Eyes of fire, eyes that see
Truth or nightmares yet to be.
In the middle of a distant sea, a vast red dome curved against a cloudless blue sky. Sunlight reflected off it like glass, yet ships and waves and wheeling seabirds passed through it as though it did not exist.
But the Aegis was very real.
It was exactly one thousand years old, created in an almost forgotten age by ten of the most powerful sorcerers of their time. Each of the sorcerers infused a large crystal with their chosen magic, inscribed it laboriously with spells and sunk it into the seabed, evenly spaced around the circumference of the volcanic island they called the Middle Isle. The magical energy within the hearts of the crystals had then ignited, flared and connected, forming a perfect, unbreakable barrier over the entire island.
They had done this for one purpose, and one purpose only:
To keep half a dozen Dragons imprisoned inside.
To put an end to a savage war that had lasted for centuries.
And it had worked; despite their terrible rage and bloodlust, the huge winged creatures could not escape. No matter how fiercely they threw themselves at the Aegis, it would not let them through. The sky, for them, was to be forever crimson, the air perpetually filled with cinders and dark with smoke.
Sometimes they slaughtered the Humans who came to pick and peck at the rocks – their rocks – splashed their blood out of hunger or pure vindictiveness. Whenever presented with the opportunity, the Dragons picked off those stray puny lice who hadn't already destroyed themselves with their own petty wars, but it did little to sate their ravenous desire to reclaim the world of Arvanor as their own.
But Dragons lived a very long time, and they were patient.
And they remembered.
And they saw everything.
Deep within the dusty, blasted peaks of the Isle, a distinctive bright redstone ridge cut an impressive spine against the blood-tinted sky. Over the years, many Humans had tried scaling this ridge, or attempted to stick sharp implements into it, or build watchtowers upon it. All had disappeared, mysteriously, without a trace.
A section of stone suddenly split apart with a slight shower of dirt. Previously hidden behind the pitted surface was a bright molten orange glow, like a globe of fire. A slitted pupil, the length of a man's forearm, swivelled to look at the sky.
There was nothing there, only passing cloud shadows.
Nevertheless, the eye watched them.
It watched, and waited.
* * *
Hundreds of miles to the north-east, a perfectly straight bolt lanced into the clouds, so high that no Angel or bird had ever reached its summit; at least, not by mortal means. The rising sun glittered on windows of green and gold that wound about it like a string of gemstones, and traced the mesmerising geometric pattern that spiralled upwards into breathtaking infinity.
At the tower's root, waterfalls streamed from within lush jungle shadows over a perfect, semi-circular cliff. As they fell, the glittering streams struck bells, chimes, golden waterwheels and all manner of wondrous musical instruments embedded into the cliff face. Each created a divine silver melody that rang off the rock walls to be heard over land and sea and sky alike, until finally the aqueous symphony concluded in the applause of the sea.
These cliffs were known as the Singing Cliffs, and the tower that stood conductor above them was Caer Sync, the Heavenly Spire, the Axis, and many other names in many other languages.
In the heart of the great sky spire, at the place where it began its deep plunge into the ground, in the middle of an echoing chamber, stood three massive winged statues. The right arm of each god-like figure was outstretched, fingers flat, palms upward. Balanced delicately on the tips of the statues' fingers, tiny beneath their blind, all-knowing gazes, sat a tetrahedral mirror.
The Aurellian Sync.
Ambassador Tek'Hari floated in front of the artefact, fiddling with his glasses, nervous as he always was before a Viewing. The beautiful symphony of the Singing Cliffs filtered up through the windows, muted into distant echoes by the thick stone walls. Otherwise, only the swish of his golden-brown wings and the clunking of the huge clock on the ceiling dared disturb the reverent hush.
Beneath his feet, there was no floor: the chamber fell away into immeasurable blackness save for a decorative circular metal grate about fifty feet below him. Tek shuddered as he glanced down at it.
The gate to the Dark World.
In ages past, when that gate had been opened, foul things had flooded out of it and Arvanor had nearly fallen into chaos, but the Seraphim – the three statues that loomed now around him – had driven them back. It was said that anyone who ventured deep enough could enter the realm of Death without dying, and that the evil substance known as trigon had originated from there. Many things were said about that pit…
The Angel lifted his gaze quickly from the soul-eating black depths and fluttered a little closer to one of the statues, as though seeking the giant stone guardian's protection. Normally, he did not dwell on what lay beneath the Dark Gate, but the recent images he'd seen revealed by the Aurellian had him rattled. He was glad he had managed to retain his composure during his meeting with the King of Daroria. It had not been easy, especially since the King had appeared even more ignorant and inadequate than he'd feared…
Placing his small round spectacles carefully back on his nose, he looked up at the bright sunlight streaming through the windows above the heads of the statues. Eight triangular, glassless holes ringed the chamber in carefully calculated intervals, mathematically positioned to catch the sun at different times of the day and in different seasons. It was the alignment to the south-west that he looked to now, with a mixture of trepidation and impatience.
Above his head, the great clock ticked slowly: a reminder to all who entered the chamber of their own mortality.
A minute later, the beam appeared. The instant it hit the reflective silver face of the Aurellian, the mirror turned transparent, revealing a complex, crystalline interior which threw the light around in mysterious ways before projecting it onto the wall between two of the statues.
Tek watched the vision unfold with a hard knot in his stomach. The visions had first started appearing six months ago, but in the past few weeks had become much more detailed… and much grimmer.
The Aegis disintegrating. Fire and confusion. Dragons rampaging across land and sea, leaving terror and destruction in their wake.
To his knowledge, the Aurellian had never displayed prophetic images before. It was designed to reveal events happening in the present moment, anywhere in Arvanor but specifically the Middle Isle.
But these were clearly scenes of the future.
But perhaps, he reasoned, this was how it was supposed to work, to provide advance warning of the imminent failure of the Aegis.
It was an extremely old artefact. There was a possibility it could be malfunctioning, that these scenes would never occur. Yet, there was no way to know for certain; there were no sorcerers left to inspect the crystals in the seabed around the island, to check if they were still functioning. Even more worryingly: there was no one left who could repair them.
The Ambassador put his face in his hands, a draught chilling the sheen of sweat that had gathered on his skin.
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If the Aegis truly was failing, then there was nothing anyone on Arvanor could do to prevent the visions in the Aurellian from coming true.
Slowly, he removed his hands from his face. The final image on the wall showed the great forest of Arkana both freezing and burning, Fleetfleer in ruins…
And something else. Something cold and dark and devastating that slipped into Arkana amid the chaos. Something far more monstrous than the Dragons…
And then the vision faded.
Trembling, Tek lifted his gaze to the giant six-winged statues surrounding him, looked up into their blind, three-eyed faces. Nothing anyone could do. Except…
Bowing his head and placing his hands against his chest, he began to pray.
* * *
Grisket Trice regained consciousness slowly, his heart pounding in steady time to the pain crashing into the back of his head.
Groaning, he opened his eyes.
The first thing his blurry vision managed to focus on was a ground littered with bark: grey and soft like old skin. The second thing he noticed was the flies: little black dots buzzing everywhere in a chaotic frenzy. The third thing he experienced was the smell. It hit him with almost as much force as the blow that had knocked him out.
Retching, he lifted an arm to swat away the flies crawling over his face, and his hand brushed something wet on his cheek. Further investigation revealed that the source of the dampness was at the back of his head; naturally, where the pain was coming from. He winced at the blood on his fingers. Whoever had hit him hadn't used a blunt object, but something sharp. There was a nice gash back there.
But he was still alive, so they hadn't wanted him dead.
At least not straight away, he thought darkly.
Slowly and carefully, as his stomach was threatening to release its contents at any moment, he pushed himself up on his elbows and peered at his gloomy surroundings. He thought at first that dusk had fallen, but there were slivers of white-hot light between the gnarled ti-tree trunks.
Ti-trees.
Grisket groaned again. He was back in the clearing where he'd found a slaughtered Muron and lost Ferrian's trail. My attacker has a disturbing sense of irony, he thought, and then wondered, irrationally, if it was Nightwalker…
Half-heartedly, he reached for his knife, and was surprised to find that it was still there. Staggering to his feet, he turned on the spot, then gave a start.
A Muron was standing directly behind him, completely silent, staring down at him, its slanted eyes lantern-like in the gloom.
Despite his sudden surge of fear, Grisket cursed. "You bloody creatures don't know when to quit, do you?" Even as he spoke, two more of the black winged monsters prowled out of the trees, enclosing him in the small clearing.
The Commander of the Freeroamers sagged. There was no way he could take on three of them. If Sirannor had been with him, perhaps it would have been possible, but the Captain was not here, he was in Sunsee. All of his Freeroamers were elsewhere, Aari was ill, Ferrian was Gods-knew-where and probably dead by now, and he was alone. There was no one around to scrape him out of this one. He could see the remainder of his woefully fragile lifespan stretched out before his eyes, about to be snapped.
He stared at the Murons bitterly. After all the battles and struggles he'd been through, after he'd worked so hard for so many years to keep the Freeroamers together and scrub the Outlands clean of scum like the Bladeshifters... it was all going to end as an afternoon snack for a bunch of pitiless beasts.
Eltorian Nightwalker would be in stitches if he knew. Grisket himself snorted a laugh. Too bad you're not here, Nightwalker.
"I ain't tellin' you where Cimmeran is, so don't even bother," he growled at the Murons.
The first Muron stared at him unblinkingly. "We are no longer interesssted in the sservant," it said. "We grow bored with the ssearch."
"Oh yeah? And what's your Master gonna say about that?"
"We do not care. We are not hiss ssservantss. We were never hiss sservantsss. We do ass we wissh."
Grisket raised his eyebrows. "You seemed pretty damned interested in Cimmeran a few days ago."
One of the other Murons said: "We have ssince disscovered that Lord Arzath iss not who he claimss to be."
Despite his impending death, Grisket was curious. "Well, well, that is interesting," he said. "How'd you find that out? You're a long way from your castle."
The first Muron narrowed its eyes and flexed its long claws, clearly annoyed with the questioning. Nevertheless, it explained. "Muronss possess the ability to communicate with each other over vassst disstancess," it hissed. "Our brethren at the casstle passsed on sssome fasscinating newsss."
For the first time in a long time, a small spark of hope flared inside the dark cavern of the Freeroamer's soul. He grinned. "It didn't have anything to do with the Winter, by any chance?"
One of the Murons kicked at his leg, with such force that Grisket's kneecap cracked and his leg buckled, sending him crashing to the ground. He let out a cry of agony.
"Your chattering attemptss to prolong your own pitiful exisstance are amussing, Human," he heard one of them say through his pain. "But we would prefer to lissten to you sscream."
And with that, the Muron in front of him stabbed its talons through his foot and raised its arm so that Grisket was hanging upside down by his broken leg. He tried not to scream again, but the pain was excruciating and he could not help himself. But he did not intend to go down without a fight. He kicked out viciously with his good leg at the Muron's head, chest and arm in a futile attempt to make it let go. The Muron did not even blink at the blows. It continued to hold him aloft, like an angler watching a crippled fish squirm in its grasp.
Grisket could feel blood running down his leg beneath the cloth of his trousers. Worse than that, blood was rushing to his brain, making his vision swim. One of the Murons was saying something to the others in its own snarling language. In his imagination, Grisket translated it as something along the lines of: "Who wants the first bite?"
He wondered what had taken them so long. He supposed they had already eaten and were just playing with him, like cats.
Gritting his teeth hard, he blinked the sweat out of his eyes and took a firm grip on his knife, determined to stick it deep into the first Muron eye that came within arm's reach…
Then the Muron holding him screeched. He thought at first it was some sort of bloodlust cry, but craning to look up he saw the creature scrabbling at a twelve-inch feathered black yew shaft protruding from its eye.
The Muron ripped its claws out of Grisket's foot, dropping him to the ground and yanked the arrow out of its head, along with a stream of black blood. Furious, it whirled, teeth bared and wings flared in aggression, searching for the attacker.
Dazed, panting and shaking with pain, Grisket looked for the attacker as well. He was reminded at once of his previous battle with Murons, which had taken an eerily similar course, and exhilaration coursed through his veins. Perhaps Sirannor had come back, after all! But his old friend was not known for using black arrows…
The injured Muron was agitated. It barked something at its companions and then stalked off into the trees to find and tear apart whoever it was that had dared shoot it in the eye. One of the other Murons crept away as well, scanning the thick undergrowth that circled the grove. The remaining Muron half-crouched beside the Freeroamer, watchful.
Then another arrow whirred out of the trees from a completely different direction, glancing off one of the Muron's wing spikes. With a snarl, the creature sprang upwards into the canopy.
There was a brief, frenzied thrashing in which leaves and bark rained down, followed a moment later by the Muron, which almost landed on top of Grisket. The Freeroamer was stunned to see blood pouring out of a neat perfect hole in the top of its head. It convulsed, gurgling horribly, blood leaking everywhere, and slowly died.
There was more rustling and snarling from the trees around him, but still Grisket could see no one. It was as though the Murons were being attacked by a ghost.
An unbelievably daring ghost with an impossibly keen weapon.
One of the other Murons crept back into the clearing: slowly, purposefully.
Hunting.
When it caught sight of its dead companion, it stopped. It turned to Grisket, black jaws gaping menacingly.
The Freeroamer raised his pitifully inadequate knife for the last time. He took a deep breath, glared back defiantly at the face of death and braced himself.
It lunged at him.
It almost had him when another, smaller black shape dropped out of the treetops, landing on the Muron's back. There was click, a swish and something long, silver and lethal protruded through the back of the creature's throat between its gaping jaws, the blood-smeared tip of the spike halting inches from Grisket's astonished face. An instant later, it retracted with another strange click.
But no sooner had that Muron fallen than the last one burst out of the trees behind the newcomer. Swift and graceful as a pirouetting eagle, the darkly-clad attacker spun, dodging the swiping claws and thrust his silver spike through the Muron's chest, piercing scales, flesh, bone and muscle alike. The Muron continued to thrash wildly, screaming and stumbling until it grew too weak and collapsed in a bleeding heap.
In the silence that followed, the Commander of the Freeroamers stared at the collection of corpses around him.
"Hells bells!" he gasped finally.
Mekk'Ayan extracted a handkerchief from the pocket of his green jacket and wiped the blood off the two-foot long spike in his gloved hand. "I think I shall call this... hmm...'Muron Dancer'." Twitching his hand, the spike shot up his sleeve into its hidden casing with a metallic shing. A bow was slung over one shoulder and a quiver of black-feathered arrows at his belt.
Grisket laughed in part relief, part amazement. "Black-feathered arrows," he panted, shaking his head. "I... should've guessed sooner! And where... the hell'd you get that mean piece of silver?"
"Silvertine, actually," the black-winged Angel replied. "Hardest known metal. Indestructible. No wonder those old sorcerers used it for their Swords."
He shrugged nonchalantly and knelt by the Commander's side. "Just something I picked up in Selvar. If I have to kill, I'd prefer to do it in style."
Grisket accepted the water canteen that Mekka offered him and went to shake the Angel's hand, then thought better of it and patted him heartily on the shoulder instead. "I haven't seen you in years, lad! What are you doing in these parts? And I owe you my thanks and much more besides!"
"Think nothing of it," Mekka replied, casting a concerned eye over Grisket's injuries and producing bandages, a herbal potion and other items from a travelling satchel. "But I fear that I bear dire news. By the way," he added, handing over a mud-caked shiny object, "I believe this belongs to you."
Grisket turned it over in his hand. It was his Commander's badge. He had forgotten he'd left it by the side of the highway; incredibly, the Angel must have seen it glinting from the air. "And this, as well." Mekka passed him a rather dusty and crumpled-looking feathered hat.
Staring down at the broken feather, Grisket's face fell. Noticing his expression, Mekka's handsome, serious face turned even grimmer. "It appears I'm not the only one with a dark tale to relate," he said.
Grisket carefully folded the orange-white feather – the one that poor Aari had given him not so long ago – and stashed it in his pocket. "No," he sighed. "No, you're not."