The Legend of Asahiel: Book 03 - The Divine Talisman (71 page)

I
T WAS THE THUNDER THAT
awoke her, even before she felt Crag’s urgent touch upon her shoulder.

The look in his eyes was enough to draw her to her feet.

She glanced east, to find the sun peering tentatively over the ocean’s horizon. The clamor she both heard and felt came from the west, as if the mountains themselves were stirring.

“Where’s Torin?” she asked.

Crag shook his head. “Fool lad ain’t here.”

Annleia’s stomach pitched nervously. “What do you mean? Where did he go?”

“Our elves are missing, too,” announced Vashen, coming up behind her with five of her Hrothgari. “Would they have entered the ruins without us?”

Anxiety spawned dismay. “We have to go after them.”

Vashen looked up at the mouth of the pass. Already, the first of the Illychar were streaming over its lip, trumpeting their arrival with shrieks of bloodlust. “Goblins,” she spat. “As Torin warned. Headed for the ruins, no doubt.”

“Then let’s get moving,” Crag suggested.

“Won’t any of us make it far before they catch us,” one of the Hrothgari grumbled.

“We stage a diversion,” Vashen ordered, as the last three dwarves scampered close. “Maybe win the Tuthari and his elf-maid a bit more time.” She turned upon Annleia, eyeing her bluntly. “If you’re to work the magic, why would they have left you behind?”

Annleia understood the warder general’s suspicion—and the choice being given. The Hrothgari would surrender their lives to provide her at least some chance of reaching the Illysp portal, even knowing that without the Powaii to guide her, such hope was all but futile. She could not allow them to do that, not when she remained uncertain as to what aid she could truly be to Torin in his struggle.

“It’s not up to me,” she admitted. She turned to Crag in apology. “I told Torin last night. His is the power that must save us.”

“In that case,” Vashen replied, her tone critical, “I’d say we’ve served our purpose. Give the word, elf-woman, and we’ll see what little we might do to distract that horde. Otherwise, I’m for taking what shelter we can amid these rocks, and hope that your Sword-wielder knows better than we what he’s doing.”

Annleia did not care for her options. But she wasn’t about to condemn
these others for her own foolishness. For a moment, she watched the Illychar approach, a black tide streaming down the scarred slopes, the swiftest and strongest leading the way. Vashen was right. She had done all she could. It was time now to trust in Ravar’s plan.

“Torin chose to do this alone,” she said. “It is too late but to believe in him.”

Vashen snorted, and immediately signaled her team to move out. They were already north of the enemy’s position, but were far too close to the ruins to escape notice once the goblin swarm had descended. Annleia hesitated, looking back toward the ruins’ cave mouth, but allowed a scowling Crag to drag her along in pursuit of the others.

They moved quickly up the beach, higher into the foothills, and into a thickening cover of boulders. Annleia kept stealing glances south, amazed at how quickly the goblin Illychar were racing down that mountain pass. Their numbers were staggering—a force of thousands. Even if Torin had destroyed the rift, even if he had found a way to unleash the Sword’s fires, what was he to do against
that
?

When she and the others had wedged their way into a narrow, scrub-grown crevasse, Annleia felt Crag pulling her down. There they huddled, the last of them together, peering down upon the barren, rock-littered shore. The once-distant clamor had become a resonating rumble as the goblins reached the beach, shrieking and clawing like a single, giant whirlwind.

She nearly cried out when its tip came into view, though it remained hundreds of paces east of her position. By chance or by design, Vashen had picked a vantage point that afforded a mostly unobstructed view of the ruins’ entrance. Though Annleia could not quite see the cave mouth itself, she watched with abject horror as the whipping cloud of goblin Illychar began to funnel its way—scores at a time—into the earth.

A spider’s web does not forbid entry
,
but escape.

“Achthium’s mercy,” Vashen muttered.

After a time, Annleia had to cover her ears against those gargling shrieks of hunger and torment. No sound the damned might make could echo as shrill or terrible. And still they came on, until the very earth began to groan.

That groan grew into a new rumble, muted, born somewhere underground. It must have been that the majority of goblins had entered the ruins, she thought, dragging their thunder below—though she estimated that fewer than half had actually done so. She became further confused when there came an unexpected commotion around the cave’s mouth: a shifting and squawking among those fighting to enter and those who looked suddenly as if they were attempting to flee.

The subterranean roar grew louder, and the ground began to quake. In the near darkness, the spot of earth around which the goblins swarmed appeared to glow red. A trick of the dawning sun, she thought.

Until a blinding flash sparked a geyser of crimson fire—erupting skyward as if to ignite the heavens.

A
MERCILESS TRIUMPH BURNED IN
his chest as Torin climbed from that smoking hole. Unthreatened, he allowed the Sword’s flames to withdraw. The dawning sun bowed upon the horizon, as if in deference to a fire as great as its own. And no wonder. For his heart was a forge of emotions, a well of strength, an unquenchable passion. Awash with a euphoria not experienced by anyone in millennia, he felt as godlike as any mortal could become.

That feeling only intensified as he looked around at the scrabbling swarm of thousands upon thousands of goblin Illychar that blanketed the rugged coastline. They could not flee him fast enough. They could not…

The scattering hordes began to turn back. For just a moment, his lungs tightened. He knew how they must see him, with the fire gone out. One man, alone within their midst. A coil to claim, else a morsel to shred. He had startled them, was all, his conflagration catching them unawares. Seeing now what they had run from only fanned the coals of their hatred.

Torin stood motionless as the storm gathered and closed. There were more than even he had remembered—too many, perhaps.

He did not want to let any escape.

The nearest were within thirty paces, twenty, ten. Their fetor enveloped him; their stabbing cries pierced his ears. In their eyes gleamed an insanity he was beginning to comprehend. Ecstasy…agony…

Deep inside, it churned, billowed.

The Sword’s fire flashed forth. He spun, sending it out in a circle. Flames spread along the shore in lancing streams, each of which blasted through an enemy, then continued on to devour another. Hair and skin, teeth and bones—consumed without prejudice. Scores, hundreds, their lives snuffed in an instant.

The rest came on, a rabid surge from all directions. Torin willed them forward, shivering with laughter, with love, with hate…with madness. His newfound power seemed without end. He couldn’t wait to return to the southern battlefields, to meet his enemies as he had before, to demonstrate for all the world his true, terrible nature.

He felt himself slipping away and did not care. So many had scorned him, he knew, so many who had mistaken humility for frailty, kindness for weakness. Let them gaze upon him now, if they could. For the only frailty he saw was in those who dared to rise against him; the only doubt, that which flashed in his foes’ eyes an instant before they met with annihilation.

A gradual shift took root inside him, a hollowing sensation that sent coring pains throughout his chest and limbs. He felt the strength of his fires weakening, turning back as if to eat at him within. He gritted his teeth, resisting all the harder, but that only seemed to speed the tilting of power.

The Illychar drew closer, flying in from all angles, and he could no longer seem to move fast enough—or reach far enough—to stop them all. Doubt, that shade of his past, came creeping back in. Had he exhausted his emotional reserve? Was there in fact a limit to his strength?

Strangely, the balance shifted once again, the outer fires roaring with renewed vigor.
Like the stars at night…
he realized, glancing up at the predawn skies. He needed them both, confound it. Pride
and
humility. Strength
and
weakness. He could not be one without the other. Seek to banish one, and its antithesis withered alongside.

Still so much to learn
, he thought, fighting to steady his focus, to find a middle ground between vanity and self-loathing. Competing images swirled within his mind: those that fostered pity, followed by those that inspired vengeance; those that caused him to smile, followed by those that made him want to weep. He set them to chasing one another in an endless cycle, using them to maintain the balance that seemed to be required.

He soon understood, however, that even this was a challenge he could not maintain forever. His doubt had been correct in one respect: The wellspring of his emotions was fast running dry. A chilling numbness was stealing through him like ivy over a castle wall. A renewal was needed, a fresh inspiration. No matter the desire unleashed by his various memories, he could not keep recalling the same ones over and over and expect them to yield the same potency.

He looked around, still spinning, still trailing streamers of fire. Thousands of his enemies had been incinerated, yet thousands more remained.
Too many
, he thought again. Only, this time, he wished more would take flight. Many had done so, but not nearly enough. The rocky beach was still swarming with attackers bent on assault. Alone, he could not destroy them all.

In that moment of bitter acceptance, his time ran out.

He felt the ominous rising, even before the ocean’s growl became a spitting roar. A pillar shot skyward at the edge of the coastline, darkening the reddened sky. Sheets of water and spray fell away from its sides, revealing the horror that Torin already knew lay beneath.

Ravar.

The Dragon God’s shadow engulfed the beach, and His great maw fell after. With startling swiftness, the leviathan struck the stony shore, swallowing scores of Illychar with a single, snapping bite. At the same time, a tidal wave swept over the earth, crushing even more Illychar before hauling them off to a watery grave.

An awestruck Torin withdrew his fires in a posture of defense. But Ravar’s wrath seemed focused on the Illychar. Hundreds disappeared as His cavernous maw lashed out again and again. Others were ground into pulp as the creature’s unfathomable bulk—with its armor of limestone and coral—grated over them. Within moments, the roiling sea was filled with both the battered and the dead, mangled bodies flailing amid ribbons of flesh and splinters of bone.

The goblins took flight, winging frantically in all directions, desperate to escape the leviathan’s ravening. Torin and his Sword were all but forgotten as the majority flocked westward, seeking the safety of the mountain slopes.

Drive them to me.

The command resonated in Torin’s mind. Though wary and exhausted, he
didn’t dare disobey. Once more, he leveled his blade and sent flames shooting from its radiant surface. He did not attack his enemies directly this time, but rather formed a conflagration that rushed up the mountainside ahead of them, a line set to corral the Illychar and stem their retreat.

Some plunged headlong into that fiery wall, to emerge only as cinders and wisps of smoke. The rest turned, hissing and screaming with rabid fury. Torin advanced toward them, holding as many as he could in place, incinerating those who came too close. Gradually, he began to herd them back toward the water’s edge.

While Ravar lunged forth to devour them, Torin battled the strain of blocking their escape. It was hard enough to keep his feet as he marched toward the sea. The earth shuddered, rocked time and again by the Dragon God’s thrashing movements. As goblins flew at him, he was forced to summon flame tongues to destroy them, without allowing gaps in his primary wall. But he had to hold strong. He could not allow Ravar’s hunger to go unsated.

Iron sinews bulged from his forearms. Veins ripped across his skin like tiny bolts of lightning. A molten sweat seemed to sear the flesh from his face and arms. The deafening tumult raked his ears—the roar of flames, the hiss and shriek of enemies, the churning of the ocean, Ravar’s groans and earth-shattering assaults…while in his mind, he heard only the thunder of his own raging desire.

The sounds continued to echo even after the slaughter had ended. Torin opened his eyes when he felt waves slapping at his feet. Only then did he realize he had closed them. Almost the whole of the goblin army was gone, its few dregs having fled up the slopes. The only other traces lay all around, smashed upon the earth or cradled by the settling sea.

It’s finished
, he thought, and allowed the fires of the Sword to slip back into their gleaming sheath.

Not yet
,
Asahiel.

Reminded of its hulking shadow by the chill that came over him, Torin gazed upward at the hovering Dragon God, and fell to his knees in the crimson surf.

T
ORIN WADED THROUGH A FOG
of dizziness. He looked from Ravar’s mountainous form to the waves crashing around him to the fires in the Sword’s blade and heartstones. He felt utterly drained. If Ravar meant to challenge him now…

Again you flatter yourself with undue importance
, came the scornful reply.
But look
,
Asahiel
,
and tell me what you have truly accomplished.

He forced himself to turn eye back to the west, tracing the flight of those few remaining goblins scurrying upward into the pass. A grim understanding began to cut through his confusion. The rift may have been closed, but…

His thoughts reached across the miles to friends and regions unseen. By now, the coalition blockade had likely been breached, if not destroyed. If so, then those at Stralk, Wingport, and other cities were no doubt fighting for their lives, hunkered behind their feeble defenses. Nevik and the rest of Alson would be out to sea, or wishing they were. All was still lost unless he could somehow cleanse these shores—and Yawacor’s—of the Illysp already set loose.

“You must give me more time.”

And delight I would in your continued struggles. But the Illysp are innumerable. I can tolerate them no longer.

Torin still wasn’t certain how scouring the earth would silence the Illysp spirits—perhaps by eradicating the physical minds in which they whispered their fell urges. Whatever, that was Ravar’s concern. His was in finding another, less devastating way.

But how? How could even the Sword’s fires be used against an enemy he couldn’t see?

Though he knew the creature read his every thought, Torin could not help but consider instigating now the conflict he so dreaded. For the only sure way to prevent Ravar from unleashing His full fury would be to destroy Him first.

See to your friends
,
Asahiel
,
before you do anything rash.

He cast about and, sure enough, spied the members of his company rushing down the beach toward his position. Annleia led, dashing along at a dangerous pace upon the slick, jagged ironshore. Crag fought to keep up, but was falling steadily behind. Farther back trudged Vashen and her Hrothgari, weapons drawn, necks craned skyward at Ravar’s impossible majesty.

Annleia stared not at the Dragon God, but at Torin, as she approached. He
forced himself to his feet, uncertain of his feelings, but well aware of the fresh spark that her arrival lit within him.

By the wild look in her eyes, he thought for a moment that she meant to throw her arms about him. Instead, she slowed as she reached the surf line, and finally stopped, awe reflected in her features.

He could almost see her thoughts spinning, her lips itching for some proper expression of her feelings. At last, she gave up and looked instead to Ravar. “He did what you asked of him,” she said. “Tell us what more must happen, and I will see it done.”

She was the one who had thought to ask about it beforehand, Torin recalled: what was to become of the reigning Illysp should he manage to destroy their portal. That question, the one he had been so quick to dismiss, had suddenly become of paramount importance. What was the answer Ravar had given?

“You spoke of
they
,” he remembered vaguely. “The ones who would help us.” He looked to Annleia for acknowledgment. She nodded fiercely before turning her glare upon Ravar.

Or not
, the Dragon God replied.
That is their choice
,
their challenge.

“Then at least tell us who
they
are,” Torin demanded, shaking the Sword at his side, “that we might sway them.”

See to your friends
,
Asahiel
, Ravar repeated.

Torin frowned, looking back at those drawing near. Crag splashed through the surf, looking none too pleased with any of this. Vashen and the others were still a hundred paces out, wary, uncertain. What could any of them have to offer that they hadn’t already?

He was about to voice this question aloud when he caught sight of the others.

They came in a tightly knit cluster, angling down from a more southerly position at the base of the coastal foothills. Torin squinted. He could not yet make out their identities, but if judged by their slow, methodical pace, they were no Illychar. Whomever, they were lucky to have escaped the enemy swarm—and his far-ranging conflagration—alive.

He glanced at Ravar with curiosity and suspicion, but the Dragon God only hovered silently, His great neck swaying almost imperceptibly in the strengthening wind.

Torin turned and headed up the beach, thinking to meet the new arrivals. The members of his company fell into step alongside. Annleia and Crag followed closely; the rest gave him a comfortable berth, while casting more than a single lingering glance at the monstrous leviathan at their backs.

Instead of continuing toward him, the newcomers veered toward the entrance to Thrak-Symbos’s ruins. As they did so, Torin realized who they were. A twinge of surprise overcame him, drowned quickly by mingled waves of expectation and displeasure.

By the time he came within hailing distance, they had formed a wall at the edge of the ruined cave mouth, and there stood waiting. They were not alone.
With them, Torin found Allion and Marisha, whose own presence spawned a momentary confusion that he quickly dismissed as inconsequential.

“I might have known,” he said, eyeing the Entients sourly. They were all there, the few whose names he remembered, and many he did not. He fixed his gaze upon their white-haired leader’s, who stood center among them. “Is this as you planned, then?”

Maventhrowe looked at Ravar, looming at the coast’s edge, before smiling thinly in response. “Would that we were capable of dictating such forces and events. No, Sword-bearer, we did not plan for this, no more than you did. But we have watched, and we have seen. Of all the possibilities to unfold, you have brought forth the best for which we might have hoped.”

Torin’s frown deepened. Though subtle, he sensed the wariness, the relief, in those he faced. While they indeed seemed pleased with fortune’s turn, a shadow of darker intent still lurked about them.

His doubts must have shone clearly, for a familiar gray-hair—Htomah, if recollection served—hastily added, “We come as friends, whatever else you may think of us.”

Torin glanced at Allion and Marisha, stood near the end of the line beside a glaring Ranunculus. He still wasn’t sure how their presence fit in here, but saw little sign of friendship within their stares. Awe, yes. Beyond that…shame, and a grim boldness. Like the Entients, they had journeyed here with unsettled purpose, Torin decided, a double-edged sword that might have fallen either way.

He looked back to Htomah. “It’s not your friendship that I require, but whatever aid you’re here to lend. How much do you know?”

“The rift is closed, is it not?” Maventhrowe asked.

“It is. But the Illysp that remain—”

“And do you still carry the Dragon Orb?”

Torin looked with Maventhrowe to Annleia. “Yes,” she said. “But I do not have the power to use it as my forebears did.”

“Of course you do not,” Maventhrowe replied kindly. “It is how I knew the task set upon your shoulders was little more than a ploy, that the true charge must be the one Ravar gave Torin from the first. Were he to fail—”

“The rift is closed,” Torin repeated, impatient. “So, what now? Can you command the Orb’s magic?”

Maventhrowe slowly spread his arms, indicating his fellow Entients. “Together, it seems we must.”

“But how will you draw them,” Annleia demanded, “when the light from their world can no longer be used to seek them out?”

The key to their dilemma. Ravar had described the Orb as a lens. But the light was to have come from the portal itself. Without that…

“A summoning like your ancestors performed is no longer possible,” Maventhrowe admitted. “But the Orb is all-seeing, as Ravar is all-seeing.” He nodded respectfully toward the silent leviathan. “We need only to show it what we seek—in this case, Illysp souls.” His smile became almost mischie
vous. “Unless you spurned the woodswoman’s advice, you carry one of those, as well.”

The gosswyn
, Torin thought. The one Annleia had displayed during their confrontation with Lorre in the overlord’s dungeon. The one in which she claimed to have caged the spirit of Itz lar Thrakkon. Necanicum had warned her to keep it, that there might come a time when it would be required.

Once again, it seemed, the witch had been right.

Annleia’s hand went to one of the small pouches at her waist. She gave Torin a long, searching look before she finally nodded.

Torin returned his attention to Maventhrowe. “So the flower will enable you to spy them through the Orb. How do you then destroy them?”

“A transference of energy along the opened sightways.” The Entient’s great white mane shook slowly back and forth. “Only, no energy
we
could summon would be powerful enough to eradicate so many.”

Torin stared for a moment into those brilliant blue eyes, considering that which Maventhrowe suggested. “Is there anything else you require?”

“Once it begins, you must not pause until it is finished, for there will be no second chance.”

Torin hefted the Sword, and brought a sheath of flames dancing to its surface. “Then let us begin.”

Annleia drew forth the Orb. Torin measured the Entients’ reaction, but none showed any concern at its withered, shrunken appearance. With those assembled looking on, the last of the Vandari uncorked the skin in which she had collected some of the Orb’s tears, and used them to wash the artifact’s surface, murmuring softly all the while in that exotic, singsong tone.

Within moments, the Orb began to glisten, then swell. As he waited, Torin glanced now and then at Ravar, to see if the Dragon God had anything to add, any clue to offer as to whether this was the proper course. But the leviathan remained still, silent—the grim presence of a headsman waiting for sentence to be passed.

Questions filled his mind with every fleeting moment, as nagging and insistent as the parade of breezes sweeping that desolate shore. He thought to ask more about the process laid out by the Entients, but didn’t. Strange as it all sounded, he didn’t much care
how
it could work, only that it
would
.

The sun had cast aside a blanket of clouds and slipped fully from the ocean’s bed before Annleia stepped back, leaving the Orb to lie upon a nest of broken rocks. Its restoration appeared complete. Not only had it grown to its original size, but its skin had smoothed so that the dawning skies reflected brightly against the black-pearl surface.

Maventhrowe came forward to make his own inspection, running a single hand lightly over the glasslike sphere. He gave Annleia an encouraging smile. “The gosswyn,” he said.

Annleia, who seemed suddenly weary, reached into her pouch. Torin tensed as the thistle-like flower came into view. Except for its complete lack of color, it still appeared alive and healthy—not dry and dead as he would have
anticipated. Seeing it again, he recalled having wanted her to grind it into dust. Even now, a part of him might have taken satisfaction in doing just that, so intense was his loathing at the mere sight of it.

Upon accepting the gosswyn, Maventhrowe spun it slowly in his fingers, studying it from all sides, grimacing as he did so. He then looked to Torin. “When you are ready.”

Torin strode forward. The Entients closed round, brushing all others aside. Annleia tried at first to stay within their ring, but Crag helped draw her back. The rest—Allion, Marisha, Vashen, and her Hrothgari—seemed content with observing from afar.

Maventhrowe set the gosswyn atop the Orb, then laid his hands flat on either side—palms down, digits splayed, thumbs and forefingers touching to form a central, tear-shaped gap. “When I signal to you,” he said, “stab here to pierce the Orb’s heart, but do not yet call upon the Sword’s fire. You will know when it is time.”

Torin nodded smartly, anxious for this to be ended.

“When it is time,” Maventhrowe cautioned again.

One by one, the remaining Entients placed their hands upon the Orb’s surface, their fingers forming an intricate webwork. As he watched them, Torin was reminded of their ancestors’ study of the Sword—of the secret he had uncovered that they had not. Even now, it scarcely seemed possible—not only that the answer he had come up with was true, but that it could be so simple. How it could have eluded so many for so long, including those whose understanding of such things was much greater than his, remained a mystery. But perhaps that was it. Perhaps they had been looking too hard down the wrong paths, as he had. Everyone saw the Sword as a font, a cask waiting to be uncorked. And the more they looked, the farther they moved from the obvious truth: that its wielder was the true source, the weapon itself merely a filter.

Maventhrowe closed his eyes and began to hum. The other Entients followed suit, matching their tune to his. Inside the Orb, invisible veins flashed now with streaks of light, as if a thunderstorm brewed within. High above, the skies darkened and churned, mirroring that internal conflict.

While waiting, Torin turned his own focus inward, stoking the passions he knew would be required. As drained as he had felt, his emotions, it seemed, were remarkably resilient. It didn’t take much to set them to seething once again. He thought of the victories he had known, as well as the many times he had felt beaten and helpless. Neither mattered now, save that, together, those moments had culminated in this one. His triumphs, his failings—his deeds, for good and ill—all would weigh out now to determine his lasting legacy upon this world. If ever he had anything to give, to take, he must do so now.

Lightning crackled overhead, and thunder pealed. Before him, Maventhrowe’s eyes snapped open, glowing a brilliant, phosphorescent blue. Torin looked to the space between the Entient’s hands, where the pale gosswyn rested. A host of flickering energy streams danced just beneath it, like roots set down deep inside the Orb.