Chapter Twenty Eight
The Glorious Dead

The world exploded into light and colour. The sensation was like breaking the surface of water, after having been drowning in deep waters. For a moment Rael's sight was blurry and distorted, but then broke out into clarity. His body slammed down hard onto desert sand, his skin still burning with incomparable pain. The throne room was gone, washed away in a flash of beautiful light, and now he was back in the place had left. "No!!" he cried, throwing himself upon the ground and hitting it with his fists. "Take me back! Take me back!"

Beside him, Daran stumbled to the ground on his hands and knees, coughing and wheezing. "It's over Rael," he said, struggling for breath, "you can't go back."

Rael reached out for Ralis with his mind, trying to go to him as he did the first time, but he felt nothing. "What have you done?" Rael asked Daran.

"I've saved you, Rael," he said weakly, "you were dying!"

Rael dropped his head into the hot sand, and shut his eyes. In the distance he could hear what sounded like victory cheers, and horns of triumph resounding across the land. The Kairin had won then, just as Ralis told him.

His spirit was spent, his breathing slowing down, his mind utterly exhausted. "You should have let me die," said Rael hoarsely, then surrendered to his tiredness and collapsed in the sand. He felt his body sink downwards and within the darkness he spiralled away into unconsciousness.

……

"Rael."

A whisper. A soft voice echoing into the shadows.

"Rael, wake up," said the voice again.

Rael was sure that he had died. Yet…

"You can do it, Rael. Open your eyes…"

Slowly, his memories came drifting back to him. He felt as though he was waking up from a hundred year slumber, in which he had forgotten who he was, and become entirely formless. Initially he doubted that he could remember how to open his eyes.

As he parted his eyelids, he had to blink, the light was too bright for him to see at first. His sight then steadily returned, blurred shapes becoming solid again. He was lying in a bed… there was a window, a wardrobe, overhead a high beamed ceiling. He was in his bedroom in Shaylin!

"Rael." He turned his head, and his heart suddenly leaped with joy. A beautiful golden haired woman was seated beside his bed. As he opened his eyes she smiled gently, then laughed happily and beamed at him. "Oh, Rael!" she exclaimed grabbing his hand.

"Zelda…" Rael said. His throat was as dry as desert dirt. "Water," he said at a whisper.

Zelda turned and picked up a clay goblet from his bedside table. "Of course, here," she said pressing the lip of the cup to his mouth. Cool water trickled onto his tongue, and he quickly swallowed it.

"More," he said, taking hold of the goblet with a weak hand and forcing himself to drink. His stomach growled as the water flowed down his gullet. "Thank you," he said, placing his head back down on the pillow.

"I thought we had lost you," said Zelda quietly, "but I had enough strength to snatch you back from the grave."

"I was supposed to die," Rael said, gazing up into the rafters of the tower above. "What happened?"

Zelda sighed. "Hush," said Zelda, "be calm, you need to relax."

"The battle…" Rael said, sipping the water again.

Zelda laid her hand on his forehead, and caressed him gently. Her touch was cold upon his warm forehead. "We won Rael," she said. "I promised that I would come, and I have kept my vow. The Hylian army has triumphed… the surviving Kairin are being held as war captives. "

Rael had made up his mind in the end that the Hylian army would never arrive, but Zelda had come, as she promised. "Link?" he said, with question in his tone.

"He is here in the city," Zelda said, "I will let him know you're awake."

"Elane…?" he asked, quietly, afraid to hear the answer.

Zelda gave his hand a squeeze. "Elane is exhausted and sore from battle, but she will be well soon. She needs to rest, and so do you."

Rael turned his head to look up at Zelda, and even with short breath he gasped. Her long golden hair had been laying over the left half of her face, but when she moved her yellow locks shifted to reveal a bandage and a patch over her left eye. "Your eye…" he said slowly.

"Don't worry about me," she said hastily, laying a hand across his forehead, "go to sleep."

Rael nodded. His eyelids were heavy, and he could feel sleep luring him to succumb to his tiredness. "Thank you," he said, "for saving me."

……

Dragan was shivering from head to toe and his face was wet with cold sweat. His eyes were beginning to look glazed, and when they met his own, Link could see none of the fierce cunning which was once there. His torso was bare, with thick bandaging wrapped around his body across his stomach. On his right side, the bandages were deep red, and shades of brown and black where blood had dried.

"They killed me well, eh Ivarl?" he remarked, laughing dryly. "When the physician told me that the bleeding had stopped, I thought I was unbreakable. But then… well, fates have quickly turned upon me again, my old comrade."

To see the Hylian general so utterly defeated was somehow humbling. Dragan had lived his life with the utmost pride and self-assured dignity, arrogant and uncompromising. Now, one of the greatest soldiers of Hylia lay on his deathbed in a foreign city, far from the home he so loved. He was weak now and his hands trembling.

Link had seen him struck down in the midst of battle. A Kairin sword had punctured his side through a gap in his plate armour, and there he fell from his horse to the ground. Fortunately, his fall was broken by the bodies of slain men, and he had broken no bones. Yet his wound was deep.

"A poisoned blade," Dragan muttered, detestably, "the dirty cowards."

Link had seen many men die through the years, but rarely did someone die whom he had such respect for, with whom he had shared a long history. "I am sorry," he said, pulling back his hood and kneeling at Dragan's bedside. "I truly am. Hylia has lost a great man."

Dragan laughed. "A great man?" He coughed as he laughed, spluttering out bile and spit. "I'm a bad person, Ivarl," he said, "and you know it as well as I."

Link lowered his eyes and shook his head. "No," he said, "you-"

"You know the low regard I held for the establishment." He grinned in spite of himself. "You know my envy of the Queen."

Link nodded. The man was confessing to treasonous schemes, for which the price was potentially execution. With nothing to lose now, perhaps he was cleansing his conscience whilst he still had time. "Yes. She knew it. Yet she still valued you."

Dragan smiled. "She is a wonderful woman. As deft a politician a she is a beauty," he said. "Well, all of that's an end now." His breathing was heavy and hard, a constant struggle. "I want you to know that I never followed my darker desires. I'm a fool and a dreamer, but I have been the Queen's loyal servant all my life."

Link took Dragan's hand, and the man weakly returned the grasp. "You are a good man," Link said, "and the greatest military leader I have ever known."

Link's words were heartfelt, though he was unsure of the truth he was speaking. Dragan understood.

"Ivarl…" he said, looking up at Link with reverence. "I have known no greater honour than serving you…" Dragan stopped speaking and coughed, bringing up blood and spit, spilling over his chin and onto his sheets. "Show the Kairin no mercy. Free our lands, save our people from evil, like you once did… hero…"

Link moved from his seat on the bed and knelt down beside him. "I promise your death will not be in vain. You have saved this city from certain doom, and our people will know triumph against the darkness." He leaned forwards and kissed Dragan on the forehead. "Until we meet again, may your soul find peace. The gods will entomb you in glory."

Dragan eyes rolled back, and his hands stopped trembling. Link bowed his head, and clenching his fists as tears rolled down his cheeks.

……

A crimson sunset cast blood-red light across the clouds, bathing the desert in fading scarlet and orange light. The sun was sinking sun behind western mountains, and ahead of Rael in the east pinpricks of starlight were emerging. From his vantage point on an open balcony, up in the highest tier of the city, he was able to survey the field of battle. The land was strewn with carcasses of fallen soldiers, Gerudo, Kairin and Hylian alike, both male and female, young and old. Everywhere vultures and crows swooped and circled.

The recovery of Gerudo and Hylian bodies had already begun. They would be buried outside the city. Lana was already preparing for a day of mourning in the city and a memorial to the 'glorious dead'. Many Kairin soldiers had been captured, and were now prisoners of war, stripped of armour and weapons. Once all Hyrulian soldiers had been taken away from the battlefield, the prisoners of war were to be permitted to bury or burn their fallen comrades in an allotted piece of land a fair distance from the city.

Rael's head was telling him that he ought to feel grief and sadness, that death on this scale was cause for tremendous sorrow. Yet, in his heart he felt nothing. His soul was like ice. There had been so much death here, and there was tenfold yet to come, but he could not shed one tear. All his thoughts were of Kaira, and Ralis, and the crown upon his brother's brow.

"I made a promise to you," said Daran, approaching from behind. His friend-come-Illivartan had come close very quietly. "I told you to never give up hope. I said that even when your world crumbled around you and it seemed that all your efforts had been in vain, you shouldn't give up. I swore that if you believed, I would come back for you." Daran stopped next to him, looking out eastward into the descending night. His white robes waved gently in the evening breeze.

"You should have let me die," said Rael, not looking at his old friend, "because I didn't believe, and I did give up."

"When I learned what had happened to you, I flew through the fabric of earth and time, faster than the eight winds, to rescue you and bring you back here." Daran said. He turned and looked Rael directly. "Twice now, I have brought you back from the brink of death. There will be no third time."

Rael shut his eyes and breathed deeply. "You should have let me die," he said, miserably. Daran laid a hand on his shoulder, but Rael shrugged him off aggressively. "Why didn't you let me die!?" he demanded.

Daran stepped back. "You know why!" he exclaimed.

Rael smiled. "Why?"

"Because," said Daran, with a voice like iron, "if you die, the Lord of Dusk will cover the entire world in darkness."

Rael laughed hollowly. "Of course. How could I forget?" He laughed again, not unlike Ralis had done earlier. "But if I don't, I'm sure you'll start again and make a new world to play games with."

"What?" said Daran, his stern expression dissipating into confusion.

"Ralis opened my eyes," Rael said. "You've been lying to me."

Daran was quiet for a moment, watching Rael with uncertain eyes, trying to understand what was being said. "What did he tell you?" he asked, eventually.

"He showed me how you've been playing us for fools, Illivartan," said Rael, "like a child plays with sand. You tell me that evil will ultimately cover this land, or light; yet if evil triumphs, the 'goddesses' will create a new world. You blind me with contradictions."

A cold gale swept across the city, over rooftops and then up the sheer cliff-like walls of the citadel. The wind sent chills though Rael's skin, but neither he nor Daran flinched.

Daran looked troubled, but he responded nonetheless. "I have not been playing you for a fool, Rael, but I regret… I have lied to you."

Rael blinked. He had not truly believed the words he said, and was merely expressing his anger. "What?" he said, now the confused one.

"If I have misled you, it was only been for your own protection," said Daran. "Even when you awoke as the Lord of Dawn, you were not ready for the burden… I fear the time has come though…"

Rael shook his head. "Tell me," he said, "whatever it is you are hiding from me I must know."

"It is true that if the Lord of Dawn destroys the Lord of Dusk then light and truth will cover this entire world, and if the Lord of Dusk destroys the Lord of Dawn, then darkness will reign forever. In this much, I have never lied."

"Then why do the gods destroy the world when darkness triumphs? You said darkness is always victorious!"

"That was a lie," said Daran, "or a half-truth. Neither dark or light has ever been permitted to triumph, for though darkness always comes to the point of victory, it is stopped." Daran had deep regret in his tone. "When existence rests upon the brink, the world is sent back to its creation by a power beyond good and evil, a power that has only a drive to sustain both forces. Everything goes back to the beginning, to the world's conception. New choices are made and new histories are written afresh."

"How?" asked Rael, "and why?"

Daran smiled. "You will understand in time."

"But…" said Rael.

"Ultimately, if you do not destroy Ralis, then the Halisarin cycle is doomed to repeat again. But now you are ready to know… it is not the goddesses who will renew the Halisarin cycle…"

"Then who?" Rael demanded. "You?"

"No Rael," said Daran, "it is you."