Disclaimer and Author's Note: The setting and characters belong to Anne
Bishop. The plot is mine - or possibly Draca's, since she seems to have
taken up more-or-less permanent residence in my head. Asterisks (*) are
for mental communication, underscores (_) are for italics. First-person
paragraphs are from Draca's perspective, third-person paragraphs aren't. :-
)
Last but not least, this is set *far* in the future of the Black Jewels universe.
Rebirth
I have never been so alone.
The room where I stand is a perfect sphere, a bubble deep within the stone that forms Ebon Askavi. It is lit by witchfire on every side, and utterly empty except for what I carry with me. There is no entrance, no exit; Lorn sealed me in here a short time ago, and withdrew to wait. If I succeed, I will emerge under my own power; if I fail, this chamber will be my tomb. And a well-deserved one.
I feel very small, and more vulnerable than I have since I first awoke in this human body. So much depends on the work of this night, and there is so little to do it with - myself, a double handful of Jewels, and the dusty bundle that lies at my feet. I don't know if I can do this.
I let my thoughts reach out one final time to my Consort, and love and determination flow along the threads that bind us. He cannot help me now, but he'll be waiting for me; if I fail tonight, he will wait for me until the stars fall. I have taken all the help Lorn can give me: a single colorless scale, flickering uneasily in the light of the witchfire. I wish I could have him with me, but this can only be done alone.
In the end, it always comes down to the Queens.
In the end, Saetan was grateful to die. Even a Guardian's body was not meant to live as long as his had done, and his soul was far more weary than the body that housed it.
His family was long dead. Jaenelle, from a short-lived race, lived out her days in mayfly happiness and was simply _gone_. Daemon had lived long enough to see all their children safely settled, and then followed Jaenelle with no fanfare; they found his body lying empty with no sign of struggle or pain. Saetan had wanted to take their Jewels to an Altar, to formally give them back to the Darkness, but he never found Twilight's Dawn or Daemon's Black Jewels. One Red chip remained from Daemon, carrying a heartfelt message of love and regret. "Father, I'm sorry. But I was born to be Witch's lover, and I follow where she leads."
Over millennia, the others passed as well, each in their time and in their own way. Lucivar burned himself out stopping a landslide in the Askavi mountains. The time he bought saved thousands of lives, and Saetan tried to believe they were worth the price. While she lived, Surreal was a comfort to him; she never married, but the flock of winged, elfin children she raised with Falonar didn't seem to feel the lack. Her descendants, and Jaenelle's, still lived in the lands surrounding the Keep.
But descendants weren't enough. Having finally tasted it, he wanted family, and it was centuries since anyone had called him by any name but "High Lord." Too long, too many years, too many people who'd left their imprints on his soul and then died, taking part of him with them.
In the end, it was surprisingly easy to put his affairs in order. The land was well cared for, with a strong network of Queens and Warlord Princes, and there was no one he needed to say goodbye to. At last, he straightened his study and was about to leave it when he stopped, shook his head, and returned to his desk. This was where life had been sweetest, where he had first taught Jaenelle, where the coven and their consorts had breezed in and out, where Surreal had taken refuge on the frequent occasions she'd upset someone. If he was going to go, best to do it here.
He settled into the chair, took one deliberate look around, then closed his eyes and let go.
This will be a battle.
The witchfire creates a thousand dancing shadows around me as I set down the Jewels I carry, treating them as carefully as my own long-vanished eggs. They are not my own; I only hold them in trust.
I kneel in the center of the curving floor, Lorn's single scale between my hands. This is more than Craft, more than a spell; it echoes in every Birthright Ceremony and every Offering the Blood have ever made. This is old, raw magic from the time before we tamed the power with Craft. And it is the only thing that can save me.
There is power all around me: in the stone, in the wind that whips over the mountain far above me, in all the life that flies and runs beyond the mountain. I hold out the scale in my cupped hands and begin to call the power down to me.
May the Darkness be with me.
Darkness folded around Saetan, spiraling him deeper and deeper down. He felt the edges of his Self slowly tattering, fading into a whisper in the Darkness. He tried to surrender to it, but after nearly a hundred millennia, life and thought were hard habits to break.
Then two strong psychic presences wrapped around him, like hands lifting a drowning swimmer. The welcome that poured over him was so intense he would have wept if he could.
*Papa! We've been waiting for you so long!*
*Witch-child?*
Somehow, she pulled him away from that dangerously seductive current down into the Darkness. He couldn't see, he couldn't exactly hear, but the sense of her presence was as strong as if she were standing in front of him, like laying his hands on an intricately woven pattern. *Jaenelle?*
*Of course it's me,* she said grumpily. *I wasn't going to let you get lost.*
Being dead hadn't done a thing to change the effect Jaenelle always had on him; as always, she knocked him off-balance while she cheerfully rewrote all his assumptions. *Witch-child, why are you here? Witch doesn't become demon-dead-*
*She's not demon-dead. And neither are we.* That could only be Daemon, a smooth dark flow of power underlying Jaenelle's intricate pattern. *Where we are, it's - well, not exactly the Darkness. Jaenelle says it's some sort of reward-*
*It's not a reward, it's what happens naturally,* she interrupted. *There are a few who serve the Blood, who honor the Darkness-* She broke off, and Saetan could sense her frustration. *I can _feel_ it, I just can't explain it. Listen. If you live long enough, if you use your power to serve and guard, if you use Craft with your heart and not your mind alone, then you become part of your Jewels. When the body dies, the Self comes here, and the Jewels go elsewhere until they're needed again.*
*So that's why I couldn't find Twilight's Dawn when you-* Even here, his "voice" broke, and Jaenelle's pattern went dim and mournful as she rushed to comfort him.
*Poor Papa. I'm sorry. You know so much, I thought you knew we'd be waiting.*
*You've waited all this time?*
*Time is...different here,* Daemon said. *It's not something you can measure. We thought you might come when Lucivar did-*
*Or Surreal. She yelled at me a lot when she got here.*
*-but nobody really talks about what went before. It's a good place to rest, here, but we're all waiting for something.*
*For what?*
*Draca knows,* Jaenelle said serenely, and Saetan could feel the hint of anticipation that thrummed through her. *She'll tell us when it's time.*
It's almost over.
The room hums and crackles with power, the same power that is coursing through me, into the scale I hold. And it burns. This two-legged shape was never meant to channel so much power. I'm not entirely in control, but like a kindred stallion, the power consents to be ridden. Unlike the kindred, it will consume me in an instant if I show one moment of weakness.
Gasping for breath, I open my eyes. The Jewels I brought have grown somehow, expanded into faceted globes tumbled haphazardly a little distance away from me. They're expanding even as I watch; already they're bigger than my two hands could span.
But I have more pressing concerns to deal with.
I am kneeling in a circle of ash, all that remains of my robe after the power I channel burned it away. The dusty covering has burned off the bundle I've kept for so long, but I don't need to look at it; I know what it holds, and the power demands all my attention. In my hands, Lorn's scale is flickering white, its color deepening to yellow. On to Tiger's Eye, Rose, Summer-Sky...I feed everything I can into this Jewel-in-the-making. I can feel it thrumming in my hands; this Jewel will be able to store vast amounts of power, but it will not be stable enough to do so for long.
I watch as Ebon-Gray deepens to Black, and summon the last few drops of power out of myself to push it as deep as I can. What I hold, for just one moment, is a Jewel the size of my hand, alive with Black power and something just a little deeper.
No hesitation.
I unroll the Web that has been waiting for me for tens of millennia. The center of the Web shows a simple, stylized pair of wings, with a space in the center that has waited all along for this single Jewel.
I slide the Jewel into its place, shielding my eyes against the power that flares up as Jewel and Web unite. The Web reaches for me as I pick it up, binding itself to my bare skin as I settle it into place over my shoulders.
What follows after that is agony.
For a moment I believe I have failed, as pain wracks every muscle and bone in my body. But the bone is reshaping itself, the muscle follows, and when I look down, I see silver-black scales rippling down over my skin. It hurts, but it brings renewal. Freedom. Hope.
The ripping sound as wings tear free from my back is awful. The pain is worse than that. But when I scream, I can't tell if it's agony or triumph.
There is no doubt about the second scream - a battle cry riding on a blast of white-hot dragonfire. Under its heat, the Jewels at my feet stabilize and harden, looking like nothing so much as a clutch of multicolored...
So _that_ is how it will be.
I unleash another blast of fire, this one precisely aimed, and dive into the tunnel it creates before the rock has cooled. Long and lithe and dangerous once more, I streak up the tunnel to where my Consort waits.
*_Lorn_.*
He twines his neck around mine, and for a long moment there is nothing I need to feel or hear or see, ever again. Then I pull away a little and gesture him down the tunnel I just exited.
*It's time.*
*It's time,* Jaenelle said, her presence suddenly glittering with excited pleasure. *I've got to help Draca and make sure everybody ends up where they're supposed to.*
She winked out abruptly, leaving Daemon and Saetan in shared bewilderment that could not have been more obvious if they were both still physical.
*Namesake, do you have the faintest idea what she's talking about?*
*Have _you_ ever been able to make sense of Jaenelle?* Daemon retorted.
*_You're_ her husband-*
The words died unsaid as something unfamiliar closed around him, something hard and confining. He kicked, clawed at the walls, damn near _bit_ the stuff in frustration before a calm female voice entered his mind. *Fighting haphazardly is never going to get you out of there. Lucivar's already learned the trick.*
Saetan rested for a moment, then gathered his strangely unfamiliar muscles and _pushed_. Whatever held him in strained, cracked and finally gave, spilling him onto a stone floor lit by daylight and witchfire. All around him were oversized, glittering globes, some whole and some broken, with two majestic figures watching over it all. One he knew, the other...the other he almost knew. A female dragon, sleek and strong with silvery-black scales and that indefinable tang to her psychic scent that spoke of a Queen.
*Draca.*
*Always. I am glad you recognized me.* With Lorn looking on, she bent her neck and brushed her muzzle against him. On a psychic thread between the two of them, she added, *And I am more glad than you know to see you here. Now I suggest you get reacquainted with your family. And with yourself.*
Puzzled at the hint of a smile in her voice, he looked around himself, getting used to sight once more. It took him a moment to realize that he shouldn't be able to turn his head that far, and a moment longer to make sense of what he saw. Ink-black scales edged with a red the color of his Birthright Jewel, a long, supple tail, and wings-
*Mother. Night.* He sat down with a thump.
*We told you long ago,* Lorn said, *You are all dragons under the skin.*
*So are you still great-grandfather, or can we just call you Papa?* Lucivar's voice, Lucivar's brash, ready-for-trouble posture, all transposed to the iron-gray hatchling who bounced over to stare fearlessly up at the larger dragon.
Lorn chuffed in amusement, a wash of air that would have tumbled Saetan over in his human form. *Little whelp. Learn some manners and we'll talk about it.*
Saetan ignored the byplay, searching the happily chaotic part of the chamber where dragons were still breaking free of faceted, Jewel-colored globes. He sorted through a blur of colors and psychic scents - some he couldn't recognize and a few that he did. He caught a whiff of Ladvarian's psychic scent a moment before he saw the kindred Warlord - a compact little dragon with brilliantly red scales - and saw a ripple of green-gold that had to be Surreal. Finally, he found Daemon, waiting patiently by the last unhatched Jewel. Even now, his son looked like him, though sleeker and more dangerous, his scales a deep black with a subtle red shimmer. But then he turned his head toward Saetan, there was more warmth than he had ever seen in the golden eyes.
*More family than I ever thought I'd have,* Daemon said wonderingly. *I'm starting to understand what Jaenelle was talking about.*
*Then you're well ahead of me,* Saetan grumped.
*We're the first generation. We'll rebuild the dragons. The Blood will watch over the land, and the dragons will watch over the Blood.* Daemon's eyes softened. *It'll be a good life.*
And a useful one, after all the years of empty, lonely ruling. Daemon was right.
The last Jewel cracked, and Jaenelle tumbled out at their feet - a graceful little creature with scales that shimmered in all the colors of Twilight's Dawn. The sapphire eyes hadn't changed at all.
*We've got lots to learn,* Jaenelle said. She fanned her wings experimentally, tilting her head to look up the long tunnel that led toward daylight. *And I can't wait to fly.*
-end-
Last but not least, this is set *far* in the future of the Black Jewels universe.
Rebirth
I have never been so alone.
The room where I stand is a perfect sphere, a bubble deep within the stone that forms Ebon Askavi. It is lit by witchfire on every side, and utterly empty except for what I carry with me. There is no entrance, no exit; Lorn sealed me in here a short time ago, and withdrew to wait. If I succeed, I will emerge under my own power; if I fail, this chamber will be my tomb. And a well-deserved one.
I feel very small, and more vulnerable than I have since I first awoke in this human body. So much depends on the work of this night, and there is so little to do it with - myself, a double handful of Jewels, and the dusty bundle that lies at my feet. I don't know if I can do this.
I let my thoughts reach out one final time to my Consort, and love and determination flow along the threads that bind us. He cannot help me now, but he'll be waiting for me; if I fail tonight, he will wait for me until the stars fall. I have taken all the help Lorn can give me: a single colorless scale, flickering uneasily in the light of the witchfire. I wish I could have him with me, but this can only be done alone.
In the end, it always comes down to the Queens.
In the end, Saetan was grateful to die. Even a Guardian's body was not meant to live as long as his had done, and his soul was far more weary than the body that housed it.
His family was long dead. Jaenelle, from a short-lived race, lived out her days in mayfly happiness and was simply _gone_. Daemon had lived long enough to see all their children safely settled, and then followed Jaenelle with no fanfare; they found his body lying empty with no sign of struggle or pain. Saetan had wanted to take their Jewels to an Altar, to formally give them back to the Darkness, but he never found Twilight's Dawn or Daemon's Black Jewels. One Red chip remained from Daemon, carrying a heartfelt message of love and regret. "Father, I'm sorry. But I was born to be Witch's lover, and I follow where she leads."
Over millennia, the others passed as well, each in their time and in their own way. Lucivar burned himself out stopping a landslide in the Askavi mountains. The time he bought saved thousands of lives, and Saetan tried to believe they were worth the price. While she lived, Surreal was a comfort to him; she never married, but the flock of winged, elfin children she raised with Falonar didn't seem to feel the lack. Her descendants, and Jaenelle's, still lived in the lands surrounding the Keep.
But descendants weren't enough. Having finally tasted it, he wanted family, and it was centuries since anyone had called him by any name but "High Lord." Too long, too many years, too many people who'd left their imprints on his soul and then died, taking part of him with them.
In the end, it was surprisingly easy to put his affairs in order. The land was well cared for, with a strong network of Queens and Warlord Princes, and there was no one he needed to say goodbye to. At last, he straightened his study and was about to leave it when he stopped, shook his head, and returned to his desk. This was where life had been sweetest, where he had first taught Jaenelle, where the coven and their consorts had breezed in and out, where Surreal had taken refuge on the frequent occasions she'd upset someone. If he was going to go, best to do it here.
He settled into the chair, took one deliberate look around, then closed his eyes and let go.
This will be a battle.
The witchfire creates a thousand dancing shadows around me as I set down the Jewels I carry, treating them as carefully as my own long-vanished eggs. They are not my own; I only hold them in trust.
I kneel in the center of the curving floor, Lorn's single scale between my hands. This is more than Craft, more than a spell; it echoes in every Birthright Ceremony and every Offering the Blood have ever made. This is old, raw magic from the time before we tamed the power with Craft. And it is the only thing that can save me.
There is power all around me: in the stone, in the wind that whips over the mountain far above me, in all the life that flies and runs beyond the mountain. I hold out the scale in my cupped hands and begin to call the power down to me.
May the Darkness be with me.
Darkness folded around Saetan, spiraling him deeper and deeper down. He felt the edges of his Self slowly tattering, fading into a whisper in the Darkness. He tried to surrender to it, but after nearly a hundred millennia, life and thought were hard habits to break.
Then two strong psychic presences wrapped around him, like hands lifting a drowning swimmer. The welcome that poured over him was so intense he would have wept if he could.
*Papa! We've been waiting for you so long!*
*Witch-child?*
Somehow, she pulled him away from that dangerously seductive current down into the Darkness. He couldn't see, he couldn't exactly hear, but the sense of her presence was as strong as if she were standing in front of him, like laying his hands on an intricately woven pattern. *Jaenelle?*
*Of course it's me,* she said grumpily. *I wasn't going to let you get lost.*
Being dead hadn't done a thing to change the effect Jaenelle always had on him; as always, she knocked him off-balance while she cheerfully rewrote all his assumptions. *Witch-child, why are you here? Witch doesn't become demon-dead-*
*She's not demon-dead. And neither are we.* That could only be Daemon, a smooth dark flow of power underlying Jaenelle's intricate pattern. *Where we are, it's - well, not exactly the Darkness. Jaenelle says it's some sort of reward-*
*It's not a reward, it's what happens naturally,* she interrupted. *There are a few who serve the Blood, who honor the Darkness-* She broke off, and Saetan could sense her frustration. *I can _feel_ it, I just can't explain it. Listen. If you live long enough, if you use your power to serve and guard, if you use Craft with your heart and not your mind alone, then you become part of your Jewels. When the body dies, the Self comes here, and the Jewels go elsewhere until they're needed again.*
*So that's why I couldn't find Twilight's Dawn when you-* Even here, his "voice" broke, and Jaenelle's pattern went dim and mournful as she rushed to comfort him.
*Poor Papa. I'm sorry. You know so much, I thought you knew we'd be waiting.*
*You've waited all this time?*
*Time is...different here,* Daemon said. *It's not something you can measure. We thought you might come when Lucivar did-*
*Or Surreal. She yelled at me a lot when she got here.*
*-but nobody really talks about what went before. It's a good place to rest, here, but we're all waiting for something.*
*For what?*
*Draca knows,* Jaenelle said serenely, and Saetan could feel the hint of anticipation that thrummed through her. *She'll tell us when it's time.*
It's almost over.
The room hums and crackles with power, the same power that is coursing through me, into the scale I hold. And it burns. This two-legged shape was never meant to channel so much power. I'm not entirely in control, but like a kindred stallion, the power consents to be ridden. Unlike the kindred, it will consume me in an instant if I show one moment of weakness.
Gasping for breath, I open my eyes. The Jewels I brought have grown somehow, expanded into faceted globes tumbled haphazardly a little distance away from me. They're expanding even as I watch; already they're bigger than my two hands could span.
But I have more pressing concerns to deal with.
I am kneeling in a circle of ash, all that remains of my robe after the power I channel burned it away. The dusty covering has burned off the bundle I've kept for so long, but I don't need to look at it; I know what it holds, and the power demands all my attention. In my hands, Lorn's scale is flickering white, its color deepening to yellow. On to Tiger's Eye, Rose, Summer-Sky...I feed everything I can into this Jewel-in-the-making. I can feel it thrumming in my hands; this Jewel will be able to store vast amounts of power, but it will not be stable enough to do so for long.
I watch as Ebon-Gray deepens to Black, and summon the last few drops of power out of myself to push it as deep as I can. What I hold, for just one moment, is a Jewel the size of my hand, alive with Black power and something just a little deeper.
No hesitation.
I unroll the Web that has been waiting for me for tens of millennia. The center of the Web shows a simple, stylized pair of wings, with a space in the center that has waited all along for this single Jewel.
I slide the Jewel into its place, shielding my eyes against the power that flares up as Jewel and Web unite. The Web reaches for me as I pick it up, binding itself to my bare skin as I settle it into place over my shoulders.
What follows after that is agony.
For a moment I believe I have failed, as pain wracks every muscle and bone in my body. But the bone is reshaping itself, the muscle follows, and when I look down, I see silver-black scales rippling down over my skin. It hurts, but it brings renewal. Freedom. Hope.
The ripping sound as wings tear free from my back is awful. The pain is worse than that. But when I scream, I can't tell if it's agony or triumph.
There is no doubt about the second scream - a battle cry riding on a blast of white-hot dragonfire. Under its heat, the Jewels at my feet stabilize and harden, looking like nothing so much as a clutch of multicolored...
So _that_ is how it will be.
I unleash another blast of fire, this one precisely aimed, and dive into the tunnel it creates before the rock has cooled. Long and lithe and dangerous once more, I streak up the tunnel to where my Consort waits.
*_Lorn_.*
He twines his neck around mine, and for a long moment there is nothing I need to feel or hear or see, ever again. Then I pull away a little and gesture him down the tunnel I just exited.
*It's time.*
*It's time,* Jaenelle said, her presence suddenly glittering with excited pleasure. *I've got to help Draca and make sure everybody ends up where they're supposed to.*
She winked out abruptly, leaving Daemon and Saetan in shared bewilderment that could not have been more obvious if they were both still physical.
*Namesake, do you have the faintest idea what she's talking about?*
*Have _you_ ever been able to make sense of Jaenelle?* Daemon retorted.
*_You're_ her husband-*
The words died unsaid as something unfamiliar closed around him, something hard and confining. He kicked, clawed at the walls, damn near _bit_ the stuff in frustration before a calm female voice entered his mind. *Fighting haphazardly is never going to get you out of there. Lucivar's already learned the trick.*
Saetan rested for a moment, then gathered his strangely unfamiliar muscles and _pushed_. Whatever held him in strained, cracked and finally gave, spilling him onto a stone floor lit by daylight and witchfire. All around him were oversized, glittering globes, some whole and some broken, with two majestic figures watching over it all. One he knew, the other...the other he almost knew. A female dragon, sleek and strong with silvery-black scales and that indefinable tang to her psychic scent that spoke of a Queen.
*Draca.*
*Always. I am glad you recognized me.* With Lorn looking on, she bent her neck and brushed her muzzle against him. On a psychic thread between the two of them, she added, *And I am more glad than you know to see you here. Now I suggest you get reacquainted with your family. And with yourself.*
Puzzled at the hint of a smile in her voice, he looked around himself, getting used to sight once more. It took him a moment to realize that he shouldn't be able to turn his head that far, and a moment longer to make sense of what he saw. Ink-black scales edged with a red the color of his Birthright Jewel, a long, supple tail, and wings-
*Mother. Night.* He sat down with a thump.
*We told you long ago,* Lorn said, *You are all dragons under the skin.*
*So are you still great-grandfather, or can we just call you Papa?* Lucivar's voice, Lucivar's brash, ready-for-trouble posture, all transposed to the iron-gray hatchling who bounced over to stare fearlessly up at the larger dragon.
Lorn chuffed in amusement, a wash of air that would have tumbled Saetan over in his human form. *Little whelp. Learn some manners and we'll talk about it.*
Saetan ignored the byplay, searching the happily chaotic part of the chamber where dragons were still breaking free of faceted, Jewel-colored globes. He sorted through a blur of colors and psychic scents - some he couldn't recognize and a few that he did. He caught a whiff of Ladvarian's psychic scent a moment before he saw the kindred Warlord - a compact little dragon with brilliantly red scales - and saw a ripple of green-gold that had to be Surreal. Finally, he found Daemon, waiting patiently by the last unhatched Jewel. Even now, his son looked like him, though sleeker and more dangerous, his scales a deep black with a subtle red shimmer. But then he turned his head toward Saetan, there was more warmth than he had ever seen in the golden eyes.
*More family than I ever thought I'd have,* Daemon said wonderingly. *I'm starting to understand what Jaenelle was talking about.*
*Then you're well ahead of me,* Saetan grumped.
*We're the first generation. We'll rebuild the dragons. The Blood will watch over the land, and the dragons will watch over the Blood.* Daemon's eyes softened. *It'll be a good life.*
And a useful one, after all the years of empty, lonely ruling. Daemon was right.
The last Jewel cracked, and Jaenelle tumbled out at their feet - a graceful little creature with scales that shimmered in all the colors of Twilight's Dawn. The sapphire eyes hadn't changed at all.
*We've got lots to learn,* Jaenelle said. She fanned her wings experimentally, tilting her head to look up the long tunnel that led toward daylight. *And I can't wait to fly.*
-end-