<u>11</u>


    In elapsing time, it was about simultaneous. In deeds, interwoven, for the threads and the pixels just think that they act for themselves, while Order and Chaos strive.


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    Gildyr had moments to act.  Great slabs of ceiling and wall broke apart as a hail of deep-bombs rained down from above, hammering away at their prison.  Packed with dragon-flame, the charges erupted as soon as they hit, releasing horrifically powerful shockwaves.  These flared out in all directions, shattering coral and stone, pulping sea-elves and creatures to jelly, burning whatever they touched.


    As the cell-bubbles collapsed, vomiting inmates and air, Gildyr converted himself to a massive, hard-shelled nautilus.  His tentacles shot forth in every direction, seizing guards and prisoners, Cinda and fortunate passers-by, sweeping them all into the airspace under his spiraling shell.


    Frantic for power and time, the druid pulled manna from everywhere at once; draining tiny, alarm-flaring plankton, then working right up to Father Ocean, himself.  (A debt he would have to repay.)  Defended himself and as much of the city as one lone wood-elf could shield.  But there were so many folk out of his reach, far beyond any protection at all. Unable to help them, Gildyr pulled in his tentacles, sealing himself in his shell. Pounding shock waves and flashes of heat tore Averna to pieces around him.  Then…


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    Up above, as the sun rose from ocean to void, the elven fleet neared its goal; the waters that churned over fabled Averna.  Fed by the boiling gases and heat down below, a monstrous whirlpool thundered and crashed, fully a hundred miles wide.  Constant purple-dark storm clouds were gathered above it, gilded by day-shine, threaded with lightning.  The winds were unending, shrieking from every direction at once.  Wild, shining dragons and sea-griffins rode the updrafts, diving downward to snatch at pulped, boiled creatures cast up from below.


    The fleet dared come no closer, but their actual target… the city… was not under that howling maelstrom.  The sea-elven realm lay in calmer waters, fifty-five leagues to the west.  There, the fleet very much could go.


    Filimar Arvendahl ad Tormund was no natural airman, at all.  He clung to the port-rail, black hair whipping, blue eyes squinted in misery.  Hands locked white-knuckle tight to the Vancora’s rail, he thought: ‘Valno, flee.  Brother, friend… he comes for you, and I cannot stop him.’


    “No. You cannot,” said the High Lord, porting suddenly over.  Crossing twenty-three yards of deck, Arvehdahl seized hold of Filimar.  Deep-bombs began plunging like meteors from the airships’ launch tubes, unleashing hell in the ocean and city below. Each detonation raised a mountainous swell of foaming white water, tumbling with interlaced corpses and parboiled fish.


    Smiling grimly, Arvendahl lifted the treasonous boy by the throat.  Held him up and over the rail.  Out over rampaging water he dangled Filimar, who twisted wildly, clawing at the iron-hard hand that was crushing his windpipe.  In a low, conversational voice, the High Lord mused,


    “I wonder how much this pup matters to you, Tarandahl?  He would betray my movements and plans, but the Mother sees all… including intended deception.  Would you save his life, Tarandahl?  Would you trade your own, for his?”


    And then, as if in response, the ocean below erupted in fury.


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    Shanella came back to her senses, shocked awake by concussions and flares.  Her city crumbled and burned, set alight by the flame that cannot be doused.  She surged to her feet and responded in kind, setting up shields, then tracking the bombs to a fleet of airships that buzzed like gnats overhead.


    Not for nothing was Shanella Kalistiel queen of the waters and fiery deep.  Shouting,


    “Rise, tempest!  To me, spirits of current and wind!”


    … she summoned the ocean’s worst fury, unleashing its might on the fleet up above.  Three yards away, Zaresh fought with his nurses and guards.  Meliara worked hard to soothe and console him, battling constant shockwaves, hell-bursts and screams, for the boy’s attention.


    Beside his aunt, Valerian called upon power.  Like Gildyr, trading everything… <u>any</u> future request… for manna right now.  He’d sensed Filimar’s message.  Felt choking-hard fingers crushing his own throat and cutting off air.  Saw himself battered by wind, dangling over a fatal drop, with sea-drakes and griffins already swooping in.


    “Wait!” he cried out, trying to shield Filimar and reach Lord Arvendahl’s mind at the same time.  It was then, at this roiling conflux of Chaos and Order, that somebody got through to <u>him</u>.  Someone he’d turned his back on.  Betrayed.


    In that instant, Valerian recalled everything.  The journeyman quest he’d been given, his master’s commands… and his ultimate failure to follow that bidding.


    ‘Exchange places,’ ordered a distant and echoing voice.  His Imperial Highness, Sherazedan. ‘Let me speak.  Let me save him.’


    And so, it was done.


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    Nautilus or not, hard-shell or no, Gildyr was blasted backward, tumbling far over ooze and abyss. He looked on in shock as something star-bright and powerful blasted up from the palace.  Not Valerian, his aunt or the queen.  A freed, raging god.


    XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX


    Up above, in the stormy void, the fleet was surrounded by twisting waterspouts, along with the swirling dark eye-wall of a hurricane.  Its streaming clouds rose so high that only a faint, shifting dot betrayed their opening.


    Arvendahl laughed, unafraid.  Using the Mother’s vile power, he raised mighty shields that did not include Filimar.


    “Very impressive,” he started to sneer.  Only then, the ocean erupted, pierced from beneath by a lone, shining figure.  In his shock, Arvendahl let go of young Filimar, but the boy didn’t fall.  Just hung there past Vancora’s railing, ghost-pale and staring.


    Arvendahl didn’t notice.  Wasn’t looking.  Instead, his gaze was locked on the elven demi-god who’d risen to shine in the sky like another sun.


    Neither old nor young, pale-haired and silver-eyed, divinely beautiful, brother to Oberyn…  Falco’s lost heart-friend, companion and lord.  Sherazedan.


    Arvendahl vaulted the ship’s railing to stride forward on air, breaking into a run as he drew near the one that his heart had never forgotten.


    “My Lord!”


    Got there.  Tried to kneel, but the apparition seized his arms at the elbow, preventing obeisance.  Instead, hauled him into a fierce embrace, drawing Arvendahl’s head to his own bright-armored shoulder.


    ‘Out of him, vileness, Mother of darkness,’ commanded Sherazedan, drawing the Mother like snake-venom.  Her smoky substance roiled and shrieked as it poured from Arvendahl’s nostrils and mouth. ‘As you seek a host, be prisoned with me, trapped in the space between worlds, for all time.’


    The Mother’s foul remnant sank into the demi-god, then vanished away like a pebble thrown in a well.  Released from possession, Arvendahl would have fallen had the elf-lord not held him.


    ‘True heart-friend and brother,’ said a voice he knew from the hollow absence, from the ragged exit wound left in his mind. ‘I have little time.’


    “<u>No</u>,” said Arvendahl, pulling back enough to gaze into Sherazedan’s face.  “My Lord, no.  Take this form.  I will die for you.  Live again, through me.  Don’t… just… don’t go.  Please.”


    Sherazedan smiled.  No longer disguised as a wizard, his true nature shone forth in fey-light and manna.


    ‘I cannot stay, Falco.  At the core of reality, I am the linchpin for Order and Chaos.  Light and Dark.  I took the place of one that I love as you love me.’


    “I will go there instead, My Lord,” protested the elf.  “Send me and stay.”


    But Sherazedan shook his head.


    ‘You would swiftly be crushed, Falco, and the bonds of reality would then burst asunder.  The boy whose form I have borrowed… once an apprentice… will not survive there much longer.  I must go.  Let him be.  Trust to Fate, my friend.’


    Already, the apparition was fading.


    “My Lord, <u>wait</u>!” shouted Arvendahl, desperate for just a little more time.


    Sherazedan shook his head sadly. Stepped further away, as strong chains became visible behind him.  Chains that reached backward, into a space that made no sense at all.


    ‘It is for now,’ he said…


    “Not forever,” finished Valerian, suddenly hovering miles in the air, over a raging sea, facing Lord Arvendahl.  Terrible chains had unlocked.  Complex, awful machinery had ceased grinding through him… but he was still coughing blood.


    Arvendahl’s beautiful face hardened.  No longer possessed by the Mother, freed of her madness, he saw all that he’d done.  Refusing to shrink from that knowledge, the elf-lord ported himself, Val and Filimar to the deck of the Vancora.  Hurled both young elves like garbage, as far to the stern of his ship as her taffrail permitted.


    Next, His Lordship strode forward, passing kneeling officers and terrified, half-elven crew.  At his snarled order, the bombardment ceased, though nothing else changed.  That cordon of hissing waterspouts, the roaring hurricane eyewall stayed firmly in place.


    Valerian picked himself up off the deck, offering Filno a hand up, as well.  The young Arvendahl’s throat was seared, branded forever by the crush of His Lordship’s fingers and thumb.  Val himself was no better; still spitting blood, still feeling smashed by a weight too heavy for one mere apprentice.


    Filimar caught his eye. Indicating the airship’s distant prow, he signed,


    ‘Must speak lord.’


    Valerian nodded.  Signed back,


    ‘With you.’


    They made their way forward, supporting each other past all of the churning gears, thumping machinery and glowing tanks that studded the deck of an airship.  Battled rain and contrary winds the entire way, for Arvendahl’s shielding did not extend to <u>them</u>.  They alone were torn at and snatched; hair lashing, cloaks streaming, fighting to stay on their feet.


    Facing His Lordship was likely suicide; a disease that might have proved catching.  None of the others aboard would look at either young elf, pretending business elsewhere until Val and Filno had passed.


    His Lordship stood at the forward rail, looking out at the turbulent whirlpool below.  With his back to the two younger elves, he still sensed their approach.  Arvendahl let them come a bit nearer.  Then he pivoted, looking from one to the other, his face a cold mask.


    “You live through no fault of mine, and very much against my will,” he said, not raising his voice, yet clear and distinct through the wind.  “I shall make my peace with the sea-witch, below… or resume the battle, if she will have none of my overtures.  You… I will transport.  You may select the destination.  That far, I will obey my lord’s will, and maintain his truce.  After that, should I see either of you ever again, you will die, in as horrible and drawn-out a manner as I can devise.”


    Filimar lowered his head but did not plead or argue.  He was an exile now, stripped of his rank and his family.  Valerian placed a hand on his heart-friend’s shoulder.  Clenched twice, still meaning: ‘With you.’


    Much of what he’d remembered was fading.  Only Sherazedan’s contact and presence had torn the veil between lives, and that was now gone.  He recalled enough to say,


    “Filno is innocent.  He had nothing to do with what happened before.  The peace and safety of Starloft enclose him, My Lord.  Harm Filimar <u>Tarandahl</u>, and there will be war.  For myself… think what you will.  I remember too little to make much defense, but…”


    He shook his head, fighting a surge of confusion and shame.


    “Whatever I did… however I failed my master… it wasn’t from evil intent.  I…” Couldn’t go on.  Found nothing further to say.


    Filimar placed an arm across Valerian’s shoulders, turning him slightly away from Lord Arvendahl.  His Lordship cared not at all for excuse or apology, and the promised gate had already flared open, right there on Vancora’s foredeck.  A flickering oval of light, it hung between this place and…


    “Karellon,” said Filno, lifting his chin.  “We would travel to Karellon, Mi… Your Lordship.”


    “So be it,” growled Arvendahl, his cold gaze fixed on the distant wind-wall behind them.  “Now, take this trash and begone.”


    “Come, Valno,” whispered Filimar, more in his friend’s thoughts than aloud.


    Together, they turned and stepped through the portal.