David Dalglish - Dawn of Swords

And then it hit him. Geris stared up at stone Ashhur, who inclined his head in his boulder-crunching nod. Geris thought of his conversation with Ashhur-the real Ashhur-back in Safeway. The god hadn’t seemed surprised by his story of the shadow-lion, or by the accusations leveled against him. That could only mean that Ashhur himself had a hand in the visions.

“I understand.”

“Now think,” said the lion. “Think of the imposter. Is there any among you who is different now from before? Is there any who has become a new person altogether?”

Geris mulled it over, and realization struck him like a reed to the backside. He thought of a timid boy, a tubby weakling who had once been afraid of his own shadow. A boy who had emerged as a bastion of strength and cunning since Martin’s death. Although Geris had always bested him in the past, the rapidly improving Benjamin Maryll now won more than half the time, in everything from arithmetic to footraces, to reciting the names of the landmarks and towns. Geris glanced at the lion, the images in his mind projecting through his eyes and into the dreamscape, and the lion nodded.

“Ben.”

It made perfect sense. In his exhaustion, his weary mind could not fully explain why Ben had been constantly outdoing him of late. He almost kicked himself for not realizing it sooner.

“The boy that was once Benjamin Maryll is no more,” said the lion. “The imposter has taken his place.”

“But why?”

“The Lord of Shadows is a cunning, vile beast. It hates the beauty my creator has forged in this land. It wants to raze Paradise, to cast all of Dezrel into the darkness in which it thrives. The witch will use all her power to realize this depraved vision, whether or not the imposter succeeds in becoming ruler of the west.”

“Wait,” Geris said, trying to think through the murky swamp that was his dreaming mind. “What do you mean? It doesn’t matter which of us is named king?”

“It will not matter whether you or the imposter is named king. With the assistance of the witch, the imposter will sow seeds of discontent in the people. Panic will race across the land, bringing about the death of the deity who created all that is good and holy. The only way to stop it is to kill them both. This is why you are the Chosen One, Geris Felhorn. You are the only one who knows the truth. You are the only one who can stop the destruction of everything you know and love.”

He shivered at the thought of killing anyone, nevermind a boy like Ben. Yes, Ben had changed, but was he truly possessed? His mind returned to the Temple of the Flesh, to the blood pouring over Martin’s hands as he clutched the arrow embedded in his chest. His dream-self shivered, yet even as a large part of him rejected the notion of murder, another smaller part-a part for which the act seemed natural, as if he had been born to do it-pressed further.

“Who’s the witch?” he asked.

The lion seemed to grin, something powerful sparkling in its eyes. Geris retreated, only to be stilled by stone Ashhur’s giant hand on his back.

“She is the mother of a nation, a would-be murderer of her own children. Her eyes reflect the glimmer of the western sea, her cheeks are spotted with the stars above, and around her head is a ring of fire.”

“Where is she?”

“She is where you are headed, at the center of the place called Mordeina.”

Geris exhaled deeply and gazed up at the granite likeness of his creator. “Is it all true, my Lord?”

Grimly, stone Ashhur nodded.

The lion rose on its legs and skulked toward him, its yellow eyes burning with ethereal fire, its image wavering like a lie on the tongue of an unsure child.

“If it is proof you desire, then I shall give it to you.”

Without thinking, Geris extended his hand. The lion placed a monstrous paw in his palm, the claws digging into his wrist, burning him. Then the creature lost solidity and the darkness returned, swirling about him like a million black flies. Visions assaulted Geris’s mind, boiling his eyes, piercing the fabric of his thoughts. He saw fields running red with blood, strange men with the heads of wolves, hyenas, vultures, and lizards. He watched as Ashhur was devoured by a huge creature with blazing red eyes, whose face shifted from one moment to the next, never the same, never constant, always horrific. And then the god bled, and the heavens wept, and stars burst from his sternum to fill the sky with flames that rained sulfur to the ground, melting flesh, scorching the grass, smoldering the gardens of Haven, Safeway, Ker, Mordeina, and everywhere else in the land.

Lastly he saw his family, his parents and siblings, hanging by their wrists from the gallows, slit from chest to belly, their insides piled beneath them like mounds of raw sausage. Their eyes had been plucked out, and their empty sockets stared outward in agony, their faces forever frozen in the terror and pain they’d felt as they died. Behind them, lurking in the shadows, was Ben the Imposter and the nameless, faceless witch, laughing, laughing, laughing.…

Geris awoke screaming, thrashing about on the floor of the carriage, lashing out blindly as the vision continued to torment him. He saw only the images, heard only the laughter. As if from another world he sensed Ahaesarus trying to calm him, felt the touch of his mother. But her fingers were rotted, her throat slit. The night passed, his throat raw from his cries, but still he thrashed and howled.

When the convoy entered Mordeina a few hours later, he was still screaming.

His eyes felt crusty when he opened them, and his head pounded.

“Nice of you to join us,” he heard Ahaesarus say.

Geris lifted himself up and looked around. He was on a bed in a round room of some sort, the curved walls of pale clay brick pressing in on him. It was unlike anything he had seen-beautiful paintings hung from the walls, the candelabras that lit the space were heavy with gold and silver, and the bed itself was the softest he had ever rested his body upon. He swallowed hard to still his nerves, and when he slid his legs over the side of the bed, he was amazed to feel the plushness of the carpet beneath his feet.

Ahaesarus was in the room with him. The Warden’s back was turned as he sat at a desk a few feet to his right-a desk that was far too small for him. His long, angular body was contorted at odd angles as he scratched his quill across a piece of parchment. Geris began to say something but kept his mouth shut. His thoughts were muddy, and he couldn’t remember how he’d gotten to be where he was. For all he knew, he was in trouble, and when it came to his mentor, if he were in trouble, the best thing to do was sit and await punishment.

Ahaesarus finished his scrawling and swiveled in his much too tiny seat. The Warden’s long hair was pulled back from his face, fastened in a knot at the top of his head, forming a golden tail that draped over one shoulder. He wore a tailored cerulean smock-Ahaesarus’s favorite color-the breast embroidered with silken thread in a looping, regal floral pattern. The being who sat before him now seemed to be entirely different from the one who had mentored him for years. The itch of memory made Geris’s eye flutter, but whatever the sensation was trying to tell him, he didn’t know. All he did know was that his entire body felt like it had been stuffed with the fluffy white seedpods that floated through the plains during spring, looking like a billion whimsical fairies.

The Warden leaned forward, resting a slender hand on Geris’s knee. His eyes brimmed with compassion and understanding, two sentiments that Ahaesarus usually had in rather short supply.

“How do you feel?” he asked.

Geris swallowed, feeling a lump in his throat once more.