Pillars of Dragonfire (19 page)

"The city
screamed," Bim whispered.

"Just the
wind." Til drew her sword. "Let's make our way toward the coast. I'll
feel better by the sea."

They continued walking,
leaving the gateway behind. The boulevard was wide and must have once been
fine. Lantern poles still rose alongside, their lights long darkened. Alleyways
branched off into shadows. The houses grew larger as they walked, and soon Til
saw a towering structure, lined with columns and topped with steeples.

"A temple,"
she whispered. "A temple to the Draco constellation. This is a holy place
to Requiem."

"Nobody but ghosts
lives here now." Bim shuddered. "Let's keep walking. I don't want to
stop until we reach the sea."

Til paused, staring at
the temple. The columns soared before her, embracing shadows. What wonders lay
within? Would Til find ancient jewels, books of Requiem lore? Perhaps only the
skeletons of ancient priests? She longed to enter the temple, to become a
dragon in its hall and light her fire, to explore those secret chambers. After
all these years of traveling through ruins—to find an actual temple, a relic
of the golden age!

She had taken a step
toward the portico when shadows stirred between the columns.

Til froze.

She narrowed her eyes.
Had she truly . . . ?

There! She saw it
again. A pale figure, moving between the columns, peering with black eyes—then
vanishing.

"Mist," she
whispered. "Just mist."

Feet pattered behind
her.

She spun around.
"Bim?"

A scream, high pitched
like steam, rose across the city of Lynport.

Til grimaced. She
covered her ears, still holding her sword with one hand. The sound rose louder,
louder, twisting, rising like a living thing, and Til doubled over and
screamed. The sound seemed to
crack
, then vanish, perhaps just rising
too high for her to hear.

She looked at Bim. He
stared back, eyes wide, lips pale.

"To the sea,"
Til whispered.

They continued walking,
faster now, almost jogging. And Til saw them. She saw them everywhere. Gray
mist in windows and alleyways. White eyes staring and vanishing. Padding feet.
Cackling. The laughter of children, a thousand demonic girls, a young boy
singing an old nursery song, then screaming, vanishing into shadows.

Til and Bim ran.

From the buildings
around them, they rose.

Shadows. Mist. Screams.
Twisting faces. Pain.

Til cried out in agony.

Pain. They were pain.

"Stop!" she
cried, but they kept rising, flowing from alleyways, from gutters, descending
from the clouds. They had no forms but they had faces, and those faces
screamed. They had no bodies but they felt pain. They danced around her, hand
in hand. They laughed. They wept. They twisted on the ground.

"Bloodstained
reptiles!" they screeched, voices demonic, impossibly high-pitched, the
sounds of shattered glass coalesced into words. "Bloodstained reptiles,
bloodstained reptiles! Run, run, run!"

Til screamed and swung
her sword, trying to hold them back. She cut through mist, but the faces
floated all around. They formed in the reflections on glass windows. They
twisted in the clouds above. They leered from shadows. The ruins came alive
around her, writhing, the buildings leaning in. Arms grew from the buildings. Arms
reached out. Eyes opened on the ground.

"Bloodstained,
bloodstained! Weredragons! Run, run, run!"

They ran. The creatures
laughed. They tugged at Til and Bim's cloaks, they danced between their feet,
they danced around, a great ring of them in the sky, surrounding a great face,
and the buildings laughed and wept, and the sky wept, and the arms reached
toward them, dripping black blood, and the arms wept. They were happy. They
were sick. They were in agony. They raged. They lusted. They begged for death.

"What are
they?" Bim cried.

Pain. Pain. Just pain.

"Just run!"

Her head spun. Her pain
throbbed inside her, living demons inside, tearing her up. Souls. They were
souls.

Just run.

Just run.

"Run, run,
run!" the creatures cried.

She knew their name.
She wept. She fell. She rose and ran again. She knew them. She knew them.

"Dybbuks,"
she said.

Bim screamed and
doubled over, creatures tugging at him, pulling his skin, pulling his eyes.

"Stand back,
dybbuks!" Til shouted, sword lashing.

The ring of them spun
around her, and the city creaked, bricks rearranging themselves, steeples
leaning forward, eyes blazing within them.

She had heard of these
creatures—a disease of Edinnu, taken down into the world, infecting all they
touched, ripping feelings from dead souls they consumed. Hungry demons,
devouring the pain, the fear, the rage of those they slew. They had grown fat
on the feelings in this city, had consumed the pain of Requiem, of countless
slain Vir Requis. And still they hungered, an infection that ached to spread.

"Til!" her
brother screamed. "Til, they're in me. It hurts. It hurts. Bloodstained.
Bloodstained. Run, run, run!"

His voice rose higher,
twisting, and his eyes bugged out, and he clawed at his face.

Til shifted into a
dragon.

She beat her wings and
blasted out fire in a ring.

The shadows parted, and
the dybbuks laughed.

"Bow down! Bow
down!" they chanted. "Bloodstained, bloodstained, bow, bow,
bow!"

"Bow!" Bim
cried below, twisting on the ground, writhing, smoking, screaming. "Bow
down, bow bow!"

They laughed. They
danced. Bim rose and danced. They danced around her. They danced inside her.
They spun. The arms reached out to her, the buildings laughing, breaking, their
eyes staring, and their arms wept.

I don't know.

Til screamed, wept.

I don't know what
you mean.

She roared out her
dragonfire. It was all she knew. Roar. Roar. Fire. Fire. Run, run, run.

The dance. They danced.
They spun all around her, and she danced with them, and they were inside her,
and they lied. They lied to her. They felt things. They were feelings. They
were things. They were buildings with arms.

"Lie, lie!"
she cried. "Not mine. Not mine! Not feeling. Not my feelings. Not my
pain."

"Your pain! Pain
of Requiem. Pain of dragons."

She fell to her knees,
human again, dead again, a thousand dead again. A city dead again. A nation
falling. Inside her. Inside her. She felt them, the disease spreading, the
chunks torn off their deaths gushing through her, new blood inside her, pumping
through her veins. Pumping through her belly.

Lie, lie, they lie!
They lie!

"Lie!" they
cried. "Run, run, run!"

She screamed. She
clawed at her face. She reached into her mouth. She reached inside her.

Take them out. Take
them out!

Bim smiled. He stared
at her. White eyes. Toothless smile. He reached his hand toward her. It bled.
It healed. It was nothing but bones. It bled. It healed. His skin vanished. His
skin appeared. He was in daylight. He was in darkness. He was a living one. He
was a dead one. He danced. He sang. He died and screamed. He smiled and reached
out to her.

"Tell a lie,"
he whispered and took her hand.

She lied. She danced. They
all danced. They were dragons, dead, broken. They were shadows. They were
buildings with arms. They were the sea.

The sea.

She saw the waves.
Waves with faces. Screaming waves of blood.

She stared into the
water.

The screams rose around
her, shattered . . . fading. Fading. Floating. Fading.

She stared at the
waves. The sea was breathing. The waves were breath. There were bodies beneath
them. The dead breathed. The world breathed. Requiem breathed.

She stared.

"Tears," she
whispered. "The sea is made of tears. The sea is breathing. The waves are
breath."

She remembered. She had
been traveling to those waves, to—

"Father."

The dragon died upon
the lance. She screamed. "Fath—"

The sea breathed. The
waves were its breath.

For so long, she had traveled,
hiding, trying to reach that sea. And now she floated here. Floated above the
buildings, dancing with the dybbuks. A dance of dybbuks. A dance in the sky.
But the waves did not dance. She—

"No!" the
girl screamed. And her father lost his magic, returning to a human, a human
impaled, staring at her, coated in blood. And she ran. She ran through the
forests. She ran in the wilderness. She ran cross ruins. Run, run, run.

Run, run, run. Run.
Hide! Hide. Kill. Kill, kill, kill.

She shivered in tunnels
among the bones of dead dragons, and she prayed, and—

The sea breathed.

She stared.

The waves were its
breath.

She floated among the
feelings, and her brother danced with her, and he laughed, and he was alive,
and finally he felt. Finally he felt so much.

She turned in the air,
and she stared across the walls to the northern darkness, and she saw the fire.
The fire of ten thousand chariots, filling the sky. Fearing this place. They
dared not enter. Not this city. Not this darkness. Not these feelings. Not this
place where seraphim feared to tread. But she had entered. She could hear the
sea, calling to her. It had always called her. It still breathed.

She flew as a dragon.

"I'm sorry."
She wept. "I'm sorry, Father. I'm sorry. I couldn't save you. I'm sorry. I
couldn't. I had to run. I had to run, run, run."

Run, run, run.

Fly.

She tried to beat her
wings, but she died.

She tried to blow her
fire, but the seraphim burned her, shoved their lances inside her.

She tried to grab her
brother, but she was born in pain, screaming. Her father beat her. She tried to
fly, but she was afraid, trapped in an alleyway, a man holding her down. She
died. She died a hundred thousand times. She died in the fire of seraphim,
screaming, lingered on, fled, died at the walls, drowned in the sky.

The disease spread into
her. The dybbuks laughed, carrying with them the devoured pain of Requiem,
spewing it into her, grabbing her pain.

Bim screamed, laughed,
danced with them. He was but a shadow. Only a face in the darkness, that was
all. Only mist. And above him shone the stars.

"The stars of
Requiem," Til whispered. "Issari's Eye. Staring. There's no pain
there. No pain in starlight."

The sea breathed.

There was no pain in
the sea.

There is pain in
life. Life is pain. We are born in pain. We are drenched in pain from birth. We
die in pain. We are but glimmers of starlight between pain and pain. There is
no pain in starlight. There is no pain in the sea.

Til forced herself to
stare at the star, to let it consume her. To rise above the buildings with
arms. To rise above the clouds. To be—

Run, run, run!

Bow, bow, bow!

—to be nothing but
starlight. Nothing but sea. Nothing but breath. Breath. Waves. The waves were
its breath.

She flew.

She reached out and grabbed
the shadow. She held her brother in her claws.

"Lies, lies, lies."

She flew through them,
holding him.

They clawed inside her.
They tore at her skin from the inside. They died a thousand times. They made
her die a thousand times. She died a thousand times over every street, but
still she flew. She stared up at the stars. She stared at the sea. She refused
to fear them. She would not fear. There was no fear in starlight. There was no
pain in the sea. The waves were its breath.

She flew over the city,
holding Bim in her claws, and there on the edge of the water, she saw it. A
towering fortress on a hill. A fortress with white arms that reached out in the
black night. A fortress with eyes. A fortress where Vir Requis had been dying
for thousands of years. A fortress that died. That made her die. That felt. Its
arms wept.

Til roared out her
fire.

Her flames slammed into
the building, showering up, spraying onto dybbuks that still danced around her.
The massive creature laughed, rising higher, built of bricks and mist and
flesh, eyes blazing like furnaces.

Now you will die,
Til of Requiem.
Its voice spoke in her head.
Now we will feed upon your
pain too.

She flew.

There is no pain in
starlight.

I am
woven of starlight.

There
is no pain in the sea.

The
waves are its breath.

She blasted her
dragonfire and charged headfirst into the towering fortress of demonic shadow.

Bricks showered around
her. One of her horns snapped. Her scales cracked. She screamed and kept
flying, tearing through it, a great lance like the lance that had driven into
her father.

The building collapsed
around her. Turrets slammed down and shattered. Bricks rained. She flew through
the dust, the screams, the fleeing demons within, casting back their shadows
with her firelight, until she flew over sand and sea.

She dipped down. The
wind whipped around her. Her scales bled. But there was no pain in the sea, and
the waves were its breath, and she plunged into the water and lost her magic.

The water flowed over
her, inky black, washing them away, and they fled her. The dybbuks. The shards
of souls. The endless deaths and the endless pain. They rose around her,
swirling shadows, vanishing in the cleansing waters of Requiem, until only the
waves remained, only starlight above.

The waves breathed, and
they bore Til and Bim and laid them upon the sand.

Til rose to her knees,
shivering, her sword lost. Bim knelt in the sand, his back turned toward her,
his shoulders stooped and head lowered.