FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

*****

Chapter Forty Two

*****

Music swirled in Asterbury's head. An old melody, a sad and mournful song of the lonely desert, a song now stirred and agitated. His tail flicked, and the wind changed. It rustled the leaves and the grass, bent the world to the shape of the sound in his head. Little waves lapped at the bank of the springs in time with the music. The green dragon before him glanced around when the winds shifted back and forth, but he couldn't hear the music. No one else could ever hear the music.

No one but his long dead family.

If he could, he'd share it with Aylaryl someday. Otherwise he'd just keep teaching it to his friends, to carry it on in memory of the one he'd lost.

“D'ya like music, Revaramek?"

“Wh-what?" The dragon curled his neck into an S, confusion swirling in his bronze eyes. His frills sagged. “What does that have to do with-"

“Music." Asterbury waggled his fingers by his head. “I hear it, sometimes. I think I always have, but…it might have started when I tore the sky. Sort of…runs in the family. Just like seeing things that aren't really there. Well, they are there, they're just…" He gave a snarl. It was hard to put his truth into words. “They haven't always happened yet. Or sometimes they're happening in another version of my story. I've…seen all the lives, I think, all the other lives I could have lived. They play out differently, but…one of us always makes the same choice. We can't let go. And it always leads to…" He waved his hand at himself. “This. I try to fix it, but…once the story fractures in two, they both exist. What am I to do, unmake them both?"

Revaramek cocked his head, a low whine escaped him. “Can you…do that?"

The question caught Asterbury off guard. It seemed so simple and yet so direct he couldn't help but laugh it off. “I don't know." He shrugged, and then waved a hand back and forth, conducting the song in his head. The melody slowed, and the wind did the same. “The answer I keep coming back to, for myself, is to find a way to ensure there's a version of me who never has to make that choice. I see that one too, sometimes. That's the one I should have lived, the one they took from me. Where I would have lived a happy…full life. A family, a tribe."

Images sprang to life around him. A laughing urd'thin carrying a pup on his shoulders. Shaping runes were woven into his fur. Another, young pup tugging on his tail, only to be picked by her mother, and carried aloft the same way. They laughed together, and the father sang as they hiked alongside a stream, snaking between dunes. In the distance, more of them sat around a fire, in a little village built beneath the palm trees.

“That's me." Asterbury's voice was fractured whisper. “That's…what I'd be, if they never came. I'm a hero. Not just a hero, but…happy. I lead the tribe, and we're…alive." He gave a bitter snort. “Sounds so foolish when I say it out loud. But that's…that's story I was born into. The happiness I was meant for, that we were meant for." He reached out towards the father carrying the pup, his hand shaking. He could almost feel his soft fur, his loving warmth. How he missed him.

“Now we're just…" His fingers brushed the images, and every urd'thin dissolved into sand, pouring away and vanishing on the winds. “Sand."

“You…you can't take that out on these people." Revaramek lifted his head again, a wall of resolve building behind his eyes, brick by bronze brick. “Everyone who…who hurt you is gone. These people here, now, they're…innocent. No one alive today harmed your people. I think you're just too hurt to understand that."

Just too hurt to understand that.

For a moment, that simple, profound statement set Asterbury back. It was beyond the scope of thought he'd expected from Revaramek, and somewhere deep in his buried heart, Asterbury knew he was right. He glanced away, watched the ripples on the water match the music in his head. For that single moment, stretched nearly to eternity, he considered Revaramek's offer. If Aylaryl would give it all up, then so could he, they could live out their infinite days in peace. Leave the poor wretches to whatever broken world the storytellers made next.

Then the breeze brought with it the smell of ink and blood, and the moment passed.

Asterbury whirled around to the sound of raised voices in the distance, beyond the line of pine trees. People were arguing. He reached a hand towards them, grasped at their stories, their names, their lives. Mirelle's friends. Beka, the girl who grew up with her. Tavaat, the lost va'chaak she'd given a job, and a new life. Maybe Mirelle would make a good councilwoman, after all. The others were soldiers, pawns he paid little attention. A knight, fallen from some children's story. And a familiar bag of bones, still linked by the storyteller's ink and blood so many years later. He lacked their power, but he was wreathed in their bloodline, tied to worlds beyond. He'd passed it on to others here, but his tie was strongest.

Asterbury blinked, and tilted his head back. Red and black tendrils poured into the air, snaking out from Jekk's hands, from his head. They coiled and twisted around the others, writhing about them, unseen. Other lines of blood and ink stretched to the sky, twining together as they rose to the edge of the world, and beyond. The further into the sky they got, the more tattered and frayed they became. An old connection to another story. Asterbury glanced at Revaramek. The colors circled and looped around Revaramek, but did not touch him. They seemed unable to affect him, to grasp him, the way they touched the rest of the story.

How very intriguing.

Asterbury blinked again, and the trails of link and blood were gone. He smiled at the dragon. “Not everyone who hurt us is gone."

He turned towards the trees again, and pushed his hands forward, then stretched them apart. The line of pine trees and ferns parted like curtains being opened. The earth rippled as the trees slid through it. The trunked bent, wobbled and swayed. Then the ground solidified again, the trees were once more straight, and Asterbury glared at an old man in a robe through a gap in the tree line.

“Councilman Jekk!" Asterbury gave him a deep mocking bow. “And you even dressed for the occasion."

“Seemed appropriate." Jekk swallowed hard, tilting his head back, gazing up at the trees Asterbury seperated. The rest of the group behind him scrambled back towards the damaged building. Even the knight in his ridiculous armored seemed awed by what had just happened. “I'm here, now. So let the men you imprisoned go free."

“I wouldn't worry about them." Asterbury took a few steps towards him, his voice rising with every word. “If I was you, I'd be far more worried about myself."

“Leave him alone, Asterbury!" Behind him, Revaramek back to his feet, growling.

“Your timing is terrible, Jekk, but I shouldn't be surprised." He waved at the green dragon. “You see, your benevolent overlord and I were having an actual heart to heart. Or…at least as close as he could get with someone like me."

“Revaramek!" Jekk's voice tightened when he spotted the green dragon slinking out from behind the trees. “You…where's Mirelle? Is she…?"

“She's still alive!" Revaramek curled his tail, tensing up. “She's with the gryphons!"

Confusion twisted the old man's wrinkly face. “What gryphons?"

“It's alright, they're my friends." Revaramek shot a glare at Aylaryl, then glanced back at the old man. “They live with Enora." Anger crept into Revaramek's voice, a flickering flame in the distance. “You know…my friend. The one you banished."

“Enora?" Jekk spat and cursed. “So she is involved in this!"

Asterbury cackled, a little of his usual glee returning. He shouldn't be angry, he should be having fun. This was a victorious moment, after all. “I was going to make that a surprise, but since Revaramek's stepping on my moment, I may as well enjoy it! Yes!" He pumped a fist in the air, then did a little pirouette. “Your old friend Enora is coming to visit, isn't that exciting?"

“What do you mean?"

“She is?" Revaramek sounded as baffled as the old man.

“She's with the heroine, isn't she?" Asterbury strode towards Jekk, smiling. “And I'm sure by now Mirelle's already got them mounted up and on the way to come save…well…" He waved a hand and spun in a circle, only to stop before Revaramek. “You, mostly." Then he twisted around again and stood on his tip toes, snatching up Jekk's wrinkly cheek like a grandmother pinching a pup. “How exciting for you, eh old man? Your old pal Enora, come for a chat, a drink, and a coup!" He shook the man by his cheek, then gave a little gasp. “Oops! Did I spoil that last bit?"

“Let him go, Asterbury!" Revaramek started towards the urd'thin, only for Aylaryl to bound forward and get in his way. “Move, Aylaryl!"

“Why don't you move me, Revaramek?" She hissed at him, crouching down.

“Yes, by all means!" Asterbury released Jekk's cheek and whirled around to watch the two dragons face off. “Have another rumble! By the time Mirelle gets here, she won't have a tavern left. Or a house." He glanced over his shoulder at Beka and Tavaat standing near the knight and his soldiers. They all looked horrified. “Or any friends, if you don't watch where all that fire's going. Oh, I know!" He clasped his hands. “Why don't you have your friends attack Aylaryl, and I'll be so distracted by her injuries, I won't even see you coming to bite my head off!"

Revaramek growled, a sound as full of frustration as threat. He lifted his head and flattened his spines, staring at Asterbury across Aylaryl's wings. “Just let the old man go."

Asterbury clapped his hands a few times. “You know, that's what I think Aylaryl wants to do!" He bounced on his toes a few times, cackling. “From a very high place." Then he whirled on the old man again, his voice a ragged snarl. “You know, like her father."

Jekk staggered back a few paces, and then squared his shoulders, a show of defiance and pride lingering in weary bones. “Is that why you've called me here? To kill me? Go on then."

“So brave, old man." Aylaryl broke away from Revaramek, pain tightening her voice into a taut, silken noose. “I wonder…" She circled him, stalking him like prey, her silver eyes burning into him. “Where will your bravery be when you're falling? My father may have been dead when before he hit the ground…but you won't be."

“That's enough, Aylaryl!" Revaramek followed after her, moving into her path, cutting off her circle. “He didn't kill your father!"

Aylaryl bared her fangs, flaring up her spines. “Did he not, then? Then tell me traitor, who else shall I look too for vengeance? Shall I just take it out on the village itself?"

“No! You shouldn't take it out on anyone!" Revaramek moved again to put himself between Aylaryl and the old man. “What happened is terrible, but doing more terrible things won't change it!"

“You learn that from your stories?" Aylaryl snapped her jaws at him.

As Jekk backed away from the two dragons, Asterbury rubbed his hands together. Oooh, a little chaos always lifted his spirits. “You see, Revaramek doesn't quite understand what it's like." He set a hand on the tip of Aylaryl's tail. She turned towards him, but her snarl died when she saw who was touching her. “He knows the pain of loss, but he doesn't know the pain of having someone taken from you. He lost his mother, but not to murder. So he doesn't understand that feeling, that need to-"

“Stop talking about my mother!" Revaramek surged past Aylaryl, lowering his head till his muzzle was nearly brushing Asterbury's. A real fury burned in his eyes now, roiling bronze flames that weren't there a moment before. “This has nothing to do with her! Terrible things happened to you both, things you didn't deserve! But that's not an excuse to do terrible things to anyone else! And if you neither of you can see that, then you're going to leave me with no choice!"

Aylaryl snorted, flaring a wing to smack the green dragon with it. “No choice to what?"

Revaramek turned his long neck to glare back at her. “Stop you." He pulled his head back, his frills drooping a little. “That…sounded more dramatic in my head."

Aylaryl only laughed at him. “Some hero."

“I am the hero!" Revaramek's voice grew, birthed in the forge of his heart, and hammered into iron by his newfound will. “I saved Mirelle, and I can stop you both! If this is all a story, then it's my story, not yours! And in my stories, the heroes win!"

Asterbury slowly turned around to face the dragon again. “You know, my people have a story. Have a lot of stories, really." He made no grand gestures, no pronouncements, just stared into the dragon's bronzes eyes, seeking his soul. His truth. “The one we used to tell the most is about a true hero. His people…our people…are in danger. He knows if he stands up for them, he will die. But his people will live. And so he does. He saves his people, and his only reward is death. Are you-"

“If you're asking me if I'd die to save this village, the answer is yes." Revaramek lowered his head again, hot breath ruffling Asterbury's fur. “Because I gave my word. I promised to be their hero, and I will be. I will save this village, this world, even if it costs me my life." The dragon's voice trembled, a cold fury roiling, growing. “My mother brought me here not just to save my life, but for this moment, this day, this heroic deed. So don't you ever speak of her again. Because I will make her proud, I will be a hero. So go on. Do you magic. Do your tricks. See if they can stop me. I won't just mangle your arm this time, I will kill you. Whatever the cost."

Silence hung over the land for a moment. Then Asterbury whirled towards Aylaryl, giving Revaramek a grandiose wave. “Wow! You could have had that, Aylaryl! Maybe you shoulda stuck with him, I think he's a keeper!"

Aylaryl shrugged her wings, pawing at the earth with a few unsheathed claws. “He has his moments."

“Indeed he does. I wonder, Jekk." Asterbury turned to the old man again. To his credit, he hadn't run, or retreated to safety with the others. Either he'd decided to face his fate with dignity, or he simply understood the futility of trying to change his ending, now. “Did you know Revaramek was-"

And then Revaramek tried to bite his head off.

Asterbury shot his hands up just in time to get them inside Revaramek's closing jaws. The fingers of one hand wedged between sharp teeth along the dragon's upper jaw. Agony erupted through his other hand as the dragon's teeth punched right through his palm. Asterbury screamed. His arms bent, and the dragon's jaws closed in. With another scream of pain and effort, he pried the dragon's jaws apart before they could reach his head, then snarled and forced them open to nearly arm's length.

No sooner had he done that then he knew the fire was coming. He released the dragon's jaws just as he ducked, and spun away. Fire erupted through the space he'd been only a breath before, singeing only the fur at the end of his tail. In the half second it took the dragon to realize that Asterbury slipped away and turn his head, Asterbury kept moving. He bent the world around him, twisted it and propelled himself into the air. The flames followed as the dragon tracked his movements, but Asterbury was on the back Revaramek's neck in a flash.

In another blink, the urd'thin was at Revaramek's head. He slammed both hands against the dragon's scales, hitting him with force enough to bear his head down to the earth, smashing his jaw against the ground. The rest of the dragon followed, collapsing. He bent the world once more, this time planting a boot between Revaramek's eyes, using the dragon's head to propel himself through the air, and onto Aylaryl's back.

“How do ya like my magic and tricks now, Hero?" Asterbury stood atop Aylaryl as Revaramek groaned, panting. He grasped his wound hand, crying out through grit teeth as he forced bone, tendon, and muscle to knit back together. “Good effort, though." He sucked in a breath. Healing his hand left his whole arm feeling as though he'd poured molten lead into the wound. “I don't blame you for trying. It was Jekk here who interrupted our little chat, anyway. The problem for you is, I can do so much more than parlor tricks."

When his hand was whole again, Asterbury looked it over, smiling. “Yes, you're the hero, but me?" He put his freshly healed hand upon his chest, staining his colorful tunic with the blood that still marked his gray fur. “I'm the ending." He twirled a finger in the air. “We'll circle back around you and I. Try and shake those stars out of your vision. In the meantime, Jekk here knows all about what I can do." His voice dropped into a rumbling snarl, a monster rattling a cage. “Don't you, old man."

“Leave him alone…" Revaramek pushed himself back to his feet, shaking his head. A little blood trickled from his jaws. A bloody print marked his head where Asterbury's ruptured hand struck him. “Get out of here, Jekk!"

“Pack it in, Hero!" Asterbury turned his snarl on the dragon. “I need to have words with this old man, and I've a feeling you might want to hear what he has to say! It's about your swamp, after all!"

A hint of the furious glow went out of Revaramek's eyes. He shook himself again, glanced at Jekk, and then glared up at the urd'thin. “What are you talking about?"

“Your swamp." Asterbury wiped his bloodied hands off on his clothes. “Besides, Jekk's not going anywhere, are you Councilman?"

“Wouldn't do me any good anyway." Jekk's voice hung heavy with resignation.

“No, it wouldn't." Asterbury poked at his hand where the holes had been. “That was unpleasant. Hope I don't get an infection. You dragons have filthy mouths. No offense, Aylaryl."

Jekk held his liver-spotted hands up. “Just...leave the village alone. They don't have anything to do with you, and I. The rest of the council, too, they didn't-"

“How is old Councilman Flippers?" Asterbury parted his fingers into two sets and waggled them. “Bet he's a better swimmer, now."

“What…about…my swamp?" Revaramek's every word came out louder than the first.

“Thought that might get your attention. It's why I came here, you know. To ask Jekk about it." He hopped down from Aylaryl's head, stroked her neck a few times, and then strode towards the confused-looking councilman. “You see, I think Jekk here made it."

“What?" Jekk and Revaramek spoke together, both sounded baffled.

“Maybe not directly." Asterbury jerked his thumb at the dragon, perking his ears. “Did you know where he was from? Is that why you spared him and not the others? In case you'd someday need someone like that? Did ya know he was gonna be the hero?"

Jekk furrowed his brow. “I…I have no idea what you're talking about."

“Oh, I bet you had an inkling. Even if only a subconscious one." He flattened an ear back, wrapping fingers around the hilt of Mirelle Two. “Maybe he reminded you of something you once saw back home, or in some other failed colony. He's not from here any more than you are."

“I gathered that part." Jekk licked his dry lips, glancing at the dragon. “For what it's worth, while I have the chance-"

“Oh no." Asterbury drew his knife and waved it around. “You're not getting a sentimental moment on my watch. Focus, old man, and you too, Hero. Here. Let me show you what I mean." He flicked his fingers, and summoned the codex forth. It flew at Jekk, then came to a dead stop just in front of his face. Asterbury swiped his hand in the air, and the book opened. Pages flew by until it reached the world designation page for Revaramek's swamp. Asterbury's voice was flat, dangerously level. “There. Explain that."

Jekk stared at the page. Confusion washed across his aged face. His lips parted and moved but it took him several breaths to make sound. “I don't understand." He lifted a hand and brushed his fingers across the page. “You…you think I did that?"

“I asked you to explain it." He tightened his grip on his knife.

“Listen to me carefully." Jekk eased the floating book aside. “We didn't do that. It was-"

“Don't you dare say that name." He bared his fangs. “It was you, and your storytellers, and your colonies. You made that happen. Everywhere you went, you brought ruination. Your magic." Asterbury spat the word, his fur bristling across his back. “Your technology, your desperation. You think I don't know why this village doesn't have a name, why no one knows where you came from? It's a history of ruination that repeats every time you travel to a new world. I've seen it, Jekk, I've walked it. So long as your new colony knows how they got there, knows what they once were, sooner or later someone tries it again, and it ruins the world once more. So here, finally, you cut yourselves off from history. You make up stories about kingdoms to the west and you send your warriors and their weaponry away so no one will question where they came from. I'm sure you destroyed your gates, just to be sure…" He waved his hand at Revaramek. “But ya missed one."

“Is that how you came here?" Jekk folded his hands, staring back at Asterbury with a calmness that infuriated him. “Through some gate I didn't know about? It wasn't ours. But…you've seen the codex. I'm sure we're not the only ones to find ourselves here."

“I didn't come through some storyteller gate, old man." Asterbury took a slow step towards him, then another. At his side, Revaramek gave threatening growl, stalking closer again. “You remember the day I solved your riddle?"

“It was never a riddle. It was a rhetorical question. You just…"

“We both know I solved it, Jekk, I won't argue the point. You said you thought I died that day. All the storytellers I come across, they all thought the same thing. But it wasn't my death, it was my transition. That hole I tore in your sky, it was…I was too inexperienced to control it."

“Then…" Jekk swallowed, glancing at the book. “I think you have your answer."

“You think I did that?"

“I don't know." Jekk took a deep breath, his head hanging. “I think one of you did."

Aylaryl slipped up behind Asterbury. She nosed at his cheek. “What's he talking about? What's in the book?"

“You didn't know, did you." Jekk gave a soft, single laugh. “For all your godly power, you didn't know."

“Didn't. Know. What."

“What happened after you were gone."

“Go on, Jekk." Asterbury squeezed his dagger tighter, knuckles popping out against the fur. His whole body shuddered, his every vein tingled with lightning waiting to be unleashed. Little blue sparks fluttered around him. “Enlighten me."

“You still think we ruined that world." Jekk ran his fingers down the page. “It was…well, it hardly matters now why we followed him there. All that matters now is…this." He stretched his hand out, gesturing around the village. “1-N. It finally worked. So yes, we cut ties with all we are. With all you were, or so we thought. It seemed the only way to prevent it from happening all over again. We took the idea from the way you tried to teach one another that the gods would punish you for using your powers too much. So it wouldn't happen again. Here, we just…made sure no one would ever know where we came from, or what we could once do." He took a deep breath, and let out a long, weary sigh. “But this…" He tapped the page. “We didn't do this. We probably deserved it, for…the things we did to you. But in the end, it wasn't us. You tore that sky, Asterbury. You two changed that world, not us."

“No."

“We pushed you to it. No one truly understood just what you two really were."

“No!"

“If they understood, they'd never have pushed you so far."

“NO!" Asterbury screamed the word, crackling blue lightning coiled around him, shot to the sky, and twisted itself into a writhing, furious sphere.

Aylaryl grasped his hand in her big blue paw, pressed her nose to his ear. Her voice soothed him just enough. “Asterbury, focus. Be calm."

“I think it was losing you that…" Jekk nudged the floating book around with a single finger. “Pushed him over the edge…"

“We were happy!" Asterbury shouted. Lightning curled across the length of his dagger. “We were pure! You ruined us! You made us that way!"

“Yes." Jekk closed his eyes, as the book slowly turned before him. “We did. And in your divine retribution, the sky itself sundered. We unleashed the fury and sorrow of a being born to remake the world, and thus it was remade." Jekk turned the book around, and Asterbury glimpsed the numbers of Revaramek's world. 3-D. “Whether it was you, or him, anger, or grief, this is the end result." Same world as his. 3-B, villain. 3-D… “Everyone dies. Your desert washed away, and your world became his."

An image of a black swamp stretched across both pages. An inscription was scrawled across the bottom of it, taken from a story Asterbury knew from a story in an age long past, in a time he called himself something very different. A tale told to warn of the gods' punishment. A story told from father to son.

And so his anguish tore the sky asunder, and birthed the storms that cried a thousand bitter, poisoned tears.

*****

Revaramek stared at the book. The images of the swamp were so familiar. He'd have recognized it in an instant, and yet something small, some tiny niggling thing seemed off. He couldn't place it. The dull, throbbing headache Asterbury's retaliation left him with didn't help. He took a few steps closer, staring at it. He lifted a paw, brushed his pads across the page. Though old, it did not feel brittle. He tried to remember the swamp, tried to remember what was different. But it was so long ago.

“3?" Aylaryl's voice drew his attention. She stared at the same image. “Isn't that…your home?"

Asterbury stared beyond the page. The fire and lightning were gone from his eyes, replaced with a haunted sort of emptiness, an infinite ocean of lonely black ink. The blue sparks whirling around him faded. He dropped the knife. The urd'thin shivered, his knees wobbled. He slumped and Aylaryl snaked a foreleg around him to support him, holding him against her scales.

“Shhh, it's alright, it's alright." She nuzzled his ears, licked his face, then turned her smoldering silver-white glare upon Jekk. “What lies are you putting in his head?"

“I didn't make the book, Dragon." Jekk took a slow breath. “He asked it to show him Revaramek's home, used his power to…" He waved a hand. “Make it obey, and…this is what it showed him."

“But how does it know?" Revaramek turned his eyes to Jekk as well, lifting his ears. “When was this book written, when were these images drawn?"

“I don't know, but it's the most current-"

“They don't know me." Revaramek's spines raised, flaring their golden edges. “They don't know where I'm from."

“No, they don't, but…"

“This water is wrong." The dragon lifted a paw, tracing a single finger pad across the image when he realized why it looked off. He tapped one of the trees. “The water level is off. Maybe there's too much of it? Or not enough…I'm not sure."

Jekk scowled, staring at Asterbury. “That doesn't surprise me. It can only be accurate to the time it was observed. I'm sure this book is out of date now, but…" He glanced over at the codex, furrowing his wrinkled brow. “This is the poison swamp it knows."

“Doesn't matter." Asterbury's voice was a broken whisper. “It's 3. It was my home…now it's…What do I have to get back to now? It's gone…"

Revaramek gave a low, murmuring growl. Part of him almost felt sorry for Asterbury. The urd'thin was slumped against Aylaryl, his face buried against her scales. His gray ears drooped so low they almost hung on his shoulders. His tail was limp. If he hadn't been such a murderous little bastard, Revaramek might have pitied him. He licked his muzzle, supposing a hero could have room in his heart to pity even a monster. Maybe he could put the urd'thin out of his misery while he was in no condition to fight back.

Alyaryl stroked the urd'thin's back, under his cloak. She twisted her head around to glare at Revaramek, silvery eyes narrowed as if she knew what he was thinking. Asterbury might not be ready to stop him, but she certainly was. Perhaps it was just as well. What hero could murder even an enemy when his back was turned?

Something else occurred to Revaramek. He kept himself on guard, watching Aylaryl, even as he asked the urd'thin a question. “I thought Vakaal lived in a desert. In the story Mirelle and I read, that's all there was." He waved his paw. “Desert, and wasteland…" He trailed off when he noticed Jekk was staring at him, opened mouthed. “Why are you looking at me like that?"

“You…you said…" He glanced at the urd'thin. Revaramek did the same. Asterbury hadn't lifted his face from Aylaryl, but his ears were perked again. One hand was balled up into a fist. “Where did you…read that name?" Jekk stepped back when Asterbury's other hand balled up as well.

“From a story!" Revaramek tossed his head, wondering why that seemed so surprising. “In a book. Enora has them. There's four. They're about these urd'thin who live in a desert, on the edge of a wasteland. He says they're all the same story, but they all have a different ending. And they have powers…like his. I mean…I think it's him!"

“How many of them are in that book?" Jekk's voice sounded strange, as if he'd been confronted by something that frightened him and yet he wasn't quite sure why.

“I don't know, we didn't get to read very far into it." Revaramek flicked his tail towards Aylaryl and Asterbury. “They showed up and…things got ugly. But it was mostly about this pup named Vakaal. He was adorable, actually. Made me want to roll down a sand dune!"

A soft laugh escaped Asterbury. He stretched his arm and splayed his paw against Aylaryl, dull black claw tips scratching at her purple scales.

Revaramek cocked his head. “Mostly it was Vakaal, and his father. I think they glimpsed others in the distance, and they had a village."

“They burned it." Asterbury dragged his claws down Alyaryl's side. “Did your dear pappy tell you that part, Jekk? How they burned our village while they hauled us away?"

“I…didn't know much about any of that. I was a child at the time." Jekk swallowed.

“So was Vakaal." Asterbury slowly lifted his head away from the dragon's purple scales. “He was innocent. He was pure. He was loving." He thrust his hand out, and his stolen dagger tumbled through the air into his grasp. “And you ruined all that. You broke him, like you broke his world."

Revaramek flattened his ears. His spines all tingled, flaring up. His belly knotted as he moved to put himself between Jekk and Asterbury. “Why are you talking about him like that? I mean…aren't you…aren't you him?" He glanced back at Jekk. “Isn't that him?"

Jekk stared beyond the dragon to the gray-furred urd'thin in his extravagant, and now blood-stained clothes. “I'm not sure I can tell which one he is, anymore."

Asterbury bared his fangs in a snarling grin, half twisted glee, half horrified confusion. “Neither can I! Not that it matters. I'm Asterbury, now. Lord Asterbury." He took a step towards Jekk, lifting the dagger he'd stolen from Mirelle. Lightning crackled down it. The grass beneath his feet dissolved into sand. “And Lord Asterbury is very upset at you for ruining Vakaal's world!"

“He didn't do that!" Revaramek shifted again, trying to ensure Asterbury couldn't reach Jekk without getting through him first. “If anything, it sounds like you did!" He swept his paw at the sand beneath Asterbury's feet, spreading further across the grass by the moment. “Look what you're doing!"

Asterbury snorted, glancing down. Blue sparks whirled around him. Some of them drifted towards the sky, painting crackling lines across the sunset. The sand beneath his feet grew and stretched. Aylaryl shifted, shaking it from her paws. As the line of dissolving grass reached the nearest spring, all the moss around it withered away. The pots rusted and crumpled. The rocks around the water turned black, and glossy. The water itself darkened, a wave of decay and poison sweeping through the little pond.

“They made us do it!" Asterbury slashed his dagger through the air, lightning trailed in its wake. His voice brought hot winds that blasted Revaramek in the face. The dragon flicked his flight membranes closed. Asterbury jabbed the knife to punctuate his words. Each stab seemed to peirce a hole through existence, leaving behind little glimpses at crystal towers and broken ruins that faded as swift as they'd appeared.

“They cut him apart! Just to make me stronger! Over, and over!" With every word, he jabbed the knife again, cutting another hole in reality. Above him the lightning coalesced into a writhing sphere with a deafening clap of thunder that hurt Revaramek's ears and shattered the last remaining windows in Mirelle's tavern. “For years! And years! They wanted me to fix our world, to fix their world! To breathe life into that which they'd ruined! And it looks like it worked!" He threw a hand towards the codex, a whirlwind of sand caught it and spun it through the air. “You got your new world, and it cost us ours! You got a world made to ensure that you and all those like you could never survive in it!"

“Asterbury!" Aylaryl shouted his name as the winds rose around them. “Asterbury, stop! This isn't what you wanted!"

The sphere of coiled, crackling lightning grew and intensified. Snakes of blue light twisted and rolled against one another, expanding by the moment. Revaramek flattened his ears against the winds pushing outwards from that sphere. Dust and sand swirled all around him. Broken patio furniture in the distance tumbled across the ground. Beka and the others shouted at each other to take cover, and ran into The Cathedral. Aylaryl called Asterbury's name again. Revaramek craned his neck, staring up at the blistering orb. The larger it grew, the more it seemed all the lightning was churning around something, a center point. An emptiness, a yawning chasm waiting to swallow the world. Bits of sand drifted up into the air, spiraling towards the hole in the sky. Bolts of indigo blasted outwards from it, and left searing lines across the sunset.

“Maybe that's what I should do here!" Asterbury screamed at Jekk. “Take away your new world!" Every word was a shockwave rippling around him. “Ruin it like you ruined mine! Cast it all into the poison swamp and watch you-"

Aylaryl surged forward and snatched Asterbury in a foreleg, hoisting him off his feet. “You're losing it!"

“I'm in control!" He snarled at her, even as the world itself seemed to bend around him, as if Revaramek was staring at him through a broken prism.

“No you're not!" Aylaryl twisted around, leaning onto her haunches to point at the growing rift in the sky. “Look! Look!"

Revaramek looked up as well. Now, in the very center of that abyss, beyond the darkness, beyond the lightning, there was light. Only a speck of it, but it pulled at him. Made him feel as if something cold was wrapping around his very existence, readying it to drag him away. The speck of light grew, a hint of some other world beyond the sky. It stirred a memory of his arrival here, of a yawning chasm somehow filled with both darkness and light, heat, and cold, and then a great emptiness, with the smell of burning vellum.

“Not like this, Asterbury!" Aylaryl squeezed the urd'thin against her chest. “This isn't what we wanted! You have to calm down!"

“I am calm!" Asterbury wriggled against her grasp, snarling at Jekk.

“No you aren't!" Aylaryl tightened her grip around him, staring up at the rift. “I don't know how much longer you can control that!"

“Listen to her!" Jekk thrust a bony finger upwards. “You're tearing the sky! You know what's about to happen! Maybe you want that for me, but for you? For her?"

“What's happening?" Revaramek called out to her, flattening back his ears against the gusting winds. He flicked his flight membranes closed as sand blasted him. He took a few steps closer. “What's going on?"

“It's a…" Jekk flailed his hand, covering his face with a robed sleeve to protect it against the swirling sands. “It's a gate! It's an uncontrolled gate! He's lost control of his powers, he'll tear this apart!"

“I have not!" Asterbury screamed his words, and lightning blasted across the ground in snaking arcs, charring the sand that stretched beneath him.

“You have!" Aylaryl screamed back at him.

For a single moment, silence settled over the two of them. The purple dragon shifted herself, cupping his muzzle in a paw. She turned him to look at her, her purple head silhouetted against the chasm wreathed in writhing coils of blue and white. He stared at her for a moment. Aylaryl mouthed something Revaramek couldn't hear. Some of the fight went out of the urd'thin. His ears drooped, and he gave a single, barely perceptible nod.

Aylaryl licked his muzzle, then scooped the urd'thin up in her forelegs and leapt from the ground. She beat her wings, ascending into the sky in an instant. Indigo embers trailed in her wake, gashes torn in the sky on either side of her and the passenger clutched in her forepaws. As she flew away from the sphere, lightning stretched towards her, grasping at her tail as if desperate to shackle her to whatever place lay beyond. She broke free of its reach, then ascended past it, higher and higher, and higher still. She rose faster than Revaramek could ever fly, and higher than he'd ever dare take a human or urd'thin. Till at last her purple scales blended into the lilac shades of dusk, and she was gone.

Gradually, breath by breath, the roiling blue-white electricity hovering above them faded. The emptiness within it shrunk. The glimpse of another world past the end of the tunnel vanished. Fluttering sparks fell from it, drifting towards the earth. One of them flashed a glimpse of a barren desert. Another, a vast forest with trees larger than castle towers. The winds died away. The sky healed itself, the glowing lines melted into the lingering beauty of a fading sunset.

Revaramek peered up at the sky. The sun had set, and most of the color had faded, leaving only purple and lavender hues, an old bruise slowly fading into indigo, and darkness. The first few stars of evening sparkled where the sky was darker. Wherever Aylaryl had gone, she was far out of sight.

He took a long, slow, shuddering breath, heartbeat rattling his ribs. “Well…at least we're not dead."

“What the hell just happened?" Jekk hiked up his robe, stepping over patches of sand where Mirelle's grass had once been.

Revaramek blinked and arched his neck, peering down at the old man. “You're asking me?"

“Was more of a rhetorical question." The councilman crouched down and scooped up a handful of sand. He let it run through his fingers. “I was…sure he'd come here to kill me."

“Don't worry, I'm sure he'll be back." Revaramek flattened his ears, snarling. “How the hell can I possibly beat something like that?"

“I don't know." Jekk dug his fingers back into the sand, then rose up, staring at it as it poured back to the ground. “He's losing control, I think."

“That's what Aylaryl kept saying before. That's the second time I've seen him do that…" Revaramek opened a wing, swept it in a broad circle in the air. “Lightning sphere thing. The first time it happened was previous time I tried to kill him today." A memory of a knife at his eye made him shiver, his scales clicking. His belly wrenched. “Ugh…good thing I already puked or I might do it again."

Jekk made a distasteful face, then crooked a finger at the sky. “You saw that happen before?"

“Yes." Revaramek licked his nose, swallowing. “I tried to incinerate him, and he leapt through the flame like it wasn't even there. Made the earth quake, turned Enora's meadow into sand, put a knife to my eye. But what really seemed to frighten Aylaryl was that…sphere. It wasn't as big then, she calmed him faster, but…"

He gazed up at the sky, growing darker by the moment. The moon had not yet risen. “This time it was worse, and Aylaryl seemed to know what was happening. She went so high, so fast, he must have been propelling her again. I wouldn't take someone that high. The air gets thin. Maybe…maybe she wanted him to pass out, before he went too far."

“Cutting it awfully close." Jekk turned a slow circle, taking in the miniature desert and poisoned spring Asterbury left in his wake.

Revaramek gave a low, rumbling growl. “You seem to know an awful lot about what's happening. And I'm already sick of being kept in the dark. So, old man." Revaramek tapped a single, unsheathed claw against Jekk's chest, pressing his muzzle to the man's face. “Start talking."