Into the fire

Chapter 16

Beau and Phais and Loric stood a long while, watching as Tip and Bekki rode away from the walls of Dendor. But at last Beau glanced at the sun and said, "Well, I've rounds to make and more silverroot to brew, though little good it does."

Phais looked at Loric, then said to Beau, "For the next while, thou must do without our aid, for Agron has granted us permission to go to the solitude of the hills to mourn."

"The hills?"

"Aye, our old campsite on the south ridge. If thou dost need us, thou wilt find us in the stand of evergreen."

"How long will you be gone?"

"Two days, mayhap three, no more, for the want here is great. Even so, we need the time alone to come to terms with our grief." Phais looked to the west, where Tip and Bekki could yet be seen, though she did not note them, her mind looking elsewhere. "So many souls crying out," she murmured. "So very many souls."

"Well then," said Beau, "you two take all the time you need. I'm certain the other healers and I can manage."

Loric nodded and took Phais by the hand. "Come, chier."

With one last look at Tip and Bekki-"Oh, I do hope they find some gwynthyme"-Beau set off for the prison, while the Alor and Dara made their way toward the stables.

The fresh scent of pine about them mingled with the smell of a small cedar fire ablaze in a circle of stones, and with birds flitting through the July air, some singing on the wing, Phais and Loric sat in deep meditation, he on one side of the ring, she opposite. The sun had passed the zenith, and all was calm, there in the dappled shade.

Yet of a sudden there came a surging boom, as if distant thunder rumbled across the clear blue sky.

Phais's eyes flew open. "Didst thou hear, chier?"

Over the small flame, Loric looked at her. "Aye." He frowned in concentration. "It seemed an echo of the rolling blast of yester's Day of Anguish."

Phais nodded and said, "Yet this time I felt no… no deathcry beforehand. Oh, Loric, was it an echo, or dost thou think another disaster has occurred? One not involving the death of our kind?"

Loric lowered his head into his hands. "That I cannot say."

Phais moved about the circle and embraced Loric, saying, "What has happened, chier? Tell me, what has happened."

Loric did not reply.

Freshly cut pine boughs lay in a circle where once burned a fire, and a nearly full moon sailed through the stars above, the glittering spangle wheeling slowly across a sky made indigo by the bright waning moon. Once again Phais and Loric knelt in meditation, having sung an Elven Death-song for those who had passed beyond, and now only the sound of calling crickets filled the air of the light-washed night.

Yet another rolling boom surged past, diminished from the one before.

Phais looked at Loric, but he did not move, his eyes remaining closed. She, too, closed her eyes, and silently asked Elwydd to calm her heart.

In late midmorn of the second day of meditation and fasting, once more the sky rumbled, well diminished from that of the night before.

"Again," said Loric.

"And again I felt no deathcry," said Phais.

"E'en so, 'tis the same sound, though greatly quelled."

"Aye," agreed Phais.

Late that night came the sound again, even more attenuated.

Another day they fasted, the third of their retreat, and on this day there came but a single faint boom, this one in late midmorn.

The next day Phais and Loric broke camp to return to Dendor. Yet as they rode back toward the city, Loric said, "Look, chier, the sky: it faintly darkens."

Phais nodded. "As of a caul being drawn over the vault above, west to east it flows."

"Mayhap there is a distant fire," said Loric.

"Mayhap," replied Phais, and on to Dendor they rode.

Yet ere they reached the city, again there came a boom.

That evening, Loric saddled a steed and rode away from the city, his pass permitting egress. And when he was well clear of the sounds of Dendor, he waited 'neath a darkening sky. And as twilight drew on the land, and night swept across the caul-laden vault, there came a faint rolling boom, this one even more quelled.

Later that night rain began falling, borne on a western wind, and in the rain, the rain itself, the water was clouded grey.

All the next day, the grey water fell. Even so, nigh the unseen sunset, Loric rode to the plains, and though the rain fell steadily, once again he heard the sound.

Sometime in the night the grey rain stopped.

And in the darkness just ere the next dawn, Loric awakened Phais and said, "Ride with me, chier."

Away from the city, away from the sounds of man they fared, out under the open sky.

And in that dawn, again came the sound, though even to Elven ears it was so faint as to be nigh gone.

"Oh, Loric, nine times has come the sound, each time diminished from the time before. Dost thou think nine calamities in all have occurred?"

"Nay, chier, 'tis this I think: nine times in all we have heard the sound, each time as that of the first, though weakened and weakened more with each passing. I deem it is but the sound of the very first blast we hear over and again, a blast so loud it circles 'round both sides of the world, the far girth and the near, and comes to our ears anew, though diminished each time."

Of a sudden the Dara's face fell and twisted into anguish. "But, oh, my love, what a terrible blast it must have been to have sounded 'round the world nine times."

Loric reached out and embraced her, saying, "I ween it still echoes, chier, but now too faintly to hear."

As the pair rode back to the city in the light of a spectacular sunrise, Phais shifted her gaze from the east and peered west. "Loric, does it seem to thee that the sky darkens yon?"

Loric looked. "Aye, it does at that. Strange, I would say, for the rain should have washed the sky clean of the caul, yet this may be another coming."

In through the southern gate they rode and onward to the stable. After grooming the steeds and eating breakfast with Beau, to the prison they fared, bracing themselves for another day of agony and dying.

The day itself grew darker as the sun rose up in the sky, as of a shadowy curtain being drawn up from the west and riding over the vault above and on toward the east. Throughout the morning the darkness deepened and grew deeper still as the noontide came and went, and by midaf-ternoon it was as if a gloom had come over the world, for the sun was dim in the sky. And lanterns and candles were lighted, though it was a July day.

In that same July midafternoon, into the prison wards a healer came rushing. "Adon, but if I didn't know better, I would say the sky is falling."

Beau looked at Phais and said, "Let us find Loric and go out and see just what this calamity is."

When they reached the prison yard, they found pale grey dust drifting down from the sky above, coating all things with a powdery layer.

"Huah," exclaimed Beau, running his finger through. "Like the stuff that came down with the rain, though this is dry whereas that was wet." The buccan looked at the Lian. "Just what do you think it is?"

Loric, too, ran his finger through the dust. "I have seen this once, or its like, on the island of Ryodo, nigh Jinga far to the east. There it was the spew of a blasting firemountain blowing into the sky."

Beau ran his finger through the dust again and rubbed it against his thumb. "I say, do you think this is the blast of a firemountain, too? If so, which one."

Loric looked at Phais. "The only one to the west I know of is-"

"Karak on Atala," said Phais, her eyes wide in horror. "Oh Adon, Adon." She clutched Loric to her.

"What?" cried Beau. "What is it?"

Loric embraced Phais and with tears in his eyes said, "The firemountain of Karak is on the isle of Atala in the reach of the Weston Ocean. This rock dust falling from the sky, the blast we heard, oh, the mighty blast, and the deathcry of a thousand or more Elves, these could only have come from Atala. Karak itself must have exploded, for nought else explains all. Karak exploded, destroying not only itself but all life at hand: the Elves of the city of Duellin; the Elves of Darda Immer, the Brightwood of Atala; Humans and Dwarves and Wee Folk and Hidden Ones as well. Karak must have exploded, and if it did so, then not only people and plants and animals perished, but with a blast so mighty the island itself must be gone."

"Oh my," said Beau, peering at the falling dust, "if an entire island exploded and vanished, what did it do to the ocean all 'round?"

Still the grey descended down and down, while Loric clutched Phais and they wept.