Crown of Dragonfire (13 page)

"Golems," Meliora
whispered. She had heard whispers of such creatures, but she had thought them
only myths.

"Meliora, they're
angry!" Elory cried.

Meliora's eyes stung. "They're
in pain."

It had happened before
her birth, if the tales were to be believed. They said that Queen Kalafi,
banished from Edinnu, outcast from her gods' graces, had tried to become a
goddess herself. To create life. In the tales whispered in the ziggurat, Kalafi
had stepped out into the wilderness, and there she had labored—here in this
valley! Here she had summoned all her power, molding beings from the clay.

They were meant to be
beautiful, Meliora remembered, staring at these dripping, bubbling creatures.
They were meant to be as noble as seraphim.

But Kalafi had failed.

The queen had begun her
creation, forming from the clay bones, blood, hearts . . . but the creation of
life was beyond her. Here still languished the culmination of her efforts, only
half completed, still clinging to a mockery of life. Still in pain after all
these years. Instead of angelic beings, the seraphim, cast out from their
heavenly realm, had created monsters. The golems of the valley. Forever the
shame of Saraph.

My siblings,
Meliora thought.

And now the twisting
beings swarmed toward her from all sides, crying for her blood.

Elory hissed and raised
her spear. "Stand back!"

Meliora, however,
placed down the spear she carried and held out open palms. "Wait, friends!" she
said. "Golems, wait and hear me."

Yet the creatures would
not slow down. One of them swiped a dripping arm at Elory, and the young woman
cried out and thrust her spear. The blade sank into muddy flesh, not stopping
the golem. The creature grabbed Elory, spraying her with mud. She thrashed in
its grasp, unable to flee.

"Rip out their bones!"
rumbled the Golem King, its wormy eyes moving within the sockets of its soft,
fleshy skull. "Coat them with mud. Bring me their jawbones for my crown."

Two golems approached
Meliora, reaching out toward her. One grabbed her arm, twisting many-jointed
finger bones around her. Another rose from the mud beneath her, coiled around
her legs, and bit down with stony teeth.

"Stop this!" Meliora
cried. "Golems, I command you stop. I am your sister. I am the daughter of
Queen Kalafi, your creator. Stop this madness!"

They screamed around
her, hundreds of them, more still rising from the mud. Some fell and shattered,
only to reform. They limped down the hills and across the valley, seeping
blood, organs dangling out from muddy torsos, falling, breaking, rising again.
Unable to live. Unable to die. Forever caught between creation and curse.

"She is the Creator's
spawn!" cried a golem, worms dripping from its head.

"I will suck on her
ribs," said another, limping forward, its one leg half the length of the other,
mushrooms growing from its shoulders.

Others were tugging at
Elory, stretching out her limbs. "Quarter her!" the golems said. "We will suck
on her marrow. Tug her! Tug her until we hear the sockets pop."

Meliora snarled and
kicked. "Stop this." As more golems grabbed her, she turned toward the king of
the creatures, the golem with the soft skull and jawbone crown. "King Golem,
hear me. I am Queen Kalafi's daughter. I can help you."

"Cursed creator, cursed
creator!" the golems chanted. "Make her one of us, one of us."

One golem yanked at
Elory's arm, a tug so mighty that Elory's bone popped out of its socket. Elory
screamed. More golems began tugging at Meliora's limbs, and she fell into the
mud, thrashing, unable to free herself.

"I can give you life!"
Meliora shouted. "Stop this, golems. I can heal you!"

They knocked her down,
and mud entered her eyes, and in the distance Elory still screamed. Their
fingers wrapped around her, yanking, pulling her, quartering her, and Meliora shouted.
Mud entered her mouth, and all she could see was the lumpy, dripping heads of
the creatures and their dark, soulless eyes.

"Wait." The voice
rumbled over the creatures' screeches. "Bring the creator's daughter before me."

The golems tossed back
their heads, howling in protest, but they obeyed their king. They tugged
Meliora to her feet, gripping her with their muddy digits, and limped forth,
dragging her through the mud.

"Release Elory!"
Meliora cried, spitting out mud. "Release my sister, or I won't give you aid."

The golems obeyed,
tossing Elory down. The young woman lay in the mud, pale and shivering. Her arm
popped back into her socket, and Elory screamed again, and then her eyes rolled
back, and she lay limply in the mud. Meliora wanted to rush to her, but the
golems kept dragging her, finally taking her to stand before the king.

The golem stood before
her, eight feet tall, dripping moss and mud. Its heart thumped outside its
chest, riddled with worms, surrounded by crooked ribs that thrust out like
snapped branches. Its eyes moved down on their stalks, gaping from their
shadowy pits. The jawbones forming its crown, Meliora realized, were the jaws
of seraphim or perhaps Vir Requis—previous travelers to these hills.

"It was seven hundred
years ago that your mother came to these hills," the king rumbled. "I was her
first creation. She raised me from the mud, and she named me Eresh, and I was
to her as a deformed child. She cast me aside and I watched, writhing in pain,
lying malformed in the mud as she created my brothers. As she raised life,
again and again from the mud—life doomed to suffering, life failed. I cried
out to her. I begged her to spare the others, to stop bringing tortured souls
into the world, but she did not see us as souls—only as her own failures. And
still she raised more, even as we all cried out together, pleading for this
mockery of creation to end. We begged her for death. We begged her for life.
Yet she left us in this state of wretchedness, for she was no goddess. Kalafi,
our creator, is forever accursed. Bring her before us. Summon your mother!
Bring her here so that we may claim our vengeance, or we will exact our vengeance
upon your sister who lies in the mud."

Meliora struggled to
free herself from the golems grabbing her but could not. Instead she raised her
chin, trying to muster what pride she still could. "Queen Kalafi is dead. Her
own son, the tyrant Ishtafel, slew her. Your vengeance is fulfilled."

But rather than
soothing the golems, this seemed to enrage them further. They tossed back their
heads, and they howled to the sky. The hills shook.

"She was ours to slay!"
King Eresh cried. Centipedes and beetles fled from his body, and his heart
thrashed, heating up, melting mud around it. "The tyrant Ishtafel stole our
vengeance, but we will take it out on you, daughter of the creator."

The golems began
tugging at her again, and more advanced, dripping, hissing, gnashing their
teeth.

"No," Meliora said. "You
will not, for as the creator's daughter, I can help you. I can . . . I can try."
She gulped. "I heard tales of how Kalafi created you. They were stories passed
through the palace in shadows, in whispers, forbidden stories. My brother told
me. They frightened me but I kept asking him to tell them again and again, and
I would reenact the stories with my dolls. I know why you are half-formed. I
know why Kalafi could not grant you true life." The golems leaned in, silent,
and Meliora spoke softly. "She did not give you her blood."

"Blood flows through
us!" rumbled King Eresh. "This blood we spill with every step, with every
breath. This blood flows from our hearts which we wish would stop pumping. This
blood is forever our curse."

Meliora looked at the
oily black substance dripping from the golem's infested heart. "That's not
blood," she whispered, "but bitumen mined from the pits of Tofet. To create
life—true life, true children—Kalafi had to grant you her own blood. The
stories whisper that she was too proud. Too protective of her noble blood, that
she would not share it, and instead completed her spells with tar. That is why
her creations failed—not for lack of power but for pride."

Eresh's eyes burned
white, and his heart rustled with maggots. He gripped her with dripping, muddy
hands, and the rocks and soil that formed his body creaked and scattered dirt. "Then
we will take your blood, Meliora, daughter of Kalafi, for our creator's blood
flows through your veins."

"If you take it you
will get nothing." She stared into his eyes. "It would seep into the mud and
vanish, leaving you forever without life, without death, and without vengeance.
But if I were to give you my blood, my gift of life . . . you will finally be
healed."

At least, that was what
the old stories said—more old stories Meliora had thought mere myths, now
risen before her.

"Will you let me try?" Meliora
said.

The golems did not
speak, those with eyes staring at the others, those with noses snorting, their
breathing ragged, scented of worms and deep soil and rot. Still they said
nothing.

"Let me heal you,"
Meliora said softly. "At least let me try. Let me end what my mother began, and
let me bring you some relief from this tortured existence. I've learned, in
only this moon, of horrors I never knew could exist—horrors committed by my
mother, my brother, by those I thought my family and my people. I've left the
city of Shayeen to fix the evil my family wrought. Let me fix this evil too."

Their grip on her arms
relaxed, and Meliora raced toward Elory. Her younger sister lay in the mud,
blinking feebly. Meliora knelt above her and touched her cheek.

"I'm all right," Elory
whispered. "I've suffered worse in Tofet. Give them life, Meliora. Save them.
They need you like we do."

Meliora raised Elory's
fallen spear, and at first the golems rumbled and made to grab her again, but
Meliora lowered the spear's blade to her own hand. She hesitated, then grimaced
and cut a line across her palm.

What is a cut on the
hand compared to losing my wings?
she thought as her blood beaded.

She approached one
golem, the weakest among them, a dripping creature that lay in the mud,
gasping, reaching up and unable to rise. Its heart beat outside its chest,
draped in mud, like a discarded organ in a battlefield. Its mouth smacked,
toothless, bubbling, a slit in the soil, and mushrooms grew where eyes should
peer. Meliora held her hand above the wretched soul.

"I am a daughter of
Requiem," Meliora whispered. "A child of starlight. The blood of Requiem
courses through me, red blood that has spilled too often over the centuries of
our suffering. But I'm also a child of Saraph, and ichor flows through my
veins—the golden blood of the deities, outcast from Edinnu. Blood that is
godly, blood that I now grant to you. Let the ichor of Edinnu, blessed with the
first light of creation, ignite true life inside you."

She tightened her fist,
and a single drop of her blood—the red blood of Requiem mixed with the golden
ichor of Saraph—dripped down.

The golem's bubbling
mouth opened, and the blood vanished into the muddy hole.

Silence fell across the
hills.

The golem in the mud
lay still, its last bubbles popping, its moans fading.

Meliora stared down,
breath catching.
Did I kill it?

She knelt in the mud.
She placed her hands on the melted being in the soil.

"Rise," she whispered. "Take
my gift of life and rise. Become life."

And slowly it rose.

No sunbeams fell upon
it, gleaming with gold. No angelic choir sang. No cherubim flew above, blowing
silver trumpets and playing joyous harps. Here was not a moment from ancient
tales and frescos, a holy miracle for poets to sing of and artists to paint across
the walls of temples. And yet life still rose. Clumsy. Falling into the mud,
breaking apart, rising again. A thing of filth, worms, dripping soil, awkward
and limping, the struggle of primordial life bubbling up from the earth.

And yet it rose. And
yet it fought.

The golem of mud took
form, sprouting an arm that dripped off, another arm that replaced it, becoming
solid, stones forming its bones and encasing its heart, its dripping flesh
drying like bricks in a kiln. The insects and worms fled from it or dried up in
its innards, and its eyes opened, deep sockets, shining with inner light.

"Become flesh," Meliora
whispered.

The golem suddenly
cried out, bent over, wrapped its arms around its belly, and Meliora was sure
that she too had failed, that this being would die—or worse, fall into a pit
of everlasting pain and agony. Its clay skin raised bumps which hardened,
forming white scales, and feathers rose upon its head, bristly and sticky with
mud. It raised its eyes and stared at her—golden eyes, feline, and its
nostrils flared, inhaling the air.

"Breathe," Meliora
whispered.

And life rose before
her. A man. A man coated with silver scales, feathers on his head, feathers
flowing down his back. Wings slowly sprouted from his shoulder blades. He
blinked his golden eyes and stared at her, a being blended of Vir Requis blood,
Saraph's ichor, and the soil of the earth. Life. He was life, true life sprung
from her mother—and from her.

"Is he . . . Vir
Requis?" Elory asked, coming to stand beside Meliora.

"He's like me," Meliora
said. "Of different bloods. He's touched with starlight, with sunlight, and
with the soil of the earth." She turned toward the life she had made. "I name
you
erev
, from our ancient word for joining together, for you are made
of many."

The other golems
approached her, dragging themselves through the mud, creatures of dirt and
suffering. One by one, they knelt before her, and she gave them her blood—a
drop each—and they took solid forms, grew scales and feathers, and stood
straight before her. The last drop she gave to King Eresh, and he transformed
into the tallest among his brethren, his wings wide and golden, his scales
gleaming like seashells, and his eyes shone a deep burnished gold. His crown of
bones fell from his head and vanished into the mud whence he had risen. A
hundred and twelve
erevim
stood before Meliora—her siblings, her
children.