Draxis spared Orduna for one more night as it bided its time amid the trees of Ashwauk. Wrapped in the folds of its suffocating web of darkness, it savored the long-forbidden taste of misery. It digested the sweet nectar from the slaughter of soldiers on Reef's Island, the very troops that had protected it during its time of vulnerability and mortality prior to its breaking of the Second Realm bonds. It grew mighty on the wails of pain and loss and fear that filled the air, and eagerly anticipated an endless succession of ever more glorious feasts in the days to come.
Delaney returned from her temporary quarters in the bowels of the Citadel to Citadel terrace sometime after midnight, covered in a light shawl against the mild, southerly breeze. Unable to sleep, she found herself drawn to her lookout post high atop Orduna’s fortress of learning. For hours she sat at the edge of the roof, watching over the southern approach to the city.
It was she who first sensed the presence of Draxis from the Ashwauk Woods in the hour before dawn. She could not actually see anything beyond a shadow that was visible even against the clouded night sky, a shadow that seemed somehow to radiate intense darkness. Even from this distance, the toxic aura of the demon sapped her courage and hope. When Shaska came looking for her, she found Delaney cringing and rocking on the hard stone at the edge of the terrace. She quickly ushered her inside.
Neither were able to return to sleep. How could they sleep while breathing in the stifling atmosphere of dread?
By the time dawn arrived, the terror appeared out of the thick mist. The deadly presence rose up from the Ashwauk and cast a predatory shadow on the city’s main gate. An evil chant resonated from the dark void if its soul, shaking the bricks of the city wall and the bones of all within the city.
The flight of refugees into Orduna acted as a delayed fuse that set off a tremendous explosion of panic in all directions. For as Draxis reared up out of the forest and loomed over the city walls in the form of a giant drago of fire and shadow, the people realized that the City of Knowledge was not a sanctuary from the Nephil but rather a target of its wrath. With moans and sobs of despair they fled from the city that had so recently drawn them in. Shrieking, crying, trampling each other, they abandoned all belongings as they sought escape from the Orduna.
The great, hideous presence drank it up with howls of delight as it glided toward the city gates. It billowed to an enormous height, swelled its chest, and lifted its arms to the sky. Throwing back its head, it let loose a burst of vile, ecstatic laughter that shook the walls and echoed throughout the city. A massive tail, gleaming orange in the sunrise, burst out from the shadowed apparition and shattered the ancient outer gates with one blow.
Frantic with terror, Delaney jumped at Windglow’s offer to join him and Shaska in flight to Tishaara. Ehiloru, however, refused the offer of Tishaaran sanctuary.
“What is to prevent the darkness unleashed by Draxis from shattering even the Gaterock of Tishaara before long,” he warned. “To seek refuge there would be a temporary reprieve at best. In the meantime, I cannot desert my native realm in its time of most urgent need. I shall do what I can to help them cling to hope and provide comfort where I may, and pray that the annihilation shall cease. If your information is correct, Windglow, Ishyrus the Wise is somehow connected with the destruction of the realm bonds. However that may be, Ishyrus certainly would offer hope, however hidden, whereas Draxis destroys it. Ishyrus may yet arrive and find a way to restrain the Destroyer.”
“I cannot believe this would have been Ishyrus’s plan,” Windglow shouted above the screams of the city. “I fear that Draxis has somehow defeated Ishyrus. I look for no help from the Seraphim.”
“Perhaps. Yet even were that true, I will not give up hope. When what is seen cannot save us, we turn to that which cannot be seen to sustain us. That is why God created the horizon—as a beacon of relief."
To Delaney’s great distress, Dhayelle also politely declined the Tishaarans’ offer of asylum deep in the mountains of the Third Realm. In fact, although Windglow extended the invitation to all Ordunese he met, none took up the offer.
“How strange,” said Windglow. “To be so fearful of the world that they would sooner cower under the shadow of Draxis in their own realm than venture into the unknown!”
“Is there anything we can do here, Ehiloru?” asked Shaska, anxiously.
Ehiloru placed a hand on her shoulder and smiled. “Let not your heart trouble you about that. Mortals can accomplish nothing against this phantasm. Go, with my blessing. Remember us in your prayers, as we shall remember you.”
They parted tearfully. Delaney clung to both Ehiloru and Dhayelle, with the agony of Orduna’s ruin thundering in her ears. But even under her sorrow, Delaney felt a selfish relief that she would be able to escape the specter of Draxis, at least for a while. She found that, struggle as she did, she could not heed Ehiloru’s advice to cling to hope, not as long as she was forced to breathe air fouled by Draxis. The Destroyer incinerated all seeds of hope long before they could mature into conscious thought. She found herself wishing for nothing in the world except to run beyond the reach of the most terrible of the Nephilim.
At first, Delaney had no trouble matching the brisk pace of the Tishaarans, even though they now retained their legendary stamina in the lower realms. Terror such as she had not known even in the rat-infested pit of Rushbrook nor even in the depths of Cloudmire, flogged her as they ran through the winding avenues that descended to the western edge of the city. Upon reaching the wall, they waited for a large crowd of Ordunese and refugees to funnel through a small gate that was never meant to handle such volume. Delaney found Windglow’s and Shaska’s incessant courtesy infuriating. They kept stepping aside to let others pass, and there seemed no end to the line of people frantically fleeing Orduna.
“We’ll never get out of here at this rate! Come on!” She plunged into the crowded and squeezed her way to the open spaces beyond the city wall. Windglow and Shaska, however, did not appear.
Her impatience caused Delaney to suffer an agonizing hour in exactly the situation she had sworn to avoid at any cost: separation from her friends--wondering if they would ever show. The frightened throng poured through the gate in such disarray that she wondered if they could have slipped through without seeing her. Not until the exodus thinned later in the day did the Tishaarans finally push through the exit and rejoin her.
All the while Draxis tore into Orduna with savage ecstasy. Drunk on the terror it had spawned, bursting with power it had not felt in many centuries, the Greatest of the Nephil shattered the outer walls of the city. Splintered lumber and jagged shards of brick fell like an evil rain upon the city.
The bulk of the refugees thought only of putting distance between them and the Terror. They fled to the north, west, and east. Only a few lost souls, disoriented by panic, fumbled their way to the south. Windspear, however, saw that route as the best chance for escape.
“The demon is relishing its sport far too much to notice us,” he said. “We might be able to circle around it and connect with the main road.”
Windglow’s gamble proved wise. Deep in the throes of its savage frenzy, Draxis paid no mind to the trickle of traffic furtively dashing around its left flank. Even so, as they scurried across the open land now littered with rubble that had once been a magnificent wall, they felt its presence more strongly than ever. Nausea and blind terror swept over them as they raced for the shelter of the woods.
They found nothing resembling shelter in the Ashwauk Wood. The tree-shaded boulevards that Delaney remembered had been savagely dismembered. Solid oaks had been crushed to kindling. Massive elms and 200-year-old maples were torn up by the roots and dashed to pieces on a road scored by huge divots.
None of the travelers spoke as they picked their way through the debris. Delaney felt as though her home had been ransacked and vandalized, only on a far greater scale. For this was home in an even larger and more solid sense--the home that is the Earth, the home that cradles all homes. Knowing that her grief for this land was an incompletely rooted transfer of allegiance from the Earth that had nurtured her, she could scarcely imagine the violation her friends felt.
“With the road so torn up and trashed, we could make better time if we didn’t use it,” she said.
“Nonetheless, we need the road to show us the way,” said Windglow. “At least until the road bends east toward We may as well go through Morp, the way things are now.”
Delaney blushed, remembering the problems she had caused by forcing them into that bleak land once before.
“Hey, I think we learned our lesson about that place. We were lucky to get out alive first time.”
“Morp will not affect us,” said Windglow. “Remember, the realm bonds have been destroyed.”
Where the road veered east, they plunged into a dense, luxurious expanse of woods that had escaped Draxis’ rampage. The freshly unfolded leaves helped revive the travelers’ scorched spirits. Delaney was just beginning to relax again when Shaska suddenly stiffened. Purely on reflex, Delaney screamed.
“Do not be frightened,” said Windglow. “It is only a Meshoma.”
Standing before them was a tall, bronzed man clad in buckskin, who introduced himself as Mohato.
Delaney hated herself for overreacting but it was a trait she could never seem to change. “I am a friend of Cohasset,” she said, eager to establish good relations with the newcomer. “Actually a friend of a friend. These are my friends from Tishaara, Shaska and Windglow.”
“Oh, and what am I, an armpit warmer?” snorted Puddles from his perch on Windglow’s arm.”
“I’m sorry!” snapped Delaney, her nerves frayed by unrelenting tension. “This is Puddles, the biggest pain-in-the-ass in all Five Realms put together.”
“We are pleased to meet you,” said Windglow.
“It is hard to speak of pleasure in the Wood-That-Grows-Dark-Before-Sunset today,” said the Meshoma. “The woods lie broken and bleeding. The earth, our mother, cries out in anguish. A Great Darkness stalks the land and poisons all that it touches.”
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“How do your people fare?” asked Windglow, apprehensively. “Had we known that the Fifth Realm powers could destroy the realm bonds and that Draxis was coming, we never would have asked you lurk around the island.”
“Had we known what was coming, we would not have agreed to do it,” said Mohato. “Once we understood matters, we did not linger. The Meshoma honor their word, and stand with their allies. We put honor before life in battle. But this is no battle. We do not know how to fight a shadow who shakes off arrows as a fox shakes off the dew.”
“The people of Orduna and all the realms owe the Meshoma a debt of thanks, Mohato, for your messages and warnings,” said Shaska. “They have saved the life of a great man and, we hope, allowed time for the Ordunese to clear the Archives before Draxis can use it to bring about yet more harm.”
“Debts owed to us are far from our thoughts today,” said Mohato. “We would wipe the slate clean and stand beside the Topoha yet again to contest this Darkness if some way could be found to fight it.”
“There is no fighting this Darkness,” said Windglow, gloomily. “The realm bonds are gone. We of the lower realms no longer have protection against the Nephilim of the high realm. We can do nothing against them.”
Mohato frowned. “The realm bonds are no more? Then it is true? This Darkness who now walks freely in our realm is a spirit of the Fifth Realm?”
“It is Draxis, one of the Nephilim,” said Windglow. "As undying as the sky.”
“Do the armies of the Topoha have a plan for fighting against this Darkness?”
“Orduna does not even have an army anymore,” explained Windglow. “The soldiers have scattered. The people have scattered. The entire city is emptying out like mice from a burning barn. The Brooking soldiers have fled. I imagine those on the island are dead.”
“Many are,” confirmed Mohata. “The rest have fled.”
“As will any army when Draxis turns on them,” said Windglow. “It is no reflection on their courage. There is simply no point in fighting such an enemy.”
“Especially if your liver is the color of a lemon,” said Puddles.
Mohato glanced at the sherrott but did not respond to his goading. “The Chahura-- the people you call the Morp, from the Dry Realm. They fight.”
The incongruity of the statement stunned them into silence.
“What did you say?” asked Delaney, finally, in disbelief. “Did you say the Morps are fighting Draxis?!” Her voice grew shrill and uncontrolled. “The Morps?! What are you talking about?”
Mohato seemed put off by her aggressive attitude. He paused a long time before replying, “They received your summons. That is why I am confused when you say the Topoha will not fight.”
“What summons?” squawked all three voices at once.
“A message came to them from the City of Stone. Delivered in the shoe of a Chahura messenger from the city.”
Delaney’s hand flew to her mouth.
“What did they think that message said?” asked Windglow.
“They understood little of it,” said Mohato. “Few of the Chahura read letters and those who do accomplish this task with great difficulty. The only words they understood were ‘Help Orduna’ and ‘Desperate.’ They sent their army in response.”
Delaney’s throat went absolutely dry. “That was our message, Windglow,” she croaked. “The one we sent with Snetrock.”
“That message was not for the Morps,” said Windglow. “Snetrock was to deliver that to the Meshoma. Days ago.” Turning to Mohato, he added, “When we wanted to get you to spy on the island.”
“We received no such request from the Chahura. It was the Topoha general who asked for our aid."
“Well, big surprise--Snetrock screwed it up royally!” cried Delaney, in a rising wave of shame and horror over what they had done. “What did you expect? He’s got the IQ of a grapefruit. He could hardly remember his name, much less that he had a note in his shoe. Probably forgot all about the Meshoma, for that matter. He shows up back in Morp and finds the note and can’t remember what it is. And so he gives it to whoever can read there, and they piece out. . . oh my God, Windglow, what have we done?”
“Do you mean to say that the Morps are marching to Orduna?” asked Shaska, incredulous.
“Since my words were not clear, I will speak again,” said Mohato. “Yes, the Chahura are marching to the City of Stone. They have no wish to fight the Darkness, but they are answering a call for their help. And they are honored to give it.”
“But they cannot! They must not try!” said Shaska. “They’ll be massacred!”
“Wait! Wait!” said Delaney, her eyes brightening with hope. “We don’t have to worry. They’ll never get there. That poor, dumb Snetrock couldn’t find his way across a street without someone holding his hand. Their army will never find Orduna!”
“They follow the trail of devastation to the City of Stone,” said Mohato. “Not even a Morp could lose his way. Before the sun sets, they will be at the City of Stone to fight the Darkness.”
“The idiots!” shouted Delaney. “What is the matter with them?! Draxis will chew them up and spit them out in little pieces.”
“The Chahura did not expect to bear the battle alone. They came to aid the armies of the People of the Stone City.”
Delaney fought hard to control her temper and stem hot tears of anger and shame and frustration and horror that welled within her. “That’s a million times more than the Ordunese deserve from the Morps!” she cried. “Those stuck-up, sadistic pigs!”
“Begging your pardon, Delaney, but one should not paint all of Orduna with one brush,” said Shaska.
“And you Meshoma just let them go to the slaughter!” shrieked Delaney, taking out her frustrations on the most available target. “I hope you’re proud of yourselves! And what are you doing now, Mr. Mohato? Running away?!”
Mohato stared at her impassively. “Why do you seek a quarrel? Have we not troubles enough?”
“Enough of this quarreling, begging your forgiveness,” said Shaska. “We must stop the Morps before they reach Orduna.”
“Such speed is given only to the falcon,” said Mohato.
“But I am a Tishaaran of the Third Realm,” said Shaska, setting her jaw. “We can run far and fast without growing tired.”
“I had best go with you,” said Windglow.
“Me too!” insisted Delaney, immediately. There was no way she was going to be left behind again.
Shaska looked uncomfortable. Her glance fell to the ground.
“The wet-feathered Tishaarans are too namby-pamby to tell you that you’d just be extra baggage, lady,” explained Puddles. “Like dragging a dead horse.”
“You little brat!” spluttered Delaney.
“Do not worry,” Windglow comforted Delaney. “I promised we would never desert you again. Shaska shall stay with you and I shall run back. One voice of warning is sufficient to call them back.”
“No,” said Shaska. “I will . . .”
“No, I must go,” insisted Windglow. “I was the one who sent the message luring the Morp to their doom, so I . . .”
“No!” shouted Shaska with such force it surprised even her. “It is not your fault that the message went astray in this way. You knew it was a risk, but you were trying everything you could to save Orduna and Ehiloru. Meanwhile, I have been cooped up in a vault for weeks while you two did all the work fighting this conspiracy. I have accomplished nothing on this trip other than to delay our journey at the falls and blind myself so that Delaney could wander off and waylay our journey in Morp. Oh, yes, I have done one other thing--I walked stupidly into a trap at the Citadel. I am going, Windglow.”
Before there could be any more debate, she raced off in long, graceful strides.
Windglow knew when he was beaten. “We shall meet you at the Morp border!” he called, heartily. But his next words revealed this to be false bravado. “Take care, Shaska,” he whispered. “Please take care.”
Windglow’s concern over a Tishaaran of the opposite sex reminded Delaney of her own opposite, Roland. He was the person in the realmlands closest to her in every way; the man who should be showing that kind of concern for her. Would he do so now if he were here? Would he even try to protect her? Had he ever thought of her at all? Or had he tossed her off as carelessly as she had neglected him? Had he become like her--so absorbed in her own adventures that she often went days without sparing a thought for him?
She wished she could see him again. Even if all the realms were doomed to go down in flames and she along with them, she needed to talk to him once more.
On the other hand, if the Morps were all slaughtered because of that message she had so stupidly entrusted to Snetrock, well, she didn’t really care if she ever talked to anyone ever again.
Delaney and Windglow paced at the edge of the desolate desert flats. The landscape lay under a gloomy haze even though the sun shone brightly. It was an empty land--nothing but sterile craters and dry gulches and arroyos rasped out of the earth’s brittle crust. The surface of the moon could hardly be more bleak.
Delaney did not like the place at all. Bad memories, worse prospects. “I’m not going in there.”
“Delaney, you need not fear this realm anymore,” Windglow gently reminded her again.
“I can fear any realm, I please. In fact, experience tells me that would be a really good idea.”
“It is not the same place. The realm bonds have been broken.”
“I keep forgetting that,” Delaney admitted. “I guess change doesn’t come easy.”
“Even for one to whom the realm bonds seemed strange just a few months ago?” asked Windglow, in surprise.
“Yeah, I guess so,” said Delaney, sheepishly, surprised by her admission, “I can hardly believe it but I think I was actually getting the hang of this ridiculous realm business. And just when I did, it all disappears.”
“Would that you would do likewise,” squawked Puddles.
“Oh, you think you’re so cute, you little fuzzy rat!” said Delaney, hands on her hips. “Well, did you happen to think that you’re out of a job? Windglow doesn’t need you as a realm boundary warning anymore because there are no realm boundaries. That makes you expendable! We don’t have to put up with your guff anymore.”
“Vengeful little trundletail,” muttered Puddles.
“Do you think it wise to camp out here in the middle of nowhere?” asked Windglow, examining the ground. “There is nothing but gravel and hard rock. With naught but a few blankets between us, I am afraid you will sleep poorly.”
“You know a place where I wouldn’t sleep poorly tonight?” asked Delaney, sarcastically. “Oh, I suppose a comfortable bed and a pillow is all it would take for me to forget about all the Morps that we sent into the mouth of hell. I’ll be out like a light before I can even complete my prayer that Shaska can stop them on time. Yeah, right!
“Look, you told Shaska to meet us here at the border. This is the border, isn’t it? Well, there you go!”
She plopped to the ground amazed at what she was saying. Months ago she would not have insisted on such a literal fulfillment of a promise. There was a chance that the Morp villages could offer some better accommodations, crude as they were likely to be. She still hated closing her eyes on the day with dirt covering her body, and dreaded the prospect of grinding her hips and shoulders all night against unyielding ground. There was nothing resembling bathroom facilities and not a shred of privacy fo miles. Yet she now accepted those hardships without question for the sake of principle.
Sharing a meal of Ordunese oatmeal cakes with Windglow, she thought of the last time she had shared a wilderness meal--with Snetrock, the Morp. Every time she thought of that miserable plucky little fellow and his pathetic race, she seethed with contempt for the forces of the universe that had triply cursed them with a life of drudgery, incompetence, and tragedy. This supposedly loving Creator, if one existed, was a puny, despicable tyrant. Not worthy of warm spit, much less worship and praise.
“What will happen to the Morps now that Draxis roams free?” she asked. “I don’t just mean the Morp army. I mean all of them. Windglow, they are no more than children forced to survive in a grown-up world. And they must have children of their own who are even more helpless than they. I don’t care if they did send whatever passes for an army in Morp. They can’t hurt anyone. I can’t stand to think of them being at the mercy of that . . . thing. Why did we send that note?!”
“We could not foresee the future when we did that. And I cannot do so now,” said Windglow, sorrowfully. “We hope and pray for Morp as we hope and pray for all. Alas, I have seen nothing to show that Draxis is pricked at all by the pangs of compassion. We can only do what Ehiloru said, retain hope that someone in the Fifth Realm can someday lead the undoing of this disaster.”
“There seems to be a distribution problem with mercy in the realms,” said Delaney, bitterly. “You got enough of it in Tishaara to drown a herd of cattle, and not enough elsewhere to water a cactus.”
“I hope it is not as bad at that,” said Windglow, strangely tickled by the image she had drawn.
Delaney could not remember ever seeing him smile like that. This was more than the usual Tishaaran open-faced pleasantness; there was some genuine humor there. She had never been certain Windglow understood the concept of humor. In spite of her foreboding, she returned the smile. “Take it from an unbiased observer. It is as bad as that,” she said, patting his hand.
She awoke with a start, incredulous to discover she had actually slept through a portion of the night. Long and hard, judging by the bruises and the abstract pattern of impressions that the rocky ground had embedded in her skin. Already the sun had lifted well off the horizon, although it shone dully, as if the rays were blocked by a translucent shade.
From the north, a deep darkness rolled across the land. In her first groggy moments, Delaney thought a thunderstorm was approaching. The rumble turned to a low bass hum, and then a chill crawled up her neck as she heard a cry that seemed to burst out of the cosmos, piercing sky and rock.
The unmistakable cry of evil mixed with malicious joy.
Of Draxis.
She scrambled to her feet, dusted herself off, and looked into the distance to where the Ashwauk forest ended and left a bare approach to the desolation of Morp. “Windglow, your eyes are better than mine. What’s going on?”
Windglow bit his thumb, eyes wide with fear. “The Morps! Their army is fleeing. And unless your senses are dead, there is no need to mention the name of the one who pursues them!”
“But why?! I thought that thing had business in Orduna. Why is it after them? They’re as harmless as baby ducks.”
“Why? Delaney, the Morps set out to attack Draxis. As foolish and pathetic and utterly laughable as that was, forgive me for saying so, such defiance cannot have sat well with Draxis. Can you see them yet? No, a little more to that direction.”
In a few moments, Delaney could pick them out. The Morp were loping helter-skelter in that graceless, grim-faced, limp-armed gait. Shaska and several Meshoma ran among them, dashing to one side or the other to head off a stray Morp and redirect him. The scene reminded her of a cattle drive, only far more urgent. Windglow was right: the Morps were fleeing for their lives from the Destroyer.