Lord's Fall

SIXTEEN

The man had such compelling green eyes.

She didn’t know how she could see the color when he sat in silhouette just outside their tent. Behind the man, the passageway blazed with black flames, while every living soul in the camp shone white as the stars. The man’s outline was immaculately still.

“Won’t you join me?” he asked gently. “Your soul has a light like no other. Together you and I could transform the world.”

“You can’t get in here,” she told Amras Gaeleval. She peered out from underneath the flap at him. Somehow she had dragged her clothes on, but she didn’t remember it. Dragos had to be in the tent with her. He was here the last time she looked. Cold sweat broke over her face. She did not dare take her eyes away from Gaeleval to check.

“No, I’m afraid I can’t,” the man said. “Your camp’s defenses are not perfect although they are working somewhat. But I can ask you to come out here, Pia. That is what you like to call yourself, isn’t it? Pia Giovanni.”

Dread bled through her body. She gripped the edge of the tent flap tightly. “You can’t compel me with that name.”

“No, like all the Wyr, you have another Name, don’t you? A true Name. Wouldn’t you like to tell me what that is?”

She wanted to so badly. He was, after all, her closest and best-loved friend. Why, if she hadn’t met Dragos first, he might even have become her mate. Maybe he could still become her mate. She and Dragos had, after all, only been together for seven months.

NO. Everything inside of her threw that concept out violently. She yanked her gaze away from him to look at the towering flames that shone so black they burned against her retinas.

She said coldly, “That was a mistake.”

“I’m sorry you think so,” Gaeleval said. “I could have meant it, you know. You are unlike anybody I have ever met. I believe you may be unique. I could even consider giving up all the others, if I could only have you.”

She felt better once she looked at something other than him, and she realized that his eyes were a focus for his persuasion. Now if she could just find a way to get out of the dream. She had been so upset when she dreamed with Dragos that waking up had been easy.

“Do you know what I think is sad?” she heard herself asking.

“No, I don’t. But I want you to tell me everything you think and feel.”

She thought of the tall man she had seen so briefly in the apartment behind Beluviel, of his striking features and the autumnal spark of his chestnut hair, and how all the other Elves had looked to him. She thought of the sentinels, of even Aryal in her own abrasive, infuriating way, and how they all projected such unending strength.

“I think you must have been a good man once, a strong man,” she said. “You were a Guardian of your people, and you were put in a position of trust and power. I know you’re a gifted one, or you wouldn’t have been able to do all that you’ve done.”

As Gaeleval leaned forward, the small light from the campfire fell on his beautiful face. He stared at her and whispered, “I have always done my duty.”

Were there tears in his eyes? She didn’t dare look too closely. He was too deadly.

“Calondir said you are an ancient and an adept,” she said softly. “What makes me really sad is, I think you’ve become a monster, but I don’t think you’re evil. Numenlaur didn’t honor the pact and cast out its God Machine, and the responsibility for that betrayal of trust lies on your Lord. That’s not on you.”

“Camthalion was convinced that we must be strong and hold to our original course,” Gaeleval said. “All the other Elves had been mistaken, led astray by their lesser gods and inferior desires. Only Taliesin was worthy of grand purpose, and the god’s message was clear in the shape of the crown that Camthalion held. So he convinced all the others to leave and he ordered the passageway barred so that they could never return.”

“The God Machine was a crown?” she asked. If Camthalion had held a crown, how had Gaeleval gotten it? Had he taken it, or had Camthalion died? Was Gaeleval his heir? “You don’t wear a crown.”

His expression turned bittersweet. “I never wanted to rule,” he said simply. “I only wanted to serve.”

Her gaze fell to his hands. He was cupping something. He noticed the direction of her gaze and held open his fingers. The God Machine sat in his palms, an intensely burning black lotus of Power, eternally renewing itself. She had never seen anything so revolutionary. It was only a sliver of the god’s Power yet it held an essence so pure it could birth solar systems and burn down empires. It was a piece of the engine that drove the universe.

The Machine no longer looked like a crown. It had taken another physical form that spilled out between Gaeleval’s fingers. It took a moment for her to recognize what it was. When she did, her chest throbbed with a ferocious ache.

He held a string of plain, wooden prayer beads.

However he had gotten the God Machine, Dragos had said that the more he used it, the more it would work on him and affect his mind. The beads looked worn. She imagined him fingering the string. Perhaps he had prayed for guidance.

And the longer Taliesin’s item had been held in check, the greater the change it would bring into the world.

“What happened to you?” she whispered.

She had not expected him to answer, but then he did.

“I was summoned to the palace and when I arrived, I found everybody dead,” Gaeleval said softly. “All the attendants. Camthalion’s children, along with their mother. They had been kneeling in the throne room and their throats had been slit. Camthalion was still burning when I got there. He had poured oil over his head and set himself on fire.”

“My God,” she breathed.

“When I looked for the crown, it had vanished. These were on the floor at Camthalion’s feet.” He looked down at the string of beads as he fingered them. “As soon as I saw them I knew they were meant for me. When I took them, I understood that Numenlaur could not continue the way it was. The Elves had been torn apart by ambition and war, and they had been scattered across the Earth on a lie. Camthalion was right, but he did not have the strength to see his vision through to the finish. Our time should have ended long ago. We just refused to see it. We must draw this age of brokenness to a close, unite together one last time and pass on.”

So he intended both empire and destruction. He had such ruined nobility. Something tickled on her skin. She wiped her face, and only then did she realize that her cheeks had grown damp.

“Please, Amras,” she said. “Please try to listen to me. No matter how much conviction or purpose you think you feel, you don’t have to rule anybody. Camthalion was delusional, and now the Machine is affecting your mind too. It isn’t too late for you, and it isn’t too late for any of the others either. Let them go. Numenlaur has been cut off from the rest of the world for too long, but we can help you adjust. Just give me those beads. Let me hold them for you for a little while.”

“I am so tired of being a Guardian,” he said, his voice worn and threadbare with age. His expression held a sadness that could break apart the world.

“You don’t have to carry that burden any longer. You can let go and rest. Let me help you.” She held out her hand.

If she could only get her hands on those beads for a few minutes. If she ran away from everyone and everything as far and as fast as she could go, she could fling them into the nearest ravine or river. It didn’t matter where. Anywhere, anywhere, as long as the Machine was taken out of Gaeleval’s hands and released.

There wasn’t any way to stop the Machine, and she wouldn’t try. She would let it go and it would work its way through the world, enacting the god’s will according to its original purpose. She wouldn’t even say anything to anybody. She could explain what had happened as soon as she got back.

She met Amras’s gaze again. He gave her a small, grave smile and reached for her outstretched hand.

Dragos never knew what woke him.

It wasn’t the influx of cold air into the tent. If he set his mind to it, he could sleep outside through a howling gale. It wasn’t Pia shifting her weight off him or moving around. After sleeping in the same bed for seven months, they had grown used to each other’s presence in every permutation and position imaginable.

For whatever reason, he stretched and opened his eyes.

The Power of the God Machine continued to blaze in the nearby passageway fire, in the stone that burned but never melted. He could also sense the interwoven defensive spells from the magic users in camp.

Pia was already dressed, her tangled hair knotted on itself in a way that he never could understand. She put her hair up that way whenever she didn’t have any other way to fasten it, and it always fell apart when he ran his fingers through it.

She knelt on the edge of their rough, makeshift floor, holding the flap open as she peered out. He couldn’t see what held her attention. He yawned so widely, his jaws cracked.

“What are you looking at?” he asked, his voice gravelly from sleep.

She didn’t respond to him, although he saw her lips move. She wiped her face. Was she crying? He sat up, angling his head to better look out the flap. That was when he heard her whisper, “Let me help you.”

There was nobody outside. Nobody that Dragos could see, at any rate. There was only the wind and the fire, and the magic users’ spells.

Along with the Power of the God Machine as Gaeleval wielded it.

Dragos roared and lunged at her, slamming his own Power down in a shield around her.

She shrieked, spun and kicked at him. “Stop it!”

He grabbed her shoulders and shook her, wild to yank her out of whatever she was experiencing. “You’re dreaming,” he said harshly. “Snap out of it.”

“I know I was dreaming,” she shouted. Her eyes swam with tears. She hit him in the chest with the back of her hand. “I almost had him. Dammit, why do you always assume that you’ve got to stomp in and save the day?”

He sat back on his heels, astonished by the violence in her reaction. “You were dreaming,” he repeated. “And Gaeleval’s using the Machine again. What did you mean, you almost had him?”

As they stared at each other, shouts came from the direction of the bluff. He hissed, grabbed her chin and looked deep into her eyes as he sent a spear of Power into her. Her back stiffened and she gritted her teeth, but evidently she recognized what he meant to do, for she bore with it. As soon as he was convinced she wasn’t controlled, he pulled out.

“Sorry,” he muttered.

“Don’t worry about it,” she said, digging her thumb and forefinger into her eyes. “Just go.”

The sound of running footsteps approached, along with a ripple of reaction through the camp. “Put your armor on,” he told her. He rolled to the edge of the tent and planted his feet just outside the flap. Just before he shoved to his feet, she grabbed his arm and he paused.

“If you can, try not to kill him,” she said quickly. She looked hard into his eyes. “Gaeleval is a victim too.”

Bloody hell.

The reaction came closer as people shouted to each other. He gritted, “Pia, I don’t know that we’re going to have a choice.”

“I know, I know. Just try.” She searched his expression. “Trying is enough.”

He nodded and expelled a breath. “I’ll do my best.”

“That’s all I ask.” She leaned over and kissed him quickly. “And I’m sorry too.”

He hooked an arm around her shoulders and crushed her to him for an all-too-brief moment. Then he shoved out of the tent and rose to his feet.

Outside, the night had begun to pale, and the scene looked dirty and washed out. In contrast the light of the individual campfires, along with the larger fire still blazing in the passageway, looked garish and unsatisfying. The encampment had churned all the snow in the surrounding area to mud, and it had frozen into solid brown chunks of ice. If the temperature got over freezing that day, the ground would turn into a filthy soup.

Bayne walked toward him. Despite the sentinel’s bulk, he was light on his feet and dodged nimbly around those who stood in his way. As soon as the gryphon laid eyes on him, Bayne said telepathically, The Numenlaurians are starting to climb the bluff. Looks like Gaeleval has kept back the strongest and healthiest. He’s sending in his battle fodder, and that includes the kids. There’s too many to take prisoner, but I don’t think any of us have the stomach to cut ’em down. They look bad, Chief.

Dragos wanted to spit fire. What a cluster fuck. Even if they took the enthralled Elves prisoner, they didn’t have any place to hold them. Get back to the bluff and issue a no-kill order, he snapped. If you can, focus on taking the kids and knock the rest of them back when they reach the top. Then if the falls kills anybody, it’s on me.

Bayne spun on his heel and loped away.

Dragos had to find Calondir. They could not continue to stay in this frozen state any longer. Whether Amras Gaeleval was a victim or not was beside the point. He was too dangerous, and he was causing too much damage. They had to stop him.

He strode to the heart of the Elven camp. “Get Calondir,” he said to the first Elf that came toward him. The Elf took one wide-eyed look at him and spun away. Moments later, Calondir shoved out of a tent and hurried toward him, buckling on his sword as he approached and followed by Ferion and a few others.

Dragos told the Elf Lord in a preemptory tone, “Gaeleval slipped past our defenses. Somehow he got to Pia in a dream, and he might have gotten to others. Now he’s sent Numenlaurians to scale the bluff. I’ve told my people to knock them back for now, but there’s no more time to fuck around. We can’t put this off any longer. We have to go after him, Calondir.”

Calondir studied him with an inscrutable expression. Then the Elf Lord said abruptly, “I understand.” He said to the others, “As heartsick as this makes all of us, we must find where he is keeping our people and concentrate our efforts on them. After that, we will help who we can of any Numenlaurians that survive.”

“None of this is going to come easy,” Dragos told him. “Bayne said Gaeleval’s keeping the strongest back and sending out battle fodder to climb the bluff. Your people are the strongest. They’re certainly the healthiest. That means he’s holding them close. They’ll be wherever he is, because they are his best defense.”

The hollows around Calondir’s eyes grew deeper as his face tightened, but he nodded. “Above all else, we have to make him stop using the Machine. Will you allow me to ride with you once more, so that we can hunt him together?”

He ground his teeth. “Yes, of course, but we must do it now.”

Calondir turned to Ferion. “Keep the fight defensive, and don’t hesitate to do what you have to do to protect yourself.”

“Yes, my lord,” Ferion said. He said very low, eyes pleading, “But I would come with you.”

“No, Ferion,” Calondir said, just as quietly. “You are my heir. You know that we do not fight together.”

Dragos had had enough. They were idiots if they hadn’t already said everything they needed to say to each other before now. “Get out of the way,” he said to those that hovered nearby. As soon as they were out of the way, he shifted and expanded. The dragon looked down at the Elf Lord. “Come.”

Calondir leaped onto his back, and Dragos unfurled his wings. He took one moment to look over the encampment for one last glimpse of Pia. She was just outside their tent and tying on a cloak, and she paused as she caught sight of him. She looked calm.

She blew a kiss subtly, pressing the tips of her fingers to her lips and releasing them a few inches toward him.

The dragon smiled. Then he crouched and launched into the air. When he had cleared the trees, he wheeled and flew toward the Numenlaurian army in the valley.

Pia watched Dragos soar into the air. She fought the panicky compulsion to call out to him and try to coax him into returning. He wouldn’t, nor should he. Talking to him now would only distract him from what he needed to do.

Eva and the psychos stood in a circle around her. She turned her attention to them. They watched her, ready for orders.

“I have no idea,” she said irritably, unintentionally echoing what Dragos had said the night before. She looked at Hugh. “Except for you. You need to stay with me and be ready to shapeshift at a moment’s notice. If Dragos or one of the sentinels gets hurt, and I tell you to take me to them, you will take me. No hesitation.” Eva had started to protest, and Pia turned to stare the other woman down. “No arguments, no back talk.”

Eva’s face compressed. She looked ready to explode. “Jesus Christ and all his hairy-assed apostles,” she hissed. “Hugh can only carry one person at a time.” She turned to Johnny. “Find me another avian fighter who’s strong enough to carry me, and make it snappy.”

He looked from Eva to Pia, backed up a few steps and whirled to spring away.

Pia rubbed her face. Most of the camp had raced along the path to the bluff, and the noise level had increased from that direction. Shouts and curses echoed as sharp as gunshot reports against tree trunks. She pinched her nose. The sounds dug into her gut and strung out her nerves. It was even harder to listen to because she couldn’t see what was happening.

“Crossbow,” Eva said quietly.

She threw up her hands. “Fuck you.”

Despite her reaction, she spun and reached into the tent for the crossbow and the bolts. Then she hesitated as she contemplated her pack. She hadn’t been able to eat the night before and she hadn’t eaten this morning either. Nerves might have her stomach tied in knots, but she also felt lightheaded and hollow.

She spat out another curse, snatched up her pack to find a protein bar, tore it open and jammed it into her mouth. With the way her luck had been going lately she was probably going to hork it all back up again, but she had to try to get some nutrition down.

When she turned around, Johnny jogged back on the path from the bluff. A large familiar figure ran beside him.

Graydon.

Another shock rippled through her as she caught sight of Graydon’s expression. His face was set in such savage lines, she almost didn’t recognize him. Pia broke through the circle and ran toward him, her heart in her throat. “Is everything all right?”

“I don’t know rightly how to answer that, cupcake, because it’s a hell of a mess.” He hugged her tightly. “Numenlaurians are climbing the bluff, and we’re shoving them back and trying to grab any kids that make it to the top. There’s too many of them, and we’re making plans to fall back. The High Lord’s home might be burned, but the cliff is too steep to be scaled there, and that area is still the most defensible place around. Other than flying, the path is the only way you can get up there, and we can defend that in shifts.” He cocked his head at her. “Heard you wanted to nail down a ride?”

She shook her head a little. “Only as a contingency. Can you be spared?”

“If you’re needed,” he said to her in a low voice as he squeezed her arm. “That will be the only thing that matters.”

They exchanged a sober glance, then Pia turned to look at the others. She paused, struck by the frustration she saw in their faces. Miguel was still with the other magic users, but James, Andrea and Johnny all stood tensely, their gazes drifting in the direction of the bluff. Only Hugh and Eva kept their attention squarely fixed on her and Graydon.

Well, Eva had said most of them would not choose to make the switch with her into bodyguarding full time.

Graydon tapped her chin, and she looked at him. He was frowning. “We should be proactive and make the shift over to the cliff now. That way we’ll be out of the way when the others fall back. Not only is it safer, it has a clear view of the valley. We can track events from up there.”

She nodded. “Strike camp,” she said to the others. “The sooner you can haul our stuff up the path, the sooner you can be free to join the fighting.” She said to Hugh, “Forget what I said earlier. Eva will stay with me, and Graydon can carry the both of us. You’re free to do whatever you think is best.”

Hugh said, “I’ll help strike camp, then I’ll come find you.”

“Great.” When she turned back to Graydon, he had already shifted. In his gryphon form, he was as big as an SUV, the tawny gold of his feathers and fur an oasis of warmth and color in the pallid cold day. He arched his graceful eagle’s neck and fixed a keen gaze on her and Eva, who wasted no time and leaped up on his back.

Pia stared at Eva and Graydon in resignation. Oh man. She might have known that sooner or later she was going to have to ride on somebody’s back without a seatbelt. Eva held out a hand. As soon as she took it, the other woman yanked her up.

“Giddyup, cowboy,” Eva said, smacking Graydon on the shoulder.

“Wait, try to up easy . . .” Pia started to say, at the same time Graydon sprang into the air. Shit! She clamped her legs and held on to him as tightly as she could. Sitting behind her, Eva hooked an arm around her waist as he flew low over the trees.

Cold seared the skin on her hands and face and burned in her lungs. As unsettling as the passageway blaze had been, she had gotten used to the warmth that it threw into the surrounding area. She coughed and wheezed, struggling to adjust.

As soon as Graydon reached the bluff, he wheeled to follow the path as it wound up toward the burned shell of the building on the cliff. Pia forgot to worry about an unsettled stomach as, for the first time that morning, she caught sight of what happened below.

When they had first arrived, she had only taken one look into the valley before she had turned away. Now the sight struck her again like a blow.

Gaeleval’s “army” was large enough that the valley floor seemed to undulate with movement as Numenlaurians pushed forward to climb the bluff in a mindless wave. Working together, the Elves and the Wyr shoved away those who reached the top, striking them with the flat of their swords so that they fell back to the valley floor. They disappeared, trampled underfoot by more Numenlaurians who pressed forward to begin the climb.

As she watched, some of the Elves on the bluff lunged forward to grab at one of the smaller figures that reached the top. It kicked and fought as they dragged it away from the edge. They must be trying to save one of the children.

Over the brawling mass, the dragon flew, sleek and dangerous with his gigantic wings outspread. Calondir, the High Lord rode at the base of his neck, a bright, shining splinter of silver against the dragon’s bronze hide. Dragos coasted a thermal, his triangular horned head lowered. He appeared to be searching for something. She guessed that they were hunting for Gaeleval.

Pia glanced back the way they had come, where the psychos had already grown small and antlike as they tore down pup tents. Beyond the camp, the inferno in the passageway towered above the trees.

Then the flames died down.

Just like that, from one moment to the next, the fire in the passageway disappeared as if it had never existed.

What did that mean? Had Gaeleval finally reached the limit of what he could do?

Even as she wondered, a hurricane of wind howled through the valley.

Out of nowhere, a colossal force slammed into them. Graydon coughed and clawed at the air as he struggled to remain upright. Pia screamed, clutching him with both arms and legs, as Eva grunted and slid down his back.

The wind was vicious, like a living creature. It tore at her hold on Graydon and raked at the skin of her face. Between her legs, she felt the gryphon’s powerful body straining against a force that literally shoved him sideways. The ground tilted and raced up to meet them.

As Linwe had said, the most Powerful among the Elves could take an affinity to air and create a storm the size of Hurricane Rita.

And those ancients who were especially gifted had an affinity to more than one element that tended to be compatible with each other.

Like fire and air. That sort of thing.

Ancient and adept, Gaeleval was nothing if not gifted.

At the last moment, Graydon managed to yank up straight enough so that he took the brunt of the impact with the ground. He plowed into the rocky path, and as he struck, the landing knocked both Eva and Pia off his back.

It could be worse, it could be worse, it could be worse, Pia chanted in her head, even as she tumbled head over heels. She struck the trunk of a tree bruisingly along her left shoulder. It knocked the breath out of her, and her arm went numb. Cursing, Eva skidded on the ground beside her.

It could be worse.

Graydon had been cautious. He had flown low over the path. They hadn’t been that high off the ground.

Not like Dragos and Calondir.

Pia dragged air back into her aching lungs and screamed again as she scrambled onto her hands and knees. She raked the sky with a frantic gaze.

A rotation of air had formed around the dragon, a visible dark funnel cloud constructed with hurricane force winds. Dragos’s long body stretched, tail lashing as he fought to gain purchase.

Elsewhere, the gale had flattened everyone else. The bluff was cleared of any climbing Numenlaurians. Elven and Wyr fighters at the top of the bluff were crawling away from the edge. Sharp cracks of sound, like the percussion of modern artillery, sounded as trees snapped at the trunk.

Graydon lunged for Pia and covered her with his massive lion’s body.

Are you all right? he asked telepathically.

Yes. She grabbed for Eva’s arm and dragged the other woman underneath the gryphon’s protection. Are you? Can you fly?

Not in this, cupcake. None of us can get off the ground and hope to stay aloft.

She could feel Graydon’s lungs working like bellows and the tension in his muscles as the gale threatened to send him crashing into the trees. On the high ground of the path, they were exposed to the worst of the wind that howled with an eerie sound like a thousand banshees. He crouched lower over the two women, his huge claws digging into the rocky ground for purchase.

Eyes streaming with tears, her terrified gaze went back to Dragos. This gods-damned gale threatened to flatten Graydon while he was on the ground. She couldn’t imagine how Dragos had managed to stay in the air.

Even as she wondered, the funnel cloud took hold of the dragon and spun him in a circle.

A gleaming sliver of silver fell from his back. The dragon lunged to grab at it and missed. The bright silver streaked toward the earth like the fall of a god’s tear.

Calondir.

She saw the very moment Dragos lost control. It looked as if an invisible hand lifted him up and flipped him over so that he turned completely upside down. He twisted in midair, like a gigantic cat trying to land on its feet.

One of his massive, powerful wings snapped like a twig. Suddenly he plunged downward in an escalating spiral.

Then the sound of the dragon’s body as it struck the valley floor rolled through the air like thunder.