this Mount Ithris?” she asked
the woman eagerly. “Have we reached the Hall of Brinith?”
The woman did not seem unduly
disturbed by her questions.
“This is indeed the Hall of Brinith,
ithnel. You have been brought to our places of rest, where our sick and
our melancholy often go.”
“How long have I been here?”
“Since yesterday,” the woman
replied, beginning to stitch a new rent. “You were found outside our gates, in
very poor health. You had fainted, ithnel.
But we saw that you had brought one of our own, and we are much
grateful. Our Lord ordered that you be
put here until you are well rested.”
Elu looked about her again, noticing
that Ifith was nowhere in sight.
“And Ifith?
Where is she?”
“She is well, Elu,” came Azuril’s
voice, and Elu looked up as the tall, dark cloaked man emerged from a doorway
curtained with woven reeds. She thought
he looked more careworn than he had done before they had reached Mount Ithris,
and she was mildly worried about it. “The Lord Aldarith has sent to her to his
physicians. It seems that she was
sicker than we realised. But I think it
will not take long for her to be healed.”
Elu caught the thinly veiled anxious
note in his voice. It was something she
had become used to.
“What is the matter Azuril?”
“Nothing, child,” he answered, and
smiled upon her softly, but with a weariness that he could not disguise. “I
will tell you all when you are rested.
For now, you must sleep.”
From the tone of his voice Elu knew
that any objections would be made in vain.
With a sigh she lay back again, and immediately fell asleep once more.
Two days had passed before Elu awoke
again, and was consumed by a ravenous hunger that could not be ignored. It was while she and Nim were gorging
themselves on the fruit and bread of the sephira that Azuril came to them, and
his expression was severe.
“I cannot tell you how it relieves
me to see you awake and well,” he greeted them after he had convinced Midith,
the elderly healer woman, to leave the room. “I am fearful, Elu, dreadfully
fearful. I am afraid that we have
reached Nithall too late.”
“Why?” Elu asked, anxious at the
tone of despair in his voice. “What news is there of the war? Has it begun?”
“No,” Azuril shook his head; “At
least I do not think so. But the Lord
of the Sephira refuses to see me, despite my desperate entreaties that I speak
with him. Time and again I go to his
door, and he turns me away. The Lord
Aldarith is sick, his physicians – the Healers – and advisors say. More than this,” he continued with a bleaker
look than before, “Ifith has been imprisoned.
It seems that Aldarith has not forgotten her, nor the grudge that he
once bore her father.”
“But Midith told us that Ifith was
being well taken care of,” Nim objected.
“Yes; the sephira have not lacked
hospitality or kindness in dealing with us,” Azuril agreed, “And I have been to
visit Ifith, and the physicians are working hard to nurse her back to
health. But Aldarith has ordered that
his men keep her under guard, and that once she is cured she be taken to his
prisons and tried as a traitor. But he
will not see her, nor will he speak to me on the matter.”
Elu watched carefully the darkness
of his seamed face. Despair took her.
“You think that Aldarith will betray
us, just as Morçant has?” she asked directly.
“I fear that may be the case,”
Azuril answered with a sigh. “And if it is so then I have made a serious
misjudgment in my planning and timing of all this. I had not until this moment known that the hounds of the Dark had
been so far ahead of us.”
“Then we must find out,” Nim said,
pushing aside her food and rising from her bed. “So far Elu and I have not been
impeded in seeking out the king.
Perhaps we should go, Elu and I, and discover what is afoot – if we
may.”
“I fear it may be in vain,” Azuril
said doubtfully, “But if Elu agrees then I see no reason why you should not
try.”
“I will go,” Elu agreed after a
moment. “Ifith has done nothing wrong except be the daughter of her
father. And I cannot truly believe that
Aldarith is against us. So far he has
not tried to hinder us in anyway, or detain us as Morçant would have. Perhaps his illness is a genuine one.”
They followed Azuril through several corridors and
down many flights of stairs. The halls
of the sephira were very cleverly carved from the rock of the mountain, for the
chisels and picks they used were so surely handled that the walls of corridors
seemed as smooth as marble, and the ceilings of the rooms as fine as any grand
house that Elu had seen. The light of
the sun was filtered through a great many small tunnels that led up to the
outside world and were fixed with many brilliant mirrors that bent and
reflected the sunlight to a great brightness.
There were natural flowers and crystals and gems growing from the rocks
and natural fountains that sprang from the stone. Far different was this place from the caves of the Asalki, who
corridors and chambers were dim and illuminated only by the soft glow of the
green verda. This was a place of great beauty, graced by
the ever-shifting presence of sunlight during the day, and the flicker of
candles during night. At the myriad
patterns that the carved mirrors threw upon the walls, both Nim and Elu stared
about them with awe and wonder.
At last they came to the doorway of a great hall,
where a row of sephira soldiers stood guard.
They were scantily clad as the sephira were inclined to – their chests
were bare, and they wore only a strip of soft iridescent material about their
waists. They all seemed so young to Elu
– yet their eyes were harsh, even as ones scarred by years of conflict. As the three approached they recognised
Azuril, and they drew their spears against the door to block their way.
“You have been told, Master Azuril, that the king is
ill,” said one of the men, in a strange, singsong tone of voice. “And that he
does not wish to see you. He has heard
naught but ill of your kind, with their false and cunning ways. We shall not let you pass! And if you should attempt to come here
again, we shall expel you from this country, despite all we have done to aid
you!”
“And who has given you such orders, ithbel?” Azuril answered cuttingly. “For
surely it cannot be the good Lord Aldarith, whose heart is weak and whose mind
is clouded with illness. And if indeed
he is unwell, would it not profit him better to take to his bed, rather than to
sit idle upon his throne?”
“The Lord Aldarith would rather remain ill in court
than abandon his people,” the guard replied sharply. “And what he does is not
for you to question, Azuril the Fleet Footed.
Remove yourself from this place – for I am sorely tempted to drive you
from this palace.”
“For my part, I have not come here to speak to your
king,” Azuril replied nonchalantly. “I have come but to escort my companions to
his throne, that they may crave a favour of their own from him. Will you not at least ask that he have an
audience with them? For they are
unarmed women, and they are human, unlike me – and they will not harm him, if
your men keep watch.”
There was a surly look upon the guard’s face, but
after a moment of consideration he nodded, and entered into the chamber to seek
his lord’s favour. After a while he
returned, and his face was solemn.
“The Lord Aldarith agrees to your request. But he will talk only with the woman named
Elu Eldeen. He bids you enter now.”
Elu passed a look at both Nim and Azuril,
reluctant. Azuril’s face was first
puzzled, then doubtful, but after a moment he nodded his head.
“I would not do this, Elu,” he spoke softly. “But we
cannot delay in meeting the king any longer.
If he is truly traitorous then watch your steps carefully. Remember that he knows your name. What else he knows we cannot tell.”
Elu nodded.
She allowed the guard to escort her in past the double doors, and
attempted to block out the sound of their soft creak as they closed. If treachery was at work here, Azuril and
Nim could not help her now.
It was a dark chamber she entered into, so highly
carved that it seemed impossible that anyone had ever dared to hew it. Mustiness attacked her nostrils like smoke,
disorientating her with its pungency.
Both beauty and glory had once laid in this chamber, yet now only a
shadow of magnificence remained, grey and dim, lined with the cobwebs of
countless years, sunk into a shade of a room, if rooms could become
shades. At the end of the room stood a
throne, set under a mirror so large that the dusty reflection it now cast
seemed to be the only source of light in the room. For a moment Elu stood, taking all this in; then, at a short word
from the guard who stood beside her, she moved forwards into the centre of the
room.
At the dais sat the man named Lord Aldarith, a
curiosity that Elu had only imagined but had longed to behold with her own two
eyes. He was like the sephira and yet
he was unlike them – he was neither a chief nor a symbol of his people, but a
ghost, a flickering flame glimmering faintly before burning itself out. He could not have been an old man, for Ifith
had said he was a man in the prime of his life, yet all that Elu saw before her
strove to contradict that fact. His
eyes were sunken and his cheeks sallow; his body was thin and wasted as though
it had not moved in years. His clothes,
the costly, flowing, diaphanous fabric that all his people wore, were ragged
and mangled as to make him seem like something akin to a beggar. His rich wealth of dark red hair was matted,
knotted, unkempt as straw. This ghastly
vision stared upon her, uncomprehending, eyes blank and haunted as an
owl’s. There could be no doubt that
this man was truly sick.
Elu moved forward, hardly daring to breathe the rank
stench of disease left uncured that invaded her senses. Somehow she managed to stand before the
throne, to bend onto one knee and bow.
It was easier than curtseying.
It was easier to support herself on the ground than to stand and faint
from that overpowering stink.
“My Lord,” she spoke as she looked up to face that
ghost of a king, her voice wavering as she did so. “You wished to see me?”
A breath escaped the man, short and shallow, baring
the hollowness of his ribcage. But no
word came forth from his mouth, and his eyes, still upon her face, were
bewildered, confused.
“My Lord,” she began again; but a movement by the
throne halted her. From behind the
great gold height of the chair stepped a man, as though entering from another
world into her own, so sudden was his appearance. He was a man so strikingly beautiful that Elu was stunned into
silence, and could only watch as he moved out from behind the dais. He was taller than any man she had ever
seen, and his face was handsome, angular and full of pride and strength. His hair was long, and fell down his
shoulders in waves as black as midnight; a golden chaplet adorned his
brow. He was garbed from head to foot
in shining gold armour that even in the dimness it glimmered as though in its
own radiance; and his clothes and cloak were of the richest and deepest
sable. But beneath this splendour there
was something cold and malignant about him; his skin was pale as if almost to
be white, and his eyes were piercing red.
His gaze was frosty and petrifying, like the fatal glare of some ancient
demon. Something wonderful and
powerful emanated from this creature, something old and ancient – and though he
had taken human form, it was as unlike unto humans as could possibly be.
Slowly he glided out and his
movements were elegant, graceful, as though every step he made were upon
water. Elu held her breath as he came
to stand beside the king’s throne, her body caught up in an utter
stillness. It was as though in the
presence of this beautiful man all time and space had been contained and had
lost its meaning.
“Who are you?” she stammered at last,
“What have you done to the king?”
The man smiled, a smile as warm as
the sun rising over the snow plains of Dûrval, as cold as an icicle on a winter
morning. His beauty, it seemed,
increased threefold.
“Ah, Elu, Elu Eldeen,” he spoke
softly, and his voice was rich, proud and musical. “At last you have come. I have been waiting a very long time for
this meeting, for a time when we could be together, alone.” He beckoned to her
with a long graceful hand. “Please, do not kneel like a commoner upon this cold
stone floor. Rise, and we shall see one
another better.”
Almost involuntarily Elu stood,
unable to resist the allure of that wonderful voice. There was a part of her that was enchanted and enraptured at this
man – and there was another part, though less active, that repulsed her, though
she was not certain why that was.
Perhaps it was the coldness that lay so intrinsically behind his
comeliness, giving the effect that his looks had been frozen one day and had
never thawed out. Perhaps it was the instant
and inscrutable attraction she felt to him.
“That is better,” he spoke when she
stood facing him. “Yes; we may look upon one another now, and I may see your
face.” He paused, perusing her with such intensity that her knees shook. It was as though he had caressed her. “How
sad it is,” he remarked after a moment, and there was deep sorrow upon his
face, “That beauty should be rendered thus; common, ineffectual, mundane. You have come here, as I was warned, as I
knew you would. Yet you are scarcely
the woman I was looking for. Dead,
perhaps? No, it cannot be.”
The sorrow upon his face turned
almost to anguish, and despite his coldness Elu sensed a softness in him that
lurked there, as though deep within folds and layers of snowdrift, so that one might
hardly know it existed. Sensing that
warmth she boldened enough to speak.
“Who are you?”
The man’s eyes moved to hers again,
sharply; there was a questioning, disbelieving look in them. After a moment he walked down from the dais,
his rich cloak rustling as he did so, until he stood before her, looking down
upon her, his tall frame almost dwarfing hers.
It was strange – she caught no sensation from him, no aura, no scent, no
heat. All she was aware of was the
physicality of his form – his strength, his power, the sculpt of his towering
frame. When he reached out to touch her
forehead the pit of her stomach lurched with the power of a reaction, an
impulse born only from the sensual, the tactile. No other sense could touch him or be touched by him – he was all
cold.
“I see,” he mused, when he had
released his hand from her skin. “The bonds are still upon you. Strong, I fear – but they will not
last. They may be broken.”
“What bonds do you speak of?” she
asked, longing for the coolness of his touch and the warmth it sent her
again. The man smiled frostily upon
her, then turned and began to walk back up to the dais.
“The bonds you put upon yourself,
when you forsook your Fate,” he answered cryptically, with words that Azuril
himself would have chosen. Realisation
flashed into Elu’s mind even as he spoke.
“You are Rayla,” she breathed. “Just
as Azuril said you were.”
The man stopped, faced her. “So, you remember that
at last,” he grimaced, “Either that or Azuril has already told you much about
me.” He swept back up the steps to the throne. “How is my dear cousin,
Elu? Is he waiting outside the door,
waiting as we of the same kindred ever are?
Is he as weak-willed and weak-minded as he ever was?”
“Your cousin?” Elu repeated,
amazed. Azuril had not told her of
this.
“Indeed,” Rayla nodded, turning to
her once more, “My cousin, poor Azuril.
I am certain he must be well, and his mind still in working order. After all, such a fine prize he has caught
himself – dear little Elu Eldeen, peasant of Éadan.” There was a mocking note
to his voice, but also a tone of self-derision, as though he in part were
victim of whatever jest he thought had been perpetrated.
“He did not catch me,” Elu replied,
gathering all the courage and resolve she could into her voice. “I came to
him. For I would not come to you Rayla,
who serves the Dark! Never would I do
that!”
She had thought he would fall into a
rage, but instead he laughed at her, that strange laugh of mirth and contempt
mixed.
“You have come to no one,” he spoke
darkly, “and they have not come to you either.
We are impelled together, Elu,
insidious though it may sound. Curse
these Fates that drive us so! Yet so it
is. Rather I would destroy the Dark
than carry on this weary voyage of mine.
But it is not my place to do so, no.
Not mine.”
Immediately Elu was aware of the
difference between Azuril and this Rayla.
Rayla hated his Fate; Azuril embraced it. Rayla wished to free himself from it; Azuril wished to guide
others to it. The sympathy she held for
the beautiful, dark-haired man was a genuine one, because she understood his
fear and his contempt of Fate.
“What have you done to Lord
Aldarith?” she asked at last after a long silence.
“Nothing, except put him out of his
misery,” Rayla answered gently.
Tenderly he caressed the withered cheek of the unseeing king. “He and
his father – always weak, always hedonistic.” He looked back at Elu, his gaze
piercing. “Is it not a fortunate and yet terrible thing that with the passing
of ages man loses his faculties; that the ancient laws and knowledge that once
governed and held him float away even as seeds upon the wind? The gods have always wondered why it is that
the mortal races die a little death every moment that they live, why their
collective memory is so weak and fragile.
Humans give into greed, tûrkals to power, elves to melancholy, sephira
to apathy. They are filled with the
joys and pleasures of the moment, of only what is certain. Past and future is a dead thing. Little do they realise that it is here
before them even during their short and passing lifespans. That
is the crumbling of nations, Elu. It is
a heedless joy in the moment, it is never thinking of another moment gone or
yet to come. Mark that well in your
mind, sweet one.”
Now his eyes were back upon the dim
ones of the king, and Elu was no longer certain whether he spoke to her or
Aldarith.
“Aldarith was only a young man when he came to the
throne.” Rayla continued gently. “He was a gourmet of the sweet, mindless
things in this life; wine, women, dance, song.
He would even lie to his people in order that he satisfy his own
needs. It was not difficult to
manipulate him. But,” and his voice
became reflective, “with age came a measure of wisdom, strange though it may
seem. His mind ever returned to the
woman that had so haunted him in his past.
It tormented him, made him question, made him bold. He had to be quieted.” He paused, smoothed
back the dark red hair from the jaundiced forehead. “My poor Aldarith. He sees nothing now. The torment of his mind has been quelled,
the storms have vanished – yet he sees nothing. Some days, I wish I shared the same fate as him.”
Once more pity for the raven-haired
man coursed through Elu like a flood, and she tried to hold it down. His words were like song, so gentle, so
persuasive; yet she could not stand the suffering of the pale Lord of the
Sephira any longer. Azuril – only
Azuril could free him. But how could
she call out to him? How could she let
him know? And at once the answer came
to her, as naturally as though she had not even thought it – she would warn him
the way he sometimes spoke to her, with her spirit, with her mind.
And then it was easy. She had never known how easy it could be
before. A thought rooted, embedded,
launched along a line, one predetermined, one that had existed countless
ages. Like a wire the line bridged the
small distance between sender and receiver, and the message jumped across it
with the imperceptibility and subtlety of a flea.
Azuril! Danger!
It is Rayla!
The response leaped to her as a leaf in the wind.
Elu! I come!
But the thought had been caught, rent from her; the expert could not,
could never be fooled, and Rayla had run back down the stairs towards her, his
face white as death, his smile glacial.
“Yet the bonds are not so great, I see,” he spoke, and his gaze held hers one last time before the doors of the chamber were burst through, and there stood Azuril, an array of guards standing stunned behind him, Nim at his side, eyes bright, watchful. A silence fell upon the room as Azuril stared upon the tall form of Rayla, and Rayla, beside Elu, stared upon the cloaked and hooded old man.
“So,” Rayla finally spoke, breaking the quiet, his
voice laced with both sorrow and contempt. “This is what you have become
Azuril.”
“Rather that I would be this a hundred times than
you,” Azuril replied, his eyes falling upon the inert form of Aldarith upon his
throne. “So this is the mischief you have worked, Rayla. How long has it been so?”
“Many years,” Rayla answered, a sneer crossing his
face. “But I had little to do with it.
The degeneration of the sephira began many, many centuries ago. You are late by millennia.”
“Maybe so – but I have Elu.” There was a note of
triumph to Azuril’s voice that he could not hide.
“And how long will that be for, Azuril?” Rayla
laughed. “There are forces that chase her, that will break into her as one
breaks into a vault. All it needs is
one who is strong, one whose will may match hers, whose spirit can fill hers as
yours cannot.”
And then Elu felt it, the coiling of Rayla’s
consciousness as it snaked through her, reading her, feeling against the
muscles underneath her skin, burrowing its way inside her. She knew that only with a slight pressure of
force he could do it, he could break her, he could free her from the barriers
of her past, then fill her as she instinctively knew Azuril could not. He would have done it there and then, had it
not been for the half-repulsion she felt towards him; it took only that small
resistance and he could not do it, he could not break the bonds. He was not, after all, strong enough to free
her and to own her.
That simple act of repelling him seemed to magnify
itself into his own body. Before Elu
even knew what she had done Rayla had been thrust away from her with a strength
that left him reeling. Azuril gazed
upon him, his expression victorious.
“You have grown arrogant beyond reason, Rayla. We both know only two may free her – and one
of those men is dead.”
Rayla’s face changed, and in one moment the
unsurpassable beauty had been replaced with a countenance of such utter hatred
and venom that the spell he had woven over Elu dissipated as swiftly as it had
first grown.
“Not as long as I live, dear cousin,” he vowed in a
hiss. “This will not end so easily, Azuril, that I promise you. Aldarith will die – he will die, without
heir, without follower, without honour.
Thus will the sephira
diminish.”
So saying he swung round, and Elu caught the bright
flash of his blade as he drew it from its sheath. With a cry she leapt forward, willing, willing with a strength
she hardly knew even as the command leapt from her brain.
No, you will
not!
Metal met with skin, slid through like butter; and
Elu saw the first surge of blood. But
even as the dismay coursed through her, she saw that the sword had missed its
mark – not embedded in the heart, as had been its intention, but high in the
shoulder. Thwarted, Rayla stepped back,
withdrew his sword, gazing at Elu with incredulity in his eyes. In a moment the guards were upon him, spears
poised to strike like a ring of glinting fangs. But Rayla, calm, simply re-sheathed his bloodied sword, looking
upon Elu with that soft smile, so irresistible, so insidious.
“It will not be long,” he whispered, “You will not
be able to help it.”
So saying he shimmered and shrivelled into the form
of a sleek black panther, and jumped upon the soldier nearest to him, swiping
the man’s chest with sharp white claws before bolting from the room.