The Ordunese scoured the Citadel for a key with which to open the vaults. In the meantime, they tried every tool available on the door—levers, sledges, and even a battering ram—all without success.
They were standing about wondering what to do next when a prisoner captured by the mob became aware of the search. Eldorean, Governor of Rushbrook, had never reached the vaults to which Mercuto banished him. The guards who had been escorting him to his fate had run into contradictory orders from high-ranking members of their army to stay out of the Archives cellar until Ehiloru had been dispatched. Uncertain of the instsructions, they had bided their time holding Eldorean in the pantry, a place that offered obvious perks to soldiers whose devotion to immediate gratification of desires outstripped their devotion to any cause.
They were there yet, gnawing on beef jerky and swilling ale, when the mobs had begun ransacking the Citadel in their search for Ehiloru. Upon receiving word that the prophet, the one person who could expose the treason within the Citadel, was still alive, Radigan's minions panicked. With no leader on hand to direct them, they broke and ran, leaving a bewildered Eldorean to face an enraged and largely drunken populace on his own. This populace, maddened even beyond their original riotous state at the scarcity of available scoundrels on whom to vent their wrath, caught Eldorean. They dragged him up the stairs of the Citadel, prepared to make good use of the one victim they could actually put their hands on.
Eldorean heard shouts calling for a key to the locked vaults and recognized this as his only hope of avoiding a heinous execution. As four swaggering louts shoved him roughly along the stone steps into the bright outdoors, he desperately cried out that the vaults were fitted with special locks—the casts destroyed immediately after the two keys were forged. It would take days for the most skilled smiths to reproduce a key that could solve the problem. But he knew where to find a key and would reveal it in exchange for a promise that his life would be spared.
Half the crowd so lusted for blood that they refused to consider the plea bargain. Some of them proposed torturing Eldorean into telling where the key was. But the wiser, less besotted half, which now included a sizable contingent of late-arrivals from the more respectable elements of society, prevailed. As ready as the crowd was to string up Eldorean, they were equally impatient for the release of Ehiloru and the incarcerated senators.
The fistfights that enlivened the debate over whether to spare Eldorean for the sake of a key seemed to slake the crowd's immediate thirst for violence in the Courtyard. In the end, Eldorean was allowed to produce the ring of keys. In saving his life, however, he convicted himself in the eyes of Orduna, for the fact that he knew where to find a key to the hallowed vaults of their Archives confirmed him as being in league with the conspirators.
The Ordunese army, at least those elements not completely in the sway of the conspiracy, trickled out of their hiding places, reorganized into small companies, and joined a mob of angry citizens in fighting a brief skirmish with the remnants of Radigan's goons. Devil Throat's men put up a furious fight until it became apparent that their expected support was not materializing. Flaymond had been unable to rally any full Ordunese regiments to his side. The Brookings were nowhere to be found; Stargo had pulled his forces back, clear outside the city wall, during the confusion of the riot, and Eldoreans's division that had been sent to protect Ishyrus at Reef's Island had not yet returned. Even the leader of the entire conspiracy, Radigan, had ridden off to the island and had not been seen since. Rather than fight against poor odds for leaders who seemed to have deserted them, all opposition soldiers who had avoided capture by the rejuvenated Ordunese army fled the city by evening.
At about the time the last of these was scrambling in panic out the city gates, Ehiloru emerged from his prison cell, alopng with the suspiciously well-groomed and well-fed members of the Senate. Had they not been imprisoned with the prophet and had he not backed their story, they likely would have joined the occasional and, often, innocent victims of mob violence that marred the aftermath of the Citadel's liberation. Shaska and Mohenga Dhayelle, too, emerged from their cell, not significantly worse for the wear.
Late that evening, Ehiloru delivered a wildly applauded speech to a courtyard of Ordunese who had persevered through the day. The fact that he had been target for death by the enemies of the land had made him a cult hero of sorts, even among the marginally religious. With this status lending weight to his words, he calmed the crowd and quieted most of the clamor for vengeance.
Well after darkness had descended upon the city, Delaney, Windglow, Shaska, and Dhayell joined the prophet atop the roof of the Citadel for a light dinner given to them by a grateful Senate in honor of their efforts. The diners sat in a semicircle around a glass table so that none had to face the blinding glare of the sun that dipped into the lower horizon.
Here Delaney realized the extent of her mental breakdown in the Rushbrook dungeons back at the time of her arrival into the realmlands. Her impression of the prophet had been of an aristocrat—sensitive, refined, regal, and dignified in bearing. She could not have been more wrong. The Ehiloru that helped to seat her at the table turned out to be on of the most powerful men she had seen in Orduna, shorter than Windglow but with large bones and broad shoulders. His reddish-blond hair was parted in the middle and swept back over his head, and his beard was thick and tangled. The prophet laughed and talked easily, smiled warmly, and dipped and ate more bread in his stew than any two men Delaney had ever seen. But the intensity in his eyes warned of an avenging wrath that could ignite deep within his generous soul if provoked.
Delaney was intrigued by this somewhat mystical presence. "I never met a real live prophet before," she said. "I mean, I remember fortune tellers and stuff, but what you do sounds like something out of the Bible."
Ehiloru seemed bemused. "Mine is a spiritual calling—of a different kind than the 5th realm, of course. But I do not tell fortunes. My task is simply to remind people of what they were born to be."
"Cool. Do you like it?"
"Do I like being a prophet?" Ehiloru shook his head, emphatically. "I hate it."
"Really! Then why do you do it?"
"Because I hate it. Don't look at me that way. I do not mean to be glib. I consider it an honor and a privilege to serve the Creator. Yet I would not have chosen this vocation for any amount of money. I do it only because I cannot not do it. So it is with all prophets. In fact, the mark of a true prophet is his compulsion to take on the task against his own desire. Beware a prophet who enjoys his work."
After draining a flask of cider, he wiped his lips and place the flask on the table and doodled in the condensation on its surface. "Before we go any further, please resolve this mystery for me. Someone came to the vaults to rescue us earlier today. I know this to be true, for we heard the scuffle from inside our vault."
"Yes," said Dhayelle, who seemed unusually subdued, particularly given the celebratory mood that surrounded her. "That was Shaska and I."
Ehiloru raised himself to his full height in his chair. "You, my dear Dhayelle? And this Tishaaran woman? It was you who waged war on the prison guards? My word, it sounded more like a pitched battle of armies!"
"That woman has the blood of a cougar in her," noted Dhayelle.
Shaska blushed. "Please, I can take credit for nothing. I failed. Dhayelle did her part well. I had the keys in my hands and had only to open your vault and you would have been free. But I was too clumsy. I could not find the right key in time to get the lock opened."
"My dear," said Ehiloru, if you are clumsy, then a butterfly is an ox…."
Delaney was so pleased to have Shaska back among the living that she would have defended her against any accusation. "Come on, Shaska. If you screwed up, then why isn't Ehiloru dead?"
"That is a good question," chuckled Ehiloru. "How is it that I remain among the living, consuming your bread and your drink? If I understand the intent of the conspiracy, I was to have been slain and diced into stew meat, and the blame placed on the Senate. I am still at a loss as to why that did not happen."
"You are alive because I am a butterfingers," confessed Shaska. "And if that makes an ox out of a butterfly, well, it would be far from the strangest thing to have happened today."
"What are you talking about?" asked Delaney.
Ehiloru laughed merrily. "Please, Shaska. Explain how I have come to be so deeply in debt to a butter-fingered Tishaaran."
"You owe me no debt, sir," said Shaska, glowing with embarrassment. "And I will relate what happened only so that all me see that I have done nothing of which to boast. While I was trying to open the door to Ehiloru's cell, the guard grabbed me and tried to wrestle away the keys. He was larger and stronger than I, and he finally pried them away from me. But when he did so, the force of his pull slung him over the edge of the edge into the canal. As he fell, he must have lost his grip on the keys and they sank to the bottom of those murky depths, where, I assume, they remain. Dhayelle, on the other hand, did save my life. She had the presence of mind to get us back into our vault and lock the door from inside before harm could come to us."
"Presence of mind?" laughed Dhayelle. "More like panic of mind. I did not know you could lock those doors from the inside. I did not know they had lost the keys. My actions were as calculated as a scared child diving under the covers."
Ehiloru dismissed the professions of modesty with a wave of his hand. “I see that no one is to given credit for anything. You all are drunkards, thieves, and ninnies who have failed miserably in all that you endeavored. As you wish.
"Nonetheless, while you decline credit, I will not have my heartfelt thanks refused. For, due to your actions, whether premeditated or not, whether competent or not, the guards who came to carry out their orders to butcher me could not get at me on account of there being no keys at hand. Is that correct? Before they could locate someone who had duplicates, the mob rushed the Citadel--thanks to the urging of Delaney and our friend Stargo. And don’t you deny that you did anything, Delaney. I have heard of your efforts on my behalf, and I daresay you have repaid a hundredfold whatever kindness I once showed you. And so, unable to find a key and get their hands on me before the mobs descended upon them, the soldiers panicked and fled, leaving me alive to discredit the whole scheme.”
Delaney felt full, content. Even the blisters on her toes and her throbbing, overtaxed muscles felt like badges of honor. She was nothing short of astounded at the role she had played in spoiling Radigan’s plan. This entire feast of triumph had come so suddenly, so unexpectedly. One element, however, still disturbed her.
“What happened to Stargo?” she asked.
“Stargo is a sensible man,” said Ehiloru. “Like most Brookings, he is neither well-read nor well-spoken, but sensible and decent, nonetheless. He left Orduna immediately after the mob stormed the Citadel. I suspect he thought himself a doomed man when he departed the city gates, but he will soon learn otherwise. If the Brookings were to ask my advice, which they often pretend to do but assuredly do not, I would suggest him as a replacement for their present disgraced leader.”
“Yes, Eldorean. What is the status of that traitor?” asked Dhayelle.
Ehiloru leaned back in his chair, his smile fading to a thoughtful frown. “For the moment, he is a new tenant of my former residence--the vault. I understand that two roommates were found for him. One of them, a most unhappy senator, was discovered hiding beneath a bridge at Gallantory Park.”
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His face continued to cloud. “And the second is a man, if you can call him that, to whom my forgiveness would come grudgingly, even if he should repent. The army captain Flaymond.”
“May they rot there forever,” said Dhayelle, bitterly. Although no one seconded her comment, they did not berate her. They knew that her husband, as well as Hummer, had died at the hands of these men.
“I wish I did not have to bring this up,” continued Dhayelle, running her finger along the rim of her wine glass. Delaney detected a severe tremor in her hand as she did so. “While we have things to mourn, we also have much to celebrate and it seems stingy and mean to have to cut the party short. But if the latest information is correct, we will not be able to hold those men for long.”
“What do you mean?” asked Windglow, alarmed.
“Exhilarating as it has been, our victory, I fear, is hollow. Yes, we have defeated Radigan’s forces and regained our city. But these misbegotten meddlers have succeeded in breaking the realm bonds. In so doing, the have opened the gates to horrors we cannot imagine.”
“So I hear,” said Ehiloru, “and it concerns me deeply. But do we not hear that it is Ishyrus, one of the greatest of the sublime Seraphim of the Fifth Realm who orchestrated the breaking? I do not see how evil can come from one such as Ishyrus. Indeed, I am looking forward to seeing it, hoping it will visit the city. Long have I dreamed of sitting at the feet of a Seraph. I had supposed it could happen only beyond the grave. Now it appears at least possible that we shall all experience the wonder and wisdom of the greatest realm in our back yards."
Dhayelle stared hard at him and then at each of her dinner mates in turn. “Did you not hear the drumbeats of the Meshoma today?”
This was answered by a round of head-shaking and anxious expressions, except for Windglow. “Now that you mention it, I thought I heard something while I was fleeing from the guards. At first I wondered if it were my own heart beating from the effort.”
“The Meshoma sent a warning. They say that one far worse than Radigan has appeared on Reef’s Island. It was not Ishyrus the Seraph who broke the realm bonds, it was Draxis.”
“What?!” cried Ehiloru and Windglow at once.
Windglow shot to his feet. “It cannot be!” he continued, shrilly. “I heard Radigan and those others in their most secret plotting. They said it was Ishyrus who was coming. No other. I am certain of this!”
Although she had no idea of who or what Draxis was, Dhayelle’s words filled Delaney with a deep dread, particularly as she observed her companions' reactions. Windglow was hyperventilating. Ehiloru no longer leaned back in his chair but sat at the edge of it, staring hard at Dhayelle. Shaska sat in horrified silence.
Their fear and confusion was infectious. Delaney suddenly found the contours of her chair unbearable confining. She pushed back her chair and walked to the very edge of the unwalled terrace. By the light of the moon, she looked beyond the city, to where spring’s growth was filling in the barren rolling plain that stretched as far as the eye could see. Crossing the marbled terrace to the west, she saw the faint outline of mountains, probably the August Mountains, where she had first emerged from her shell of terror. All that seemed so long ago.
Like a moth drawn to deadly light, she could not help seeking out the source of the terror that had silenced what should have been a joyous celebration.
“Which way is the island?” she asked.
“Southwest,” said Windglow.
“Like that does me any good. Could you point?”
Shaska arose and stood beside her, and indicated the area to the left of where she had been gazing.
Delaney surveyed the vast woods that blossomed along either side of the great river. Somewhere in that distance lay Rushbrook and the infamous Reef’s Island. A road cut a wide swath into the Ashwauk woods-- the road by which the Tishaaran expedition had entered Orduna only a few weeks ago. That, too, seemed far in the past.
But both reminiscence and anxiety gave way to curiosity as she noticed the forest was alive with activity. Just days ago, she had trudged through a good part of it on her mission to Stargo and never met another soul along the way. Now, the road was crawling with people and their carts, and animals, both domestic and wild. “What is going on out there?”
The others gathered around her, most at a safer distance from the edge of the roof. Ehiloru shielded his eyes from the setting sun that streamed across his shoulder. His smile had faded into a bitter glare. The dancing eyes smoldered.
“Those, Delaney, are refugees,” he said, biting off the words so they could escape without unleashing the rage that kindled within him.
“Refugees? From where?” asked Shaska.
Even from this distance, Delaney could see that there was no order to the movement upon the road. All sojourners toiled mightily and with urgency, as fast as they could go. Their backs hunched under the weight of their loads and their carts teetered with hastily assembled bundles. Those who could move faster pushed on ahead of those in their path.
If Ehiloru’s face were to break out in lightning and thunder, Delaney would not have been surprised. “Not ‘from where’ but ‘from whom.’ I see now why you were so subdued during our meal tonight, Dhayelle, if that was the message you heard from the Meshoma. What we see now before us confirms their report. I am eternally grateful for the efforts you all made to spare my life. Yet I must say that what appears on that road renders today’s triumph meaningless."
He paused. The words he spoke came out in a growl of fury. "They flee before Draxis.”
“Who is this Draxis?" asked Delaney, shakily. "Is he, like, some giant monster?"
“Size is not an issue with Fifth Realmers,” said Ehiloru. “They are spirits whose shapes are something of an illusion, at least in their home realm. I guess that is true in all the realms, now that the bonds are gone. They can appear as large as they wish, to some degree. The power that they wield is our concern, and stories of Draxis liken its strength to a hurricane. A hurricane that recognizes no limits, no physical barriers, that goes where it will. A hurricane that could uproot the August Mountains without diminishing in the least. Look! These are small farmers and villagers and creatures of the forest who flee before the fury of the demon.”
“But those poor creatures do not realize they are fleeing right into its path,” said Dhayelle. “According to the Meshoma, Draxis is heading straight for Orduna.”
“I am still confused,” said Windglow, dabbing at the sweat beading up on his forehead. “Is Draxis in league with Ishyrus? Devil Throat—Radigan, I guess I should call him—spoke of Ishyrus as the one behind the conspiracy. I heard him many times, and I know I could not have misheard him. No one ever mentioned Draxis.”
“Could they be working together?” asked Delaney. “This Ishyrus and Draxis?”
“A Seraph working with Draxis?” said Ehiloru, glaring at the darkened shadows of Ashwauk, his nostrils flaring in agitation. “Not in a billion eons. If this was Ishyrus’s plan and Draxis now runs it, that can mean but one thing: Draxis has wrested control of it from Ishyrus. That is the worst news I have heard yet.” He whirled to face Windglow, eyes blazing, “Windglow, why was Ishyrus coming to Orduna?”
“For the Archives. It seems that there are documents there in language only the Fifth Realm can read that offer means of controlling. or at least containing, the other Fifth Realmers.” He blanched in sudden recognition of the implications. “If Draxis has taken over, then . . .” He sat down, shaking, unable to finish the sentence.
Dhayelle and Ehiloru gaped at each other in horror. “Great heavenly stars!” cried Dhayelle. “Ehiloru, is it true? Is such lore contained in the Archives?”
“Radigan said that it was so,” said Windglow.
“He was right,” said Ehiloru. This latest news seemed to have knocked the fight out of him. “The breaking of the bonds that pried open our lands to the ravages of the Nephilim, is an unspeakable catastrophe,” he said, quietly. “But it pales compared to a world in which Draxis rages unabated, in which Draxis rules over all the realms with the
Seraphim under his heel. Oh, no! This cannot happen.”
Delaney saw grief and despair on the faces of all her companions and it infuriated her. This had started out as one of the best nights of her life and she could not believe how it had blown up into this sad surrender party. It just was not fair! Despite her sense of foreboding, she refused to accept it. They had conquered stiff odds in rescuing Ehiloru, liberating the Citadel, and saving Orduna from Radigan’s treachery. They would just have to do the same thing again.
“I’m sorry, but there’s a little too much negativity here. Okay, so things have kind of gone in the toilet. What I want to know is, what’s the plan? How do we keep that Draxis character from getting his hands on all that stuff that will make him invincible?"
“That is not our decision,” said Ehiloru. “The Senate of Orduna is the appointed caretaker of the Archives. It is for them to decide. If it were up to me, I would destroy every book in the Archives rather than risk it falling into Draxis’s hands.”
“Can you bring me up to speed here?" said Delaney. "Are you being literal? Does Draxis actually have hands? I don’t really have a feel for what we’re up against.”
“It is a spirit,” said Windglow. “Such things are hard to describe.”
“I have spoken to the Senate already,” said Dhayelle, quietly. “They doubted the truth of what I was telling them, that Draxis was coming for the Archives, until the first of the refugees arrived just before our dinner. They are not yet fully aware of what Draxis might be after, yet they have been putting the documents into hiding just to be safe. They are removing boxloads of them now and carting them to deep caches within caves. By the looks of this, they had better hurry."
“Can they use any help?” asked Shaska.
“I am embarrassed to say this after all you have done,” said Dhayelle. “But no one outside the Senate of Orduna may take part in this operation. To avoid any possible later recriminations, the secret of the Archives’ disposal must remain with the Senate.”
"That's the only plan?" demanded Delaney indignantly. "Squirreling away the books? I mean, it sounds like you're just going to hand over the city to Draxis. Aren't you going to fight this, this thing?"
Ehiloru’s righteous wrath had chilled to a numbed resignation. “That is the question we face, Delaney. Do we fight it or no? What is the point? With what weapons does one fight against Draxis the Destroyer.”
“What about the Seraphim?” pleaded Windglow. “You know more about them than anyone else, Ehiloru. Can you not get them to help us? Could they not stop Draxis?”
“If they were here, perhaps they could,” said Ehiloru. “But how do we summon them?”
“I thought you were a prophet,” said Delaney. “Isn’t that, like, what you do?”
Ehiloru shook his head sadly. “Prophets have insight into spiritual matters, but that does not put the immortal at our beck and call. Not even a prophet can summon creatures three realms away. I do not know what the Seraphim could do against Draxis, if anything. But I do know it could be months before we could reach them. Orduna will be in ruins by then.”
"So you’re not even going to fight?” challenged Delaney.
“With what?” repeated Dhayelle.
Delaney could feel the frustration, the helplessness, falling over the city like a toxic fume. She tried hard to control her emotions, to settle things down, to stem the poison. “Who knows? The underdog wins lots of times,” she insisted. “For God's sake, if we paid any attention to the odds, Ehiloru wouldn’t be alive! We didn’t have any weapons at all and we defeated Radigan.”
“You do not understand,” said Ehiloru, patiently. “This is not pessimism or defeatism. It is a fact of life as settled as the daily course of the sun across the heavens. Draxis can no more be killed than a turtle can be made to fly among the birds. It comes from the Fifth Realm; it is immortal.
“With the realm bonds broken, with the lore of the Archives at its fingertips, what could possibly stop it from feasting on the agony it creates? All the armies of Orduna and Rushbrook and the sundry realms could fling a thousand spears into the demon’s head without disturbing it in the least. Draxis has no mortal life we can threaten in any way.”
“So there is nothing we can do nothing to stop this monster?” asked Shaska, solemnly watching the ragged line of refugees approach the city gates.
“There are only two things we can do,” said Ehiloru. “We can remove the Archives from Draxis’s grasp. That, apparently, the Senate is doing. A small thing, I grant, but at least it is something. Draxis cannot get the documents it seeks.”
“Hiding the books isn’t going to help!” cried Delaney. in disgust. “If Draxis is all you say he is, what's going to happen when he gets here and finds the shelves empty. Can you imagine what it will do to get people to talk?”
Ehiloru’s anger flashed again. “You make a telling point, Delaney,” he said, grinding his teeth. “I suppose the Senate shall have to burn them rather than give them up. I would rather offer up my life to Draxis than destroy such gifts. But if that is the cup given us . . .”
“The senators have all sworn oaths to protect the Archives, not destroy it,” said Dhayelle. “They will never burn the documents."
"Well then what can we . . ." started Windglow.
“What was the other thing?” asked Shaska, quietly. “You said there were two things we could do.”
“The other thing we must do may appear impossible,” said Ehiloru, staring out at the stream of refugees. “Even as we acknowledge that we have no means of stopping Draxis, we must steel ourselves against fear and despair, for such things feed the spirit of the Nephilim.”
“Begging your pardon, sir,” said Windglow, who had broken out in a cold sweat. “But I do not see how it is possible to follow such advice. You say we are without hope. Is that not the very definition of despair?”
“Without hope? No, good Tishaaran, never without hope. I would not be worthy of my calling if I ever pronounced the well of hope dry. If you ask me how Draxis’s tyranny might be stopped, here and now, I have no answer. The realm bonds were our protection against the Immortal Realm. Now they are gone. Our world has gone dark, and the earth that nourished and sheltered us has crumbled to dust under our feet. That is what has come to pass and we are the ones here to suffer it.”
He turned to all of them. “I do not deal in false promises or false hopes. Yet I hold out a true one. The works of the Creator can be desecrated and mutilated, but never destroyed. There is life for us yet, at the other end of this darkness.
“There may be no escape from the talon of the eagle. It grabs and it kills and revels in its power. Yet not even the eagle can hold forever what it grasps. The proud and the mighty always forget this. The bones of great kings and mighty warriors lie unremembered under oceans and deep in the rock of the earth. Draxis is not the first to claim dominion over all the lands, nor will it be the last.”
“Are you saying that the Creator will fix this,” asked Shaska.
Ehiloru took her hand and squeezed it gentle. “Of that I have no doubt,” he said firmly, but kindly. “The question is how long the breaking will last before we can experience the healing.”
As he finished speaking, the sun melted into the horizon, its ruptured, blaze-orange heart bleeding across the sky, as if that driving force of life were uttering its farewell to a world that it no longer had the strength to serve.
Then it came.
Delaney could not tell if it was a sound, or a breath of wind, or an encroaching shadow. But she felt the Presence, distant, faint, yet brimming with soulless malice.
Ehiloru felt it, to. A look of profound sadness clouded his eyes. At the sight of the terrified refugees pooling at the city gate, he steeled himself against the dread that was growing more palpable with each passing moment.
He cried out with a loud voice to the people below. “The devastation of the Citadel of Knowledge is at hand. But while we grieve the loss, take courage from this. Just as we could never have imagined the coming of such a day in our time, we must look to the day when our descendants, by some means that we cannot now imagine, perhaps with the aid of the Seraphim and the power of the Creator, rise up and overthrow the tyrant, and the terror that now descends on us shall one day come to ruin.”
As he finished his benediction, he turned to each of his companions in turn--his eyes burning with conviction, and hugged them.
Delaney cringed near the edge of the wall, rocking in that peculiar metronymic rhythm. If Ehiloru’s words provided any comfort to the others, at this moment, they did absolutely nothing for her.