Ace of Days
The kardakan roared in his face but his vision was clouded by crimson and there was no fear. He drove the sword in under the beast's jaw, panting. Screaming, it died.
Then, she died.
His mother poured tea for him as he sat at the big table. The burnished mahogany glimmered in the morning sun and through the window beyond his mother's left shoulder, he could see faerys playing with the kardakan as his older sister looked on. His sister's pony stamped its foot impatiently and its eyes burned like fire.
His tea was cold again, he realized, and his mother was looking at him pointedly. "We have found a master for you," she said, and her voice was as chilly as his tea. It was his own fault, just as the tea was.
"Will he teach me to save the faery?" he asked, and wondered why.
His mother said, "His other students will come for you tomorrow at half past two. You will pack promptly, with the housekeeper's assistance." The glass window shattered behind his mother, and one of the faerys stumbled in, bleeding. His sister was on her pony and it left hoof prints of silver blood as it clopped in through the crumbling wall.
His mother said, "He is kind enough to allow you to visit for the summer solstice."
The kardakan charged through the wall and its horn impaled the stumbling faery. Snorting, its hooves splintering the wooden floors as acid tears ran in grooves down its gray cheeks, it lifted the faery overhead.
His mother said, "You will learn respect there, and proper control. I will expect letters every month. Your master will keep me appraised of any misbehavior."
The teacup in his hand shattered and he looked down. Frozen chunks of tea, and porcelain rimmed with frost scattered across the table. He could hear the flight of faerys screaming.
"Meilyr!" his mother said sharply. "Are you daydreaming again? Pay attention when I speak to you!"
The impaled faery died.
Meilyr stood on the highest parapets of the flying city. The ground far below was a patchwork of green and sapphire, umber and crimson, all seen through the scattered lace veil of the racing clouds. The faery leaned on the railing beside him.
"I thought I'd never come home," the faery said. From the city below rose the musical communication of flights at work and play. She sounded sad, though.
"I thought you'd be happier," he said.
She moved restlessly beside him, barely half his height. Then she was crouching on the railing, fingers and toes curled around the white stone. "I wanted to come home."
Impatiently, he said, "I've brought you home. What's wrong now?"
She spread her wings. They were ragged tatters of color; one of the four was torn out entirely and the flesh was raw and oozing. Looking over her shoulder, her compound eyes dull, she whispered, "I can't stay here. It's coming." She stepped off the railing.
There was a slow and awful crunch, and a jolt that made the flying city ring like a thousand bells. Among the shivering towers, the faery fell to the streets far below.
Then, she died.
The seer's hut had been built over a four-day summer solstice. Sprigs of lavender and rosemary hung in the corners, and ilthain framed the door. The table was engraved with the runeboard, but there were no runes today.
The seer laid out the triumph cards for him, one by one, filling the circle. She tapped each card with a long fingernail after she laid it down, and named it. "The Shepherd is your nature. The Hunter is your name. The Ace of Days is your desire. The Twin of Nights…" She frowned, and dealt two more cards on top of the Twin of Nights, obscuring the image of the two shadowy figures facing away from each other. "The Ace of Nights, and the King of Beasts, they're what you do not expect. The Soldier of Nights is what awaits you. Windborn Sister is what you must do. The Gatekeeper punishes failure. The Carousel rewards success."
She looked up at him, frowning. Meilyr stared at the cards. Laying two white fingers across the Ace of Nights and the King of Beasts, she said, "Something terrible is waiting, where you can not see it. The Soldier of Nights is all alone, the victim of terror." She looked up at him again, with her dark eyes. "Death comes before dawn. Find her quickly."
Meilyr left his horse behind and approached the kardakan's cave on foot, walking carefully among the twigs and leaves on the forest floor. The trees thinned as he approached the rocky mound where the monster made its home, and he could easily pick out its trail. He could see the clear space around the kardakan's cave, where it had long ago knocked down and dragged away any greenery. He did not enter the clearing, not yet.
In the near distance, off to the north, he could hear faint music, as of a soprano chorus. He moved closer, circling into the forest again, until he found their camp. A flight of faerys, eight in all, was making dinner over a campfire. He watched them through their meal, moving lightly behind a tree as one went scavenging for more firewood. He could not understand their language, did not have the sense of color or the sense of smell to ever learn more than the basics. But they were there for the kardakan, just as he was, of that he was certain. Why, he could not guess. He would kill the beast, claim his payment from the lordling that hired him, but what could they want?
As the sun set, he stepped out from his hiding place, crunching a pinecone beneath his foot as he did. The flight's music vanished as, moving with one mind, they all leapt into the air even as they turned to face him. Each had two pairs of wings, rounded membranes splashed with a riot of slowly moving colors that seemed to grow as they caught the sky.
He stood very still, barely breathing, as he waited for them to look him over. His weapons were safely sheathed, his hands open and loose at his sides. He watched the colors of their wings as they settled on the branches of nearby trees, gripping with their fingers and bare toes. The colors moved with no pattern he could understand, spots of crimson and peach blossoming in a corner and spreading to meet a flood of azure from the juncture of wing and body, or orange and white moving around each other in a slow spiral dance, or green and blue merging into a peculiar shade that made him think of the sea.
The wind shifted, and the scent of ginger brushed his nostrils. The largest of the faerys-the queen, he assumed-snapped her wings, and a small faery hopped off her branch and cautiously approached him. When they spoke human tongues, their voices were high, reedy and oddly atonal. "Greetings, wanderer. Are you here for the kardakan?"
"Yes," he said pleasantly. "I have been hired by Lord Helir to eliminate the beast."
The little faery gazed up at him, her compound eyes glowing blue-black. "We are interested in the kardakan's den."
He hadn't expected them to be treasure hunters. It didn't fit, somehow. "My payment has been negotiated without consideration for the kardakan's den." He hesitated and then added, "The kardakan isn't particularly known for having a treasure collection."
The faery hopped backwards a step and smiled at him. As alien as their eyes were, the expression was familiar as a smile seen on a human, even if their teeth were serrated, unbroken ridges. "We know. My name is Carillon's Crimson. Would you share our fire with us?"
The queen came forward and bowed to him gravely. Her hair was green, and as smooth as feathers against her scalp. "I am Carillon. Maybe we can help each other."
In the distance, the kardakan roared. It was only twilight, but already it was moving. She didn't seem to notice, moving to sit at the fire as if he were following her. "I agree," she said, and he heard the echo of his own voice. Working together would be easier for both of us, certainly.
It burst through the trees, broad with muscle. The horn on the tip of its nose was stained red, and the tusks that protruded from its lower jaw were jagged and broken. The scars that marred the thick gray skin were a testament to those who had fought it and failed before. It stood at the edge of the trees for a breath and everything around it seemed as insubstantial as shadows cast on paper. Meilyr was rooted to the ground, just as unreal as everything else.
She was real, though. They were in the kardakan's cave, and she was crouched by a faery skeleton, tugging at it with Crimson, with Copper, with Lavender. It charged, crushing the skeleton, Crimson's leg, and goring Carillon. Tossing its head, it flung her against a wall.
He was frozen, his voice paralyzed in his throat. It looked at him. Then it picked Carillon up in its jaws, and swallowed her.
They played monarchs at a crowded table in a tavern. It was empty save for them, his mother, his sister, his master, Carillon. The seer was the dealer, which made him uneasy, and Crimson and Copper played as a team. Behind the bar, the kardakan moved restlessly. The shutters over the windows were closed against the blackness outside.
Meilyr frowned at his hand. He held the Hunter among his cards, and the Shepherd. Why were there triumphs in a game of monarchs? There were no rules for that. How could anyone win?
Carillon laid out her hand, card by card, each a Knight, and then sat back and closed her eyes. Crimson and Copper giggled, laid out their cards, six Soldiers and the Ace of Days. Meilyr frowned, and took two more cards. The Gatekeeper and the Drowned Maiden jointed the Shield of Days, the Ace of Nights and the two triumphs already there. The Hunter was upside down.
The seer stared at him. His sister sighed loudly, played out her cards, and his mother discarded, one by one. The seer slid two more cards across to him, but he didn't pick them up.
His master stared at him from across the table. Everybody else was gone, drinking in front of the bar.
"I never wanted to be like you," Meilyr said.
"Without me you would have been a monster," his master said. He pushed two crowns into the pile of money at the center of the table.
"I'm a monster now."
"No." His master was calm. "You're a sorcerer. My other students died rather than face that. I thought you were better than that. And yet here you are."
His mother brought him a drink. Clear liquid filled a glass, glowing like moonlight. He picked it up and the coldness burned his hand.
His knuckles tight, he said, "I wanted to be something else, you know."
His master nodded. "You were born what you are. I made you into more. Aren't you going turn over your cards?"
He flipped over the cards. The Windborn Sister, healer dressed in white, looked serenely up at him, and beside her lay the glowing tower of Lightning.
"Drink your future now," said his master encouragingly. At the bar, the kardakan roared and trampled Crimson. Carillon began to scream.
The seer's eyes were as dark as the blackness outside. "Death comes before dawn. It comes with the darkness. Catch her before it's too late."
Elemental Primer of Monstrous Beasts
by Machabe kin Taledal
pp 118
The kardakan, also known as the deerslayer, is a terrifying beast most commonly found in rocky woodlands. It makes its home in clearings, building a cave by rolling rocks together or pushing down trees if no natural caves exist. It is often said to be a spontaneously generated creature, appearing where woodlands are bordered by civilization. If it has a standard life cycle, it is presently a mystery, for no more than a single kardakan is ever found in a woodland.
Although one might believe the kardakan is a forest protector like dryads, this would be an incorrect assumption. It is popularly known as a deerslayer for its brutal, senseless killings of the local wildlife in a woodland. It is omnivorous and will stalk and kill humans as readily as it will deer. Other than its uncanny ability to find humans lost in its territory, it displays no particular intelligence. While it is a fearsome monster than can devastate a woodland ecosystem, an organized and well-planned assault is quite capable of killing the kardakan.
The kardakan is historically associated with death of more than one kind. Villagers and woodsmen tell tales that the kardakan kills the bodies but eats the souls of its victims, and say that when a kardakan dies, it always kills as well, and new kardakans come from the tortured soul of its final victim. Evidence to support this is fractured at best; at least one necromantic experiment is on record as proof that the spirits of the kardakan's victims are in no different shape than the souls of any other recently deceased person. However, analysis of ancient bestiaries indicates the existence of kardakans of greater malevolence and magic than the current variety. Many scholars speculate that the hazard battling a kardakan represents rises and falls with the swell of the elemental flows, and point to the legends of the soul-eating kardakan as evidence of the Cycle of Ages theory. Only the most potent of magic is capable of erasing a soul. Have you considered the ramifications of encountering such, Meilyr? Indeed, have you considered the ramifications of your own choices in this matter? Surely you would be better off reporting the statements of the flight of faerys to your master and other educated individuals.
Death comes before dawn. It comes with the darkness. It has her already.
He was in a field of clover. A girl with dark, curly hair tumbling down her back floated across from him, her bare feet just brushing the tops of the clover, clad only in a white shift. She looked at him curiously, and said, "What are you doing?"
"I don't know," he said, and was surprised by the sound of his own voice. He looked around. "I've never seen this place before."
"Oh," she said. "This is my place. I brought you here." She tilted her head to one side and studied him. "Are you dead? You will be soon, I think. It surrounds you."
"I hope to live," he said politely. "Have you seen a great gray beast around here? Or a faery?"
"They're with you," she said, just as politely. He couldn't prevent himself from looking around, and over his shoulder, even as she continued. "You won't be able to see them, I imagine."
"Why not?"
"They're in your dreams," she explained, and drifted closer. "I see other things, too. A fountain elemental. A dog. Your sister."
He frowned. "I'm looking for a soul."
She pulled her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them, her shift still trailing below her. "You're all tangled up. I can see the threads…" She paused for a moment, staring at him, and then reached out a hand to brush the air near him. Something quivered inside him, like the ache of a struck bell. "Would you like me to help you?" She reached out to take his hand.
They were in the tavern, playing cards. The seer was the dealer, and his mother and sister sat on either side of her. His master sat beside his mother, and Carillon sat beside his sister. The flight of faerys sprawled on the floor around them.
The seer laid the cards out, one by one, in front of him. "Three times, and after, all is lies." She laid down the first card. "The Warden, protecting, is your nature. The Halfling, all alone, is the name you give yourself. The General of Souls represents your search for something impossible." Her eyes were black, rim to rim. "The Twin of Flowers, and again, the unexpected is twinned." She flipped the cards off the deck. "The Dog, truest companion, and Seduction."
The dark-haired girl placed a drink at his hand. She was dressed as a barmaid, and the drink she gave him was clear, shimmering, and cold enough to burn. She whispered in his ear, "You want this. I don't know why." Her breath on his ear made him tremble, and the seer raised her eyebrows and then looked down at the cards again. "The Soldier of Nights, truest pain, is yet to come. The Seeker represents your path forward. The Gatekeeper punishes failure." Her eyebrows rose in surprise again. "The Sword of Flowers rewards success."
Meilyr's fingers tightened around the drink and he stared at it. Then the frozen glass crumbled in his hand and liquid ice spilled across his flesh.
"What about your sister?" the dark-haired girl said. She sat beside him at the big table as his mother gave him instructions for how to behave away from home. Over his mother's shoulder, he could see his older sister outside, sitting astride her pony. "Why do you keep coming here?"
"I don't want to go," he told his mother.
"You will do as you are told," his mother said, her face severe. The kardakan stood behind her, blocking his view of his sister.
He turned to the dark-haired girl. Her hair was up in ribbons. "I don't want to go," he repeated.
"You want to save the faery," she told him gently. "You can't do that here." She reached out and took his hand.
The dark-haired girl sat on the fountain edge, swinging her feet. The fountain was ancient stone, crumbling at the edges, and water trickled from the mouth of a roaring stone lion on the other side. In the center of the fountain, a pinnacle of alabaster stone was wrapped in wilted ivy. The forest that surrounded the fountain was nearly impenetrable. "This is a nice place," the girl said. "Why are we here?"
Meilyr sank to his knees, staring at the fountain. "My blood isn't red," he told the dark-haired girl, and she tilted her head towards him attentively. "It's silver. I'm a sorcerer. You drink something, and if you survive, you're a sorcerer. It's the concentrated essence of magical spirits. The soul."
There was a wound on his side where the kardakan had gored him. He touched the wound, showed his hand, dripping with shimmering liquid to the girl. "I didn't want her to die. I want to save her." The blood dripped into the basin of the fountain.
The trickles from the spire and the lion's mouth both surged and water began to fill the basin. "Can sorcerers bring back the dead?" the dark-haired girl asked. Dead ivy swirled in the rushing, foaming water.
"Nobody can, really," he said.
"You'll die trying, then," the dark-haired girl said.
When the basin was full, a woman carved of water rose from the surface. Her eyes, from rim to rim, were black. She said, "Death comes before dawn," and held out her hand. "Now, Meilyr. Come here."
The dark-haired girl looked very sad as he stepped past her onto the edge of the fountain, but he was helpless to stop himself from taking the hand of the woman carved of water. She pulled him close, under the spray of the pinnacle, and kissed him.
He was alone.
Meilyr.
But he was still alone.
There was darkness.
Meilyr.
There was nothing at all.
Meilyr.
He could heal after he drank the soul of the elemental. But there was nothing left of the elemental at all. Nothing at all.
Meilyr.
MEILYR.
He floated in blackness. And the blackness filled her eyes, rim to rim.
Now, Meilyr. Now. You will be My hand. The swells rise and the darkest day approaches, but through you I live again. From the depth, I return at your call. From the depth, I send you back. You have found Me, Meilyr. Now find her.
The kardakan roared in his face but his vision was clouded by red and he drove the sword in under the beast's jaw. Screaming, it died, collapsing first to its knees and then to its side.
Around him, the flight of faerys was wailing. Crimson crawled to him, tugged at his leg and pain from his wounded side ripped through him. He clapped a hand over the wound, grunting, and looked down at the faery. She didn't seem wounded.
"She's gone..." Crimson whimpered.
His heart wrenched. "Carillon died?"
Crimson began sobbing. "Not dead. Gone. We can't feel her inside anymore. It's still here, though, we can feel it where she was. Her children, her children…"
Meilyr glanced at the skeleton of a long-dead faery male the flight had been trying to rescue. Some magic they could do with it, some faery technique, and Carillon's flight could have become large and prestigious. "Carillon, Carillon," Crimson keened. The others were making discordant music.
"It?" he queried, his voice trembling. He'd liked Carillon.
"The beast," she shrilled. "The kardakan. It stirs among the eggs."
Meilyr swallowed against his anxiety and moved to examine Carillon's corpse. There was a horrible wound in her side, and her spine had been cracked against the wall. He sat against the cave wall and pulled her into his lap, cradling the tiny body even as the flight crawled to join him. "Kill us," one of them begged. "Before it is born again. Before we belong to it."
He felt a curious lightheadedness. It wasn't fair. It was never fair. It should have died.
He stood up and took Carillon's corpse outside and laid it carefully on the ground in front of the cave. The flight staggered outside, supporting one another. "I have to do something," he told them distantly. "I have to try. I can't just… I have to try. Maybe if it can… I can…" He shook his head and sat down beside Carillon, taking her hand.
Meilyr woke up.
He was curled by Carillon's corpse, and his face was sunburned. The flight had made some attempt to start a fire, but had clearly given up halfway through. Now they huddled on the ground, their eyes empty or faraway. Had only hours passed, or days? It felt like days. He ached all over, and there was a dull pain in his side.
He looked at Carillon's twisted body for a moment. Around him, the flight was stirring with soft noises. He picked up her hand, and whispered, "Live." He could see her shape in the blood and bones of the broken flight, feel their memories of her. He opened himself, letting them fill him, mix in him, until he could see what they saw, and feel the abomination of her spirit devoured by the kardakan. Like wiping tears from a child's face, he smoothed away the soul of the devourer around the spark of her soul. The remnants of the faery queen's soul merged together and he whispered again, "Live."
Beneath his thumb, her pulse thumped. He opened his other hand, and let the blurred fragments of the kardakan's soul scatter to the elements that spawned it.
The little body arched as Carillon's eyes opened abruptly and she dragged in a great gasping breath. "Heal," he said encouragingly, and the wound in her side closed and her spine straightened. Bruises formed and immediately faded. Through it all, she stared blankly past him, drawing in great, heaving breaths.
Silence fell over the flight, but only for a moment. Then Meilyr was surrounded by colors and soprano music as the flight fell on their queen joyfully. He kept hold of her hand, felt her pulse regulate. Her flight snuggled close to her, but he did not let go of her hand. He thought of the future, of the seer and the triumph cards, and the dark-haired girl. He'd found Carillon, but the cards said there was more to come, more to fear.
Finally, Carillon turned her head towards him, her eyes turning to his face from whatever far sight they'd been contemplating, and, very faintly, timidly, she smiled. There was more to come, but that was the future. And so he smiled back. The impossible...
was possible, now.