Every single word pouring out of the man`s mouth only served to fuel the fire of uncertainty and anguish within Garthag. His very existence was questioned and the man was asking him the questions he hadn`t had the answers for many years. Why couldn`t he just leave him be? He didn`t want anyone to know, no one had to suffer like he had and he never wanted anyone to even know about his anguish. The spider was still there, desperately trying to pull it`s own weight up to the top, but it was like something stronger was pulling it back. Garthag could not only beg in his own mind for the man to stop and he had come to the realization, that challenging the man had been a mistake.

Stop it, stop it! I won`t have to everything ruined again! Why won`t you let me die in peace?

Garthag`s fingers gripped tighter around the dagger handle, only a quick stab or slash and the deed would be done. Yet killing the man wouldn`t gain him only the wrath of the others, they wouldn`t want him to help them anymore. No, they had their precious dragons back, their loved one`s came back from beyond like that, children of the gods. They hated him, the gods and everyone, he was content with it as long as there was no pity. Yet this man before him, the words and in his eyes, Garthag could see clear pity directed at him. For a moment Garthag struggled with himself whether to stab the man in a streak of vengeance or just to flee, flee the pity.

The trembling in Garthag`s arm grew before there was a metallic sound as the dagger hit the stones of Thyrault. Garthag turned around to once again admire the majesty of the ruins and their former glory in days past. Despite turning around he felt their gazes in his back, all eying and measuring him for the man, who he truly was, broken and confused. What would he do now? The man knew, everyone knew, they had already figured it out, that he was not what he appeared to be.

The webs were finally cut, an invisible force pulled the spider back into the pit and caged it. Finally Garthag could not hear the screaming in his own head, the lies and deceit, that had led him here nor the screams of the past as humans were being burnt alive on a sea of hellfire. Garthag placed his hand against his own face as, if trying to shield his own emotions and trying to stop himself from quietly laughing at the situation. Yet he failed and there was no joy in his laughter, it was filled awkward relief and regret.

Garthag took his time and sighed, trying to gather his mind and concentrated his thoughts. At first a few words came into mind, but he wasn`t able to force them out of his throat. That would have been the words of a liar and his lies had already been undone so he would have to speak the truth. Finally after biting his teeth together Garthag managed to move his mouth.

"Damn you!"

He almost finally forced a suppressed curse out of his throat and turned to gaze at others with his right eye whilst leaving his left side hidden. For a moment he again turned to look at the city, but this time there was no admiring. His eyes were blank and dull just like the dust, that had settled over the city so long ago. For a while the chaos and the whirlwind were gone, everything had settled down and frozen for just a moment. Then the wind picked up and the chaos returned into his eyes along with the sound. The words began to finally come out of his mouth despite his own protests yet it seemed like a.. right thing to do.

".... I... admit it... I have none, not a single reason. I do not... possess a single, justified reason to travel with these people, nor live or die in this cursed world... Everything... they took away everything from me... and I tried to save her... oh I spent years trying to save her, my dear little Lily...

But... she was broken... too broken to grasp onto life, she would have felt like a weight upon me, but I would protected her... I always did, I promised her that I would protect her from everything. That is why I originally gained... power, to protect my little village and her.

Yet was I ever strong enough to stop it from being destroyed and her being take away from me? No, but had I been more vigilant, just kept an eye on my devious master I might have been able to save them. Save them all, I wouldn`t even be here without him, the cause of all my... pain.

Why? Why couldn`t you just let me die being the Garthag everyone hated? Now all you must have is pity, no? How... dare you... ruin everything? My death would have brought no grief to anyone, no one should have known about me. Why can`t you just save them from the pain of knowing me? I am not the person I have been acting like really, but it was easy to become like that by simply adapting the mindset of nothing is connected, not even my past.

No one is connected and there are no bonds, love is a false idea, that will only hurt you and mislead you. That was my guide, a way to survive a life of solitude and even with companions, who themselves were heartless beyond compare. One`s that did not care, the kind that I strove to be in order to protect everyone from the pain of knowing me and from my past.

My only wish was to die alone and forgotten, just like my family and village, just as they will always be. Yet you just had to ruin everything, didn`t you? Just like my old master.

Pathetic."

Garthag spoke or more correctly rambled like a madman, from time to time his voice was normal, but it seemed torn at times as his voice lowered and he paused. Also his hands moved as he stared at them forcibly as he spoke of power and how he was not able to protect his loved ones. Whilst speaking he only once gazed at them and this was at the mention of the name, Lily and at the time he looked especially at Merrin, the chosen of the gods. Lily would have been around her age by then, if she ever had the chance to live as long as Merrin did. Why not her? Why not her village? She should have paid the price, but instead she was mantled as the chosen of the gods and she had proved only pathetic from time to time. She had no faith in herself, unlike Lily.

As Garthag had spoken the final words he made a small slash like move with his hand and turned away from them, to stare at the city, it was like him. Broken and filled with painful memories, false hopes and emptiness.

_________________

Let him curse my name
On these blood stained pages of misery
Let him call me a tyrant so cruel
Let him curse my name, but remember the truth!

Madness. This was madness. Everything - madness. That single word chased itself in circles around Kendath's head as he watched, with morbid fascination, the metamorphosis of a man he thought he'd known for weeks on end.

Meiltha mages were renowned for their hearts, which they made a practice of tossing into flames and watching as they hardened to iron. Sometimes they doused them in a jar of ice, freezing them, then choking them back down after they'd forgotten how to thaw. The initiation rites teemed with these ordeals, pouring them out one after the other, a ceaseless cataract, until the initiates couldn't tell truth from illusion. The Meiltha valued their magic-users. To have a war mage falter in the fire of battle - to have him stop and consider, Is that a thinking, feeling man who I'm about to blast off his dragon? - was fatal. A single hesitation could mean the loss of an entire platoon. Renegade mages never learned from this mistake. Meiltha mages learned never to make it.

Kendath flashed back to the night at the inn, when Garthag had first mentioned his family's murder at his own hands. Meiltha, Kendath had thought, and had left it at that. There had been nothing to explain, nothing to excuse. Since that night, Garthag had become a stereotype, a mindless disciple waiting in line with a hundred other mindless disciples waiting to barter away their souls. Garthag simply was and would always be, unchanging, carved in stone. Kendath had never thought to look for something more, something deeper and... and almost human.

They were all human. Each and every one of them. Himself. Merrin. The Meiltha. Garthag. Even Sage. Why had he ever thought any differently?

The next sound he heard further proved this notion. It was a soft gasp, and it'd come from the shadows of a forest-green hood. Sage was crying. The Druid reached across the gap between Garthag and him as though he could very lightly touch the mage's shoulder. He abruptly withdrew, clutching his staff, tears streaming down his cheeks. "Such anger. Such terrible anger for a single mind to endure. Ah, my child." He tried again to reach across the gap. This time, he succeeded. "You hate it all, don't you? The world, the past, the people you've met. But you hate yourself the most. It's how you feed your pain. I know. I've been there."

His tears streamed faster, but he made no move to wipe them away. "Those who love make their own choices, just like you do. They know the risks. Nothing in life is without risks." He gently squeezed Garthag's shoulder. "Don't you ever miss how it feels like? That feeling... love. How would it feel, Garthag, to be loved again? To live again?"

_________________

An iron hand grasped the sage`s fingers and squeezed them, forcing them to part from Garthag`s shoulder and finally letting them go as soon as the shoulder was once again alone. A bittersweet chuckle escaped Garthag`s lips as the sage had spoken, he spoke such kind words of comfort and knew every twist of the human mind or so he seemed to believe. What the Sage had never anticipated to had been bred deep within Garthag was insanity, hatred and wish to die. Yet in an amusing way it did not distort his mind nor turn him into a monster, quite the opposite, he felt like he was thinking more clearly than ever.

The man had good intentions, of that Garthag had no doubt, but still only the very thought of what he was called made him sicken. He could only wonder at the aftermath of this whole event, but never looked at the others as he was afraid he would come across as weak. That was not what he was like.

"Live? Choices? You... you still disgust me sage, do you believe would have hated myself or anyone else this much, if the one`s I loved had ever had a choice? Where do you believe stems my hatred for your gods? Exactly, it is because the one`s I loved never had a chance, they never had a choice about their deaths! Do you think, that going to sleep at night should be attached with the fear of death? That when you wake up, your room is filled with inextinguishable demon fire, that scorches you to bare bones?

I think not, but at least I have these feelings to say the least... the hate, I can draw strength from it and I do still have it... the other one... but that is mine alone because the one`s, who gave it to me are dead. However don`t you think it`s funny? It might as well have been another village, no? Like the one we visited before coming here, the where Adeila lived at, why not? An ideal little place to raise some hell and the Meiltha did that quite well probably in any case.

I hardly think it has ever been your choice as to what I do with my life... I will.. Nah... No more lying despite how exquisitely good I had become at that... Just leave me be and let me think to myself..."

Garthag walked a distance between himself and the sage, he walked past the other, but never looked at them once. They not have time to waste, they should be on the move already and this old man tried to convince him of things he already knew. He tried to make him confess, but that went against Garthag`s own very nature and he hated being controlled in anyway unless he chose to. He stopped at a comfortable distance to the rest and stared out into the diminishing ruins with an amused, if not hopeful expression on his face.

"And yes... it might just be nice... to know what it felt like again, it still lingers around, haunts me and funny enough I can`t stop it..."

He finally, suddenly whispered to the city, knowing that none of them would hear him yet that was how he was like. Whether the sage understood or not, he didn`t care, it was his role in the course of things and always had been. He had been the strong one, who had never shed tears in front of his family or others, he had been a column supporting others on their feet. It wasn`t because of hate or loneliness like that, it had been because he had been content with his life.

_________________

Let him curse my name
On these blood stained pages of misery
Let him call me a tyrant so cruel
Let him curse my name, but remember the truth!

Just as the sun made its departure, leaving behind traces of crimson and gold in the luminous cloud, Merrin raised her head to see Garthag's eyes rest briefly on her. She'd never known he had a sister. She'd never known anything about Garthag, save that he was cynical and utterly without emotion - and she had assumed there was nothing else to know. Too wrapped up in her own problems, too blind to see that Garthag, even Garthag, was human. What had she lost, that could compare to the tragedy that had marked his life?

Dropping her eyes once more, Merrin pressed her fingers tighter around the tiny silver likeness of a dragon. What had Garthag seen - in the forest, or on that pinnacle of stone set in eternal sea? To make his mask of icy composure, solid as stone, slip and crack to reveal even a glimpse of the man underneath? His family - or the sister he'd lost - and when had she seen that before?

In a forest at night, bordering on the haunts of elves, Kendath had told her of his father, his mother, the tragedies that had made him who he was for so many years. Merrin had felt shame sweep through her - she thought that her road was too hard to walk, when she had a family and hope for the future? She'd whispered, I'm sorry. It hadn't seemed adequate then, and it didn't seem adequate now.

Was there a way to persuade Garthag, even now, that the pain of loss was not interminable? That even from wounds as deep as his, there was healing?

Exchanging a glance with Kendath, Merrin got to her feet. The little square was dark, ragged fragments of curtains hanging motionless in windows that watched her passing with the immortal eyes of years untold. The flush of sunset was gone from Thyrault's white towers, which were beginning to fade to silent silhouettes. He didn't seem to hear her footsteps, though to Merrin's ears they were loud enough.

Looking at the rigid figure, his white robes paler against the darkening backdrop of deep azure, she very nearly reached to touch his shoulder. Then, remembering his reaction when Sage had done the same, Merrin let her hand fall. "Garthag," she said, even that sounding loud in the stillness. "I know...I know you think...I'm naive, and - and a puppet, and pathetic and weak and..."

Everything he'd ever used to tell her what an idiot she was died on her lips. Merrin looked down at the little dragon in her hand. "I know you don't like us," she said, feeling helpless in the face of things she couldn't comprehend, "but you've come this far. With us. And I know it's hard, and - and maybe - maybe at the end of it all, we will all die. Maybe it isn't worth it. Maybe..." She bit her lip, gazing down at the weeds that cracked the cobblestones beneath her feet. "Maybe you'd be an idiot too, to stay."

She didn't know if he was listening. Merrin didn't know if her opinion made any difference, if the silly little Chosen's words were falling on deaf ears. "But you're welcome to," she added softly. "And I think...I think you should. Come with us. There's hope left."

_________________

Gazing into the ruins Garthag thought they had for a while allowed him some respite yet the light steps approaching told Garthag, that something grimmer was to come. For a moment he listened, his world was frozen and not even his breath rasped a bit as his eyes glanced amusement beyond compare. Not you too little puppet, don`t you dare look down on me! For a moment there was anger and bitterness mixed into his eyes, but that faded away for some reason. He himself knew, that what she was saying was complete nonsense partly, mainly because she didn`t realize what he meant by thinking things to himself.

Garthag gazed at her with a rather confused face at first, a hint of insanity and sorrow mixed in his eyes, but even they faded away as he began to speak.

"What... are you blabbering on about?... I am not giving up on this journey, I don`t leave things unfinished because of what might happen along the way. I simply said, that I needed time to think things to myself, that is how I am and will always be. I do not come for your or anyone`s counsel, I make my own and give it to others. And what I have thought of you openly have been lies or half-truths to deceive you, guide you away from the real person.

Before this you must have thought of me as a cold and heartless monster, who didn`t care for anyone and thinking of me as a human was impossible. It was exactly the very goal I had always tried to achieve...

Yet it`s just like you said, I do think you are naive, but I think you give yourself too little credit otherwise. One might look at your accomplishments and laugh, but that person would be blind to the fact how hard such feats have been for one your age or experience. You turned Kendath from being a destructive Meiltha tool to a... well at least a renegade, one might say....

Also you... and your brother have my thanks, odd enough as it may sound. When I met your brother in the woods and told him I was looking for you, he was quite protective of you... that was the first time I even remembered how I had been like myself.... then there was the little village, that faced death and destruction. It was when I began to remember, when I even tried to remember the past or who I had been...

... But I do not believe, that our journey will allow us to chat much longer... I suggest we get going..."

He spoke with a certain ease in his voice as the confusion and anger washed away, there may have been even a hint of admiration in his words as he spoke of what she had achieved. At the end he changed his tone suddenly into a somewhat careless one and threw his hand upwards as some kind of a signal, that they should leave. Garthag gazed away again, only momentarily this time and there was a certain calm about him. For now he hoped for some kind of silence and that this matter would be left alone for a while.

_________________

Let him curse my name
On these blood stained pages of misery
Let him call me a tyrant so cruel
Let him curse my name, but remember the truth!

"He's right. We have to move," said Kendath, who'd approached just in time to catch the last part of Garthag's exchange with Merrin. He squinted at the last tendrils of dusk slipping down the crumbled ramparts of Thyrault's outer walls. Did their enemies still wait beyond those walls? What kind of question was that? Mayor Lyssa's integrity, although commendable, would hardly win her the lives of her villagers. The Meiltha would wait until the end of the world for the precious Chosen. Their dragons would find it more difficult to navigate in the dark, but the disadvantage was mutual.

Gyre. Could she hear his uncertainty? The jade wings felt cool beneath his fingers. No answering voice spilled into his mind. Letting his breath escape with a slump of his shoulders, he turned halfway around toward Sage. Something about the Druid's grief seemed too sacred for outsiders to behold. He coughed and fixed his eyes on the fountain. "You have my thanks as well. Commander Rolan... he... Yeah. Thanks."

The same hand that had touched Garthag's shoulder now rested upon his. "You too, Kendath. Remember what I said to Garthag. Waste not your strength looking over your shoulder. Learn from past mistakes and move on. You have only one path to trod. Every step that you take is a blessing, whether you place faith in the gods or not. Do not idle it away dwelling on the past." He offered Kendath's shoulder a final pat before, smiling broadly, he stepped back and addressed the group as a whole. "Know you your next destination?"

"Beneath the moonstone of a now tainted temple," Kendath quoted, perhaps a little too fast. The lines on the Seeress's stone tablet had etched themselves into his memory.

"Delightful. What does that refer to, pray tell?"

He shrugged.

Sage cocked his head at him. For one who'd dried the tears from his face only minutes before, he had a surprisingly effective stare.

Kendath repeated the shrug. "It could refer to a place a few hours northwest of here, at least by dragonback. It houses a temple renowned for its moonstone floor, believed to be 'graced by divine tears.' I forget the city's name, but I do know the way."

"Go, then," Sage said softly. "And may the gods bless your journey." He waved an arm at Merrin and Kendath. "Let fly your dragons."

Let fly your dragons...? His fingers brushed the flared wings with renewed intensity. The emerald eyes flashed at him a teasing challenge. How many times had Gyre looked at him like that? Dare he hope...? Gyre. Please. Instinctively, knowing that his dragon wanted this more than anything in the world, he tossed the delicate figurine high above his head. It hung in midair for a frozen instant, its jade scales catching the last wisps of dusk, before plunging back down. And as it plummeted, its outstretched wings caught the tiniest breath of a breeze.

Gyre burst into the sky with the roar of a storm that scattered the stalls in the city square and sent their curtains whipping out to the four winds. Up, up, up she shot, and twilight haloed the ribbon of her body and melded her arcing neck with the star-dusted heavens. At last the skies relinquished her, allowing her to settle, wings furled at her sides, on the flagstones beside her rider. She stretched her head toward him.

Kendath tried to voice her name but could choke out nothing through the sudden tightness in his throat. He stumbled forward to throw his arms around his dragon's snout, only to withdraw, startled, as that snout flowed like water through his grasp. Gyre's eyelids lowered. She shook her head.

"It doesn't matter," he breathed, still stroking her snout though the scales rippled like reflections in a pond every time he touched them. Dusk had finally slid over the wall, and the darkness made her seem almost transparent. "You're here. Forgive me - I should never have left you."

Gyre blinked slowly at him. There was nothing to forgive.

The empty flight saddle beckoned. Kendath seized a stirrup and climbed on.

_________________

As Kendath's jade figurine glimmered, expanded, exploded in a rush of wind and what seemed a scattering of stardust into one of the familiar streamlined bodies she knew, Merrin felt her breath catch in her throat and her heart expand painfully. Gyre was real - real enough that, stepping forward, Merrin tingled all over with painful hope.

The tiny detailed scales of the figurine she clutched like a lifeline had imprinted themselves on her palm. Merrin uncurled her hand, brushing fingertips over the spread wings. Once more she looked at the jade shape, and once more down at the tiny silver one in her hand.

She closed her eyes and held it in her outstretched hand, consciousness pounding with Wyvern. Wyvern. Wyvern.

For what seemed eons, she stood poised in the silence, waiting. There was nothing. No majestic roar of wind as wings beat the air, or tickle in her mind that meant she was whole again. Nothing, until the gentlest breath - smelling of pine and new-fallen snow - stirred her hair. Hope made her dare to open her eyes.

Elusive starlight should have glimmered on his scales. Merrin knew she should have felt the rumble when he landed and the snap as wings folded to his sides. The hand she still held out, trembling, was mere inches away from one of the ivory horns that fit her palm so well. Wyvern raised his nose until she was looking into brilliant eyes. "I missed you," she whispered, the simple expression failing utterly to express how she'd longed for him, like her other half had been missing.

The moment lasted just that - a moment. Merrin swallowed, aching to fling her arms around the sinuous neck as far as they could reach. If dragons could smile - beyond the baring of reptilian teeth - Wyvern did. Merrin smiled back, and like in a dream, walked over the broken cobblestones to swing herself into the familiar security of the saddle, with a motion unused but not forgotten.

She gave Adeila a hand up and looked across at Kendath, taking a deep breath.

To fly was better than she remembered.

_________________

Gyre may have wavered in the shadows, but up here, where night and dragon melded as one, the scales beneath Kendath were warm and shimmering with the unified pulse of the firstborn stars. He felt his dragon tense beneath him like a coiled spring, and retained the presence of mind to holler over his shoulder for Garthag to hang on. The next instant, they were shooting straight up, racing with Wyvern, an arrow of glittering green beside another of silver, spearing into a dusk where fluttering shadows pooled around the clouds.

It was all painfully familiar - the wind slamming into his face, the cold biting the exposed skin of his neck and arms. And under him the warmth of his dragon, streaking across the boundaries where day and night collided in a thousand brush strokes of blue and indigo. He flung his hands into the air and tilted his head so that all he could see was the blur of color above him, light and dark, like ceaseless dancers that never stopped whirling. He could have lost himself in that world.

Unfortunately, the real world had a way of dousing him in cold water.

A splash of white in his peripheral vision jerked him around. What the - He just managed to fling himself across the flight saddle a split second before a waterfall or something resembling one roared over his head, spraying him in shards of ice that froze the hair on his neck. What in the abyss? He snapped back up just in time to see a second column of ice water come crackling from the same direction. Gyre swerved in midflight. Kendath grappled with the reins and managed to lurch himself upright. His darting gaze landed smack on something lounging at the base of Thyrault's promontory. A turquoise serpent. Wonderful.

The second jet of ice plunged through Gyre and kept right on going - through her incorporeal form and out the other side. Even from this distance, Kendath could have sworn the sea dragon's eyes nearly popped out of their sockets. The water frothed, and the sinuous creature was gone, vanished into the waves without a splash.

Sea dragon accounted for. Where had Wyvern gone? And what about the Meiltha - ?

No less than four fireballs cracked over Gyre's head. They exploded on impact, and the fireworks made a very pretty sight. Recovering from her dodge, Gyre swerved to face the four Meiltha dragons. She looked at them. They glared at her. She twitched her shoulders in what passed for a shrug, and the next thing both Kendath and Meiltha knew, she was streaking head-on in the opposite direction. The opposite direction in this context meaning a straight line toward the enemy.

"What are you doing?" Kendath shouted, the wind stinging his eyes and whipping his voice to oblivion. Gyre's wings arched back. Her neck extended as she lanced forward, closing the distance... a thousand feet... five hundred feet... The Meiltha dragons, though not much bigger than Gyre, looked equally stubborn and twice as solid.

A hundred feet. And they were free.

Gyre had shot straight past the enemy dragons - shot straight through them - and was now hurtling full speed toward the towering mountain peaks ahead. Dragonfire lit the darkness behind them and erupted just short of her lashing tail. But she, freed from the bounds of her solid body, was fast - much too fast - and soon left the swarm of Meiltha dragons behind.

"Great teamwork, eh?" Kendath said, reaching down to mime a pat on her shoulder. He straightened, still trying to regain his breath, and grinned at the imagining of Gyre's huffy response. Something brushed against his back, startling him. Oh, right. Garthag. "You all right? Hey, there's Wyvern." Gyre had spotted him too and was angling to align herself with the smaller silver.

_________________

When Wyvern's wings snapped out with a crack against the crisp wind and he leveled over the breathtaking panorama below, Merrin found her heart was hammering violently enough to choke breath in her throat. She swallowed it, reveling in the frigid wind and the endless sky sprayed with stars. Elation made her forget that she had no cloak to rebuff the biting air - all Merrin knew was the endless sky and the solid warmth underneath her. She gulped the crystal air as though she'd never breathe again, and tingled with the chill. The ocean, reflecting the spread of sparkling wings above it, turned Wyvern's body to a weightless silver blur.

Laughing with the pure ecstasy of it, she flung her arms out like wings themselves, and became only Merrin Dragonrider. Merrin Dragonrider, the peasant girl who had dreamed of dragons, who had lived for this feeling of weightless joy. There was only one silver streak in the water, and the wings that gave it flight belonged to both dragon and rider.

The mirror of sea shattered, silver breaking, disappearing, and turning to sapphire that thundered from the waves like an earthquake on the open ocean. Merrin felt ice sear past her, and shouted words to Adeila behind her that were spun into fragments on the wind before they even left her lips. Hang on!

Sky and sea and glowing horizon melded to a blur of color as Wyvern banked, did what amounted to a complete flip in midair, and arrowed up almost vertically. Ice chased their tail, snapping like a living thing and clawing for purchase on the scales it couldn't grasp. Back it retreated, into the ocean, muttering threats - but Merrin had already forgotten in favor of something else.

Dragons in semi-formation shrieked their own challenges, circling above while Wyvern flew from the danger below. Merrin had time enough to count - one, two, four, six - and her world dissolved again. Now she was shivering with the impact of ice-filled air as Wyvern rolled and dove to the sea, skimming the crests of the breakers. The slightest downdraft could bury him in the waiting folds of dangerous waves, but this Wyvern thought nothing of downdrafts. Merrin leaned, peering into the water beneath and watching a shadow grow, expand, gain blue scales and a mouth of teeth, and explode to the surface.

But Wyvern was already gone, and Merrin was faintly surprised that he hadn't left something behind him, at the speed they were going. Ahead of them, white-peaked mountains stabbed up into the velvet sky. Dragonfire screened the sight. Three riders plummeted from the left, and three from the right, only to lose their target as easily as an aging cat for an agile mouse. Merrin had enough time to gain an impression of Meiltha forces sprawled like patchwork over the shore below, washing up against Thyrault's walls like waves, and then Wyvern had cleared the city altogether. Once more air whose scent promised winter washed over her, the breath of mountainous behemoths, and Merrin shivered in earnest, all but bursting with a strange rush of delight. Fire licked at their heels, but fire could do nothing, because up here she was invincible.

Merrin shook her head at her own elated folly, but she was smiling. The distance between the two dragons, flying wingtip to wingtip, was too far for words, especially with the muting quality of the wind. That didn't stop Merrin from grinning across at Kendath.

Ahead, the mountains loomed, and promised vague things like moonstone temples and air that seared the lungs. The thoughts left as soon as they came, and as the euphoria quieted to happiness, Merrin realized how tired she was. Sometimes, she had slept in the flight saddle - but this would not be one of those times, not when every second she shared with her dragon was infinitely more precious than a thousand flawless diamonds set in gold. Content to let exhaustion hover on the brink of overwhelming her, Merrin settled in the saddle, determined to make every moment of pleasure count. It had been far, far too long.

_________________

Kendath returned the grin tenfold and settled back in the saddle, letting his shoulders slump and his grip relax on the reins. The wind whistled through the ranks of mountains, like black-cloaked sentinels in the darkness, but Gyre glided effortlessly against them. Her wings brushed peaks helmed in snow and sometimes passed right through them, her ethereal form flickering in and out of shadow. Even so, the saddle beneath him was warm, heated by the dragon's internal furnace. He closed his eyes against the stinging wind. His thoughts drifted.

He dreamed of the Lost Battle. High atop the mountain spur he sat, perched in Gyre's flight saddle, as the forces in the valley below rolled toward each other. The tides collided with a peal of thunder that shook the mountains. Froth spilled forth in a flood of bright, bright crimson, but poured only left and not right - toward the Renegades and not the Meiltha. Except it wasn't the Meiltha - at least not the Meiltha he knew. As the forces slammed into each other once more, a flash of white fire lit half the valley.

Hollow. All hollow. The Meiltha soldiers were not armored men but simply armor, marching forward as one. Renegade blades found cracks in their armor, but there was nothing to pierce, no beating heart to stop. Mindless, thoughtless, they pushed back the Renegade onslaught, and as they raised their swords for the ultimate kill, crimson glowed beneath their visors. Pale, pale white and fiery crimson. Like undeath.

White fire blinked once, briefly, then sputtered and died. Go! Kendath was crying out, spurring Gyre into a downward dive. And they were plunging - no, he was plunging, because the dragon under him had scattered to the starless skies, and he scrabbled the air to halt his fall, but his efforts were feeble, worthless. Faintly, he heard someone call his name in the valley below, but he couldn't hear for the wind roaring in his ears.

It was too late. The ocean of undead welcomed him with open arms.

The oppressive darkness jerked back. Kendath jumped in the flight saddle to the sensation of falling from one nightmare into another, as gray walls of mountains shot up on both sides and a green sea of trees rushed up to meet him. But before the conifers could shadow his vision entirely, he caught a glimpse in the distance of stone towers flecked in white. The towers dropped away, but not before he missed the pennant snapping atop the largest one. A maroon banner. Impossible.

Kendath shook his head. "We can't be there yet. It's hours away. Why did we - "

Gyre twisted her neck around to face him, her gaze locking with his. She pushed her snout close to exhale a phantom breath onto his cheek. A shadow from high overhead smudged her glittering eyes, and he glanced upward to spot the silhouette, black against the forest canopy, of an arched neck, two pounding wings, a writhing tail. Another passed behind it, and another. A dragonrider patrol. Renegade or Meiltha? Gyre's breath was cool against his skin. He already knew.

Seizing the saddle straps, he dismounted and waited for Garthag to do the same. He peered into the towering conifers, but their outstretched branches offered nothing but soft rustles that dislodged flurries of snow. When he turned back to Gyre, the dragon was gone. He picked up the jade figurine and dropped it into his pocket, where it nestled beside the obsidian key.

With the absence of Gyre, the frigid night only seemed to choke him more tightly in its hold. Kendath resisted the urge to wrap his arms around his chest. Instead, he threw out one arm to point in the direction of the gray towers he'd spotted earlier. "The city is that way, guarding the pass to the Wildlands. The Renegades had it before, but now... Well, you saw the banners." He swallowed. "Dey'tarn has a south and north gate. Neither of the paths to the gates offer cover - they'll spot us coming from a mile away. Especially since they know we're here. The only way in is to scale the walls, and I doubt - " He stopped. Was that really the only way in? Now that he thought about it, he did recall...

He cleared his throat. "Sorry, I lied. There is another way. Follow me." Beckoning the others, he started off at a rapid stride through the trees.

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Only when her boots punched through the thin layer of frozen snow, on dismounting, did Merrin realize how cold she was. Instinctively, she wanted to lean against Wyvern's warm flank, but it was as insubstantial as the rest. Hugging herself against the cold, she bitterly regretted the loss of her cloak. The first breath of wintry air, somehow far more chilling now that there was no warm dragon beneath her, stabbed into her lungs like thousands of tiny needles.

Wyvern waited for Adeila to dismount, then turned so that he and Merrin were once more eye to eye. She passed her hand over the place where an ivory horn was, suddenly choking back another sudden sense of loss. Faintly, she smelled pine and new-fallen snow, but this time Merrin wasn't sure if it was Wyvern or not. As what seemed a farewell, he fixed her with one diamond eye, and in it Merrin saw herself.

She hardly knew who it was. The same faintly copper hair framed a face she knew was hers, but the dark circles around her eyes made their blue stand out startlingly. Merrin had never been tall, and always little and slight, but had she really always been that thin? Her shoulders were trembling slightly in the cold, and with a reminder of events she'd forgotten, her side twinged with every chill breath she drew. Had that been only yesterday? Swallowing, clinging to the gaze of that one gentle diamond eye, she put her hands on where his snout would be, and kept them there until all she held was air that sparkled faintly with memories of stardust. The tiny silver dragon lay half-buried in snow. Merrin bent to tuck it into her belt pouch, feeling once again the elusive sadness of being vaguely incomplete.

She turned in time to catch Kendath's words, and before she'd quite comprehended them he'd waved an arm for the other three to follow and started into the trees. Merrin raised her eyes to the sky, nearly black now, and could just glimpse the flush of light against the dark from the lamps of the city she couldn't see. Ah, gods, it was too far away, and she would have given anything just to sleep.

Boots leaving imprints in the crust of snow, she wrapped her arms tighter about herself and hurried to catch up. Any thought that she might be able to make it to the city was gone by the time she reached him. "Kendath -" she started, feeling the rhythm of cold air searing her lungs and escaping, then once more searing, escaping. "Can't we stop? Just...just for a little? It's not - I mean, I know we need to keep going, but..." she trailed off, wondering how she felt so fatigued when he didn't seem to. The cold made her tunic feel as though it were nothing. "I'm so tired," she finished helplessly.

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The whole experience, riding on a dragon once more felt surreal, but an discomforting feeling shadowed it as always. Once he had been able to gaze far and wide at the snowy northlands, that had surrounded the mountain where he had taken up residence with Kalma. Despite the amazing feeling of flight and the view, he had always shared a disliking with those, that had carried him and no doubt the feeling had been mutual. Kalma, like the others, would have wished to have spun around in flight and dropped him off, screaming into his death with ear shattering speed.

However there had always been one obstacle, that had safeguarded his life from that danger. He had been useful to the dragons, who carried him, but never had there been anything at stake than mutual interests. It filled him with a hollow feeling about flying above the lush forests and past the snowy mountain tops with great speed. There was no freedom there for him, not when the doubt and paranoia still tied him onto the ground.

There was a slight comforting feature about their destination as he came to notice as they moved ever northwards, the new pure white snow had began to cover the lands. A thing he didn`t think he would have missed for some reason, but at least it was a sign of home, despite the unpleasant memories attached. Garthag was finally a little bit relieved yet annoyed at the fact, that they had to land before reaching their destination. He quietly eyed the city farther away with the Meiltha banners flying high, making him wonder of how far the Meiltha were willing to go.

Would they try to attack the north? Yet there was no true motive there as the snowy lands hardly held any political importance nor resources to speak of. It was dotted with villages, ever wandering tribes and occasional cities, that did not reach a high limit of population compared to the southern lands. Or was that a reason enough? That life existed in a place as harsh as that, was it all the excuse the Meiltha required to invade it? Hadn`t it been a reason enough for him and Kalma to enslave villages under their service? In any case he might worry of that later despite the unpleasantness of the thoughts, he had more important things to concern himself with, for now.

After Kendath had spoken his mind out loud and apparently recalled another passage, Merrin spoke her mind in turn to express her exhaustion, a feeling Garthag shared with her.

"I concur, the time we have spent `awake` has been quite substantial and despite the safeness of the route we should be on edge once we enter the city. Unless there is a safer place to rest I suggest we use this forest as cover.... if required I can use my magic to make us disappear in order to give us a chance of respite should we come across any patrols."

Garthag said, joining Merrin`s opinion as he himself felt, that a rest was in order after the hardships they had faced as of late. Yet at least his magic could create a field of invisibility, that could protect them from prying eyes. It could also been useful scaling the walls yet as there was a safer way there would be no need of it. It was a mediocre spell, that did not require much strength, or at least it didn`t use to, now had been more careful with his strength as it had diminished.

However the knowledge had never disappeared, the wit nor the intellect behind that power had never gone to waste nor been lost.

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Let him curse my name
On these blood stained pages of misery
Let him call me a tyrant so cruel
Let him curse my name, but remember the truth!

Tired? How could Merrin and Garthag be tired at this hour? Kendath wheeled around to stare at them, bemused. Was he tired too? He stilled for a moment. No. No, not at all tired. He could have marched around the city walls waving banners. He could have plunged into a full-pitched battle hollering for blood. The cold, instead of freezing his veins, pumped them with feverish intensity. He'd never felt more alive.

Once more his gaze cast itself northward. The towers of Dey'tarn, soaring side-by-side with the tallest mountain peaks, jumped to sharp clarity in his mind... as did the Meiltha pennants whipping above the battlements. It had been so long. The city waited.

So did Merrin, he realized belatedly, returning his gaze to earth. She stood beside him, shivering, her arms wrapped around her chest. Kendath took one look at her hunched form and found himself shaking his head. "No. We can't stop here. You might be fine," - he gestured at Garthag's thick robes, then turned back to Merrin - "but you'll freeze to death if you lie down. It's not far - we have to keep - " He stopped, petrified in mid-gesture.

A dagger, gleaming silver against the backdrop of snow, was clutched in his hand. His arm was raised halfway, and the tip of the dagger had aligned itself irrefutably with Merrin's exposed neck.

Kendath withdrew his hand, now shaking so hard that the weapon could have slid right out between his fingers. His knuckles tightened around the handle, then slackened, then tightened again. He began fumbling for its sheath but thought better of it and tossed it into his other hand. He passed it back and forth for a while, letting the repetition instill a mindless pattern into his motions, before throwing his shoulders back and flinging his gaze someplace else. Had anyone seen? Of course they'd seen - were they blind? Looking anywhere but Merrin, he wet his lips. "It's... it's not far. Like I said. Only a few more... a small distance more."

He turned his back to them and resumed his stride, faster, more urgently than before. The dagger still spun back and forth between his hands. He wove in and out among the slender spines of trees - that way - couldn't be, wrong direction again - but there were wolves in these forests, weren't there? He paused to measure the slope of the ground, before launching off again. Yes, there were wolves. At this time of the year - late summer? - well yes, nights were still cold - at this time of the year, they could be famished. And prowling. He might have heard something in the shadows - yes, that was it. A reflex, that was all. A snap of his wrist - paranoia, perhaps.

The pines scattered here to fringe a gorge split by a foaming river. He paused at the edge of the trees to gather his bearings. Follow the gorge. Left or right? Yes, paranoia. Of course. Never mind that - he headed left - never mind that his grip on the dagger and the angle of his elbow were in perfect accordance with a move he'd learned the first day of his Meiltha training. Never mind that. Maybe he had heard something.

After the first few minutes of trudging along the gorge, he too was beginning to feel the frigid wind gnawing at his face and tearing through his tunic. Had he led them the wrong way? Was the place not on this side, but on the other side of the river? The view across the gorge from here struck a familiar chord, but the last time Amrinev had showed him the place had been years and years ago. How much had changed since then?

Absolutely nothing, he concluded, as his roaming eyes landed at last on the red bark of a cedar that far outgrew the rest. At the gigantic base of the tree, where the roots dove into the snow, was slashed the very faint etching of a Renegade sunburst. Kendath circled the tree, his ear plastered to the bark as he knocked on the mighty trunk. Ah. Satisfied, he braced both hands against the trunk and pushed. The bark cracked open, revealing a crevice that sliced straight through the sapwood. Where the heartwood should have been, however, had been hollowed out. The gaping hole in the heart of the tree beckoned them in.

"Squeeze through it," Kendath said, holding the crack in the tree open. Still he refused to glance at Merrin. "Careful on the stairs. There's a torch and some matches at the bottom."

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Merrin's teeth were clenched so hard against the cold that her jaw was beginning to ache with the strain. The shivering had been replaced by a perpetual numbness that crept along her limbs if she wasn't careful to shake it off.

At least, she blamed it on the cold. Her lack of cloak couldn't quite account for how her hands were shaking, or the dryness in her throat. For the umpteenth time - she'd stopped counting - Merrin swallowed and pressed forward, the only warm part of her being her feet in their boots. As the ground began to slope more steeply, she found that keeping up with Kendath became an ordeal to which she very nearly wasn't equal. As her footsteps faltered, she started to follow only the flash of his dark cloak, only a shade paler against the darkness that veiled even the white snow, or hasten when he stopped briefly.

Once, she caught the flash of a dagger in her peripheral vision and stopped dead. Merrin! Snap out of it! What are you afraid of? There are Meiltha pursuing you, Ironlegs, Shadowers - the words they'd learned from the Seeress burst clearly into her head. A portal in three to the citadel of shadow. Merrin's fear was very nearly entirely eclipsed. And you start being afraid of Kendath?

Boots once more punching through the icy crust of snow, Merrin wrapped her arms more tightly around her chest, ignoring the twinge in her still-healing side. For the rest of the trek she kept him firmly in sight.

When they stopped, she caught herself against a tree and gulped air, letting her shoulders tremble with suppressed shivers. Even her feet were beginning to be numb. By sheer willpower, she made it to the behemoth of a redwood that Kendath stood by, and paused for a moment before ducking through the crack.

He wouldn't meet her eyes. Merrin drew breath to speak, but found that words were as forthcoming as the warmth she craved. She waited, silently pleading for him to look at her, glance down and look as though nothing had happened. Because nothing had - right? Nothing had happened? No, it hadn't. She was only imagining. But all the same, if he would only look at her...the darkness made his face difficult to see, lit only by nonexistent starlight as it was. She was moments away from voicing his name through chattering teeth.

Abruptly, Merrin realized Garthag and Adeila were waiting, and lost her nerve. Hardly able to tell whether she was stiff from the cold or tense with worry - and not even knowing what she worried for - she slipped through the door and stumbled down the first few tightly winding stairs.

Dark swallowed everything. The inside was scented faintly with a woody, pine-like smell, and when she put her hands out to steady herself against the tight walls, they met rock braced with cedar supports. She never quite got her bearings on the precarious steps, partly due to clumsiness from the chill, but somehow she reached the bottom and groped for the torch Kendath had mentioned.

It took several tries before a match would even light from her shaking fingers. When she could finally coax the torch into life, Merrin was methodically pressing back the vague beginnings of panic. Fire - need the fire -

Flame flared, valiantly combating the thick darkness, and she sucked in a breath and let it out slowly. There. No reason to panic. "Found the torch," she called up the winding stairs, hearing her voice echo once and fade. It shook, but that was only from the cold.

Only from the cold.

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You guys have no idea how much I wish I could have stayed in this. And how much I wish I could return. Unfortunately, summer plans do not permit it. >_<

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[Your loss ]

Kendath waited until Adeila, then Garthag, had squeezed through the crack before slipping through himself and letting the bark snap shut behind him. It settled into place without even a creak. He stood on the tiny ledge at the top of the stairs for a moment, feeling the smooth interior of the trunk, how seamlessly it had opened and closed. Someone other than themselves had recently used this passage. Renegade or Meiltha? That someone might still be here.

White knuckles still gripped the hilt of his dagger. Best if he kept it there, only as a precaution. Wasn't that why he'd gotten it out in the first place? He lowered his hand, hiding the blade behind his forearm, and began groping along the twisting stairs. Halfway down, orange light flickered ahead and outlined Garthag's dark form in front of him. He reached the bottom, and the first thing he noticed was the water, murky even under the torchlight, trailing deeper into the tunnel. Melted snow. One person, from the tracks. Meiltha sentries would likely move in pairs.

The radius of torchlight wavered and did little to illuminate the passage ahead. Just faintly, though, Kendath could discern its downward slope. He felt the cedar support beams overhead and fought off a fleeting edge of claustrophobia. He'd seen dwarf-built tunnels before, and this wasn't one of them. Nevertheless, if it did collapse and kill them all, at least they'd die warm.

"Sleep," he said to Merrin, reaching out to take the torch. He stuck it back into its rusted wall bracket above his head. Then he too lowered himself onto the damp ground, his back turned to the others. He closed his eyes for a while and listened to the thud of his heartbeat gradually slow.

He didn't know how much time had elapsed when he opened his eyes. A glance over his shoulder told him that his companions were either asleep or paying him no heed. He looked at the weapon clenched in his hand. Deliberately, almost without his consent, he raised it before him. The dagger turned over and over in his fingers. Flames from above tossed thrashing stripes of orange on its blade. His finger traced the winking edge all the way to its tip that tapered to a wicked point.

Paranoia. A precaution. Of course. But when he stared at his reflection in the steel, he saw himself smiling.

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