The lightning followed from the skies. Down it came, striking Lorin’s Bane in his heaving bulk with a crack like the breaking of the world. The kraken gave out a trumpeting, otherworldly roar as the sparks zapped and crackled down its long thick arms. Smoke rose, fizzing and steaming. The beast quivered, thrashing out wildly as men ducked and threw themselves away as another strike was cast upon it, another bone-trembling shatter, another deep rageful roar and then suddenly the monster was in full retreat, its impossible bulk sinking into the turbulent waters, fading as it slithered back away to the depths. The long tentacles trailed after, one and then another and then another, until just like that the seas went still…and a deep hush fell over the world.
Saska stared up in silence. About her men were climbing back to their feet, crawling out from under broken sails and bits of debris. Elyon hovered above them, godlike, embraced in the power of the storm. For a short time he watched the waters, as though to be sure the beast was gone. Then slowly, heroically, he descended, drifting from the skies to land right there before her on the deck. The winds settled, and the glow retreated, and there he stood, older than she remembered him, broader, harder, stronger.
“My lady.” He went down to a knee before her.
She lost her breath. “Elyon, I…” She reached out to touch him to make sure he was real. “Stand, please, I don’t deserve…”
“You deserve everything.” He looked up at her, and something in his piercing eyes told her he already knew. “You deserve this.”
He presented the Windblade in his upraised palms and laid it down at her feet.
A shiver moved up her spine. She took a half step back, stopped. Others were gathering around. She glimpsed the Wall and the prince and others as well, and thanked the gods they still lived. She wanted to take Elyon’s hand and step away, go somewhere private away from everyone else, but no, it was time.
Become who you were born to be. Who you need to be, she told herself. She moved in, and knelt down. Close now, their eyes connected. “Will you help me?” she whispered, for only him to hear. “I don’t…I don’t know what to do, Elyon.”
He smiled that smile she missed. “I’ll teach you,” he promised. “That’s my purpose now, and my path.”
“Your path.” She blinked at him. Another tear was falling. She wiped it quickly away. “How did you know…”
“I had a letter. Well, two. They led me back to you.” He looked down at the Windblade for a good long while. “Take it, Saska. It’s yours now.”
She could feel the eyes upon her. The ripe and worried eyes of the Wall. The troubled eyes of Robbert Lukar. Dozens of others were peering from the decks and broken masts, from the crow’s nest and the rigging, watching in wonder and confusion. Most knew her only as her grandmother’s heir.
I will show them who I am.
She reached forward with her hand and wrapped her fingers around the Windblade’s haft. It felt like that first time, when she first touched godsteel. But more acute. More ancient. More powerful. It felt right.
A silence had fallen upon them all, upon the men and upon the seas and the skies, upon all the world about them. Others were coming, gathering. Leshie and the Butcher and the Baker and Sir Bernie, Sir Lothar and Sir Kester and Lord Gullimer and Bloodhound Burton.
All watched, all waited, as she stood and drew the Windblade from the deck. Men exhaled and whispered, astonished, as she heaved and lifted, turning the tip of the blade to the skies, and thrust upward with a wash of light. Silver it spilt, and blue were her eyes, glowing radiant in the gloom.
And all about her, figures fell. Princes and lords and knights, sellswords and soldiers and Seaborn sailors. One and then another and then another they fell.
To their knees before her, they fell.
EPILOGUE
In the hollow of the mountain was a colossal throne of black obsidian, cast and carved in the shape of a crown.
Barbs rose forth from the arms and back, sharp and thin like the spines of a porcupine, the longest soaring fifty feet high. Between the barbed arms was a smooth stone seat, grand in proportion, accessed by a stair. Upon that seat the Father and the Founder sat, dwarfed in its giant embrace, an embrace to fit a god. His skin was pale as ancient stone, his hair the hue of polished bone, and about his frame swirled crimson robes, the shade of new-drawn blood.
Walkways of rock soared high over the abyss, a lattice of them plunging to rivers of molten fire that spread through the mountain below like arteries through flesh. That fire was blood, Sotel Dar knew. The blood of Agarath, giving life to the rock, for the Ashmount was a living thing. A thousand plumes of smoke and steam rose up past the bridges like breath, gathering to pour forth from the open mouth and spread out into the skies above them. The scholar could hear the rumbling thunder up there, the eternal red lightning that swirled and roared in the storm. That storm was Agarath the All-Father, laughing.
High above the world, he watched.
The bridge to the throne was wide, a broad paved road lined with black-armoured knights holding tall black spears in their grasp. Each stood before a short parapet wall, still and silent as a statue, their eyes staring forward, swirling red, spear butts planted between their feet before them.
Between the dragonknight guards came the small delegation; the sunlord and his men, a dozen in sum. Two fire priests went before them, and before them walked the High Priest of the Temple of Fire, first of Eldur’s earthly servants with his robes of flame and hair of the same, coloured orange and scarlet and red. In his right hand he bore a golden sceptre encrusted with rubies and onyx and at his throat swung a great red diamond, glittering in the firelight, pulsing with power.
He stopped before the steep stair that accessed the crown-throne and bowed low in obeisance. “Great Father. I bring at last your honoured guests.” He waited for Eldur to gesture for him to rise and stood, opening an arm to introduce the men from Aramatia. “I present to you Sunlord Elio of House Krator, son of Tullio, a famed Moonrider. And his companion, Sunrider Mar of House Malaan.” The other men did not merit a mention. Behind they stood, heads low, eyes fearful. All shudder in the face of the Father, Sotel knew.
The sunlord’s garb was fine scalemail in bronze with a pattern of black diamonds wrought in the shape of a howling sunwolf, his cloak a shimmer of golden feathers that rippled and fluttered as he moved. He was a cold man, Sotel Dar had heard it said, a man of detachment, cruel and calculating. Yet as he looked upon the Father he quailed like all the rest. “My lord,” he murmured, in a strangled voice, moving forward a step until he was eight paces from the throne. There he went down to one knee and lowered his head. “I am your humble servant. I pray thank you for this audience, Great Eldur the Eternal.”
“I am not eternal,” whispered the demigod in his master’s throne. His voice swirled and echoed from the rock walls, reaching, stretching, spreading. “Not anymore.” He lifted a palm, calling for Krator to stand. “You may rise, Elio son of Tullio. Tell me why you have come.”
Elio Krator stood on trembling legs, his shoulders tight and drawn in. He had been made to wait for long days for this summons, kept in a tower at the base of the mountain as the Father worked his sorceries, delving deep into the powers of life-creation granted by his master’s soul. The mastery of such art still eluded him, and would always, Sotel Dar knew. Only the gods could create new life, yet what existed could be twisted, corrupted, strengthened. And raised from their slumber, the scholar thought. Down in the depths of the body of the Ashmount, ancient forms still lingered, to be raised and revived for the last clash when it came.
The sunlord cleared his throat. “I come bearing information,” he said, trying to give strength to his voice. It came out small all the same, the squeak of an infant in the face of the Founder. “There is a person you want, a…a person you have been trying to find, I am told. I have discovered this person’s identity, Great Eldur. Grant me your blessing, and I will speak the name.” He paused. “I will tell you all I know.”
The corners of Eldur’s lips twisted into a smile, lines spreading forth like fine cracks in stone. “My blessing. What blessing is this?”
“I seek…I seek only what I am owed. My own people…I have been betrayed, Great Father. By rights I was to sit the Eagle Chair of Aram, to rule the Duchy of Aramatia…”
Laughter cut him off. “The rule of the duchy? What use is such a rule, Elio Krator, when all will be bathed in flame?”
The sunlord went pale as milk. Sweat leaked from his brow and glistened on his neck. “I was told…I understood that…” He looked at the High Priest, who smiled that sly smile of his and stepped forward. A great red prong of beard twisted from his chin like a horn.
“Never fear, Sunlord,” his voice slithered. “Great Eldur speaks only of the test that awaits all man. The flame is symbolic. It is a state of peril in which we all will live, yet a man like you…a warrior like you…oh, I think you could do very well.”
The weak will be the feast and fodder for the strong, thought the old scholar Sotel Dar. He was weak himself, old and frail, no fighter, no warrior, and his own time was near. He held no fear of it. Death had been a cold breath at the nape of his neck for many years now, yet he had lived long enough to see the Father rise. It was more than he could ever have asked for. The great honour and pride of his life.
“The duchy was only a…a first step,” Elio Krator said. His eyes flittered nervously to Eldur again. “It is the rule of the empire I truly seek.”
The High Priest spoke again. “You must listen more carefully, Krator. You must open your ears. The duchy is of no significance, nor this empire you wish to rule. All kingdoms and nations and empires will fall, to become broken husks, borderless, filled with fallen cities and burning forts. There is too much life, the All-Father decrees, too much life and gluttony and greed, too much excess and overindulgence. The beauty of bare rock has been spoiled. It is mined and tilled and built upon, so more women can whelp men of scant worth. Some are worthy, and the worthy will fight on, clashing in the smoking ruin that this world will become. And in the clash, in the chaos, true joy will be found. That joy can be yours, Krator. For what little time you have.”
The sunlord did not seem to know what to say to that. He swallowed, the apple in his throat struggling up and down, then turned to face Eldur, tumbling before him in genuflection. “Great Eldur, I wish only to serve you,” he declared pitifully. “Grant me but a…a portion of your strength, and I will overthrow Empress Vesper and take the empire in your name. I vow it, my lord. I will muster all Lumara’s strength and march it upon the north. Together, my lord, we shall…”
“Together?” the voice whispered. “Together, did you say?”
