Chapter 3: "Nacreous and dead"
I know, that all my dreams proceed from you,
Yes... from you, and me, and your voice tears me into pieces,
Your ocean's flooded me, the winds blow hard,
Love, when the last petal became a victim of the flames!
- Milady, If you wish, I shall tell you a fairy tale.
- What is it about, Casavir?
- About hope and light.
- I know this fairy tale. There will be lots of pathetic sweetness and pathos. And in the end some heroes will find hope, taking it away from the others.
- But those, the others, they're evil!
- But they too have a right to hope.
- You're wrong...
- Why?
- Because they've been murdering other people, trying to seize power.
- They gave a purpose to your kind heroes. After a victory they won't have this purpose any more. Boring.
- There will be a silent, peaceful life.
- Yes, certainly. Men will remove their armor and plow in the fields all the day, getting drunk in a tavern in the evenings and beating their wives.
- If they don't plow, people will have nothing to eat.
- I understand.
- And, still, do you really assume violence and murders?
- No. I wish for the perfect world, that will never exist.
- And it will never become real?
- Never.
- It's... sad.
- Yes.
The stones became still, sated on heroes' blood, the lonely banshee immured within the walls of this fortress thousand years ago, became silent, the bowstring is torn and the fire arrows scattered, the powder is flickering with green sparks and the staff is broken, still reflected in Sand's dead eyes as if in the mirror.
The severely injured captives lay near the wet wall, and their wide pupils absorb the serenity of stones.
The little spark of light flies between their chains and shining broken steel blocking the pass. Chopped and burned armour lay somewhere behind as if a dead shadow.
Casavir groans, feeling the life feeling the life flowing from his wound, looking around thievishly. The Knight of Neverwinter sees the sleeping volcanoes in her slumber and sometimes lets out a scream, when the death of one of her friends smirks at her tired pale face.
The sound of waterdrops falling is being replaced with the most violent scream of a banshee.
The Hammer of Ironfist left without his owner is flickering in the corner.
Somewhere far away in the mountains the clan perishes, having lost its king.
The broken blades rust, the invisible lute decays, and potions flow on a rough stones out of their bottles.
The chestnut hair become covered with a stardust.
Measured and wide are the King of Shadows' steps walking through the Faerun.
- Casavir, I'm scared.
- I shall break your fear, milady.
- You can't. It's inside me. You can't reach it.
- I'll manage.
- Why such confidence?
- Your fear lies between my palms.
- A piece of stone?
- Yes. You will never become such.
- Why?
- Because you wish to be a light. I wished the same, but all I could become - is your shadow.
Oh, Neverwinter! The Fantastic city, of that the bards of the nine spheres sing and the poets of the nine realms write their odes. The thieves hidden deep in your slums play their dark blue melody at nights. The coin flows and the gold sparkles at your shops and hidden rooms! Your women smile seductively and your men are strong, protecting every your stone.
Oh, Neverwinter! The city of hopes, the city of the whispering bright sea, and sweet secrets teasing a soul! The city, in which the stars descend from heavens at nights to inhale a full breast of your delightful air and leave a little part of other realms upon your roads. The city, in which the sages stroke their beards sedately and conduct slow conversations about secrets of life and invisible essenses, quietly sipping their wine. The city, where the grasses sprout through stones and caress your feet with the last year's tender sun. The city, where the little red demons and the pink pixies, transparent fears and iridescent dreams, eyes wide opened and smiles are flying around, presented to a lover at midnight. Around your high strong walls the thin webs and the green wings are soaring.
Oh, Neverwinter! The poet's heart cries about your narrow streets and wide stone roadways, burning in flames. About your dogs, cats and a nice little kobold, that could not carry out his dream of a small house with a warm roof. About your women smiling seductively and strong men, disappearing from your face. About the rivers of blood, that extinguished your eternal light and the fumes flowing after the King of Shadows. The poet's heart cries about the children, their glassy eyes and burnt toy-tigers, torn into pieces by ghouls' and vampires' claws. It cries about the majestic castle of Neverwinter's Lords crumbling into dust, accompanied by the howling of zombies and the glance of the Guardian, that expresses nothing. Neverwinter groans, calling to her heroes, but the leaves has already fallen and the smooth mist can not carry her groan up to the Vale of Merdelain, where in its claws the doomed and weakening warriors choke. The dying city shouts, cries its bloody tears, prays Tyr and Lathander to heal her rotting wounds, but the gods are silent, observing with horror how once mighty stronghold perishes from the face of Faerun.
Neverwinter cries, choking in a black smelly smoke, embracing her crippled stone bridges and destroyed empty temples. The city dies, losing the memory of her heroes and lords, of secrets hidden in the vaults, and of the white birds that every spring sat down on the roofs, announcing the revival of the sun with their sonorous songs.
The Neverwinter's autumn came to an end.
And the city that had never known winter, now is slowly covered by indifferent red snow...
- I feel the cold's creeping closer...
- Are you really happy?
- O yes... I'm so tired of burning...
- And I... I hate the cold...
- You simply haven't yet learned to appreciate it...
The last Book of this world was silently burning in Guardian's flames, recollecting...
... the tree of which it was made, the ink by which it was written, the feathery skies, the table, the smoke from the fireplace, and the soft fleecy carpet on which it fell once...
... the yellow wrinkled fingers carefully thumbing through it, bringing the highest pleasure...
... the thin white fingers with bright red nails, that only fingered it aimlessly, causing irritation...
... the huge torch that shone as brightly as forty candles, beating the eyes with its light like the good forty strikes...
... the mad pencil that saw the world in black-and-white color, sometimes staining its pages with its dirty boots...
... and the fly having sat on it...
- Casavir, do you remember that spring?
- Which one, milady?
- That one... When there was so much light and almost carefree. When we were walking this earth not being afraid to lose it under our feet.
- I remember that spring.
- It was beautiful...
- As well as you...
- It was flying above us, showering us with petals and white feathers...
- We paid it little attention then...
- A pity... there's so little left of that spring...
- Nothing left...
- Memories, Casavir... memories...
- I do not like to recollect. It only pains me.
- Memory is a kind of light.
- But we're now in the Vale of Merdelain. This place absorbs all the light...
- But we?
- You know, what will become with us...
- Oh yes...
- Are you afraid?
- No already. I recollect. That spring... Ah, how it sang to us...
- No, it was you singing to us... and it was... beautiful. But in fact you sang not to us all... but only him... him alone...
- Yes.
- It pained me.
- But the spring carried your pain away?
- No, only strengthened it. Could you sing once again... only... for me now?
- I cannot, Casavir. Though I want it so much. I've forgotten the words and messed the tune. This song died along with that spring.
- In the end all the roads lead back to that spring...
- But not our.
- Yes... but not our...
He slowly follows the King of Shadow - it's more likely a habit, than a necessity - holding his two ice blades. The burnt wings of dragonflies cling to his black and silver clothes, the dirty water of dead Illefarn is dripping from his boots, in his eyes - emptiness and the reflection of a starlight. He walks through the worlds and spheres, following his new master, and the skulls of the githyanki and githzerai, the humans and gods crumble into dust under his feet. With every destroyed world his eyes become not the sharp blades but the dead butterflies with torn off legs, and his hair lose their brightness, being covered with a stardust. He looks at a lilac smoke of an ancient spell, weaving around the King of Shadows. He's laughing when another defenders on another world are falling before them as a deformed heap of flesh. He tramples their blood into sand. He remembers perfectly, that miracles do not happen. He pretends being lifeless. It doesn't surprise him, that he's here, with the Guardian. But in his eyes - is that nacreous spring, screaming and scratching with bleeding nails, that very spring which scent was a yellow pollen in the transparent air and which sun was cautiously touching his rigid armor with its soft paws...
... it was so warm. There was green, brown and a lot of yellow. At nights the violet velvet crept on the ground instead of a rain. The sun danced a waltz in the sky bowing politely to the clouds. The earth was filled with spring and, sitting round a fire in the evening, everyone in their group believed in light. Even he. They were laughing, putting trophies taken in a fight into their bags. Their leader was looking at the flame thoughtfully, smiling hardly noticeably. He admired her profile and graceful fingers furtively, not letting anyone to notice. Grobnar was silent and strummed a gentle melody on his lute. He wanted to sing. So tender. But he didn't dare to give in to this weakness. And then, as if reading his thoughts, their leader started to sing, and everyone shuddered, including him.
The time stopped between a fairy tale and reality
I stand on a cold stones, covered by a stardust
There's a bridge above a foggy gulf, the feelings are so painfully familiar
I close my eyes and fall into a weightlessness again...
The sea dreams of a thunder, the soft grasses - of a dew
The free wind dreams of wings and sails
And only I can not fall asleep - I am a captive today
Of these bittersweet memories that bring me back that spring...
His heart was beating like a drum, muffling all the external sounds, forcing his blood to stream in his veins in a mad rhythm. He wanted to jump on a back of a wolf and rush through an endless field, picking handfuls of red tulips, crackling their tender green. He wanted to wash his hands and face under a shy spring rain, to catch the drops with his lips and inhale the scent of a wet ground. He wanted to burn in the sun. He wanted... to live.
The sounds and colors rushed in an uncontrollable stream
And the extreme limit of nervous tension is broken
The strong whirlwinds forbid me to stay on my feet
They tear me from the ground, breaking the law of gravitation
Miles of wild grasses, the fire burns brightly
The honeycombs are filled with nectar and the wine overflows
And the strings of roads interwind into a necklace of sleepless nights
Only so as I could fall asleep on your shoulder for once...
Elanee shifted uncomfortably on her place casting shy glances towards Sand who was moving his fingers thoughtfully under a rhythm of music. Then as if making her mind she put her head on his shoulder and it seemed her red hair have made his grey clothes brighter. The wizard shuddered for a moment, but then relaxed, having covered her hand with his.
If only Bishop wasn't so much consumed by the sight of those two, he would have noticed the warlock occasionally throwing him glances obscured with spring and how her cheeks were burning. But he, touched by Elanee's sincere impulse and spring, didn't see anything. Even how the ice of his blades started melting, dripping on a young grass...
The volcanoes doze in the mist, the clouds drown in a water
The immense world, reflected in your eyes, is full of secrets...
... that is what that spring was like. A small piece of an animal freedom and tender music, forever remaining in the past. A small piece of clouds drowning in the water and volcanoes dozing in the mist... of an endless roads, joyful sky and companions' blades protectively covering his back... And eyes. In which the whole world was reflected and something more...
... where had all this gone...
... oh gods... why have you drawn the eyes on my face...
... so as they could reflect something too?
- How do you think, how soon...?
- Soon. I feel magic strings vibrate and all the connections of the world are now being broken. He destroyed even the books so as no memory of the former world would come to any of his followers...
- Any of his followers...
- I know of what you're thinking...
- Bishop...
- It seems to me he is already dead. Even if he follows the Guardian...
- Oh great Tyr, how I hate him...
- Do not appeal to dead gods... paladin... they're all gone...
- As long as I still can breathe, they're alive... inside me... But... it's so cold... My God, how cold...
- Casavir... Casavir! Don't die! Don't leave me alone... don't...
- I am still with you, milady. As long as I have strength, I won't leave you, you hear me? We shall leave this world together, so as to revive in the other.
- We shall not revive. Never. For our awful defeat we shall sink into darkness forever…
- No! Don't think so...
- ... or... or you'll become something so senseless and stupid that you wouldn't even recollect your past... You don't want to become a smoke of a funeral fire of some ork shaman after death, don't you? Or a flicker of sunset on a bracelet of a dying githyanki? Casavir?
- Oooo...
- Casavir?
- It's... it's all right... It's just... so cold...
The northern wind was blowing the Guardian's cloak grimly, while he transformed the green woods and soft grasses into grey ashes, weaving behind him in a silly cheerful whirlwind. The lilac clover and tender edelweisses bowed before him in hope for a life but their ashes was mixed with the howl, the red tulips of Highcliff were whirling behind the King of Shadows together with the wells of West Harbor and a pack of Duskwood wolves that protected their three, just born children until the last blood.
The Western and The Eastern winds were colliding under the heavy skies, challenging each other the right to dance with red snowflakes on a streets of a lost city.
And the Southern wind was crying silently with a sticky drizzle, obstinately searching for his mother lost at the world's birth.
Oh, dead Neverwinter!
- When I fall into eternal sleep you will come to me in an image of a sun.
- I'll be in your dreams?
- Or maybe I'll be in yours.
- And you're a big butterfly. I can burn your wings.
- Already.
- I'm sorry.
- It's easier for me without them, milady. I can speak of my love, not being afraid of silly hopes. Even at this horrible moment, at the edge of death, I am at peace because you're with me. It's not the dying or maybe already dead Neverwinter that matters to me most of all, but that you can see the same I see in Elanee's dead eyes. I have already told you, that my love has long ago eclipsed all other duties.
- It doesn't matter now...
- No, it's very important... Love shadowed my mind so much, that before the assault of your keep I... I spoke with Bishop. I... I lied to him... told him my dreams pretending they're real. It's after our conversation he betrayed us and left for Garius. He... he told him about our weak places. After that it was easy to defeat us... We lost because of me, milady...
- Casavir...
- I am ready to pay for everything.
- Casavir... you...
- I... I shall find a strength to live till the Guardian comes, and then stab the traitor in the guts.
- If only you weren't looking at me like that, I'd have done it myself.
- Milady...
- Oh my God, that spring...
- Milady...
- He was ready to die for me...
- Milady, I...
- So that's why... Everything... Everything could be another way...
- Milady...
- Oh Gods...
- Milady...
- And his tired glance when he...
- Milady...
- I didn't know... Bishop, I simply didn't know...
- Milady...
- Shut up!
"Oh, mommy-mum, why I feel so strange..." - the Southern wind howled in melancholy, flying above the lifeless ruins of Amn and Luscan, the dried riverbeds, destroyed mountains and active volcanoes.
The only sound - is the dusty air flying through fingers...
The only color - is bitter-brown with specks of madness born on a celebration of death...
The only taste - the taste of emptiness that has found its home...
The sun - like a huge hole in the dead sky, the henceforth nameless land twitches in pain and groans silently in its personal night, throwing out ice-palps wrapped in a fur of dead animals.
Once there were wild horses rushing through the prairies.
Now - only the fuzzes of fear and lifeless shattered light, growing from the warped drunk stars like crystals.
"A pain - is not an insult, my son. It hurts at first, but then leaves..."
- Forgive me! I lied to him, but still he would have betrayed us, all the same! Just look at Neeshka, milady. Overcome the pain and turn your head. Do you remember what she was? How sprightly she was smiling, how touchingly she cared for you? How she brought you potions before the fight with Lorne and how she was defending you? Look at her! Perhaps you didn't see, but I did! I heard her scream, when Bishop's sword pierced her armor, and saw how much pain there were in her eyes. Look at her! Open your eyes! Understand at last, what a monster you've given your heart to!
- ...
- I... die... And do you know of what I was afraid of above all else when I met you? Oh, you won't believe... Milady, above all else in the world I feared that your beauty would obscure my mind and I would howl like a wild animal... I feared that sometime I could no longer resist your scent and your grace when you dance in a circle of enemies with your silver sword. That your glance, devoted to him will drive me mad and I'll finally lose my will. That I shall betray my god, calling you a Goddess instead. That during our campings in the woods I could not restrain, and shout you name in my dreams. That I shall roll and howl at your feet and beg for just one kiss. I was ready to guard your keep like a lapdog... I...
- ...
- I followed you. I loved you. I idolized you. Dreamed. Adored. I saw you in my dreams. My... light... how cold... Don't be silent, please... I wish to hear your voice before death...
- ...
- So... Farewell, I part from you. But I leave on a road of flowers. I do not regret anything. My hatred for the traitor will give me strength in the next life. We shall meet again, milady. And then I shall give vent to my feelings and you will scream when I'll be tearing off your clothes...
All the songs will end at the edge of eternity
Flying like a white bird in the air growing colder
Through the misty roads, by the first snow
To be the first who will meet this dawn...
When the time counts the last springs
The shining space shall rush through the ashes
You'll recognize us in stars, we are - the flame of your faith,
We live in legends and songs, but no longer exist under this dawn...
... he was starry and snowy, furiously-thoughtful and very-very far. Noone, having looked him in the eyes, would not manage to tell what they saw, when somewhere far away from Faerun, but not further that the half-rotten cloak of the King of Shadows, the two crimson stars were dancing their last dance, slowly losing their warmth and their past in the claws of oblivion. In his eyes... oh, it seems the sparks of this bewitching dance were still decaying in them... there also was a yearning - a frozen statue of malachite... and the salt of the faraway lands... and the snow of dead Neverwinter, and... a pain?
As sharp as his beauty and as impudent as nakedness of a skilled courtesan, it was looking out of the stone statues and cold silence. Looking out with truly royal pride and a pleading glance of a beggar.
- Hi... - she whispers.
He silently drops to his haunches and studies her face.
She knows, that he sees her burnt skin, wounds and scars. She wants to turn away so as he could not see her. And while the tongue pushes the words through the dried throat, her mind is screaming and coiling inside its cage:
"Come on, look into my eyes! They reflect that very spring, you see? And our glances, and shivers running down the spine every time we touched, and the tenderness of our hands, and the campfires where we shared our temptation... don't you see..."
He saw.
They tried to tame the flame, but only inflated it...
But it was clear for both of them that it was too late to change anything. They won't bring back Neeshka's laughter as well as the shining sapphires on the Neverwinter's towers.
For the one who learned all the depth of falling...
Drops of her blood were silently counting the seconds remaining for her. Very soon she will follow on the smell of fires, walking on a soft velvet grass, full of concealed expectation and fragrant cool dewdrops.
She will never return, and he hardly will spend the eternity that was given to him, waiting for her silent steps and warm breath.
Annoying dead words are tickling the roots of her hair, but she madly wants the time and the place to be absolutely other. A pity, but the barrow is already destroyed, and the banners above it are trampled into the ground. The fabric has decayed, and the shapeless flame reached the heavens one last time to find there its final rest. She will find her peace under the ancient stone walls, surrounded by unknown language and the shining lost steel.
- Tell me... - she whispers hastily. - Tell me, Bishop... what had happened to us then? When the tulips were blooming along the paths you've been leading us... remember? ... we were smiling almost all the time... even you. When... when I saw how the wind played with your hair I dreamed of being on its place, and you...
- And I was ready to die for you? - the voice as if deaf, burnt.
- Yes... what had happened to us?
- I don't know. Perhaps we became just the casual victims of spontaneous impulses, nothing more.
- Nothing more...
- Yes.
That's it...
That, what lit a nervous shivers inside her and forced her to feel the night's cold even more - just a coincidence. A foolish combination of a weaving mist and a frightening darkness. Just another combination of runes. A butterfly flying to a light.
A dust without a right to its own mind.
Just a sudden blow of a winter wind.
- Black and silver suits you.
- Yes, many noticed that... before death.
She could, probably, have so much to tell him.
For example how she likes his voice. And that former one //like an agressive growl of a bristled wolf//, and today's //like a rustling whisper of autumn leaves//...
Or how she wanted to run away with him long ago. She even imagined how the wild horses carry them far away from Neverwinter, and they cling at their manes and look at the sleepy eyes of a born sun. But she didn't want to speak of what will be after, because she couldn't even imagine this "after" at all. But to live only for the present - isn't it that very happiness he once wanted to share with her? To cast away all the mistakes and the pain of the past, and not to look forward the misty future. Perhaps.
She could tell him about Casavir. About where the fanatical love can lead you, about lies and deceits, about treachery and her restless dreams, about the lilac mist and losses that force you to twitch in pain on a stone floor, in a pool of your own melted hopes, damning somebody's eyelashes.
We should free the dolphins,
We should clear the dark blood-red sea...
But that what mattered once, was now dissolved in the mirrors, and she says:
- Then... I was singing for you.
- Yes, I... I remember it.
- Want to bring that time back?
- The Neverwinter is dead. The temples are covered with snow, the remnants of the last defenders of the Castle Never are sinking under the ground. The spring will never come again, what are you talking about?
- You think you'll like to live in this new world?
- I'll adapt.
- You'll breathe the poisoned air, that you yourself infected with death...
- Yes...
- You'll never see the two butterflies dancing above a flower...
- Stop it...
- You'll be freezing all the time... as if the ice rocks scratching your heart, wanting to pierce it...
- Enough!
- That was your choice...
- Yeah. Whatever my choice was.
- Everything could be another way, you understand that, don't you? Just one incorrect word, one glance incorrectly interpreted, one edelweiss that didn't bloom and just one song that wasn't heard in time - and... that's it. Neverwinter is in ruins, and you... you're on the wrong side.
- I didn't betray you. It was just a response to your treachery...
- You believed Casavir.
- And what, when paladins became liars? Then I made a right choice, helping to destroy this world.
... I am a wounded heart on a torn soul...
- So, your heart must be such vulnerable...
... the broken life - a useless plot...
- Ha! Are you really trying to justify me?
- No, of course... You're a monster. And all that I once felt for you now is a burnt emptiness.
- Oh really?.. You speak lies, I see it.
- Wow... finally learned to distinguish the truth from the lie. What prevented you to do this when you listened to Casavir?
He was silent.
The King of Shadows was standing behind him, observing them indifferently. He was just a powerful but programmed machine. The dying human who tried to stop him, now has no power to threaten his empire. Is the mission completed?
One dead cities were changed to others.
Long live Great Illefarn!
- You're dying...
We shall become a dream of an infinite snow...
She felt it. The cold stone floor was absorbing her, concluding in its stone embraces. However... perhaps, her time has come. The eyelashes are damned, the spring is gone, and the music sounding somewhere inside her - is expelled.
And to allow the words flow infinitely - it's an inexcusable luxury for a piece of muscles which already almost stopped driving the blood in her cooling veins.
- It's so... so dark...
- The place is full of torches.
- Give me your hand, I'm so... so scared to be in darkness... alone...
She felt the burning heat of his fingers while flying somewhere downwards. And, dying, she was smiling and crying her tears, because her broken body no longer existed, and there was only the infinite freedom and the steel seemed to her a tender light of a dew.
The dirt became the inflaming fire along her new road, and her populous loneliness - just a prelude before meeting with herself.
There, where the white crystals will sprout through her hands, the old friends will embrace her and, having left the road, will lead her into infinite light prairies, and she will smile at her new sun... or her new violet darkness, and will never recollect the nacreous spring, when the warm wind carrying the voice of the only one person was more dear to her than the shining sapphires on the Neverwinter's towers and her life, that had been given to her and taken away by this once beautiful land...
... he stood above her, fingering the velvet black fabric.
Starry and snowy, furiously-thoughtful and very-very far...
Bury my dreams, my sorrow,
But, Master, tell me why
Ah, why our angels fell first...
February, 5-11th 2007