THE REFORGED TRILOGY: BOOK 2 — SWORD OF DREAMS
Chapter 14: Needs
“If you worry about what a child will become, you’re not worrying enough about what they are.”
– Gavriel Euvo, Cult of Nihil founder (227 PA)
“We’ve found one, Lord Gavriel. He says he was on Illisem.”
“Bring him to me, then.”
Iboe bowed. She was shivering violently, her patchwork robes utterly inadequate against the cold. But she left and returned a few minutes later with another black-clothed Nihilist. They carried a slumping, white-winged shape between them and dropped it at Gavriel’s feet. The Arcadian fell to his knees, panting.
“Did he fight?” Gavriel asked curiously.
“No, my lord. He’s very sick.”
Iboe was right — the fairy’s wings and skin were patchy with blotches of raw-looking pink. There were scabby, scaly streaks on his cheeks and the back of his bowed neck.
Gavriel stood. Even stooped, he loomed over the sick, prostrate fairy.
“Do you know why you’re here?”
The Arcadian looked up at Gavriel with blank eyes. His pale hair was shaved away and one of his ears was missing, leaving only a red stump.
“Ua’li eru Aver,” he answered. He didn’t speak Aver.
Gavriel nodded. “Uma’li eru Arcadi’na.”
The fairy gave him a wide-eyed look of surprise. The Prians harbored little racism toward the Arcadians, but few bothered to learn their language. The ignorant, back-water hicks never saw the point. Gavriel knew better.
“Ai muan?” he asked. How old are you?
“Ima’ae lia.” Three hundred and six.
Gavriel wasn’t sure if that was counted in Arcadian years or the longer Alliance CSYs, but it didn’t matter. Either way, the fairy was old enough to remember the fall of the White Kingdom.
“Ai na?” Gavriel asked. What is your name?
“Timaen.”
Gavriel reached down and curled his long fingers around the side of Timaen’s face. His skin was rough under the old Nihilist’s touch. He was feverishly warm in places and clammy cold in others where disease had killed off his blood vessels.
Gavriel sang, softly at first but with growing power and volume. Timaen’s brown eyes went glassy and drifted closed, lulled into lassitude. But as Gavriel’s song wound through him, Timaen’s eyes snapped open again. He pulled back, away from the old Nihilist, and Iboe shoved the Arcadian to his knees once more. Gavriel held Timaen’s face in both hands now, staring into his frightened, bloodshot eyes.
Show me. Show me what I need to see.
The Arcadian’s mind opened before Gavriel’s spell like a knife-shucked oyster. Sounds, smells, images and less identifiable sensations washed over Gavriel. Memories… Snatches of song, the feel of the rising wind beneath his wings, the bitter taste of ashes on the air as Timaen flew as fast as he could away from the Devourers. Blood everywhere, pounding in his ears, darkness that blotted out the sun. Memories of tragedy a hundred years old.
I flew, Timaen remembered. And the darkness chased me. It flew without wings and reached for me with hooks and fangs. The molten shadows pierced my shoulder and I fell. I screamed. Death was everywhere, an army of storm clouds that flashed with red fire. I was going to die…
A flash of glass. A knight! She caught me out of the air and carried me to the ground. She told me to run. So I ran, dragging my wings behind. Useless. Slow… There were screams behind me. Blood on the white stones of the Great City.
I ran.
I ran and I did not look back.
Gavriel’s fingers tightened on Timaen, pressing into his broken, ravaged skin.
“Show me what I need to see!”
Black clouds… Shadows that tore, shadows full of teeth…
But Timaen’s memories were incomplete. He had seen little and even that was clouded by time and disease. Gavriel pushed the Arcadian to the floor. The other Nihilists backed quickly away.
“Ka li’ae avael!” Gavriel sang.
The fairy on the floor screamed as fire caught in his dry, patchy wings. Gavriel sang it on and the flame spread quickly, as hungry as any Devourer. The fire burned away his clothes, then his body, and Timaen clutched at Gavriel’s feet.
“Mercy!” he croaked. So he spoke some Aver…
“That is exactly what I’m giving you, Timaen.” Gavriel said. “Go in peace.”
When the flames finally died, Iboe and her companion dragged the smoking corpse away. Gavriel smiled as he stood alone in the darkened apartment. It was good to finally possess the power — the true power — of a mage. He alone wielded fire and lightning and truth and pain… And he did it without Duaal’s help.
“Lord Gavriel! My lord, they’re at the doors!”
The Nihilist threw herself at her master’s feet and Gavriel kicked her away.
“Who is here, woman?” he asked.
He was in a foul mood and had no patience for her wailing. She raised her hands imploringly.
“The police! They’ve come for us, my lord. They’ll take us away and send us to rot in prison,” she cried. The woman’s eyes were full of terror. “They’ll put us on suicide watch!”
Gavriel curled his hands into impotent fists at his sides. The beads and sigils that covered his elaborate robes flashed in the lamplight.
“Where are my Emberguard?” he asked.
The Nihilist shook her head. Strands of gray hair escaped her hood. “They’re at the doors, my lord, but the Prians are coming through.”
Gavriel heard angry voices arguing outside. Lasers whined and bullets cracked, but not as many as he expected. The Prian police were trying to take the Nihilists alive to face trial. Hallax leapt through the door and slammed it shut behind him. His green hair was disheveled, his nanosword naked in his hand and shone bright, wet red with blood.
“The Prians are closing in, Lord Gavriel,” the Emberguard said. “You must go. If you die here, nothing we’ve done will mean anything.”
The woman was still at Gavriel’s feet, weeping and screaming. “Kill me, Lord Gavriel! Send me down into the sweet, endless dark!”
He could do it. Even now, even without the boy. Gavriel still kept the silver-bladed knife tucked in his robes. It was a ritual implement, but it would do as a weapon. He could slit her throat and probably many more before the police could stop him.
But how many wretched souls would live on?
No, he would not give up so easily. Hallax was right. Gavriel had to leave. He had to survive until the end. Gavriel took the Nihilist woman’s hand and pulled her to her feet.
“Death will come for you another day,” he told her. “Now, you must be brave. Go. Help the others hold the Prians back.”
“Are you coming?” she asked in a shaking, frightened voice.
“No, dear one,” Gavriel said. “I must go, but I will not forget how you fought for me.”
She rose unsteadily and ran back the way she had come, out the door and toward the sounds of fighting. Red and orange flashes lit the hall in staccato bursts as the Prian police closed in. Hallax raised his gleaming sword.
“What of me, my lord?” he asked. “I have killed many Prian cops and can take many more with me into the darkness.”
“No,” Gavriel told the Mirran. “Come with me. We’re not done yet and I will need new Emberguard. You must get us out of here.”
“Yes, Lord Gavriel.” Hallax shouldered the window open, filling the room with Highwind’s fetid air. “This way.”
Together, the Nihilists fled.
Now Gavriel stood at the window, high above Pylos. His smile faded. Though it felt good to be strong again, he still had not found the memories he needed. All he had was another dead Arcadian. Another failure. How long did Gavriel have before the Prian police found him again? Wind howled outside the empty window.
