37
TAAR
Repeated blasts of virulium-stained air belch from the pit, threatening to tear apart my fragile frame as I crawl around the edge of the chamber. Part of me wants to give in—to simply cast myself into that darkness, which is my inevitable end. Striving only breeds hope, and hope has no place in the body of a dead man.
But I feel Onoril’s pain. Virulium eats away his star-essence, draining his glorious soulfire even as he burns invelrhoaragony. The proudest and strongest of all licorneir, and yet the death of my father has brought him so low.
“Onoril!” I cry, my voice stolen by the darkness, disintegrating into nothing even as it passes over my lips. “Onoril, I am here! You are not alone!”
Even if my words could reach him, what difference would itmake? I am dead. I can form no bond with a licorneir. A corpse made animate is not fit to unite with any living thing. Whatever song my soul once sang is replaced with un-song, with ravening, devouring hunger.
“Give me to drink!”that voice savagely cries, inflating and deflating my dead heart in imitation of a heartbeat.“Pour out blood unto me!”
Despair grips me in a stranglehold. My world. If the Rift cannot be closed, my whole world will be devoured in this hell. No pulsingvardimnar, but an eternal darkness from which there will be no relief, no escape. Why has the Goddess forsaken us? How could She abandon Her children? Is it merely to punish one man’s hubris? Was my father’s sin so great that even the most innocent must suffer for it?
I open my mouth, raw fury driving me to scream into this violent dark silence, to curse Nornala Herself. And yet, it is no curse which whispers from my bloated tongue.
“Avourel a neir-alamar, Lei-a nala-i-orira,”I plead, the ancient words forming with childlike simplicity as they were taught to me at my mother’s knee.“Velethuil-tor i heileth a-idoroth.”
Hear your children, Goddess of Song and Light.
Grant us Your grace and save us from the grave.
My rotten hands stretch out before me, clinging to pavingstones, dragging my body through the darkness. I whisper that prayer, again and again, without sound, without song, for my dead spirit cannot sing. And yet there must be some power in it nonetheless, some music which I cannot perceive. Though the darkness seems to devour the words even as they come, it does not devourme.It almost seems as though the virulium-laden air clears before me, just enough for me to crawl through to where Onoril lies in torment.
I reach the fallen licorneir and cast my body over his in a desperate bid to protect him from the devouring dark. My corpse is useless; the dark continues to eat away at his soul, draining his fire. Desperately I pour out more prayers, as though I could shield him with words alone. But this darkness is so great, and my faith is so small, so useless against the enormity of hell.
Suddenly—a light. A star, burning in the void, in the chaos.
I turn toward it, lifting my heavy head. Watch it approach as though from many miles distant, as though the boundaries of this chamber are nothing. There is song in that light—profound song, simmering with life, with energetic creative force. The air of Ashtari reacts to it, shrieking with fury, and seeks to overwhelm and wash it away. But the star keeps on shining, keeps on singing, and draws nearer and nearer to me.
Not alone.
A small figure rides the burning light. She too is shining, glorious, aglow from within.Angel, I think, even as I thoughtonce before, long ago, when in the grip of virulium madness. I shake my head though, for the word is not quite right, not for this song. She is something else, something much closer, nearer to me. Something only just out of reach.
Zylnala.
My songbird. My wife. Brimming with the tremendous power endowed her by the gods themselves. Multitudinous voice, the voice of a thousand stars captured in a single, mortal throat. An impossible magic, a miracle of glory beyond description.
And she rides, not just any licorneir, but Mahra. The Mother of All.
Hissing with fury, the darkness withdraws, making clear a path before her. The voice of Ashtarath herself roars from the pit, horrified and raging. Neither Mahra nor my wife pay any heed. It is as though the song they sing together drowns out all other sound, all other perception.
Through the hideous silence, I hear the first sound I have heard in what feels like a thousand years. “Taar?”
It isn’t spoken with angelic cadence. It is my wife’s voice, simple and direct and mortal.
My throat constricts with pain. I force my dead lips to serve me and call back, “Ilsevel!”
The next moment, she throws herself from the back of her licorneir and hurtles into my arms. The clawing, clinging virulium atmosphere is driven back from me, and I am envelopedin her glow, in her song. She holds me hard, her whole body trembling, not with weakness, but the sheer magnitude of the power pulsing through her.
“I’m sorry,” I speak into her ear, my voice rendered raw and horrible with death, a hissing, slithering sound. “I’m sorry, my love. I cannot close the Rift. Onoril cannot channel the power, not without avelarinbond.”
She draws back a little so that she can peer up at me. Her face twists into an expression I cannot name at the sight of my rotten face. I start to turn away, but she hastily catches my cheek with her palm, resting her hand against the decay without flinching, and turns my gaze back to hers. Her eyes shimmer with unshed tears.
“You will form the bond with Onoril,” she says. “And you will close the Rift together.”
I shake my head, despairing even as I cling to her. “I can’t! I am dead, Ilsevel. I am dead, and a dead thing cannot sing with the living.”
