“Yes, Councillor. I suppose you could go through Death’s Gate.” Alfred wasn’t being very helpful, but he couldn’t think of anything else to say.
“And alert this Patryn tyrant to our presence. No, not yet. We are not strong enough to face him.”
“And yet,” said Orla, “we may not have any choice. Tell Alfred the rest.”
“We must trust him,” said Samah bitterly, “although he does not trust us.” Alfred flushed, stared down at his shoes.
“After the Sundering came a time of chaos. It was a dreadful time,” Samah said, frowning. “We knew there would be suffering and loss of life. We regretted it, but we believed that the greater good to come would make up for it.”
“That is the excuse of all who wage war,” said Alfred in a low voice. Samah paled in anger.
Orla intervened. “What you say is true, Brother. And there were those who argued against it.”
“But what is done is done and that time is long past,” Samah said in stern tones, seeing several of the Council members shift restlessly in their seats.
“The magical forces we unleashed proved far more destructive than we had anticipated. We found, too late, that we could not bring them under control. Many of our people sacrificed their own lives in an attempt to stop the holocaust that swept over the world. To no avail. We could only watch in helpless horror and, when all was ended, do what we could to save those who had managed to survive.
“The creation of the four worlds was successful, as was the imprisonment of our enemies. We took the mensch and brought them to havens of peace and safety. Such a world was Chelestra.
“This world was the one of which we were the proudest. It hangs in the darkness of the universe like a beautiful blue-white jewel. Chelestra is made completely of water. On the outside, it is ice; the chill of the space around it freezes the water solid. Within Chelestra’s heart, we placed a seastar, which warms the water and warms as well the durnai, hibernating, living beings that drift around the seasun. The mensch call them seamoons. It was our intent, after the mensch had lived here many generations and become accustomed to it, that they should move onto these seamoons. We would remain here, on this continent.”
“This isn’t a seamoon?” Alfred looked confused.
“No, we needed something more solid, more stable. Something that more closely resembled the world we left behind. Sky, sun, trees, clouds. This realm rests on a huge formation of solid rock formed in the shape of a chalice. Runes cover its surface with intricate patterns of force both outside the stone and within.
“Inside the cup is a mantle of molten rock, covered by a surface crust not unlike our original world. Here we formed clouds, rivers and valleys, lakes and fertile land. Above all arches the dome of the sky that keeps the sea at bay while letting in the light of the seasun.”
“You mean,” said Alfred, awed, “that we are now surrounded by water?”
“The turquoise blue you see above you that you call sky is not sky as you know it, but water,” said Orla, smiling. “Water that we could share with other worlds, worlds such as Abarrach.” Her smile faded. “We came here, out of despair, hoping to find peace. We found instead death, destruction.”
“We built this city with our magic,” Samah continued. “We brought the mensch to live here. For a time, all went well. Then, creatures appeared, coming up out of the deep. We couldn’t believe what we saw. We, who had made all the animals of all the new worlds, had not made these. They were ugly, horrible to look on. They smelled foul, of decay and putrefaction. The mensch called them dragons, naming them after a mythical beast of the Old World.” Samah’s words created images in the mind. Alfred listened and saw and was carried back with the head of the Council to a far distant time. . . .
. . . Samah stood outside, upon the steps of the Council Chamber, and gazed in anger and frustration down upon the newly made city of Surunan. All around him was beauty, but he took no comfort in it. The beauty, instead, seemed a mockery. Beyond the high, glistening, flower-covered city walls, he heard the voices of the mensch beat against the marble like the pounding of a storm-tossed sea.
“Tell them to return to their homes,” Samah ordered his son, Ramu. “Tell them all will be well.”
“We told them, Father,” Ramu replied. “They refuse.”
“They are frightened,” Orla explained, seeing her husband’s face harden.
“Panicked. You can’t blame them. After all they’ve been through, all they’ve suffered.”
“And what about all we’ve suffered. They never think of that!” Samah returned bitterly.
He was silent long moments, listening to the voices. He could distinguish the races among them: the raucous blaring of the humans, the flutelike laments of the elves, the booming bass of the dwarves. A terrible orchestra that, for the first time in its existence, was playing in concert, instead of each section trying to drown out the other.
“What do they want?” he asked finally.
“They are terrified of these so-called dragons. The people want us to open the gates to our part of the city,” Ramu told him. “They think they will be safer inside our walls.”
“They are just as safe in their own homes!” Samah said. “The same magic protects them.”
“You can’t blame them for not understanding, Father,” Ramu replied scornfully.
“They are like children, frightened by the thunder, who seek the safety of the parents’ bed.”
“Open the gates, then. Let them in. Make room for them where you can and do what you can to keep the damage they cause to a minimum. Make it clear to them that it is only temporary. Tell them that the Council is going out to destroy the monsters and, when this is done, we expect the mensch to return peacefully to their homes. Or as peacefully as can be expected of them,” he added in acerbic tones.
Ramu bowed and went to do his father’s bidding, taking with him the other servitors to assist.
“The dragons have done no great harm,” said Orla. “I am sick of killing. I entreat you, again, Samah, to try to talk with them, find out something about them and what they want. Perhaps we can negotiate—”
“All this you said before the Council, Wife,” Samah interrupted her impatiently. “The Council voted and the decision was made. We did not create these creatures. We have no control over them ...”
“And so they must be destroyed,” Orla concluded coldly.
“The Council has spoken.”
“The vote was not unanimous.”
“I know.” Samah was cold, still angry. “And to keep peace in the Council and in my home, I will talk to these serpents, learn what I can about them. Believe it or not, Wife, I, too, am sick of killing.”
“Thank you, Husband,” Orla said, attempting to slide her arm through his. Samah stiffened, held himself away from her touch.
The Sartan Council of Seven left their walled city for the first time since they had arrived in this new world of their own creation. Joining hands, performing a solemn and graceful dance, the seven sang the runes and called upon the winds of ever-shifting possibility to carry them over the walls of the center city, over the heads of the wailing mensch, to the nearby shores of the sea.
Out in the water, the dragons awaited them. The Sartan looked on them and were appalled. The serpents were huge, their skin wrinkled. They were toothless and old, older than time itself. And they were evil. Fear emanated from the dragons, hatred gleamed in their red-green eyes like angry suns, and shriveled the very hearts of the Sartan, who had seen nothing like it, not even in the eyes of the Patryns, their most bitter enemy.
The sand, which had once been as white and gleaming as crushed marble, was now gray-green, coated by trails of foul-smelling slime. The water, covered with a thick film of oil, washed sluggishly up on the polluted shore. Led by Samah, the Council members formed a line upon the sand. The dragons began to slither and leap and writhe. Churning the seawater, the serpents stirred up great waves, sent them crashing to shore. The spray from the waves fell on the Sartan. The smell was putrid, brought a horrid image. They seemed to be looking into a grave in which lay moldering all the hastily buried victims of sinister crimes, all the rotting corpses of the battlefield, the dead of centuries of violence.