Manifestation: the Coming Dark/Chapter 14

I clung to Giliara's back tightly as his large expansive wings brought us up into the air. The ride was choppy: Brilhado wings were not set to carry a passenger this way and Giliara has several times asked me to move because I was interfering with the working of his wings.

"The last thing we want is for my wings to cramp or be impeded mid-flight unless you want to spiral down to the ground rapidly," he'd said.

I tried to relax, but my mind was filled with all sorts of dark visions for the future, as it had been since the visit through the portal. Somehow that trip had profoundly altered my outlook for the worse. I had seen with my own eyes the terrible power that servitors of the Uncreator commanded; how could I possibly be deluded enough to think that their next attack?

"Who else knows of this coming force?" Giliara asked pointedly, and, startled, I looked at the back of his head, trying to discern the import of this sudden question. In spite of myself, my mind filled with all sorts of dark possibilities. The words of the necromancer came back to me: 'You who let one of our own, the one you call Giliara, enter.' The implication of this statement weighed on me, though I knew well what had happened. I had been to Neld when the temple of Light was torn open by the Light goddess herself. Yet, the implication still held me, and then worse, far worse, I finally allowed myself to complete my thought. I was the one who let Giliara in, what else had the necromancer said about me?

'You have long served our lord The'Galin, Darin, son of Liam. Your malice has long fed him in the cold and dark. It has long nurtured him while he waited.' The Brilhado had chided mercilessly, and though at first I had been inclined to reject these words out of hand as nonsense, something held me back. They knew my father's name, for one. They knew me. The words they used played on that intimate knowledge.

His next words rang in my mind; they had sealed the deal. 'Your malice, Lord Darin, gave us the strength to summon an army of undead, your plotting and machinations the power to kill that insignificant human king, who made such poor decisions about the division of Drakel and human cultures.' Draynor, I had killed him. This was the gist of their message and, in light of the bald truth, I could do nothing to deny it. For I had plotted against him in my ignorance and hatred and I had fought him with power. Even while I was doing so, the Uncreator advanced his own position.

'Your malice, Darin, marks you like a beacon, and though you pretend to have reformed, indeed, even if you truly have repented of your sins, the mark is already there.' Was I already damned as the Brilhado said? Could I never escape the sins of my dark past? My mind tumbled over this even as the Brilhado's promise continued to play out. At the time, I considered it a threat, but now I recognized a decidedly different character to that odd exchange. I had felt pleasure at the thought of the necromancer's words even in spite of myself. They held some other power even beyond the Cold, a twisting of the human will to bend to them. If I had felt it, others would too.

'..both you and Giliara shall return to your true master's service. Of this you can be assured, for you have served us yet again ... We shall strip you of your venom toward The'Galin. We shall make you loathe purity and light. We shall make you enjoy the stench of your own decaying flesh and revel in the sensation of the millions of crawling maggots swimming thorough your animated corpse. Moreover, your soul shall not be freed. It shall join in the damnation and depravity. But first, between the three of you, we shall get a very accurate map right to the door of K'eld Ner.' Even as the words filtered though my mind, I recognized something else about them: the Brilhado had predicted that Giliara and I would return to The'Galin's service. This implied that we had left it, that something we had done had altered the value of our service to them. Something else too, '...between the three of you we shall get a very accurate map to K'eld Ner.'

Sigarin had said they could already find K'eld Ner. In listening to him as the Cold spelled his doom, I had taken the dwarf's words to mean they had already found it. Yet what if they had not? None in Deren had seen or heard any sign of Brilhado return. Then my very arrival at K'eld Ner could be a trap for them. I was let go rather easily from that world now that I thought of it. That ones with such dark power could not detain me long enough to take me was laughable. Yet if that was the case why would they not have taken me. Once in their service under the control of the foul Cold, wouldn't I happily lead them to K'eld Ner anyway? When I had first come to the city, in the midst of excitement, Jano had taken time the first night as we sipped a bottle of cherry wine and looked at the stars to tell me the story he had heard of the K'eld's creation. The walls were a physical force only, but there existed a much more elaborate corporate magic that prevented hostile forces and idle wanderers from ever seeing the K'eld at all. This, then, was the trick. I was being followed. They could not convert me and then learn where the K'eld was because, while people could be fooled by an act of normality and loyalty, the sensitive Drakel enchantment could not. I myself would be useless in finding the city if converted, for I would be as blind to it as they were. Yet I could be followed! They had not time to use magic to tail me directly, so they must be employing more discrete means, following me at a distance. Using their agents to track my progress. Even as the K'eld loomed into view, I realized the truth: if we flew into the city as we now intended to do, we would provide a clear line of sight to the watching agents. I bent over and whispered into Giliara's ear:

"Fly past, fly past. We are being tailed. Land us in the wilderness beyond the mountain gate."

"What?" Giliara said, confused. "Followed?"

"Just trust me.. Fly over the city. Do not land, fly into the deep wilderness beyond the mountain gate."

"But there is no foot exit from there! What shall we do there?"

"Track our way back to the K'eld in secrecy from behind. We shall lose them in the mountain wilderness and have the door opened from the reverse."

"But they do not open the mountain gate. It's the one wall that is to remain. The loyalists lay beyond it, those who tried to kill the king. We shall surely encounter them!"

"Then we shall counter them as well. Come, we are both communicants of two powerful elemental deities. They are generalists who, out of fear of division, never could gain the benefits of a specialist approach. We can manage ourselves."

"Even so, how can we get them to open the gate? If we take to the air to mount the wall, we shall be seen as easily as if we flew straight in."

"We shall hope that our fly by was noticed; I saw men carting brick from the..."

I though about what I had seen as we approached: Drakel carting brick from the far wall into the countryside. "Did you say it was the only wall that was to remain? What is happening now in the city?"

"Jano has ordered the wall dismantled."

"But why?"

"To tear down the divisions; it is past time for their removal. Here we are, then."

"Right, let us see what lies beyond the mountain gate."