Gudrun’s brow was knit tight, eyes strained over every inch of Siegyrd. He had not woken for over a day. She had tried blankets, but they seemed to make him worse. His skin was cold to the touch, but she didn’t know whether that were good or bad. The scales on his upper right chest were turning a sickly gray while those closest to his heart maintained their brilliant silvery sheen. The shadows had spread though. Tendrils of darker scales crept toward his core.
Gudrun gently touched the spot above his heart and found it icy cold, but as she ran her fingers outward toward the shadow there came a strange biting warmth like a quick scalding of hot water, and she pulled her hand away. Then there was a loud crack as of the shattering of a large wood door, and she turned to the back of the room and saw that the glowing blue ice around the ebonblade was giving way. A deep foreboding filled the whole room, and the false sun dimmed above her. She looked toward the crystal sword, hovering in the air, remembering what Siegyrd had said. She could not bring herself to leave his side. A voice in her head was faint but ominous as if growled from a great distance, Soon.
There were ten paces from her to the crystal sword, and the far end of the cavern where the stain of darkness warred against the glowing blue of the creaking ice was more than a hundred. There was time. She shook Siegyrd and leaned in to whisper, “Please, Siegyrd. Please wake up.” Another loud crack sounded, and large chunks from the ice flew outward shattering into small crystals against the cavern wall. The light dimmed further and shifted as if a cloud passed over the sun.
Gudrun’s eyes shot back to the crystal sword, amethyst, circling in the air, and she rose as if to go for it, but something stayed her. There was no voice, but she felt a calm and a kind of speaking but not of conscious tongue. It was a telling to the soul that this darkness would not last. She looked down at Siegyrd, but the voiceless utterance was not from him. She looked back at the crystal sword and strained her view, but the sense was gone. She moved toward it, and again the hopeful echo stopped her feet. It wasn’t sourced there either. She closed her eyes and sought to listen deeper, but she heard nothing.
There was another loud crack and the shattering of more crystals. A sweeping sense of dread washed over her and filled her with nausea, but she kept her eyes closed, her muscles as relaxed as she could, her mind clear. She knew the room was almost entirely in darkness now. Through her eyelids she could almost see the blackness as if it were sourced rather than sourceless, and she heard the vicious voice again, he won’t protect you now daughter of mountains and snow and ice and blood and bile and fear. The last word smacked like hungering jaws.
Gudrun’s heart beat faster, but she breathed and fought to focus. There was something else, something softer, gentle, warm, but oceanic in its strength. It felt like a pure center in a maelstrom of madness, a mote of infinite light in a sea of darkness. The voiceless voice inverted the image in her mind, and the sea of dark became a radiant sea of purest light then cast forth and refracted and magnified, and at the far edge there was a tiny, feeble stain of black that sought to hold on. She opened her eyes, and hovering in front of her, between her and Siegyrd and the ebonblade at the opposite end was the white greatsword. It hung in the air as if wielded by an invisible knight somewhat taller than Siegyrd but with a similar presence. If she strained, she could make out a kind of shimmering shape that carried it, but it hid itself from her.
She felt no need to watch, as if her vision was a prophecy. She turned her back on both blades and returned to tending Siegyrd with gentle hands. She could not have explained why, though she felt it and knew it as clearly as she knew her own mind, it would be well.
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Whatever battle lay there between the darkling and the lightling blade she could not tell. Though she had the vague sense of a distant battle occurring but without a sense of true competition, as of a great army that subjects a weaker uprising to their rule. Her whole soul was bent upon the aid of Siegyrd, though she knew not what to do there either. With a formless protector behind and a weakened protector before her, she did the only thing she could think to do, she prayed. She knew not to whom she prayed, or to what. Hers was not a devout family in any of the religions of men, but she knew something was out there, some greater power that could make change. She had often heard Siegyrd speak a name in reverence. She cast herself on her trust in whatever power that may be, whatever truth, whatever strength that strengthened Siegyrd too. “Save him, Apeiron.”
A prayer offered for another, simple, pure. Whether it was heard, she knew not, but a deep sleep fell upon her as she lay across Siegyrd’s chest. Were she able to perceive beyond the veils of mortal sense, she might have smelled the scent of an everlasting country and heard the songs of joyous revelry but could not have guessed their meaning. Within the world of that small cave, calmly, without fuss, the shadows on Siegyrd’s chest gave way to light, and his breathing strengthened. As she reached the deepest portion of her sleep, Siegyrd awoke with a start. His muscles tensed, and his eyes shot open as his head shot up, but he slowly relaxed as he felt a familiar presence and looked over to where the brightblade hung in the air.
“Balmung,” he sighed and let his eyes fall to Gudrun who slept on his chest. He cradled her in his arms and brushed his hand through her hair as he whispered to the ceiling, “thank you.” A faint familiarity bloomed in response, and Siegyrd smiled and set his head back down and blew out a breath of relief.
The lightsword glowed strongly in the cave, and the ebonblade retreated back into a small corner, hiding in its meager shadows, a feeble voice reached Siegyrd’s ears, the typical pride tempered by a tremulous fear that what it spoke might not be true, This isn’t over.
#
Nikolaus, the bard, shouted, “Hyaah,” as he stood up in his stirrups, a black stallion eating up the road beneath him in frenzied delight. The horse snorted and pressed even faster. Nikolaus’ patchwork cloak trailed behind him in autumn waves. The rising sun forged the sky into molten steel to his left and the great river Rheo wound alongside the road.
He listened for the sounds of trumpets but heard none as he passed the watchtowers on the way to New Ruthaivan. He looked to the sky and ran harder. “No, no no…” he muttered as he pushed the horse harder, his fiddle case bouncing wildly tied to the saddle on his right.
He passed through stone walls melted like wax. He slowed the horse as its hooves splashed through ankle deep water atop the sinking streets. A shop stood tall on one side and stood vanished in ashen emptiness on the other. A roof lay in the road as if the corresponding house had tossed aside its hat. Lantern stands were bent by heat and folded over like beggars bowing to their king. A middle-aged man with dark skin and darker eyes waded through the mix of water logged and ashen ruins calling out, “Lira!” His robes might once have been fine, but were now marred with gray soot and dripping wet though there was still the hint of golden threads at the hem.
Nikolaus approached, “Sirrah, does the college stand?”
The man looked at the bard on the horse and sneered, “What care for the college when my Lira is missing? LIRA!” He turned his head to walk away.
Nikolaus grit his teeth, but nodded, then pressed his horse forward nearer the man, “I will look as well on my way to the college. Friend, what is your Lira’s description?”
The man’s dark eyes softened as he looked back, “She is quite small, has her mother’s warm complexion and dark curly hair. She was at her uncle’s when the spire erupted.” His voice quivered, but he steeled himself and then looked up at the horseman, “I will find her.”
Nikolaus nodded, “I will search along my way to the college. He must be warned, the whole Chorus must know.”
“Curse the Chorus and the College. LIRA!” and the dark robed man waded his way through the ruined streets shouting as he went.
Nikolaus loosened his cloak, feeling the heat of the rising sun, and pressed on in his own search.
