Michael Sullivan - Avempartha

He walked from room to room, up stairs and across balconies, following no conscious course, but merely moving, staring and listening. Royce noticed with concern that every movement he made was recorded clearly in centuries of dust that blanketed the interior. Still, he was fascinated to discover that where he disturbed the dust, the floor revealed a glossy surface as clear as still water.

Passing through the various chambers, he felt as if he were in a museum, lost in a moment of frozen time. Plates were still out before empty chairs, some fallen on their sides-overturned in the confusion and alarm of nearly a millennium ago. Books lay open to pages someone had been reading nine hundred years before, yet Royce knew that even to that person who had sat there so long ago, this place, this tower, was ancient. Aside from its dramatic history, by its age alone Avempartha would be a monument-a sacred structure-to the elves, a link to an ancient era. This was not a citadel. He did not know how he knew, but he was certain this was something far more than a mere fortress.

Esrahaddon had left Royce almost immediately after entering the tower after pointing him in the direction he was now following. He told Royce he would find the sword he sought somewhere above the entrance, but that the wizard’s path led elsewhere. It had been hours now since they parted and the light outside was already starting to dim. Royce still had not found the sword. Sights and smells sidetracked him, including the musical sound the wind made as it passed through the spires overhead. It was too much to process at once, too much to classify, and soon he found himself lost.

He started to follow his trail in reverse when he discovered his footprints overlapped leaving him a path that moved in circles. He was starting to become concerned when he heard a new sound. Unlike everything he encountered so far, this noise was disturbing. It was the thick rhythmical resonance of heavy breathing.

Every path open to the thief was marred with his own tracks except one. This led to yet another stair where the breathing was louder. How many floors up Royce had wandered he was not certain, but he knew he had not come across any swords. Slowly, and as silently as he could, he began to creep upward.

He had not gone more than five steps when he spotted his first sword. It lay blanketed in dust on a step beside a boney form. What cloth there might have been was gone, but the armor remained. Farther up, he spotted another and yet another. There were two different types of bodies, humans in broad heavy breastplates and greaves, and elves in delicate blue armor. This was the last stand, the last defense to protect the Emperor. Elves and men fallen one upon the other.

Royce reached down and slid his thumb along the flat of the blade at his feet. As the dust wiped clear the amazing shine of the elven steel glimmered as if new, but no etching was on it. Royce looked up the stairs and reluctantly stepped over the bodies as he continued his climb.

The breathing grew louder and deeper like wind blowing through an echoing cavern. A room lay ahead, and with the silence of a cat’s shadow, Royce crept inside. The chamber was round with yet another staircase leading up. As he entered, he could feel and smell fresh air. Tall thin windows allowed unfettered shafts of light into the room, but Royce felt that somewhere above him a much larger window lay.

At last, Royce found a rack of elven swords mounted ceremoniously to the wall in ornate cases. Divided from the rest of the room by a delicate chain, the area appeared as a memorial, a remembrance set aside in honor. A plaque on a pedestal stood before the rack and on the walls were numerous lines of elven script carved into the stone. Royce only knew a few words and those before him had been written with such flare and embellishment that he was at a loss to recognize even a single word, although he was certain he recognized several letters.

On the rack were dozens of swords. Each one appeared to be identical and without having to touch them, Royce could see the etchings clearly cut into the blades and the notches hewn into the metal. One spot remained vacant.

With a silent sigh, he steadied himself and began to climb upward once more. With each step, the air grew fresher; currents banished dust to the cracks and corners. Along the stair, more openings and hallways appeared to either side, but Royce had a hunch and continued to climb, moving toward the sound of breathing.

At last, the steps ended and Royce looked up at open sky. Above him was a circular balcony with sculpted walls like petals on a flower. Statues that once lined this open-air pavilion lay in broken heaps on the floor. At their center rested the malevolent sleeping figure of the Gilarabrywn, an enormous black scaled lizard with wings of gray membrane and bone. It lay curled, its head on its tail, its body heaving with deep, long breaths. Muscular claws were armed with four twelve-inch long black nails; encrusted with dried blood, they left deep groves in the surface of the floor where they scraped in the beast’s sleep. Long sharp fangs protruded from beneath leathery lips as did a row of frightening teeth that followed no visible scheme but seemed to mesh together like a wild fence of needles. Ears lay back upon its head, its eyes cloaked by broad lids beneath which pupils darted about in a fretful slumber of what dark visages Royce could not begin to imagine. The long tail, barbed at the end with a saber-like bone, twitched.

Royce caught himself staring and cursed at his own stupidity. It was a sight to be certain, but this was no time to be distracted. Focus was all that separated him from certain death.

He always hated places with animals. Hounds bellowed at the slightest sound or smell. He had managed to step past many a sleeping dog, but there had been a few that managed to sense him without warning. He mentally gripped himself and pulled his eyes away from the giant to study the rest of the room. It was a shambles, broken fixtures and rubble. On closer study, however, Royce noticed that the rubble held terrible treasures. He recognized torn bits of Mae Drundel’s dress, matted with dark stains and tangled within its folds was a bit of scalp and a long lock of gray hair. Other equally disturbing images lay around him. Arms, feet, fingers, hands, all cast aside like shrimp tails. He spotted Millie, Hadrian’s bay mare, or rather one of her rear legs and tail. Not too far away he was stunned to see Millie’s saddle and Hadrian’s swords. Luckily, they were within easy reach.

As he began to move around the pile, inching his way with the slow discipline of a mantis on the hunt, he saw something. The bodies and torn clothes lay atop the pile of bones and stone. But deep beneath, on the bottom stratum of built-up sediment, Royce caught the singular glint of mirrored steel. It was only a tiny patch, no larger than a small coin, which is what he initially took it for, but its brilliance was unmistakable. It possessed the same gleam as the swords on the stairs and in the rack below.

Barely breathing-each movement keyed to a painfully slow pace that might defy even a direct look-Royce stole closer to the beast and his vile treasure trove. He slipped his hand under the strands of Millie’s tail and meticulously began to draw forth the blade.

It came loose with little effort or sound, but even before he had it free Royce knew something was wrong. It was not heavy enough. Even given that elven blades might weigh dramatically less, it was ridiculously light. He soon realized why as he drew forth only part of a broken blade. Seeing the etching on the unnotched metal, Royce realized his hunch was correct. This Gilarabrywn was no animal, no dumb beast trained to kill. This conjured demon was self-aware enough to realize it had only one mortal fear in this world-a blade with its name on it. It took precautions. The monster broke the blade, severing the name and rendering it useless. He could not see the other half of the sword, but it seemed obvious to him where it lay. The remainder of the sword rested in the one place from which Royce could not steal it-beneath the sleeping body of the Gilarabrywn itself.