Threads of Amarion Page 20

  It was always the same, and Bands remained where she was until the fight ended. Stavark’s breaths came quickly, but he remained steady, watching the battle play out.

  Finally, the ghost of Seldon Tyflor made his fated error. His sword swung wide, allowing Matro Den the opening he needed. Despite the cataclysm that would follow, Matro made the strike as he always did and always would until the end of days. The tyrant’s sword ripped into Seldon’s side. The young, self-made King of Tyflor staggered back with a roar that was half agony and half frustration. He held his side as his life’s blood leaked through his fingers. His sword clattered to the ground.

  Matro Den lunged forward, thrusting his sword straight through Seldon’s chest. It cut through armor and bone like paper. Seldon’s roar ended abruptly. Slowly, he slid off the ghostly blade and collapsed at Matro Den’s feet.

  With a wicked grin, Matro raised his head and howled his victory.

  Silence fell over the Tombs of the Lost. The muted battle, the distant cries, everything ceased. The war was over, because as Matro Den slew Medophae’s friend Seldon Tyflor, Medophae lost control. He exploded into a berserker rage, releasing Oedandus upon Matro Den and his army. Even Bands could not remember exactly what happened, only the golden energy that shot from Medophae like a tunnel of fire. It knocked everyone on their backs. It incinerated Matro Den...

  ...and the shockwave brought down the Deitrus Shelf, killing everyone below.

  This cove was created on that day, and miles of coastline to the north and south crumbled into the ocean.

  But that was then.

  At the silence, Matro turned and looked at the visitors. His lip curled in a sneer.

  “The dragon bitch returns,” he said. “What army have you brought with you this time?”

  “No army, Matro Den.”

  He appraised Stavark. “A quicksilver boy? You’re more in need of a man, I think.” He leered at her. He stuck his sword into the chest of Seldon’s corpse and left it there, quivering, while he strode forward. “Have you come to beg for mercy? Do you think I will play nicely with you if you beg?" He shook his head. “You should have given yourself to me the first moment you knew I was coming. You should have knelt before me and honored me. Perhaps then, I would have honored you.”

  Bands watched him, unmoved. Stavark tensed, his hand going to his sword. Matro noticed the movement and showed his teeth. “Come then, quicksilver.” He opened his hands. “I know the secrets of dealing with your kind. Come for me, and you will see what the son of Buravar Den is famous for.”

  Bands shook her head. “You’re a ghost, Matro. You have been for centuries.”

  Matro slowed at that, his eyes narrowing as though she had said something he should remember. He looked down at his ghostly hands. “What threadweaver trickery is this?”

  “No tricks. You are dead.”

  Cold realization dawned on his pale, glowing face. “How? The day is mine. I have won!”

  “You lost,” she said. “You picked the wrong enemy. Seldon Tyflor was Medophae’s friend.”

  “Who?”

  “Wildmane.”

  Matro’s eyes narrowed, and his fury grew. “What?”

  “He brought down the Deitrus Shelf. It took both armies into the True Ocean.”

  Shaking with rage, Matro leaned forward as though he would launch himself at Bands. She watched him carefully, but did not move.

  Then, a transformation took Matro Den. His rage vanished, and bitterness settled in its place. His bright eyes clouded over, and his shoulders stooped. He looked around himself, noticing the walls of the tomb as if for the first time. He glanced over his shoulder at the ghostly corpse of Seldon Tyflor. It had vanished.

  “Yes...” he said through tight lips. “I remember now. I remember dying. Stone, so heavy...”

  “Yes,” Bands said.

  “Then why have you come, woman?”

  “To see if you still haunt these halls.”

  “Haunt them? Before you came, I was in glorious combat...” His eyes narrowed to slits. “What did Tyflor call you? Anciella?”

  “Yes, but that is not my name. You may call me Bands.”

  He spat at the ground. “Wildmane’s love. So you lured us to our deaths here.”

  “Medophae did not mean to bring down the shelf. He did not expect you to slay Seldon.”

  He sneered. “Then Wildmane is a fool.”

  “Perhaps,” she said.

  “I should have won this battle. In my mind, I am winning still, but this...” He waved a hand at the tomb. “This is a burial house. Centuries, you say? I have been dead so long?”

  “Longer than you can imagine. The world has changed.”

  “And my country?”

  “It survives, though very differently than when you left it.”

  “My sons?”

  “Long dead, though only one by violence. Your third son, Candon, went on to become a great ruler. Buravar still survives because of him.”

  “Buren was my heir.”

  “He continued your war.”

  “And?”

  “He died under mysterious circumstances. It is my belief that Candon had him killed.”

  “Little Candon...” Matro mused. The barest hint of a smile showed at the corner of his mouth. “A brave move for a boy.”

  “He was a brave boy.”

  “And Matender?”

  “Fled when he heard the news of Buren’s death.”

  Matro spat. “I always knew him for a coward. He was his mother’s son.” He paused. “And yet...” He looked up at Bands and watched her for a long moment. “I have heard this story before. How?”

  “You and I have spoken before.”

  “You have told me this entire story...”

  “Yes.”

  He growled. “Then have you returned to mock me? Is that it?”

  “No. I returned in grief, as did Medophae. We found you this way. We built these tombs for you and your soldiers. For Seldon and his soldiers.”

  “How many times have we spoken?”

  “This will be the fourth.”

  “You built these tombs the first time. Why did you come a second time?”

  “To see if you had found peace.”

  “And the third?”

  “The same. Medophae bears the guilt of this battle like a scar across his heart.”

  “And why do you come this time, love of Wildmane?”

  “I may be able to free you.”

  He said nothing for a long time. “Free me from...what?”

  “This existence. I have recently been freed from imprisonment. I had much time to think...about many things. The Tombs of the Lost was one of them. I think I know why you remain here.”

  “And why is that?”

  “Great amounts of GodSpill were used in this place, GodSpill that was connected to each and every one of your soldiers through your weapons. They were the most powerful of the age, and there were so many of them. I have had long years to ponder this, and I believe that a bond develops between enchanted items and their users. It may be they hold you to this place. I have come to remove them, to give you rest at last.”

  He frowned. “Then, at best, I may look forward to no life at all. Not even a ghostly one?”

  “Is this life for you? There is more beyond the Godgate, it is said.”

  “And how would you know?” he asked, some of his original fire coming back into his speech. “You lie, dragon bitch. I have no time for your lies. I have a war to win.”

  “Matro,” Bands said, her voice charged with command. He ignored her, turned and walked deeper into the tomb, back to where he had slain the ghost Seldon Tyflor.

  “Matro!” she called, her voice echoing off of the walls.

  He waved a dismissive hand over his shoulder. “Go! I will see you on the battlefield. When I have taken the upstart’s head and destroyed his army, I will defile you on the battlefield for all my loyal subjects to see. You will not speak so b
razenly then.” Seldon’s body reappeared in a flicker. Matro grabbed his sword and pulled it out, then continued walking as if he had not even seen the dead body of his foe.

  He vanished into the back wall. Bands let out a long breath and stared after him for a moment. In the distance, a single sword rang out as it came down on some hapless soldier. Another muted clang sounded, and then another. Soon, the tombs were filled once more with the noise of a battle that had ended centuries ago.

  “Come, Stavark,” Bands said. “We tried. It appears as though the ghosts will not help us.”

  He nodded, obviously relieved at Matro Den’s absence. “What do we do next?”

  Bands turned and left the tomb of Matro Den and Seldon Tyflor. “We go with my guess. We take what we need and hope it is enough.”

  25

  Bands

  Bands stared down at the waters of the bay. The surf lapped softly at the rocky beach, stopping inches from her boots.

  “Do we swim to get them?” he asked.

  “We threadweave, which I wanted to avoid. I had hoped we might entice the ghosts to bring the weapons up from the depths, but it was a thin hope to start. It hinged on Matro Den. He’s the only one I could ever get to acknowledge me at all. The rest simply continue their fight as if I am not there. I thought if I could get Matro to help us, he might command the others to help as well. Unfortunately, we must do it the other way.”

  “Why not threadweave first?”

  “Tampering with Saraphazia’s ocean is dangerous. She doesn’t like those who meddle in her realm.”

  “And we cannot swim because...?”

  “I cannot touch this water. It connects directly to the True Ocean, and those waters would eat me alive.”

  He raised his eyebrows.

  “Saraphazia destroys all human vessels she catches in her waters, but oftentimes those sailors may swim to shore, if they are lucky. Not so for a dragon. To you, this water is just water. To me, it is like acid.”

  “Why?”

  “It is a powerful spell set in place by Saraphazia, the goddess of the true ocean, spawned from an ancient argument between her and Avakketh. Her whales do not venture onto land. Dragons do not touch her waters. It is the same for the children of Dervon. Dramaths, darklings, and the others. They burn also because of her hatred for Dervon.”

  Bands cleared her mind and reached into the threads of the great tapestry. Deep down, past the water, past the silt and muck of the bay floor, she sensed the concentrated GodSpill. Each weapon glowed in her threadweaver’s sight, powerful weapons from the Age of Ascendance.

  Yes. These will do. These weapons will cut a dragon’s scales.

  She whispered words in her own tongue, a fallback from when she pulled GodSpill directly from Avakketh. Dragon threadweavers manipulated the threads by whispering litanies of praise to Avakketh. She no longer whispered prayers to him, but when she manipulated the threads, she still whispered. Often, it was simply whispering what she wanted to happen over and over, but it was always in the tongue of dragons.

  Bring the weapons up. Bring them up. Bring them to me.

  It focused her mind, and she felt the threads of the steel beneath the water, beneath the fish in the water, beneath the kelp on the bottom of the bay, beneath the muck of hundreds of years. There were so many of them, so many threads to pull, so much weight to overcome. Thousands of weapons, hundreds of thousands of threads.

  Bands bowed her head, her arms trembling as she exerted her will on the those steel threads.

  Come.

  She turned her hands palms up, curling them into claws.

  The bay churned as thick mud was dislodged far below and bubbles fled to the surface. The water became more agitated until the first sword broke the surface. Covered in muck, the curved blade glinted in the moonlight where one spot had been washed clean. Then the surface of the water erupted. Old spears, swords, shields, axes, maces, halberds, practically every weapon imaginable hovered above the waters of the bay.

  She heard Stavark’s slow intake of breath.

  Come to me....

  Slowly, the weapons began to float toward the shore—

  Bands hissed as the threads were suddenly jerked out of her grasp and a dozen threads of air rippled at her, smacking her backward. The weapons fell, splashing back into the water. Bands staggered away. Droplets of the deadly water splashed near her boots.

  Her mind still ringing from the harsh slap, Bands looked to her left. The outer rocks separating the bay from the True Ocean had been obliterated by the bulk of a gigantic whale.

  “Saraphazia!”

  The front of the whale’s huge mouth curled upward, showing a fortress of tall, white strands that were Saraphazia’s teeth.

  “How dare you...?” Saraphazia boomed at her. “I show you kindness. I rescue you from certain death, and you repay me by stealing from my waters?”

  “Saraphazia, my apologies,” Bands said. She spared a sideways glance, looking for Stavark. With the goddess, in all her majesty, having risen before her, Bands suddenly became concerned for the quicksilver’s welfare. Gods were unpredictable, and Saraphazia was already angry. If this went badly, Bands’s life might be worth very little to the goddess, and Stavark could be killed just for being Bands’s. But the quicksilver was nowhere to be seen.

  Thank the gods, Stavark. You are a clever boy.

  He must have hidden the moment the goddess rose, as quickly as only a quicksilver could.

  “I know you care nothing about the affairs of humans,” Bands continued. “I simply thought to pull these human weapons from the bay. I didn’t think you would care about—”

  “When you use threadweaving on my ocean, you use it on me.”

  “That was not my intention. I didn’t want to disturb you, and my need is great. A war has begun. Avakketh invades Amarion. He intends to destroy humanity. Every kingdom. Every village—”

  “I know of Avakketh’s plans.”

  “You do?” Bands murmured. She wanted to ask how Saraphazia knew, but didn’t. Saraphazia had been generous to Bands a handful of times in the past, but she didn’t seem in the generous mood at the moment. “Then you... Certainly you don’t want Avakketh to succeed.”

  “I care nothing for Avakketh. I likewise care nothing for humankind.”

  “I simply...I came to help—”

  “You came to steal.”

  “Only to keep from disturbing you.”

  “Do not lie to me, Randorus. Or what little respect I have for you will die.”

  “We’re desperate. Will you not help us?”

  “Let Tarithalius protect his own,” she said, then in a lower tone, “he is swift to make messes. Let him clean it up.”

  “I do not know where Tarithalius is.”

  “He is probably hiding as a squirrel or a dog or an ant. Anything that ill-befits his station, I expect. Or look to the battlefield. He loves to fight." The goddess’s voice echoed across the bay.

  “That will be too late. The dragons come for Amarion now.”

  “And?”

  Bands swallowed. “The next kingdom they will attack is beloved of Medophae. All will be ashes and fire in a matter of days. Maybe even a matter of hours. Please, I beg you to grant me this favor.”

  “Another favor, dragonkind? When Medophae cast your gem into my ocean, I ensured my waters did not destroy you. I even gave you counsel, which you chose to ignore. Just days ago, I gave Medophae similar counsel. He flung it into my teeth just as you did. After all I have done for both of you, you spurn me. You have nothing but contempt for the rules I cherish and for the advice I give freely.”

  “Wait... You know where Medophae is?” Bands asked. If Saraphazia could free Medophae, that would solve so many problems in one stroke. “If you know where he is, then I...I would ask you to tell me.”

  “Another favor? How many would you like?” Her huge eyes narrowed. “You think your needs are special, that because you crave something, it ought to be y
ours. Your need does not give you the right to take whatever you wish from whomever you wish. I have no more favors left for you, Randorus dragonkind. You have exhausted my goodwill.”

  “Please...” Bands said. “It’s not for me. It is for all of Amarion.”

  “Perhaps you should have started with begging, rather than trying to steal from my waters. If Amarion sinks into the ocean, then it will be under my protection.”

  Bands tried to think of what to say to convince the goddess. The weapons didn’t really belong to Saraphazia, but she wouldn’t see it that way.

  “Avakketh wants everything,” Bands said. “With Natra gone, with Oedandus insensate, Avakketh believes he is the ruler of all creation. He has told his dragons that he created the world.”

  “Let him lie to his scaled lackeys. What is that to me?” Saraphazia asked.

  “But with Natra gone and Oedandus neutralized, who can stop him from taking the entire world?”

  Saraphazia’s giant lip curled upward. “That is the same argument Medophae made. It did not move me.”

  Medophae could be anywhere from Irgakth all the way to the endless plains of the Sunriders, so long as it touched the True Ocean. Bands needed a location. How could she make the goddess tell her?

  Perhaps if Bands painted a picture of Saraphazia as the ruling goddess over not only the True Ocean, but also of Amarion, that might hold her interest. “What if Avakketh were removed for good?”

  “Bribery, Randorus? Despite your desperate hopes, Medophae cannot overcome Avakketh. You cannot deliver your vain promises. There is nothing you have that I want.”

  “Then I would ask you to do what’s right,” Bands said.

  “Right?” Saraphazia’s great head rose, and her eyes flashed. “Humans talk incessantly about what is ‘right’ while breaking every law they can break. You do not get to tell me what is right, dragonkind. I tell you what is right. I made a law that others were not to take from my waters, and you have broken that law. The penalty is death.”

  Bands braced herself to flee.

  Saraphazia shifted, grinding rocks beneath her. “But I will spare you. This is my one favor, and it shall be my last. You and Medophae helped me destroy Dervon, and for that I bore you goodwill. Today, you have spent the last of it. Go now. I give you your life. Take it and leave. It will be the only thing you take from this place—”