Unable to answer, she shook her head.
Ignoring her, Tanaros went to his Lord. In the dying light of the marrow-fire, he knelt beside him. The flagstones were hard beneath his knees, tilted askew by the tremors that had shaken Darkhaven. Ichor puddled, soaking his breeches.
“My Lord,” he said tenderly. “What must I do?”
At first there was no response, and he feared it was too late, that his Lordship was gone. And then the Shaper’s head moved, as though his gaze sought the western horizon beyond the stone walls of his Chamber. “Arahila,” he whispered, almost inaudible. “O my sister. What happens to us when we die?”
“My Lord, no!” Tanaros reached, touching the Shaper’s vast breast, pressing the immortal flesh pierced by the glittering dagger, feeling ichor seep beneath his fingers. “Please, my Lord, what must I do to save you?”
Slowly, Satoris lifted one dragging hand, covering Tanaros’, forcing his grip onto the dagger’s burning hilt. “Draw it,” he said with difficulty. “Let it be done.”
Tanaros wept. “My Lord, no!”
In the corner, the Lady Cerelinde made an inarticulate sound.
“So it is not you, my General.” With an effort, the Shaper turned his head. His eyes were dark and clear; clear as a child’s, but far, far older. The red light of rage had faded in them, as though it had been extinguished with the marrow-fire. So they must have looked long ago, before the world was Sundered, when Satoris Third-Born walked in the deep places of the earth and spoke with dragons. His mouth moved in the faintest hint of a smile. “Not you, at the end.”
With a crash, one of the threefold doors at the top of the spiral stair opened; the left-hand door, Ushahin’s door. Even as he entered, wild-eyed, Tanaros was on his feet, the black sword in his hand.
“Dreamspinner,” he said.
“Tanaros,” At the top of the stair, Ushahin swayed and caught himself. “They are at the Gate.” He gazed blankly around the Chamber. “My Lord,” he said, his voice sounding strange and hollow. “Ah, my poor Lord!”
“He yet lives,” Tanaros said roughly. “He bid me draw the dagger and end it.”
Ushahin laughed, a terrible, mirthless sound. It held all the bitterness of his mad, useless knowledge, of the ending he had failed to prevent. “Are you not sworn to obey him in all things, cousin? Are you not Tanaros Blacksword, his loyal General?”
“Aye,” Tanaros said. “But I think this task is yours, Dreamspinner.”
They exchanged a long glance. For a moment, they might have been alone in the Chamber. The Shaper’s words lay unspoken between them. They were of the Three, and some things did not need to be spoken aloud. “And her?” Ushahin asked at length, jerking his head toward Cerelinde. “Whose task is she?”
Tanaros raised his black sword. “Mine.”
“So be it.” Ushahin bowed his head briefly, then sheathed his blade and descended the stair. He crossed the crooked flagstones, dropping to his knees beside the Shaper’s form, laying the leather case containing the broken Helm gently beside him.
“I am here, my Lord,” he murmured. “I am here.”
Sword in hand, Tanaros watched.
In the dusky light, the Shaper’s body seemed wrought of darkness made manifest. Ushahin felt small and fragile beside him, his ill-formed figure a sorry mockery of the Shaper’s fallen splendor; all save his right arm, so beautifully and cruelly remade.
It fell to him, this hardest of tasks. Somehow it seemed he had always known it would. When all was said and done, in some ways his lot had always been the hardest. He had seen the pattern closing upon them. He had spoken with Calanthrag the Eldest. It was fitting. Kneeling on the flagstones, Ushahin leaned close, the ends of his moon-pale hair trailing in pools of black ichor.
“What is your will, my Lord?” he asked.
The Shaper’s lips parted. A terrible clarity was in his eyes, dark and sane, filled with knowledge and compassion. “Take it,” he breathed in reply, his words almost inaudible. “And make an end. The beginning falls to you, Dreamspinner. I give you my blessing.”
Ushahin’s shoulders shook. “Are you certain?”
The Shaper’s eyes closed. “Seek the Delta. You know the way.”
With a curse, Ushahin raised his right hand. It had been Shaped for this task. It was strong and steady. He placed it on the Shard’s crude knob of a hilt. Red light pulsed, shining between his fingers, illuminating his flesh.
It held the power to Shape the world anew, and he did not want it.
Even so, it was his.
“Farewell, my Lord,” Ushahin whispered, and withdrew Godslayer.
Darkness seethed through the Chamber. The Shaper’s form dwindled, vanishing as its essence coalesced slowly into shadow, into smoke, into a drift of obsidian ash. There was no outcry, no trembling of the earth, only a stirring in the air like a long-held sigh released and a profound sense of passage, as though between the space of one heartbeat and the next, the very foundation of existence had shifted.
Quietly, uneventfully, the world was forever changed.
Ushahin climbed to his feet, holding Godslayer. “Your turn, cousin,” he said, hoarse and weary.
Cerelinde wept at the Shaper’s passing.
It did not matter, in the end, who drew forth the dagger. She had killed him. He had stood before her, unarmed, and reached out his hand. She had planted Godslayer in his breast. And Satoris Third-Born had known she would do it. He had allowed it.
She did not understand.
She would never understand.
She watched as Ushahin rose to his feet, uttering his weary words. She saw Tanaros swallow and touch the raised circle of his brand beneath his stained, padded undertunic. Hoisting his black sword, he walked slowly toward her. Standing beneath the shadow of his blade, she made no effort to flee, her tears forging a broad, shining swath down her fair cheeks.
Their eyes met, and his were as haunted as hers. He, too, had sunk a blade into unresisting flesh. He had shed the blood of those he loved, those who had betrayed him. He understood the cost of what she had done.
“I’m sorry,” he said to her. “I’m sorry, Cerelinde.”
“I know.” She gazed at him beneath the black blade’s shadow. “Ah, Tanaros! I did only what I believed was needful.”
“I know,” Tanaros said somberly. “As must I.”
“It won’t matter in the end.” She gave a despairing laugh. “There’s another, you know. His Lordship told me as much. Elterrion had a second daughter, gotten of an illicit union. So he said to me. ‘Somewhere among the Rivenlost, your line continues.’”
Tanaros paused. “And you believed?”
“No,” Cerelinde whispered. “Such things happen seldom, so seldom, among the Ellylon. And yet it was his Gift, when he had one, to know such things.” She shuddered, a shudder as delicate and profound as that of a mortexigus flower shedding its pollen. “I no longer know what to believe. He said that my mother prayed to him ere she died at my birth. Do you believe it was true, Tanaros?”
“Aye,” he said softly. “I do, Cerelinde.”
Ushahin’s voice came, harsh and impatient. “Have done with it, cousin!”
Tanaros shifted his grip on the black sword’s hilt. “The madling was right,” he murmured. “She told me you would break all of our hearts, Lady.” He spoke her name one last time, the word catching in his throat. “Cerelinde.”
She nodded once, then closed her eyes. Whatever else was true, here at the end, she knew that the world was not as it had seemed. Cerelinde lifted her chin, exposing her throat. “Make it swift,” she said, her voice breaking. “Please.”
Tanaros’ upraised arms trembled. His palms were slick with sweat, stinging from the myriad cuts and scrapes he had incurred in his climbing. He was tired, very tired, and it hurt to look at her.