'Your son is beautiful,' he said, voice a bass rumble, his eyes a brilliant blue, shining with affection.
'Thank you,' she said. 'It is good to see you.'
'But the reason why breaks your heart.'
She nodded. Darrick saw her hands clench together.
'I don't understand why anything that happens on Balaia should affect my husband. He has earned the right to peace.'
Sha-Kaan sighed. 'I cannot argue against what you say. You married an exceptional man who is part of an exceptional group. And when the world is in trouble, it calls on such people and expects them to respond. It is the mark of their greatness that they choose to do so, though it is also your misfortune, is it not?'
'There must be someone else now.'
'You must listen to what I have to say. I think you will agree that there is not.'
Darrick saw her shoulders sag as she nodded her head and pulled Jonas to her. Sha-Kaan raised his head a little.
'Approach, all of you,' he said. 'I have no desire to shout.'
Hirad chuckled and led them forwards. 'Your whisper would carry clear across the Southern Ocean, Great Kaan.'
'It gladdens my heart to see you, Hirad Coldheart.'
'And you, Sha. You're looking well.'
'The air of Beshara and the streams of inter-dimensional space are kind to me.' Sha-Kaan shifted. 'How do you like my Klene?'
Hirad gave the chamber, where dragons came to rest and heal in inter-dimensional space, an appraising glance.
'It's a little plainer than your old one. Decorating not finished yet, or something?'
Darrick had to smile. Never in his most vivid dreams had he ever thought to witness a man debating wall coverings with a 120-foot-long dragon. Next to him, The Unknown had also seen the humour in the moment.
'Effectiveness over aesthetics. The shape of the chamber and those grooves in the walls are efficient channels for the healing streams.'
'Oh, right.'
Sha-Kaan rattled phlegm in his throat, the sound echoing in the chamber and startling Jonas who clutched his mother tight.
'But in the fullness of time, we will hang the walls with tapestries, if it bothers you that much.'
'Not for me to say, Sha-Kaan,' said Hirad. 'I just have to be at one end so you can use this thing, I don't necessarily have to look at it.'
'I fear we are straying from the point,' said Sha-Kaan, a hint of irritation in his voice. He looked beyond Hirad to those grouped in front of him. 'I remember the days when I considered all humans except the Dragonene mages to be unworthy of the attention of dragons. Hirad Coldheart changed that assumption and you before me are examples of my folly.
'It makes it all the harder then to ask one more task of you. I am not surprised to see the elves represented by their best. You understand in a way humans do not the link between the living and the dead. Cleress, your presence honours me. Those who were Protectors, I am the happier to be able to gaze upon your faces. And The Raven. My friends. The fears that Hirad expressed to me are well founded. Our position is already desperate. Many will be involved in defence and attack; you will be the spearhead. And for that necessity, my heart is heavy with fear for you.'
'You're selling it well so far,' said Denser.
Sha-Kaan's head snapped round to regard the mage with slitted pupil narrowed.
'Would you rather I lied about the challenge ahead, frail human?' he asked. 'Would you rather begin your journey one-eyed?'
'Not at all,' said Denser. 'But you have to understand that for most of us we had no inkling of any problem until Hirad put to shore. I'm still getting round the shock of it.'
'Then let me explain what has happened.' Sha-Kaan breathed heavily, the air rushing over their heads, sour and sharp. 'Kaan birthings began a little more than two cycles ago, a little less than two years for you. It is a time when our efforts are focused solely on our brood and when the paths of inter-dimensional space are closed to us because the resonance set up by the brood at birth upsets our directional sense. It is the time when the Vestare repair and improve the Klenes.
'But you will understand that it is a time when we are most at risk from attack. The brood has fought in the skies every day of the birthings and the damage we sustain can only be salved by the ministrations of the Vestare. The fight has left us weak but the enemy broods of the Naik and the Skoor have not been able to break us and for that we give thanks. Now we are building our strength again. Our young are strong and, like Jonas, they grow fast and are confident, unafraid.'
He paused, reflective. Darrick searched his face for expression but the mass of scales obscured anything but a tightening of the muscles around his eyes.
'Our joy has been tempered, though, by what we found when the Klenes were opened again and we tried to communicate with our Dragonene partners here on Balaia. Many were simply not there. And those that were, were in a state of such panic their minds were barely coherent. Worse, the Kaan have been attacked in their Klenes by the Arakhe, who are marauding in inter-dimensional space. They are strong and getting stronger and that only happens when they find a new home. That home is here.'
Sha-Kaan's last words hung in the air, resonant and laden with ruin. Darrick felt a chill in his body despite the heat of the chamber. He'd heard all this once already but first-hand from Sha-Kaan made it so appallingly close.
'So the demons have invaded Balaia?' said Denser.
'Yes,' replied Sha-Kaan. 'And they will enslave every man, woman and child in this dimension. Then they will bleed them dry of their souls and when the land is spent, they will move on. They must be stopped.'
'I still don't understand why this affects the dead,' said The Unknown.
'Balaia is a key dimension for the demons and you must understand their nature. They are nomadic. They exist outside the boundaries we understand, taking dimensions where they can to increase their strength and, like I said, moving on when they are spent.
'But Balaia is different. They need it for the long term and that is why they have chosen enslavement rather than massacre. It marks a departure in their nature. A mode of organisation that is worrying to us all. Another reason they need Balaia is the links that both elves and Wesmen have with the spirit dimension. If they can break the will of either race, they believe they will have free access to the dead and all their myriad souls. I believe them to be right. As, I am sure, does Cleress. And the dead are under greater pressure than at any time in their fight against the Arakhe. From what the elves tell us, that much is clear. What do you say, Cleress?'
'It is a future I have seen, though it is uncertain,' said Cleress. 'There is still hope, therefore.'
'So why didn't they attack Calaius or the Wesmen directly?' asked Erienne.
'For two reasons,' said Sha-Kaan. 'They have been waiting for a way in for millennia. Xetesk finally gave them that way in by meddling with powers they did not understand and causing a breach in the fabric of the Balaian dimensional shell. The souls of mages are prized and will give them great strength for battles to come. Second, they are attacking the colleges and the wider east of your country first because if they can remove magic, then none in this dimension have a weapon against them.
'The Brood Kaan, and through us every brood on Beshara, is at risk. The Arakhe are our enemy of eons. We cannot afford to grant them access to our home or they would overwhelm us as they will Balaia.'
'They are that strong?' questioned The Unknown.
Sha-Kaan said nothing. Darrick watched him see everyone digesting the situation as best they could. Darrick couldn't see all their faces but those he could told him they believed. Gods, they had to.
'Xetesk has a great deal to answer for.'
It was a heartbeat before Darrick realised who had said that.
'But no one blames you, Denser,' said Hirad.
'Every Xeteskian mage is to blame, and I am one,' he said. 'We all swore the oath that brought us to Xeteskian magic, we all wanted to see the development of dimensional spells and we all gladly accepted the deal with the demons that brought us the increased mana flow.'
'There will be a reckoning if there still is a Xetesk when the Arakhe are beaten,' rumbled Sha-Kaan. 'Your guilt is natural but Hirad is right. You cannot be to blame for that over which you have no control.'
'It doesn't make me feel any better.'
'Then use your anger,' said Sha-Kaan. 'Fight.'
'But how?' Denser threw up his arms. 'It sounds as if we are already too late.'
'Not yet.' Sha-Kaan shifted again, his claws grinding against the stone floor. Diera shushed Jonas who had become restless.
'Perhaps you should take him back outside,' said The Unknown.
'I need to hear this,' said Diera. 'For me and for him. I have to be able to tell him what happened if you don't ever come back.'
The Unknown looked pained. He drew a hand down her cheek. 'I always come back. I promise you this will be no exception.'
'You promised you would never leave again unless I was with you,' said Diera though there was no accusation in her tone. 'Why did I marry a Raven warrior, eh?'
'We cannot choose who we love,' said Sha-Kaan. 'In that if nothing else, we and you are the same.'
Diera knelt by her boy. 'Will you be good for me and your father? We need you to be quiet just a little longer while Sha-Kaan speaks.'
'Then will he fly away again?' asked Jonas, his bright eyes on his mother. She shrugged.
'I expect so, darling. He can't stay in here all the time.'
'How will he get out?'
'Well,' said Diera. 'He'll probably use the doors like we will.'
Jonas's face held such an expression of doubt that Darrick had to fight back a laugh. In a voice that was meant to be a whisper, the boy said, 'I don't think they're big enough, Mummy.'
It broke the tension at least. All of them laughed hard, Hirad almost doubled over, leaning on The Unknown for support the big man was in no position to give. Sha-Kaan rumbled loud, the sound booming in the chamber, and Cleress had to wipe the tears from her eyes.
'Perceptive for such a nipper, isn't he?' said Hirad.
'You'd better believe it,' said The Unknown. 'Like father like son.'
'He'll get stuck!' shouted Jonas, revelling in his new-found confidence and all the attention. 'But we could pull him out.'
'Calm down now, sweetheart,' said Diera. 'There's a good boy.'
'But he will!' insisted Jonas. 'He will.'
He found himself confronted by Sha-Kaan's muzzle, canted to one side so he could be seen by one enormous eye.
'I do not have to use doors,' the dragon said. 'I will use the pathways of . . .' He paused. 'I will use magic. One day I will show you. But not today.'
Jonas sat down hard on his behind under the force of Sha-Kaan's breath. He was still smiling.
'All right now?' asked Diera. The boy nodded.
'Let us discuss what must be done,' said Sha-Kaan. 'Because the fight for Balaia will be difficult and, like the fight for the spirit dimension, will not be fought here, not by The Raven at least. And then I will prove to you all that Jonas was right. But while I cannot fit through the doors, I can poke out my head and look again on this beautiful island.'
They ate outside that night. A breeze kept the air fresh and the tide was sending waves onto the southern coast, the sound comforting, bringing them all back to reality, at least for the time being.
They set up tables along the southern cliff edge so that they could see out across the expanse of ocean while the sun dipped down in the west, sending spectacular reds across the water. With a lamb gently turning on the spit and the young wine flowing, The Raven talked about everything but that which was to come. Around them, the elves and the former Protectors were relatively quiet but they listened intently, interjecting when they could.
When Jonas complained once too often, Diera took him to his bed. Hirad turned to The Unknown as soon as she was out of earshot.
'You could stay, Unknown,' he said. 'Look at her. Her heart is broken but she can still smile and laugh. But we're going to have to go and what then?'
The Unknown's eyes shined in the moonlight as he watched his wife walk away up to the house.
'You know I can't stay,' he said. 'But thank you for the offer, even though you didn't really mean it. I always said I would fight for the world in which my family could grow up in peace. I thought that here, and eventually back on Balaia, I had achieved that. But now it is clear that there is still one more enemy to be beaten and I will be there to do my part for Diera, for Jonas and for The Raven. This isn't going to be anything but personal for me and I think we'll all work better if we feel the same way.'
'The Raven never work apart,' added Thraun. 'And what good would any of us feel if we didn't join the fight and that fight failed? We would die just as surely.'
'Myriell once spoke to you, didn't she?' said Cleress. 'About the One magic and why it must survive?'
Hirad turned his head to see the Al-Drechar looking at him and The Unknown, her eyes as strong as ever, burning with the barely suppressed energy of the One.
'She did,' said Hirad. 'After we'd beaten off the Dordovans from Herendeneth, if I recall correctly.'
'You do,' said The Unknown.
'But you probably don't remember what she said. She knew even then as we all did that there was a threat coming to Balaia and, we feared, to other dimensions. She told you that the One had to survive because it would be a potent weapon in the fight to come, whatever form it took. That time has arrived. The world will be grateful you kept your side of the bargain and that Erienne still lives.'
'Thanks for keeping the pressure off me, Cleress,' said Erienne.
'Ah, but you must understand what you can bring that no one else can,' she said. 'Yours is a magic that doesn't rely solely on mana for creation. It is one of the reasons the demons will want you gone. They will fear you as they will fear all The Raven because your belief, not just your power, makes you dangerous. Sha-Kaan sees it or he would not have involved you.'
'But it's not as if I can create extra devastation at will and forever,' protested Erienne. 'I get tired too and if Sha-Kaan is right, there's one hell of a lot of demons out there.'
'Think, child,' said Cleress. 'Remember what we learned so recently? How easy it is to strip one element from the target area? Mana is one element.'
The silence around the table grew ever more knowing and, slowly, a smile spread across Erienne's face.
'We have a couple of days before the tides will be right,' said Cleress. 'You and I have a lot of work to do.'
'Better pass me the meat and wine, then,' said Erienne. 'Looks like I'm going to need all the strength I can get.'
Chapter 13.
It was dawn when it happened. Damp and chilly with low, brooding cloud. An altogether fitting atmosphere for the state of Xetesk. Later, Dystran would see the fortune of the weather front but first sight had simply depressed him.
It was the day they had identified for the raid on the library. Dystran was contemplating the task ahead when shapes began dropping out of the cloud. At first he assumed them to be more demons. But the clarion calls, gale of noise and thrash of action from the streets told him instantly that they were anything but.