Dhayelle helped install Windglow in his perch in the gloomy catacomb closet behind the third-story command post and then left quickly. After more than a week of struggling to maintain her poise in this viper’s pit of the Citadel, she was beginning to crack. She even caught herself running down a dim, lamplit corridor. When had she last run anywhere? She stopped, gasping for breath, and steadied herself against the cold stone wall. By the time a squadron of reeking soldiers marched past her, she had regained a dusting of composure. But she still had to summon every last ounce of will to nail each step to the floor at a measured pace to avoid betraying the fact that she was an amateur spy, unglued by the sheer magnitude of the risk she was taking.
She and Windglow had wanted to enlist the Meshoma as spies. The hope was that these silent scouts would monitor Reef’s Island and alert the rest of them to the arrival of the expected visitor. It had been a long shot. By necessity, the mission had been entrusted, at least partially, to a Morp, a creature for whom incompetence was a level of achievement to be envied. There had been no alternative. As unfamiliar as she was with the realmlands, Delaney simply could not manage it all herself and the Morp was the only unduplicitous creature available.
Dhayelle realized the whole plan was a pipe dream. Delaney’s attempt to recruit Stargo to open rebellion had been the most audacious gamble of all, and probably an enormous blunder. If Dhayelle allowed herself to think about it, she had to concede that Stargo was more likely to lock up Delaney than to listen to her. The Morp would be lucky to find his own realm, much less pass along any useful information to any competent person.
But, miraculously, one part of their plan had borne fruit, whether through Delaney’s efforts with Stargo or the Morp’s mission to the Ashwauk. Just hours ago, they had delivered the message. An explosion of Cold Flames had rocked the island. Scarcely had the bonfire of purple fires kindled than the Meshoma drums had begun beating. Long before any messenger from Reef’s Island could ride into Orduna with the news, Dhayelle had heard the faint but unmistakable throbbing of the last in the line of that drum relay--the drumbeat that signaled her time had come.
Her mind was swirling with questions and doubt. The fact that the Meshoma had delivered the message as asked gave her hope, but she had no way of knowing whether Stargo was on board with the plan. What if he had locked up Delaney and turned her secrets over to the authorities, and the drums were merely calling them forth into a trap?
And what of this Cold Flame business? If she understood Windglow correctly, the guest expected at Reef’s Island was a Fifth Realmer--a Seraph, if the plans that Windglow had overheard could be understood and believed. The possibility had rendered Dhayelle speechless. In her childhood she had thrilled to the stories her grandfather told about the spirit beings of the hallowed realm. Spirits close to God, spirits of indescribable beauty and wisdom and compassion, whose joy was to serve the lowly creatures of the realms. Oh, the magic and the healing they could bring!
She had had long ago tucked her fascination with Seraphim in a deep alcove of her memory. Among the sophisticated Mbongorans and Ordunese with whom she had dwelt, such tales were considered laughably naive, superstitious nonsense that anyone with a sniff of education and a degree of worldly awareness outgrew before puberty. She had not thought of the spirit realm in so long that she was surprised to find that part of her held fast to conviction--more accurately, the wisp of a hope--that some part of the legends were true. Now that folks were, for the first time that she could remember, not only speaking about Seraphim as if there were a germ of reality in the matter but as if their epiphany into the lower realmlands were actually imminent, she was beside herself with anticipation.
The one thing she could not understand, though, was how Seraphim could have any part in the designs of that hideous Radigan, the man whom Windglow referred to as Devil Throat. It made so little sense that she had to compartmentalize the issues in her mind. There was Radigan and the desperate effort to stop hs evil conspiracy, and there was the coming of the Seraph. Despite what Windglow said, she could not link the two in any way. Why anyone with a shred of decency should fear a Seraph was beyond her comprehension. For her part, she wanted nothing more than to meet such a creature. If some way had been found to bend or circumvent the realm bonds to make this possible, glory hallelujah! By any logic it was Radigan and his ilk who should fear the Seraph!
But her questions and doubts and confusion and excitement had to take a back seat for now. She was committed to the premise that the mysterious visitor, whoever it might be, had arrived on the island, and that this had set the conspirators’ plan in motion. She had no choice but to put the next phase of the plan into action immediately, if only she could keep her nerve.
With her heartbeats echoing off the stone wall, she reached the spiral staircase that descended into the vaults of Orduna, deep in the lowest caverns of the Citadel. Not even a woman of Dhayelle’s demonstrated loyalty was permitted entrance to this area. For the first time in her employment under this loathsome regime, she defied her orders and descended into that forbidden place.
The vaults were specially designed chambers, each hewn out of solid rock protected by doors reinforced with thick iron bands. In normal times, they stored the most ancient and precious of the vast collection of documents in the Archives. From the conversations that Windglow had overheard, there was reason to believe that the vaults had been stripped of their treasures long ago. Several of the most important documents had made their way to the mastermind of the great conspiracy; the rest had been transferred to the Archives’ main library. The vaults had since been converted to prison cells, the very ones that held Ehiloru, the Ordunese senators, and, probably Shaska, if she were still alive.
Dhayelle harbored no illusions that her talents as a commando would allow her to penetrate the vaults and return unnoticed. This was a journey of no return. If the plan failed, she was dead. For that matter, death seemed a likely end even if the plan succeeded.
She and Windglow had agonized for many hours over their strategy for fighting the battle that was to come. “Use your enemy’s weapons against him,” Windglow had said, repeatedly, quoting his strange traveling companion from a recent journey. The plan they finally settled on was designed to do exactly that. Devil Throat meant to incite a mob to storm the Citadel. Rather than fight him, they would help him put his plan into action. Only they would do so before he was ready.
Dhayelle knew full well that their plan she and Windglow concocted was riddled with more holes than a trawling net. None of that had any bearing on what she had to do. Ehiloru was under a sentence of death. Execution was to be carried out within the hour. He is the only person would can save Orduna, and I am the only person in a position to save him. If I fail, Orduna is doomed, regardless of what Delaney may have accomplished.
A huge gray steed with great, blocky, tufted hooves thundered down the road toward Reef’s Island, leaving a frantic bodyguard floundering in his dust, unable to maintain the pace. Yet Radigan continued to flog the horse savagely. Racing toward the crown of glory to which he had devoted much of his life, he expressed disgust that the pitiful beast laboring beneath him, pushed to the limit of its capacity, could not cover the ground any more quickly.
There had moments of panic over the past hours. Where was Ishyrus? It should have been here well before this. According to the schedule they had set, time was running out for the destruction of the realm bonds, and Radigan began to fear the whole plan had become unraveled. Had something happened to thwart their perfect, carefully laid plans, years in the making?
But the message had finally come: Ishyrus had appeared. The plan had worked to perfection, as Ishyrus had said it would. Now the glorious fulfillment of all their long-deferred dreams was at hand. As the elite corps of the Brooking military stood guard over it, that great Fifth Realm visionary was even now at work severing the final cords that held the realm bonds in place.
Radigan rode as if everything depended on his arrival, which, indeed it did. The plan required a creature from each realm to be present: a couple of Morps had been penned up on the island for months. The island was filled with Second Realmers standing guard. Ishyrus was coming and bringing one of the Tree Wraiths with him; both Nephilim and Seraphim would be represented. That still left voids from the Third and Fourth Realms. The plan could not succeed without Radigan on site. He provided both Third and Fourth Realm blood.
The destruction of the realm bonds had been his dream since he was old enough to recognize how thoroughly miserable they would make his life. Born of a Fourth Realm Droom father and a Third Realm Pharitan mother under circumstances that neither would reveal, he had found himself a person without a realm. Spurned by his father, he had been forced to live with his mother on the outskirts of Pharitan. There he grew up as an outcast, ridiculed by the other Pharitan boys for his ghoulish eyes and rasping voice.
How he had longed to use his Fourth Realm powers of sorcery on his Third Realm tormenters! But of course the realm bonds prevented it. After one particularly cruel episode when his entire school class had mocked him and torn his clothes, he ran away to Droom. There he discovered his Fourth Realm powers paled compared to his peers, most of whom scorned him as a freak of nature. When others learned that he had only an incomplete and erratic use of the borrowing power, they challenged him to fights and then ran circles around him, swapping skills and powers with each other at dizzying speed and using them against Radigan. Unable to defend himself, he endured merciless beatings to go along with constant abuse. There were petitions taken to the Prince and his council to have this impure abomination banished from Kal Shadir, and at the hearings that resulted, his father refused to acknowledge him, much less speak for him. The Droom justice system had found in favor of the petitioners. Radigan had been publicly flogged and cast out of the gates of Kal Shadir, under penalty of death should he return.
Unfortunately, he resembled his Droom half-brothers enough in both appearance and scent that the rest of the realm creatures, all of whom hated and feared the Droom, attacked him wherever he appeared. Finally, weak from constant hunger and loss of blood, and limping from the damage to his bones and joints, he retreated from the realm altogether.
But life in the Third Realm proved to be no better. His mother had died in his absence, leaving him with no family who would accept him. Worse yet, the years of imbibing the Droom potions had eliminated his ability to sleep. While in the Fourth Realm, the effect of those potions also eliminated his need for sleep, but this magical power did not translate into the lower realms. For the rest of his life, he could never settle down for an instant of pure, genuine sleep, not a moment of calm or rest or peace. With every passing day, the friendless, tormented Radigan grew increasing bitter and vengeful. Every night as he watched others extinguish their lights and head off to the comfort of their beds, he cursed the realm bonds and every living thing that inhabited the realms.
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Every so often he had risked a trek into the Fourth Realm just so he could recover his sanity and shake off the constant desire for sleep. On one such occasion, he had run into Ishyrus, who had taken to wandering secretly in the lower realms. Ishyrus, who felt the loss of the realm contact so deeply, who alone among the Fifth Realm beings dared to expose its immortality in the Fourth Realm, who bore a nostalgic longing for the days when it could drink freely from the energy of love and devotion and kindness, found him and took pity on him. Ishyrus, the Fifth Realm Seraph, took as its ward the wretched being who had no home realm. It had befriended him, and the compassion it felt for the outcast made the Seraph even more hungry for the true and nourishing taste of it.
The two exiles formed a bond between them, and Radigan was truly grateful for the friendship. Nonetheless, his mind had been so warped by bitterness and hatred toward the world that he was incapable of responding in kind to the good will of the Seraph. When he learned of Ishyrus’s pining for the days before the realm bonds, and then discovered from the Seraph that there was actually a way to destroy those bonds, he developed a scheme of vengeance which played upon Ishyrus’s deep longing.
“It is unconscionable that you be denied the right to enjoy the fruits of virtue,” said Radigan. “Even more so that the world be denied the balm of your compassion. We should consider dissolving the bonds. Then you could enjoy that which you deserve.”
For years, Ishyrus simply laughed off such overtures. “There are more important things than my pleasure. And what of the Nephilim?” it would point out. “How could I live with myself after unleashing them upon the lower realms?”
“But if you got there first, in secret, you would be the first to feed upon the love of the lower realmers. You would grow powerful, far beyond the strength of your starving brethren. By the time they learned of the bond breaking, you would be mighty enough to control them completely, and you could rule over the realms in wisdom and mercy.”
Ishyrus found those arguments intriguing, but doubtful. Until it remembered the Archives of Orduna. Not only did ancient manuscripts, housed in those vaults and written in a script visible only to those of the Fifth Realm, detail the many steps required to accomplish the breaking, but they also contained secret knowledge that might allow a Seraph of enterprise and strength to govern or at least restrain the other spirits. With Radigan’s incessant urging, Ishyrus convinced itself that if it could gain access to these manuscripts, it could not only break the realm bonds, but control the Nephilim. Breaking the realm bonds would be a win-win situation for everyone.
Over the years, Radigan made many trips to the Archives of Orduna in search of the wisdom of the ancient manuscripts. Since he could not read the books, however, he could not tell which of them might prove useful to Ishyrus. Nor could he smuggle them out through the steel trap security at the Citadel.
Eventually, it occurred to Radigan to use this frustration to his advantage. Ishyrus needed the manuscripts, yet could not get them as long as Orduna controlled the Citadel. The solution, then, was to let Radigan take over the Citadel, which required taking over Orduna. Ah, destroying the cursed realm bonds and setting himself up as ruler over the most revered city in the lower realms! This Radigan liked. Bereft of his Fifth Realm powers of discernment, which could not cross into the lower realms, Ishyrus could not sense the treachery in Radigan’s heart.
After explaining to Ishyrus the difficulty in accessing the manuscripts, he had little trouble persuading the Seraph to devise a way for Radigan to take over the city in stealth. Meanwhile both Radigan and Ishyrus began recruiting their own armies. Since it had to be done is secret, their targets were generally the outcasts of society. At first, Ishyrus had been queasy about the company they were keeping. It grated on its conscience to be allying itself with baser elements of the realms. But Radigan had been there to stroke its ambition, to calm its anxieties, and assure it that this was the only available means to an end. Once the vision had been accomplished, Ishyrus would have the power to establish an eternal rule of justice and virtue and prosperity for all, on a scale so vast as to render irrelevant all inconveniences along the way.
So while Radigan oiled his way into the confidence of Eldorean of Rushbrook and Mercuto of Orduna, Ishyrus turned on the charm in the higher realms. While it had no powers as a spirit out of realm, it could communicate through dreams with the inner spirits of all other creatures, large and small. By this means, Ishyrus recruited the Raxxars and wild dogs to its will, and it added converts among the renegade Pharitans, the Barbarians and the Urchins and the dark beasts, and even a half dozen of the Terrible Ones.
It was Ishyrus who laid the blueprints for Radigan’s bloodless takeover of the Orduna government. Once that had been accomplished, Radigan had personally taken charge of an Archive filled with brittle manuscripts and leather-bound books from the shelves, and had risked sending several volumes upriver to Ishyrus, holed up in solitude in the Fourth Realm. Just enough to whet its appetite for the knowledge, to keep it hungry for the mission.
The master plan of Ishyrus had worked flawlessly to this point, and Radigan saw nothing that could prevent them from successful completion. The realm bonds would soon be destroyed; he was on his way now to take part in the final severance.
Radigan galloped through the ranks of the Brooking security patrol and across the wooden planks of the bridge that served as the only link to Reef’s Island. His horse was spent and gagging on the foam that bubbled from its nostrils, yet Radigan flogged it onward through the deep woods until he arrived at the clearing ringed by half a dozen functional wooden structures. Radigan jumped off the beast as it fell. There in the middle of the field, he beheld a curious assortment of creatures.
Chained to a maple sapling stood two forlorn, grayish creatures from Morp, bound and in the custody of the Brooking guards. Next to them lay what appeared to be a hybrid Third-Fourth Realmer, lying in the grass with his arms and feet bound with heavy rope, and cloth tied tightly over his mouth. Radigan was taken aback to see that the man was the spitting image of himself.
Ah, the Fifth Realm. No matter how many times he had seen it with Ishyrus, it was always unnerving to encounter a spirit in the lower realms. As long as the realm bonds were in force, no one from the Fifth Realm could appear as they were or as they wished in the lower realms. They could take form only as a mirror image of whoever gazed upon them. Radigan had spent enough time around Ishyrus that, once past the initial shock, the phenomenon ceased to bother him. Obviously, this bound creature was the tree wraith, an unwilling , or at least unwitting accomplice in what was about to happen.
At the edge of a deeply charred fire pit in the center of the clearing stood yet another clone of Radigan. This one was immersed in a series of silent incantations, accompanied by broad gestures of the arms. He flung an occasional handful of dust into the fire, each of which produced an explosion of colorful sparks and billowing smoke.
Radigan grinned. Yes, Ishyrus is here! Victory is ours!
Radigan found a tree stump near the Seraph, closed his eyes and rubbed his temples methodically. Over the years he had perfected his meditative powers to the point where he could make contact with Ishyrus in a matter of minutes.
So you are here at last, Ishyrus. Ready to complete what we started--how long has it been--12 years ago?
The Radigan look-alike turned, stared at him quizzically, then nodded, continued with his work. The voice came to Radigan: In a moment, it shall all be finished. The realm bonds shall be no more.
Who is this you brought with you? asked Radigan, thinking of the bound Fifth Realmer. I assume you can easily control it.
Just one of the tree wraiths. It cannot hurt you if you stay away from it. Keep your eyes open and do not let your thoughts wander. Do not disturb me now; I have nearly completed the work.
Radigan could not suppress a wide grin. Yes, it was going to happen! Nothing could stop it now. In a few moments, the curse of the realm bonds would be shattered, never to torment him again. He stared at the wriggling clone of himself on the ground beside him. It was not at all what he expected from a tree wraith. It looked genuinely frightened and its eyes bulged at Radigan, almost as if it were trying to say something to him.
For a moment, he was tempted to communicate with this Fifth Realm prisoner. But after considering it briefly, he backed away. This creature was a Nephil. As soon as the realm bonds were broken, it would gain its powers. And even though Ishyrus had chosen the weakest of the Nephilim to conspire with it, any Nephil loosed from the restraint of the realm bonds was a creature to be feared. Best not to take any chances. Just leave it alone.
Ishyrus sounded unusually edgy, almost peevish. Radigan had never seen him quite that way before. Perhaps that was to be expected. After all this work, they now stood on the threshhold of achieving all their dreams. It was a humbling and historic moment. Imagine if they had come all this way only to make some miscalculation at the last second. This was no time to blow it. Take your time, Ishyrus. Get it right.
One of the Brookings staggered into the clearing, his hair disheveled and a crust of sleep beneath his eyes.
“What are you doing here, Taliver?” called out one of the guards. “You got the night shift tonight; you’s supposed to be sleeping.”
“Just had me the weirdest dream,” he said, staring at the two mirror images of himself. “I come here to see if it’s all okay.”
“We’re fine. But we're a little worried about you. If you’re spooked by your own thoughts, how will you manage to keep it together on the night shift in the dark? Tell us about your dream.”
He looked at the bound and gagged tree wraith, lying on the ground and said, “This one here come after me. Hopped over to me, all tied up like he is. Kept yelling that it was Ishyrus.”
“Really,” said Radigan with a smile. “So if that is Ishyrus, who did it say this was?” he asked, pointing at his triplet, who had produced a large crystal and was waving it over the deep purple flames.
“Claimed him was someone called Draxis.”
Radigan started to laugh. Suddenly an icy jolt of fear raced through his veins. Draxis? What if that was right? How would you know? All Fifth Realmers appeared as nothing but mirrors in the lower realms. What if the freed one was indeed Draxis, a distillation of pure evil combined with savage power?
But then he relaxed. Get ahold of yourself. How could Draxis know anything about the plan? How could it get the best of Ishyrus even if it did?
He snorted a laugh. Clever, these Nephilim. It found a sleeping Brooking to infiltrate. Of course a Nephil would create such doubt. It would lie through its teeth to trick them. Such was its nature. You had to be wary of them all the time! All the more reason to get Ishyrus up to the Archives to bone up on his lore so he could keep these demons under leash.
Still, he could not completely suppress the nagging doubt that kept scratching at him. He closed his eyes again. Ishyrus, do you remember the first time we met? When I was crossing the Glasswater and you were sitting on that rock in the middle of the stream?
What of it? Can you not see that I am busy?
Radigan’s eyes grew wide with panic and his heart lodged in his throat. The question had been a test--they had met on the slopes of the Emperor Mountain, and in fact had a ritual of referencing that encounter at nearly every meeting. Even a distracted Ishyrus would have disputed that false reference.
He looked down at his other triplet lying in the grass. This one was nodding his head vigorously, his eyes wild with terror.
His senses reeling, Radigan drew his sword. Still torn by doubt and fear, he shut his eyes and tried to focus on the tree wraith, but he was so shaken by the possibility of treachery that it took several minutes for him to connect. When he did, a voice echoed in his head with terrible urgency.
We met at the Emperor Mountains! You see, I am Ishyrus. That is Draxis! Kill him now or all is lost! Quick!
His head pounding with adrenaline, Radigan rushed forward with a cry of savage hatred. But before he could reach his target, the standing triplet tossed a crystal in the fire.
The fire exploded into a ball of purple flame that sent out aftershocks of chill air. At once Radigan saw his likeness melt away and in its place stood a shadowy darkness bursting with such naked malice and cruelty that he could only cower in terror.
“Yes, I am Draxis!” hissed the voice. “And that fool cowering on the grass is Ishyrus. Ah, I see it has fled now that the realm bonds are gone, and that rope can no longer hold him. Gone, but powerless to stop me. Did you think you could keep your plans secret from me, you fools? You have brought on the Age of Darkness that shall now cover the land forever. I thank you both. Oh, at last, at last! The realm bonds are shattered. Gone forever! I am free to roam the realm, to feast on fruit so long forbidden!
“Oh, Radigan, the taste of your fear is delicious. Mmmmmm, this is beyond words! As a gesture of my thanks, Radigan, I shall make you the next course in the feast that shall celebrate my reign!”