Elizabeth Haydon - Destiny - Child of the Sky

The staff in Khaddyr’s hands burst into flame.

With a shriek the Invoker dropped the burning staff to the ground. In horror he watched it incinerate, the symbol of the office he had sold his soul to gain. It withered to ashes within seconds; they caught the smoky wind and disappeared, leaving only the gold leaf tip on the ground. After a moment it melted in the heat into a shining puddle that reflected the fire’s light.

The shadow-figure opened its eyes, and involuntarily Khaddyr gasped. Burning blue, as brilliant as the flames from the center of the Earth, two points of ferocious light appeared in the otherwise solid darkness of his face, beneath the blazing hair that blended with the leaping sheets of fire behind and above him. Khaddyr took a step back, trying to keep his terror from coloring his voice; he knew his face already showed it.

“Gwydion—”

“Who is the host of the demon?” The voice that issued forth from the shadow shook the earth beneath Khaddyr’s feet, causing him to stumble and fall to one knee. It was more a roar than spoken words, sounding in multiple tones of soprano, alto, tenor, and bass, crackling with the ferocity of high wind in fire.

A gagging sound came from Khaddyr’s throat, and nothing more.

“Tell me,” demanded the dark figure. The fire grew more intense, matching the heat in his voice.

“I—I don’t know,” Khaddyr choked.

The tree palace ignited, ripping into flame. The glass panes in the windows reflected the pounding light at the sky as the roof of each oddly angled wing burst open, showering sparks through the dormant gardens that surrounded Llauron’s keep. Flames climbed the tower that reached above the tree canopy, turning it to a blazing column of fire.

“Dear One-God,” Khaddyr whispered.

From the backdrop of rolling fire behind the man another figure ascended, hazy and ephemeral. Its serpentine head reached skyward, cresting above the burning treetops. Its eyes gleamed with the same ferocious blue light that stared from the shadow-man’s face, its enormous pupils razor-thin vertical slits that shrank even more as the inferno grew in strength. Great wings of shimmering copper scales, translucent in the light, stretched out over the Circle lands, casting dark blankets of mist as they unfolded. Its great hissing voice spoke in precise synchronicity with that of the man it hovered above.

“ Who is the host? ” The thunderous demand shook the very earth.

Khaddyr swallowed, tasting blood in the back of his throat. “Forgive me, Gwydion, I can’t. I fear you in life, but I fear him more in death. Have mercy.”

The shadow-dragon let out a furious roar. Over the cacophony of the burning forest and the screams of the evacuating Filids, it shattered the remaining panes of glass and shook the branches of the Great White Tree which stood alone, unscathed, in the midst of the fiery nightmare. The searing blue eyes in the human figure closed, disappearing back into the dark face again.

“I did not give you leave to die yet,” Ashe said, his words ringing in the multiple tones of the wyrm. He raised his arm and pointed at the Filid priest, the great healer, now prostrate on the forest floor.

“ Luhtgrin ,” he said in the language of the Filids. Invert. “Cartung.” Sustain .

Khaddyr felt his feet go numb. Then, a moment later, a shock of agony crippled his toes as they began turning at an impossible angle. He let out a scream as the skin rolled back, exposing nerve and muscle, vein and bone, then slowly continued up his legs. The horror of what was happening crept through his brain, making it go numb as well.

He was turning inside out.

Khaddyr screamed again, a high wail of shuddering terror.

“Tell me,” the dark figures demanded again in one voice, man and dragon. “Tell me or I will leave you like this, alive.” Khaddyr’s kneecaps popped sickeningly as they inverted.

“Stop, I beg you,” Khaddyr moaned.

The man-shadow and its second nature, the shade of the dragon, walked slowly through the burning grass and over to Khaddyr until it stood directly above him, the vast shadow of the wyrm hovering over him in the smoky air. By the time man and dragon-shadow reached him he was writhing in agony, the long bones of his thighs exposed on the bloody grass. With another popping, then a crunching sound, the genitals and hipbones twisted inside the quivering muscle and skin, the large arteries pulsing hideously.

Khaddyr was muttering incoherently. With a ringing sweep Ashe drew Kirsdarke from the sheath across his back and pressed the point into the old man’s throat. For a moment Khaddyr’s eyes cleared, and he stared at the rippling waves of the weapon, surging blue-white like ocean currents, running down the length of the ancient blade.

“Please,” he whispered as his chest cavity turned inside out, exposing his racing heart and struggling lungs. The wheezing, squishing, and hideous tearing sounds almost swallowed his words. “You’ll need—me, Gwydion. A—healer. Rhapsody will—need—

The sword point pressed deeper. “What about Rhapsody?” Ashe demanded; the multitoned voice shook the burning leaves from the singed branches above them. “What will Rhapsody need?”

“When—she—” Khaddyr panted. He turned and looked at his fingers, which had begun to turn inside themselves. “When—she—

From the depths of his exposed viscera a tiny root appeared. Within a heartbeat many others like it sprang forth and whipped around Khaddyr’s vital organs. The vines thickened quickly, forming ropy strands pocked with thorns that drew taut around the would-be Invoker’s heart and squeezed suddenly. A hideous stench billowed forth over the smell of the fire.

“What will Rhapsody need? Curse your soul, Khaddyr, who is the F’dor ?”

Khaddyr let out a gurgling gasp, then turned one last time to Gwydion, his eyes glassy and sightless with pain.

“Kill me,” he whispered as beads of bloody sweat emerged from his brow. “Mercy—”

The shadow-man bent down near enough so that the Invoker could hear him. “Tell your master I am coming for him,” he said through gritted teeth.

The vine pulsed violently, and Khaddyr’s heart exploded, sending streaks of bright blood into the air, where the raging fire illuminated it into showers of red light.

Ashe stepped back as the vine recoiled, flipping Khaddyr over onto his exposed stomach and entrails. Within moments dozens of other vines shot forth, encircling him completely. Then, with a snap, Khaddyr was dragged, slamming over burning brush and trunks of decimated trees, into a large mound of blazing fire. The stench grew overpowering as his body hit the flames, and Ashe had to shield his eyes from the explosion of black fire that ensued.

The F’dor was claiming its own.

Q) or the second time that winter Ashe stood, spent, beneath the Tree amid the destruction of fire. The Filids moved about through the desolation like sleepwalkers, staring at the ruins of the tree palace, stepping in between the rubble, all that remained of the shining castle at the heart of the Circle.

At the edge of his senses Ashe could feel Gwen stepping carefully through the remains of the rooms she had once kept for his father, lost in the place she had once known better than any other. He closed his eyes and willed her presence from his mind; the dragon within his blood slept now, sated in its destructive rage. The awareness of his second nature stung, like a sore muscle.

The Filidic priests that remained loyal to Llauron stared dismally at the ruins of the holy circle of trees that ringed the Great White Tree. One of every known species had its place there before the fire, sometimes the last surviving specimen of a species. Now all that remained of the trees were blackened trunks and charred, ragged columns of ash pointing skyward like broken fingers.