Chapter 33
TAAR
My dead eyes struggle to comprehend what takes place before me.
Darkness whirls through the chamber, and a clamorous howling fills my ears, destroying all traces of anything that might once have been good, beautiful, or pure.
I could easily believe I stand once more in hell, so thick is the atmosphere of evil permeating my tattered lungs.
Tremendous power rises from the pit—a raw energy unlike anything I’ve ever seen. More potent even than the song of the licorneir. The pit itself does not open to the lower levels of the citadel, but yawns wide into the landscape of Ashtari itself.
Onoril stands on the brink of that hell, his head bent as though to receive the rising power.
It catches his horn and coils around it, dousing his soulfire with its darkness as it pours from his head, down his neck, over his body.
Writhing coils, like living virulium, encase the mighty being.
But my father sits astride his licorneir, his soul singing.
That song, so strong and pulsing through the connection they share, provides an anchor which keeps Onoril’s essence stable, even as the great stallion performs this massive act of channeling.
As power coalesces in Onoril’s horn, he lifts his head, turning his black-flame eyes to where the ancient, withered form of the old man hangs suspended from the wall.
Even as my father’s song burns in his heart, Onoril pours out that dark power in a stream, like so many writhing tongues.
They spool out from his horn, shoot across the chamber, and strike the man in the chest.
Red lights burst around him. All the ugly tattoo marks seem to leap from his skin into the air, shining, brilliant things, intricate works of necroliphon spellcraft. Activated by the raw energy of the seventh hell, they twist and churn, manipulating reality.
The ancient thing begins to flesh out. Like a bladder inflated with water, that sack of skin and bones grows, swells, strengthens.
He writhes and screams at the pain of the transformation, but the necroliphon magic works relentlessly, manipulating both time and space, thrusting back his extreme age and drawing forth a younger, stronger form.
When the transformation is through, he stands in his bindings, panting hard, shuddering in pain.
But the body is tall, strong, laced with muscle, filling out his robes, which strain at the seams.
Suddenly his limp hands clench into fists, and his arms strain.
One after another, he breaks the ropes which hold him, as though they were mere spider-silk threads.
He steps away from the wall, looking down at his hands, sliding back the long sleeves of his robe to inspect the musculature of his arms.
“Well done, Thalor,” he says, speaking through his own mouth this time.
His Miphato servant cowers against the wall, hiding his face from the open pit.
“You’ve done excellent work this time.” With a shake of his shorn head, he turns to face the licorneir and its rider.
“Keep it open,” he says. “I will need to access the virulium-force. Something tells me this princess won’t submit easily. ”
Neither Onoril nor Thalor acknowledge him in any way.
They are utterly concentrated on the task at hand, on keeping the Rift open while not letting the power overwhelm their song and break through into this realm completely.
The whole tower shakes as though on the verge of collapse, and though I am dead, I am afraid.
I watch Morthiel go. He sweeps from the room without a word or a look either for me or Shanaera.
We mean nothing to him, have no part to play in his plans.
I realize I am crouching like the sniveling Miphato, pressed against the wall and holding tight to a pair of hands.
Shanaera’s hands. She grips me fast, but when I turn my terrified gaze to her, she smiles, showing all her blackened teeth.
How I loathe her in that moment—and yet I cannot bear to let her go.
Turning from her, I force myself to face my father and that dreadful portal.
Thalorkhir, luinar of the Licorna, has not aged a day since the last time I saw him.
He has found a form of eternal youth and, in so doing, has ceased to heed the passage of time.
His one desire is to delve deeper and deeper into this power he has discovered, pursuing the promise of immortality.
As though in echo, I hear Larongar’s voice once more in my head, taunting me: “Did you not know? Thalorkhir is at the heart of it all. Morthiel could not do what he has done without both the help and the blessing of the king. Without the power of that unicorn of his.”
All these years I’ve believed my father died in the first fall of the vardimnar.
Never once did I suspect that he and Onoril were responsible for that first great explosion that destroyed our world.
I still remember how, in the days leading up to what would be the end of Licorna, there would sometimes be strange ripples of darkness around the citadel.
Were those instances of Thalor and Onoril attempting to open this very Rift?
Did my father not realize the forces with which he was tampering?
Or, in his pursuit of both power and knowledge, did he simply not care?
That first successful opening—it must have been overwhelming. No doubt Thalor and Onoril struggled to get it closed again, which is why it lasted so long. Long enough to wipe out most of our civilization, leaving behind only dead bodies and empty ruins.
I look at this man now, whom I have always imagined as a victim of Miphates’ manipulation. But he made his own choices. Even as he does now. And those choices led to the deaths of millions. Including his own wife. My mother.
Were my heart not already ripped apart, it would break now under the weight of this revelation.
I turn to Shanaera suddenly. “We have to stop this. We have to stop them both,” I shout, struggling to be heard over the roar of energy rising from that pit. “Will you help me?”
She smiles again. “I thought you’d never ask.”