Lyrics taken from Hero by Chad Kroeger.
Chimera Part Thirty Six
I am so high, I can hear heaven.
In answer, Bhari only laughed. Laughed until she thought her sides would rupture, and her body leak out onto the ground. "What have we done?" she said, flinging out her hands with abandon. "We have remade the world as it should have been – we have set you free."
Ryar was silent, but Bhari scarcely noticed.
"Here we are again," she cried out to the world. Oh, how it would be, how exquisite and how thrilling. The four of them, exploring this unsullied, untouched world together; discovering the paths they once walked, and one another with it.
"Here we are," came Ryar's voice. She stood straight now, the violet eyes steadfast, but oddly sad. "And here I, at least, should not be."
"No." Fireblade, simple adoration etched on his face. "I was wrong. You were never meant to die-"
"To cease upon the midnight with no pain," quoted Hael mildly. "Though there was pain, wasn't there, Ryar?"
Her face was solemn. "The war brought only pain, boy. Whoever you are."
"He is Hael," Bhari said, irritated. "Did you lose your sight as well as your fear?"
A quiver to that camellia skin – so Ryar was still afraid. "I lost neither. And he is no more Hael than you are Bhari, whatever you believe. If you don't believe me, look! Look, and this time, do not turn your eyes away from the truth."
She looked. She looked at the face of her old love, and saw only what she had seen thirty thousand years ago. The same laughing eyes, the same crooked smile. Nothing different. What truth was there other than Hael returned to her? She looked no further. There was nothing else that mattered.
"The war was right." But Bhari heard her own unease, worse, felt it bite with firm teeth into her heart.
"Strange how war becomes more right the less likely you are to die." The Water Drax turned away sharply, one hand rising to her face. "Or did you truly not care, Bhari? Did the bodies matter nothing to you?"
When Hael was lost, nothing at all seemed to matter, she wanted to cry. But she held her tongue. He was returned to her now, and there was intimacy in his words to her, and that half-forgotten flickering, threatening humour. Half-forgotten.
She had had to forget him. It was the only way she could survive.
Bhari had never thought she needed him; she walked alone, strong and tall and proud. Only when he was gone did she taste the bitterness and isolation of her life.
"I...don't know," she said slowly, drawing herself back from the sting of those memories. "Sometimes they did. Does it matter, Ryar? It's done, it's gone – you can't bring back the dead-"
But of course, you could. Her words faded under stammers, and Bhari could only stare at this woman she had thought so weak. Who, in the end, had been the strongest of them all.
"We should all be gone." Ryar's words were pitying, implacable as the rain. "Bhari – my dearest, you died long ago. All you are is a few shreds of memory wrapped up in power."
Hael's voice scythed across the night, and it was meant to cut at Ryar. "Leave it, siren."
It was all going so wrong. It was meant to be joyful – it was meant to be a new start, a new world. But the animosity crept into the air piece by piece; Fireblade's flames were quenched, and Ryar stood with defiance in her relaxed shoulders and upheld chin, and something of Hael's easiness had iced over.
And Bhari thought she felt new emotions creeping into her, slow as plants taking root. Only flickers, but when she looked at Hael, she seemed to see another face laid over his, one that was cold and indomitable, the face of a prince, chilled under the everlasting night.
"No!" Ryar stepped forward. "I 'left it' in the Burning Days, and my indecision butchered more people than I can even count. We cannot live in the past. I have lived there so long now...and it has brought me to this. She is not Bhari – of all people, you should know that."
"What do you mean?" asked Bhari, incredibly confused.
"Whoever you are underneath – I know you're there, I can feel you – is bound to him. It's her eyes you see through, and her voice you speak with. Bhari is just a ghost."
The fingers that tipped up her chin were firm; she could not drop her eyes to hide her fear.
"You will never be just anything, witch of mine," Hael purred with cool certainty.
Bhari looked up into the eyes that were the olive, swelling green of rivers. In them, she saw something new – and unnerving – begin, a slight, daggered gleam.
"I am no witch."
The laughter curled up and around her, scrumptious and black as the shadows that their bodies threw. "No? Then how have you enchanted me? How have you made me want you so?"
Boldness in the way she stepped back from his touch, and in the deliberate sway of her hips. Old, slinky motions, old enticements that felt simply right. Yes, she was only Bhari. "The wanting is all your own."
That unsettling glitter in his eyes grew, or was it only that he had come close to her again, to rest his hands on her waist with unexpected possessiveness.
It was like a lightning seed, spinning slow, spinning quick, and as it turned, it kicked off sparks that moved to settle at the outside of his iris. The green was subsumed, and only that amazing, unbearable colour lay there.
Blue as the morning flooding over the sky in one supple, blinding wash.
Blue as the ocean, ready to drag her in and tumble her through its riptides until she was nestled forever at its breast.
Blue as a broken heart.
Bhari stared at him, at the face that was so, so familiar – and yet with that simple change, somehow so much altered. His skin was whiter than anyone she had ever seen, and she wondered if the sun even touched him, or if he walked in some perpetual darkness, but...
But whatever he might be, he was beautiful and dangerous, and she was drawn to the disrespectful slant of his smile, and the subtlety that had been Hael's too. She knew – she knew with a sudden unpleasant jolt – that he too was familiar.
And he was hers.
"Is it now, witch of mine?" he asked, and his face was a little amused, but mostly it was shrewd and expectant. "Do you honestly think you know anything of what I want?"
A memory burst in her head like a flower, unfolding into vibrant grandeur. His arms about her in a dark, empty night when emerald eyes had chased her through dreams and this cold, gifted creature had been her sanctuary. The prickle of his breath on her lips, and the unexpectedness tightness of his arms – he had held her tight, yet he had been refuge, not a cage.
"Yes," she said slowly, comprehending in one instant what had lain unseen for years. "Yes, I do."
I know what you want: I have read your heart like scripture, I have caught your soul in my hand.
"But do you know what I want?"
"For everything to be as it was," he answered, and there was a dry, icy scorn chopping the words. "For all the past to be undone, and the scars to scrub off like dirt – for the tears to be forgotten, and all those people you broke to be whole. How can you still believe that? Do you really think it can be as it was?"
He wanted her to remember. Bhari couldn't have said how she knew it, yet she did. This was not Hael, and slowly, she was finding she was not entirely as she had been.
The answer flashed in her head. He wanted her to forget who she truly was. Bhari was controllable, but the other one, the witch who was called-
Who was...
He kissed her then, just a light, teasing touch of lips on lips, but it washed the intrusive thought clean from her head. Ridiculous – she was Bhari, no one else. He stepped back to flash her that quirky, who-me smile.
"Oh no, bane of my heart," she answered, and knew with a secret wonderment that the endearment was right – oh, it was exactly right.
"No?"
She reached across with one languid, snaking movement.
"No," she said and drew his him to her with tender hands. "It can be better."
His smile set her heart afire. This time, there would be no need for war to make her feel alive.
Only him.
"It will be," he said. "I promise you, witch of mine – it will be."
But the words sent a jagged dread down her, for reasons she couldn't fathom.
"I always keep my promises."
X - X - X - X - X
They came through the night like wolves running through snow, kicking up dust in their wake. Leaving trails on the world they weren't even aware of; the three of them, the world's most unlikely musketeers.
Judged to perfection, Blue Malefici thought, with just the scantest hint of satisfaction.
Combining the Drax's powers would need sacrifices; and the more powerful the sacrifice, the smoother the meld. Vampires and shapeshifters were victims to be desired, but capturing four such powerful creatures would be so – wasteful.
Instead, they were running right to him.
Ross. Lance. Vaje. Three of the most powerful Nightpeople in the world. Such ideal – such suitable – sacrifices. The absence of a fourth had been irritating, but he had set Sandrine to deal with that.
Four victims.
Just one, personal apocalypse.
And in a rare moment of abandon, he gathered his witch close in his arms and breathed in the soft scent that was all her own. A mix of soap and herbs, and the warm spice of her skin. He breathed her in like incense.
The green eyes were too hard; without Chatoya Irkil's graceless naivety, some of the charm of her face was gone. Bhari's effortless confidence made her more beautiful. It was there in the easy way she twined her arm around his neck, tangled it in his hair.
That touch was sure, and deliberate, and skilled in a way his witch was not.
And as she turned to smile at him so lazily, with that smile that said: I know I am beautiful. I know I am powerful. I know you want me. And I know you know all this too. There was none of his witch's futile anger, or careless words in that.
And how odd.
He didn't like it at all.
Blue breathed out slowly, and let her go. He remembered a promise he had made what seemed like eons ago, in a milder world.
Judged to perfection. If perfection exists in an imperfect world.
X - X - X - X - X
Lisa Ochai crept closer, barely breathing. The mists were choking, like breathing in scented smog.
Jepar's shout bounced about her mind. Dragons, he'd said – plural.
She was afraid. At least she would admit that, and then perhaps it would be easier to deal with this icy sensation that wound its way about her veins like cancer, poisoning her best intentions.
She sent her thoughts forward, winding through the fog of magic. The world seemed clogged tonight, as if every restless spirit and otherworldly being in Ryars Valley had been drawn here.
At the centre of it all were four towering infernos. They were painful to sense; for the first time in her life, Lisa saw how people had lain down and worshipped them as gods.
Vast and blinding and beautiful, they were a dizzying combination of feelings. The crash of a thousand angels screaming prayers on high, the flickering light of fire miles wide, the tearing force of a hurricane ripping the world from its roots. Whatever they were, they were monstrous as they were wondrous, and she knew she would never be anything but dust to them.
Lisa Ochai, who had lived one and a half thousand years, was reduced to a child before them.
She crawled through the mist on hands and knees, and didn't kid herself that it was to hide. They wouldn't even notice her, this speck in their blazing existence. It was because she was too afraid to walk among such glorious, horrific creatures.
God, what must it have been like to be human in the Burning Days, when the world was filled with creatures like this?
She couldn't let this overwhelm her. Toya was there somewhere, in amidst those dazzling dragons. She had to find her, and rescue her. Lisa shut her mind off from the dragon quartet; that way, she could feel she still had some control.
Voices began to filter to her, strange and loud and confident. And – dear god – voices she knew.
Toya?
X - X - X - X - X
"Why did you do it?" Ryar moved forward, and the way she moved was utterly unearthly. She seemed more of a shimmer through the air than anything, liquid moonlight flowing on the earth.
"Because I love you." Fireblade's voice was throaty with pain. "Because you should never have died."
"But I did," she answered, and a momentary tenderness was in those words. "My heart, I did die. You killed me. Why didn't you let me rest?"
"Well," cut in Hael. "Correct me if I'm wrong, siren, but you weren't exactly at peace."
"How do you know that?"
The moonlight turned his skin to ivory, white as Ryar's own. But where she was the pale lushness of lilies and roses, he was the white of marble, of ice. They seemed alike, but Bhari dismissed it as pure fancy.
"Ask the mer, Ryar," he answered coolly. "They remember what you made, when you were desperate enough. When you were afraid enough. They remember the 'last hope' that you sent across the ocean. What's wrong, Sangager's siren? Don't you like the face of hope?"
Not understanding, Bhari could only watch as Ryar's hands spasmed, her face grew drawn.
"Must all my mistakes return to haunt me?" the Drax whispered, not looking at Hael.
"Not all." Was that a ring of triumph in Hael's voice? "You can remedy one, at least."
All three of them turned to look at him, even Fireblade on his knees with his shoulders slumped. And Bhari felt the tremor rise up in her; she knew what he would say. She knew it in a way she couldn't explain.
"The war was lost when we were divided," he stated simply. "Apart, we were always less than we were together."
"Together we only destroyed." Ryar shook her head once, twice.
He only half-smiled, and the edges and angles of his faces were alleviated.
"We chose to destroy," he answered. "Do you think that is all we can do? Look around you, Ryar – look at this place. This is what was made; these waters are your tribute. All this, created by one man. With all of us, think what the world could become..."
The images grew like clouds in Bhari's mind, swirling and spinning to ever greater heights. Trees exploding from the ground; rivers springing from beneath their feet. War quelled with the push and pull of the elements. It was utopia, formed in the idyll of their union. Four as One, and that One greater than the Four alone. It was heaven.
It was a lie.
Bhari didn't know where that thought had come from. How could something so wonderful be a lie?
"I have seen what the world became beneath our hands." There was strength in Ryar's voice, and she met Hael's glare. "Ashes, boy. Only ashes."
"Then let us be the phoenix." Above him, lightning danced across the sky in fantastic, jagged patterns. More and more and more until the whole sky seemed countless fractured shards. "For thirty thousand years, in your hearts of hearts, you longed for rebirth."
The lightning was massing into one tight, blinding knot that even they had to shield their eyes from.
And then it struck.
It smashed down the sky like a spear, and Hael was lit in furious brilliance. He seemed alight, and Bhari actually reached for him with a cry stifled in her throat-
It was gone, in a blink. He stood before them, untouched, unaffected. "Here is your chance."
It had caught them. That vision of bliss; Bhari realised that perhaps she had not been the only one longing for a new start, longing to turn back the clock. Maybe they all had. Maybe the war had changed them all. In Ryar's eyes, she saw an almost feverish look.
"So many wrongs," murmured Hael, his voice persuasive and insidious.
Look at his soul, not his eyes! a voice inside her cried. He can lie with his eyes, but he cannot lie to you...
"The monsters we made – we can cure that. We made the shapeshifters; they drink from the source of our power. We can stem that source, and return their humanity to them."
"The children..." breathed Ryar cryptically. Hael seemed to understand her words, though.
"Yes – their descendants can be healed of what you did. You can atone, Ryar. The dead can walk again, peace brought to those who had none. Curses lifted. All that was wrong – changed."
How wide and wondering Ryar's eyes were, her face soft and startled. All the years of the war had not erased her naivety – her need to make some amend. "Yes..." she said. "But not with sacrifice. Not any longer."
"Yes," echoed Fireblade. The fiery eyes burned brighter now, and met Hael's with acquiescence. "As we agreed. Whatever it takes."
"So we did," said Hael amiably. "And you, Bhari?"
No!
She ignored the strange, crazy voice, walking away from them all as if she needed to think. She spun back, a challenge in her eyes.
"And after?"
"And after..." The promise was wanton and heavy in his eyes, a drowning azure. "It shall be us alone. And what was promised shall be."
"I am agreed," she said softly. "Bane of my heart, I am all yours."
"Then let it begin here," he declared. "Let it start now. With us."
He held out his hand, a purely symbolic gesture, and Bhari felt his power flare up and out of his body. A flickering, dark light, it flowed across his eyes like spilt oil. Blue was replaced by a river of black, waters of the Lethe, hell's oceans.
She took his hand.
It seemed lightning bolts leapt between them, snaking under her skin with delicious warmth. She didn't recall that happening before. And she never recalled her power so eager to leap out and meld with his.
Dragonfire echoed around her like a bass drum, heavy and throbbing yet incomplete. Her own power thrashed under her control and this time, she released it.
The earth rocked under her feet, and she was aware of every inch of it. Every rock and pebble at her reach; if she wanted, she could rip an abyss beneath them and tumble them all into darkness. Trees and creepers and flowers were a different kind of strength, a slow, insidious type. She knew every strata of stone; her world was cushioned by them, steady and solid.
Only Hael was a disturbance in it all, an open archway from her room of earth. She could reach out and take his power now, if she wished, and fling up huge storms of dust, whip earth into shape with the currents of the air.
She was almost drunk on the possibilities.
I'd forgotten how wonderful it was. I'd forgotten it all...
His voice was the breath of a god, and it brought a thousand memories with it. I know.
I missed you, she told him. I missed you so much. Everything you were. Everything we were.
He drew her closer, his arms sliding about her waist in a strangely impersonal gesture. Hael had never been impersonal; with him, every touch mattered. He had loved to be touched, she knew that, and to touch; loved to toy with her jewellery and stroke her skin, and breathe in the scent of her hair.
That's because this isn't Hael.
The odd, annoying voice sounded almost impatient.
Shut up, Bhari told it firmly.
Excuse me? Shut up? Which one of us actually owns this body? Which one of us happens to be destined for the soulless killer you're cuddling up to? Are you completely blind – look at him! Does he look like someone you'd trust your dog with over the weekend, never mind your entire existence?
Then the unsettling thing happened.
For a moment, Bhari's senses lurched and she had the horrible impression someone was shoving her – at her! – trying to dislodge her. She actually felt as if she rose; for a moment, she was blind, her vision snatched away-
Hael's power blasted through her like a blast of arctic wind, and the thing was gone. Whatever it had been.
Be more careful, he advised coolly. There are all kinds of edgy spirits around. Magic draws them.
Yes. A restless spirit. Of course.
"Ryar," Hael said aloud. It wasn't a request.
Bhari had to focus on the real world. The Water Drax moved in that lovely fluid way, and took the hand Hael held to her.
Her power was cool, effortless as a flood but less than it once had been. It poured over Bhari in a green and grey mass, carving another doorway into her stone room, a gate to Ryar's soul. There was hesitation here, too many memories of misery. But as water met air and earth, that pain was soothed.
I missed even you, thought Bhari, surprised. Yes, she had missed Ryar's delicacy, her sweetness that pattered through the connection like summer rain.
The Water Drax sighed wistfully. "I missed you too," she answered. "Even your awful temper."
Bhari smiled; Ryar was remembering the time when the Earth Drax had kicked some pious little courtesan in the shin because he was talking over Ryar, and then tipped her drink all over his bald head.
"Just me now." Fireblade stood, his hungry eyes settling on Ryar. In the connection, a whirl of feelings leapt. Fear and anticipation and wonder and sorrow. Other things too; too many to grasp.
Energy crackled up around him in a blaze of orange and yellow before it began to change, as all their powers did. It darkened, into a smouldering black, and leapt towards them.
And stopped.
He was outside the three of them, unable to break into the link. Again and again, his power smashed at theirs, trying to meld, unable to. It was as if he reached across a chasm to them, never quite able to reach.
They had never done this without sacrifice. They had never known it couldn't be done. She knew the theory; that blood contained all four elements and acted as both a gateway and a catalyst. Never had she dreamed it was true; she had simply enjoyed the ritual and the slaughter.
"It can't be done," Bhari said aloud. "We need blood."
"No!" Ryar, tearing her hand away, though her power remained joined. "Keep trying. We've just never tried it before, that's all."
"I'm afraid that would be entirely futile," purred Hael. An amused smile curved up his mouth, the moonlight putting a shimmering sheen upon it. "We are born in blood, siren, and we die in blood – and we live in it too."
"No!" Ryar pointed a shaking finger at him. "I will never be party to murder again."
"And besides," put in Fireblade, sounding more like his old self – if a frustrated one, "where exactly are we to find four sacrifices? Are they going to just run into our arms?"
Hael's chuckle was gentle and sinful. "Funny you should say that."
"Is it?" The low grate of Fireblade's was a warning. Bhari recognised the signs of his fraying temper, even more furious than her own. "I find little to laugh about."
"You'll have less in a minute," a new voice said.
And out of the mists stepped three heavily armed men.
X - X - X - X - X
Lisa froze.
She was close enough now to make out the silhouettes of their figures. She knew Toya's easily, even if she didn't like the slinky way she was moving. And Blue's too; she'd recognise that proud stance anywhere.
The graceful, quiet one was Ryar. The other – humbled, yet now bristling with anger, Fireblade.
And they had been arguing. Combining their powers, only it wasn't working. That could only be good.
Next they had started talking about sacrifices, and Lisa had backed into the mists a little more. She wasn't going to assume they were ignorant of her presence. Not when Blue was there. She knew better.
Then from nowhere, feet had thundered past her in, so close she felt the air stir in their passing. The clink and clatter of metal, mingled with the absolute hush of Nightpeople stalking. And the voice had spoken.
The husky, rough voice.
Vaje's voice.
And others: "Evening. I never thought I'd say this, but we're here to do some good."
A light, Australian lilt. She could imagine the icy gleam to Lance's sea-green eyes right now. He'd drawn something, some kind of weapon that looked suspiciously like her curling iron.
She felt insanely like giggling. This could not be happening. It was crazy.
Pause, then Blue's incredulous voice came up out of the darkness like the devil in a cloud of smoke. "What exactly are you planning to do? Send us all to perm in hell?"
Fireblade sounded caught between laughing and growling. "Ross, Ross, please don't tell me that's an electric drill. I've heard of being bored to death, but you're just taking the mickey now."
"Go!" The panicked voice was Ryar. The other three were closing in on the assassins, circling them like starving wolves. "Don't be stupid, you can't fight them – run, now!"
"Sorry, lady." Oh god, Vaje, what are you doing? Lisa wanted to shout. You dumb idiot. "We can't let you start another war. Some of us are still suffering from the last one."
"And you think your..." That was Toya's voice, but Lisa knew something odd was going on. Blue was calling her Bhari – and she knew exactly who Bhari had been. "...your ladle is going to stop us."
Lisa crawled forward to hear Lance hiss, "I can't believe you brought the ladle, for crying out loud."
"It was a mistake," Vaje snarled. He was mere metres away, and she wanted to snatch him away from this – but then the skulking shape of Fireblade cut in front of her, and she realised that would be stupid. She would provide their fourth sacrifice. "I was aiming for the carving knife. And what about you, O Hairdresser of Doom?"
"I modified it," muttered Lance sulkily.
The three assassins were drawing back into a tight knot, weapons facing out as the dragons ringed them.
"Ready?" she heard Ross whisper, glee in his voice.
Soft affirmations from the other two.
They leapt-
And a roll of power like nothing Lisa had ever felt slammed them to the ground. The dragons never even dirtied their hands; the three mercenaries were pinioned, flat on their backs against the earth.
Oh god, Lisa thought. Oh god, it was that easy. I should go – what if they know I'm here, and they make me their fourth?
No. I can't leave Vaje. I can't leave Toya. Whatever happens, I must stay. If only I can bring Toya back – somehow. But how?
She knew a little about possession. A very little. The invader could be shocked out, if they could be distracted enough. If she could help Toya – distract Bhari somehow. What would draw Bhari's attention away – what mattered most to her?
Hael. But that was Blue, ever on his guard. If he was careless for one beat...yes. That was all it needed.
She waited. And wondered what on earth could make Blue Malefici careless.
X - X - X - X - X
Bhari eyed the intruders coldly. Strong, but so very easy to subdue. They looked familiar, though she knew she had never seen any of them before. All three glared at her and Hael like they were ogres. Idiots.
"I can't help but notice we're one short," commented Fireblade dryly. "Those three are powerful – they'll work well, Malefici. But three isn't enough."
"He's Hael," Bhari snapped out. "What is wrong with you, Fireblade?"
"What's wrong with all of you?" Ryar was pale, her stare fixed upon one of the victims. The blond one, who kicked uselessly at the bands of granite Bhari had slung over their limbs. "I will not sacrifice anyone! You can forget this, boy. I will not be party to your – your mad little plan."
"Won't you?" murmured Hael. There was an icy threat in it.
Her eyes widened, and that old thrashing fear was there. " Hael, no, this is not what I intended."
"Really?" he said, so coolly amused. "Same old lies, siren, same old song."
Ryar shook her head violently. "I won't! Not any more – not ever agai-"
Hael's power lashed like a barbed whip, and Ryar fell, crumpling to a pile on her knees. The sheet of silver hair shielded her face, but nothing stifled her cry.
"You'll do what I want."
There was a clean, hard line to his face – a cruelty Hael had never possessed. Who are you? thought Bhari, both afraid and impressed. Maybe Ryar was right; you are not my Hael...yet somehow, you're mine.
Fireblade had cradled his wife in his arms, stroking her with gentle hands. But there was fire in the eyes lifted to Hael. "You'll leave her alone, Malefici. She's forgotten, that's all...she's forgotten what we are."
"No!" Ryar pushed at her husband. He wouldn't let go. "I haven't forgotten- how could I forget? I won't let you do this, I-"
Fireblade's hands tightened until his knuckles were white and Ryar gaped. Not so gentle, after all. The pressure he was exerting must have been utter agony for her.
"This is the price, Ryar," he said tranquilly. "This is the price for us."
"Us?" she began, but the words were cut off.
Stop it, you idiot, Bhari wanted to say as the Fire Drax began to wrap his power about his wife, turning her protests to steam. You did this all those years ago, and look what happened – civil war, blood spilling blood, and only ruins left.
"It's a small price, sweet," murmured Fireblade so softly. Soft his words, and hard his grip on her – Bhari found herself wanting to look away. This was wrong. In Ryar's face, she saw the defiance crumbling, fear of her husband greater than anything else.
Maybe recalling his hands on her throat, and the fury in his eyes and the obsession that had dredged her from death. Despair quivered in that fragile countenance. A tiny whimper escaped her.
Ryar's defiance crumpled, and the boy with the extraordinary blue hair, so bright and fierce and sacred...
He smiled.
But heaven, no, heaven don't hear me.